Amazing sights in Reunion
Last month Anna and I with Elder and Sister Heap took a six hour hike to the Grand Benare, the second highest mountain on Reunion at over 9500 feet. From there we could see most of the island and look into two of the three "cirques" or incredibly deep canyons formed by the volcanoes. At the top we were literally on a cliff with a sheer drop off of thousands of feet. In the first cirque we saw way below us a small village that is only accessible by a steep hiking trail or by helicopter. We hope to hike there one day. In the other cirque is the beautiful city of Cilaos which we visited this week by car.

The following photos are taken from Cilaos

The top of the mountain in the distance is the Grand Benare

Many member district and missionary zone conferences.

It has been two months since the last post. We have been traveling every week. We returned today from Reunion where we greeted two new sisters and two new elders and sent one elder off for home.

In the past two months we have had three member district conferences. In May the Reunion District conference was presided over by Elder Collin Bricknell of the Area Presidency. These conferences are just like stake conferences. On two of the district conference weekends we also had a day of zone conference with the missionaries on the Friday before. Last week in Tomatave with the two conferences I ended up speaking and teaching about twelve hours over the three days, mostly in French. With additional interviews it makes for a pretty exhausting schedule. We flew home for a day and back on the plane for the islands. Over three months we end up presenting zone conference about ten times in the different areas. Just as we finish the last one the new round of zone conferences begins.

In nine days we say good bye to ten missionaries in Madagascar and welcome fifteen new ones. This is a hectic and bitter sweet experience. We will miss the missionaries that we have come to love and respect over the past year. Yes, in a few days it is our anniversary. This last year has gone by very quickly, yet it seems as if we have been here a long time. 

The photos are of the Antsirabe District Conference where we had over 650 in attendance at the Sunday session. This district is working diligently to become our next stake. 

Here is the children's choir.

The next photo is from our young men/ young women/ YSA fireside we recently held in Tomatave. We asked them who was preparing to serve a mission and almost all of them raised their hands. Currently we have over 100 full time missionaries serving from Madagascar in various places in the world. There are many more who are planning on going. This represents the real future of the church here. 

The following photos are of the countryside outside of Antananarivo taken during an inspection visit of one of the clean water projects overseen by our humanitarian senior couple missionaries.

Even though the temperatures were chilly, most of these school children were without shoes.

Last week we flew to the hottest area of the mission, Mahajanga which is a city of a few hundred thousand on the northwest coast. We have two missionaries and a branch there. During our weekend stay we visited a few families with the missionaries. Here is a photo of one of the new strong convert families in their small humble but quite clean home. The only furniture other than the bed they were sitting on was a small table and chairs.

This week we drove three hours to Antsiribe for a zone conference, leadership training and many interviews. Among these I interviewed three young women and two young men who had completed their applications for their missions. I was very impressed with these young people. Their greatest desire is to serve a mission. Each serves as a branch missionary and teaches with the full time missionaries three or more days a week. I have rarely seen young adults more ready to serve. We are seeing increasing numbers preparing from all over the mission, especially Madagascar. Most come from very humble homes. Some are fairly well educated and speak French as well as Malagasy, a few speak some English. Some have quite limited formal education. All have taken the study of the gospel very seriously.
Today we visited a branch 25 kms south of Antsiribe located in the village of Manadona. This is a growing branch with some members walking long distances to attend church. There is no electricity in this area and very little clean water. The branch president is a 26 year old convert of 2 years. As most of the people in the area, he is a farmer. With the help of some great missionaries, he is doing a remarkable job in leading this branch. They are meeting in a brick chapel without glass windows and a wooden classroom building. The Church has just installed solar power to run the LED lights and the computer which actually has 3G wireless internet. Here is a photo of the branch just before the start of the meeting this morning.

About 8 kms away on a walking path is the village of Besoa in which is located a small group under the direction of the Manadona Branch. This group is quite remote and difficult to support, so after much consultation with the branch and district leadership, it was decided to merge the two units and have everyone meet in Manadona. Though a difficult decision, this will help prepare the branch to further strengthen and eventually become a ward. After the branch sacrament meeting, we along with our senior missionary couple ( Elder and Sister Todd), the younger missionaries assigned to this area (Elders Moore and Baker) and the District President (Pres Pierre) and his wife loaded into our three mission four wheel drive trucks and headed to Besoa.  Driving there is much longer than walking overland. The "road" is deeply rutted, definitely a four wheel drive trail and not for the faint hearted. We also had to cross a challenging log bridge that had just recently been laid down. The logs were not nailed into place.

We could only drive so far and had to walk the rest of the way on a trail. Below is a photo of part of the village and of some of the group greeting us on the trail.

The members have built there own wooden, dirt floor chapel. Here is pictured the group at the beginning of the sacrament meeting.

Here is the group leader conducting. Notice he has no shoes which is common in these villages.
On the right side of this photo is a young elder who this week will be leaving for his mission to
New Zealand. He does not yet speak much English and will be first traveling to Provo for an extended MTC training. His world is about to completely change.

It was very humbling for me to tell them of the changes and to ask these devoted members to start attending church an hour and a half walk from their village. Most of them sustained the proposed changes, many of them did so resolutely. It is a big sacrifice which they are willing to make in order to have the blessings of a much larger branch and to help build the church. They are willing to do this because they have strong testimonies and a lot of faith.

Here is a photo of some of the village children with Elder Moore.

Our first senior missionary couple outing occurred at the end of March when we traveled with most of the couples to Andasibe to the Lemur park and a stay in the rain forest at the Vakona Lodge. It was the first visit there for most. We traveled on the 1930s vintage Michelin Train. It is like a large bus which rides on the tracks, but which also rides on special Michelin rubber tires. The seating is individual padded wicker chairs which were quite comfortable. We even experienced two flat tires which were repaired by the crew of four repairmen.

The middle of March we were back in the islands with missionary and member interviews and  leadership training. Pictured below are the four missionaries on Mauritius, Elders Millar, Lambson, Cusick, and LeBlanc. It is very difficult for us to get visas for our missionaries there. We are expecting our first senior missionary couple to arrive in May which will use our quota of six visas. We will have to wait until two missionaries leave the island at the end of this month for us to be able to apply for the visas for their replacements, a process that will take usually at least three months. So we will have fairly long periods of time when we will only have two younger missionaries serving there.

With a few exceptions our work here in Madagascar is pretty much seven days a week. I am often making phone calls very late into the evening. We occasionally have done some walking near the mission home and do some marketing together. When we go to the islands we try and take a "preparation day", usually hiking or walking by the beach. As you have seen in previous blogs the sights are often spectacular. We will try to include more of the regular things so it doesn't look as if we are always on vacation. In Reunion we welcomed two new missionaries and said good bye to two.

During our interviews Anna found a new friend, an orange-tiger-stripped lizard. On one of our days there we had a great zone activity climbing one of the mountains overlooking St Denis.

Other experiences. Just so that everyone doesn't think that our mission is just full of traveling to beautiful places, we do have some real challenges here. The third weekend of February we traveled to Tulear to formally establish the branch there. We have a great group of saints in that city of about 400,000. The new branch president has a PhD from England and oversees the agriculture for this whole part of the country. The first counselor is an engineer and the elders quorum president runs the port. This educated group is unusual in the church outside of Antananarivo.

While were in Tulear there was a large storm brewing in the Straits of Mozambique between Africa and  Madagascar.

A week after our visit the area was hit hard by a strong hurricane (cyclone in this part of the world) In addition to the city, many of the smaller villages were significantly damaged or mostly destroyed. Many of these villages remain without aid weeks later.

Our humanitarian couple, Elder and Sister Richards, drove two long days to coordinate the Church's relief efforts in Tulear. Working with this new branch, many families were helped. The members actually did most of the work identifying the needy, packaging and distributing  the supplies. In all 445 non member  families were directly aided by this effort.

This was an  earthen dam

The above photo was of part of the group waiting on the church grounds for the relief supplies consisting of rice, beans, sugar, candles and soap. Many others were aided in outlying areas.

During the rainy season of summer, downpours are common. At times, our missionaries get caught in flash floods like this one right here in Antananarivo. Elder Moulton did get a little wet.

We just completed a stake conference with Elder Carl Cook of the Area Presidency. It was great to have him and Sister Cook back in Madagascar. Six months ago we spent 11 days with them on our first mission tour. We had over 800 in attendance on three floors, including the parking garage,  of this church building. As of next week Antananarivo will actually have 2 new full-sized stake centers under construction.  This last photo is of a group of young single adults who were part of this conference.

 Here is a brief video of a native Madagascar instrument, the Valiha.