Wear ;my shoes in the water?  Me?? Never!!!!

Working in the rice paddies!

I did it!!!

Me and Elder Te'e with some of our friends in Mada!!!

Analamahitsy week 6

Well this week is going to be very short because absolutely nothing new happened. The work is going about the same, just progressing very very slowly. But everything is going great with Elder Glazier! Still happy and healthy and loving missionary life! We got to watch conference this week, but we watched most of it in Malagasy with our ward so I didn't get much out of it, so I'm going to have to download the talks and watch them again at home. Other than that the only vaovao (news) I have is that we got transfer news last night! It wasn't much of a surprise for me though. I was already pretty sure I knew what was going to happen. My area is combining with the Elders' that live with us and I will be companions with Elder Anderson from Idaho. He's been out 2 transfers longer than me. He already lives with me so not too much of a change. My companion Elder Te'e is going to a city called Tamatave wich is like 9 hours north of tana and on the beach! I'm way jealous! Oh, and along with the area combining our district is combining with another district and Elder Rasmussen will be in my district! I'm way excited for that. That means that we will get to see each other at least every week at district meeting! Other than that I got nothing. The Book is blue, the church is true! I love you all and I'm greatful for all of the love and support from home! Don't forget to say your prayers and read your scriptures! It's the small everyday things that make a difference! Have a great week!

Love, Elder Glazier

P.S. Shout out to my niece Megan who is getting baptized this saturday! Congratulations Meg! I'm so proud of you! Also a shout out to little Ben who is getting blessed on sunday! Super cute little baby! 

Elder Glazier and Elder Rasmussen at weekly district meeting

 we went and visited this cool memorial in the middle of this lake. It's for wwII victims.

I met king Julian!!!

Analamihitsy Week 5

Well it has been another great week in the life of a Madagascar missionary! This week we didn't have a whole ton happen during the week, in fact absolutely nothing exciting at all. I will tell just one story from the week and then talk about sunday and today (P-DAY).

Elder Te'e and I were walking down this dirt path (all of the paths between houses are dirt) and we knocked on this door and this guy comes out and he's talking to us and knows all about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and I was way excited! i thought we had found somebody who had learned from the missionaries before and somehow his name had just gotten lost. Come to find out he had learned from the missionaries, but he refused to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But that wasn't all. We tried to talk to him about it a little bit and all of a sudden he just went off all about how there are tons of different Christian churches and how they all need to unite together and form one church and one group. I was just kind of like, "ya, there should just be one true church." But then this is the totally mahagaga (mah-hah- gah-guh) surprising/unbelievable part. He says, once we have all united into one church we'll be strong enough to go to war against the muslim countries. He said we need to start another holy war and kill all of the muslims and refered to the Crusades and said that it needs to happen again. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was shocked that somebody could be so ignorant and crazy. He litterally wanted another "Ady Masina (holy war)" we just bore testimony and left. I laughed so so so hard afterwards. I was just so amazed that somebody could think like that. So that was one exciting thing that happened this week. 

And then yesterday, Sunday, we had ward council and talked a lot about missionary work. We haven't been getting hardly any help from the ward so we decided it was time to ask. We brought up a few things we really want to have happen and asked for some help from the leaders of the auxillaries. One big thing we are trying to get started is home teaching. It is very very karotana (kuh-roo-tuh-nuh) unorganized and crazy. We set up a meeting with the Elders' Quorum president for this sunday and we are going to make a list of home teachers and really get it all milamana (mee-lah-muh-nuh) organized because Elder Te'e and I have been visiting lots of members both active and inactive and they all say the last visit they had was the missionaries like two years ago! That is not okay! We hope that if we get home teaching going it will help the ward get a lot stronger and build some good relationships! 

The last thing I have to talk about is today! Elder Te'e and I went to the zoo again today. This time it wasn't a holiday so there was almost nobody there! When we were looking at the lemurs one of the workers came over and asked us if we wanted to take pictures with the lemurs and we were like, "Heck Yes!!!" so we got to go back into the room behind the cages and the workers put honey all over our hands and faces and the lemurs love it! I had lemurs climing all over me and licking me! It was so cool! 

But that's all of the vaovao (voh-voh) news from Madagascar. Oh, just kidding. The last thing is we get to watch conference this week! I'm so excited to get to hear the words of the prophets! Having to wait really makes you appreciate conference! Anyway! Have a great week! Love you all! Thanks for all of the prayers and support!

Love, Elder Glazier

Analamahitsy Week 4

Well it has been yet another great week here in Paradise! I am loving Madagascar and loving being a missionary even more! There is nothing better and more rewarding than doing the work of salvation. Preaching the gospel 24/7 is amazing! This week was a good week! On Thursday we had interviews with the mission president which was awesome! I got into his office and he just asked me, "Ok Elder Glazier, what do you want to talk about?" And then I got to ask him any questions I wanted! I started by asking him how to help my area and how to become a better missionary and better leader and stuff like. And then because it is my last interview I will have with him I asked how he knew he should marry his wife and how he knew what job he wanted to get. He gave me some great advice and council. He is a great man full of tons of wisdom. I am really sad he is going home. I would have loved to have the opportunity to get to know him better. Our new mission president comes in July so that will be interesting to see what happens and what changes he makes. They are trying to get everything ready and in order for when the new president gets here.

The next thing that happened this week was on Thursday my companion Elder Te'e had a birthday. He turned 20. But there is this thing here they call it fomba gasy (foom-ba gas) which just means the Malagasy way. And there are tons and tons of things that they do and they say that it is fomba gasy. But one of those things is when somebody has a birthday you are supposed to dump flour and eggs on them. So yes... Me and the other elders in our house cornered Elder Te'e and threw flour and eggs all over him! He got probably two or three cups of flour and four eggs! It was great! He loved it. He told me earlier in the day that it wasn't his birthday unless he got flour and eggs, so we had to do it! 

Then, on Sunday guess who got to give a talk! Yep... I spoke in sacrament. This was the first talk I have given in sacrament. It went okay. They asked me on Thursday night so I basically had Friday and Saturday morning to write it. I spoke on missionary work. I was grateful for the opportunity to speak because we haven't been getting very much help from our members. I answered three questions in my talk... 1. What does it mean to preach the gospel?  2. Why is it important to preach the gospel and who's responsibility is it?  3. How do we preach the gospel? 

I talked about how every member has a responsibility to preach the gospel and share it with everyone and how if we don't that our friends and family are going to come to us at the judgement day and ask us why we weren't willing to share the truth with them and the joy that it brought us. I hope the main message was clear and I hope I didn't come off mean or anything. I just wanted to make it clear that we all have a responsibility to share this amazing truth that we have been given.

I forgot to share a cool experience I had last week. Elder Te'e and I were visiting a less active member. She isn't married and her son that lives with her isn't a member so she doesn't have a priesthood holder in the house. We were just kind of talking after the lesson and she told us she had moved a couple months ago and that her house wasn't dedicated and asked us if we could dedicate it for her. I looked at Elder Te'e and he looked at me and I knew what that meant. So I got to dedicate a house last week. It was really cool. I did it in Malagasy, and I had never dedicated a house before so I didn't really know what to say. I knew the right way to do it, but I didn't know what to bless the house with, but the spirit helped me and it ended up being a pretty good prayer and the member seemed really grateful. It was a really great experience! It is so cool to get to watch the spirit work through me and help me do things that I could never do on my own. I know that this gospel is true and that this is God's work. I love these people and I'm grateful for the chance I have to serve them and to serve my Father in Heaven. Have a great week everyone! Love you!

Love, Elder Glazier  

Analamahitsy week 3

Well, this week was good. Elder Te'e and I are still struggling to get the area going and are working really hard. We are slowly filling up our program with investigators and less actives, but it is a very slow process. People are pretty busy and it's hard to find a time that works for them, and then frequently we show up to someones house and there is nobody home. It is very frustrating to have a time scheduled with someone and have them not respect that time. But we are slowly showing people that if we say we are coming that we really will come, and I think as people see that they will see the importance of respecting our times. So that is going okay. Little by little we are building a solid program. 

We are really trying to figure out a way to get the ward excited about missionary work because when the members help the missionaries, the work goes a million times better. I have come to the conclusion that the best way to get the ward excited about missionary work is to get the ward mission leader and the bishop excited about it. If we can do that the other members will see the example and want to follow. We are starting a "Preach my Gospel" class in our ward which I think will help, and this week we talked to our ward mission leader about doing an activity/ fireside about missionary work to try to get the members excited about it. So hopefully between those two things and visiting the members trying to create relationships with them we will be able to get some refferals and some member help! 

We have this guy we are teaching right now his name is Do (doh). He is about 28 years old and a great guy! He was a refferal from a member in another ward. His brother just got baptized and told him he should talk to the missionaries. We got his number and gave him a call. He has now been learning for about 2 weeks and seems to really love and understand the teaching! We invited him to church last week and he came this sunday! We were so excited! He is just so accepting of our message and doesn't even question it. That is one thing I love about the malagasy people, they have an incredible ablility to believe and have faith. Everyone here believes in God and Christ and wants to follow Him and recieve salvation. But I am really hopefull for Do. If he continues to progress like he is I think he could be baptized in the next couple of months! We are planning on giving him a baptism date this week, so we'll see what he says. I am pretty confident he will accept and really want to work towards that goal!

The last thing that happened this week was that we went to the zoo on pday (yesterday) It was a holiday that they call Lundi du Paque which is French and means the monday of Easter. Nobody works or has school or anything so the zoo was insanely crowded, but it was really fun. It reminded me of going to the zoo back in America. It was a lot of fun. 

We didn't really do anything for Easter, just missionary work! haha But this whole week every member or less active that we visited we talked about Easter and what it really means. It really helped my testimony grow to get to talk and think about the Savior and His Atonement so much this week. One thing that really stood out to me while teaching is the one thing that separates our church from almost every other Christian churches. You will notice that most Christian churches have a big cross on top of their steeple but we don't. Why is that. Do we not believe in Christ? Do we not believe that He suffered for us on the cross? That's not it at all. We absolutely believe that Christ suffered for us. Because of His love for us he was willing to suffer beyond comprehension in the garden of Gethsemane. He bled from every poor for us and suffered every sin, sorrow, and pain that we may face in live. He suffered for each one of us INDIVIDUALLY and He knows each one of us perfectly. After His suffering in the garden He was betrayed by one of His own, and mocked and spit upon. He was mocked, spit upon, and whipped and ultimately hung on the cross to die for us. Through that suffering our brother and Redeamer experienced and overcame spiritual death. Which death is separation from our Heavenly Father. Without this suffering we would all be lost never to gain salvation. We as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints believe that and are infinitely greatful for that, but that is not all. On the third day Jesus Christ rose from the dead. HE IS RISEN. And that is why we do not celebrate the symbol of the cross. Christ rose from the dead and conquered physical death and completed the Atonement. He is not dead, but lives again. He is at the head of the Church and leads and guides us today through the living prophet Thomas S. Monson. Without that truth, there would be no point to His suffering in the Garden and on the cross. Because He is risen we too will rise from the grave some day and become perfect as He and our Father are perfect. What a beautiful truth. Our brother was willing to come to Earth and live a perfect life without sin, and then willing to take upon Himself our sins so that we could be made clean. "He only could unlock the gate of Heaven and let us in." I Know that my Redeamer lives.

Elder Glazier