Man, it was great to talk to you guys yesterday. It seemed a little bit weird, but after a bit, it seemed like everthing was almost back to normal. Apparently it takes a lot longer than two years to get totally out of whack with the people you love
the most. And that is you guys for me...

It's been a quiet week, my companion was sick, but he's better now. Here's a story I don't think I've ever explained well enough:

Malagasy houses are really something else. On occasion you'll find a house that is pretty ok....not American by any means, but all the things that you would generally assume should exist in a house are there. Most of the time though, these houses are extremely humble. For most of the people we teach, they live in little mud-brick huts that have no floor and only patchy tin-roofs to keep out the rain. Those tin-roofs are really something special when the rain is coming down hard. There have been times when my companion and I have literally shouted at the top off our lungs to teach the lesson, and we are not even partially heard over the racket of the rain on the roof. You wouldn't believe how loud the rain gets!

A lot of times when the rain is really being mischivious, we just end up walking around from appointment to appointment, trying to teach one of our investigators that has a grass roof or something. We often just end up being wet and dissapointed. That's when we usually go to a snack shack to wait out the worst of the rain. I love comfort food :).

Most of the time Malagasy furniture consists of a large, shoddy wooden frame with a lot of clothes and different, random types of textiles on it. This is their bed that everyone in the entire house sleeps on. That's right - the mother, father, children, and the grandparents if they are still kickin'.

On occasion there will be a couple of chairs that we can sit on, but a lot of the time there isn't any. So we either take a spot on the already crowded bed, or just squat in the middle of the floor. When I first came in country, the squat position was painful for more than a couple of seconds and pretty much impossible for me. This position has now become quite relaxing for me. Sometimes though, the "squat" really does work on your ankles if you do it for a long period of time. At that point I just sit my bum down on the dirt/mud floor and accept that fact that my pants are going to be dirty for the rest of the day.

In general, living in a tent is probably far more comfortable and luxurious than living in most Malagasy dwellings. But despite these poor conditions, the Malagasy people are hardy. Every morning they get up and figure out how they are going to keep on surviving - with a smile on their faces, in fact.

If we could all live that way..... From what the scriptures say over and over, the poor shall inherit the kingdom of God, and it will be harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The moral of this story is: let's all be poor! Lol jkjkjk. The real moral is that despite what our earthly riches may or may not be, we need to always have our actual treasures in heaven, for there too shall our hearts be.

Well that's all I have for right now. Transfers will probably prove to be interesting this week.

Love you guys,
Elder Cryer