January 21, 2013

dad!

haha 21 years old... it is kinda crazy. doesnt feel much different though. andi hope i wont feel different from this the rest of my life. i feel great. i feel the love of christ in my life and that makes me feel light happy and young. i am reading right now from a book called standing for something writen by one of the greatest men to excist on earth president hinckley. he wrote that book at 90 years old and said he felt young through christ. ever learning and ever growing. i also aspire to feel young through christ the rest of eternity. 

so i cannot send pictures this week. AZAFADY!!!!! i know i shod cause it was your birthday saturday but i cant. please remove the fault. i will send some next week for sure!! but my companions name on his tag is rakotonjanahary. his full name is rakotonjanahary benja. with a j not a z. and he is 23 years old in april. i know him while i was working in antsirabe because he is from ther eand he helped the missionaries alot. he is a great guy. baptised with his mother when he was 19 years old. he has 3 imidiate siblings and other halfs. his father is a driver for some hauling company and his mother sells vegitables at a market. he doesnt speak english but tries to learn. he does not however try to speak to me in english very much wich is what will help him learn the best! he has a very calm persona about him even in stressful times wich i admire and aprettiate. i work in the ward manakambahiny. its the first ward i have ever worked in. and its alot different. but so great. the members are helping and we are finding the families with sturdy fathers to lead and to guide them. we are seeing so many blessings and it is so amazing. our ward is actually planning on splitting in the middle of the year. so we have very solid goals to baptise 10 families before that time. we already have 5 with baptismal dates. hopefully they all go through. god is truely blessing us here in manakambahiny. i wish to finish my mission here. when we get invited to eat it is always rice. haha then the topping of the rice varies from kidney beans, peas, an asortment of vegitables, potatos. and some pig flesh. usually it is mostly just pig fat and skin with a tiny piece of the meat at the bottom if y ou are lucky hahaha. but i really do love to food here. even the pig fat. wierd i know but you always taught me to eat whats infromt of me. as a child i stuggled with the veggies but now i have learned a great lesson from what you have taught me. people are amazed that i eat rice. many missionaries refuse to eat rice people cook them wich ido in no way cundone. it opens doors. something as simple as eating the food with the people brings you to there level. they show more respect. and more trust. 

you bought a truck that alread has 300 000 km on it!! haha thats prety high but i know you know what your doing. i hope it works good! has the transmition ever gone in it yet? was it used for any heavy duty stuff? either way you talked to guy down 2000 dollars wich is pretty dang good. doug is gone for a while to mexico!! and i did missunderstand. but now i understand. and am glad that you have been finding good help! 

it must be so incredible to sit and listen to robyn and emily harmonize in such beauty. i never realized how much singing is a part of my life and what i love until my mission where whenever there is a song we sing in sacrament or to oppen any service i find myself not wanting it to end. i love the harmonies and the melodies of the hymns. and am excited to sing again with my sisters. 

i wnat mom to know that i felt her love on my mirthday and was not lonely. though to be truethful birthdays arent really a big thing here and my birthday has never been important to me i did feel love and happiness through the servive of my fellow men. just as you told her it is easy for missionaries to feel comfort through there service. "for surely when we are in the service of our fellow men we are only in the service of our god" and if we serve god god blesses us. i do not need gifts of this world to find true joy in my savior. i honestly found no sorrow in the fact that i didnt get one thing on my birthday. i was blessed with amazing times with humble people who accepted baptism. what greater gift is there for a man but to share in an experience such as this. and for that i am extremely greatful. as we read in D and C ( mom was my seminary teacher and i remember reciting this to her) 14:7 "eternal life is the greatest gift of all gifts of god" and that is what i am witnessing here. 

haha dad you are 50!!!!!! thats not that old!!!!! your only half way there. compare that to my year mark on the mission i still felt sooo new! you will live to see my hair get grey. if i have any hair by the time it gets grey... seriously. this balding thing puts a damper on my looks. oh well. a very good man it was that invented the hat! haha 

dallin seems to have gret dreams. many ideas of experiencing life and doing what he believes will full fill that thirst. and i hope with all my heart that it does. all of his dreams can come true. there is always a way for us to do what we want to do. i hope that he can find comfort and happiness in this life and in the next. i hope that for all my family. i am thankfull to the lord for protecting my family. hearing about colter and his experiences this week my heart is full of thanks to the almighty for protecting him. how often we can find the answers to our prays if we look and wait in faith. faith is the key. as i reflect on my past 21 years i am so greatful for everything. i cannot express all my gratitute to you and mom and my sibling for all that you have done and taught me. especially you and mom. i have experienced good and bad and it has all been used to ad to my knowlage base. that is the point of this life. to expand our knowlage base. and our understanding of the almighty. how happy i find myself this week. not happy all the time but constantly happier non the less. we are teaching a man named desiree. he is a remarkable man. a refferal from someone right before i got to this area. but he has a problem getting married. first because his parents are traditional malagasies and they have already finished the tribal marriage cerimonies. and because of his incredible respect for his parents he will not goet married through the government until he gets the permission from his parents. he is a 40 some year old man. and the other problem is that he is the only one in his family whe will come to church. the rest pray at the luthren church. but he has everlasting faith in god that he will be baptised with his family and go to the temple. this is the faith we must all muster. a nother very humble man and women we teach are honore and lidia. they live in a house where the door is about 4 feet tall and the roof about 4 1/2 feet tall. they have 3 children under the age of 9 and he struggles to find work. we went there one day and the only one there was honore. his countanence was one of sorrow and sadness. as we talked he told us that him and his wife got upset because he hadnt found work. she took the kids and went to her mothers. you could tell that honore felt he had lost everything. and he did TRY to find work. so we turned to our scriptures. and as we read in ether chapter 12 with mormnis great description of faith i promised him that if he would be dilligent and haev faith through his trials he would be blessd with work before the following sunday. and so we left him. that was a saturday. going back to him tuesday night we found in the house his wife and his kids. and honore comes in the door late with dirty hands and a smile on his face that no man could take away. the lord does answer our prays and pleas. we must only have faith enough to do as he say's. this i do know with all of my heart and thank you for teaching me these principles. 

be fitiavana mandrakizay

your son

elder bates