A "Vaza" in Madagascar

HI everyone,

Sam went off his Malaria Medication and the headaches went away!!!  He had a great week!  Thanks to all who joined with us in the family fast yesterday for Sam!  He appreciated your thoughts and prayers.  They are going to reintroduce the malaria medication to see if he gets the headaches again and we will go from there.  Thanks again for your concern.  Sam says this week was awesome! 

Jenn

Hello,
This week was a good week. I watched General Conference with my ward here in Ampefiloha on Sunday. It was in Malagasy, but I got to watch it again in English later so i am grateful for that. It was an awesome conference with wonderful messages.

On Wednesday, I went on a split with an Elder Freestone. He is an awesome, big, Japanese Elder. I love him.

He has only been here for a transfer longer than me so I was a little worried at first about how we were going to communicate with people, but it went pretty well actually. Being a white person I get a lot of attention and a lot of people feeling the need to let me know I am a  "Vaza" which just means foreigner. Elder Freestone on the other hand is a pretty big Japanese guy, so the whole day I heard the word "Buddha" more times then I can count. He just laughs and tells the kids that he is going to eat them and they run away crying.

An update on the language: it is getting better. I have good days and bad days with it. Sometimes I can teach almost a whole simple lesson on my own. Other days I cant say a simple sentence to save my life. Those days I get a lot of blank faces and people saying, tsy mazava... which means not clear or I don't know what you are trying to say.

I love Madagascar and the people here!! It is so fun to go around talking to random, really interesting people everyday. This is probably one of the most exciting, awesome,  yet; uncomfortable, weird two years of my life.

I love and miss the lot of you.
Love,
Elder Allen

Pictures from the Famadiana (dancing with the dead)