November 16, 2015

I have had a hard, but very rewarding week. I'm thankful for the opportunity to write to all of you. As a companionship we made pizza everyday, which was really fun. We made all the dough, toppings, and sauce last p-day. Then we made it quickly each day as we came home. Today we were going to go to the national park Ranomahafana, but in the end we weren't able to go. So, we went into the old town of Fianarantsoa where some of the first Christian churches in all of Madagascar were built and still stand. It was really cool to be able to see them. We found the guardian's house for the oldest one and they let us inside. It was amazingly cool and we could pretty much just walk around and do whatever. They let us up by the organ, etc. It made me think of grandpa Steve. If you can talk to the right people you can pretty much do anything in Madagascar. We tried to look inside the cathedral, but it was closed. Apparently the bishop and nuns have the same p-day as us.

One really exciting thing that happened this week is that one of our investigators, that we have been working with for a long time, came to church with his son. His wife couldn't come because she was sick. It was great, and he seemed to have a good time. One hard thing is that I can't be with the people we're teaching in church. I was conducting, and then I had to teach gospel doctrine. He was doing well when I talked to him. We are doing a lot of training for the leaders. This week was tithing settlement. I feel like my letters since I've been here are a little hard to explain to people who aren't Mormon because they use so much unique vocabulary. But, if I had to sum it up, lots and lots of teaching. I love teaching, in any language - teaching and helping people grow.

Another amazing story here in Fianarantsoa is the family of one of our recent converts. The husband got baptized, but his wife and children didn't get baptized with him. They were very hesitant about his decision to join the church. We have been working with them and now they are preparing for baptism. We are so excited for them. It has been amazing to see their conversion little by little. It has been hard for his wife, but we gave her a challenge to study finding answers in The Book of Mormon, and then pray about it. At first she would say, I accept that because it agrees with what I already think. But after that assignment I think she realized that she needed to put her questions to the Lord. She started praying. The next time we asked if the reading was true, she said that she knew it was. We asked her how she knew. Before she would have said that it agrees with the Bible or this or that. This time she got a big smile and said, because the holy spirit let me know that it was true. It was such a powerful moment. The spirit was very strong in the room. This and another experience this week reminded me of how important it is for us all to ask God in faith and if we honestly seek an answer we will know what we should do. When I was teaching gospel doctrine this week we talked about faith and I shared a quote from President Uchtdorf. He said, :"I wish that I could let everyone in the world know one simple truth. We believe in the gospel, not because of things we do not know, but because of things we do know in our hearts and our spirits to be true." I asked the class to share their conversion stories, since everyone in there was a convert. It was amazing to hear everyone explain essentially the same story. Two weird people knocked on my door, I didn't really want to let them in but I did anyway, I don't know why, they explained this wonderful message to me, I read, studied, prayed, and felt it was true. That to me is an amazing testimony, and it is so true. They felt the spirit because they were honest and ready. I invite everyone who has honest questions to put them before the Lord in solemn prayer. You will know what you should do.

I hope you all have a wonderful week,
Elder Ahlstrom