Thank you for your letters. It's always great to hear from everyone. I have two stories this week. First, I want to tell you about how awesome the Clowards are. They're one of the senior couples here. Elder Cloward is a water park builder. (You should look him up.) He is now serving as the financial clerk for the mission, which  I can say, essentially means fire fighter/ miracle worker. Sister Cloward is just all around awesome and the mission grandma. I work with them a lot because most of the office work revolves around helping them. One project in particular is determining the identity and number of all members in Madagascar and entering them into the MLS. I can't say that all office work feels fulfilling, but helping find lost members is really hard. It is also very worth it. It takes a lot of calling. Trying to find 10,000 people in a country without birth certificates and a 60% literacy rate can be hard. It takes my entire problem solving skills and watching a lot of people who are smarter than me make decisions. It's an amazing learning experience. It pretty much consists of meeting with President Adams, Elder Cloward, Frede (the doer of all things, office assistant, speaker of five languages, all around awesome), the AP's and us trying to figure out this problem. The most recent installment of our quest to help find everyone was to travel to Moramanga, a recently created branch. This Sunday I got to go with the Clowards and Elder Morley (one of the AP's). It was really fun. First it was fun because we just joked and drove down Malagasy streets (which are a joke) on a sort of road trip. Malagasy roads are always fun. We saw a trailer that had run away from its truck if you catch my drift. That was pretty exciting. Anyway, I can't tell you everything because as a mission we decided that talking about Malagasy roads is probably not a good way to get parents excited about missionary service. Sister Cloward made cookies and sandwiches for the trip. It was the first time I have had pickles in like 10 months. I like pickles. I didn't know I liked pickles, but... I like pickles. Once we got there we met an amazing Branch President. He didn't have a computer, but he knew that records were important. So he meticulously cataloged every member baptismal date, etc. for years. It was much better than we had expected. We had been prepared to essentially rebaptize a branch. They were very excited and had worked very hard to prepare everything. They are an awesome little Branch. I am always so happy to see the church in these far flung places. The clerk that we were helping train had literally never turned on or even seen a computer in his entire life. They were all so willing to do whatever it would take to get the church growing. I'm very impressed by the faithfulness of so many. It was a really pretty drive to a place way out of the way, which missionaries rarely get to see. It's an amazing area and part of the church.

The other, and much shorter, thing that happened this week is that we have been teaching two young men. They are also really nice, and they are preparing for baptism. Their guardian is already a member. They are both orphans from way out in the middle of nowhere. As we are preparing them, however, one of the things has been a little difficult is their lack of education. It has been especially difficult to explain tithing to them. They do not understand how to divide. They can divide by two, but they can't divide by any other number. We have been trying to help them understand. Anyway, to make a long story short, last night in our lesson I took a pile of rocks and taught them how to divide (or tried to). I wish I had more basic explanation skills. It's hard enough to teach division in English let alone in Malagasy to someone who has never even considered it or heard of it before. They're going to be ready. Hopefully they can perfect the skill of division later. Regarding learning, however, it would be much appreciated if you wanted to send a French grammar book. I've been trying to use more French, but it's hard.

Have a great week. One month from nowish we'll get to chat. Plus it will be my birthday so bake a cake or something. Keep working hard and being happy!

Elder Ahlstrom