Monday, February 8, 2010

This is eternal salvation...that's what I'm talking about...

Dear Family/Parents/People,

I still have not received my debit card in the mail. I am down to 15000 ar ($7.50)
left of personal funds. Other missionaries have told me to just never even use a debit card. Apparently you can just make an account with Western Union, give me
the password and account number and other such things, and wire me money. To me, this sounds a thousand times easier than a debit card. Plus, from what I've heard, alot of debit cards don't even work. Fantastic, right? So if could please go and make an account at Western Union and email me the information by next P-Day, that'd be great. I won't buy anything besides food and absolutely needed things. Promise :D

So this week has been really cool and tough at the same time. Cool, because we have found some amazing families and the work is going very well. Bad, because it seems like everyone has it out to get us. Almost NO ONE likes us. They are always making fun of us or trying to cheat us out of money. And if they are drunk, they are trying to murder us. No lie. Now that I have a general idea of what everyone is
saying, yikes. If it wasn't for the investigators and extremely awesome church members, this place would be hard. O ya. It also really really stinks when people
aren't there for their appointment. At first, I didn't really care and it wasn't so much a big deal, Now, I get very annoyed and frustrated. I mean, come on people! This is eternal salvation! It seems as though our success with some people directly correlates with the failure of others.

We've had to drop about 4 people in this past week. Talk about unbelievably depressing. At one time, we were dropping an entire family because the dad refused to get married. He kept saying, "O we need a party and there isn't enough money and blah blah blah." His wife was heartbroken because she has wanted to be baptized for a very long time. She even cried! People who have been to Mad will recognize the craziness in this. People in Mad never ever ever cry. They just don't do it. Their life is so extremely hard that there is no room for tears. When a child dies, the parents might shed a few tears, but that is all. I didn't even recognize how powerful of an action this was until Horn explained it to me. It is so very hard to see someone come half way up the path to salvation....and then turn away.

Ok well no more sad/bad stuff lol. We really have had some amazing experiences this week. People and families have received the first lesson and had no questions because the Spirit already bore witness to them of its truthfulness. That is truly a miracle. We have rejoiced with people as they committed to baptism. Because of our fast on Sunday, eleven people came to church when last week we only had 1. Some people are beginning to see the light and are making the neccesary steps in the right direction. Now that I am seeing people progress from the very start (finding and teaching) they mean so much more to me. We have alot of baptisms set up for the next two months so this is a very exciting time!

Today we went to this place called "Croc Farm". It is basicly a zoo of the few animals that actually live in Mad. I think it is actually a cover for a very expensive tourist shop (croc wallets for $250!). All in all, it was pretty cool. Some guy cheated all of us out of money, so that was not cool. We saw huge crocs, 100year old turtles, lemurs, fusa, ostrichs, and a miriad of other animals. Lots of
pictures.

On that note; I think that I will wait until my memory card is full or almost full and then I will send it to you. The internet is so slow here to download pictures in any speedy amount of time. You'll probably end up getting my last MTC days, all the way up until the end of my first transfer lol. Sorry about that ;P.

Btw....any packages would be nice :D. I desperately need peanut butter, mayo, and cheese. All of those things could be sent in a package and they would be fine...as long as they are air tight that is. So, if you sent it soon, I'll get it in a couple of months. In the mean time, extra money will suffice. Those three items are very
expensive.

Ok so in church the language is all in Malagasy. The ward members are cool. My house is very nice. It is probably bigger than our house back home and there are only two guys in the house. The thing is...it is still in Mad. So there are bugs and
some things just are not made very well. No big deal. Our ward building is amazing! After my first Sunday in a rented out school (companion exchanges) it was nice to go to our big, new, and modern church. Sadly, they don't have any toilet paper! Nice. My ward building is probably 2.5 x as nice as the Alvin building. No joke :P.

Alright, well, congrats Robbie on getting your call. You'll be an amazing missionary. Good job Saints on dominating the Colts. I'm proud of ya.

I miss you all and will see you in 21 months and one week....not that
I'm counting or anything lol.

Love,
Elder Cryer

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