I made it!!!! 

I'm officially in Madagascar!!!! 

The plane ride was crazy long, but I slept most of the way so it wasn't too bad!

 I am serving in an area called fianaransoa (fee-a-nar-on-soo). It was about a 9 or 10 hour ride on a really windy road through the mountains to get here. We stopped 4 hours into the ride in Antsirabe and slept there. That's where Elder Rasmussen is, but he lives in the other house so I didn't get to see him. 

 But Madagascar is INSANE!!! I love it here! It is a completely new world from America! The poverty is beyond description! most people live in a small wooden shack that is less than 10ft x10ft and it only has one room. They have their bed and table and clothes in a shelf and that's about all that fits. They cook outside over a fire. They usually have one small light bulb hanging from their ceiling and that's about it.

 Our apartments are super nice in comparison. It is a 3 story building and the people that own it live on the bottom floor. We have 6 elders living there. It's like a really run down apartment in America, but it's home! :)

 The food isn't bad. There are little shacks all over the place where people sell all different kinds of food. Most of it isn't safe to eat, but we eat the bread and the bananas (they're both safe). So that's usually breakfast. It's just like a small loaf of french fried and 2 little bananas. For lunch we go to this restaurant by our house that is safe to eat at. They have steak and rice and omletes and all kinds of stuff so we get whatever there. And then for dinner everyone goes to bed at like 7:30 or 8:00 so we just wait to eat dinner until then and then we'll either go to a small restaurant or go back to the apartment and make food. You can get most ingredients it seems like so that's good. I haven't really tried too much food yet, but I will.

 My companion is pretty cool. His name is Elder Garcia. He's from Texas and has been out for 12 weeks! It's crazy! He just barely finished the training program. (you train for two transfers which are every 6 weeks). But he seems to be able to get his way around pretty well and to understand most of what people say.  I usually can understand what he says, but when other people talk it's pretty rough! haha 

The weather has been perfect here! it's not too cold and not too hot! And I haven't really noticed the humidity so that's good. We have bikes so we either ride our bikes or walk everywhere we go. There are cars and "roads" here but our area isn't crazy huge. We can get anywhere in our area by walking for about an hour. But if it's that far we ride our bikes.  The streets here are crazy because there aren't really any traffic laws so I'm terrified every time I get in a car! but I guess it's pretty safe because I've never seen an accident. But I prefer not to be in a car! haha 

The word of the week this week is Tonga soa (too-nga  soo). It means welcome.  I have heard this about a million times in the last couple days.  The people here are all so nice! They are very welcoming and are all so ready to hear the gospel! We'll just be walking down the street on our way to investigators houses and people will ask us if we can come and teach them! It's already happened twice in the last 3 days! I'm so excited to be here and to teach these people about Christ! They are all super religious! on sundaythere were so many people out all going to church! It was awesome! I got to bear my testimony in church on sunday because it was fast sunday! That was fun. Afterwards tons of people came and told me I'm mahay be which just means like really good or really fluent! That was pretty cool! I love you all and I love these people! 

Fantatro fa marina ny filazantsaran'i Jesoa Kristy. Fantatro fa izahay afaka mibebaka amin'ny alalin'ny sorompanavotana.  Tian'Adriamanitra isika. Afaka miana amin'ny fianakaviantsika indray isika.  Tiako anao. Amin'ny anaran'i Jesoa Kristy, Amen.