7-21-14

This week has been way crazy and has felt like a long time. So we have done absolutely no tracting because we have so many investigators and recent converts to teach. The members here are awesome as well and give us a lot of referrals and people to teach. So my language skills have been growing somewhat but it still sucks being in the dark about what people are saying a lot. But we eat pretty well here. There aren't any big stores here in Fianarantsoa so we buy some things to make at Ipisseraries and we eat at Tampiko restaurant a lot too. It's really good, they have some good steak and hamburgers there. When we make food its rice or noodles but when we make it ourselves it usually seems better than what you get elsewhere. So on Wednesday is when we make our hike over the mountain to teach some people on the other side, it was pretty cool. But we hike around a lot here, which is good to stay in pretty good shape. But since they don't have root beer here I've taken to getting fanta orange as the replacement. They really have like 6 different sodas. Fanta orange, pineapple, and some other weird fruit. Then they have coke. and then they have Bon Bon Gilasy. Or something like that. It's a kind of soda they don't have in the US and it tastes like that double bubble gum stuff. Its pretty good but I like fanta orange better. They also have sprite. So we went to this restaurant place which is a total vazaha restaurant or a foreigner's restaurant. We were sitting waiting to order when like 3 drunk guys, French, came over and were talking to us. They were actually talking fairly normally for awhile but then they were getting pretty annoying. The owner came over and told them to leave us alone which was nice. Its funny since a lot of the restaurant places where missionaries go are really nice and like having the missionaries there since we frequent their places quite a bit and but quite a lot of food. Thursday we gave a blessing to a girl and I had to the annointing part, and I didn't really think I was saying everything quite right but my companion told me I said everything like perfect- it was nice having the spirit to help me out with that. But weve done a lot of teaching and I have to lead out on whenever we teach the first lesson, which is a lot, but Ive been improving on that. We also went to teach this guy and he was drunk or hungover which was interesting- my companion was like I will read this and he just started reading at like 1 word a hour. haha but it was interesting. We got a new DMB or ward mission leader. Hes a little more active in helping us out and meeting with us. We ate at the branch presidents house on fri and sun which was nice. He's really cool him and his wife are planning on going to America to visit temples and places or something. Saturday was also apparently girls day, in madagascar so they had a party in the basement in the church and a bunch of activities. I got my Bible in malagasy and it came with a sweet zip cover binding thing that almost feels like bubble wrap. Its nice. Planning on playing basketball with some members today which should be fun, Elder Garcia and Elder Morley also play basketball and are both like an a couple inchs taller than me but bigger too. So im guessing they wont let us play missionaries vs members ha. But its been a blast and I took some really sweet pictures as well. We also made some dessert with choclate bars being cooked in the flour and its really good. Also my birthday happens to be in two weeks on a PDAY I'm pretty sure which is cool. The people here are awesome!
Elder Miller

(His birthday is August 4th  ~Kyla)