Fletcher Madsen formerly in Africa

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...

Blessing the rains down in Africa (plus: baptisms!) It finally rained in Angola! And when it rains, it pours. People here freak out like people in Virginia freak out when it barely snows haha. Elder Lima and I were so glad last Tuesday when it finally rained, all our clothes got totally soaked, but we didn't care at all, we had way too much fun.  I think our last Tuesday had enough stories for an entire weekly email, so I'll just tell a few. In the morning we had to jump from rock to rock to cross roads that had become rivers, that made me feel like a little kid again. Then we helped a family in our ward get water out of their front yard, afterwards they were filling a hole with blocks to stabilize their fence, so I got to smash some blocks with a hammer to throw in it, that was super fun. When we went back to our apartment later in the day, Elder Lima realized that he didn't have our keys with him , so we were a little nervous. I decided to pray, a...

Olá irmãos e irmãs!  The group ready to go Boy do I miss English. Luckily Elder Lima has been speaking Portuguese all his life and helps me a lot. He helps me learn Portuguese and I help him learn English, so it works pretty well. I'm starting to be able to teach more in lessons, but it's still really hard to comprehend the light speed Portuguese these people speak. A few members of our ward, or congregation, speak English, but even in English they speak so fast I have a hard time understanding. The gift of tongues is definitely real, I've been able to see a lot of improvement in my speaking and understanding of Portuguese already, just got to stay diligent.  Next to the Baptismal font Angola is awesome, the members and nonmembers alike are all nice to the missionaries. People actually come up to us to talk about our church here, how amazing is that. We don't really even go finding, we just teach investigators and members. Since there aren't any add...