Pictures (:

mada . . .

Ok,

So I don't really know where to start. It's crazy here. So so so so third world. Ok so to respond to some basic questions...  I am serving in Antananarivo, the capital, specifically the Betongolo sector. For the first time I am serving in a ward and even bigger than that a stake! I am in the Ivandry stake, and there are two total in Tana.

My companion is Sr Johnson. She is originally from Haiti but was adopted when she was 11 and has grown up in Boise, Idaho ever since. This is her last transfer so she only has 6 weeks left and she speaks Malagasy VERY well. Thank goodness! Because the language is very difficult. Mostly it is just the vocabulary because the words are 14 letters long! Mainly filled with f, p and a. For instance the word for gospel is filazantsara (try saying that 10 times fast) and the word for family is fianakaviana. So it is coming along slowly and I need to have more patience. It's awkward though when people come up to me to ask me if I am "gasy" (from Mada) and I just stare at them not sure if I should nod yes or no and look to sister johnson. Once I nodded yes to something I didn't know and accidently told someone I was already married...whoops!

The food...I avoid eating because basically everything here will make you sick. Well will make me sick because I'm new and not used to it. Elder Hamilton (of the 70) when he was touring here called Madagascar the Mexico of the 80s... So picture that. Hopefully I will be able to send pictures soon but I'm having problems with my camera and am terrified of corrupting the rest of my pictures with a virus from one of these sketchy cybers. Oh and yes I have already gotten sick, even though I have avoided the food and anything not prepared by me and only drink filtered water. Go figure. But hopefully I will be many pounds lighter when I come home! (lots of missionaries will lose around 30 pounds)

So I got here on Wednesday. Which means I havent' yet been here a week. I'll admit, this week has been pretty rough. Mostly it's hard not being able to understand anyone and being separated from the missionaries on Reunion (Sr Gardiner) oh and the food. So how is the work different? Well there are no cars for the missionaries here. We take these 15 passenger vans called "taxi be" and walk everywhere. We typically leave at 11 in the morning and don't get home till 8 or 9 at night, which means we bring everything we need for the day with us in our bags. Luckily after this monday I have food to pack so I won't need to subsist off of crackers and snacks haha. We mostly walk up and down this one street built on a hill and then work in the alleyways that branch off of it. It is fairly hot but a little less than La Reunion so I'm happy about that. It is about to be the rainy season though and I got my first taste of that the other day. During our Sunday meetings all of a sudden we heard the rain start falling - hard. Then it seemed to start raining even harder when we went outside. And I mean so hard! I kept reading about people in South America and how they could get soaked in a matter of seconds and I didn't understand but now I do. My sperry's got soaked all the way through and the parts of my skirt that stuck out of my coat were dripping when we got home. I can't emphasize enough how hard the rain was falling and how much of it there was. And then the streets started to turn into rivers and we had to step into them with our drenched shoes. Luckily we were going home and didn't have any apointments to go to because here they work in that rain!

As for the package address, I will get that to you next week, but the mailing address for letters and things is the very first one I got that goes to Mada. The one that we put on my little missionary cards.

Well I love you all! And I am extra praying for you because family is one of the few words I know in this crazy language! Pray for me extra too please, because this is definitely going to be one of the most difficult parts of my mission.

Love,

Sr Stewart

P.S. I almost got bit by a dog and nearly get hit about 5 times a day by some sort of automobile, be it bus or car. But I am still safe! Thank goodness I have the Lord's protection around me.

One More Day

Kome i le!

So everyone here it is: my final few days on La Reunion. I actually leave this Wednesday so tomorrow (Tuesday) is my last full day on the island. It's so surreal. This sunday the branch president asked me to go up and announce my transfer and then bear my testimony. I thought that maybe at the end after my little testimony I might get a little emotional because of my time here and my love for the members. Nope, turns out I started crying after the second sentence. And I mean big-fat-crocodile-tears-rolling-down-my-cheeks-and-the-need-to-hold-my-breath-so-as-not-to-sob-sort-of-crying. It was pretty bad. All of a sudden getting up in front of those members and looking out it just really hit me that I was never going to see them again. Or at least not for many many years. Because I will be leaving my mission from Madagascar so I will not come back to La Reunion and because it is really far from the United States I don't see myself making the trip in the next couple of years. These members and this island have been such a huge part of my life - during a really crucial part in my life. It has not always been easy, that is for sure, but looking back it has always been worth it. I feel like a mission is best summed up in a quote by President Gordon B Hinckley "You will realize that what right now seems like a large sacrifice will turn out being the greatest investment you ever made" And it is true. A mission is a huge investment in the gospel and an even bigger investment in yourself and your personal character.

While I still have 5 months of my mission left I feel like in many ways I am leaving my mission right now. Because La Reunion HAS been MY mission for the past 13 months and I am saying goodbye to this period of time with the missionaries here and the members and this island and the food and the culture and the language for perhaps the rest of my life - because even if I come back, it will never be the same as when I was a missionary. And while that makes me sad (and many more tears will be shed when I have to say goodbye to my companions and this island) I also move forward knowing that it is with a purpose and that the Lord has a plan for me. I also have so many more adventures ahead! Hey, the future is as bright as your faith right? Yes, I'm nervous to learn the language, yes I'm nervous about the culture and the complete lack of 1st world bathrooms and getting sick every day - but I know the Lord will provide. I have such a testimony of this gospel and this work. Next time you hear from me I will be in Madagascar with the lemurs trying desperately to communicate in a language that is 100% different from French. And I will be loving the opportunity the Lord gave me!

Love you all! Never pass up making sacrifices for the Lord because they will turn out to be the best investements!

Soeur Stewart 

Good Week

Manoana!

We had a really great week this week! I don't know exactly why but we suddenly had lots of great great lessons! I think part of the reason might be due to our new goal for this week. During the big meeting we had in Madagascar, the mission leaders all decided that as a mission we should set a baseline of 28 hours of proselyting per week - which might not sound like tons but it really stretches us. Most weeks Sr Gardiner and I get 20 to 22 because proselyting doesn't include our studies, our church meetings, activities, eating with members or other missionary meetings or even when we are driving in the car. The time of proselyting is solely the amount of time we spend preaching the good word. So this week we set the goal that we were going to do all we could to push ourselves and meet the 28 hours....and we came really close! This week we had to do some visa work and other activities so next week we'll hit it for sure.

So this week, we had an amazing discovery when we found our new ami Gino. As I've told you, Sr Gardiner and I have really been working on talking to everyone we see. So as we were leaving a rendez vous to get into our car this man was descending some stairs as we were just about to pass him I decided to stick out my hand and contact him. Turns out he had already met the missionaries in Madagascar and attended church twice. He didn't know the church existed over here too and he was really interested to learn more about it. We had a lesson with him Monday, gave him a tour  of the church Thursday with a member who spoke Malagasy, he came to an activity Friday and then he came to church and stayed for all three hours Sunday! He is super interested in the church and says he just felt so good like something was really important when he met us and came to the church! We are so excited and pleased at how sensitive to the spirit Gino is - it really is amazing. 

Speaking of Madagascar...I have been studying the language like CRAZY ever since President told me about the transfer because the language is super different and tricky. I have a couple of books from missionaries who are over in Mada now and studied it in the MTC. Well this week we taught two lessons with Gino, one with another amie from Madagascar and had a church activity for only Malagache people and for all of them I was able to use a couple of phrases! Both of these amis don't speak French as well and still prefer Malagasy so I was pretty pumped that I got the opportunity to practice in real life lesson. It still makes me realize how MUCH I need to learn because I know next to nothing besides "God is our loving Heavenly Father" but I can't help but feeling that the Lord is blessing us in a very specific way :)

Oh yeah, Youssouf is getting baptized this Saturday!!!! SOOOOO exciting!!!! I think I already wrote you about Youssouf. He is the guy from Mauritius (the island right next to us) who grew up Muslim and converted to Christianity when he was a teenager. He is so awesome and has the gift of faith. I could tell amazing/funny stories about him for hours. He is super super prepared and is really excited to be baptized. He has been asking us from day one when he could do it and we keep having to slow him down because we need to teach everything and make sure he understands. But I'm sure that this Saturday is going to be a beautiful event filled with the spirit. I will tell you all about it next week. 

Well that is more or less all the time that I have! I love you all and can't believe this is my last full week in Reunion! I won't come back to this island again! It'll be a sad goodby but I'm ready for the Madagascar adventure!

Love

Sr STewart

MADAGASCAR

Well,

I could write hours and hours worth of e-mail but instead we have less than half of our normal time so I'll just have to explain everything and send pictures later. Basically Madagascar is great! It is super super different from La Reunion because it is so 100% third world country. Basically just picture Mexico and all the ideas of dirt roads, busy buses, and street side vendors and you've got a really acurate picture! I am loving the experience and starting to wonder if I can request spending the last part of my mission here. 

Sr Gardiner and I have discovered that almost no one speaks french though it is their official business language. But that means I am trying to pick up Malagasy phrases as fast as I can. I already got the basics of please, thank you, excuse me, how much, and I don't speak malagasy. Now I'm trying to learn all the rest. We are in the capital - Antananarivo and staying with four other sisters, including my old MTC companion Sister Teuira! 

We are doing splits with the two companionships. Sr Johnson is from America, actually Boise Idaho and she has been out for about 14 or so months. She also speaks french from taking it in highschool and BYU so that is super cool! Her companion is Sr Vanarisoa who is from Madagascar and understands french but only speaks Malagasy. They are both super nice. Then the other companionship is Sr Teuira from Tahiti who speaks French and Malagasy and Sr Guilamba who is from Mozambique and speaks English and Malagasy (and Portugues) and mostly understands French. You can imagine conversing around the dinner table is a little tricky. All the sisters can speak Malagasy to each other but then we Reunion missionaries don't understand. If we speak French mostly everyone can understand but then they have to reply in English or Malagasy. Tricky, tricky. But it's all part of the fun! We have already taught a couple of lessons over the course of Sunday and Monday. The living conditions are soo different but the people are so warm. Speaking of warm....it's actually FREEZING here!! They are just finishing their winter and heading into spring but it is super super cold. Sr Gardiner and I have been freezing our hinies off! I have worn my tights and a sweater everyday and can still be cold! I even broke out the mittens! At night we are sleeping with almost four blankets! It's definitely not Provo cold but after being on a tropical island for a year, my body has NO sort of immunity to the cold. I think it is in the high 40s or 50 here so it feels glacial.

I don't really know what else to write with the few minutes that are left so I will just have to send pictures because they say a thousand words. I love you all!

Love,

Sister Stewart

One Year Older and Hopefully Wiser Too

Well,

Like you mentioned, I am hitting my year mark this week. I know it is so crazy. I want to deny that the time has sped by fast because each day still can feel soo slow but unfortunately what they say is true. Your time on the mission does wiz by. While it does feel like I have been out here for a very long time, it is still hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I only have a third of my mission left. It's still a good amount of time though so you will hear lots of more stories and testimonies before my last day comes!

Alright so I don't have lots of time right now but I'll just give you a little update about the week! So this past week we were super lucky to have a zone conference with Elder Hamilton of the Seventy. It was super amazing. During his portion of the meeting he asked us to talk about some of our difficulties here on La Reunion doing missionary work. My hand shot right up. Finding people! It is so hard to find people! Know that vacation is over, everyone is working during the day and there is no one to find when we go porting or walk around downtown. You know what Elder Hamilton's secret was? Talk to Everyone. Yep, that was what he told us. We as missionaries need to talk to everyone. At first I thought that there must be more because that is the first rule as a missionary - talk to everyone but then I realized that we really could be doing a better job - that we SHOULD be doing a better job at talking to literally everyone. One of the missionaries who served for a short time in France said that at one point they used to keep track of how many people they talked/introduced themselves to in a week. One companionship was able to talk to 2,000 people a week! When they rode the bus they used to walk up and down the aisles talking to every single person on the bus. That is what it means to talk to everyone and that is what we need to be doing as missionaries! 

Sr Gardiner and I have really been trying to test it out and committ ourselves to talking with literallly every person who crosses our paths. It is really hard. And we have talked to some unpleasant people. But it feels good to know we are doing our best and already we have had some people interested - perhaps people that normally we would not have talked to! Really what I have been learning (especially from Sr Gardiner because she is a super example) is that talking to everyone is sort of a test of faith. God needs to know that He can trust us. That if He puts someone prepared in our path He can trust us to talk to them. If we won't talk to everyone then He can't trust us and so it would be wasted on us to put someone prepared in our path. It is a test of faith. We need to have faith that there ARE people out there who are prepared for us. And I'll be honest sometimes it's hard! Some of these people can be so stubborn and closed and ignorant of even their own beliefs! But they are children of God who have divine potential and we have to talk to each one of them so they can have the chance to change and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The biggest adventure of this week is that on Thursday we woke up to this big pile of water on the floor in our kitchen. It turned out there was a big leak underneath the sink. So we had to turn off our water at all times to minimize the leak. Unfortunately that makes taking a shower really difficult because if the water is on, then the puddle grows at a rapid rate in the kitchen and all our towels were already soaked. So luckily Friday they sent in a ward member to try and fix it. He worked on it for nearly 2 1/2 hours and then put in a temporary piece to limit the water flow. Meanwhile we hung out downstairs in the senior couple's apt because he is a man and we can't be in the house with him at the same time. Complicated. Luckily that mostly fixed the problem and then the Zone Leaders came by a couple of times to try and make the fix more permanent. It still hasn't exactly stopped leaking 100% but we can keep our water on so we are very happy!

In other random news. There is a man here who must be the Reunion Martin Short. He looks just like him. And he has the personallity of the Martin Short character from Arrested Development - very cooky and into young pretty girls. We have run into him way more times than we wanted to while walking the streets. 

I finally made those French beignets! They were delicious and Sr Gardiner said they were even better than the ones that her REAL french companion used to make.

We recieved the exciting news that we are GOING TO MADAGASCAR!!!! for four days next week! So that we can personally be at a leadership meeting instead of making a skype call! So we will get to see what it is like for real over there! We are incredibly stoked! So next week's email might be late or something because I'll be doing it over there! 

Well that's all folks! Love ya! 

Love,

Sister Stewart

some french words i don't understand -ky

Well,

Not a lot of new news for this week - sorry everyone! Life has just continued on for us missionaries on La Reunion. We had a couple of good lessons and it looks like one of our investigators has some great potential. His name is Phillipe and we had a second lesson with him this week where we even fixed a baptism date! We fixed it for all the way in October because - obviously he has a lot to learn and commitments to make - but we set it as a good goal to work towards. He came to church again this Sunday for the second time and it is super great because normally that is the hardest step!

We heard from Therese this week...but unfortunately it was bad news. She texted us and said thanks for worrying about her but that she has decided to stay in the Catholic church. We asked her if we could come by one last time but she never responded. We are pretty heartbroken because she was so ready and saw such a change in her life with the church and Book of Mormon but we still hold out hope. We hope that with time we will be able to see her again or maybe some of the members because she made some pretty close friends when she came to the branch. We will have to see.

Oh yeah, we did a LOT of contacting this week. Which normally means at least a few potentials for amis, but this week we didn't find so many people. We tried this new contacting message. Basically Sr Gardiner plays her violin and I sing hymns at big public places. We put up this sign that talks about the church and has some pictures from the new Bible videos (you know the super great ones) and the title says "Venez et Vous Verrez!"  which means "Come and See!" A good amount of people will compliment us on the singing or give us thumbs up but not too many have stopped and talked to us. Lots of people look at the sign though. We have mostly been singing in Centreville - which is literal in French meaning the center of town. It's this huge street where no cars can come down just lined with shops - basically the equivalent of a mall. And it was packed this week because all the kids went back to school this monday - today. So last minute shopping was being done to buy notebooks and backpacks and all that jazz. I am sure you are doing the same thing chez vous. So like I said - not tons of success.... But we are hoping at least to give people more exposure to our church and just get them to have contact and notice us the missionaries in a good way. Every one can point out the Temoin Jehovah's (Jehovah Witness) they are always on the street with a little stand and they port peoples houses too. Everyone recognizes them (for good or for worse...) but then when we meet people most of them have never even talked to a missionary OR a member before. We are the very first time they have even known of this church's existence on the island! So I hope our singing routine will at least change that - in a positive way.

Which, by the way, is crazy that some people (most people) have never heard of the church because there have been missionaries here for almost 40 years. And already in a year, between Sr Gardiner and I, we have practically knocked on every single door that is accessible in our part of the city. You think I am joking but I have been here for a year and most weeks we port or contact at least 12 hours...so you do the math. We drive around the city looking for new places and say "did that four months ago" , "did that when I first got here" So we have started re-doing things. It surprises me when people say that every time!

Alright well my time is up, have to go! Wish I had more interesting news!

Love you all! 

Sr. Stewart