Dear Family and Friends,

This week was really good. To format my email, I'm going to answer questions that Grandpa Steve sent me.

What do you think you will be doing over the next several months until a change of assignment and what will that likely be? Ha ha, the only way I can answer this question is with I really don't know! I'll probably be in the office for quite a while. They usually keep missionaries as Office Elder because it's hard to train new ones. It's really cool, however, to work in an area where the Church has been established for such a long time. Coming from Toamasina, where the Church is still in its infancy, this ward that has been around for about 15 years feels storied! Of course, I am loving all of the places that I get to work.

How's the food? So I've spoken about the food from time to time. The first thing I have to say, however, is that the food experience in this country is very different than how we think about food in the U.S. Food here fills the primary purpose of just filling stomachs. Frankly, a lot of food here is just really poor. I think that's the case with a lot of missions. Thankfully I can eat rice pretty much forever. The trick is just eating it with something. People here put everything over rice. That's just the way. Rice and then on top of that, what in the U.S. we think of as the main course - beans, meat, vegetables cooked in sauce, and poured over everything else. I can't wait to make it for everyone when I get back home! One of my favorites dishes here is tsara maso with hen ksao and vary (beans, pork, and rice). Also, they serve all the dishes with this Middle Eastern (esque) hot sauce and this little fresh vegetable thing (essentially pico de gallo). Food here usually starts out pretty mild because many Malagasy don't like hot stuff, but they always have things you can add to spice it up. Another thing that's really good is called compose, It's spaghetti noodles with little condiments on top. (I don't know exactly how to explain it.) Almost all composes have sort of a mashed potato thing covered in mayonnaise, vegetable lasary (that's the pico de gallo thing with carrots, cucumber, and tomato), macaroni noodles mixed together with sardine paste (sort of) and then the whole thing is covered in cow stomach broth. Yes, that was about my reaction too. It's very weird. Also, one really cool thing about Madagascar is that people are always taking food from the plants that just grow naturally around them. Leaves picked from a tree and then added to a broth are a really common side here. A lot of Malagasy food is starting with a simple base an then adding to it. There are things I have run into that I didn't like. I'm not much of a fan of any sort of mashed up root. Other than that, the food is good. Also there are really strong Asian, and especially Chinese, influences. (I've talked about them before.) These often present themselves in the food. We had Thai food last week, which was way cool! Madagascar has been heavily influenced by its visitors over the years.

Do you ever get a chance to cook something special? I've actually cooked quite a bit on my mission. The weird thing is that anything processed costs a ton, and fruits and vegetables are very cheap. You're probably thinking 'that's great', but it's hard when spaghetti sauce costs three times that of a normal meal. Usually it means when you want to cook you just have to do a lot of it on your own. I've made spaghetti sauce from scratch, chicken pot pie, lasagna. I think I'm going to try Mexican food, but that could be risky. I guess we'll have to see - ha ha. I'll let you know, but I do enjoy cooking. I just don't have a ton of time. Anything I can throw in the crockpot is great! I find that spaghetti sauce in the crockpot is pretty easy and cheaper, as I said.

Have you ever encountered anything you just didn't like or couldn't eat? (Grandpa, were you hungry when you wrote these questions?) Yes, Madagascar, though awesome, is not quite as gifted in the culinary arts as Mexico. I really miss Mexican food. There is some weird food, also some food that would make me sick if I ate it. For the most part though it's good. My favorite thing is just the home grown stuff, like deep fried banana bread, dipped bananas that are sold three feet away from the banana tree, or little meat dumpling like things. They're really good, you just have to know who to talk to or else you can get pretty sick.

What do you like most about Madagascar? Least? Do you think you have made some life-long friends? Well, these are big questions. I wouldn't know where to begin right now.

I hope you guys are doing well.  I love you all very much. I'm trying to send grandparents some letters when I get time, so hopefully they'll get there. Things are kind of busy here so I'll tap out. We had the Ambassador of Thailand and a General from the government stop in, so things have been pretty exciting,

Lots of love,
Elder Ahlstrom