Alex driving a pous pous

Yesterday was transfers. That didn't mean a whole lot for me because I am training, which is a twelve week program. However, it does mean a whole bunch of new stuff is happening in Toamasina! All but one of the Elders in my house (excluding my companion) are moving. It will be exciting to have new people in the zone down here. It's also funny because I am the longest resident of Tomatov now. It's weird to think that I'm the oldest in any regards, but I've almost been on my mission six months!

I can't wait to talk to you in a week and a half. We'll get everything figured out then. I don't think there will be any issue. Once the cyber we usually go to is open again it will be easy to figure all this business out. 

In other news we had a really good week of work. We have a group of really cool investigators. We are teaching one young guy in particular named David. He's really excited about the gospel. His mom said that he and I look alike except that he is dark, which I thought was really funny. 

This week we also went to a birthday party of a less active member that we have been working with. He didn't tell us, however, that he was inviting a bunch of work friends (he works on board the Mercy Ship). We actually got to spend about an hour with a group of Americans. It was really fun to speak English with native speakers, but it was hard because people were speaking both Malagasy and English. My mind couldn't switch back and forth fast enough. My words would come out alright, but my English grammar was pretty funny. I don't know if they believed I was from America. That is not to say my Malagasy is that good, but I like to joke that before you can learn Malagasy you have to forget everything and start from the bottom up! Right now I'm still in the forgetting stage. It was cool though because all of the Malagasies at the party were translators, and they couldn't believe a white person could speak Malagasy at a communicative, conversational level. Plus, I had popcorn for the first time in like six months at the party! Other than that things are really about the same. I'll let you know about all of the new Elders next week. 

Talk (I mean really talk) to you soon!

Elder Ahlstrom 

Note from Mom: The following pictures range in time from Alex's arrival in Mada to late November. I was just finally able to get them this week, so I am posting them out of chronological order.