Mission Monday

There is a tradition in Madagascar of cracking eggs over a person's head and then dousing them with flour to celebrate their birthday.  It sounds like an awful mess to me, but traditions don't always have to make sense, do they?

I did a quick researching of the birthday eggs and flour, and I mostly came up with missionary stories, so I'm guessing that it might be more of a missionary-in-Madagascar tradition rather than a true Malagasy thing.  No, now I'm finding a few videos of Malagasies making a mess of each other, and a report that it comes from a French tradition.  Also, it's big in Indonesia, where they tie up the person before doing the eggs and flour thing.  Nice.  Hope he doesn't bring this tradition back home with him!


From South Africa:

Oh, and in other news, pianos are really heavy! I think that President Ucthdorf said it best when he said, "Lift where you stand". When you follow that council, everything works, and on top of that, it is really easy to move a piano.

Winter is starting to come here! It is starting to get really cold. I love the cold, but my companions are struggling with it a little bit. But whatever, I love it. I hope everything goes well, and that everybody will enjoy this time of the year.


From Madagascar:

So... You might be wondering about how the eggs went down last week on my birthday. Good news is: I avoided it. See, what happened is Elder Cooley bought some eggs and hid them on the bookshelf right by the door so he could egg me as soon as he got home at night, but, when we came home I saw them and hid them somewhere else. Then... it just didn't happen, which is all good with me!
Then we had some great cakes made by members, pictures should be included down below. The chocolate one had ice cream inside... They are both, of course, gone now.

This week has been lots of fun though! We went on splits with the AP's and we got a lot of work done. It was super satisfying! Some of the highlights included going to the first marriage I've been to here in Madagascar! It was way fun to see, and they're heading to the temple in South Africa this week! Then we also just got to a bunch of really cool investigators and less actives this week! Sorry for all of you wanting crazy stories about weird animals or things like that, but the work is honestly the best part! Then it was especially fun to see some members getting ready to go to the temple, that was probably one of the most rewarding parts. I love seeing the church progress out here!