Fletcher Madsen formerly in Africa

President , Sister Pinto and me There's so much to tell, where to even begin. Elder Smith and I saw a lot of miracles our last week together, but now it's time to see miracles in Africa! The 2 days of travel went by really quickly because I got to meet my grandparents for a few hours in the San Francisco airport and I got to travel to Angola with 5 other missionaries, so that was really fun. We had some German food at the airport in Frankfurt, German food is goood, but now I get to eat African food.  Key to our front door When we arrived, we got to eat lunch with President and Sister Pinto at a really nice restaurant. I ate a chicken heart for the first time, those things are weird. Overall, the food was pretty awesome though. My companion’s name is Elder Lima. He's from Brazil and doesn't speak much English, so I need to learn Portuguese really fast. Our apartment is super nice, nicer than the apartment I was in the US actually. We have a lot of space and ...

Since Fletcher on his Monday Preparation Day was flying from Spokane to Seattle to San Francisco to Frankfurt (overnight, so now Tuesday)  to Angola he didn't have access to a computer to write a message.  However, he did get permission to have his Grandparents visit him during his 6 hour layover in the San Francisco airport and got to use their phone to call home, so his family especially enjoyed that.  Enjoy the pictures and hopefully Elder Madsen will be able to get an email out of Africa soon that can be posted.

T'chau Spokane!   I don't have a whole lot of time to write this email, so I'll keep it quick. We had another snow storm (yes, in October) so that was fun. Elder Smith and I biked home in the hail one night so of course I got sick the next day, but nothing too terrible. That snow storm destroyed a lot of trees, so lots of people didn't have power, so we got to help a lot of people clean the trees out of their yards. Elder Smith and I didn't lose power but for some reason we lost our hot water, and still don't have that. I've resorted to heating up water on the stove and pouring it on myself in the shower, some call it ghetto, I call it resourceful.  I got a haircut today at Brother Fletcher's house, and it is... not the greatest I've ever gotten, I'll leave it at that. Pro tip: don't let someone without hair cutting experience cut your hair. At least I gave Elder Carter some practice at cutting hair. Sadly, I think most of my ha...

Oi! This week was definitely an interesting one. No more snow thankfully, but Elder Smith and I made sure to put on multiple layers when we need them. Since Elder Smith is a district leader, we get the opportunity to go on exchanges with the other Elders, where we swap companions for a day and go into another area. I've had to really focus on having continual excitement for my area and to do the work there, because every time this week when I was in another area we saw lots and lots of miracles. Everyone certainly has their agency to listen to us or not, but I still need to do everything I can to give them that opportunity to investigate the Book of Mormon and the gospel for themselves.  One exchange I went on was super cool. I went with Elder Abbott into his area for the day, and we talked to some amazing people. The first person we talked to had us so excited, he seemed so prepared to hear the gospel after all he had been through. After talking with him for a while, he...

Dales’ baptism Honestly, I can't remember much from this week, but that's because the past few days have been so awesome. On Saturday we had Dales’ baptism. The spirit was so strong there the entire service, it's hard to describe but it's a feeling you always want to have with you. One of our investigators described the feeling as taking a warm bath, I definitely had that feeling in my heart throughout Dale's baptism. Seeing his son baptize him was so awesome. At the end of the service Dale bore his testimony and conversion story. Of course, he mentioned all the other churches he's been to, and how he was trying to debunk the Book of Mormon, but it ended up converting him to Christ as he read it. He's already sharing the Book of Mormon, which is another testament of Jesus Christ and a record of Christ’s doctrine that he taught to the people here in America after his resurrection and how he established his church in America with apostles and prophets ju...