Note from Mom: I didn't update Alex's blog last week because the only communication that I received from him was a very short email that said he was "writing just to let us know the he wasn't dead, but he was really, really sick and couldn't write more".

January 19, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

First off, I'm really sorry about last week. What happened is kind of a very funny and awful story. Every Sunday we eat at the District President's house. Last week the power was off (as usual), but it had been off for a very extended period of time - like 16 hours. One of the best things about eating at the Branch President's house is that he always has awesome juice. So, of course, the first thing I went for last week was the jus natural. Well, you may know something happens to unprocessed natural juice if it's not pasteurized or refrigerated. If you don't, refer to the Word of Wisdom. Yes, the juice was alcohol. Now something that must be understood is that if you don't finish all of the food you are given it's pretty much the rudest thing you can do. Faced with that problem I swallowed the juice as fast as possible. Thankfully it wasn't very much because the glasses here are small. But the next day I realized that I had terrible, TERRIBLE food poisoning! It was awful. I'm used to throwing up now, but this was something particularly special. Anyway, to make a long story short, that's why I couldn't write last week. Obviously I feel much better now.

I'm approaching the end of my stay in Toamasina. It's very sad. I love it so much here. I've come to feel that this place is home. I'm especially going to miss my companion. We've become really good friends these last weeks. He's super cool and really funny. Most importantly, he's a really good person. He's also the only member in his family

I have a little bit of political news for all of you. I'll keep this short because we're really not supposed to talk about national politics, but this is pertinent. Plus, I can't help getting a LITTLE interested in what's happening around me. As my Malagasy has gotten better one of my greatest temptations is to read the newspaper - ha ha! But the news is that the riots we had in Tomatov were only capping off a string of issues that the government has been having. The power especially is a nation wide issue and it's getting worse. So, in response, the prime minister and the entire cabinet ministry resigned. Now there's no ministry of health, ministry of power, etc. It's all been dissolved (at least the leadership). The President selected a former military crony, which incidentally was unconstitutional, so he had a sort of impeachment trial. During all of this the old President who was exiled returned to Madagascar in the north, which is an area that tried to separate from the rest of Madagascar a few years ago. After all of this the religious leaders in Tana demanded that the former presidents get together and agree to respect the current government and not try to destabilize it. However, after signing an agreement, two of the former Presidents held a press conference where they withdrew their support. So now things are really shaky here politically. People are up in arms and protesting in Tana. Also, to cap it off there was a cyclone that came through and hit Tana really hard. The roads fell apart and much of the city is completely flooded. Several people died, so it's just not good right now. Thankfully the mission has been working really hard to get everyone to build a 72 hour kit. This started a few weeks before everything turned bad. Clearly they were inspired to set in place such actions. I'm very thankful I have my 72 hour kit because things can get pretty sketchy pretty quickly here. Also, thankfully, I live in Tomatov. However, I'll likely end up in Tana in two weeks. So we'll have to see what ends up happening. I'll keep you posted.

I also have a spiritual thought this week. It's about the great and spacious building in Lehi and Nephi's dream. Often we think of the great and spacious building as one that is highly ornamented, beautiful, and as respecting the world as perfect. We don't often (I believe) think of it in the context of God's glory. Often the representations we see of it make it almost a desirable alternative to the tree of life. Obviously we understand what's better. However, we see the two as almost comparable, or at least as a formidable temptation. The building represents the world, but I think the true significance of the building is the pride of man. My spiritual thought is about how silly the pride of man is. In our area there is a large and very poorly constructed house. For the record, it is large. It's three stories, which is not often seen here. However, it's unpainted and the yard is full of waste from the construction. The actual building is little more than a shell. People had their clothes drying on clothes lines. We were working across the street when someone spoke to us in no uncertain terms. From the building there were several men laughing at us. I couldn't help but think how silly they looked. We've seen REAL wealth, and the fact that they could think they were standing from their "high tower" and laughing at us below. They haven't known anything else. They believed they had made it. They believed they had true wealth - something worth having. Yet, I looked at it and saw what it really was. Just a feigned attempt at happiness, completely devoid of perspective (even the perspective of western wealth). Then I asked myself, how often are we not like those men, standing from what we believe to be our high tower of judgment. It really is silly when you think about it. The people in Lehi's dream were laughing. The glory of the fruit so outweighed that of the high tower. The tower looks like little more than an unfinished three story cement house in the middle of piles of garbage with three shirtless men smoking cigarettes and laughing at two missionaries. I think we could all use a little perspective on everything. Not just in our pride, but also in how often we think our situation is the worst ever, It's really not. And most importantly, the Savior descended below all. I think we could all use a little temperance and a little bit more reflection before responding. Even death, when looked at in an eternal perspective, is just a comma in the long story of our existence. I encourage all of you not to look up at high towers with loathing greed or to look down on others with prideful superiority. I imagine that when the Lord sees such silly things it's all he can do not to laugh a little bit because we place so much significance on things that matter soooo little.

Hope you're all doing well.

Elder Ahlstrom