anarako dia, soeur stewart

Zot!

So this week was another great one! One of the coolest moments was probably when I bore my testimony....(drumroll please).... in MALAGACHE! Yeah, that's right! I memorized a short testimony in malagache so I could recite it for this family of amis that we have who moved from Madagascar 3 months ago. I spent all day memorizing it and repeating it over and over and over and then during the actual lesson I was so nervous that I almost lost my nerve. But at the very end of our meeting I just slowly recited my testimony and then encouraged them to read the Book of Mormon to know for themselves. I think it went all right! They seemed to understand and they engaged to read the Book of Mormon as a family so huge success! 

So people here are always dropping out of or ditching out of their rendez-vous (meetings) with us that you just have to develop a sense of humor about it. This week we were porting and got let in by these older ladies in their 70s who were catholic. One of them didn't actually live there but was paying a visit to her friend. She was catholic but she said she was interested in coming to see our church. We offered to come back the next day to her apt just upstairs and continue sharing our message and explaining the difference. She said ok and gave us her apt number and her phone number with a fixed apt for the next day. When we showed up at her apt and knocked, a voice yelled back asking who it was. It sounded just like her and I was sure she would let us in once we explained that we were the missionaries from the previous day. Instead she told us that the lady we were looking for - Jossette - had left and she was just watching the house. She claimed Jossette had "Left for Maurice (the next island over) .... for a year!" Which seemed like a pretty impromptu trip to me since she hadn't even seemed to be packed less than 24 hours ago...

Another funny moment came when in the saturday night district meeting (stake conference) the general authority asked the assembly why porting wouldn't work to find people anymore. One person shouted out "Gates!" "Good, good, that's one reason" said Elder Hamilton. "What's another reason?" Then a missionary from the back yelled out " Mean Dogs!" "Spoken like a true missionary!" said Elder Hamilton. 

We continue to see miracles happen with our investigators. This week we taught Therese - our malagache ami who has read the Bom 3 times - two times and both lessons went amazing. We brought a member to one of our lessons and it just built my testimony so much of how much good the members can do and how much they can really help us. Partly because of our member, Therese agreed to come to Family Home Evening the next night on Friday with her two little kids, Karim ( a 5 year old boy) and Kelly (a 2 1/2 tornado of a little girl). At first she felt lost among the different families since she didn't know them but soon enough we were all having fun and the members really made her feel at home. That night she arranged transport for herself and her kids with the members so they could come to the activity saturday night when we watched "Joseph Smith the Prophet of the Restoration". She came saturday night and had a great time and then even helped mop and clean up after ward. I'm telling you people, she was just born to be a member of the church! Then she came to all three hours of church Sunday and was invited to go on a picnic with some ward members today! In one weekend she has practically become a member - before her baptism! Her kids are so cute too - I will have to get pictures to send. They also officially recognize us and know who we are because they will always tell their mother that "the sisters" are here!

Also an inactive who hasn't stepped foot in the church building in 7 years came to family home evening this week. 

Also one of our inactive's daughter who is grown up with her own family came to District Conference and was present in our lesson with her mom and at the end of our message we felt impressed to commit her to be baptized, and before we even asked her mom told us that her daughter (julie) had asked her how she (julie) could be baptized! Now her daughter and her boyfriend are working to get married so that she can be baptized and then hopefully her boyfriend after that! And they have 4 cute little kids together! Miracles! Miracles, folks! The sisters have been working to try and meet with this daughter (julie) for years! And now she is wanting to make changes in her life so she can be baptized and go to the temple with her family!

Also we finally met with this inactive youth that we have been trying to see for months now and she agreed to come to Youth Conference! So we hope that her testimony will be re-lit and will lead her family out of inactivity!

Other than those stories we had a great week! We are working really hard and keeping really busy - and that's just the way I like it! 

Miracles and a volcano

Zot!

So I can firmly say that we say miracles this week. There have been so many instances of things that seemed like stories one would read out of a Liahona. The Lord has just been pouring out blessings on this area and on our companionship - it is incredible! So I have to cheat because I don't have enough time to write a good email...so I am letting Sr Gardiner ghost write one for me! So if the following doesn't sound like me - it's because it is her writing but I 100% endorse everything she says :)

Happy 4th of July! I don't think I was ever very patriotic until right about now. We WERE going to eat burgers and fries but since it's chilly here my companion and I caved and ate some soup BUT to celebrate our newfound love of our country on the 4th, she did bring out her violin, I got out my english hymnbook and we performed a mini concert in our apt. went out onto the balcony and sang our hearts out. I sang all the patriotic song and we ended with the Star Spangled Banner while looking out over the city from our balcony.We ended with a moving rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" and I think the entire apartment complex could hear us. The Madsen's applauded for us since they live right below us. We wanted to sing it facing the direction of our homeland but then we realized that we could pretty much face any way and we would be looking towards America since we are on the other side of the world. It was so cheesy it was hilarious! But also surprisingly nostalgic and touching. 

This was a very happy week. Exhausting and stressful, but God is pouring out blessings on us! 

So right now we are teaching Yousouf and his mother Safina (the muslim lady that we met contacting) we invited Yousouf to be baptized and he was like "when is the next baptsimal service??" He was already baptized Christian when he lived in Mauritius and his whole family persecuted him because they are all SUPER muslim, but he really understands the restoration and even Safina (who speaks the craziest mauritien créole that I've ever heard-I swear she is just throwing Arab words in there) understands the importance of prophets and authority. She wants to be baptized but her ex husband is super super muslim and will uninherit her children if she does. 

So when we taught them this week they explained that they wanted us to skype and teach Nazroomah (safina's daughter that lives in Mauritius) about Joseph Smith. She lives with her muslim husband and his family and she was sneaky skyping us. . It was crazy because she kept covering up the speaker and looking around to make sure that no one in her family was listening. She's been trying to get her hands on any christian literature that she can and she already knew a ton about Jesus Christ We're going to give her the number of Soeur Packer and Soeur Berchel so she can keep learning and get a book of mormon

We're still teaching Therese and she's already read the Book of Mormon 3 times! She's gotten over the fact that no, this isnt "l'eglise normale" (the catholic church) and she understands that Jospeh Smith wasn't just another Catholic Saint. She is so ready for the gospel and she accepted a baptismal date this past lesson!

We had a miracle lesson with Sarah and Dominique. I had almost given up on them because they had told us a million times that they could never not go to catholic church. But we brought the Aurieng family with us for what we thought would be one last lesson. It must of been inspired because turns out Sarah knows Soeur Aureing from Mada! and Soeur Aureing was able to bear testimony in Malgache. (her family was also found by missionnaries just a few weeks after moving here) Her daughter jessica even invited their kids, Melissa and David to youth conference. At the end we invited them to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if our message was true. They were hesitant at first but after we explained that we werent their to change their faith, but to add to it, and after Soeur Aurieng shared her testimony in Malgache, Dominique said boldly "I dont know about the others but I'm going to pray to know if its true; And I hope that God responds quickly, I don't want to wait 10 years". Mostly it was a beautiful moment because Dominique had been so unwilling to even ask the question before. 

other highlights of a beautiful week:

Our ami Sebastien the pastry maker made us delicious pastries! (called Paris-Brest)

We finally had another lesson with Laureano! still have so much faith in that kid

We hung out with our friend Laura last P day (the one who grew up all over the world in missionary communities)

Our lesson went super well at Zone Conference

President Adams says next MLC (the meeting we skype in on as "Sister Training Leader") we might go to Mada!

Safina made us this delicious Indian food for breakfast!

The other part of the Chion Hook dynasty invited us for dinner!

See why this week was so amazing but also SO crazy? I didn't even mention how we had a zone conference that lasted ALL day Thursday. It started at 9 and ended at 4! But we did take an hour break for lunch of course, but it was really great. President told us our little 30 minute lesson was "superb" and everything worked as planned so I considered it really successful. The musical number also went really well. We performed "I love to see the temple - Oh j'aime voir le temple" in French while Sr Gardiner played violin and Sr Isham was at piano. I sang. People told us it was "celestial" and "angelic" so I also counted that as another success!

Basically all week long we were running around teaching lots of lessons and trying to get members to go to all of our lessons with us. I have had the impression lately that if we use more members our amis will be touched and we will see more success. So far it is really working and I know that (like ALL the prophets and apostles keep saying) MEMBERS are the secret to missionary work. The Area seventy gave a talk during our Saturday night district conference centered on how members are the key to missionary work. I think his greatest quote was when he said that more tracting is not the answer to more missionary success. More contacting is not the secret to more missionary success. The answer is members doing more missionary work guided by the holy ghost and helped by the Lord. I know that is so TRUE! So get out there and invite people! Invite them to come to a Home Evening! Invite them to a fireside! Invite them to find out why your family is so happy! Invite Invite Invite!

All my love,

Sr Stewart

P.S. I forgot to tell you that the volcano exploded about 3 weeks ago on the island - crazy right? You should google it. There was real lava just running down its sides and no one was concerned! It didn't cause any damage but still errupting volcano! Actually it was quite exciting for everyone because it erupts fairly rarely maybe once every 5 years.

Also because it is "winter" which means it feels like autumn, everyone is falling sick. Like our attendance at church has gone way down because people keep getting a cold or the flu and then are practically on their death beds or something crazy. That's what happens when the weather in a tropical island drops down to the 70s. Everyone catches cold and then gets consumption or something. 

Even more Changes

Zot,

So I have nearly no time - sorry about that, I was working on sending pictures...and then it didn't happen but not tons to report this week.

So as you all know/remember some pretty big changes happened at the beginning of this week. Sr Hurst flew home Tuesday and I officially moved back up to St Denis again. Yep, that's right, I am going to be spending over half of my mission in this city - crazy right? Good thing I love the ward. It was really hard for me to say goodbye to St Paul. Not only was I growing to love the ward but I felt like I was just getting started at working on so many of the new possibilities and potentials that there are in that area. Above all I feel like I learned some really important life lessons in St Paul - I learned how to be happy. Even though the situation was tough, for one of the first times in my life I chose not to let the situation determine my overrall attitude and outlook. I decided that everyday was going to be a good day and that I was going to be happy and make happy memories. And you know it really worked. When I look back at my time in St Paul and just think of the happy moments I made or the things I took time to appreciate and I don't really think about some of the sadder lonely moments. So it feels sad to say goodbye to that "era" of my mission. But it might not be goodbye forever!

Now I am in St Denis again. With Sr Gardiner. And we are both Sister Training Leaders for the Island of Reunion and Maurice. Whoo hoo! We are NOT going to be taking care of the sector of St Paul. We are still just occupying our same old area. Sr Gardiner and I have a lot of hopes for our area right now. It feels like this is the right time and the right place for miracles. After all the moving around that has been done, Sr Gardiner and I are together - we are the most senior sisters on the island and we are in our original sector of St Denis. And we are ready to use faith to let the Lord work miracles through us. We have quite a few amis that have lots of potential and I know that great things are coming IF we will work hard enough for them.

This week was pretty crazy since we were running down to St Paul a couple of times to help show the elders around the area and clean up the apt. Saturday night there was a huge "festival" to celebrate Madagascar's independence day (because there are so many Malagasys who live here) that we went to to try to contact people. It was too loud to really talk but we were able to hand out flyers for English class and see a little bit of traditional Malagache culture which was cool. This week a general 70 Elder Hamilton, is coming to the island to participate in our district conference for the whole island. Sr Gardiner and I and Sr Isham will be doing a musical number for that. Sr Gardiner and I will also be teaching a bit at the zone conference with all the missionaries and our mission President Adams on Thursday. I'm a little nervous for that! But this week is going to go great. I will let you know about all the miracles!

Much Love,

Sr Stewart

Some Trauma

Jun 16

Alright folks,

This week was crazy so I'm just going to get right into it. First of all, this week was a little traumatic. So this week for the most part was a week much like the others. We still don't have any amis and unfortunately last week quite a few of our lessons fell through with less actives or recent converts. Here are the stories for the week...

One day this week we were porting (tracting) in a neighbor hood when all of a sudden I heard a noise like a champagne bottle being popped open and then we see this bird drop out of the sky onto the road. At first I thought some kid had shot at it with a beebee gun but in fact my companion had been watching and saw it run into the lamp post. At first we were all sad because we thought it had killed itself but then as we approached it, it began blinking and then hopped up on its legs. It was still clearly not well though because it was wobbling back and forth and probably had a little birdie concussion. So Sr Hurst and I are standing there debating if we should do anything - specifically like move it over to the grass instead of in the middle of the road. But I was afraid we would scare it more into hurting itself if we tried to move it with paper and just observed that we were in a pretty tranquil neighborhood and maybe it would be fine after a couple of hours of recouperation. It was just as I finished that remark that a car rolled around the corner. Sr Hurst and I looked at each other panicked because we were in the middle of the street standing over the bird. But we had no choice but to step to the side of the road as the car approached - we couldn't make the car stop and then drive on the wrong side of the road because of a fallen bird. Especially since he would probably fly away as the car approached. I figured at worst the car would roll above the bird and then we could go move him over - after all the car was really large and the wheels only made up a small surface area. Imagine to my horror as the car began to approach and the bird didn't move, didn't lift up it's wings and fly away. And then worst of all that small surface area of tire rolled right over the same spot that the bird occupied. And I watched it all. And I screamed. But it was too late. The rest of the afternoon was a little more solemn after that.

Recently, Sr Hurst and I have been having difficulty with men hitting on us and just bothering us in general. We needed to find a computer to use for emailing during the middle of the week so she could write to a mission counselor. So we went to the same place that we go on Monday. It's a little sketchy. It's a little shop that sells cigarrettes, drinks, chips and conveniently offers computer access. A typical little cyber store. Unfortunately the clients are usually rough men who start drinking much to early in the day. On this particular day there were a couple of these men sitting at the table watching horse races when we took our positions at computers near the table. We then passed the next hour being whispered at and brokenly spoken to in English. At one point, one of the men tapped on the window nearest us to motion that he wanted us to come out and talk to him. No way in the world. It was crazy. There were like 4 men all trying to engage us in conversation by yelling "Miss! Miss! Mademoiselle! Ello! Bonjour!" It was not the friendliest environment in the world but we got what we needed to done and then booked it out of here.

The worst story... So this saturday there was another missionary activity at the church. We have one once a month and the members come out for part of their day to do missionary work with us whether that be porting or contacting in the streets. We went out for the morning session and came back to close the activity when tragedy struck. There were two youth brothers who were messing around playing in the bathrooms and all of a sudden we heard one of them screaming and I began to make out his words as "He cut his finger! He cut his finger!" All the ward members ran into the hall and we stayed in the room but could tell something super serious had happened. We could hear the boy crying and yelling and I imagined that somehow he must have cut himself to the bone. My companion and another woman in the ward didn't dare go out in the hall because they were squeamish and might faint but I realized that we had a very small very basic first aid kit in our car. I asked the woman of the branch if they already had supplies like that in the church and she told us she didn't think so. I decided I could at least go get it and then offer it to whoever to see if it could help. When I went out in the hall it was even worse than I had thought. The 16 year old boy was laying on the ground, his head cradled by another brother in the church, while the boy clutched at his hand. There was a pool of blood about 4 diameters in size on the ground and it was evident why. On the boy's right hand, the fingernail and first knuckle of his index finger had been severed completely. I ran to get the first aid kit - offered it blindly to someone and then tried to calm his younger 14 year old brother who was nearly in hysterics. The two had been playing in the doors and the older brother had gotten his finger caught in the door jamb and it had been instantly and violently severed. We waited nearly half an hour for the ambulance to arrive and for the brothren to clear up the mess before we left. I learned I wasn't squeamish from blood but the amount of suffering that I had seen had made my heart sick. The boy had been in such anguish and it was hard not to leave feeling chocked and a little traumatized.

Ok So I'm sorry I only had awful stories this week but I have one really positive one to leave everyone with. This week little Ledivine told us that she wanted to give a gift to Heavenly Father because it was Father's day. She said for her gift she was going to pray a lot and recite a poem she had made for him. I thought that was the cutest thing in the world. I hope you all think about what gift you can give to your Heavenly Father.

Happy Belated Father's Day!

I'm out of time but everything is going alright - even if this week was filled with hard stuff

Love yall

Sr Stewart

Ups and Downs

Salut Zot!

So like the title says this week was full of ups and downs. I am going to try and keep the email a lot shorter and just focus on sending pictures. That's right, I'm taking a risk in this sketchy cyber cafe so if my camera gets a virus - no more pictures...But on a positive note a picture is worth a thousand words right - so this week I'll be speaking through pictures.

So the awesome thing about being on a new island in my new area is that the BEACH is part of our area! Which means we can go there during PDays! Sr Hurst and I decided to start exploring a little bit last week but it decided to rain heavily all day so today we want to go and check out the beach and pretend to be tourists for a day. Unfortunately the beginning of the week was a little rough, there were some companion worries but we talked to the senior couple on Tuesday and now President and others are going to help with some of the concerns. I don't want to share personal details of my companion but she's had a lot of intense stress since being on the mission and now I feel like she is getting the help she needs. So that made the rest of the week good because now it's not like she is all alone - or like I'm the only one aware of the problem and I'm all alone in trying to help solve it. So yeah, I'm so grateful for everyone on the mission and all the support we get. Our leaders out here really care about us, as missionaries, not just our numbers or if we are baptizing people. They are out here to help us and care for us and children of God, just like we are out here to do that for our amis and less actives. 

This week was filled with a lot of porting and contacting (no surprise) We were able to have rendez-vous with our two only amis. But unfortunately it made us realize that one of our amis isn't progressing and isn't keeping his commitments and doesn't have the desire to know if the church has been restored. Disapointing. So now we only have one ami but she can't get baptized because she is not yet 18 and her mother is against it. So that's a bummer. But that is pushing Sr Hurt and I to really step it up and do EVERYTHING we can to find new amis and find the people who are prepared. In fact the highlight of my week was when we placed 3 book of mormons in 1 day! That is huge! And I feel like we gave them to people who truly had potential. I just have this feeling that I know that soon we are going to find people who are prepared. The Lord just wants us to work our hardest so we can see blessings that come from faith and hard work. So this week we are focusing on contacting contacting contacting. 

Other than that the week was slower. Another highlight was when we had a district (aka island) wide relief society activity on Saturday and were able to see the other sister missionaries but even better than that was being able to see the women from St Denis again! It was really like seeing old friends after a long time and they told me that St Denis missed me just as much as I missed it. The women and members from that ward really are great so seeing them again was like all this love again.

No funny stories about less actives this week. I will take better note to note the funny one liners that come my way. The funniest one was from our one (and only) amie named Marion who is 17 and has been an investigator for almost a year. When I came in to church and sat next to her she told me. "Today you are skinny!" And I said "Oh really?" she replied "Yesterday you were fat! But today you are skinnier" - Proof I suppose that fasting works at least as a form of dieting ;) I love love love you all! I am so proud of my little bro! Crazy to see you in that cap and gown! I am proud of you and want everyone to keep doing the little but significant things that bring us closer to our Father in Heaven! Pray and read your scriptures!

GROS BISOUS!

Sr Stewart

pictures

4. We did a lesson on the armor of God. The game was to find household objects to represent the different pieces of armor. That's Hasina, she is one of the Rakoto kids in the first picture. I don't think I'll dress like this after my mission...
5. Sooooo many spiders. And they are soooo big. "Follow the spiders, why couldn't it be follow the butterflies?!"
6. We have the most beautiful sunsets. Soo beautiful especially with the pier. And we get to see it every day. Very spoiled.
7. I'm in love with the nature of St Paul. It's so beautiful and there is so much green space everywhere. This is me rejoicing in the beauty in a field.

Salut!

Salut!

Whoops! Well you all know I'm awful about birthdays so I'm wishing a great belated one to DAD! Aparently in France it is bad luck to wish someone happy birthday before the actual day. One of our amis told us it was their birthday the next day and of course I responded with an enthusiastic "Happy Birthday" only to be informed that I had now wished bad luck on the person by doing it before the actual day. My Bad. So I wanted to avoid that with you Dad, thus the late wishes. On the other hand Kylee I know yours is coming up really quick and I think you are young enough to escape bad luck so I'm going to say an early HAPPY BIRTHDAY! now so I can't forget :)

Not much happened this week. My best story comes from a lesson with a less active. We see around 10 less actives or new converts a week. It's a pretty big part of our work especially since we have nearly 0 amis. It's always our meeting with the less actives that have the funniest moments. This week we went and saw one of the older members who is in a retirement home named Sr Pastey - she is soo funny! Seriously such a hoot! Because she is always sawing the funniest things in just such a manner-of-fact way, you know the way older people sort of say it like it is. Anyway this week when we were chatting at the beginning of her lesson we asked her about her family and childhood. Then I saw some old pictures on her wall and asked her if that was her. They were these old black and white beauty shots probably taken in the 40s of her looking so young and sort of serious - like a movie star. When she responded that it was her and told us how old she was (only 17) I remarked (sort of jokingly) "Wow Sr Pastey, you looked so mature! I'm already 19 and I don't look that mature yet!" In response she said "Don't despair yet, there is still time and hope for you" Hahaha I laughed so hard to myself after the lesson. I'm glad Sr Pastey still holds out hope for me ;)

The other cool thing that happened this week is that I got to do exchanges with one of my favorite sisters on the island - Sr Gardiner! She recieved a call from President about a week or so ago informing her that our mission is now going to have Sister Training Leaders (aka basically like a District Leader just for sisters) and she was going to be the first! So congrats to her! The best thing about her calling/title is that now I get to see her even more than normal because she does exchanges with all the sisters! So we sort of felt like we were having a little sleepover since she came down to St Paul for the night and slept over and then the next day I went to St Denis for half the day to be with Sr Isham. It was pretty great - although it was a little bittersweet being in St Denis again with my old companion. It brought back a lot of nostalgia because even though I LOVE St Paul and my new area, being back made me miss the way things were still. I still am a struggler with change on the inside of my heart.

Sr Hurst passed her year mark! Which is a huge thing for Sisters because that means she only has 6 months left! In missionary terms it's like you're a sitting duck! Especially for this island that is the time of only 1 more transfer (our transfers normally happen every 3-4 months). In the same line of news... guess which sister is hitting her half way NINE month mark?! Thats right - This Girl! Sister Stewart. I have no idea how I feel about that. It's crazy, but also I feel like I've been here for a year. But then at the same time it feels like only 4 or at most 6 months. It's weird. Missionary time definitely doesn't go the same speed as normal time. Especially since we practically have no seasons here so it's like always summer, always the same season, always the same time - time doesn't move. Luckily I still have 9 full months left (which still feels like a nice good amount of time since I don't even leave this year) I'm sure when I get to a year I'll start freaking out but I'll let you know then.

Other than that not too many big things are happening here, we had a pretty low number week so we are really trying to think of ways to find amis and get people to respond to our phone calls so we can set up and have more lessons! But hey, sometimes the work is slow and it's not our work so we don't really set the tempo, it's the Savior's and when it is time for things to come to pass they will. And we will work everyday to turn and turn and turn at the wheel and keep things going and keep on working - diligence! It's a Christlike attribute that we get a lot of chance to grow :)

! Please remember to always do the little things in our lives to keep us on the path, daily scripture study, daily prayer. Never let the "spiritual" things get pushed to the side in our lives. We have so many things we have to do but those are the things that really matter that really move us along the path toward our Heavenly Father in our lives. 

All my Love,

Sr Stewart