Dancing Warriors

First, I've started working out again and trying to eat well, so I can still fit in all my clothes.

So this week was pretty fun. We did lots of tracting, lots of teaching, and went to the Stake Talent Show. Pretty much all the missionaries in Tana were there. The event was held at some giant school deep inside the city, a long ways away from Ivato. There were about 19 million acts and some of them were really great. Some
were....spirited, is the best word. The whole thing went from 1 p.m. till 6:30 that night. Talk about exhausting! Most, if not all, of the acts were dancing. A few were singing and playing of instruments, but the bulk was dancing. Some of them were hip-hop, others ballroom, bit of weird, and a lot of traditional. It was, educational.

The best part of the whole thing was the missionaries part of the program. Elder Allen and Galiali convinced the directors of the thing to let us do the Haka (you know, the polynesian dance were everyone is warriors and they scream alot. YouTube it). Of course, no one besides my companion and his cousin - the only Polynesians in thousand of miles - actually knew the dance. So we spent a good hour and a half in
the parking lot learning it and then went on towards the end. We all lowered our ties and rolled our sleeves up to show how warrior-like/non-warrior-like our muscles were. We all went on stage, after my comp gave a really legit opener, screaming our heads off and trying to remember our steps and words. The crowd went wild! It was a good time all around. By the end I had a horrible headache and my arms were sore because me and Elder Flint did flips and pullups before the show to make ourselves look bigger. Hopefully I can get a video sent to you guys.

This week Elder Touli and I have had tons of sucess tracting. Through tracting and an overwhelmingly awesome English class, we picked up tons of new investigators and pretty much filled all of our times. It was mahafinaritra be! Though we didn't want to do it, we had to tract at least an hour every day. And almost every single time we did so, we would pick up at least one new investigator, if not an entire Father-Led-Family (FLF for short). The people who were going to accept us were pretty easy to let us in as well.

Ex: We would say, "Manoa ahona? (How are you doing?)"

They would say, "Mandrosoa! (Come in!)"

We would say, "Umm...ok. Misoatra betsaka! (Umm...ok. Thanks!)," and then we would proceed to have an awesome time.

Giant families, single older woman, slightly strange but still wonderful people, and a milay be guy who wants to learn every single day, all day. Yes mam, Ivato is the promised land. There was prayer, scripture reading, and a little bit of elbow grease. But really, isn't that what most things in life need when everything is said and done?

To finish off this email I'll tell you about this one guy we met. There was some dirt on my butt because I was sitting down on a ledge talking to some people. So, he kindly slapped my bum and cleaned off the dirt for me. It was awkward and me and Touli busted up laughing for a good while. That was strange; just thought I'd share it with you ;D.

I miss you all and pray for you lotses. Hopefully ye be praying fur meh too! Masto daholo-lio (I have no idea how to spell that, sorry teachers).
Hope that Comic-Con really was all that and a bag of chips.
Peace, or Fiadanana,
Love love,
Elder Cryer