Elder Ryan Stringfellow Madagascar Antananarivo Mission: Week 5...The Hardest and Best Week So Far...

Manahona Daholo This week was honestly one of the hardest weeks of my mission, but also one of the most rewarding! To start off the week Elder Turner and I worked and worked and worked! I was dead dog tired by the end of the week but it was totally worth it! I also went on a split with Elder Andrianaivo who's a Malagasy and speaks absolutely no English!

I probably sound like a broken record by now but It seems that I always go on the splits with the Malagasies who know no English! Haha, I love it! I spoke hardly any English on Friday and it felt so good to somewhat have a basic understanding of Malagasy! I still have so far to go but I think I'm getting better!

I wish I had some cool teaching experiences this week but I really don't! Teaching was actually really tough this week and we kind of slayed into some people! It was more to the affect of "If you don't want to uphold the commitments we give, then we'll have to stop coming because you're wasting our time! We can find a lot more people who want to learn and live this gospel so you have to make a choice right now whether or not you're going to change!" Yeah, stuff like that....

WE HAD A BAPTISM!!! Yes, my first baptism! It was a long time coming but it finally happened! Saturday was such an amazing day but it was also a very difficult day....To start off, we arrived at the church at 1:00 for our 2:00 baptism. To my surprise, when I went to check the font there was no water in it! WHAT!?! Yeah, nobody from our Branch was there and the baptism started in an hour! To make matters worse they power was out.....when the powers out there's also no water! I WAS FREAKING OUT!!!! I went and found the guard of the church and I told him "I NEED LOTS OF WATER NOW!"

He took me to this emergency water barrel in the garage of the church and said I could use that! We got buckets and emptied that whole thing! I took us almost two hours to fill up the font and the baptism started way late! However, we got it done and now Bri and Sandy are members of the church!

The best thing about this whole ordeal was yesterday during sacrament meeting when Bri and Sandy received the gift of the Holy Ghost and became members! The spirit was felt so strongly and I will always remember that feeling!

That's about it for the week! It was hard but rewarding all at the same time! I love ya'll so much and that ya'll have a great week!

Tiako ianareo!

Love,
Elder Stringfellow

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK