Captain America strikes again

I didn't know what else to title this email. 

                                  A guy painted this for me.

Elder Arrieus keeps singing Christmas songs and it's driving me crazy. I might kill him before he makes it home. 

Thanksgiving sounds way fun, we have some plans in place but I think I already told you about them and I will give you the story next week depending on what falls through and what doesn't. 

About the Christmas calls I am going to have the option hopefully of using the church computer, so any reasonable time should be ok. Outside of that the cyber here opens at 8:30 our time in the morning and is open relatively late. So if the church falls through that is when I am free. 

So last Monday we went out and played football. It felt so good to be American for a while. Even though I was playing defense and Elder Morley tripped as he was catching the ball and I fell over him and landed face first in the dirt. Madagascar fields are less than ideal. Pics on the bucket. Everything healed up by yesterday  though so it was good. 

This week was another exercise in persistence. It seemed like every door we had answered either wanted to bible bash or was Catholic and couldn't let us in. So that was fun. We did find one family that seems pretty cool. They have five month old twins that are super fat and adorable. Yep. 

Fun fact, I was asked to sing at the zone conference coming up by the mission president's wife. So I recruited two other elders to do it with me. We will see how it goes. 

Last night we had a huge almost sleepover BBQ thing. We went over to one of the houses here in Antsirabe and had a huge BBQ and stayed up way too late talking about anything and everything. For a while it felt like amateur sportscenter. I could be on that. So I was cooking my mediocre steaks and went to flip one of them and holy crap fire is hot and whoops down goes the steak into the fire. Well good meat is expensive here and I was hungry so down goes Elder Galbreath into the fire and pulls out a mildly ashy steak. It was basically done though. So that one tasted a little funny but the other two were way good. 

Hmm. We are going to this crazy nice field today and playing football/rugby/soccer. It is going to be way fun, I am excited. 

I love you guys a ton, hope your second thanksgiving is as good as your first haha 

Elder Galbreath

Sarodroa

Missions are hard

Well transfers were yesterday. Surprise surprise I am staying here. We got two new zones created and a few new areas. Pretty dull week. I can tell Mom has dull weeks when she only tells me about church. When I have a dull week, it means I tried really hard to get stuff done this week and nothing worked out. It means that even though we try really hard to find families and help them to learn the gospel, they don't listen. It means that we didn't have a single investigator at church, and the less active members we have been working with didn't come either. I stayed up until 11:30 last night calling people about transfers. Missions are hard. 

I attached pictures of my ear, before and after. 

I'm sorry this email is super lame, I just don't have anything new to talk about. Found a new favorite spiritual thought, 1 Nephi 13:22. 

Sorry, it's just really difficult to stay positive when you are doing everything you are supposed to and nothing is working out. So yeah. 

Missions are hard. 

I love you guys a ton. 

Elder Galbreath 

   Still having a little fun.  I think those pants are no good anymore.

March 19th!!

I am not sure if that is the day I leave Mada or the day I get there. 

The days are getting longer here and the rain is just beginning. Going to have to start carrying my rain jacket every day. 

I am pretty far from any lemur parks. I would love to go back but I don't think I will have the opportunity to. Life goes on. 

Well this week was exciting, we went and did our zone leader thing in Ambositra and Fianarantsoa. So Tuesday morning we left at 8 and drove all morning to Ambositra. Went on splits there, nothing too exciting. I almost have all the shopping for cousins done. Tea set in the bucket is for either Zoe or Saige, whichever you think would like it more. Hand carved, fully functioning, every cup and pot is one solid piece of wood. No glue or nails involved. Pretty legit. 

Wednesday morning we left about 7 and drove to Fianarantsoa. That road is terrible. So many potholes we seriously crawled most of the way. We got there about lunch time and ate and then went out with the missionaries there. I went with Elder Garcia and Elder Glazier. They are very new still and Elder Garcia is training Elder Glazier. I expected a pretty bad day to be honest but they surprised me. Those two elders know how to work hard. They were really clear when they taught, they were bold and loving and honestly they have the best stats in the zone right now. Two home runs right there. The next day I went with Elder Lehr and his kid, Elder Mack. Another awesome day. Elder Mack is from Hawaii, via Utah. Way cool guy, a little quiet but has picked up the language really well already. 

Friday we spent all day driving home. 

Saturday we finally got some missionary work done, including teaching a less active guy named Fafa. He plays rugby on the Antsirabe team. Hence his less activeness, he is always playing rugby on Sunday. But, spoiler alert, he came to church yesterday. Awesome! I was so happy to see him there. He is a super cool guy, and his family is way diligent.  

Sundays are always difficult  and yesterday all our lessons fell through, branch council ran long, and it rained way hard. And it was fast Sunday. So it was a rough day of contacting and nobody listening. In the rain. 

Today is p-day. I went to the doctor this morning to see about getting my huge nasty cyst removed from the back of my ear. I am going back at 2 to get that done. 

That's pretty much all I have got.

I knew the hawks could do it, even if it was just the Raiders. 

Love you a ton,

Elder Galbreath