Matthew Cryer's Mission

Last few weeks in Fort Dauphin

2011-12-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

There's one flight in and one flight out.

Pres. treated us to the best lemur park in the country.

The started together, they end together. From L - R, Matt, Elder Sender, Elder Goff, Elder Evans.

2011-11-14T11:39:00.001-08:00

Lucky

2011-11-14T11:12:00.000-08:00

Madagascar is finally coming to an end. I won't trouble you with descriptions of how excited, or sad, or depressed I am. I'm human and the regular emotions of leaving a place you know and love are pulsing through me. It's expected, and natural. You probably already know about how I'm feeling. Put yourself in my shoes; I'm sure it would give you an accurate illustration of what's going on.

This last week was good, but thankfully uneventful. As much as I've enjoyed the adventures of my mission, a crocodile to snap at my neck and possibly catch me, or that bull from Antsirabe coming back for round-two are things that I've had enough of, and I just want to get on the plane unmaimed and of sound mind. The idea of getting on the plane without one of my appendages that was there when I first came, or having to nurse a wound until I get to a real American hospital is not what I'd call ideal. No, no; not very nice at all. So, for the relaxed but still focused week, I am grateful. It was a good week to say goodbye to friends, investigators, recent converts, and a good week to say hello and then a quick goodbye to brand-new investigators. "Hi my name is Elder Cryer....well, I won't be seeing you again. Hope you get baptized! Bye!" - the week went something like that.

We got to watch General Conference this week finally, so Saturday and Sunday were completely blocked out for the sessions and goodbye-dinner appointments. I'd like to watch the whole thing in English so that I can get the real stuff that the General Authorities were saying.

The Mission Wrap Up - a full summary of my mission is simply not possible at the present. What can I say? It was sensational. It was incredible. It was hard as all get out. It was the best two years. Now when people say such things about their missions, I know for a fact that there is always someone out there who says either aloud, or to themselves, "Oh gimme a break. That's what everyone says." But really, this mission is incomparable to anything else in my life thus far and will stand as a milestone in my eternal progression for, that's right, eternity. If you don't believe me, get out there and go the two years. The first few months may be a bit of a pain, especially if you are lucky enough to speak something crazy, but I guarantee you that this thing is life changing.

Does the fact that I've given the past two years the title of, The Best Two Years, mean that for the rest of my life nothing will ever overtake its greatness? Well I most certainly hope not! I pray that more adventures and spiritual epics are looming in my future. But of course, we shall see, as that is why it's called the future.

One of the best things I've seen on my mission is that radical change for the better is yours if you want it. I can't say that I'm 100 percent different or anything, but things are not the same as before. Spiritually, physically (I'm skinny now, but with a gut. Hooray!), and mentally I am a different person. The best thing is that this change and preparation for adult life (ahem...marriage?) comes almost completely free of charge. Someone has to sacrifice actual money to get you on a mission, and there is the tremendous amount of work that goes into it, but when all is said and done, those things are an honor and a privilege to take part in, for all involved. I'll spare you a recitation of glory tales and just say that a mission really is all that, and a bag of chips.

I know the church is true. I testify, and stand as a witness, that Christ lives and that the Book of Mormon, a true testament of Him, can draw us closer to our Savior, even him who was "the Word." I testify that when the prophets, those holy mouthpieces of God upon the Earth, tell us that "missionary work is the lifeblood of the Church," they are correct in every way possible. I will never forget my mission. I love my mission. I love the people of Madagascar with all my heart, and I know that they, despite their extreme poverty and lack of temporal success, are among God's finest and most choice souls in existence. There is no place like Madagascar, and I thank my lucky stars that I was one of the few privileged ones that has been able to serve here.

I made a starter list of things I'd like to eat when I get home:
Crawfish Jambalaya
Crackered Chicken
Roast with Extra Gravy
Meat Loaf
Hot Dogs
Nachos
Gumbo
And any deserts that you would like to make
My tastes have been much expanded since my departure from America, so feel free to cook anything you like. I'm sure it is all delicious. By the way I ate some completely curdled milk this week called Abobo. It made me want to kill myself. It was literally just milk that had sat out for like two weeks. Hopefully this may prove to you that I will literally eat anything you serve. I'll even eat plain bread if there's nothing else...I'm sure it's fantastic...

It is seriously so hard to believe that it's all over. Am I really going to see you on Friday? Me and the rest of my group have this idea that we actually aren't going home, but we're just going to be placed back into the MTC to go serve in like Germany
or something. I'd like to give an especial thanks to two people who are so dear to me - Charles Cryer and Lou Ellen Cryer, my parents. Without them none of this would have been possible. Thanks Mom and Dad. I would like to thank you for aiding me so much on my mission. Literally, I couldn't have done it without you and Mom. Every single time I pray I thank my lucky stars for a family like you guys, and also try and ask for special blessings on everyone - even the grand babies.

I love you guys so much, and will see you soon. What are we doing on Friday
afternoon, by the way? Oh wait, I'm sure you'll tell me at that time.

I'll see you all soon. I love you.

-Elder Cryer

PS: Should any of you like to contact me about my experiences as a missionary, about what a mission is like, or if you just feel like shootin' the breeze, feel free to contact me at: mcryer27@gmail.com or add me on Facebook. Thanks to all of those who have been reading my blog over the past two years.

2011-11-07T16:06:00.001-08:00

http://lds.org/study/prophets-speak-today/unto-all-the-world/learn-of-the-savior-saints-in-madagascar-and-malawi-are-told?lang=eng

Last Rodeo

2011-11-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

The illness is not completely gone. Sister Donnelly doesn't want to give me an antibiotic for it because she says I could build up a tolerance to antibiotics and then they won't be as effective.

Back on the 15th of October I had my last baptism here in Madagascar. And baby, that one needs to go down in the record books. To recap: the sky was dark and gray; a usual scene for Fort Dauphin baptisms. Waves were rolling in above our heads as me, Elder Peaden, and Elder Ravelomahefa stood along the shore with the baptizes. It was grim, I tell ya. But press on we did, right into the murky emerald-green water, we were unaware that what gave the water its interesting color was the chopped up seaweed. After the first big wave, we looked at our once white and clean baptismal clothes to find them covered in yucky, sticky, green leaves. To our horror the seaweed had the nerve to penetrate even into our own personal Holy of Holies; aka our garments. All of the baptizes didn't seem to notice the green stuff stuck in their hair and everywhere as they emerged from the water. But are we a bunch of wimps that would cower at a little bit of seaweed and waves? NO! Even though us missionaries were complaining about the circumstances, we were having a great time. We are Malagasy missionaries, of course. What else could you expect?

I baptized two people: Tsena and a grandma. Grandma went under the water without a hitch, but the 16 year old young man named Tsena was a different story. Right as I went to dunk him, the water level dropped super fast. The result was Tsena doing a Matrix-pose (think Neo when he dodges the agent's bullets the first time) supported by me. Only his ankles and the back of his head was even touching the water - that isn't enough for a baptism by immersion. We redid the dunking right when a wave came so he was immersed and then the back draft of the wave pulled him out of the water and me almost down into it.

As the baptizes were heading back in, I looked around me and enjoyed the moment. Right at that time, as I was looking at one of the big, lumpy, green mountains that dot the shoreline sitting off in the distance, a very distinct impression came to me. It went something like this, "This'll be your last rodeo Elder Cryer. So soak it up, enjoy it, and remember every detail." A wonderful feeling of peace and comfort came over me then that was indescribable. Right then I knew for a fact that this was my last baptism here in Madagascar. This was a slightly odd idea because I thought that I'd still have one more baptism before the end, but that baptism has been pushed back to sometime in December. A lot of things contributed to this happening, but as each one was revealed to us it idn't make me sad or depressed at all. If anything it only strengthened my testimony about God's love for me, and I know that God will always be ready to comfort us in our time of need.

I'm thinking of some plans on how to get my stuff on the airplane and home safely. I'm going to declare everything, not gonna lie about anything I've got. I plan on
being 100 percent honest with the customs people, so the most they can do is take my souvenirs away.

That's all I have time for today. Prepare for the end! The Church is true! Mexican food rocks!

Love,
Elder Cryer

The lucky few

2011-11-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

Fort Dauphin ~ it's pretty strange to know that the very end of my mission is going to be in such an incredibly remote place. On the twelfth we may have 11 baptisms or we may have none. Any number between one and eleven may occur, but we are just trying to work as hard as we can. My last baptism here in Madagascar..

The rest of Island Conference went really well. Elder Nelson blessed us all, he said:
· We would be great disciples
· We would feast upon the word
· We would apply them
· We would be safe as we obey the laws of the land
· We will all return and continue to be missionaries hereafter
· We would have vigor, health and strength

He asked us to HEARKEN. We will do it. He asked us to write down the number of units in Madagascar and then one day we will look back in wonder.

That's all I really have right now I suppose. I've been sick, bad throat. Two weeks from tomorrow I'm getting on a plane that will take me to America. That seems pretty crazy and awesome.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Island Conference

2011-10-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Elder Nelson has left Madagascar after a blitz of meeting after meeting for both us and all the rest of the church people that literally demanded his attention during his short stay. We got an entire meeting with him, including a mission picture, a hand shake, lessons and testimonies from Elder Mkabehla, Bishop Edgley and his wife, and then Elder Nelson and his wife. It was truly an amazing meeting, and one which I'm not going to ever forget. During Elder Nelson's portion of the evening we were actually given a very special question and answer time. The part that he actually taught us was fantastic.

The point at which I also got to sing for everyone was also quite interesting as well. As soon as I got on stage Elder Nelson and his wife got of the stage and sat right down in the front row, like seven feet away from me. All the crowd looked pretty shocked and on the edge of dire anticipation. So I sang the song: a simple, keyed up and higher rendition of 'Nearer My God to Thee' that Elder Sell and I had worked out ourselves. Elder Nelson and his wife rushed up to shake my hand and thank me for the song. It was a bit of a shock to be honest, but I'll take it. Afterwards Elder Edgley said some nice things.

The next day we had a huge All-Mada conference with the members, and then a training meeting with the APs and Zone Leaders. President Donnelly has been with Elder Nelson the entire time. After the training meeting we had a musical fire-side where I and many others sang and performed from the piano and even a clarinet. I sang
"Every Valley Shall Be Exalted" from Handel's 'Messiah'.

Today we had a giant finding activity involving all of the missionaries in the mission. It was centered in an area called Analakely, which is pretty much the epicenter of all the business and trade in the entire city. When we arrived we got the nearest zone-leader, grabbed a street board, and not knowing anything else to do went and soap-boxed. It was probably one of the coolest teaching experiences of my mission as at one point Elder Bates and I had at least 40 people gathered around,
listening to our preachings about our church. I was hoarse teaching all the people gathered around us. I suspect that in the space of an hour, we probably taught about 120-150 people. It was truly amazing, and even on that dirty, busy street corner I felt the Spirit so strongly. It was so exciting telling all the people about our church and the Word of Wisdom, which was the subject on our street board. From what I understand, some of the people we taught went straight to the nearest church and learned more from all the members and missionaries gathered there to teach them. Incredible.

Island Conference has been terrific thus far, though it is still continuing even now. I'm emaling with Elder Nash, as we have a couple of hours before returning back to the mission home for the last part of Conference. Elder Nash and I are on splits for old times sake because this is pretty much the last time that we're going to spend any time together. I guess that the first news is that I'm going back to Fort Dauphin on Wednesday, alone, as my current comp and the other Malagasy are going back
down tomorrow. Elder Peaden, the other American down there with me, will be heading to a new area in Tana and shall not be replaced down in Fort Dauphin. This means that his old companion, Elder Ravelomahefa, is going to be getting a 'mini-missionary' until I get home at which point the two Malagasys are probably going to be together.

This means that I will be with only non-English speakers until the very end of my mission. We have to be at the office in about an hour and a half. I'm going to have to say goodbye now as we are going to soon be late for the last meeting of the Conference. I love you so much and pray for all of you.

Elder Cryer

Green Baptism

2011-10-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

We had another big baptism this past Saturday, and it was great as always. I ended up personally baptizing two of the people, so again I entered into the tumultuous water and waves of our all natural baptismal font. Only one of the six people getting baptized was actually from my area - Tsena. The water at the baptism was a bit unusual: emerald green. It was kinda pretty before we got in, but once our clothes were covered in green stuff did we realize that the water was chalk full of seaweed. And this was grinded-up-into-small-bits seaweed, so it got all over our the outside and inside of our clothes. The poor baptizees ended up getting dunked into the soupy green, it was all in their hair and ears and stuff.

We had a giant group of new investigators come to church this week that all live out in the middle of nowhere. We call them the "Airport People" because they live out beyond the airport, which is far away from anywhere that we actually work. A couple of our branch missionaries found and started teaching them first, so this past Saturday we were able to go out and teach them. All of these extremely humble people were so receptive, even if they probably didn't understand that much of the lesson; their language is different. 9 of them came to church yesterday, and at their appointment on Saturday 7 of them accepted baptismal dates for the 12th of December. This is quite close, but we're still hoping that they'll make it on time. And judging by the progress they've already made - as four of them came to church the week before - they just might be able to make it...enga anie.

Today we climbed a small mountain that literally kicked our butts. I probably fell and slid down this thing like 7 or 8 times. The mountain is called Peak St. Louis and it's about 1500 tall. There might be some legitimate, established trails that lead to the top, but all we were able to find were shimmied-up paths that some balahazo farmers use for their little farms on the mountain side. After some time we were forced to start bush-whacking it, and that's when the going did indeed get tough. After about an hour of struggling through brush and steep rocks, we arrived at the tree covered peak only to find that the peak wasn't quite what we were expecting. But oh well, gotta count your blessings right? I got a lot of scratches on my legs, fell a lot, and even ran into a raspberry patch that staved off our hunger and fatigue. It was awesome.

Fortunately the horrid Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease has left me and all I have to deal with now is a minor sore throat. I've been gurgling lots of spicy liquids and such so I'll be ready for singing at the Island Conference. Regardless, pray for me hard.

In summary:

The baptism.

Climbing the Mountain.

Not knowing where I'm headed after Island Conference.

The Airport People

I love you guys and regret to say that I'm all out of time for emailing today. I was just notified that the cyber cafe has been closed for the past 21 minutes and all the workers are waiting on me. Oops.

Miss you,
Elder Cryer

Fort Dauphin

2011-10-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

in the Indian Ocean

in an Baobab Tree

Diseased & Healed

2011-10-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

I did have a good week, I suppose, if you don't count the fact that I got Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. That was downright terrible. Waking up in the middle of the night to swollen fingers and toes, having the most horrible urges to just scratch, it feels like acidic worms are crawling through your flesh. It was awful, and I'm so grateful that it's rapidly on the decline.

On Saturday night I got a blessing from my mission-mates. I just tried to focus on the fact that I have faith to be healed, and because I had faith I would go out to church the next day and even go work, knowing that God would free me from the virus. So, the next day, I went to church with puffed up hands and itchy feet. Fortunately enough though, by the evening my hands had mostly deflated and my feet were a non-issue. And now I'm healed! Woohoo!

We weren't able to go out to Ambovombe this week, so I am emailing on Monday at the regular time. We were all set to head out to the strange, mythical city of Atandroy-central, but President Donnelly called us yesterday and told us that he had received two promptings that we should not go out to Ambovombe after all. There probably was going to be some kid-nappers waiting for us vazahas on the roads. But ya know what, after hearing more about this place I'm quite ok with us not going out there. The word on the street is that though this city has tons of cool souvenirs and interesting things to look at, the people are pretty much savages and will kill you for nothing. Apparently they carry around swords and some of them have even crafted their own home-made guns. Eeek! Thanks, but no thanks.

The work here is going well, though we've been down-trodden by getting people married and random French prophets coming in and wowing everyone with some cheap tricks. One entire group of our investigators pretty much dropped themselves because they say that since the French prophet turned out to not be true, then obviously there is no such thing as a true prophet and they're just going to go on back to the Protestant church. One of our best and brightest investigators has been slowly digressing ever since he found out that he actually has to be married to his wife in order to be baptized. This has all been a head ache for Elder Rasoloniaina and I, but amongst it all there are still those wonderful people that are about to enter into the waters of baptism.

One of them is actually going to get baptized this Saturday. He is the son of a member, who got baptized only a few months ago, and has only been learning for about a month or so. We had thought that he had been learning for much longer than that, as he had been at the first time I'd ever taught his family. When we reviewed all the lessons for him before his baptismal interview, he received the information and responded as if he had already been learning for months and months before. We, according to Elder Peaden who was here before me, he had never learned anything before. Crazy, right?! I've seen it before, and I'm sure I'll see it again; the Lord prepares people in subtle and unusual ways. From what I understand, he passed the baptismal interview with flying colors. A literal testament to his spiritual preparedness.

Love you guys.

Elder Cryer

Every chair and bench completely full

2011-09-26T05:58:00.000-07:00

The days are slowly drawing themselves to a close with significantly more finality than they have before. I'm enjoying my mission as much if not more than I ever have, but it seems as though my interest in writing big emails is coming to an end. My life of dealing with the day to day just seems regular and familiar now.

This week I finally fulfilled a dream ever since I first saw pictures of the giant Malagasy Baobab trees. I always wanted to see a baobab, to touch a baobab, to even....oh yes...hug a baobab. It wasn't exactly huge or anything, I did in fact wrap my arms and legs around that strange, twisted tree and DREAMS CAN COME TRUE.

The work here is still going well. We're expecting a couple of baptisms on the 15th of October. The people who got baptized at the beginning of this month are still very diligent, thankfully, and we're starting to see some recent converts who have gone less active come back to church. This past Sunday I got to translate for a member from Utah who doing a small visit here with Rio Tinto. He was also here over two years ago, so it was really neat for him to see the tremendous growth that the branch has seen since that time. As he said to me, two years ago there were only 5 members total! He was in a bit of shock when he walked into the building to see every chair and bench completely full.

Dad, the insect repellent in the sock thing is a good idea, but I nor anyone else has insect repellent. We're all dealing with cutting the fleas out. The locals are used to it, they handle it easily.

My time is a bit short today - farewell until next week. My shoes have holes in them now. Hopefully my kicks will make it.

I miss you guys and love you bunches.

Love,
Elder Cryer

So goes the work~

2011-09-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

This past week was great! My companion, Elder Rasoloniaina, and I are exhausted every day and working hard. So we have this one man named Leonar and his wife who have been learning for about two months from the missionaries. Leonar is about 85, and reminds me of a Malagasy version of the karate master from 'Karate Kid'. I just think they look alot alike ;P. Leonar was born a terribly long time ago in a place called Farafangana, which is very far from civilization. He is from the Tandroy tribe, and therefore fluent in Atandroy, but fortunately also speaks a bit of Marina.

Our lessons with Leonar are always interesting, as well as entertaining, affairs. He complains near constantly about his eyes, and the fact that reading the Scriptures is hard because his glasses suck, and even when he bought new glasses he still says that his eyes are bad so he can't really read that much. He also claims that if his eyes were better, then he'd be able to stand more of the dialect we use. During our lessons, he is always excited to talk or tell us about something...even when we are talking. As soon as he starts off rambling, we finish saying whatever we were going to say quite rapidly. He enjoys learning from us, and coming to church. He seems to be learning the doctrine little by little, so maybe the Spirit really is doing the bulk of the teaching - which is as it should be.

Leonar and his wife are currently waiting on their marriage, which is on its way eventually. Yesterday when we were teaching him and his wife about the temple, he asked when he and his wife could go to the temple. We said that there would probably be a temple here in a few years, so if when he and his wife got baptized all they would have to do is wait a bit. To this he said saucily, "If we're even alive at that point. Geeheehee!" Leonar is as witty an old man as they come.

Finding efforts here in Fort Dauphin are very different than what they were in other areas. For instance when I went out tracting in my other areas we usually wouldn't get let in all that often (as is to be expected with tracting), but when we could get in the door the people were usually pretty diligent. Here in Fort Dauphin everyone and their dog lets you into the house, but that does not mean they are ready to receive the message. A lot of times they are laying around and other times they just want to hear what we have to say but have no intention of following the principles found in the lessons. So far we haven't actually found anyone ready to progress through tracting, but we press on none the less :D.

I'm salama tsara as of the moment (healthy), though the fleas continue to make attacks upon our very lives. This last week I found a flea inside of my foot. I was just looking at my foot one night and boom! I see this weird looking growth right under my big toe. I asked an elder if a flea had crawled into my foot - and he should know because at that time he was in fact pulling TWO of them out of his own foot - and he confirmed my fears. I sanitized a knife and finger-nail clippers and sliced it out.

My week has been good, I suppose, though the low turnout to church was pretty depressing for both companionships. I was told by a couple investigators who are Protestant that this past sunday there was "Fandraisana (Receiving of the Sacrement)" so even though they are planning on getting baptized in our church, they had to go and take the Sacrament at their old place. We're going to have to go back and teach on the subject "Receiving a Testimony for Yourself". But ahh well. So goes the work of the missionary.

Well I have less than 60 days left at this point. AHHH! Scary and exciting all at the same time. I'm super excited to see you guys; thanks for wishing me a happy birthday.

Love you!
Till next time,
Elder Cryer

In the ocean

2011-09-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be emailing a day late, but you already know of the problems we have with the Internet connection here. My companion especially is having problems because he has never used a computer before. Please tell Brady that I'd love to go with him to Comic-Con. I don't know if I would be wearing a costume to this thing or not , but I'll sure try to get into the full spirit of the thing. Also please tell Sarah that I wrote her a birthday letter and have been trying to send it for a couple of weeks now, but still no luck with the Post Office here. I'll probably just end up scanning the letter and sending it as an email when the actual day comes. Please tell her sorry for me!

So the biggest news of the past week is obviously the baptism. In terms of awesomeness, I'd probably place it equal to the gigantic 40-plus person baptism that took place in Antsirabe a year ago. That baptism was cool for its sheer size, and also for the General Authority that was in attendance. For this little baptism here in Fort Dauphin we had 7 baptized, but it was made special because of the fabulous people whom were dunked, and the unusual circumstances of having to baptize in the ocean.

The waves were over our heads. There were a couple of times that all of the Malagasys went completely under, Elder Cryer being almost totally swallowed in the surf, and Elder Peaden alone with his 6'2 frame being able to keep most of his head dry. Each person that got baptized seemed to be unaware of the giant waves that were coming. All of the women had to be picked up and elevated when each wave would come so that their baptism was not just one long process of being underwater the whole time! Even the older women didn't seem to want to jump up for themselves. For the two little girls who got baptized (twins, so cute) I had to carry them in my arms and literally hold them up the entire time. We tried to see if they could stand on the actual sand bottom, but the waves that were hitting us would have swept them away.

Another challenge, but fun part of the baptism, was that I was the one who had the baptismal prayer memorized. For each of the baptisms I spoke the words with those who were baptizing. It was fun, and exciting, and a little bit scary when one of the baptizees would go under water and not come back up when we wanted them to. I'm thankful that the waves weren't higher. So that, and the wonderful experience of baptizing in the ocean are definitely things to be grateful for. We have another baptism coming up at the end of this month, and at that time we might just try and do it in a river or something. There is one place where a giant lake meets the ocean called Ankoba, and the water there is very calm. Maybe that'll be the trick....

When it came time to head back to land, we all started trudging through the tumultuous water. Unfortunately, and simultaneously fortunately in many respects, a giant wave came that engulfed us all, so I stroked my arms, kicked my legs, and body-boarded that sucker. I cruised into land, eventually getting taken under and flipped over, and finally back-stroked to where the water was a bit less crazy. I love my mission.

Walking back to the church after the actual baptism was over was tough. My feet were covered in scratchy sand, I hadn't brought a towel to begin with, and long-sleeve shirts aren't too comfortable when wet. The testimony portion of the meeting was good, if a bit humorous. The first person to bear testimony included a portion at the end that was...not bad....but maybe timed a bit wrong for sharing with the congregation. The woman told of her old and past sins, saying that because of the church she didn't do them anymore. And then, every one of the other baptizees followed suit. It was really funny when the two little girls said, "I used to not do my homework but now I do!" and "I used to whine all the time but now I don't!"

In conclusion, I know this church is true. I love this church, and I love my mission more than anything.
Till next time,

Love,
Elder Cryer

Full to the brim

2011-09-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

What a week it has been! I'm sorry to hear about the horrible heat and dryness that ya'll Texans are having to put up with. Here in Fort Dauphin the weather is beautiful every single day, never that hot and never that cold. I kinda feel like I'm in Hawaii, minus all tourists that I remember crowding the beaches while I was there. A couple days ago we had strong winds buffeting us all day - sand flying into our faces, getting in our hair, blowing into our mouths when we tried to talk. This was not exactly pleasant, so Fort Dauphin doesn't quite qualify as perfect, but it's definitely the closest I've ever seen during the past two years.

The branch here is growing at a rate which is not to believed! Even though missionaries have only be here for ten months, the attendance is already over most old wards in Tana. President Jacko, who came to visit and set apart new Melchezedik priesthood holders, said it best, "Even though Tolagnaro (Fort D) is so new, the priesthood here is as strong as it is in my home ward, Manakambahiny, which has been around for quite some time." This past Sunday we had 7 new Melchezedik priesthood holders officially enter the Elders Quroum. Almost all of the guys who received it work with us day after day - going on splits, leading us around, etc. They are all way great guys, every single one of them. Last Friday we even saw Frederick and Firazana marching off down the road to do some tracting because, well, they wanted too. Even with no name tag on it would've been hard to say those weren't missionaries to the truest extent going out to do the work of the Lord.

We're thinking that they will have to split the branch within the next year, just as soon as we can add more potential leaders to the ranks. Already the warehouse which doubles as our meetinghouse is full to the brims and we're having trouble placing people. It would be way cool to see the split actually occur, but I won't see it.

People understand the spoken version of the official dialect (marena, or ambony andro) but reading it in the Bible of Book of Mormon is another story entirely. They just don't understand so many of the words in there. We try to get them to read, and they do, but in the end they are just sounding out a bunch of big words they don't understand anyways. It's a bit frustrating - not gonna lie - and more than anything just surreal that me as a vazaha has to teach Malagasys their own language. All of these translating things aren't necessarily bad, and more than anything I suppose I'm just thankful for the opportunity for a new challenge. I'll stop complaining.

Regardless of the differences in dialect that we have to deal with here, and the obvious lack of education, these people are truly God's elect. They are so ready for the gospel it is almost not to be believed. And remember that this is coming from a guy who's already worked in the other areas of one of the highest baptizing missions in the world. Teaching is the easy part. Getting them married is still a challenge, but so long as they are coming to church and still have a desire to be baptized, it's worth it.

I know the people of Madagascar, despite their incredible poverty, were probably in many cases great leaders before this life; chosen spirits that fought for the cause of Jesus Christ when it was not yet certain who the final victor would be. I believe this because there is no other way to explain the incredible progression of these people in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I do not know why God put so many prepared people in one such poor place in the world, but I am still extremely thankful for this time I have to be with them. The members are so new to the gospel, they are constantly learning

I do feel a lot better, as I got some sort of anti-biotic from Tana. President Jacko (the second counselor in the mission presidency) brought a bunch of stuff down for us this past Friday. Whenever someone from the mission or stake comes down to visit the branch they usually end up hauling whatever supplies we need as well. So I got some medicine that seems to be working pretty well.

Just got done negotiating prices with a sword maker. We got the price down to 30 dollars for two swords. I love you guys and pray for you. Please pray for me as well. I'm in a scary part of the world right now, and a one where people dislike their clothes.

My shoes are on the verge of death. My extra shoes were stolen. I think the Docs will make it through to the 18th of November. There are millions of terrible fleas. Some get into your skin, burrow and lay eggs. Our house walls seem to be infested with woodworms. They are so loud, especially at night. I'm pretty sure that someone tried to break into our house last night.

I'm with 2 native elders and Elder Peadon, love 'em. 7 baptisms this Saturday, in the ocean!

Yall be good now, ya hear!

Love,
Elder Cryer

The rain is gone, the sun is out

2011-08-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to be a little bit worried about my sickness as well, so I'm going to call Sister Donnelly and get the OK for buying some sort of drugs from the local pharmacy. I don't really have anything wrong with my throat any more, but my lungs are still wheezy unless I drink gallons of water - which is strange.

This week went well, except for the fact that my companion and guide for Fort Dauphin has been transferred and replaced by a Malagasy trainee. Fortunately for him though, he only knows a little bit less than I do ;P. Last Tuesday after lunch Elder Smith got a call from President Donnelly saying, "Hey Elder you're moving to Tana tomorrow morning at 6:00. Back your bags quick! You'll find out your new area and companion when transfers come out tonight." And that was all.

My new companion is a cool guy from the ward of 67 in Antananarivo. He doesn't speak a lick of English, so I've started teaching him that as well as informing him on as much of the local dialect as I've heard thus far. All of his siblings are members and have been for the past five years, but his parents have yet to come around. He went to the MTC in Ghana. He arrived in Tana this past Wednesday but wasn't able to get a flight out here until Saturday night.

I waited at the tiny Fort Dauphin Airport completely alone for about two hours. His flight was crazy late and we finally got home at about 10:15 PM. It was strange seeing all of the rich Malagasys and vazahas going off to far-away locations, enjoying their vacations. Some of them were from Spain, some from France, others from Italy, and one cute older couple from Japan. They all looked at me weird at first, but then got used to the site of a odd religious vazaha that speaks Malagasy but not their language.

I got my package this week, and it was amazing! Thank you so much! We've already eaten all of the candy, and I've already read all of the reading material.

An interesting thing of note is that Fort Dauphin is full of different kinds of people. They grab at you on the path, scream and dance around for hours on end, shout random nothings into the air while you are trying to email your family (he's still screaming at this very moment). Maybe it's because they practically have no medical care here, or maybe it's just something in the water. Whatever it is, it always keeps things interesting.

The rain has gone, the sun is out, the heat has yet to come, and a lot of people are not wearing their clothes. I can't even tell you how many naked people we've seen. From what I understand, it is generally the Atandroy people alone that have no sense of modesty. The other tribes that live here are generally more decent in their dress. I was pretty shocked when I first started seeing the nudity, but now I'm more used to it and just focusing on not staring. Even Elder Ravelomahefa and Elder Rasoloniaina have been taken aback by the decidedly strange behaviour of the Fort Dauphin residents. Oh well. I'll keep my eyes to myself.

I love you guys and am praying for you. Have a great week! See you soon.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Wild Pig Attack and 3 Full-sized Cows Needed, please

2011-08-22T19:02:00.001-07:00

Everything is going well here in Fort Dauphin. I'm a little bit under the weather but I already feel much better than I did yesterday. I found some sort of all day medication that I've been taking, so hopefully that will nip this thing in the bud. Or maybe it won't...tsy maninona! All week it has been raining so hard! I came here expecting sunshine and incredible heat, but instead I get loads of rain and a head cold. The mountains, jungle, and beach still look amazing but only in a generally menacing way.

"Tribal" is the first word that comes to mind when I think of the people here. Though they wear clothes, they don't seem to particularly mind about whether all of their private (from a Western point of view) parts are actually covered or not. All of the women wear their hair in corn rows or Princess Leia buns; most of the men carry giant machetes, sticks, and huge fish around with them. It is definitely an interesting place, so exotic. Everything here is so different from the way it would be in a 1st world country that sometimes it is a bit scary.

Most people here live in sweet huts that remind me a lot of the only-for-show huts they have at museum exhibits. They have rice mats for floors, patted-down leaves for roofs, and not-too-sturdy wood sides for walls. Now that I think about it, all those other times I said people lived in huts in past emails - really, those 'huts' are mansions when compared to the living conditions here. No one lacks for food as the sea provides constant nutrition and you can just walk around and find food to eat from off the ground, but everything is very primitive. To give an example of this, in one ten minute period I saw people carrying giant sword fish over their shoulders, people carrying around actual spears, and a crazy pig running loose through the maze of huts. The pig actually tried to kill us by running us vazahas straight to the ground, but survive the attack we did. I think he actually did bite my leg though...it felt like a sledge hammer. Only in Madagscar do you get the wonderful opportunity to worry about wild pig attacks.

One of our investigators is named Marolahy, and he has a bit of a problem. He needs to get officially married to his wife of seven years, Julie, before they can be baptized. This is a usual problem that us missionaries in Mada have to deal with, but down here in Fort Dauphin we have a new twist: Marolahy has to marry his wife according to the 'fomba gasy' (Malagasy way). In order to do this he has to buy three full-sized cows and give them to Julie's parents. These cows cost about 400,000 - 500,000 ariary a piece, which is far more than Marolahy makes in two years. Considering the current financial position of Marolahy and Julie, this task is literally impossible.

We have been talking to them quite a bit lately and our best advice has been to just beg Julie's parents to let them get married legally first and then complete the fomba gasy later. Hopefully they will accept the proposition, but if not Marolahy and Julie will not be baptized for a very, very long time - as in, when her middle-aged parents die then maybe they'll be able to get married and baptized. We are really hoping that Julie's parents relent. This one's gonna need some prayers...

We have a few baptisms coming up this Saturday, but we are waiting on a marriage to come through. All of the information, papers, and forms are filled out and done, we are just waiting on the necessary signature from the number one man at the Lapan'ny Tanana (government agency). Enga anie this'll all come through, but if not then they'll just be baptized at the end of next month. The work goes extremely well here - 31 investigators to church.

This place rocks ;).

I miss you guys and pray for you. Tell everyone I said hi, and if anyone asks them why I don't write them back, please respond, "Matthew's on the other side of the world in a place that is not conducive to sending mail. His apologies."

Love,
Elder Cryer

From the last few months~

2011-08-17T13:45:00.001-07:00

Rounding up the critters before lesson time

A devastating fire and onto Fort Dauphin

2011-08-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

Fort Dauphin - this place can be likened unto a Malagasy Hawaii, an incredible paradise minus all of the usual tourist fringe-benefits that come with the location. There are tourists here, but it is just so far away from anything that coming here adds an extra price-tag to an already costly vacation. Consequently, the area is still relatively undeveloped. There are a couple of restaurants and hotels, but they are small and pretty expensive. But, this place is heaven on Earth -- seriously.

Elder Ravelomahefa and I left early Monday morning to get to the Ivato Airport. I still don't understand why we had to arrive at 6:45AM for a flight that was supposed to leave at 10:25AM, but it sure did give us a lot of time to tour the airport, which was a surreal-as-can-be experience. I never thought that I'd be coming back to the Ivato Airport for anything other than going home in November.

We ended up being able to sit in what we think was first-class - or as first-class as Air Madagascar can provide. We sat in the very back of the plane with a bunch of rich dudes, seperated by a curtain from the other passengers. The fed us real food and gave us sodas, where as everyone else on the plane just got small little bread balls that you can easily get on the street. The food was very strange, and the coke just made my stomach hurt, but it was a nice gesture anyways.

The flight was about an hour and 45 minutes, which seems to be quick work for a propeller driven plane. It was very interesting seeing all of the Madagascar landscape roll beneath us. Not a cloud in the sky blocked our view of the changes from rainforest, to mountains, to desert, and finally to Taolagnaro (Fort Dauphin).

We settled down into a little-bitty airport, grabed a taxi that had been brought courtesy of the two elders already down here (Elders Smith and Peaden), and cruised off to the house. We got settled, taught a couple of lessons, and finally chowed down. During the appointments I realized that though everyone understands what I am saying, I have to strain to understand what they are saying. They speak in two main dialects here: Atanosy and Atandroy (probably spelled those wrong). Their accent is very different than what I'm used to, but the biggest problem of all is that unless they are speaking directly to me, they usually speak in their own dialect. These dialects are somewhat similar to Marina, and they rarely speak in straight non-marina, but when half of the words they use are spoken in a language I don't know, I'm having to really pay attention and do some quick deciphering. It's fun though.

Unbelievable story- last Friday we went to one of our investigators houses to meet an appointment. Elders Cassel, Mclaughlin, (he's from Scotland, and way legit) and I were walking down the path, coming pretty close to the person's neighborhood, when all we ended up seeing was a giant, burned patch of destruction. A huge fire had blazed the night before, completely leveling all the wooden shacks in sight. 500 people without anything but the clothes on their backs; 5 dead and many in the hospital for severe burns. It was probably one of the saddest things I'd ever seen. As soon as we walked up one of our investigators approached us, burn marks on her face and hands, and apologized for not being able to receive us because her house was burned to rubble.

Long story short, we talked with a couple of the leaders about things we could do, talked with President Donnelly and Elder Ridges (humanitarian missionary) and then finally decided that we were going to do something about it. The next morning we (Cassel, Mclaughlin, and me) found, bought, transported by pouspous, and delivered 200 kilos of rice to the homeless people at the burn site. We had to pay for the rice with our own money, but were then payed back from out of the humanitarian-mission's budget. It was hard to describe, the experience.

We also had two baptisms this past Saturday - Melissa and Nany - which went really well.

Don't start worrying about me down here in old Fort Dauphin. I wasn't able to email yesterday because it was some sort of catholic religious holiday. I figured that there might be some worrying because I wasn't able to email, so I'll start by saying that there are indeed Internet cafes here, it is just that they are expensive - as is everything else in this little chunk of paradise! Seriously; every single thing that is available for sale in Fort Dauphin that is also available in Tana is about a dollar or so more expensive. Now that may not seem like much, but it adds up! They have regular restaurants here, regular-ish stores here, but everything they have to offer is pricey pricey pricey. Fear not though, for my goal is not to ask for more personal funds. It is to learn to budget better.

Praying for you guys all the time. Even when I'm really tired and I can only stay awake for a couple of moments in prayer, I always pray for you guys.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Snapshots of the Mad Ant

2011-08-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

Heading down south to the other side of heaven

2011-08-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

This Thursday I'll be a leaving on a jet plane....or a tleast I hope it's a jet plane! I'm headed out to what is called the absolute paradise and proverbial heaven of this mission: Fort Dauphin. FOrt Dauphin is located pretty much at the bottom of Madagascar and is a three day drive should you be foolish enough to go by car. But, because of the danger from bandits and the huge distance, me and Elder Ravelomahefa will be going by plane down to this most wonderous of places. Fort Dauphin opened about 8-9 months ago and is considered the gem of all the areas in Madagascar. If I'm not mistaken, I'll be the eighth missionary to ever go down there.

They also heavily use two other dialects called Atandrohy and Antanin-nosy. I hope to learn at least one of them before I go home. We'll be opening up a new area in Fort Dauphin, so that'll be fun.

Along with this, however, is a couple of issues. I'll only be able to take down one 20 kilo bag, so the vast majority of my stuff is going to be left here in Tana for the next couple of months until I come back. So I'm having to pack one of my suitcases for going home right now, give away a lot of clothes, and generally scramble. In Fort Dauphin the baptisms are in the ocean; I doubt if my one white long-sleeve shirt will survive. So if in my last package there could be a white long-sleeve, size 16 1/2 in the neck, slim-fit shirt, that would just be fantastic. My suit is already trashed.

Well this is it. Wish me luck and please pray that the plane doesn't crash.

Love,
Elder Cryer

2011-08-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Lemur Love...bites

2011-08-07T17:44:00.001-07:00

Baptisms

2011-08-03T19:13:00.001-07:00

'Baptize Rondro'

2011-08-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

We gave it our all this week with the teaching times aspect, but were hampered in a few ways by funerals, other stuff, and just some straight up bad luck. Regardless, we still had some very interesting experiences with new investigators as well as newly progressing investigators. But my favorite part of all was the baptism of Tojo, Rondro, Fely, and Neny. I think I'll start at the beginning and work my way backward, hopefully I'll have enough time to finish all the stories.

The baptism was extremely spiritual, but was made even better by the level of conversion that the people displayed. These new members have been learning from anywhere between 5 months to a little-bitty 1 month. They were all practically golden investigators, and all have their own individual stories of conversion, but I think I've told you all but one.

Rondro is a girl who learned many years ago with the rest of her family. Her dad got baptized, her mom got baptized, and she should have been baptized at that time if not for her father having problems. By that point the father had decided that he wanted nothing to do with the church, and that meant that Rondro would be waiting
another 4 years before being able to make that sacred covenant. About a month ago Rondro finally came to our attention when her 18th birthday occured. Everyone and their dog, all at once, began practically screaming at the missionaries "BAPTIZE RONDRO!" It took us a few days for the importance of their words to fully sink in, and then another couple of days to actually find her house. She was a shy girl - her mother being shy as well - but totally and completely committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The same cannot be said of her father.

Every time we would come over it was like there was a giant wall blocking the missionaries; he would almost completely ignore us. We would say hi, and he would generally nod, but there wasn't much more than that. Finally the day of Rondro's baptism came. We were 20 minutes into the meeting, about to start the actual ordinance, when guess who walked quietly into the room? That's right, Rondro's father. The man who had been estranged from the church for some several years came right into that room and took an almost divinely empty seat beside his daughter on the front row -- right where he was supposed to be all along. He didn't end up
coming to church the next day, but I'm sure that a light has been re-lit inside of him. Will it burn for long? Will it actually but him back on the right path permanently? Only time will tell. But putting all those questions aside, I know that I saw a man who doesn't really know what he wants in life anymore, but knows that what may be lacking is what he'd already left behind.

So, we'll go to work and pray for the best. Nothing else you can really do in such circumstances. We'll teach him as much as we can, try as hard as we can, but in the end it is all up to that man alone; ain't a thang we can realistically do when it comes to them terms.

Terribly sorry but I really have to go now. We have a dinner appointment very soon that we will likely be late for. Wish us luck.

With Love and Prayers,
Elder Cryer

Mad scramble

2011-07-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

This past week we have worked ourselves half to death. One thing that President Donnelly really focused on in my most recent interview is my enduring, and working to the end. I'm trying to take that to heart and make these last few months the most productive of all. This has left Elder Cassel and I absolutely spent and really that much more eager for our P-Day. We've been trying to use our ward missionaries as much as possible, and they've been utilized successfully. What's ended up is over-loading our appointments for the evenings and then calling around frantically to ask for the ward-missionaries to go on splits with us. We should probably make the process more stream-lined and less hectic, but it's a work in process. It feels great to go home totally spent from your labors.

We were able to get a lot of new investigators to church this past Sunday, so that was really great to see. A couple of our newest investigators is the family which I spoke of last week. This is the family of Selesten, the ones who promised that they would be coming to church if we could only show them where it was. We had planned on having members go and pick them up, but just before we left our last appointment with them I had a strong feeling to say that we, the missionaries, would pick them up ourselves.

So there we were on Sunday morning - hungry, tired as all get out, and worried because we'd already decided that they wouldn't come with us to church. It was 6:55 a.m. As soon as we knocked on one of the doors to see if anyone was awake, we were startled by the call, "Come in, come in! O we're so late I'm so sorry!" This started off a mad-scramble of all of those who planned to come to church with us running around their little community of shacks, throwing clothes on the naked children, combing their hair, and shouting at bystanders to hurry up and get ready, because they should be going with the missionaries as well! It was funny and, I have to say, a little bit stressful. We all finally got out of there at 7:55 AM, so walking to church wasn't an option anymore. The whole group of us jumped on to one of the taxibes and headed out. We got to church a little bit late, but everyone was mostly just excited to see us and the new investigators. From what I saw, they had a really wonderful and spiritual experience. The teacher in the Gospel Essentials class was so on-point by talking a lot more about her own personal conversion and entrance into the church than focusing too much on the deep-ish doctrine lesson. When they finally left to go home you could see their genuine happiness and desire for more as they said, "Thank you sooo much elders!!! Church was fantastic and know that we know where it is, we'll be coming every Sunday." Maybe that seems a bit cheesy for us more mild-mannered Westerners, but Malagasy people are pretty straight forward when they like something -- not too much beating around the bush with these people.

One thing which happened that really shocked and humbled me was at the time of Silvy. We were teaching two brothers and a sister about the importance of coming to church when Silvy softly said, "And Rivo, if you need any clothes for church I'll buy some for you just like I did with Raphael and Tojo." I think she was trying to say it so that I couldn't hear, and I didn't want to embarrass her, so I just said nothing. I had already seen the handsome little suits that Tojo and Raphael had been strutting around in, and I'd been wondering how they had gotten hold of them. These people are as poor as you can get without starving and being forced to live on the streets.

Now it all makes sense how they'd gotten these clothes -- it was Sister Silvy all along. Poor, sweet, spiritual, and wonderful Silvy had probably gone hungry for a few days just to buy these boys clothes from her measly 60 dollars a month. Well, I'll just say it: my charity and love is pretty much nothing compared to that kind of devotion. Those little boys coming to church and getting baptized was more important than food, to Sister Silvy.

I love you guys and am still praying for you. Tell Brady good luck for me and also please tell Sarah that I'll get back to her next week. I want to think about her question a little bit before I answer. Dad, I'm glad you made it well on your trip. The pictures, btw, look incredible and it really sounds like the trip was quite nice.

My release date is set as November 17th. This is indeed a firm date. I'm working like a maniac, so please don't think that this'll slow me down in the least bit. I'm workin my tail off.

Love,
Elder Cryer

A bit more kick

2011-07-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

Well, The CrashNyer (Cryer and Nash; Elder Reynolds can be credited with the creation of this name) companionship ended. We had both known that it was going to happen eventually. I'm really happy for Elder Nash though because he finally got to leave his Birth Area and go off to Tamatave.

My new companion is named Elder Cassel (pronounced 'Castle') and he is way legit. He most recently worked in Antsirabe, and before that was to be found in La Reunion; the all French-speaking island off the cost of Madagascar. He's one of the lucky few Reunion elders that has gotten to come over and experience the most incredible mission in the entire world. From the past few days that we've been together it seems as though he's quite grateful. Who knows how long we'll end up being together? Maybe a month; or maybe he'll put me in my mission grave. We shall see...

So I got the fabulous package this past week, and I was impressed as always. The candy and corn nuts was savory, the letters were sweet, but the beef jerky had a little bit more kick than I was prepared for. For a couple of days the beef jerky was in my backpack before I took it out, and during those few days I was sure to hand out little samples of pure spicy pain to a few of those I talked to. The Malagasys thought the joke was pretty good.

This past Friday we were feverishly looking for new investigators, going from door to door and contacting those on the path. After an hour or so we had gotten pretty discouraged with the whole tracting thing, so we decided to go and recontact a family that Elder Nash and I had taught about a month and a half ago. Nash and I had tried to return to them many a time, but they were never in. Anyways, we gave it one last go to see if just maybe they'd be there. Finally, the entire family was there and even a bunch of the neighbors. They chided us for not coming back, and we in turn chided them for not being home ever -- all in the spirit of joking of course ;). We started the time and decided to not teach them a first lesson, but to instead teach about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. The message of the restored doctrine concerning this principle and the new information about a 'new and ever-lasting covenant' resounded well with all of them, and it just so happened to turn out that they were totally not on board with any of the Saturday Sabbath, things. So the lesson went great and everyone was really excited; they were passionate about what we were saying. I felt the Spirit prompting me to give the invitation, so I invited all of them to church. This may seem like a pretty "duh, of course you would do that" move, but you have to realize that they all go to their church every single day, and the last time we tried to invite them to church they turned us down flat.

The first guy to say anything, Selesten, said that there was no way he could come to our church because he had responsibilities to fulfill at his own. When he started saying that stuff, I got pretty discouraged pretty quick, especially considering the fact that he is the self-stylized leader of the neighborhood. But, after he had said his peace everyone else in the entire room told us that they were coming for sure the next Sunday - because they had already signed up for some kind of meeting thing on the coming Sunday - and we even were able to get a brand new family into the teaching pool afterwards which was a direct result of the previous appointment.

So, that was awesome :D.

Yesterday at church I had to go and teach the primary kids about the temple. It was cool. I've been somewhat sickly of late. It's yucky. I think that I finally nailed
down what was making me feel so crumby, and it just so happened to be our Malagasy version of Ramen Noodles. Sadly, this is the tastiest and cheapest food for us missionaries to consume so I'm not happy to be giving it up. Oh well. It is what it is.

That's really pretty much all I have for right now. I love you guys and am praying for ya.

Elder Cryer

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 4:04 PM, wrote:

Bumping It

2011-07-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

This past week was pretty great for us. We tried to work harder and harder, and were simultaneously met with more and more obstacles. Regardless, the work progressed and is moving on. Not too many investigators are coming to church, but Sacrament meeting is full of recent converts from the past six to seven months. To me, it doesn't so much matter about the number of investigators showing up to church, but combining that number with the total number of recent converts and less actives as well. The work of the missionary does not, or should not, end at baptism. So we get pretty stoked when we see our recent converts getting the priesthood, receiving callings as teachers, and becoming some of the most diligent seminary and institute students in the ward.

From one of our times with Silvy and her daughters: Little Finoana (Faith) is an adorable child and often likes to express her loveliness with hitting people, sometimes on the arm and softly, and sometimes on the face and quite forcefully. We were teaching some way awesome investigators about the Atonement and the need for all of us to repent. We got onto the subject of infant baptism and after teaching them what Mormon had to say, I said, "Just look at Finoana! That little girl couldn't possibly be capable of sin!" And then she socked her sister straight in the side of the head. Everyone had a good laugh, and the violence of little Finoana served to illustrate how small children cannot be blamed for their mistakes.

My next experience occurred just yesterday at the time of our recent converts, Julienne's family and friends. We taught them and about four of their friends about the Plan of Salvation, which we had already covered in part at a previous appointment. They received everything well, asking very astute questions and showing their understanding by their profound comments. The best one came at the end of the lesson when we had taught them all about the Three Kingdoms and about the importance of setting the Celestial Kingdom as our number one goal. Julienne raised her hand and said softly, "The things the missionaries have taught me are things that I know are true, and things that I absolutely never knew before. I had the Bible and went to church before the missionaries started teaching us, but we never had any ideas about these things. I'm so grateful for the teachings of the missionaries and what the church is in my life." Somewhere towards the beginning of her words the Spirit jumped from an already high state to cloud nine. I love these people so much! Elder Nash and I are constantly high-fiving and bumping it from the sheer quantity of awesome people and lessons that occur here. Four months left is hard to swallow.

Ok last one: So, as of late we've started teaching this one guy named Liva and his family. The lessons are Spiritually-charged, they readily accept the doctrine as if they've known it their entire lives - which in a way, they have for much longer -, and they are so ready to accept and fulfill commitments. The most incredible thing about all of this, however, is the fact that Liva is completely crippled and only has use of his neck and head. Happiness and hope lights his countenance. In a way he reminds me of Brady, of Frere Jules, and many others who have been given a tough lot in life, but never let it get them down. They can be sad or discouraged from time to time like all of us imperfect humans, but the rate at which they bounce back is astonishing and a true miracle. One of my new challenges for the upcoming week is that when I feel down, or about to give-up, to think about these literal heroes in my life and follow their examples.

Yesterday, interesting eating experience: For dinner we had a bowl of rice and cabbage. Sometimes cabbage loque is ok, but this time it was downright disgusting. Seriously. So me and the member who came with me - a way cool guy named Faniry who's preparing for his mission - ended up eating our entire heaping mound of rice dry. Afterwards Faniry and I could not stop talking about the sheer horribleness of the food. Oh well, Mazotoa is what I always say. Mazotoa is what you say before everyone starts eating. It means, diligence!

This past week we worked hard and were met with a lot of success. On the flip-side however, as we tried to accelerate we were met with a few bumps in the road. We had some sickness, on Saturday all of our times dogged us, I got punched in the family jewels by a five year old, and we didn't have the best turn out to church. O ya, and it is extremely cold. But hey, the work moves on and so does our time here. Sure don't have time to be standing around feeling bad for yourself. "Put Your Shoulder To The Wheel...."

Today we are getting transfer news. Seeing as both me and Elder Nash have been in Ankorondrano for ever, we're both ready to go. We're happy though, so if we both stay I'm sure we'll be content for another month.

I love you guys so much. Miss ya too. Praying for you, as always.
-Elder Cryer

Rushing

2011-06-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

This week we were rushing to get the baptizees ready for Saturday, rushing to get the program ready for the baptism, and rushing with no other apparent purpose then just to rush.

The baptism of Ravaka, Malala, Julienne, Nombinina, and Clara went off well. Our ward mission leader forgot to call all of the people for talks and prayers, so Elder Nash and I ended up giving both talks, the music, and baptizing. By the end I was run ragged, but immensely pleased with the results. All of the baptized bore their
testimonies, and one really stood out among the already heart-felt and touching words given. Sister Malala is the young woman who has only been learning for two weeks, and yet she seemed to have the deepest and most intense conversion of all. Had it not been for this highly unusual sensitivity to the Spirit, it would have
been impossible to pull the whole thing off for her. The next day during Sacrament meeting, every single one of the speakers commented about how strong the Spirit had been the day before at the baptism, and how their own personal testimonies had been strengthened by it. I had a few really strong impressions come to me.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe baptisms end up meaning less to us Malagasy missionaries than others, like missionaries in Europe because here, they happen all the time. But the thing that I value the most is seeing the conversion process of these people. The moment when they decide that they know the church is true, and you watch their countenance change is something of indescribable worth. To me, that's the best. To me, there's nothing better.

This past weekend we also had the national independence holiday of Madagascar. Things got absolutely insane! It was a crazy and fun weekend. We went and nistangatsangana-ed with all of the excited party goers, watched some fire-works, and even lit a bunch off ourselves. It was quite a treat. Btw to mitsangastangana is to, essentially, go and stand around. Imagine all the people who just stand around, talk, and eat stuff during New Years Eve on Time Square....same idea I suppose, just more Malagasy. I didn't break mission rules or commandments, so I'd say it was a success. And that's all I'll say about that.

I have whipped the sniffles. It is quite cold outside, so my throat isn't always super clear. O well. I'll live.

Praying for ya,

Elder Cryer

Teach people, not lessons

2011-06-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't eaten any uncooked pieces of doughnut lately. I learned that lesson a very long ago from Ivato ;). A couple of weeks ago I did end up buying a tasty-ish looking fried piece of chicken. Fortunately, before I sank my teeth into the suspicious little morsel I had the good sense to open up the little sucker and see just what was waiting for me inside. Sure am glad I did that, because a disgusting piece of bloody chicken was awaitin' for me amidst the cold, crumbly fried bread. That was certain to make me sick as a dog.

This past week was full of a lot of really excellent times and one really inspiring zone conference. We are trying harder and harder to teach people, not lessons. The principle is much better understood now, so now we can be more specific about our "teach to the needs" way of doing things. Sometime back in November or so the Missionary Department released the "New Curriculum." This was not necessarily a whole new way of teaching, but just a firm refocusing of the already existing principles found in Preach My Gospel. Elder Nash and I have really been trying to institute these types of teaching skills in our appointments. So far as we've seen, the Spirit is even stronger during times and there has been a heightened amount of progressing investigators (meaning those who keep their commitments and are progressing towards baptism) in our teaching pool on the whole. It wasn't like we weren't having the Spirit present in time before, or like investigators thought we didn't care before, it is just that they understand our want to meet their needs and connect with them on a level better. On the whole the times are more spiritual because the investigator is sharing, more often, in the overall presence and power of the Holy Ghost. So far as I've seen, things are working awesome on that front....

Elder Nash and I are still working hard to get everyone ready for their baptisms on the 25th (this Saturday!). Thankfully, it looks like we'll be having at least six people headed for the font, and each one of them is so ready to be a member of this church it is almost unreal! All of the people who are getting baptized are way legit.

I'm not really sniffling anymore, though I'm not exactly fit as a fiddle. I ate tons of mandarins this week to try and get better.

Happy Father's Day Dad! Wonderful to hear about your delicious Father's Day menu, though a tad bit depressing when compared to the food here. I hope everything turned out great for your Father's Day. I love you Dad, and just want to say how much I appreciate all the things you've done for me. I fully realize that if wasn't for your patience with me that I wouldn't be where I am today, nor who I am today. I was never the child naturally disposed to obedience, so I'm glad that you were naturally disposed to being the best Dad ever.

I love you guys, and take more joy than I express in my emails home from the letters and emails you send me. Sometimes I don't comment about the things which interest me greatly...I chalk it up to laziness.

Mivavaha for moi, por favor. Domo arigato.
Auf wiedersehen,
Elder Cryer

Pentacost

2011-06-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

I got the package from you guys last Monday, and lemme' tell ya, it was fantastic. Elder Nash and I greedily consumed the entire contents of the precious box. I've gotten a lot of packages from you guys in the past year or so, and a lot of them have been equally splendid, but I'd still rank this latest addition quite highly. The Gushers were something extra special....Nash and I almost cried as we ate the beautiful things. Yum. We also got really sick, but I'll take stomach aches over not eating delicious food any day.

Coming up on the 25th of this month we'll be having a projected 8 baptisms. This is incredible! as you might guess. A lot of the people who are getting baptized have been learning for at least over a month or more, except for one. There is the 18 year old daughter of one Sister Julienne who has come to church twice so far that has decided that she wants to be baptized with the other investigators in her household. We only met and taught her this past Sunday, and we gave her the option of being baptized at a later time to allow for ample time to receive all the lessons. She said that she couldn't do it, but absolutely had to be baptized with the other members of her family in two weeks. Though this was a little bit nerve-racking for us, the missionaries who have to teach her everything in two weeks, it was still amazing to see how much her once non-existent testimony had grown in the very short time of her relationship with church. As we taught the family about Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the Gospel - which most, but not all, had already learned previously - the Spirit was so powerful in that house. Even for those who had heard it before - and Elder Nash and I have heard it quite few times before - the truthfulness of it all was witnessed by the power of the Holy Spirit. We now have the somewhat difficult task of going through all the lessons effectively for this young woman, but we're thinking that it should be do-able. Pray for us!

On Sunday we had good old Pentecost: the wonderful day when the Apostles received the Holy Ghost. Wonderful then, but not so wonderful at the present for the missionaries of Madagascar. Why? I'll first start by saying Malagasy people really like their holidays, and their drinking. When holidays arrive, the amount of alcohol consumed by the populous increases tenfold. They also get much more rowdy and rude, as you might guess. Sunday, the actual day of Pentecost wasn't really bad at all...but Saturday is another story. We were yelled at, made fun of, harassed, literally attacked, and at one point we even had rocks thrown at us. Pretty much no one was home, and we ended up wandering around, searching for something to do the entire day, something of worth. Mine and Elder Nash's area is not really known for its sparklingly polite people, so over the months we had disciplined ourselves in not paying any attention to the harassment. I'm glad that we had received this training prior to Saturday, for boy o' boy was our patience tested! At close to the fever-pitch of the whole charade, I even said to Nash, "Let's just pretend that they're all talking about how cool we are, and complimenting us and stuff" just to make it through the torment.

I'm not gonna lie -- it wasn't fun. But I'm still thankful for it because it gave us the opportunity to show the people of our area that we really do love them, and even when they're drunk as a skunk we'll still not disrespect them. Maybe that's why people were so much nicer to us on Sunday....who knows?

I thank yall for the concern over my illness, but on the whole I've pretty much shrugged the thing off. I'm quite thankful that Madagascar is not sharing in on the over 100° June weather back home. Instead, we are going in the exact opposite direction. I usually wear sweaters and jackets out to work every day now, and I'm often shivering in the mornings and nights. This past week went really well. I was still sick on Monday and Tuesday, but from Wednesday on me and Elder Nash went after it. On that note, btw, Elder Nash and I are still together making us the longest standing companionship of the moment in the whole mission.

Prayin' for ya.
Well that's about all the time I have for today. I love you guys so much and pray for you constantly. The Church is true! Woo!

Love,
Elder Cryer

2011-06-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Woo-wee those were some cute little pictures of the youngins' and folk (you guys being the folk, of course). They have gotten so big! Ella and the bunch are probably all going to be scared of me when they see me again. Joshua is no doubt going to be screaming...sigh. Maybe Ella will kinda remember me in some way, but probably not. They'll all be thinking 'Who is this skinny guy that kinda looks like my mom? And smells like rice?! I hate him.' And then they shall spit upon me ;P, I can see it now. Oh well. Can't wait to see those little-ones anyways.

This week was sick. As in, I had the flu this week and it kept me in bed from last Monday night all the way until Thursday. I tried to move around and go do some errands or work, and each time I was batted down by the flu. Today we are going to the mission home after emailing and it'll be time to get some heavenly advice from the mission president's wife. I've already been taking medications that are supposed to treat the symptoms of the flu, but they have done nothing. Maybe I don't even have the flu but instead some sort of bacterial infection. IDK. I may be going to the doctor soon, but I personally feel like this might be a pointless move. The health care here is tough; often you end up just paying a bunch of ariary to these doctors who proceed to do nothing. Oh well. In a couple of days I'll be willing to do anything in the world to get this illness off my back.

In other news we finally moved houses. The house we are in is in a place called Anjanahary, though the specific location is almost impossible to describe to taxi-drivers. The area around our house is priviledged, providing us with some absolutely delicious sausage houses, bakeries, and quality rice-shacks. We have an absolutely beautiful view, looking out into the Tana valley and off into the mountains beyond. Apparently the guy who lives above us is a famous pop singer named Eziet. Cool...I guess. The house is pretty large and pretty cold - we blame the tile floors. There are a couple of problems with the house currently, mostly relating to plumbing and the inability to wash and dry our clothes. I've been wearing the same under-clothes for a couple of days now....hopefully these problems are solved soon.

We still had 15 investigators come to church yesterday, which made Elder Nash and I quite proud, but I still feel kinda like a failure for not being able to stand up to this flu. This is a little bit stressful, because we have many investigators who are suppossed to be baptized in the coming Saturdays - as in this Saturday - but Nash and I still have to wrap up all the lessons and what not.

I hope that this week ends up being much better than the last. I'll pray extra hard. Pray for me too!

Love,
Elder Cryer

Sign Language

2011-05-30T07:12:00.000-07:00

Dad, sorry to hear about yours and Brady's trials of surviving without Mom. I remember well my first week in country, when for the first time in my life I had to put more thought into my meals than just going to Taco Bell or buying some chicken breast at Walmart. Elder Horn and I went to the local Shoprite and did some shopping. As we were walking around, all of the different types of food felt so foreign to me that my mind kinda shut down and I decided that I had no idea what to buy. So I asked Elder Horn and he said that I should just buy some cereal or something. So, that first week I just ended up buying an excessive amount of corn-flakes and expensive, weird-tasting milk. I'm not gonna lie, it pretty much sucked.

We had some more baptisms this week, which is incredible as always. Things can get to you sometimes, so the baptisms that we have here are in some ways even more rewarding than baptisms I've had in other areas. Right after me and Elder Nash had finished baptizing our people, we were standing in a hall-way in between the font room and the restrooms and we shared a funny moment as we high-fived and had a mini-rejoicing. Elder Nash added, "Man this is what makes all the hard times worth it." Ahhh, so true. Those who were baptized are named Mahira, Cynthia, and Sania. These are all younger people that have really progressed with incredible rapidity in the gospel. We had a great turn out to the baptism and everyone was really excited to welcome in the new members. The best part of all, however, was to see the complete and starting changes of these people's countenances. From these young people, we have already started branching out to others in the families and neighborhoods. The work moves on.

Today transfers are coming out and everyone is ready to see just exactly what will happen. President Donnelly told all the Zone Leaders about a week ago that there were some major changes coming to the mission shortly. They are as follows: Zone Leaders would be companions with other Zone Leaders; Zone Leaders would be getting cars; and every companionship in the mission would be getting simple I-Pads to help in the visual aid department. These are all crazy and wild and new, and we're all waiting to see what will actually happen.

Being a District Leader is kinda like being a section leader in choir, or maybe even the senior member of a gang that has a lot of new jump-ins. In some ways it doesn't actually mean anything at all, but in others you find yourself beset with the all too-real mantle of leading someone, even if the number of these certain someones may be somewhat small. To drive this point home we had a District Leader training meeting this past week which brought a lot of very new things to the forefront of my mind. Things like doing more than just taking stats, than just doing baptismal interviews, than just conducting the weekly District meetings. At this point there are some tid-bits of leading people, in truth, and not just managing. The meeting we had was excellent and, leadership principles aside, highly uplifting.

A week and a half ago, after we had finished teaching English class at the church, Elder Collins and I were walking down the hall talking about the ends and outs of hypnotism (it's a long story lol). We were stopped in the hall be one very loving and wonderful brother named Jules. Jules is pretty famous in our mission because he is first, completely deaf, and second, completely awesome. He always greets all of the missionaries that he knows with a huge hug and smile. His testimony is pretty much second to none and you will never see him show a speck of sadness or depression. Frere Jules makes the most of everything he has in life. Everytime he meets up with someone new, he teaches them as much sign language as he can in whatever way he can. The first couple of things he usually does is to teach the new aquaintance "I love you" "I know the Church is true" "You are awesome" and the way to say the name of the church. If you didn't speak Malagasy than you'd have a difficult time learning the sing language, because he can only mouth words and make sounds in Malagasy. Anyways, he decided that I learned how to say the name of the church really quickly, so he would be coming to our Sacrement meeting so that I could translate for him....yikes.

When he arrived the next Sunday, the learning and tanslating started pretty quickly. I would have to write down words for him or mouth them for him so that he could read my lips, and then he'd teach them to me and Elder Nash. By the end of Sacrament meeting I was actually able to translate some pretty decently in-depth phrases without having to rely on Jules' lip reading abilities. During every song I would point at the words in the hymn book and Elder Nash and Jules would sign out all the words to the song. Before Sacrament I remember thinking it's gonna be a nightmare, and by the end Elder Nash and I were so pumped about learning more sign language and working with Jules a lot more.

Till next week...

Love,
Elder Cryer

I love these people

2011-05-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

This past week was really something special. There were a lot of very humorous times, some very frustrating ones, and even a few incredible ones that make up, in my mind, the vast majority of a good mission experience. I feel like the vast majority of the good memories come from the times that touch your spirit the most.

One of the most crazy things that has ever happened to me on my mission occurred just this week. As Elder Nash and I were setting up an appointment with one of our investigators, who is actually getting baptized this week, a man shouted at us in Malagasy, "Hey you better get out of here right now! You guys are baby-stealers! Get out of here!" And then he repeated this sentiment in English, which was pretty strange. The guy I was talking to said that this guy was way drunk and that we should probably get out of there. So we told them goodbye and started walking swiftly away towards one of our favorite stores, because the guy was actually coming after us. I turned around when we were almost at the store to see that this same drunk man was now following us, shouting obscenities in English, being followed by a large crowd of on-lookers. As soon as I saw this, I knew we were in for some some fun.

Stopping us outside of the store, the man came right up to within 6 inches of my face, screaming his head off about how we were baby-stealers and that we weren't wanted in Madagascar anymore. He raged that the Malagasy people weren't going to be screwed around with like us Americans apparently had in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then he began shouting about the death of Bin Laden, saying that he wouldn't let the same thing happen here. After he said that our God wasn't wanted here, and that the Malagasy people already have their own god, I began wondering what had driven this man to such extremes. I now understand that he was a Muslim who was very disgruntled about the death of Bin Laden. The entire time he was screaming at us, a huge crowd gathered to see what all the racket was, and we just kept our faces straight not saying anything.

When he was done he stormed off, wobbling all over the place. Then the guy fell straight down on his face on top of a crowd of children. He just straight up dropped! The entire crowd died with laughter. Interesting eh?

Last Friday we were teaching a family at the house of one of my favorite members in Madagascar, Sr Silvy, and we had just begun talking about baptism. The Spirit was so strong and the non-members in the room all expressed their want to be baptized, but also expressed some of their concerns about it. All of them were resolved, and when the last person had given a comment, their was a short pause to let everone reflect upon what we had just talked about. It was at this time that Sr Silvy turned to the mother of the investigator family and said, "Hey girl, you can't get baptized if you're still chewing tobacco, like we did last time we joined a church." Everyone had a good laugh at this and we discovered that the two women's relationship had originally been started when they were investigating another church. That was just a funny/spiritual moment that my area seems to be full of ;D.

On Sunday we had a huge amount of investigators come to Sacrament Meeting. Most of those who came were first-timers whom we had taught for a very long time before that. This was a tremendous joy to finally see all of our work finally paying off. One of those who came was named Daniel. Daniel is an extremely humble man, in both character and circumstance. His wife died about two years ago and since then he has been stuck in a pretty huge rut. No real work to speak off, and no real purpose to his life until now that he's found the gospel. Anyways, him and his little girl came to church yesterday after walking for some 40-50 minutes through the city streets and muddy rice-paddy paths. The most touching part of all of this is that he and his little girl had no shoes on their feet at all. Daniel had borrowed a dirty white-shirt from one of his friends and the rest of his daily outfit was exactly the same...because he has no other clothes. And did this wonderful man show even a moment of embarrassment at his poor state? Even as others come in designer clothes and cars? Not for even a moment.

I love that man, and I love these people. These last five months are going to be the best, and the quickest. Therefore, some of the saddest. It will really be a major cut in my life to leave these people.

This past week Elder Nash and I have worked as hard as we could to really get the work moving here in Ankorandrano. A new goal we have in the mission is to contact 80 people per day as we are going out and working. This comes to forty contacts a missionary, and lemme tell ya, it works amazingly! We were only able to do it and actually keep count for one day this week, because we passed out every single one of our contact cards on that day. But for all the rest of the days in the week we had people coming up to us on the streets and asking us for the invitations to church, or just simply wanting to talk to us. This new method of finding builds up the friendship and trust that the people of an area have with the missionaries. So now our schedule is completely one hundred percent full and we plan on printing out upwards of 500 contact cards/invitations in this coming week.

I love you guys and pray for you. Miss ya.
Elder Cryer

2011-05-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week for us. To begin, every Wednesday we teach English at the church for about fifty people from all sorts of different areas in Tana. Some of them are members, but most of them are not. I wish I had some kind of training in teaching English before I came here, but I just make do with what I know...which sure isn't much! If anyone has any advice for me, aka Clarissa, then they should feel free to send that on over ;P.

As we were waiting for a time to start at one of our very diligent investigators' houses, the conversation was running to an end and we just had nothing to do. Everyone was just starting to look around akwardly, but there was some music playing softly from one of the patched up radios in the house, so I just started to bobbing my head to the tunes, searching for something to say. A couple of the kids in the room started laughing at the vazaha dancing. It was way fun and totally broke the ice nicely. I taught them some of my infamous stake-dance moves and Nash and I did a freakin-sweet impression of some Malagasy dance maneuvers. I am always going to be of the opinion that when in doubt, just doing a little jig might do the trick.

So we found an absolutely incredible new family this week (along with other families, of course) that in my opinion has some real promise. Nash and I were hoping to find the miracle of some mature men that might have huge families that would want to receive the gospel. As we were walking along, I heard a "Bonjour!" ringing from one of the surrounding yards. I looked around for a second, trying to find the person who had said it, when they shouted "Bonjour" again. We yelled manahoana back and went and talked to them. The owner of the surrounding houses and the leader of the clan was named Selestin. His family just so happened to be huge, receptive to the message, and ready to act upon it! They understood everything we had to teach them, felt the Spirit at the revealing of restored truths, and even asked deep questions that showed how much they understood. By the end of the lesson the entire neighborhood had crowded into the floorless hut and the Spirit was so strong. To be true, we only taught them about how God is our loving Father in Heaven and about the importance of Families, but you could tell that the things we talked upon them definitely impressed them intensely.

I love finding people like that and teaching lessons that are similarly spiritually-charged. When the Lord promises to show His elect if you go forward with faith, then I know that He will fulfill His promise.

We ended up getting dogged a lot this past week, but still seemed to pull off a good showing stat-wise. Not like that matters...at all! But we do have to report the stats so I still have to give them some kind of weight, ya know?

Dad, your Mother's Day talk made me emotional. The news about Guy the Dog is very sad. Still praying for you guys. And I got the package! All of its contents are already gone, but it was super fantastic.

Love,
Elder Cryer

2011-05-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

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

"I know that God taught me"

2011-05-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a good week. One especially fantastic thing which occurred this week was when I saw our young small pox friend...alive! Me and Elder McIntire were on splits and teaching a brand-new group of people in an area which we have just started tracting in. About half-way through the time we saw a little boy that had a somewhat different looking nose - as if it was just recently slimming down after an extended period of time being swollen up - and his scalp looked odd. It was then that I realized I was looking at the small boy which I had blessed back two weeks ago. It appeared that the blisters had spread to cover his entire head - minus his face - and then were stopped, there was a line where the healing had begun. The blisters were scabbing and falling off and his head looked horrible, though considerably better. It definitely seems like there will be some scarring on his scalp, but at least he is alive. I would assume that he got the vaccine or something, which can do incredible amounts of good if received soon after the virus starts it work. The one thing we did counsel them to do was to go to the hospital as fast as possible, borrowing whatever money they needed to do it. Seems like that and a hefty boost from God have been at work.

Me and Elder Nash did try to express our affinity for performing by serenading to some random dude on the highway. The way it started was by the man asking us where we were going. We said that we were heading to Andravohangy Amboniny - he asked if we were going to take a taxi, we said yes. He shook his head knowingly, as if having some sort of a private joke in his head. I then said jokingly in English, "Well are you gonna loan us your magic-carpet or something?" Going on right with the beat, Elder Nash started into "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. Without questioning what was going on, I joined him for the next line, "shining, simmering, splendid." Then we broke into the whole song, going together till Jasmin's part came up, and then I went on a solo while Nash did an interpretive dance routine and chimed in with the corresponding back-up for Aladdin's part. The man had no idea what we were saying, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway. Eat your heart out "Book of Mormon: The Musical".

This past Saturday we had the baptism of Frere Elie, Souer Hiando, and Souer Holy. The wedding of Sr Holy did precede the baptism and then Elder Nash and I spent the vast majority of our time outside of teaching appointments preparing for the baptism the coming Saturday. In stark contrast to the last time we had a baptism in Ankorandrano, there were loads of members that showed up to give their support and well wishes. We had a full house - standing room only. I was able to do the baptism of Fr Elie, so that had a pretty special meaning for me. Both Frere Elie and Sr Holy gave really excellent, mature testimonies towards the end of the baptism. The ten year old Sr Hiando gave a short, funny, and quite frank one. In all, the meat of it encompassed just one sentence, "I know that God taught me, and not the missionaries." Well said! Those are certainly the things I like to hear.

I wasn't able to see them all receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost because I was off in another companionship's ward giving someone an interview for baptism.

This past week was really excellent for the work. Over twenty new investigators were found and that same number ended up coming to church. This is easily the largest number of investigators I've ever had in any of my Tana areas. 20+ was somewhat normal for my area, Ambohimena, in Antsirabe. For the entire past two months that I've spent in Ankorandrano we've been trying to attain province like stats here in one of the harder down-town areas. Now we only have to convert these things into baptisms!

Well anyways, I'm out of things to say. Most missionaries find that as they start moving towards the end of their missions there just seems to be less and less to write about.
Anyways, love you paps, love you mum. Prayin' for ya.
Elder Cryer

Happy news today - it is always a good day when international terrorism takes a major hit such as that. Hip-hip-hooray.

Two Stories

2011-04-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

Goodness gracious it is strange that I only have about six months left until I go back to the old lone star state. One of the most common phrases that missionaries who are getting ready to go home say is that it didn't seem like two years. And I can attest to that! In no way shape or form does it feel like I've been here for a year and a half. I wish I would have known from the beginning that two years back home does not in fact equal two years on the mission. I'd say it equals about a year. My advice to missionaries who are preparing to go out is this: don't worry about the time. Serve your mission as best you can, not thinking about the homecoming which to you seems like will never arrive. Just give it all you got, and by the time you remember that there is indeed a homecoming waiting for you, you'll be close to the end.

Anyways, this week was really somethin' special. So many things happened that I literally have not the time to write about it all. If I was more diligent about writing in my journal then maybe I could recount all of these things to you, but I only have time for two stories.

We were waiting on a somewhat elderly woman to begin a time with a family that lives close to a neighborhood practically full of members. We were all sitting around, making small talk to pass the time until the grandmother of the family would arrive. Finally I saw her face out of one of the small holes in the wall that act as 'windows' for the hut. I called to her and asked if she would be able to attend our appointment. She said that she was on her way, but first she'd have to put away all of her chickens and wares from the day. I volunteered us and the rest of the people in the house to helping her out for a bit. Scampering, running, and shuffling along, the many varied members of our little group went outside and began the chicken hunt.

All of the chickens had gotten out of their pens and were heading for the hills! Everyone spread out and was chasing after them, trying to herd them back to their outside pens and then transfer them to the house. Jumping, and diving, the chickens flew around the road, trying to evade us. The whole neighborhood was outside at the moment, so it was really quite to show to see all these people running around with a couple of gangly white-guys-running-like-chickens-with-their-heads-cut-off - pun intended. My tactic was to chase the chickens to the shore of the poo-river which runs through our area and leap at them before they got over their fear of water and went for a swim. I was uniformly unsuccessful in my attempts. I swear that some of those chickens were really ninjas disguised as poultry. I've never seen a feathered-friend move so fast on land. After a short and crazy period of time, we had conquered all of the chickens but three. Seeing that these guys were by far the most skillful of all, we split up into three main groups and went after 'em.

Somehow, despite our miserable efforts at catching the chickens before, Elder Nash and I ended up in a group by ourselves. Using the tactic which had already proved ineffective before - so why we used it again I have no idea - we chased the d'Artagnan of the three musketeers to the shore of the river once more. Like a raptor he stooped and ran, hurdling children, baskets, and white guys. Finally though, we had him cornered. Standing on the edge of a of a perilous ledge, a full six feet above the rushing waters of the poo river, the roue had met his match. On one side was the river, the death that awaited him there. On his right was the battle-proven Elder Nash, his sweet bag from Mexico swaying at his side, word of his chicken-catching fame having already spread to even the ears of this young, fool-hardy d'Artagnan. And on his left was the fumbling, red-faced-as-a-tomato Elder Cryer.

The chicken faked to the right, then to the left, side-flipping over the swiping hands of Elder Nash. Having thrown himself a bit too wildly, he hovered out over the thundering waves, beating his wings ferociously. Finally pulling himself around and back to the ledge, the trap had been laid, set, and sprung. Waiting for his lofty return were the grasping, yet patient hands of one Elder Cryer.

The next story I have to share it most certainly not one of adventure, intrigue, or happiness. Walking back from one of our later appointments and going to our final lesson of the day, we were stopped in a very dark alleyway by a man and a little boy. The man called out to us, begging us to heal the boy for his head was hurting very badly. I asked what the problem was and the man said, "His head is exploding." Alarmed, I pulled out our cell phone and shined it over the boys scalp. What I saw shocked me and prompted me to take the man and boy with us to a place that had more light. As we walked towards a lamp that lit up a railroad track, I asked the man if the boy had a severe sun-burn. He said no and began the describe how the illness had come about. Finally standing in the lighted area, we were able to give the boys head a closer inspection. In our minds at least - we saw what looked to be a pox. I talked with the parents about how the illness was acting in the boys body, a frightening virus.

After seeing the boys blisters and lesions under our cell-phone light, I instantly began praying for inspiration on what we should do. The Spirit very srongly seemed clear - a blessing of comfort and peace for the boy and the family as a whole seemed like the best thing. After talking with the people for some time we told the family that we would bless the boy, we were just going to give a folded arms-type blessing, but then Elder Nash felt strongly that I should put my hands on the sides of the boy's shoulders. Feeling the secure nudge from the Spirit to follow his guidance, I did it. What followed was one of the most Spirit-filled blessings I've ever personally heard or given, and also the saddest. I almost began to cry during the blessing. The Lord assured them that everything would be alright, and that whatever was to come was indeed the Lord's will. Then I blessed him that he would feel no pain and suffering as the coming events related to his illness unfolded in his life. And that was that.

Elder Nash and I are uncertain about the state of the boy and his family, and even his entire neighborhood, but we are not filled with hope. We just keep moving on and telling everyone in our area to wash their hands, stay clean. Elder Nash and I are totally ok and have not contracted a virus and have both gotten our immunizations.

Well, sorry to end this email on such a sad note. I feel like the thing we should take from this is the fact that we are in the Lord's hands. That boy was only six years old, so I know he could not have placed himself in the path of such a horrible trial by his own actions. Little children are swallowed up in the Atonement of Jesus Christ and are sinless. Whatever happens to us is the Lord's will. If you are doing what God has asked you to do, then there is never any need to fear or despair. Maybe it won't be comfortable, maybe it won't be what you wanted to happen, and you may not know the reason for it.

I'm sure next week will prove to be pretty plain and I'll have nothing to write but my testimony next Monday.

Anyways, it was fantastic to hear from you and I can't wait to talk to you
guys on Mother's Day. Next week I'll be sure to give you all of the
information for the call.

I love you guys and pray for you often. Stay safe...
Sincerely,
Elder Cryer

Moments in Mada

2011-04-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

Gimme some prayers

2011-04-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

As of right now the work is going really great here in Ankoranadrano. There are about 6 baptisms that are coming up this next Saturday, so we have now entered the rush to get everyone ready set and geared up for the baptismal interview. Two of the people have been learning for some time, but the other four have only been learning from the missionaries for a little over a month. They've been diligently coming to church for the entire time we've known them, and their baptismal date which had originally been set back when they first started learning draws near. I feel sure that they will be fine and that everything will work out.

This Saturday we have a Ward Missionary activity. We are planning on the centerpiece being a viewing of the Restoration video, which was translated by missionaries into Malagasy. There will be a spiritual thought from the Bishop, a game and lesson-type thing from us, and then some snacky-type food provided by the ward. It should be quite the little get-together, and we are hoping for a huge out-pouring of support by the ward. Our biggest hope is that this outpouring of support will be manifested in the form of many referrals. And maybe even promises of some delicious dinner-appointments...that'd be ok too.

This week a way awesome thing happened to us. We went out tracting and contacting people with one sister in the ward named Soeur Tina. She and her husband are have been called on a mini-couple mission by the ward. Anyways, on Friday we went out for an hour with her. Our original plan was for us to just try to contact diligent investigators that had fallen through the cracks in the numerous changes of missionaries. As we were walking towards our appointments a couple of people started saying hi and asking us where we were going. We jumped at the opportunity to invite them to church and before long had gathered the entire surrounding neighborhood around us. I seriously felt like one of those old-time missionaries that started the work in England all those years ago. Maybe it was because we were with a Malagasy, or maybe it is because she - the Malagasy - was with some vazahas, or maybe we just got really really lucky; either way every single person at that gathering was glued to us and wanted to learn more. We talked a little bit about the church and its teachings, but we mostly just invited them to church for the following Sunday. We had originally started out the day with two fat stacks of invitations, but by the end of our street meeting we had handed all of them out! This Wednesday and Sunday we are going back to try and teach anyone who will let us in, which we hope will be a lot. Pray for us!

In conclusion, I got my package yesterday! And it was AWESOME!!! The candy was absolutely exquisite - though it did make me sick - and I think you'll be happy to know that I showed some self-restraint by not going ahead and eating the entire load on my first go. Now I can portion my chocolates out for a few very happy weeks to come :D. Both me and Elder Nash have already read the entire article about Madagascar from National Geographic. There were alot of things which I have personally seen, so that was neat. But there were also tons of things which I have not even come close to experiencing: Baobabs, rainforests, lemur-stew, and total ambanivohitra (countryside) life were extremely interesting to see. Thanks again mama.

This week was pretty fantastic as we were able to see all of General Conference...finally. Conference was absolutely fabulous. We got to watch all but one of the sessions in English, so that was for sure a major improvement over 6 months ago. And besides, I was able to understand the one Malagasy session pretty well.

Well I love you all super much and pray for you guys. Wish me luck this next week...and gimme some prayers...Looking forward to possibly eating some tasty lemur stew someday after they recently tasted me.

Elder Cryer

Bonjour

2011-04-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

This week was a slow one. Our Tuesday was pretty jam packed full of appointments and new investigators, so we figured that the whole rest of our week would be the same. Sadly, it was not at all. My companion came down with some sort of a mystery illness Wednesday morning that had him bed-ridden for two days. He was majorly suffering from this strange sort of stomach pain that was like a "spiky ball of pain". Ouch! For pretty much the entire week we didn't know what was inflicting him - turns out, he was experiencing an especially violent form of respiratory infection. In the past week we were only able to work for about three days. We had quite a few people come to church, though.

As we were walking from place to place one day, we had an unexpected surprise that brightened our day. Driving past us in a large, highly guarded, convoy was a professional soccer team from France. I guess that they were excited to see some other white people other than their selves - which is a highly unusual sight in this country - so they all said "hi" and "bonjour" to us. How nice! I'm so used to people saying bonjour with a cheerful little - sarcasm, of course - "white guy". The poorer the areas we go to, the more people comment about our whiteness. They mean no harm by saying "white guy" to us; it is just that they have really never seen a white person before in their lives. They love to talk to us and learn from us and socialize with us, so I know it isn't said in any kind of a mean spirit. Anyways, that was way cool to get a hello from a pro soccer team :D.

Later that day we were trying to get home by taxi, but also trying to catch a free ride from a passer-by. We had our thumbs stuck out, hoping to get some charity filled soul to pick us up. On our second or third try a really beautiful SUV pulled over to the side and rolled down their window. And what do you know? French people had come to our rescue again! But wait...it gets better. They rolled down their window, probably expecting to see some tired backpacking tourists from their own homeland. Instead, they hit the accelerator as soon as they realized it was a couple of missionaries. O the joys. You get all sorts of fun experiences.

I gave my companion a blessing last Saturday, went with him to the doctor, acted as interpreter for the whole encounter, and then gave a 20 minute talk on Sunday about missionary work. Frere Hery, the 1st Counselor, called me late Saturday night and told me about the assignment. I'm pretty used to talking and preaching at this point. I feel like the talk went well, or at least like someone understood the general idea of what I was trying to get across. Afterwards we had a flood of help come from all the members in the ward.

The work is moving along well here. I love and miss you guys. Pray for you madrakariva.

Havin' a fabulous time,
Elder Cryer

44 Baptism-Day

2011-04-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

Adriakaiky

2011-04-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

Adriakaiky! I spent so long on this email to you guys last week, so to find out that it didn't even send was a huge bummer. I saw the email from gmail this morning saying that the earthlink server had rejected my email because the file size was too big - aka -, too many pictures of lemurs :'< . So today you guys will be getting two emails from me; hope that makes up for last week. I edited the pictures out. And here it is:

News this week: Someone named their son after me. I can't remember all the other Malagasy names in the boys title, but his first name is "Matthew." This is seriously one of the biggest honors I'll ever have! The boy is the grandson of my favorite investigators in Sabotsy Namehana, Julian. I think I've already told you about him. Anyways, a few weeks back he had told me and Elder Ortiz that he was going to get his daughter to name her son after me, but I totally thought it was only a joke. And then last week the baby is born and Elder Ortiz texts me with the crazy news! Holy cow was I blown away.

Half way through last week we were on our way to a time with a lady who is getting baptized this Saturday named Abeline. We were stopped by her sister on the path, saying that Abeline was at the home of Frere Toié because his father had just died earlier that morning! So we trooped on over there to help with anything that could be helped with, and mostly because the Spirit directed us that way, just in time to attend the viewing ceremony. I described one of these ceremonies back in when I was in Antsirabe. We didn't know a single person in the visiting group of respect-payers, but we stood with them solemnly anyways, consoling the family members to not be sad anymore. In the end we ended up sharing a spiritual thought with those of the family who were members, or at least affiliated themselves with the church. The spiritual thought was obviously picked out by God, perfect for the situation. I forget the exact verse number. Anyways, it was about paradise and the resurrection and stuff. The Spirit was so powerful during that time, and I feel positive that everyone left strengthened and bettered for the exchange. They were still sad, but not in a way that was counter-productive and paralyzing. I love missionary work. Sometimes you get to use your calling in a different way than is normally thought of, like comforting a family in need.

Other unusual opportunity presented itself when Elder Nash and I broke up a domestic violence dispute that was way out of hand by the time we arrived. I won't go into the circumstances of the situation, as they are sad. Regardless, I can affirmatively say that the Spirit lead us to the right places at the right times to prevent more harm from being inflicted and sustained. Follow the Spirit! That's what I'll say about that one.

BTW the reason I am emailing so late in the day is that we went to a lemur park this morning. That's right, a bonafide lemur park! The lemurs were on the whole pretty nice, though completely wild. They had had little experience with people before, so it was pretty difficult to coax them in with endless bananas and peanuts. One of them was probably sent by Satan himself to give us rabies and other wicked monkey diseases. This especially ratsy fanahy (evil spirited) one bit the heck out of my hand and arm! That's right; he bit me! Twice! This same especially mean male lemur also bit Elder Nash twice. Once, horribley on the hand, and the second time a seriously vicious attack on his right nipple. It was horrible and awesome to behold. On the whole, it was the best P-Day I've ever had. Seriously.

Well I'll talk to you guys more next week. Praying for you...Right now I'm off to go play frisbee.

Refaveoa!

Are you and Brady still feeling unwell? I'd imagine that the heaviest hitting part of the virus has probably disappeared by now, but all those stories still worry me. I'll give some extra special prayers for you lovely people. Don't be gettin' sick or nothin no more before I get home! I only got seven months left woman! Hold on!!!

Don't Stop Believin'

2011-04-04T09:15:00.001-07:00

This week was interesting, productive, and full of its interesting challenges. One of which came in the form of an unclothed screaming woman who blockaded us on our way to a baptism last Saturday. I really don't know why she had stripped her shirt off and gone running amuck, but it was inconveniencing us for sure. I was determined to keep following our original path down the road - much to the dismay of Elder Nash, as she was waving her old....bosom, but then she crossed to our side of the road, directly in front of us. She seemed like she would like nothing more than to assault a couple of white boys at the time, so we promptly ran away and went down the street by means of a side souvenir market.

Coming out on the other side of the market, we realized that the crazy lady had followed our same path and was then throwing rotten fruit, trash, and rocks at the crowds of people who were coming in for a look. People were running every which way, trying to get away - I think she was actually a witch. We came out of the market and she was throwing big rocks at the ground, shouting profanities at the surrounding people. Then a poor unsuspecting woman who just so happened to walking down the wrong part of the sidewalk at the wrong time bumped into her. The hag began to strangle her - of course - before she was interrupted by a man carrying a leafy stick. The guy took over. It was perhaps one of the strangest things I've ever seen in my entire life. Ahhh, Madagascar; I wouldn't have it any other way :).

Once we actually got to the church, we had to wait a couple of hours for everyone that we needed for the baptism to show up. The baptism was only attended by a small group of women and children - six in all, not including the missionaries - and it was a pretty humble little gathering on the whole, somehow it missed being announced in church. The missionaries in Mahamasina had down a baptism service just thirty minutes before us, and the water was straight brown. But baptize we did. The water was dirty because they had been forced to fill up the font with water from the emergency fire-hose. I had to conduct the meeting.

On the whole, the meeting still proceeded well until the slightly awkward time of waiting for the baptizees and baptizers to change back into dry clothes. Usually there is music provided in the form of hymns or soft interlude-type music, and sometimes even a short testimony meeting fills the time. But our pianist was one of the ones in the bathroom changing, and we didn't have any where close to enough people to have a testimony meeting. So...I tried my hand at the piano. I sure gave it a shot. 'Silent Night' 'High On the Mountain Top' and even 'Don't Stop Believin'. I don't think that being a pianist is going to be in my field of career choices any time soon.

Overall the baptism was humble - as I've already said - but Spirit filled. The two people who got baptized were named Soeur Abeline and Soeur Tania. I've only known them for a small period of time, but the are both very wonderful spirits and definitely some of God's elect that have been found again here on the Earth. The work of the Lord moves on here in Akorandrano.

On Sunday I had to teach the Gospel Essentials class. After church we had a giant planning session with the Ward Council, where we convinced the ward that we are actually diligent missionaries. It seems like they are behind us now as they immediately gave us a few referrals and promised many more. Big activities with a missionary purpose in mind have been planned and everyone just seems more excited about getting into the work with us.

I know that a ward working by itself without missionaries or missionaries working without the ward are very pathetic and useless in accomplishing the Lord's work. In some of my past areas, there have been differing levels of member utilization; all based pretty much upon the decisions of the individual people. But, in those areas the landscape - I use the word literally - was more forgiving than here. Countryside will almost always be more successful than downtown. In down-town I am however, therefore the ward and its members absolutely must be utilized to their fullest extent here. There is no other way for us. I can bear testimony that the Lord's way
is for each and every member in this church, be they full-time missionaries or not, to fulfill the responsibilities which were first given them when they received the possibility of their salvation. If we sit around twiddling our thumbs, watching our fellow man die in spiritual unbelief then we are condemning ourselves with them.

How could we keep this to ourselves? If we have love for those around us, then we have a charity-born responsibility to share the gospel. Even if we don't have love for them then we should get us some love or do our duty anyways! Try first, work first, even if you haven't caught the vision yet; it'll come.

Well, I love you guys so much. I miss you mucho and pray for you always.

Till next time,
Elder Cryer

On the road again

2011-03-31T20:08:00.000-07:00

Under the rainbow in the Mad Ant

2011-03-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

Hoo-raa

2011-03-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

First in email, I suppose I'll tell you about my new companion, area and general surroundings. My new companion is named Elder Nash and he is from Newcastle, California. We like pretty much the same things and he is pretty chill and awesome so we make a good match. I wonder if we'll be riding out the next 8 months in Akorandrano with Elder Nash. O ya, and he's about a million times better at Malagasy than me when I had been in country for a month.

My new area is called Akorandrano and it is right in the middle of the smelly, amazing, weird, noisy, fascinating city of Antananarivo. For the entire portion of my mission that I have spent in Tana, I have spent the majority of my p-days in this area, which is kind of equilibrium-shifting. I love this area. There are some of the richest people in Madagascar here and some of the poorest. The ward here is called Tana 1st and it is the original unit organized in the country in 1992. The ward is stable, all the major callings are filled, everything runs smoothly and the members help us a lot with missionary work.

My house is awful. I am not even joking. We rent out the second floor of an apt. and we deal constsantly with ruckus all around us. The excellent news is that this house will soon be closed to any and all missionaries. One of the wonderful features of this area is the amount of tracting we do to fill up the schedule. I have learned that amazing things can happen when we tract. We've had some pretty interesting experiences, sometimes crazy, but sometimes people that are so ready to receive the gospel.

One of our most interesting experiences here came when we went to a return appt. with what we thought was an interested man. Approaching the door, I called in my usual-I-am-here-let-me-in voice, "Ody O!" Nothing happened at first, no one came to the door. Both doors were open so we knew that someone was there. After calling "Ody O!" a second time, I notice a rustling behind these curtains covering the door of what I assumed was the kitchen. Pulling the curtain back to see what was going on, I saw a sight I will never forget. The man was in the process of climbing under the kitchen table to hide from us. I closed the curtain, told Elder Nash and we had a good laugh. The man also laughed and said he was praying AND cleaning the underside of the kitchen table at the same time. Who doesn't pray while cleaning? You'd be a fool not to.

I am short on time at the moment, so the next story will have to be greatly condensed. A lady approached us on the street and asked us to come to her house and pray for her injured husband. Of course we went right away and gave the man a blessing of healing and together a lesson about faith and priesthood power. They are taking the lessons now and they are experiencing a miracle of the Savior in their hearts.

I love you guys so much and pray for you constantly. The Church is true! Hoo-raa

Elder Cryer

Christmas 2010 and Island Conference

2011-03-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Flash floods and fainting

2011-03-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

So many things have happened this week that it feels like I haven't emailed in a month. Before transfers, I had to find a mini and prepare the area for the transfer which would be taking place soon. So me and Rado, the brother of Souer Helisoa, a return missionary, visited every single person in our teaching pool and told them to get ready for the new missionaries. We encouraged them to continue forward in diligence, because it might be a little while before the new missionaries would get around to visiting them.

We told one of our newest recent converts that Elder Slater and I both would be leaving...she passed out instantly! We had to pick her up and put her in bed - fear not for I was only in a supporting role. I made Rado do all of the actual carrying because I didn't want to get into any sort of a sticky situation -, then we asked people to watch over her until she came to once more. After that, we bolted to avoid any awkward questioning which we could possibly get from suspicious neighbors. Admittedly, I would wonder too, if some dudes from a weird church caused a girl to pass out.

At one point we were walking down a path, moving towards our next appointment when we heard the sounds of rain coming down in the distance. We both turned around at the sound, looked at each other, and then said "mihazikazà (run)!" So we took off down the path, trying to get inside before the rain caught us. We were about a hundred yards from our next time when the onslaught reached us. As soon as the storm hit us we were completely engulfed. Running under the protection of a tin roof that was outside of an epicerie/trano vato/snack shop, we decided to try and wait out the worst of the rain. Little did we know that the worst was to come.

I had never actually been in a flash-flood situation before that rain-storm. Within five minutes, the entire path was washed away in the flood which came out of literally nowhere. Withing ten minutes we were forced to climb onto a ledge outside of the epicerie to escape the rising water. Within 12 minutes the waves were lapping at our ankles! At that point, we were sure that we were goners and had resigned ourselves to a very wet end to our short lives. Fortunately, as floods can flash in, they can also sometimes flash out. A few minutes after the worst of the storm, the rain eased off and the water level had descended dramatically....we continued on our ways.

After transfers on Thursday, I left my new area of Akorandrano and went back to Sabotsy Namehana to help the new missionaries get used to the area. There is a lot of people that are ready to be baptized and we didn't want them to fall through the cracks. So I only just started working in my new area yesterday. So far it seems cool. From what I hear, the ward will reward hard-working, enthusiastic missionaries with loads of referrals and daily dinner apppointments. Sounds like a blast! My new companion is awesome.

When I came to my new area I also became District Leader. This past Sunday we had the Tana stake split and a stake conference. Some from the First Quruom of the Seventy showed up for the event, namely Elder Renlund and Elder Mkabelah. The conference went well, and the next day we were able to take part in a Zone conference with Elder Relund doing training with us. Before the conference for everyone started the District Leaders, APs, and Zone Leaders got to have a leadership training meeting with President Donnelly and Elder Renlund. When I walked into the room to see Elder Renlund at the table, I almost had a heart-attack right then and there. I've talked to a Seventy before, but never had the opportunity to ask him questions and answer questions from him. I'm positive that for me and all of the other elders that were there, it was an incredible experience.

That is pretty horrible news about the earthquake in Japan.

I miss you guys and pray for you often.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Catching up with some pictures from Mada

2011-03-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

Faith on our little island

2011-03-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

Thank you for the package! It was wanting of any types of candy - a fact which I took in stride - but it did contain some really incredible little tidbits as well as homey odds and ends. Reading the calendar that actually has my going home date inside of it was something special and very weird. Elder Horn, my mission Dad, is going home this week - everything is flying too fast! I am currently wearing the CTR ring on my right pinkie. The books, posters, sweater, and key chains are all fabulous. Thank you :D.

Our over-all goal this year in baptisms is at this time 2045. Just in case you were wondering, this is huge! Just two years ago we only got 725 baptisms, and last year we only got 1200 baptisms, so this is a monumental jump from past goals. And ya know what the craziest thing is? We are currently holding onto where we are supposed to be in the progression towards completion of the goal. Here in Sabotsy Namehana we have gotten 8 baptisms, but in a couple of the provinces there are areas who have gotten over 20 in just two months! I'm no expert, so I won't be saying here what has been done differently now than before to cause this success, but I will say that it is pretty awesome to be a part of.

For me, however, and for other areas which I have seen, I can say that a major credit to the success has just been the simple belief in miracles that come through living, breathing faith. I am a firm believer in the scripture in James which goes "Faith without works is dead." The miracle-type of faith is only present when our works are of true worth and actually fruitful. If a person has real, genuine faith, then he will have a hope of his gaining salvation through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We can only have this hope if we are obedient to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. Our faith must be shown and sustained by our works if it is ever to do anything important. Let us continue to follow the counsel of Paul in
this, however, and not base worth upon our works or the works of another lest we be lead unto boasting of our own strengths.

Living faith is practically the most needed virtue. Satan will fail in the face of faith on our little island on the Indian Ocean.

I love you all and pray for you. Miss you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Cryer

Best Things First

2011-03-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

All week was a preparation rush for the baptisms on Saturday. We worked ourselves ragged making sure everything was ready. Reviewing, reviewing, reviewing, teaching teaching, teaching, collecting, collecting, collecting information. By the time I and Elder Ravelomahefa went on splits last Friday, all the of the baptizees were fit as a fiddle and passed with flying colors. And lemme just say, that was the relief of the year so far.

Saturday went fabulously. Like clockwork, the right people came to fill their positions and the baptizees came. The talks were short, but sweet. Both I and Elder Slater took some dips in the water to get this thing done, and it was extremely satisfying. Five there were that day, five who went into the waters of baptism and emerged as new men and women. It was so fantastic to see everyone have the lines of pure sincerity and real intent marking their features as they climbed into the portable font. I can honestly say, without reservation, that these people are golden. They'll endure to the end, of this I am sure. Afterwards all of the baptizes bore their testimonies and it was touching. Frere Joel and Souer Suzanne gave incredible testimonies that really showed the depth of their conversions. Jessica (an 11 year old boy) and Pierre were as far as I could tell, extremely nervous, and Hiantra got up there and praised the Lord like it was no tomorrow, gave a stirring testimony, and then had us all pray. It was different, but heart-felt, making it perfectly A-O-K.

The next day, both I and Elder Slater did some of the confirmations of the Gift of the Holy Ghost. That wasn't my first rodeo, so I feel like I did fine. But I was so proud of Elder Slater for overcoming all fear and doubts and going for it. Despite the fact that it was mildly apparent that it was his first time giving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, he did a bang up job of it. Elder Lehnhardt even made a time of it by
giving Frere Joel - who, I think I may have already told you, is fantastic at English - the laying on of hands in English. The rest of Sunday went well with a couple of great soirées that left us on the verge of death by over-consumption of food.

So here I sit, a sunny morning on P-Day writing to you all. There was some other things I meant to write about, but it just doesn't seem to fit when you put the best things first.

Thanks Dad for sharing your cockroach story from your mission. Wow that story most definitely trumps mine! I remembered the cockroach in the pancakes story from you as I was writing my emails last week. But woowhee the fact that she was purposely doing it just to be a stinker and make you guys go away..the nerve...

This week I've become even more lazy about working out, but I've also been getting skinnier, suprisingly. Sometimes I feel absolutely wretched and the food I eat seems to be doing weird things to me. I'm fairly positive I have some kind of a worm in my stomach, eating up all of my food. In a couple more months, I'll go see Sister Donnelly for some anti-worm pills that should solve the problem fairly effeciently. Almost every missionary gets some worms from time to time in this land, so it is natural - worry not. My companion thinks my declining health is probably caused by the food I have been eating lately. When my money started running low this month, I had to start eating a lot of noddles and rice only. We figure that the change in diet could be responsible for me feeling crappy sometimes, as in the beggining of the month I always eat really well.

This all reminds me of the need - painful and frustrating as it often times can be - for affliction in suffering that must exist in this life for us to truly understand things like happiness and joy. I'm a firm believer that the Lord's way is the high way (or the low road, as Nephi says), therefore I know that pain is a catalyst for prayer, and prayer is a catalyst for godliness. So often to I see those who have not known the bitter trials of the real world, or those who simply try to insulate themselves with money, and I know that they do not have true happiness, for they have never experienced true pain with a heart turned to God. Many of us go through these sufferings whether we are rich, or poor, but only the humble one, the penitent one will be able to take from that experience good that lies in all things. Long story short, let us all count our blessings in order that we may see the incredible contrast in how few our trials really are, and how many blessings exist in our lives from our Maker on high.

I miss you guys and pray for you. Well that's all for today folks. Love you much, and miss you not a little.

Mandra-piaona,
Elder Cryer

From the highs to the lows

2011-02-21T05:29:00.000-08:00

This week we had a variety of things come our way. Getting a load of people ready to be baptized this Saturday was amazing, advising some kid about pilot training in a mixture of English and Malagasy, working the exhausting governmental system to try and get one of our most diligent couples married and baptized, having people try to cast US out of their houses - remind me to speak on this at a moment when I have more time on my hands - teaching families like it's our job...uh wait...it is :P.

I've got a low story and a high story: one of the most unusual and horrible experiences of the week took place at a seemingly harmless rice-shack at night. Going to have ourselves some good old rice and loaka, we bought a couple of sodas and mossied our way over, sitting down for our meal of hoped for delight, our minds were far from the horrors which awaited us.

The plates came to the table, and we dug in like the famished wolves which we are - permit the exaggeration, por favor. Within moments I noticed a bean an espacially strange shape. Reaching into the stew, I pulled the morsel out for a closer examination. To my utter astonishment and gag reflex, a medium sized roach lay in the palm of my hand. At first I thought, "O dear goodness...Why me?!" Then I showed Elder Slater, and we laughed about the predictable horribleness that sometimes greets us in the country. Then, setting the roach aside, we went back to work on our meals...why, after seeing the roach in the stew, we carried on eating, I will never quite be able to answer.

A minute later, Slater found some sort of non-at-all-appetizing crustation of dubious origin swimming around in his loaka. We pressed on, despite the double warning. The third and final sign, I ate my last bean in my loaka, only to find that the bean was a fraud. Within the soft shell of the bean, was straight up rotted meat!!!!! No explanation, are yo kidding me?! Needless to say, that hotely has been put on the blacklist mandrakizay.

Another, far more pleasant happening which I'd like to write about occured just this morning. Last week, about Wednesday or so, we some how managed to make our way out about an hour by car ride from the center of our area, in pursuit of new investigaters. Instead we found glorious vistas, sheer cliffs, stunning sights, and the actual rainforest. Seeing as the hour was getting to be late in the day, we
committed ourselves to come back on Pday, equipped with water bottles and hiking shoes.

And return we did. This morning a couple of our District mates met us at a half way point in Analamahitsy, and we then continued on out to the mountainous area in what is called the Anosy farotra. Taking a variety of trucks, cars, taxis, and just plain walking, we made the usual hour journey into a nice 2 and a half hour journey. Upon
arrival, we took pictures at some of the interesting architecture we found in Ambohimanga (the name of the village) and then decided to climb up the mountain, with thoughts of good picture oppurtunities and adventure on our minds. What we found was a little bit different than what I had expected.

Perched on top of the mountain was an actual fort from the times of the Malagasy royal family, feudal period. Of course the fort had already been turned into a giant park to trap tourists who had made their way so far out off the beaten path, so there was an admission price. The Malagasy in our group, Elder Ravelomahefa, only had to pay 200 ariary while we had to pay the exorbitant fee of 7000! An outrage! We
shouted, wailed and gnashed our teeth - again, exaggeration for the stories sake - we fought long and hard to bat the price down to a reasonable level. The fact that I actually have a Malagasy identification card did not seem to sway their stance in the least. The vazaha pays the vazaha price, was their statement. After long discussion that was somewhat heated at moments, we relented and payed the vazaha price, despite the injustice of it all. Kings tombs, ancient houses, artifacts and weapons dating back to 1500 AD. It was really quite the park they had set up there.

We swiftly declined the expensive tour guides, declaring that we did in fact speak Malagasy, not French, and that we were not in need of their assistance. An hour later, however, I did manage to get one of the workers in the park to tell me some
sweet stories about the ancient kings, spilled some olden times gossip about the royal family and such. Overall, it was a neat experience. But the final swoop of the expedition came when we went to a huge cliff that literally was above the entire Antanananrivo valley, and overlooked everything for as far as the eye could see. Talk about take your breath away! In the end I struck up a good conversation with some rich French and Swiss guys who were somewhat good at English. A fine day indeed.

And now, I must needs bring this email to a close. I miss you all, but not that much seeing as I only have eight months left to go. I guarantee I'll be more sad when I leave this place, knowing that I may never return and will probably never see any of these wonderful people again.

When I am too tired to pray for myself, I always pray for you guys. I love my family more than anything in the entire world, and I hope that life is movin at the speed of light for you all - it sure is for me.

Still praying for you, still doing The Work.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Passing and Shooting

2011-02-15T06:25:00.000-08:00

My new Malagasy name is: Rabemanantsoa, as gifted to me by the figurative mother of the Sabotsy Namehana Branch, Sister Bertha. The name literally means: Rabe-the important one, manan-who has, tsoa-wonderfulness or goodness. Elder Slaters name is Rabemananjara. Elder Slater and I are still together, for two and a half months now. It is certain now that my companionship with him will tie with mine and Elder Horn's for the longest of my mission at a grand total of three months. Elder Slater is from Colorado.

At the begining of the week we met with a very cool, older couple named Julian and Jelien. After we had started the time with a prayer, I asked them if they had any questions about their readings in the Book of Mormon or in the other pamphlets. They said no, but that there was one thing that was troubling them which they needed to speak to us about. Apparently, their younger nephew who goes to one of the private schools nearby their house saw us leaving his uncles house after the completion of one of our times. Soon after the nephew approached his uncle to tell him the the Mormons were the worst bunch of folks there ever were. Wicked lies, such as torture and killings, were all mentioned by the kid. As most people would feel I'm sure, Julian was extremely worried that maybe that's what did go on at our church! He told the boy that the gossip about the Mormons didn't sound too accurate, as he had already had a lesson from the missionaries and it was wonderful. Then he told the boy that he would talk to the Mormons himself and figure it out, also stating that he could do what he wants and let anyone into his house that he pleased (the boy was saying, "Don't ever let them come back!").

When Julian brought these concerns up to us we first called his nephew a liar - I couldn't resist - and then showed him pictures of what a usual church service looks like. There fears eased, they promised that they'd be at church on Sunday. And come they did. For the entire three hours that proclaimed up and down that they would be coming into the church, meaning getting baptized, as soon as possible. They said that church service was great! and that they knew the church to be true. During the elders qourum meeting Julian stood and bore testimony, and so great was his testimony that there was a round of applause from the members! These people are incredible, and it'll be a huge blessing to have them in the church.

Slowly but steadily, the church is growing in the Sabotsy Namehana Branch. This past Sunday we didn't even have enough bread and water to give everyone the Sacrament, there were so many people who showed up! We just got a new Sunday School President, and new Young Mens President, and several priesthood ordinations through, including one Melchezidek priesthood holder. The organization and leadership is shaping up nicely, leaving more room for others to learn to take on their roles in this glorious church. I love being a member of this church which is learning and responsibility based. Just got out of your sophmore year in college? Get ready to be an Elders Quorum President. Gets already dropped off at school? Welcome to the Relief Society Presidency. Often we are not even in the neighborhood of being ready to fill the positions we receive, but when the Lord calls, He prepares as well. Ready or not beforehand, that Lord will bring you up to speed if you are only humble and teachable. He will lead us by the hand if we will just follow. It has been so cool to see recent converts find themselves barely treading water in leadership positions, and then to see them get up in new knowledge and experience, passing and shooting with the rest of the team (waterpolo reference).

Similair things have happened to me often on my mission. Training when I didn't even know the language myself, leading areas when I am the only person in many miles who speaks English, and then taking the role of Lehnhardt translater. This is the last straw, I thought. For a few days before I left Antsirabe, worry and nerves threatened to crush the life out of me. When I finally got to my new area and had to translate for a Branch Presidency meeting, I was positive that the time for my death had come. No longer could I just fake my way through understanding and speaking. The time had come to understand and comprehend every word that's being said. For the majority of my mission before that, I only understood vague ideas when people started into talks or disertations, not really paying attention because the task was just too difficult.

The whole translation business may not be the one for me long term, but it has definitely shown me an interesting side of life and work. I don't always understand everything thats being said, or translate everything I hear with exact perfection. But on the whole, I can play my role as translater every Sunday effectively, because the Lord decided I was ready. One of the most exciting times for me is when I get to translate the Lehnhardts talks and lessons to the congregation. At that point I have no choice but to press on, no time to think, no time to worry. It is quite a think-on-your-feet kind of activity. It is fun to get creative and search for the words and ideas that can properly explain what is being said into my ear. Sometimes no one understands what the lesson is really about, even me. Deep doctrine discussion from the Pearl of Great Price is a treat all its own when being taught to a room full of recent converts and investigators who don't even really remember who Joseph Smith is. But we always make it through, feeling uplifted and strengthened in the end, even if the whole "light of Jesus Christ powers the sun and the rest of the universe" thing is still a bit unclear to the majority of us.

Business, just to ease your worried minds, the SD card only just got sent last P-Day. I hope you guys are all well and nothing terrible bad has occured with any of you.

Lovelove,
Elder Cryer

Chicken Spit, Snakes and the Plan of Salvation

2011-02-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

So this week was very interesting, but not neccesarily as explosive as last week. One of the best things that did occur this week, however, was that a lot of the potential for growth which we observed in our investigators last week has come in large part to fruition this week. Many bap dates were handed out and promptly accepted. The 26th of Febuary will be a big day. When we talked to Joel yesterday about getting baptized, he immediately said,"If I could be baptized in five minutes, I'd do it. I know this church is true, and I know that I know enough to make this
covenant." And believe me, he does know enough.

Last Saturday we went over to his house to teach him about the Plan of Salvation. The tables got turned when we found out that he already got himself a copy of the missionary teaching materials, and had learned it completely. When I asked him what the term "Plan of Salvation" means to him, he proceeded to teach the entire lesson to us. At that point me and Elder Slater looked at each other, laughed at the hilarity and amazingness of it all, and then tried to find something else to teach him. In the end I ended up having to take Joel on a tour of the creation as we have it from the Book of Abraham. I couldn't leave empty-handed, so the deep doctrine got whipped out for a nice, and long, chat.

We've been having more adventures with the animal kingdom this week, but mainly with those of a creepier variety. Snakes, spiders, and all things crawly got in our way. The first thing that happened in this regard occured last Thursday at the time of Lova, Lalaina, Hasina, and Parany. As soon as we came in, Lalaina was bawling her eyes out and obviously distressed. Hasina refused to come into Lalaina's house because there was an uninvited critter lurking around. As soon as I heard the words "biby lava (snake)," me and some of the other neighborhood guys found the snake hiding in a length of pipe. I was one for shaking the snake out of the pipe and then cutting him to pieces at the first oppurtunity, but the Malagasys wanted to burn the guy alive.

The took the pipe and put it over a fire for a good five minutes, trying to get him to drop out. After feeding the fire to get the flames up higher, old snakey-boy decided to try his luck on the outside of the searing hot pipe. Out he came wriggling and slithering for an escape. The snake was maybe two feet long or so, pretty thick for his length, and of a variety that I don't know at all. As soon as the snake started making a break for it, the Malagasys backed up, not sure what to do. I remembered dad killing a snake with a shovel on the street in front of our house when I was little, so I put the same principle into action. Grabbing a knife off of the table, I stabbed for the head, trying to stop the snake before he could get away and cause more havoc. After a few stabs and slices, the body stopped its wriggling, its head having been removed. As the Malagasys say," Ny biby tsisy loha, tsy mandeha." Translated: The animal with no head, cannot go.

We also saw tons of poison spiders and centipedes this week, but that's another story for another time. Sufficeth to say that they do exist, are deadly according to some sources, and chicken spit can cure every ailment known to man. O, if only the worlds leading medical researchers had the knowledge of the common Malagasy man.

Madagascar is still pretty much in its hot mod, but things are cooling down fast. I remember last year at this time, it was absolutely miserable! Scourching! But now we usually have a good amount of cloud cover, rain to wet us down whenever we want - and especially when we don't want - and the temperatures seem to be pretty mild. So much for the whole global warming thing. As far as I've been able to tell, the seasons' worst just got pushed back a month or so. For awhile, Mada was in turbo drought (mosary? I don't remember how to spell that word in English anymore...) mode. Everyones crops were dying and the prices for fruit and vegetables were sky-rocketing. The rain has been a welcome rest from the dryness and a blessing for anyone that has any interest in eating food.

My ear drum is fine, just weird. I am pretty proficient at not getting a drop of water in it. Thanks for the Valentine package. We all tried the candies and were blown away - Sweet Hearts really did a bang up job. Also, I was very happy to see the rest of my paratoopers come in with this package. I officially take back all of
the rude things I've said about the postal workers of Madagascar. Well, only half because they did steal the twenty bucks. Garr...

I was gonna write about the translating aspect of my mission, but my time is gone. Next week, perhaps.

I love you guys so much and pray for you like no tomorrow.

We have become very efficient chicken catchers,
Elder Cryer

Filled With Spiritual Lessons

2011-02-01T06:25:00.000-08:00

This week was a fairly fantastic one. There's many things I'd like to share about what happened, but because of time I'm going to be limited to only a couple. One of the more mild, yet interesting, things that happened this week occured just yesterday at a time with Joel and his family.

Elder Slater was teaching a room packed full of people about the prophet Joseph Smith. He is still a pretty young missionary, so when he came to the First Vision, he tried to hand the time over to me. Because I wanted to see him go for it, and I was feeling slightly lazy, I told him that he could do it. He turned back to face the people in the room and launched off into the final portion of the Jospeh Smith story. At that time I started prayng in my heart that he would have strength and that he would be able to quote the First vision accurately and powerfully. Up till that time, he had never been able to quote the whole thing. But this time, it was different. He charged off into it, not skipping a beat, not even pausing to think of what the next word was. The Spirit was there to testify to the people of the account's truthfulness, and I know it was there to help him do what he had never done before. It was amazing.

Also during my prayer, I asked God if he would bless us with some kind of food during the day, because it was Sunday and we couldn't buy anything and our usual lunch appointment had canceled on us. I asked that if it was His will, to please give us some food, somehow, someway. The very next time after Joel and Co., we went to a time of a lady and her family who had just come to church for the first time
that day - we had only found her a week ago. We walked in and they said, "Eat!" We quickly declined, not wanting to steal any of their precious, and in short supply, food. But they said, "Really, we have tons of food just for you guys! It's all ready! So come eat!" Not wanting to deny the invitation another time, and not wanting the miss the blessings of the Lord when they are staring you in the face, we sat down to a huge meal of rice and ravitoto (squished up grass). It was really good, but the best part came when the woman's husband - whom we had never talked to before that time and who did not know we were coming - said, "When I was making the rice and ravitoto for lunch today, God told me to make way more food then usual, because we had vistors coming. I usually never make this much rice and food for just
me and my wife" - and it was a ton of food - "but the Lord just told me to keep pouring the rice into the pot. And here you are, the visitors the Lord told me to prepare for. But really," he said with emphasis, "I never ever make this much food for just us!" Now that's a miraculous answer to prayer if I ever saw one. I know that a prayer of faith can turn the world around, move mountians, and even get some grub in your hungry belly when you are in need. Just believe.

Transfer news is coming out today, just so you know. Elder Slater is probably moving on, and I am probably training again. For fourth child, he shall be. Specifically, my second son. I'll give a full report of what goes down next week....

The last story which I will share is one of the best I've ever had in my entire time here (which generally far exceeds anything I experienced in America). Elder Slater and I went to our seven o'clock time with a fmaily that we had high hopes for. Before we could even open the time with a prayer, the mother of the family said matter-of-factly," So I remember you guys saying last time that we needed to come to yalls church when we received an answer to our prayers about the Book of Mormon." We nodded our heads. "Well I gotta tell you that," she continued," we are not going to be moving churches any time soon. In fact, we're never going to switch churches. Ever. We really like you guys and it sure would be swell if we could keep learning from you guys, but we have responsibilities in our church."

At this point I asked her if when she truly received an answer to their prayers about the Book of Mormon, a 100% solid answer, if they would come to our church. She said emphatically, "No. Never." Then I asked her that if God came down himself, and he proclaimed to her personally that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the only true church on the face of the Earth, would she move churches then. To this she said, "No. I'm a deacon at my church and no matter what I cannot switch churches."

To this we bore our testimonies as powerfully as we could, invited her and her family to come to church if they ever changed their minds, and left.

Walking for five minutes down the road towards what we taught was going to be our last time, we heard someone calling for us behind. "Please stop! Wait!" she said. The woman who sprinted towards us in the pouring rain was not someone from the family which had just been dropped, but was another lady who had come to church the Sunday previous. We hadn't been able to find her house during the week, so we had just hoped that she'd come back to church. As we walked towards her house, she was literally crying and saying, "I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry. I was just so sad that you guys weren't able to come to my house on Thursday. Since that time I've been crying and absolutely devastated. I prayed to God so hard that I'd be able to find you guys somehow so that you could give me the Word of God. I'm so happy I found you now!"

Just to clarify, had we not walked out of our rotten-egg appointment, this woman would not have seen us. She never would have in fact, because we are almost never in her area and she never comes to the places we usually frequent. This is another example of an absolute answer to prayer. When we got to her house we taught a time that was one for the record books. The Spirit was almost tangible in the room, which happened to be filled with 11 people, plus 2 in another room who were standing at the window to their room which gave access to the one we were in. Hiantra, the women who had chased us down on the path bore testimony to everyone there that the church was true, and she knew it by the power of the Holy Ghost when she came into our church building. Incredible. This women had not even had any kind of a lesson from us
before this time.

At the end of the lesson we all prayed together, and I asked them to pause for about a half a minute after the end of the prayer, in order that the would be able to feel the Spirit, and know the will of the Lord. For about a minute after the word "Amen" we all sat perfectly still, eyes closed, drinking in the power of the Holy Ghost. It was fantastic. Afterwards we asked everyone how they felt and they said things as, "Light." "Free." "Excited." "At peace." "I feel the Spirit, and I know that you," pointing at us," are messengers from God." We've been doing this 'pause after the closing prayer' a lot lately, to amazing results. The Spirit cannot be stopped in such circumstances.

Dad, good luck on the backpacking training. I remember quite well when one year ago, I first came into country. At that time I was tired all the time, hungry, disgruntled, and especially, my feet were turning into swollen balls of blister. It was horrible. One vivid memory I have is of me taking a knife to the back of my heal, to open up the enormous blisters, and finding that the skin was a quarter of a centimeter thick and the blister structure had blossomed into multiple levels or 'chambers'. It was a ghastly process and quite painful as well. For an entire month I had to wear mulitple layers of socks on my feet to try and bring down the level of movement in my shoes. So....I hope your blisters aren't anything like that!

This week has been filled with the most spiritual lessons of my entire mission, along with several miracles of garden variety and one of extremely unusual happenings.

Well that's all I have time for now. I love you guys and pray for you all every single day. And this past week has shown me, more than anything else, that within prayer there is power.

Love Always,
Elder Cryer

PS: Please tell Brother Krampota thank you for the Christmas card he sent me. Give him my best wishes!

By one man are many made sinners, by Jesus Christ are we all saved

2011-01-24T14:42:00.000-08:00

This was a really great week, full of new investigators, newly diligent families, and many more fun things.

I have yet to get the package you mailed right after Christmas, but I am pretty much expecting to get it today when I go to the office. I got Clarissa's MLK package last week. A word on that whole sending of packages should probably be said. Clarissa's package was pretty much opened up wide for the greedy hands of postmen stretching from here to America. I don't think they really stole too much, but there were a couple of things gone that, according to a note that was in the package, are unaccounted for. I was pretty peeved, but what are you going to do? Elder Slater had a package where they opened up his bag of Reeses Pieces, took a handful, and then sealed the package back up. So if there are any expensive or precious things that you are thinking of sending, lets talk some strategy first. I think we were just all kinds of lucky with the camera. Clarissa put some delicious muffin and cookie mixes in my Martin Luther King Day package, and what I have baked is delicious. Just a thought for the future ;).

To answer the monsoon question: [Ed : Matt lost his good REI rain suit] the yellow rain poncho was too heavy and bulky to be packed in my bags when I left Antsirabe. Consequently, someone else is just going to have to wear that silly thing for awhile. Maybe it will become a house tradtion of wearing the ugly coat in the Ambohimena house.

A story: I went on splits with Elder Smith in Ivato. Elder Jordan, the zone leader, was doing a baptisimal interview in Sabosty Namehana, so I got the chance to go back to my old stomping grounds. We only taught one lesson out there, but I was able to talk with so many people that I taught, baptized, and even worked with back in those begining days. It was so awesome to see those people again, especially now that I can fully understand them and express myself in the language. At the end of the day we went over to Soeur Fanza's house to just see what was up. I believe I mentioned Soeur Fanza many times back in those days, but just as a reminder, she is my Malagasy mom. For a good hour and a half we just talked about different subjects and caught up. In conclusion, Ivato is a lot cooler than I remember it being.

While tracting this week we came along a new little group of houses, huts, and shacks, and decided to try our luck. We walked up to one - a tall, long house that kinda reminds me of an apartment building, yelled "ODY O!" the usual term to say that you are at the door, and about six heads popped out of the upper stairs window. We said, " Hey we"re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter...." but then stopped because they all popped their heads back inside. Elder Slater said it was like wack-a-moles. They all came downstairs, invited us into their house, and we proceeded to have an incredible lesson with all ten of them. Three distinct families were present, but there were all the children of one grand-father named Eli. They all accepted bap dates for the 26th, and seemed very receptive to everything that had happened. One of the fathers, towards the end of the time, said, "I'll definitely come to church this Sunday, but if I'm gona be baptized I need you guys to come teach me in my house just about every day! I wanna progress!" Just the words a couple of missionaries love to hear.

Another experience which we had this week was at the house of Joel. Joel learned from the missionaries back in 1993 when all the lessons were still in French. He learned everything, but had problems with his work so he and the church grew apart before he was baptized. For ten years after the time when the missionaries stopped coming, he just cruised around. Joel learned about the relationship between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and we talked a lot about the church in general. He told me a pretty amazing story about when he finally parted from the church. Back ten years ago, some preachers from his wife's church came to his house and told him the the Mormons were evil, and the the Book of Mormon was the word of Satan. So they took all of his church literature away, and told him to repent. Since that time, he says, he has not ceased to have troubles in his life. Marriage, children, and work. He told us that he fully believes that this is the result of the church being removed from his life. Because of that, him and his entire family are going to be baptized in the end of Febuary or the begining of March. Awesome.

After we finished our time with Joel, we invited him to come to the baptism of Frere Phillippe at the church. He came with us, along with a bunch of other investigators who have just recently become very interested in the church. Phillippe's baptism was such a spiritual event, and a somewhat peculiar one. The entire first half of the
service, rain came down like no other outside. Since I was going to be doing the baptism, I was a little worried that everyone would have to wait inside while I baptized Phillipe outside by myself. Fortunately, the rain miraculously stopped for five minutes as soon as the time came to get into the portable fount. Just before Phillippe went down into the water, his whole non-member family came through the gate. I think it was a definite miracle that they were able to see that, as they have now decided to investigate the church. "So by one man were many made sinners, by Jesus Christ are we all saved." I just think of that scripture when I see more and more people coming into the church because of the actions of one or two people.

We see so many spiders! They are absolutely everywhere! And scary! Skinny ones, fat ones, little ones, huge ones, ones that are so big and muscley that me and Slater swear that we saw a new type of Tarantula.

Time to continue on the increasingly shortened train of emails. Well I love you guys and pray for you mucho mihtsy. Have a good week and don't get bitten by any spiders.

Wondering If There Are Any Poisonous Spiders In Madagascar,
Elder Cryer

The Show Goes On

2011-01-17T05:50:00.000-08:00

To answer your questions, I really much only hear from the family. It's fine that only family emails or writes. Because I've been away from America for so long. sometimes I feel a little bit cut off, but most of the time I don't really mind. Isn't that what a mission is for? To focus 100% on the things that truly matter? I think so anyways.

This week was as good as ever. The show goes on in Sabosty Namehana with little change. This, I am glad for because it always seems like when you are in an area that is constantly being beset with different matters, you are also in an area that is constantly being troubled by disturbances.

Yesterday afternoon we were dogged (meaning our appointments fell through) by five different groups of people in a row. So from 2-5 in the afternoon we had nothing to do. We decided to do some tracting in new areas, which eventually brought us to a giant rice-paddy that stretched out for miles. Elder Slater and I looked at each other, and decided to set out across the vast unkown, hoping to find adventures waiting for us around every turn.

The rice-paddies paths could really be likend to tightropes made of mud. Each little square of paddy you go into is planted with different types of rice and even different types of produce all together. We tried to catch a snake, but only succeded in losing both my pen and planner in the muddy brown water of the fields. You win some, you lose some I suppose.

This week we had two baptisms, Soeur Hasina and Soeur Irina. The baptism was really a great event, filled with the Spirit and some changes of heart from more than two individuals who attended. A lot of investigators showed up and many less-active family members of those whom were baptized came as well. After the baptism, we went and had dinner and then went to an appointment with the whole family of Irina. Irina's grandfather has been a member for many years; he even has the Melchezidek Priesthood. He has been inactive for some time and Irina's parents are both somewhat in-active. We had an amazing lesson with them all about recommitting ourselves to diligence in the service of he Lord; both the father and the grandpa shared with me their converstion stories. We committed them to read the entire Book of Mormon again, keep all of the commandments, and to pray about the church one more time. They agreed and I told them that I had already in my life had to go through a similair recommitment experience on my mission. I felt the Spirit so strong during that time, and I know they did too.

A backapacking trip when I get home would be great. I've always wanted to do Mt.
McKinely, ha. IF that seems like it might be a little bit too much, then a smaller, closer mountain. Though, if were are to undertake such an adventure, then I feel that I might need to bring along my old missionary shoes. My Dr. Martens are the most comfortable buggers in the world, which is proabbly on account of the extensive wear and tear program they have been forced to go through.

To answer your question about the SD card, one is headed home today! Enjoy.

Tell Spencer congratulations from me on his call to Korea.

Well I love you and pray for you guys all the time. Still not seeing any crocodiles but smelling like a cow.
Elder Cryer

Faith and Chameleons

2011-01-11T15:36:00.000-08:00

For goodness sakes! Now for the fourth time I start my email to you. Ahhhh! Twice when we were at the email cafe earlier this morning, my computer died, thereby erasing my email to you twice in a row. The second time I was actually on the way to
finishing up and sending the email when all of the computers in the email cafe simultaneously restarted themselves. At that point I stood up and walked out, refusing to pay. One of the guys wasn't happy with my decision to not pay, got pretty ticked at me, but his manager accepted it and said that he was sorry. I'm
writing this email from a completely different email cafe.

We've found tons of diligent, and ready to learn people this week. One couple which I'd like to talk a little bit about is named Lucy and Remi. They are a quirky couple who just relocated from downtown Tana in order to find a nice countryside pad to retire in. I don't think they speak much Malagasy around the house, as some of my
phrases had to be translated by Lucy to Remi into French. He still understands and speaks pretty well, but not that great. Anyways, they are awesome. Our lesson with them was truly spectacular. In the end they accepted the invitation to be baptized and really seem like they are going to go somewhere.

This week we had an exceedingly large amount of experiences with some fine species of critters in the animal kingdom. On Thursday evening we were walking down a path by the river, going off to do a little bit of tracting before one of our later times. Looking to my left, I spotted a rare to see creature - The CHAMELEON. But this was no ordinary tarondro (chameleon). He could have been considered a giant of the lizard family on the whole, a mythical legend only found in the most fabulous of fantasy novels, a forearm-sized relic of another age.

Well...in all actuality he was just a really big and really mean tarondro. Anyways, we picked him up and started taking pictures. Malagasy people are very fearful of tarondro, so they were amazed that we would actually pick up such a dragon. He was as mean as a bobcat straight out of the bathtub! Attempt after attempt, he tried to sink his sharp teeth into us. Luckily, we were too fast for him. After a giant crowd of people showed up, and THEN we all had to hide from some stampeding cows, some kids found us another tarondro that was of a very peculiar variety. Most big chameleons are black, grey, and white, and cannot really make much color difference outside of those three. But this one was a beauty. For once, I've finally seen a really, color changing, big, and unusually green tarondro.

We have really seen a jump in the number of diligent, ready to hear the gospel investigators this week, but we have also seen a major decline in the number of people that simply come to church. Last week we had fourteen investigators come to church, and this week we had seven. We don't know what happened, but we've decided not to dwell on it. We figure that if we are working our hardest and being
obedient to every single rule, then we'll be ok. I have faith that there is still much progress to be done in this area.

Love,
Elder Cryer

[

Flying and Falling

2011-01-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

This week was, interesting. New Years proved to be a wash. No work, no nothing.
Just an added amount of drunks and crazy people to deal with. That was all.

Earlier in the week though, we were able to teach a lot of times and get a lot of work done - with a couple of adventures to boot. The first came when after teaching our regular afternoon times on Tuesday, we really just wanted to get some food. At that exact time, so did the taxi-bay drivers. So instead of working, they all just sped on by towards the hotelys and epiceries, not picking anyone up. Having enough of their shenanigans, we chased one down and jumped onto the back off it. Holding a thin piece of metal by the grit of our nails, we held on for dear life as the speeding taxi-bay towed us into town. We figure that they knew we were on the back of their bus, because I saw one of the guys turn around, laugh at us, and then speed up. The off-roading parts were especially difficult and hair-raising as the bus caught air over the dips in the path.

Towards the end of the ride, another traveler hopped on with us. Saying that he was in a hurry to get home to his kids, we made some room on the already cramped metal step which we were perched upon, so that he could stand with us. We got to know him, invited him to church, and then bid him farwell as we hopped off at our restaurant of the night. Later that evening - following the apparent theme of the day - we hitched a ride in the back of someone's glass-moving truck.

In other news, I touched a giant spider and it tried to bite my hand off. Actually, we saw a lot of giant spiders on Wednesday. Strange.

This week we were once again entrapped by the winding, perilous maze of the rice paddies. It proved far too much a chore for us as we both fell in again, multiple times, filling our shoes and pants with ripe mud of the pasture. The paths of the rice paddy have become more and more like tight-ropes...or maybe even slack-lines. When we finally made it to the other side of the valley, Elder Slater looked at me and said, "Ya! Man we conquered that thing for sure!"

To this I said, "I don't know man. I feel certain that we were only let off easy, and this is just the begining of our battles. Today, I feel conquered."

This week we found an amazing new family that lives right across the street from the church. The husband and wife are named Zino and Dina. We came into contact with them through their son who learned English from the missionaries awhile back and plays soccer with us every Saturday. Dina hasn't really been present at any of the two times which we've already had with them, but Zino and his son are thirsty for the gospel. The lessons have been incredible; the Spirit so strong! When we gave them a baptismal date, we were met with instant acceptance. On Sunday, the father didn't come to church but his two sons did show up. I feel certain that this is going to be a family to watch in the coming weeks.

Whew weee am I glad to see the holidays come to an end! Christmas and New Years back home were nifty and all, but on the actual working mission, they are horrible! The work gets disrupted, people become lazy, and we have nothing to do but just wait until everyone sobers up and comes home from the parties. For both the day before New Years Eve and New Years Day, pretty much no one in the entire mission was able to work. Elder Slater and I, thinking that we could fight the slump with good old hard work, were sorely disappointed when for five hours on Friday we went from house to house, appointment to appointment, nothing. The next day we tried to go play some soccer in our area, to no avail. No one showed up at all - not even the little kids who always follow us around. So we went back home, had a nap, went shopping (which was an experience in and of itself), and then went and had dinner at the Bishop's house in Analamahitsy.

Elder Slater and I are trying our hardest to be obedient in all things, and generally work as hard as we can. Consequently, our area is doing well and our companionship is fantastic. This morning, Elder Slater and I cleaned the house for two hours.

I pray for you guys. Say hi to everyone for me.
Love,
Elder Cryer

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T06:42:00.000-08:00

It was incredible to talk to you guys. Like I told Dad in his email, I feel like I hopped into a portal that took me straight back into our living room to have a nice chat with you all. The days of endless questions about the life here in Mada seem to be over - thankfully. For it seems that as I have gotten older and more mahay in the ways of Malagasy mission life, so to has my family. Now I just have a hop skip and a jump left to go, and it is so nice that I will be making this last stretch competely comfortable with everything.

This week, a large variety of things occured that I've already written down in my planner to share with you all.

This week I learned some simple conversation phrases in Chinese! The are a lot of Chinese people here that half-way know Malagasy, so I had them educate me as I was waiting for Slater to make up his mind about some fake-Air Jordans he saw. "Ni how!" "Yo sama shin one?!" On that note I also learned how to say hello in Arabic.

Me and Slater took some pictures in the pig-pen of our favorite friends - Herbert and Alex. We heard the bad news from some of our investigators and recent coverts that Herbert - the fatter of the two pigs - would be on people's plates by Christmas dinner, so we felt that we should properly say good-bye. R.I.P. Herbert, a dearly beloved, porky, friend.

We decided to cross some rice paddies to get to one of our times late at night in order to make up some time as we were already late. The rice paddy proved to be a mammoth thing, filled with maze-like, treacherous pathways that tested the bounds of our nerves. Apparently the test became too much for me though, when I was half submersed in the yucky water, falling from the dirt-ways. Twice I fell in in. At one point we had to make a mighty eight foot jump across a pitch-black gorge in the fields, in full-missionary gear. Surprisingly, we both made it through.

We had a really nice chat with a couple of Adventist buddies of ours this week. They were pretty astounded by all we had to say, but also pretty self-confident as they strutted around their scant knowledge of the Book of Mormon and the D&C. They are both well-educated in the Bible, so our discussuions have proved to be quite the enjoyable exercise. They'll come around though.

This week I've had to translate for President Donnelly, the Malagasy sister missionaries, and the usual Lehnharts. At one point on Sunday I let one of my really good friends from Antsirabe translate for Elder Lehnhart during the final meeting of the day. He is about as good in English as I am in Malagasy, so we were able to do a little bit of tag-team translating. Words like, "germinate," "disintegrate," and
"logistical outputs" are little difficult to make known in Malagasy. Regardless, we got creative and I'm pretty sure everyone understood the lesson.

I had to sing a solo as I already told you, as well as a special performance of the remixed "Praise to the Men (to the tune of Praise to the Man)" For one of the activities at zone conference we were split into different groups according to our abilities and talents, and then given creative tasks to accomplish. For my groups chalenge, we had to write a song that encomposed all of the qualities that we'd
like to see in our work. My favorite line was, "Drunk guys and vita soratraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, now fight us in vai-ai-ai-ain." We brought down the house.

Even though our call was cut a little bit short, I still feel like it was successful. Seeing as we did get to scream, "I love you! Merry Christmas! Bye! I love you!" about ten seconds before the whole thing went down, I don't really feel as though we were cheated out of our experience or anything. But hey; it was fantastic to talk to you!

That's all for now. The area is going great as we gain momentum for the new year.
There is your general summary of what happened during my Christmas. All I have
left to say is this: Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Love,
Elder Cryer

2010-12-24T12:35:00.000-08:00

Hey Dad, recognize this shirt? A Malagasy man had it on.

They break, we fix them, they break, we fix them...

Warrior Mutt

2010-12-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

This week we had some fantastic experiences and a great find! Starting last Tuesday, I found a giant store called 'Jumbo Score' that is kind of like Walmart. They have good food, clothes, computers and TVs, everything that Walmart carries back home expect guns and hunting equipment - really. The only problem with this store of fabulous wonders is the exorbiant prices. I mean, I feel like these prices would be a little on the more expensive side for someone in America. That makes them nigh impossible for any regular person here in Madagascar. Regardless of price, though, I did pick up two packs of delicious hot-dog weiners.

By far the best find we made this week however, was the 29 new investigators. We had to drop a lot of the less-diligent people last week and we upped the hours that we work every day, so we had to do lots of tracting and referral searching. It was long, it was hard, and it was incredibly fun. Tracting in the pouring monsoons of Madagascar is not something that I think most people would aspire to doing. We just sing our hearts out and trudge on through the mud and the wet. Everyone sees us out and about during the storms - with no jackets on - and feels bad for us. So we easily get in those doors and find us some new investigators. Some of the people we've been finding are truly the Lord's elect; and others are a bit on the other side of the playbill, but regardless, I know it will be to both ours and the investigators benefit in the long run.

This week we had another baptism and we therefore had to have another round of bap interviews. That means that I had to go on splits again with the mini-missionary from last week. As we we going around and visiting people, we came across a dog who apparently wasn't in the best of moods. Maybe the rain had gotten him down - idk. Anyways, I looked at him and he gave me a little bit of an irritated snarl, but not so much as to imply a coming attack. I told him in Malagasy to shut up (mangiana ianao!) and he shut his yapper. About three seconds later as we were walking around the corner from where we had originally seen the dog, I hear a loud bark and running. I turned around just in time to see the dog lunging through the air, bent on ripping my throat out. So, I took some inspiration from all the martial arts flicks I had ever seen, and kicked my Dr Martens-equipped foot straight into his face. He flew back, stunned that a vazaha would show such back-bone in the face of
danger, but not quite finished. As he rebounded for the next attack, I let him have it again! Now this time I'm sure he was feelin' it, but it wasn't enough to stop his rage against the white man. One more time he came, and one more time was he stomped. He shook his head, dazed and confused, but still keeping up a steady growl of defiance. Maybe he would have gone at me one more time - but then his owner came running around the corner with a fork to ward him off of me. I feel certain that he's had the sharp end of the fork before, so he promptly turned tail and ran.

Later, as we were walking away from that area, I heard a similar, mighty bark of challenge from off in the distance. Turning to face down my foe once more, I summoned as much of a Clint Eastwood glare as my face could muster. We faced each other. Slowly, he ceded the battle ground and retreated. And that was the tale of the Warrior Mutt.

So here are my comments about the pictures: you guys look fantastic! I feel like you look stronger and leaner then before. Also, I think that you guys have evened out in the who-is-more-tan category. Father, you always did have the skin of an Commanche but it now seems as though Mom has turned herself right into a Mediterranean sunned Greek woman! Look at that tan thing!

The baby Joshua is a very cute and very regular baby. I mean that in utmost respect and praise, but he just looks like the quaint picture of what all babies should look like.

Alright, I guess we'll chat in a few days. I love you guys.
Love,
Elder Cryer

2010-12-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

No Surprises

2010-12-13T06:43:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone: The baptism was a nice little shin-dig! A lot less people showed up to give support then I am used to. In Antsirabe, pretty much the entire ward would show up to welcome the new members into the church. Still though, there are some very diligent members that help us ceaselessly and have definitely got the vision of what it is going to take for us to get a temple here in Madagasar. Will lazy members get it done? Most certainly NOT.

Manivo, Sitraka, and Fabien all got baptized as planned, and they were joined by the newly minted eight year old son of the 1st counselor in the Branch Presidency. Harking back to my dawn-of-time Ivato days, the water was only 18 inches deep - and that is being generous. There also wasn't enough clothes for everyone so I opted to sit out and let Elder Slater do all the baptisms. It is a way incredible experience to personally baptize someone, but I'm happy to see a ward member do it or give another missionary the experience.

This coming weekend we have two more baptisms on the line-up. The peoples names are Hasina and Lova. Both are these people are as of yet unbaptized spouses of another member. These two families happen to live in the exact same neighborhood/fenced off compound of huts. They live right beside each other.

Though I love my area immensely, it seems to be somewhat lacking of adventures at the moment. I think I may actually like my area more than Antsirabe, but it definitely is much less exciting. Fine by me. In my opinion, adventure after adventure distractes and sets you off to go possibly look for more adventures than can probably be gained by following the missionary hand-book, if you know what I mean. I think the reason I love my new area so much is that me and my companion, Elder Slater, have really given ourselves over to working as hard as we possibly can. It feels so nice to walk in the house after a long, successful day, clean up the house a little bit - as we do have an up and running chore list -, plan, write in the journal, and hit the sack. Which, may I just say, is exactly the things that the White Handbook tells us to do. Me and my comp were talking about it during comp study, and we both expounded on the wonders of just following ALL of the rules. It was like before in my mission, it was a burden to be totally obedient. In fact, I'm pretty sure most missionaries still think such things.

Dad, the living room looks incredible! That floor is so nice. In my current house we have a wood floor as well and I have been converted. The only weird thing is that in our house there are little weird, black, eight pointed stars placed at random throughout the house. Seeing as witchcraft and sorecery most certainly exist in this land, these things are a bit disconcerning. But, it wouldn't be me first time to live in a haunted house, and we already gave the house a blessing so we should be ok.

As I said in Dad's email, this area seems to be much less prone for adventures and the like. On the flip side though, it could just be that I've become desensitized to the crazy things that I see every day, so I don't really notice them for what they would be to an American tourist anymore. I feel like the vacation-missionary phase of my mission has come to an end. I am completely and totally at home here in Mada, so there really isn't anything that surprises me anymore.

Well I love you and miss you guys. Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Love,
Elder Cryer

2010-12-08T06:45:00.000-08:00

Sab Nam

2010-12-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

This weekend we have three baptisms in our area, and they are some amazing people. Their names are Manivo, Sitraka, and Fabian. They are a mother and two teenage kids. I've only had a few lessons in which to talk with them, but already I love them and know that they were specially prepared for the message that we bring. When I think of the term "the elect" my mind immediately jumps to Hery and Nirina from Ambohimena, and Manivo and her kids here in Sabotsy Namehana. The are absolutely 100 percent ready for baptism and it is so exciting to see the light in there eyes as we discuss religious subjects and as we put the final touches on their preparations for baptism. In fact, after Manivo & Co., we have about 6 to 9 more baptisms before Island Conference on the 23rd. This area is on fire, especially considering that we are in Antanannarivo - not province. So far I love my new area and everything is definitely working out well.

My new companions name is Elder Slater. He is a stud. We work hard, have fun, and keep the rules. That's all I ask for in a companion.

When I think on the differences and similarities of my areas, I realize that Ivato and Sab Nam are very similair. And yet, I like Sab Nam so much more. Why is this? I think my abilities in Malagasy are a strong factor for my new dispostion on areas as a whole. Also, I believe that Antsirabe taught me two things: how to work, and how to love the people. Once those things are in place, I have faith that you can be at home in any area of the mission, no matter how well or not well it used to be going. Whether it's the bandit-infested jungles, or the garbage rivers of inner-city, you can love your area.

Translating for the Lehnharts is at once awesome, and exhausting. Not so much much stressful or difficult as I had originally thought it would be though. I definitely enjoy translating from English to Malagasy more than the reverse, but on the whole it isn't too difficult to translate. We go to the church at eight in the morning and from that time till 12:00 I have to translate everything, including Branch Council and Branch Presidency Meeting. By the end of the last meeting, I am tired.

Funny story: Manivo gives us something to drink every time we come over for a time. The first time we got to drink some sort of sour fruit thing that I loved and Elder Slater hated. On our second visit, we had to choke down three glasses of literal mouth-wash. I'm not even kidding. We think that she thought the drink was just going to be mint flavored or something. Afterwards both Elder Slater and I were doubled over in pain.

So these past few weeks I've been quoting a lot of scriptures in Malagasy to people. This is kinda weird because I remember it in English and then quote it in a different language. I've been trying to do some concerted reading in Malagasy,
but I feel like I just don't have much time! The reading is pretty clear to me, so that isn't a problem. But it is just that we get home really late at night and we only sometimes have time to do all of our studies in the morning.

Answers to questions:

I love the new clothes! The pants are super-durable and fit quite nicely, if a bit snug in the waist. I can definitely tell right now that they will both probably endure well this next year. The shirt is fantastic and superbly white. I had no
idea cloth could shine so! As per usual in my life of mishaps and unfortunate events, I got some sort of miserable dark stain on the front of the shirt within an hour or so of putting it on. Why I expected anything different..I just don't know.

The pants of my new suit are really more like my old skinny jeans before I sold them to Elder Riding. I'm going to go and get them re-tailored. While I'm there, I'm
also going to get the torso taken it - it is just so malalka (spacious or roomy)! On the whole though, the suit looks great. The fabric is very unique and for the most part the suit was well made.

Yes, I found the money from that wonderful lady Aunt Susan. Bless her.

First of all about the new house: it is downright gorgeous. We have more space than we know what to do with, a fancy new shower and water system that really works, some lovely neighboors who persist in trying to communicate with us in French, and the senior couple who watch and watch out for us daily for fear that we are going to burn down the new mansion or otherwise harm it in any way, shape, or form. I love it. I now live in Analamahitsy, which is kinda far away from our working area, Sabosty Namehana. Long drives every day.

I love you guys. Till next time.
-Elder Cryer

44 Dressed in White

2010-11-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

One of the first major things that occurred this week was the fikarakaraina (taking care of) Ernest and Marguerite's wedding. Going into this experience, both Elder Peatross and I were not exactly of high spirits as Ernest had already put off going to the Commune (gov buidling) for days and days and it seemed certain that we weren't going to be able to get them married before baptism.

I walked in with Ernest to the desk in order to say the words that he might not have thought to say. It isn't that he wasn't mahay tengasy, it is just that sometimes Malagasys are overwhelmed with such difficulties as a stubborn office worker or regulations. We, as Americans, are more natural arguers and more apt to be assertive in working our way throught a system. Anyways, the man at the desk said exactly what I thought he'd say: "Yes; I'm glad that you and your wife would like to be married so soon (within two days), but it seems as though you did not take the liberty to read our strict policies and guidelines which state clearly that your marriage date is according to our whims and especially upon the date which you submitted you papers for the ceremony, in the first place. Consequently, you will not be able to get married until next Thursday (after their baptism date). Maybe in the future you should be more prompt with your requests."

Ok ok, so that may have been somewhat of a dramatic interpretation of what the man said, but the meanings were essentially the same. So at the point I begged the man to have mercy upon us, and I specifically explained our plight. I told him that us as missionaries were always helping people get married, and that it would be fantastic if we were to receive a little bit of help in return. If one was to guess his decision by his flustered face and harsh "gruff" at my pleas, I'm fairly positive that they'd say he would say "no." It was at that point that I turned to my Father in Heaven. I remembered reading about Ammon praying with his brethern so hard that God might pour out His Spirit upon those receivers of the word, and the Lord
doing just as he had asked. So, I prayed as fervently as I could under the circumstances and begged the Lord to soften that mans heart and pour His Spirit out upon the front-desk worker.

Then, a miracle happened and the worker said with a broad smile that Ernest and his wife could indeed be married that next Thursday. The Lord will hear our prayers if our intentions are good, our faith is strong, He will usually answer.

The following Thursday, Ernest and Marguerite got married at the local commune. The Spirit was strong as those wonderful people became a couple according to the Law and to God. Later that day we had a modest celebration of Thanksgiving with food, fun, and a movie.

I'm going to Sabotsy Namehana today and I will be senior comp. In fact, from my sixth month on in the mission, I've always been senior companion. Also, I got my Hump Day package and Christmas package! They were wonderful! All of the candy has already been consumed, the letters read, and the presents opened. I just didn't feel like waiting for Christmas, as the main present of the day for that holiday is going to be my speaking with all of you beautiful people. The socks, the ties, the light, and the journal are all wonderful and very much appreciated. The packages were wonderful and I thank you kindly.

The preparations of the baptism last Saturday were long and stressful. Goodness gracious; it was a wonderful event. We were running around town like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get all of our ducks in a row. When the baptism finally started after a good hour or so of delay, it was standing room only. Standing up straight for hours on end was tough - all of us missionaries had really bad headaches and backpains. During the baptism of the all-dressed-in white-44, I didn't really have the stength to ponder upon the wonderfulness of it all. I was just so tired. Seeing all those people in white and watching them all go into the make-shift baptismal font was truly incredible - a sight that I doubt I'll ever see again in this life time.

The next day at the District Conference to form the district, Elder Jackson Mkhabela of the Seventy spiritually brought the house down. This is a summation of what he said, "Seeing the faces of those people getting baptized yesterday was truly humbling. I could see their faith, their hope, and their commitment. But most of all, I could see their joy by the smiles on their faces. I have never in all my years of Church service seen something so breathtaking. I was taken away in the Spirit and I needed some alone time with the Lord." It was spectacular and articulate.

I love my mission and I especially love Antsirabe. I have a whole year left, but I doubt that I'll be able to see something that will trump that. I know this church is the one and only true church on the face of the Earth. I also know by that same power which gave me my testimony to begin with that every single one of those people will be joining us in the Celestial World, dependent of course upon our faithfulness and diligence.

In closing, I just wnted to say that I love all of you and pray for you daily. Also, my next Thanksgiving will be spent at home.

Sad to Leave But Thankful Regardless,
Elder Cryer

PS: I'm the new translater for the senior couple, The Lehnharts.

Thanksgiving Week

2010-11-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

It seems as though Thanksgiving is closing in. This coming Thursday, all the good wonderful people of America will be taking part in this joyous festival of food, fun, and family. In Madagascar, the missionaries get $2.50 to celebrate with a special meal. So, those are my plans for Thanksgiving.

All this week Elder Peatross and I have gone to all of our people who have baptisms coming up soon. As of right now, there are 7 firm baptisms for the Ambohimena ward this Saturday. So our seven will be there, along with 23 from the other branches and
Ambositra making a nice round number of 30 overall. All the branch presidents are going crazy with preparations and excitment.

This week I was thinking about how I need to move myself to a higher level of teaching and preaching the gospel, I've become alot more assertive with my investigators. I've made the move towards this style slowly over the past month. I think it really started when we were teaching a man named Njaka and and his family.
Njaka had been leading us on for awhile and had been not coming through on his commitments. I love this family, so it hurt and saddened me when he regressed and lied to us. It was affecting his family in a sad way. I felt the Spirit move me to action, so I told him that he needed to grow up and leave his childish ways in the past with his childhood...where it belongs. I told him that he needed to become the mature leader of his family that his wife and children needed him to be. The whole time I was talking to Njaka, his wife Holy was just nodding like, "Mmmhmm. You tell 'em brother. That's the gospel truth to my ears." Afterwards I told him why I had been bold with him - for my love for them. I explained that I see sinners constantly, but I never speak to them like that. The reason for my holding back
with others is that they would not receive such words of boldness, but I love my investigators more than any regular person off the street.

Though he was very quiet, I could tell that the Spirit had touched him. The next day he finally came to church, has been coming ever since, and will be baptized with his wife this Saturday. Now that, is a gift of the Spirit and a true miracle. As true, if not, more powerful than a healing, or a divine manifestation. Those are the miracles that your mission is made of. Other things are cool and work to strengthen your testimony, but I feel strongly that it is the simple things I will remember most.

I'll share with you one other experience. About a month back or so Elder Peatross and I gave a woman a blessing. This woman miraculously received her healing. And yet even after witnessing and receiving this miraculous event, she would not leave her old church of choice. She told us that she knew our church was true, but that it would be to hard to leave the Lutherans. It just reminds me of when Laman and Lemuel saw an angel, and then asked how the Lord could possibly destroy Laban and his fifty.

Well, it seems as though my English is starting to go the way of all missionaries that are long in the tooth (as Dad says). My speech is always sprinkled with Malagasy and sometimes I just have to switch. There are some words like amin (in, at, to) or ny (the) that I will sometimes say on accident, and then I have to finish my phrase in Malagasy. Most of the missionaries these days are pretty young, so when I say things like 'ny ankabiazany (the majority)' they just do not understand. And, sometimes I can't remember what those things are in English. If I'm talking to another missionary, I just slip into izy'roa (both). Plus, there are some words that just don't make sense in English - now that is annoying.

And no, I haven't gotten the hump day package yet. We only get stuff indray indray (sometimes...I had to ask for help on that one) because someone from the mission office has to take our packages with them when they come down for meetings and the like. So, hopefully I'll get my package this Friday. It'll be a nice after-Thanksgiving surprise.

About the coup and possible military junta: yes that is definitely happening. The missionaries are working in Tana right now, but sometimes they have to go inside for the day or be on lockdown because of riots and shootings and stuff. The story that I got from the Malagasys is that a group of generals told the current president that
he must leave, or be killed - an ultimatum. All the Malagasys are saying things like, "The shizz is gonna go down soon." That is pretty much exactly what my friend said in Malagasy, and then in English.

Btw, I'm going home on the 17th of November 2011. No extensions and no early home date. Don't worry about me. I'm safe. Just got the word that I'm being transfered next week back to Tana to an area called Sabotsy Namehana. It is right by Ivato.

Love,
Elder Cryer

2010-11-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

How many times can I say this place is paradise?

2010-11-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone: I suppose that I have been in Antsirabe for a bit now, but I really
don't feel like leaving any time soon. I could easily put in another three months, no sweat. I love this place so much, and the work is always on fire pretty much. We had the two baptisms at the begining of this month, and then we should have between 6to 11 more on the 27th.

About the whole going home a month early thing - it is still not super set in stone, but in the end everyone in the mission that is here now is going to have to go home a month early or a month late. The reason for this is that the transfers have been jumbled-up by the transfers of the MTC. They changed their dates for putting out our missionaries, so now we have to change ours as well. Otherwise, we'd have people leaving and new people not arriving to fill their spots for a whole month.

This week, both me and Peatross have been super sick. I was sick for one day, and then Peatross way sick for all of the rest. I think we ate some bad eggs or something like that. I was feeling horrible last Tuesday, but then just slept it off. Peatross is super sick. I feel really bad for him, but on the whole I just feel helpless. What can I do?! I wish there was something substantial. We still had 17 investigators show up to church despite the major lack of work.

This Wednesday is election day! Yay! Or maybe I should be saying, Uh-oh! The stand-in president has finally accepted the election, but things are still not all happy and dapper. Me and Elder Riding were talking to a Peace Corp worker a few days ago, and she said things are unsettled in Tana right now. Scary news, amiko (to me). We here in Antsirabe don't ever see even the slightest speck of violence or mayhem or even any real suffering. It is paradise :D. Then again, the relatively high level of peace could be the result of the garrison of soldiers patroling the central part of the city every day. Who nows?!

Frere Ernest set out this morning to pick up his and his wife's papers for their marriage. This is crazy exciting news as they will soon be married and they will then after be baptized! On the 27th, they and their daughter as well as another family of three are going to take part in the baptism bananza that is the creation of the District. For a long time Antisrabe has been kept under the wing of the Tana Stake, but now they are finally getting a degree of independence and being turned into a District. This means that they will have a fully autonomous leadership here. The fact that people are receiving their first ordinance of salvation seems like a miracle to me.

I'm afraid to say it but that seems like that's it for my news this week.

Love, Elder Cryer

PS: Tell Sarah congrats for me and give everyone kisses from me, especially the baby. He's real cute.

Antsirabae

2010-11-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

A Wedding and a Baptism

2010-11-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

This week was absolutely fantastic. Probably the first major thing that happened was last Thursday. That was the day that Hery and Nirina got married! Woohoo! They had a really nice, sweet, and very humble wedding at the local Commune (government building); them, and another couple actually. I guess the Commune was running behind so they decided to do two weddings at once. So goes the ways of Mada. The
ceremonies are very official. Everyone sits around a table and signs contracts, shakes hands, and then talks about the commitments of a lasting marriage. At the end
they actually got to do the whole "you may kiss the bride" thing. Hery and Nirina straight up made out. Plus, the wedding officiator lady even gave us - the missionaries - a personal "thank you" for helping so much in the preparation process of the wedding. That was cool.

After the wedding we all went over to their house and had a reception. It was nice. All of this delight and excitment led up to and was exceeded by their baptism on Saturday. I've baptized a few people in my time and am usually very happy to see them entering the waters of covenant with the Lord. But this one was different. These people are strong - absolutely tough as nails. I know they are going to be incredible members and probably even leaders in the church. Everyone present could obviously tell that they were taking this baptism deadly serious.

This baptism was different. The Spirit was absolutely present and truly making his presence known upon all the people there. Then Hery and Nirina bore their testimonies, and it blew everyone out of the water. Usually they just talk a very little bit about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, close in the name of Jesus Chrsit and then sit down. But Hery and Nirina bore full on, mature, and sincere testimonies. Talk about incredible. Nirina even talked about how much we - the missionaries - had helped their family and thanked us graciously. I've never even heard of this happening, so that was just fantastic. Overall, I'd say that it was one of the experiences and baptisms which I'll remember most from my stay in Mada.

Some more news of late - it seems like President is going to be giving everyone the choice on whether they go home a month early or a month late, as expected. Because of Thanksgiving and the majority of the Christmas season, I'm going home in October 2011. Just throwin' that out there for you guys. But, we've known this since the MTC.
Well it looks like I'm out of interesting things to say. I love you all and miss you less. Don't be offended by that - that just means that I love you a lot!

I am,
Full of Cheap Malagasy Cracker-Type Products, And Sincerely Yours,
Elder Cryer

2010-11-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Me and Elder Touli and a great family
Needs no explanation
Cool family
We all started together in the MTC
At Island Conference

Like a pioneer missionary

2010-11-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

Business first:
1. Yes I did indeed receive the package from Sarah. And O, what a joy it was.

2. The most recent packages that I can remember are the one with the batteries (thank you!) and the Halloween one I just got a couple of days ago. The things in the Halloween package were this: The giant and supremely awesome 'Myth Busters' bag, more batteries, a shaver, a funny Halloween picture, and the Tony's. If there was anything else of special note you can just ask me and I'll tell you if it was in there. Sorry; my memory ain't perfect.

So this week we have had a major resurgence of people who are actually interested in getting married before their baptism instead of just giving up or splitting up. Nirina and Leah seem to be on the slightly up and up - though how many times I've thought this before, I cannot even begin to count - and Ernest and his wife have decided to get hitched after all. Yay! To top it all off, Hery and his wife Nirina are getting married this Thursday and baptized on Saturday. If that is not a straight up, down and out miracle, then I don't know what is. I'm so happy to know that though this marriage is only for this life - till Death do you part - it is most certainly leading to an eternal marriage in the temple someday. Maybe they won't ever be able to scrape the funds together to go to Johannesburg - in fact I
highly doubt that they will - there will someday soon be a temple right here in Madagascar (I hope). With the work going as rapidly as it is, there will easily be enough of a diligent membership base within the next couple of years to merit a temple. And that, my family, will be a day remembered by all Malgasy people, for what I would say is all eternity, as one of the greatest days in their peoples history.

A temple is probably something that is easily taken for granted in highly prosperous areas like the United States. But here in this country, only the richest of the rich are able to go all the way to South Africa and partake of the temple blessings at this time. For 98 percent of the others, it is absolutely impossible. I would even say that it would be like me asking an average American citizen if they would like to buy a ticket to the moon. Sometimes, that's how I feel when people realize just how far they have to go to get to the temple.

Regardless, the blessings of an eternal family and the ordinances which can only be had in the Holy House of the temple are something to save up for. Be it a few hundred thousand ariary, or that many billions of dollars. It's worth it. I know it is.

This past weekend we were privileged to watch conference. For the missionaries, it is very difficult - we had to watch it in Malagasy like everyone else. Six months ago I was able to watch Conference in English, but then again six months ago I was in Tana. Being in the province is cooler, but also a bit less accomodating and and a lot more independent. So, we're probably never going to get the Conference talks in English until we actually receive the Liahona that contains them.

I personally can understand the conference talks in Malagasy, but there are a lot of things I'm not understanding, or just not getting. The hardest part about listening to conference talks in Malagasy is the translater's accents. Some of the translaters are quite easy to understand. Some, are absolutely impossible. In the end, all of the
missionaries just ended up at the back of the chapel writing letters, reading, or sleeping.

This week we had to tract a lot. Anyways, we put our shoulder to the wheel and got out there, though we most certainly didn't want to, and found tons of new investigators. Every single time we opened our mouths to tell someone about the gospel, they let us in to share an entire lesson. I know it was four months ago, and my memory may be slightly tainted by time, but I don't think I ever had such success tracting back in Ivato. In my mind now, tracting is really just doing times that are unscheduled. I feel certain that if we have faith and just do it, the Lord will smile on us and bless us with even more diligent investigators, truly building His Kingdom here in Madagascar.

Mom, I really do sometimes feel like I am one of those super old time story tellers, or maybe even an authentic pioneer missionary. The fact that electricity is scarce and candles and fires are the main light sources for many homes, I always feel as if I've traveled back in time a hundred years or so. For example, we were teaching a lesson to two wonderful referals from my favorite member, Frere Hiaja (the womens
names are Nidina and Lalaina, btw). There were the missionaries (us), about ten members, and then the mother and daughter. Could you ask for any better of a combination for a time?

We all sat around two small candles, listening, sharing, and learning what the Spirit provided for us. It was an incredible lesson, and one which I will never forget. The mother said that this gospel was indeed what she had been searching all of her life for. At the end of the lesson we gave her and her daughter a bap date, and whadda know, they accepted. The Spirit was so strong that we practically knew before the invitation was even said that they would accept baptism. The members
got a little bit nervous as what I was saying became readily apparent, but they didn't try and stop us. Not suprisingly, they and some more investigators came to the showings on General Conference on Sunday. They'll get baptized for sure.

One thing I'd like to say about that is this: if you are a member who is hosting the missionary lessons at your house, don't ever (extenuating circumstances permitting) try to mess with the plan of the missionaries and that of the Lord. They know what they are doing. I have heard countless stories about members becoming mad at
missionaries because they were "moving too fast for their friends" or "they were too pushy." Maybe that happens sometimes, but I have faith that most of the time it doesn't. Missionaries are blessed with a special mantle and power, and they will probably know before a regular member what the needs of the investigator are. Regardless of levels of 'spirituality' or gospel 'experience,' the missionaries are going to know what to do. I know this to be true.

You guys have no idea how badly I would have loved to go camping with you! This is one of those times where missionaries just get kinda disgusted with the whole holidays-in-America-but-not-where-I-am, thing. Or at least it just kinda stinks here. There is certainly no such thing as Thanksgiving and Halloween in Mada. In fact, the few times that I have tried to explain Halloween to people, they were
kinda freaked out. On that subject though, we did have a pretty sweet Halloween party
last night for the whole zone. We all dressed up and had a nice little dinner. I was actually Zeus - toga, flowers in the hair, lighting bolt and all. It was seriously loads of fun. I'm fairly positive that never will there be a compilation of such cool and like-minded people again in my mission lifetime.

So the race is on to finish the entire Book of Mormon before Island Conference at Christmas. We've been promised some pretty serious blessings if we can do it, so I'm excited. Dang it! I just realized that I forgot to read my four BoM chapters last night. That means I have to read eight today. :/ That's gonna be a long one.

Well I miss you and love you. That's all I have for you guys today. Wishing I Could Have A Camp-Cooked-Hotdog. Love, Elder Cryer

2010-10-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

Once a year Island Conference of all missionaries
Elder Touli and me, baptism day
All hat and no cattle
Our mission goals
Pizza message

Pain and Rain

2010-10-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

This week has been, interesting. Apart from the fact that the monsoon season has arrived here in Antsirabe, it just seems like every day has presented its own set of crazy problems and challenges. The first one I'll write about is the first one that really presented itself to us last week. Elder Peatross and I were teaching a really incredible family. The father of the family, came up with an unusual problem
towards the end of the lesson. He asked us if it was ok to do the traditional 'turning of the dead' ceremony with his family. I said that it was ok, just so long as he didn't do any of the witchcraft stuff that usually associates itself with such practices. He shook his head and said ok, but I could tell that there was something just eating at him. With a little bit of proding it came out that his family does indeed do some super bad witchcraft practices. He described some of the rituals to me and asked if they were ok to do. Well, duh, of course they aren't ok to do! He kept persisting and trying to get some sort of lee-way. I told him again that it was totally not ok to do and I shared with him 3 Nephi 13:24 - "No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the
other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Never before have I used this scripture and had to apply it in such a literal way. Like, this was an actual case of a devil worshipper that has religion; or vice versa. He kept arguing a little bit, so I came down on him hard and said, "As
representatives of Jesus Christ, I am telling you that witchcraft is absolutely evil and not acceptable. You must leave this wickedness in the past. Will you serve God and not hold to this dark practice any longer?" He agreed, but it was a tense moment. Dealing with witchcraft and devil worship is something that I could really do without.

During that same time, it was discovered that this man and his wife are not actually married according to the laws of the state. I don't know how we never talked about this before, but it was very stressful. So as of right now he is traveling out to a far-away town in order to collect his papers for their marriage on Saturday - four hours before their baptism. We'll see if they make it!

So as one couple decides to inherit salvation together, two more decide to completely separate. This is an extremely sad thing to see happen, but sometimes a completely necessary one. The first and less contentious couple is just tired of being together and they don't feel like getting married before their baptism. The man seems to be in all actuality just perfectly frightened of committment, though they've already had eight children together. Whatever - though I think that
they should just show some responsibility and get married, that's their choice.

The other couple is one that you guys have heard about before. Now, for the past three months of my stay here and even a few months before I arrived, us missionaries have been having to deal with the suspicious monkey-business and endless ups and downs of this couple. There were times when everything looked solid; they were going to get married and baptized. Then there were times when I felt like I was in an episode of twilight zone, the problems were just so weird. Last Thursday everything came to a slightly violent head. The wife, who has completely stopped drinking for some weeks now, was beaten and cussed at by her husband, who still drinks. When we came in for the time the wife was already crying and the husband just shook our hands and left without a word. Through babbled tears she tried to explain what had happened, but she was completely incoherent. In the end I had to ask her son (the coolest ten year old in the world) what had happened. After I got the full story, we then had to deal with her hysterical crying. After a good five minutes of this, Peatross said, "Dude, she is gonna hypervenilate." Peatross worked with doctors and stuff before his mission, so when he speaks about health-related things, I listen.

Once she finally seemed to be restored to some sense of stability, we offered a prayer and called the branch president for them. President Grenie is the one who should be dealing with such problems, of this I am sure. Long story short, we almost fought with the husband on the road outside of a bar and then the two decided to scream at each other that they were getting a divorce - and so a painful era comes to a painful end.

O! One more thing about that story. After we had left this house we went to another person's house right across the hallway. And the very end of the lesson with Leah, she asked us for money or food. We said that we couldn't but that Prez Grenie could. During the next lesson Leah came in all smiles and told us that a very charitable and loving member had given her and her kids some rice and money. Now that, is the true love of Christ. If only we could all let ourselves be used in such powerful ways by the Lord our God.

Sweet! I'm so excited that my package made it to America. I told the other missionaries that my package made it, and it was kinda a victory for all of us. Hardly anyone has tried to send a package from here in Antsirabe, so the news that it is possible and somewhat quick is quite wonderful. Everyone here is also about to send their Christmas packages. There packages range from small to huge and absolutely
expensive as heck.

Well paps, a very horrible thing has happened. Either someone stole my nice rain jacket, or I simply misplaced it, or I just left it at the Ivato house. Short story shorter, I can't find the thing for the life of me. And whadda know, the rain is finally here. The monsoon season has started, and every day there is rain for at least 2-3 hours, sometimes all day. For two days I just braved the storms jacket-less. Talk about retched! I was covered in mud, literally drenched, and just all around not happy at the world. On the third day I'd had enough and I went to a giant market looking for a rain jacket. Elder Riding had lost his as well, so he had bought a pretty sweet jacket from the market the day before. As is usually my luck, the seller of good jackets was gone to Tana for the day and only the bad sellers were there. Fantastic. So I ended up purchasing a giant, yellow, plastic number that is suppossed to be able to withstand fires. Sweet! Needless to say, I look absolutely ridiculous. But hey - wind, rain, fire, and probably acid is not getting through that jacket.

Well, I love you guys and pray for you always. Have fun at Enchanted Rock! Eat some brauts for me - I haven't had a hotdog in a year.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Simple, plain and non-suspicion-arousing

2010-10-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

I sent the Christmas package last P-Day. The package people at the Poasitra (post office) were very helpful, though not exactly knowledgable. We weren't really sure how to secure my package to make it theft-proof, so after turning down the sweet post office workers idea of actual tying the whole thing up with rope, we just put a lot of tape on it. Cheers! Hopefully you guys won't get slamed for customs when the package gets to you. The package checker couldn't speak English, so he let me write in the contents of the package. I tried to be as simple, plain, and non-suspicion-arousing as I could, but I couldn't bring myself to just flat out lie - the effects of being a missionary I suppose.

BTW, there is an incoming birthday card for Clarissa. My goal is to send one for everyone in the family - excepting the babies. They can't really read, and it costs a good sum of my food money to send letters, and ya. So anyways, mother, the 4925 Kentington address is pretty much my stop way for all items going to America from Mada.

Also, if you would like to send me some sticker books, that'd be super awesome. Like: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, World of Warcraft, and anime. I decorate all my planners with sitckers and clever little cartoons, and I'm getting tired of the usual Dragon Ball Z and Naruto that just so happen to be the only stickers available. Thanks!

Elder Peatross got a pinched sciatic-nerve. Ouch! Because of that, Prez Donnelly asked us to not ride our bikes for a couple of days and just walk to our times if we
could. Seeing as most of our times are super far away, and/or in the mountains, we just ended up staying home alot. We payed for expensive pous-pous' to get us to our absolute-must times, but that was pretty much it.

Even with that though, we still had lots of people come to church and three baptisms on Saturday. The people that got baptized were named Ihanta, Georgette, and Jean Didider. They are a mother and two children, and they are extremely diligent. Ihanta had been looking for the true church for a very very long time. One day she prayed and asked God for the true church, and then we showed up. I remember that day over two months ago. We were out doing times and most of them just weren't panning out. So we decided to just try and tract - my favorite! We taught a sort of lesson to a lady on her porch, and then ambled on over to the house/square/apartment thing of Bebe Patsa. Patsa has learned all the lessons, but she hasn't come to church because she's old and hard-headed. Everyone else that lives in their little compound is either already baptized now or soon to be baptized. Pretty amazing huh?

Another interesting story: One day a couple of weeks ago me and Peatross were eating some rice and beans at one of our favorites. People are always amazed that we are actually mahay tengasy, so they were asking us questions and we were just chattin abut random stuff. Then we started talking about ohambolonas (proverbs) and ankamantatras (riddles). They were pretty interested, and eventually the topic
of conversation turned to our purpose here as missionaries - my favorite topic of conversation :D. One of the people was actually pretty interested, and she invited us over to teach a lesson.

The next week we went to this ladies beauty salon and taught her a pretty incredible first lesson. Half way through the introduction of what we were going to talk about, she says, "Hey, do you guys use the Book of Mormon? Because I have it and read it every day. Where does that book come from?"

Are you kidding me? Why can't people ask such questions and already have such experiences every day? So we taught her an entire BoM lesson as well and she seems totally ready to accept the gospel fully into her life. It's people like these that are the elect, in my opinion.

That's all I've got for you guys this week. Have fun camping. Wish Uncle Wayne well for me and tell them that they are in my prayers.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Hey Ian!

2010-10-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2010

Hey Ian! This is Elder Matthew Cryer here reporting from the Madagascar Antananarivo Mission. A mission is a pretty awesome thing, Ian. A real adventure is waiting for you! I've shaken hands with lemurs (monkeys), been bitten by chamelons (lizards), and even been chased by bulls! I love my mission and I know you will love your mission too.

Ian, I know the church is true. I know that God gave us prophets like Moses, Joseph Smith, and Thomas S. Monson so that we could learn and return to heaven someday. I also know that if you want to have a cool mission like mine, you gotta get ready NOW! Read the scriptures, go to church, do some pushups, follow the Prophet. If you do that, you'll be ready for this awesome adventure.

Just yesterday me and my companion were coming down a huge mountain - we had taught some cool Malagasys. Then we had to go through the jungle, boulders, cliffs and other crazy stuff. Trust me, a mission is awesome!

Love, Elder Cryer

Rocks the socks

2010-10-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited for the holiday season! Halloween is fast approaching and you better believe that even in Madagascar we are preparing for our Halloween celebration. Last night me and Elder Riding carved a pumpkin that I bought from one of my recent converts. Then, we got everyone out of bed at 11:30 at night, dressed up in cheesy sweaters and jeans, made a fire, and took our house Halloween picture. You'll be receiving one in the coming weeks. There is also going to be a Halloween party, a Thanksgiving picture, and a Christmas picture. There will be lots of costumes and live animals involved.

So, as you might have guessed, Antsirabe rocks the socks right now. Me, Riding, and Peatross stay up late every night talking and creating things. Sometimes our activities may or may not take us past 10:30, but as soon as we realize the time we head straight to bed. The best part of all our fun is that we are still working way hard. Unlike many whose idea of fun is directly related to laziness and disobedience, I feel like it has only driven us to work harder and more effectively. Our Antsirabe Zone has pretty much twice weekly parties and get togethers, so it is just making life awesome. On Sunday night we have a Family Home Evening/Pot-Luck were we play games and just get to know each other better.

In other news, my bike is the most miserable creation of metal and tires the world has been cursed enough to behold. On that note, Elder Peatross's bike is right behind it in levels of dreadfulness. These bikes break constantly. I personally feel that this is a personal attack from the Enemy himself, Satan. He knows that we are a rockin force of scriptures, Malagasy, and the Spirit, so he's obivously trying to hold us back. But we'll throw those bikes in the ditch and run to our times if we have to.

Work is getting quite chaotic and packed. Referals are coming in; old investigators from the Sisters are coming out of the wood-works; and the work is just on the whole erupting. We are supposed to get about 9 baptisms at the end of this month to add on to the 3 that are coming up this Saturday. I'm a little bit nervous about the whole affair. I feel like people just aren't getting the time and attention that they
deserve. We're slowly converting our whole schedule to thirty minute times only, because there is too much work for everyone. Personally, I love hour long times because you really get to know your investigator and build a foundation of trust and love. But, duty calls and the war against darkness is mounting further every moment.

I feel like this situation can directly be related to faith. In order for faith to grow, we must experiment upon that which we have and exercise it constantly to see progression. There is no such thing as a 'plateau' level where you can just relax and cruise. As one of the Apostles said, (possibly M. Russel Ballard, or Uchtdorf...I can't rememeber),"There is no growth in the comfort zone." I know that
to be true for I have seen the positive and negative effects of the dynamic principle of faith in my own life.

I miss you guys and can't wait to chat at Christmas. Love, Elder Cryer

Super Troopers

2010-10-04T07:06:00.000-07:00

So anyways, I am so jealous that you guys got to watch conference. I probably won't see it for at least a month and chances are good that it'll be in Malagasy. Conference has become one of my most favorite times of the year.

In other news, Elder Rakotoniaina got transfered. My new companion is named Elder Peatross and he is awesome. Elder Peatross (Pet - tr - oss) has been out for about four months, so he is still pretty young. Fortunately for my tsy mahay self, he is already walking, talking, and dressing himself! He is, in my opinion, one of the coolest young guys around. And, if he isn't the best, then Elder Riding - the other new elder in our house is. We all make a a pretty dynamic, rockin party at our house. We study, we clean, we speak in English, we work, and we party every day. I feel like it could be passably argued that our house is the coolest of all the houses in Mada. In fact, only ridiculously cool people have been transfered to Antsirabe.

So about my shoes and stuff. I'm pretty happy that we bought the Dr. Martens because they are some super-troopers. No need to replace those bad-boys. And yes, I would really like the headlamp. In fact, Elder Peatross saw the details of the Black Diamond head lamp as well as the picture, and he's decided to ask his parents for that for Chrismas as well. That is a pretty slick lookin light - I must say. My rain jacket is good - no complaints there. I don't really ever wear it, is the thing.
I got in Mada at a strange part of the year when there should have been monsoons, but there wasn't. Everyone's sayin that in a month or so the rain and heat is gonna hit hard again, so my jacket should get some good use :).

I have what is probably an upper-respitory infection as of right now. The force of it has thankfully lessened, but for a couple of days I literally couldn't do anything! It was so horrible - especially when you consider the fact that I have no computer or TV to entertain me through the boredom of doing nothing. Yuck.

All in all, Antsirabe is still by far the best area in Mada and has only gotten better. On Peatross's first day we taught some random guy at the house of another investigator. We had dropped by just to check and see if our investigators were there, and we found this guy. Apparently he is the husband of the woman and children who we had taught the week before. We had a pretty amazing lesson, and the man was in tears at he end of the lesson. We helped him out with some other problems and then invited him to be baptized with his entire family at the end of October. I've seen enough miracles by this point in my mission that I'm no longer suprised when I see new ones, but just awed. He whole-heartedly accepted and even told us that he had been looking for something like this. Though he had been baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church, he became disenchanted by the have-it-your-way-but-not-the-Bible's-way type of doctrine. So he left and never went back. As he said this, Peatross and I looked at each other and said in English, "Awesome."

The next day we saw another miracle. Him, and his family, and anyone else they could round up for came to church. How amazing! There were 25 investigators at church on Sunday, and we are expecting many more to come.

I love my mission and I testify that this is the absolute best work I could be doing at this point in my life. I know my Redeemer lives and died for me, and I am so thankful to have the oppurtunity to inform people about this magnificent message. No matter where you think you are in the range of spiritual progress, there is always room for improvment and there is always knowledge to be gained from the simplicities of this gospel.

Gringo's sounds delicious about right now.

Adventure On,
Elder Cryer

Twists, turns and music

2010-09-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the B-Day letter! Was there supposed to be money in it? I think you mentioned something about that but I don't know if that was the letter you were talking about. If it was, the Malagasies snagged the money. Ow well.

So that one apartment building that we teach at with tons of families has been the host of music practice. All the newly baptized people want to learn how to read and lead music. Specifically, hymns. So for about the first half of our lessons I teach everyone how to lead and sing. It is super fun. Most of them have problems understanding the beat system and counting, but a couple of the younger kids have been quick to catch on. One night I got carried away and tried to teach them how to sing parts. After a short and painful five minutes, I gave up that idea :P. It is amazing how few people actually know how to sing and lead music. In fact, except for members of the church, there is hardly anyone in country that is aqcuainted with the art of note reading. In America we complain so much about there not being enough money for the choir trips; not enough budget for every single thing band directors can possibly concieve of buying. Well, here there is absolutely nothing of a music nature. NOTHING. If I ever become blessed with a lot of money someday, I want to start a foundation for music education in second and third world countries. These kids at least need to chance to grow artistically. Maybe the next Placido Domingo, Mozart, Chopin, or even Freddie Mercury could come from here. Who knows?

We had a nice baptism for two people from our Branch last Saturday. One of the women was from us, the other from the Sisters. The one that was ours is named Hiasana and she is the oldet daughter (like 30 years old) of Victor. The work is going so extremely well here in Ambohimena, it is just amazing. I'm so thankful to the Lord for the incredible bounty of fruit He has given us in this part of the vineyard. Next month we are expecting about 20 or so baptisms, so that should be a ball. One of the best things about the baptisms we are having is that tons of members and friends are showing up to the baptisms. Even people from the different Antsirabe branches are coming to show their support. The situation here is really starting to look up member-wise. They've just finally made up their minds that they are on board for the missionary work and the general work of the Lord. It's so cool.

Bingham, Rakotomalala, and Rabenjarisoa are all going home. Plus, Taggart and Rakotoniaina are probably on the move to other areas. Kinda crazy huh? Like, only four people are gonna be left of my original gang. Plus, the much beloved Tahitian couple, the Bennets, are being transferd to La Reunion. Now that is most certainly some horrible news. They are so cool, so helpful, and so nice. Now us missionaries will be allll alone. No more soirees, no more free rides in a nice car, no more nearly instant mail and package delivery.

An interesting twist of all this is that I'm getting the Sisters area tomorrow. The APs already gave me a call to prepare me for it. On Sunday we scheduled times with all of the Sister's diligent investigators, three families. Antsirabe to us, it is practically paradise. I'm in an amazing place, as Antsirabe is the gem of the Mada mission.

Miss you peeps. I miss you and love ya.

-Elder Cryer

P.S.: About the razor issue: Just to give you some perspective, a pack of four quality Gillet razors is 36,000 ariary! I only get 75,000 per week, so that is just out of the question.

Some of the local wildlife

2010-09-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

God in Our Lives

2010-09-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yay I'm twenty! Feels suspiciously like 19 though.... I didn't really do anything for my B-Day, expect for going out to eat for lunch on Saturday and having a big missionary dinner on Sat night. But the purpose of the dinner was three-fold - because of my B-Day, the missionaries who are going home, and just because. Thanks to everyone for everything!

This week we had five baptisms for me and Rakotoniaina. Another four for the sisters and one more from Taggart, so there were ten baptisms on Saturday. The names of
the people were: Victore, Aina, Selestine, Michael, and Tana. The first two are mom and daughter, Selestine is a really cool girl the lives next door to Aina, and Michael and Tana are the children of a couple who are having some serious getting married problems - Frere Nirina and Soeur Lila if you remember them. Hiasana, Victore's daughter, is going to be getting baptized this Saturday as well, along
with a couple of the Sister's last baptisms before they go home. This is pretty mind-boggling, and pretty humbling. I know that Madagascar is a very special part of the Lord's vineyard, and I'm so thankful to be able to be one of the priviledged workers here.

And now I'd like to talk about something I hate. I absolutely hate alcohol! It destroys people, families, neighborhoods, and anything else that the Enemy can get his hands on. So many times we've had an extremely spiritual time with our investigators ruined by the alcoholism of a wayward family member. In many cases, I just don't know what to do. I pray, and I feel like I receive inspiration, but these people have their agency if they don't want to stop their destructive habits and addictions. I have seen some of the saddest situations in relation to alcohol. These issues are between the people, the Lord, and occasionally one of His representatives. I'm sure we've all either seen or personally felt the tragic effects of life with an alcoholic. Alcohol and all of if its rotten cohorts (drugs, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, etc.) are certainly some of the greatest tools for evil and wickedness that Statan has ever unleashed upon the generations of men. It is so sad to see what used to be mighty souls of the fold of God fall prey to these
substances and temptations.

On to happier topics. We had an amazing time with a woman named Volola this week. Two weeks ago Rakoto and I taught a huge time with all of her kids and some adult neighbors at their house. To preface, she explained a conversation that she had had with her daughter after our first time. She said:

"My daughter wasn't feeling good. I asked her what the problem was and
she said, 'We don't have enough.'

'We don't have enough what?' I responded.

'We don't have enough God in our lives.'

"I was astonished. I remember my kids asking if they could go to the Mormon church. I didn't understand why they would want to when they've been Catholic their whole lives. So my question for you is this: What does my family need to do to have more of God in our lives?"

I don't know that I've ever had such a good question. Because of her discussions with her kids, we were able to come straight out and say that our purpose as missionaries was to help people come unto Christ through Faith, Repentance, Baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. We taught her a little about Joseph Smith and the importance of prophets, but mostly just talked with her about her life and her family's relationship with God. It was truly awesome. That's a miracle right there. I know it.

To answer your questions: near death experiences are approximately zero this week. Me and Elder Taggart did bicycle surf down a big giant hill one night, but that's another story for another time. And no, we don't wear helmets. My mission is in a poor country, therefore we have a poor man's budget for pretty much anything. But hey, the ghetto-ness of it all just adds to the romance.

That's all I got this week. I miss you guys and love you lots.

Elder Cryer

Explorer with scriptures

2010-09-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday we had Zone Conference with the Area President, Elder Koeliker, as the guest. I sang "I Have Not Seen Yet I Believe" and all in all it was a good little shin-dig. We learned more about the new teaching methods and basically that was that. Had some lunch at the Bennet's house and then took off back to work. I ended up having to sing again on Sunday because there was the opening Sacrament meeting at the Manandona building. All the mission's leaders came and they wanted to make the occasion a nice one. There was a thrown-together missionary choir and they made me sing another solo. I did "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" in Malagasy and English. Hopefully it wasn't too bad.

Me and Elder Rakotomalala (not to be confused with Rakotoniaina) went on splits to Manandona on Wednesday. Manandona is a pretty wonderful place. It is about twenty something kilometers away from Antsirabe and deep in the countryside. Lemme tell ya, this place is beautiful. Rolling landscape, big-ish mountains, and more rice-paddies than you can shake a stick at. This is somewhere that I could see myself working at towards the end of my mission. After doing a few times in the morning, we ate some kinda-not-good crackers at a pitiful little epicurie because there is pretty zero food out there. Unless, I guess, you just want some plain rice.

After lunch we headed out into the mountians. For about an hour we hiked, climbed, forded rivers, and at times rode our bikes through the rugged paths. It was awesome. Finally we arrived at the times we had in the middle of literally nowhere. I have no idea how they found these people! These people are true subsistence dwellers. I felt like I had travelled back in time to around the 1000 BC Greek countryside. No joke. After our times with some wonderful people, we biked up a giant and horribly steep mountain, broke our bikes, and finally made it to what I guess would be called the highway. Both of us were exhausted and our bikes weren't keen on going much farther. Then, a miracle occured! The Bennets came flying around the corner in their car, coming to our very rescue. That day was hard - but what an experience! I could reasonably relate it to scrambling through the mountains on the scouting High Adventure activities, on a bike, wearing a white shirt and tie.

The next day me and Elder Smith went on splits for mountain day in Andrangy. We got lost, taught some incredible new people, had laughs galore, and really made a day of it. In fact, I think it was so much fun because we got lost! That night we were heading to our last time on a very dark and treacherous road. Smith went down after hitting a massive rock in the middle of the road. He shook himself off and kept going as I explained how I should have told him about it. Halfway through my sentence, I hit a cliff-hole thing and flew straight over the handle bars. My bike wrapped around my body and pinned me. Now I'm moaning and aching on the ground. Smith turned around to see what the comotion was all about, when he got tripped by the road again! He goes done in a laughing heap. The irony of the whole situation just countered the pain and frustration. After that, we slowly walked our bikes to better paths only to be dogged (a term meaning that the investigator wasn't there) by our last time. Fantastic! We should have known what fate had in store for us after what the crash-derby, highway of heck had done to us ;P.

In other news, the grasshoppers are migrating south. This means that literal clouds of the little guys are flying through town. Like, imagine the Moses-plague on Egypt, and you have some idea of what this looks like. As I was engulfed by the cloud of grasshoppers before one of my times, I almost thought that the next thing that would attack us was fire balls coming done from the sky.

We taught a new family this week that has an interesting story. The husband is deaf and he used to work for a dairy company called Tiako - the corporation that was owned by the former now-exiled president. He has no job now and his family barely scrapes by. Theirs is an especially sad situation considering the circumstances of their legal marriage - or lack there of. When they had their last baby, they were planning to get married soon afterward. There were complications in the birth, so they had to go to an expensive doctor. He told them that the price would be 100,000 ariary and if they didn't pay up then he'd take their karapanondros (kinda like an ID). They didn't have any choice but to accept his terms, not pay him the full amount, and get their IDs taken away. So, now they can't get married. This is so sad because they are so spiritually strong and diligent. What can we do but pray, hope, and put it in the hands of the Lord?

This week has literally been an adventure. How I got so lucky to have a mission like this, I don't know. This place is amazing. I really feel like I'm more of an explorer with scriptures in hand than just a regular missionary. I hope I never leave Antsirabe! The mission that I dreamed about when I first got my call is finally here.

I honestly have no idea how the political situation is here in Madagascar. We don't get too much news here in Antsirabe and even if the whole country was in an uproar, Antsirabe would still probably be perfectly calm. I asked Elder Eschler about it a few weeks back and he said that there really wasn't anything to report. So, there. That's the policital situation in Mada according to me.

It seems like less things have tried to kill me this week, which to me is a plus. I got some slick new red brakes on my bike so I have much more control over that situation.

The work is kinda on the verge of being too big to handle. We had 26 investigators to church on Sunday, 6 baptisms this weekend, and possibly 15-20+ baptisms coming up in October. Combine that with the fact that the Sisters are leaving and I'm taking their area on top of my own. I think I'm going to die. I need my companion to stay to help me deal with the extra 40-50 investigators that will soon be flooding in. If I get someone new, that means we can't go on splits for awhile because he won't know the area. I figure that about half of the days in the week should be spent with us doing splits so that we can double the amount of work we can perform. I'm really
hoping that president decides to split my area in the months after this, but at that point I'll probably be close to heading to a new area. Your prayers would be appreciated :D.

Our guardian angels are working overtime. Just as a matter of caution, tell everyone to be super safe and careful and live worthily - I think there is certainly protective power that comes from the Lord. It's at times like this that I think about families. The dead and mortally wounded don't really have to worry about to much; they're in the Spirit World, a much better place. But what must those families feel when such tragedies enter their lives? Most likely, they don't know about the plan of salvation. They don't know about the temple, they don't have eternal sealings and covenants in their lives. They don't have that comfort that penetrates all death, strife, and sadness. To me, this only makes the message of the gospel that much more important. These people need the relief that only the Savior's love can bring.

Well that's all I have for now. I miss you guys and love you. Still working out, still not where I want to be physically, thanks for the high muscle/high fat genes I inherited from you and Mom ;P.

O hey, I turn twenty on Sunday. Cool.

Love,
Elder Cryer

Zone Conference Sept. 2010 Antsirabe

2010-09-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Run over, attacked, still kicking

2010-09-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks for praying for me on mountain day. Ironically that was certainly not the day in which I was in the most danger this week. I got slammed on my bike by what could respectably be called an eighteen-wheeler. But fear not! I only have a scrape on my knee and a mild cut on my ankle, and my bike has already been fixed. I am fairly positive that it was a complete miracle that I am alive right now and not at least in the hospital. Fa tsy maninona! It was totally the bikes fault and I am now being 100 times more careful so that my bike has no chance to sabotage me.

The first big event of my week occured on Tuesday. Rakoto and I were on our way to one of our many times, going down a long road that is usually very busy with traffic and drivers who don't obey the non-existent traffic laws. Just as we were about to turn into a side road, I saw a big giant truck flying down the road. It was hauling some sort of building material I suppose, quite massive. But, this truck was forever away down the road. There would be no problem at all with me trying to cross the road. Ha.

Just as I turned in to cross the road, my bike decided to take a break. Literally. It stopped peddling all-together and left me to cruise slowly out into the path of the oncoming truck. I had about a second or two to think about how the driver would be mad at me for getting in his way, because I could already hear screeching of all its many tires. Then, the truck slammed hard into the back of my bike, sending me flying through the air backwards. As I flew, I thought something along the lines of, "Well, this isn't good. How embarrassing." Then I hit the ground, skidded for a moment, and lay prostrate for a bit because I was so shocked at what had just happened.

Once I got my senses, I jumped up and ran over to the truck driver to apologize. I think the driver and his assistant were mostly just relieved that they wouldn't be fired because they killed a missionary. After that, I went home because my legs were aching and my bike was unrideable. It was at this time that I considered just how close I had come to being destroyed and losing my entire lower half. Just three more inches and that truck would have slammed into my back and I'd probably be a vegetable right now. Talk about a miracle. I think that maybe God had this happen because I needed to learn just how wretched our bikes are, and that I need to be much more careful with them. Maybe I didn't really get it at that point, because I was then assaulted by a roaming pous pous - sent flying through the air again - and have been dealing with a horrible brake system that seems inclined to never actually work. Hills have been a whole new bit of fun and spectacle this week.

On mountain day, I got hit by a giant bee and spider battle. A massive, hairy spider and a mammoth black "bee" (so they say) were having a duel in mid-air. How this whole arrangment ended up airborn, I have no clue. Anyways, they dropped onto my head while I was giving a spiritual thought outside to a group up in the mountains. Of course they dropped on my head - why would they do anything different? The combatants fell from my head into my lap - I freaked out and flipped them onto the grass. I quickly finished the bee's work and dispatched the spider (he was one buff spider), before chasing down the bee and finishing it with my planner. All the kids in the group thought my battle with the bee was HILarious. He was vicious. Apparently I've read Ender's Game far too much and think everything is trying to kill me. But, as events have played out so far in my mission, I'd say there is a fair chance that everything is indeed trying to kill me.

In other bits of wonderful news, Christmas is coming, my only one in Mada. I'll get to talk to you guys on the phone *does a little dance*. Who will I be able to talk to on Christmas?

This week has been filled with work, and baptism dates. The new fomba (umm...way) in the mission is to talk about baptism on the very first lesson. I love it. We learned about this way of teaching in the MTC, but I promptly forgot it when I came in country because no one did that. I guess I was just too scared to change the "tried and true method" that was already popular in the mission. I'm glad we are making this return to Preach My Gospel principles. It seems like it absolutely does work, which isn't a suprise when you follow the divine guidance from Heavenly Father.

That's about all I have for you guys this week. I love you super mucho mihtsy and miss you. I'm so happy to be here on a mission, doing the Lord's work, bringing souls unto Christ. I know this church is true and I know it with a conviction that is unshakeable. I know that President Thomas S. Monson is the true prophet and leader of the Lord's chuch in these latter days. I hope you guys are staying "in the low valley" and still following the "straight and narrow path that leads to eternal salvation." I pray for each and every one of you constantly.

Elder Cryer

Carry On

2010-08-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a good week. The work is still going incredibly and every week brings me closer to the time when I'll have to leave Antsirabe. This is a terrible thought. I love this place more than anything. It is seriously like heaven. So many good things happen but even when bad things happen, I say a quick little prayer in my heart, and then sing when we're cruising through the countryside and I feel better. There's me, blaring out "Carry On", "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel", or one of the classics, "Carry On My Wayward Son", "Don't Stop Believing" or any of the other Journey masterpieces that are my favorite when we are on our way home. You can really let loose when no one is on the streets at night.

Zone Conference is goin down next week. I was going to sing "Whole Again" but it is far too difficult for my pianist, Elder Raoilson, to play. As soon as he saw it he said, "It would take me at least a month to learn this!" So, after I email, I'm gonna go to Sally Deford web site and pick one of the easier hymnal arrangments.

We had a baptism this last Saturday, and it went great! Except, of course, for the fact that one of our kids didn't show up at all. That was a major bummer, especially considering that the family didn't even come to church at all the next day. Though disconcerting, we can't really do anything about it until Thursday when we go out into the mountains. They just live too far away for us to go out there with our packed schedules. I'm thinking that someone is sick, or an old relative died, or there was a giant party/meeting that everyone in the area attended.

I'm trying to get through the Book of Mormon in Malagasy, which is a fun challenge all its own. I understand mostly everything, except for the weird word that my dictionary doesn't have. At those points I have to consult my English scriptures and find out the the word was some old verson of the word wickedness, or floating in the air, or some strange conjugation of the word, stuff like that. It is so cool to go through the Book of Mormon in another language, seeing how the translaters went about their work. Most things are not translated straight across, because that would be kinda impossible. But, the general thought of the phrases is always there.

Not much out of the ordinary really happened this week, but we did have quite the pleasant suprise at church on Sunday. One of the familes of a group of three that we have been working with for about three weeks finally came to church. Woohoo! It was especially peculiar because at our last time he had said that they would try to come to church, but they probably couldn't because there was an end-of-the-month neighborhood meeting. But they came! And the best part was that father was so active and upbeat about the whole thing. There wasn't a nervous bone in his body. He answered so many questions during the investigator class that Sister Rabenjarisoa literally told him that he couldn't answer or talk anymore - other people needed the chance to talk too! But no one else knew the answers to the questions, so he went back to being the prime answerer.

The other really cool thing about this family is that they are Catholic. Most Catholic people we talk to are really accepting of our message and diligent, at their church. Generally the Catholics never change for anything. They'll accept the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the whole sha-bang but they never take that next step. Their excuse is always inevitabley "Andriamanitra Ray ihany!" (God the Only Father!) That doesn't make any sense in English and by all means shouldn't in Malagays either, but what they are actually saying is, "God is the Father of all and it doesn't make a bit of difference where we go to church or how we worship, just so long as we believe." That's a lot of information in one little phrase, isn't it?

Concerns from last weeks email: I do have a headlamp actually, I just don't use it that much because the battery is always dying in it. Generally there is only enough life in the things to give me the blue light for any extended period of time. Though, I am definently recognizing the need for a flashlight. I hate more than anything riding through the mountains or over a thin strip of land beside a giant drop at night time, especially when there is no light from the moon. Riding through the many cactus walls in people's neighborhoods is not much fun either at night. Super super scary.

Thanks for the advice about the bulls. I didn't get chased again this week, which was a relief. But I was pretty much scared for my life every time I went by the bull running area. I found out why the bulls are so angry there. On the top of the hill there is the slaughter house :P. Me and Rakoto figure that they can smell the death and therefore get really crazy. I can't blame them though. If some aliens are leading me to the anal-probe room, I'm gonna be swingin my fists all the way. I forgive the bulls.

Miss you lots but I'll be home in no time at all. No time to waste. Have fun, go to church, eat good food. And don't be afraid to share your religious beliefs with the next guy.

Elder Cryer

Covered in mud, charged by bulls - and on top of the world

2010-08-23T18:52:00.001-07:00

I'm tired. I'm happy. I'm so grateful for the sweet Spirit of the Lord that guides us in all things, if only we ask. This week was very hard and very, very rewarding.

Last Monday, we had a soiree de carte at the giant home of Frere Noel. I don't know what soiree de carte means, so don't bother asking. It is basically like a ward social at someone's house, with investigators being the main focus of the event. We ate some cracker-type things, slide show of Fr Noel's family, and watched the Joseph
Smith First Vision Film. It is the one that is kind of a visual representation of the prophet's story in "Joseph Smith History." I then had to translate the whole film for the people there. Talk about exhausting! Joseph used some pretty flowery language and pretty expansive metaphors that are close to impossible for a young missionary such as myself to accurately describe. Most of the time I was just putting the words of the movie into simpler, more translatable form.

Everyone here is dying, no joke. Death after death it seems like it coming to every family. It is common knowledge that when it gets cold, the old folks are at risk. To go along with all of the funerals, everyone is having their Famadiana. I really have no clue what that means, but it is when the families have a big, rock out with trumpet and clarinet party. They take all the bodies - that have yet to crumble into nothingness - out of the fasana (grave/monolith thing) and rewrap the bodies. Then they hoist them on to their shoulders and dance around. I heard about the grave dancing thing and here it is. No good pictures, but there's always next year!

We have two people getting baptized this coming Saturday. It should be a ball as all the other companionships are having a few people baptized as well. One of the kids is named Roland, and he is a hold-over from two weeks ago when his mom and brother got baptized. At the time he was deathly afraid of water and just would not be
baptized. But, the example of his family and a shearing haircut from his mother got him excited. Pretty cool, huh? The other is a girl who's mom is already baptized. She learned from the missionaries in Ambositra (two hours south) and is pretty much more mahay at the gospel than any Mormon girl at a Scripture Chase in America. I'm
really proud of these two and super excited to see them join their families in this most Celestial covenant.

In other news, I've been charged by bulls twice this week! Ironically, both times were at the same spot. For some reason, I guess the bull wranglers like to run their really pissed off bulls there. Who knows? They do it all the time! The first time I scrambled quickly up a steep hill that the bull couldn't climb. The second time, the bull chased me on my bike up the hill. Luckily, the bull handlers beat it into submission and got a rope around his neck before he caught me.

We had the wonderful opportunity to do service twice this past week. One of the events was a Mormon Helping Hands service party. All we did was go sweep up the public square in front of the train station that was already clean, then went and did a cleaning of the church. The other thing we did was help one of our investigators make bricks. Yay! That was super fun and definitely a cool experience. The guy named Zoe makes bricks for a living at a giant...umm...mud bank? Anyways, he gets about ten ariary per brick (.5 cents) and works like a horse. So we went there to give his rough, one-man brick making business some help. First we transported a giant pile of mud and then began the actual brick buidling process. At first it was hard getting the bricks into the mold and setting them down right. Then we got mahay and were bangin' em out like no tomorrow. By the end, we were completely covered in mud and had to go wash off in a what was pretty much a giant mud puddle. The Malagasies were amazed that a vaza would get his hands dirty and on top of that, be good at making bricks. I told them I was going to parlay my new skills into a booming brick business in America, and threw mud at all the gawking kids from time to time. Fun times.

As per usual, the best day of my week was Thursday: mountains day. It is by far the most tiring but has some classic characters as well as amazing indivduals in the mix. That night, we went to Fr Nirina's buidling and had an amazing experience. The lesson was about their marriage and their baptism date. I was having mixed feelings
about the whole thing, thinking that their date was just too soon. So, I asked them if we could all kneel down and pray, asking God when they should be baptized. They agreed and Rakoto offered the prayer. It was a sacred and holy experience for me and I felt direct communication and revelation from the Lord.

I don't know why, but this week I have felt like I am on the top of the world. Does this ever end? Do I really have to go home someday? I'd rather stay here and feel this way all the time. The work here in Ambohimena is indescribable. We have so many things on our plate that just planning is a trial. Church is a calf scramble with the 20+ investigators that we have to deal with, the different things that the presidency wants to happen, and so forth. I'm competely exhausted.

From time to time, I think Satan has tried to use this agaisnt me. For instance: as we are flying through the mountains in the pitch blackness, late as usual for our times, tired beyond comprehension, I get feelings of angst and feel ready to give up. Once I even said, "Leave me alone Satan. Let me do my work without your constant nagging." And ya know what? It worked. I have a testimony that temptation can be turned away from and cast out - if we but decide to do it. That's something I've learned that I would have loved to know when I was a snot-nosed brat in high school. We don't have to sucumb to temptation. We don't even have to endure it. Just call upon the power the resides within us all, tell that Corrupter to depart, and move on. He knows when it's a lost cause. Of this, I bear witness for I have seen it it my life and in the eyes of those whose lives have been transformed. Never doubt it. Have trust in God and he'll deliver you.

If I sound like I take myself too seriously, I'm sorry. I promise that I won't talk about gospel principles and break out into preach sessions all the time when I get home. It is just that, well, I'm on a mission. I feel pretty strongly about these things. These spiritual-related things are the most viable thing to me, everything
else is pulling along in second place. But that's how it should be, I figure. A mission is for metamorphisis, not stagnation.

Well, I can honestly say that I am exhausted and have run out of fumes. At this point, I'm running on the good, ever-present arm of the Lord. This week has been one of the most, if not the most, wonderful weeks of my life up to this point. All I'll say is: my mission has arrived. Here, I am.

I love you mom and dad, and family, and others who happen to read this. Miss you guys.

-Elder Cryer

PS: I think I might go to a place called An'Zoma soon and go ride some bulls bare back. It should be fun :D. I'll make sure to get a weak, old, frail one just in case.

A funeral, blessings and prayers

2010-08-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

This week was quite interesting. The first thing that happened, on Tuesday, was that we all went to a funeral. That morning, our Branch President said that we needed to go and visit the family of the deceased and share a spiritual thought with them or at least comforting words. When we got to the house, we had to wait for a bunch
more people to arrive before going into the house. During our hour long wait, I was very confused at why we had to wait for these people. Finally, after everyone had gotten there, we proceeded slowly into the house. It was at this point I knew something was different.

This was not your regular old visit with a spiritual thought. When we walked into the house, I was greeted by the body of a dead, old, clothed in white, Malagasy woman who had died. We all took a moment to stare at the body and then faced the deceased's family, who were all sitting in chairs around the room. Of course, I ended up being closest to the body for the whole time. We proceeded to say five prayers, chant some things I didn't understand, and then say to each and every member of the family "Aza misoska alahelo intsony (don't feel sad anymore)."
It's important to go with the flow and respect peoples cultures and traditions. All in all....what an experience.

I got my B-Day package! Thank you so much! Sure it came over a month early, but who cares? Now that I think about it, I probably shouldn't have opened it until my B-Day. But you knew when you sent it that I'd open upon receipt, so ha. The package was perfect! Candy, slick ties, some other goodies, and and amazing camera. Alls I'm saying is, you guys never bought stuff like that for me when I was home....guess
the mission makes the parents love the son more! Lol ;P. JKJKJKJKJK

We had two baptisms this past weekend, so that was great. We have another 7 scheduled for the end of the month, so the work is absolutely booming here. In fact, our Antsirabe Zone got 26 baptisms last weekend. Crazy! On Sunday we got close to 30 investigators to church, which is far crazier. Maybe I'm working harder; maybe the
rumors were true about Antsirabe being better than anywhere; and maybe I just have no idea about anything. I do know one thing though, and that is that I LOVE Antsirabe!

On Saturday, we had what I shall now refer to as "The Night of Blessings and Prayers." At a spiritually uplifting time with Frere Nirina and family, as well as with Lova and Hiasana's family, three different people decided they wanted blessings for a variety of problems. It was wonderful and it will go down as one of my favorite
nights of my mission. The words were heartfelt and certainly directed by our Father in Heaven. At the end of the time, all fifteen of us kneeled down in that six by six room - how, I have no clue - and Rakotoniaina offered a beautiful prayer. It was truly a gift from God to see the gospel affecting people so strongly. I know that this Church is true and that the message we bring to people is divinely created and truly blesses lives. Experiences like that confirm my already-large testimony of such things. I love my mission, and, I love these people.

As we were leaving the apartment buidling, feeling on top of the world, we were stopped by one of our other investigators (we teach at least five different groups of people in that building). She asked us if we could come in and pray with them. Of course, we said. We went in to find the husband on the floor, completely wasted. The
mother complained to us about how he had a devil from the alcohol and they couldn't sleep at night because of his crazy behaviour. My companion looked at the drunk man, who was now rising to a sitting position and said, "Do you love your family?" The man said yes. "Do you love God?" The man said yes again. "Who do you love more: God or Satan?" The man laughed and said God. My comp proceeded to say that his partaking of alcohol was ruining his family and that when he did it he let Satan gain a firm hold in his life. "You cannot serve two masters." Then I prayed for them, all of us kneeling, and asked God to bless that man that he would have the strength to reject Satan and get his life in order. Then my comp told the man that when we left, he
should poor out his heart to God and find his solution.

The next morning, as we were greeting people coming into the church, you'll never guess who walked up. That drunk man who was without hope and without religion wabbled up, ready to partake in the fotoam-bavaka (prayer time). He still looked hammered, but he had a smile on his face and he knew he was in the right place, on the right path. I sat by him in all the classes - to guide him and to keep him out of trouble because I'm pretty sure he chucked a couple of brewskies back before dawning his church clothes. At one point during Sacrament meeting, I had the beginings of a judging thought. I instantly felt ashamed and was then filled with a huge feeling that even that brother, whom was probably drunk, was loved by God. I know that no matter how far we range from the fold, God will always love us, and desire for us to return. No matter how much we have rejected his will and fought to destroy His wonderous work, He will always love us and feel our pain. That's the gospel. That's the Atonement. That's the tree of life. That, my friends, is the pure love of Christ and the infinite love of our Father all wrapped up in one incomprehensible package. Someday we'll be able to repay him, but not in the conventional aspect. It'll be by becoming like Him, and the Son. That's how he repayed his Father, and that's how our kids will repay us some day in eternity. This is really the magnificent principle of the family, if you think about it.

Thanks for the advice about training. I wrote a big thing about that, but then all the computers shut down and it erased my email.

Well I miss you paps and mama, and I love you. Take it easy. It's freezing here!
I love you guys and pray for you unceasingly.

-Elder Cryer

2010-08-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

No caption needed
Bite-size bananas
Into the Zone
Ivato Church

Rocking and rolling

2010-08-09T16:35:00.001-07:00

This week has been quite a spiritual journey for me. I've prayed a lot - a lot and hard. I've read the scriptures, searched the holy writings of the Church's leaders both past and present, looking for answers to my questions. I feel very at peace now and am really not worried. I'm trying my best to be Christlike, which means I am constantly repenting.

In other news, I've gotten back into running and am trying to lose some weight. Antsirabe is not really the best place for losing weight or eating with any kind of regularity healthy foods, but I'm gonna give it a go. I'm tired of the pudge.

I'll answer your questions first. The Relief Society is probably one of the strongest entities in Mada. Since there are so many women in the church here, there is no lack of good, strong women. Usually the Relief Society President is a very smart, leadership-oriented woman, also is usually well-off by Malagasy standards. Some of the women hardly have money to feed their many babies with a bit of rice a day and have no choice but to go to church with no shoes on. These people, though wonderful and absolute daughters of God, have not the resources to keep up with such a demanding calling like RS Prez.

The only white members in town are just the few vaza missionaries who work here. I think that a lot of French people have come down for a nice vacation during the summer break. Pretty much none of them speak English; a lot try to speak to us because it seems like we know what we are doing. Fortunately, I can't speak French well and the attractive tourist girls don't speak English or Malagasy (ha!) so I
have no opportunity to flirt with them :)

We were eating in a hotely (little restaurant thing) when a big group of French people walked up looking for some grub. They saw that some white people were in our hotely, so they came in as well. After trying to communicate with us in broken English and French, they soon realized that they would have a tough time getting any food from the non-French-mahay staff. It was great. They spent so much time arguing and trying to make the host understand, that they sat there forever while we finished our meals. Needless to say, they were amazed to see us speak in Malagasy. Everyone from outside the country just thinks, "O. That's that weird tribal language, who cares about that anyway? Besides, the tourism guide said that 90 percent of the people are mahay tenfrancais." Hehehe, that is not exactly the case.

There are currently ten missionaries here in Antsirabe with three houses for us to live in. I live in the house with the two Malagasies and one Congolese. Gino, Taggart, Bingham, and Smith live in the other. The sister missionaries live in the luxurious basement of the house of the Tahitian mission couple. Luckies.

This week was pretty wonderful and also pretty stressful. There are a lot of things that I am trying to tweak about the area. So far, the Lord has not told me to not do these things, so I feel fine about it. We taught a lot of lessons and had a lot of investigators at church, which was of course especially rewarding. We have three -four baptisms this coming Saturday. I say three to four because one of them is a nine year old boy who is afraid of the water. Saratra izany. I don't really know how to deal with such a thing, so I guess I'll just pray really hard and find out.

I'm getting better with the bike, though I fell a lot and one time my comp crashed into me. My legs hurt really bad and I can still only do short little sprints before becoming exhausted. Sometimes I shoot past my comp with a burst of speed only to be caught ten seconds later because I tire easily. Hopefully by the time I leave here, I won't be quite so bad.

To answer one of your questions that you have asked many a time but I have always forgotten to answer: yes, yes we do get fed by people a lot. Sometimes it is only a boiled root called mankahazo. Othertimes it is a plate of rice with anything from beans, to straight animal fat, to simple leaves on top. On occasion, it is a giant multi-course meal from a very well-off family. I love all that is given to me and I
really think that the best things I've eaten have come from soirees. I was worried about the whole "I HATE VEGETABLES" situation before my mission. But when I got here, I prayed and dug in. Ever since, almost no matter what I've been fed, it has been delicious. O the Lord has some interesting powers.

At a baptism for some of Elder Tagart and Gino's invesigators, we had a major problem. All of the Branch Presidents were out of town and they were the ones with the keys. So, Elder Tagart decided to climb up the side of the DHL building that is connected to our church and break in through one of the windows. I steadied the gate as he scrambled up it and mounted the roof. All seemed well as he crawled across the
sheet metal surface of the roof. Then, he disappeared from sight in a giant rucus of sound. I just looked at the ground and thought, "O crap." Within moments, Tagart was back up and crawling. He looked very non-plused. After reaching the windows, he simply stated that he had indeed fallen through the roof, and that is was irreparable. Fantastic.

Long story short, we could not actually break in and eventually found someone to unlock the doors. We went upstairs and discovered the giant hole in the roof. As of now, there have been no demands for payment for the damage. But, we are ready and I for one am expecting the angered call to the zone leader any day now. Good times when
ya rock and roll.

On Thursday me and Rakoto went out to this area called Andrangy. He neglected to tell me this tidbit of info before we went, but the area is actually in the ever-lovin mountains and filled with horrible paths. Awesome. This was the day my bike broke a lot and I ate the dirt a lot. From the traveling aspect, it was one of the worst days of my mission. There were also some other frustrations. All of our times
were only thirty minutes long and there was at least a 10-15 minute journey between each place. So we were flying between times, sharing spirtual thoughts and very shortened lessons. That part of the day, I hated. I love having longer times were I get to know the people.

By the end of the day I was exhausted, frustrated, and kivy be. The last thing I wanted to was bike out of the mountains to go to some times which we were already late for. O how happy I am that we went. That night we had a time with some long time investigators named Nirina and Lovy. They are awesome, very strong testimonies and very ready to help us with referrals and what not. The only problem with them is that they haven't been legally married (though they are now within days of that goal). They've got some other challenges too.

We sat them down and talked it out. It was easy to see that their real problem was their own personal relationship. They obviously love each other. When it came for counsel time, I went straight to the heart of what I saw. I told them straight up that it wasn't problems with alcohol, tobacco, etc that was the problem, but it was their relationship. We talked a lot about what they could do different and I counseled them about being wary of one anothers emotions and feelings. I even talked about you guys and said that you were such incredible examples for me of how a married couple should behave.

In the end I challenged them to make a covenant with each other and with God. By working together, they could help each other avoid the harmful substances that were plaguing their lives. They accepted whole-heartedly and Nirina even said right there and then that he would never do those things again. His wife had tears in her eyes as she said to him, "Thank you so much. Are you really going to do this?" By
the end of the time, they seemed to be a completely different couple. I felt the Spirit so strong. It is things like this that testify to me that this is the
greatest time of my life thus far.

Well, I love you guys and will talk to you later. Eat some nacho cheese
chips for me will ya?

Elder Cryer

2010-08-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Big day in Ivato Ward

Elder Echsler and I, together for only about one month

415 lbs. in a pous pous

2010-08-02T18:16:00.000-07:00

Well here I sit in a cyber cafe in Anstirabe. It is very cold right now and we have to wear sweaters everywhere we go. Ivato got cold from time to time, but never like this. I wake up in the morning, nice and warm because of our probably over-worked heater, and step out into the hallway. Then the frigid blast hits me and I just wanna jump back in bed and stay there for the rest of the day. Fortunately for the work here in Ambohimaina, I have never submitted to such temptations. To compound the cold, there is never any hot water here in the tub/shower/thing so I freeze to death every time I take a shower. Talk about pure misery.

My companion does speak English, if you speak slowly and supplement with a lot of Malagasy. Most of the time though, we just speak in Malagasy because it it easier. Rakotomalala, one of my other housemates, doesn't speak a lick of English and his companion, Oyukuo, can hardly even speak Malagasy because he is from The Congo. Needless to say, we don't talk much, occasional, really simple, phrases from me in Malagasy from time to time is about it.

I ride a bike eveywhere I go so, that has been fun, but very painful. My bike seat is in an uncomfortable shape and there are a lot of different things wrong with the poor beast. After a soiree we have at lunch today, I think I might take it to the bike guy and have it fixed. Overall though, I like riding a bike much more than walking everywhere and riding packed taxi-bays. My comp is a pro at bicycling, so I am usually about twenty yards behind him, huffing and puffing and trying not to fall over and die.

The best way I can describe the main part of Antsirabe is this: it reminds me a lot of a small town in Utah or Idaho. There are not many cars, so that is different, but it is still the nicest place I've seen. There are lots of white people here, which is weird, and it looks like they have a lot of restaurants. Anstirabe is, for a lot of missionaries, a dream area. The work here goes excellently (as our four baptisms last Saturday and three this Saturday testify) and the members are such a blessing. They really are the reason that the work has gone so well here in Antsirabe. Referrals come in fast. Our schedule is so packed. On the whole it is great.

The ride down to Anstirabe is a story in and of itself. Me and Elder Smith - the
other elder who came to Antsirabe at transfers - got a a little tiny and way overpacked taxi-bay on Thursday morning. The ride was pretty long and pretty uncomfortable. In my seat was me, Smith, and two other Malagasies with all of our backpacks and what not. Keep in mind that this seat could possibly sit three very small people comfortably, or two large American boys. As we drove though, we saw some
amazing things and some of the prettiest landscape I've ever seen in my life. Every now and then, we'd pass through a village or see one out on the mountain slopes. Once we saw a bunch of naked guys bathing in a river right by the road.

Finally we got to Antsirabe and met Elder Bingham - the zone leader - and loaded all of our luggage onto a pouspous. Another name would be rickshaw, if you were in China. So me and Smith got in one tiny pouspous and the other pous got our bags. It was pretty rough going for the runner because 415 pounds sat behind him. Later in the
day, me and Smith took a pous to the local Shoprite. As we climbed in, the runner said, "This is gonna be hard, you guys are heavy!" He then proceeded to grumble a bit more, lift the pous up, became overwhelmed by trying to keep down our weight, and dropped us flat on our backs. Apparently this was the first time that anyones ever seen this happen, so it was quite hilarious ;P.

Ok well I'm gonna go now. I love you guys mucho mucho. Wish me luck.

Veloma - e!,
Elder Cryer

Antsirabe

2010-07-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

Quick news - Touli and I are eating in a cool Indian restaurant close to our house and the guy likes us so he let us use his computer. Transfers are happening tomorrow and guess what, I'm going to Antsirabe! It is a province south of Tana. I'll tell you lots more on Monday, once I've actually gotten there and all that stuff. My comp is named Rakotoniaina. Yes, he is Malagasy. In fact, I'm the only English speaker in my district of six!

love,
Elder Cryer

2010-07-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

The inside of our beautiful church building in Ivato
One of our families we like to visit
It's windy here

Good Malagasy guy