Fletcher Madsen formerly in Africa

Wait, it's not still Christmas? Whoops. Sorry about the lack of an email last week, Elder Lima and I spent the 24th and 25th with members, and I couldn't get into my email, also my camera glitched out and I lost a ton of fotos so that's a little sad but it's whatever.  Dec 22nd- our mission had tons of baptisms, over 100 throughout the whole mission! Such an awesome way to celebrate Christmas, seeing so many more people coming unto Christ and following his example. I was able to baptize Raimundo, that was such an awesome experience, he told us he felt so much better than ever before after his baptism, On the mission, we call our training companions Pai (dad), and the people we train and the people we baptize sons, so now I have a son and a daughter here in Patriota.  Dec 23rd- We had an activity with our entire mission. I finally got to speak English! The other American missionaries here are super jealous because the area I'm in has tons of food t...

This week was pretty crazy, but with lots of blessings. Elder Lima and I have been trying to prepare a few people for baptism, while also opening another part of our area called "denjahey". When we looked at the map we saw it's actually called Danjareux, so people just don't know how to pronounce French words here. Danjareux is pretty far, so we did a lot of walking this week. Most of the time one of our members, 18-year-old Jose tagged along. He went to so many lessons and gave us so many of his friends to teach, we call him the third missionary in our companionship, he's super awesome and has such a strong testimony. I remember how hard it was for me to share my testimony and talk about the church in high school, these members here are great examples.    The micas, or teenage girls in our ward are amazing as well. They invited Eli (another investigator) to multiple events and stayed with her when she came to church. Eli told us that she wants to keep ...

Oi mundo!  This week was awesome, for the days we could actually go out at least. On Tuesday I came down with a pretty bad sickness, but I thought it was just food poisoning... and then Elder Lima got the same thing. After being out the whole day, we were able to go to the hospital the next day. Everything was in Portuguese, so that was an interesting experience, but apparently, we got some kind of virus. I'm definitely thankful for the gift of tongues, I honestly wasn't even that lost at the hospital when people were talking to me, so only talking in Portuguese all this time is definitely paying off.  One of the other missionaries got a kidney stone and had some other complications and surgeries, so Elder Lima and I definitely got the better end of the deal. Since those missionaries are also in our ward, we've been taking them lunch from the members every day, which takes forever, but it's worth it to be helping out those that are sicker and more afflict...

This week was a little tougher, but still miracles abounding. On Monday, Elder Lima hurt his foot pretty bad, so I thought we might have to take a few days off. He told me that he hates sitting around when there's work to be done, so off we limped! Thankfully his foot has been healing fast, thanks to a priesthood blessing and lots of prayers. His foot isn't purple on both sides anymore so that's good. Elder Lima is so passionate about missionary work, it's awesome. Every chance he gets he says how before the mission he would have asked God why this happened but now he has such a much better perspective and is so happy to continue being a missionary and teaching people, even though his foot hurts.  Super awesome big highlight of the week: I baptized someone!!! Surai was so prepared when we first met her. She read the pamphlets we use to help as we teach and took notes in them and the Book of Mormon without us even asking her! Her testimony after her baptism w...

Picture with Elder Holland from last week In honor of this week being thanksgiving (for you all at least), I thought I'd focus on some things I'm thankful for and the many blessings I've had serving my mission. First: Food!  I did not think I was going to eat a whole lot here, but boy have the members been amazing. Elder Lima and I have eaten cake 9 out of the last 10 days, sometimes more than once a day! We almost always have lunch at a member’s house. Here lunch is the biggest meal of the day, so we eat a lot with the members and then don't need to eat dinner, which is pretty cool, because it means more time to teach lessons. Crazy story with food, one lunch after we were done I asked the other Missionaries what kind of meat we just ate, and they told me it was dog! At least I found out after the fact instead of before. I apologize to any of you dog lovers out there. The people:  It's still hard for me to believe how many people talk to US about our c...

I can't believe how blessed I've been as a missionary to hear from so many wonderful servants of the Lord. Being able to shake Elder Holland's hand and hear from him in a room with just about 50 other missionaries was so special. He has a spirit and a fire that is unparalleled. He is so passionate about missionary work and making sure that we as missionaries truly get what this is about. He said we don't go back to real life after the mission; "This is as REAL as your LIFE is ever going to get!!", he told us that if we truly understand what bringing the gospel to others means, that we will be missionaries forever, not just for 2 years. He talked about how obedience is what brings every blessing that we have in life, that if we don't understand the formula of obedience leading to blessings, that we will be lost until we do so. Especially as a missionary, I have seen the blessings of obedience so many times.  At night Elder Holland spoke with us an...