Happy New Year! January 4, 2016

hey fam! 

happy new year! my week was good! augustine was confirmed. we had a lot of fun. in the pic below. i had to light SOMETHING on fire. haha dont be mad.

so i have a couple things to tell you guys! a recent convert of elder snows and mine, his name is emmanuel. it was about a year ago that he was baptized. is now serving a mission in accra! i was so happy when i heard the news! he will do great. 

second. dad. i love the idea of the daily walk. i have actually been thinking about that this week. i love the primary song that is about if the savior stood beside me, would i do the things i do? i have been thinking about that a lot. in the scriptures you gave me you made a comment in the side next to matt 25:40. you wrote, "literally! think of the atonement." and that got me thinking. i know the atonement does more for us than we cant comprehend. but how does it do it to him literally? if the savior did feel everything that we feel, does that mean that when we offer help to someone else and it eases their burden it made it less of a burden to him in the garden? its kind of hard to explain what i am thinking. but its a question i have had for a while. if that is the case. that will change the way i see and treat everyone. if we are doing it to them, we are doing it to him. 

also. i was reading in 2 nephi 28:30. one part i liked, "for unto him that recieveth, i will give more". it got me thinking about the christlike attributes. they are gifts from God. so if we are praying for charity, and Heavenly Father helps us to feel that charity, if we are just content with that and dont act on it. it will be taken away from us. we will lose it. but if we act on it and do more with it. more will be given to us. and i think it applies with all of the attributes. anyway. tonight i will be going on exchange with elder snow. he was my comp in dichemso a year ago. itll be fun. 

anyway. i love you all! 

elder madsen

So Good To See You December 28, 2015

hey family! 

this week was awesome being able to talk to you for Christmas. sorry i dont have much more to say about this week. here is a pic of a nativity scene that i might be able to get. kennedy i am glad you had a good birthday! thats so fun. i cant believe you're 15! thats crazy. 

this sunday augustine was baptized. he is such a cool guy. 

ah i loved seeing all of you. my younger siblings are changing so much. i feel like i dont recognize them anymore. that was one really sad part. it will be nice to get to know everyone again. 

love you all! elder madsen

Christmas Is Coming! December 21, 2015

hey fam! 

wow your week looked awesome. i miss the family christmas party! im glad it went so well though. haha i loved the pics. so i got the package this week! i got the video and was able to convert it to a size that works on these dvd players we have. so ill watch the video tonight. as for skyping, we were thinking about 3 our time. not sure exactly what time that will be there. is it 8? not sure. i am so excited to skype! i cant believe christmas is here again.

so zone conference was good. i didnt give a talk though. this week i actually had a really cool experience. i want to tell you about it when we skype. just remind me. its about jennifer, our investigator. its experiences like these that make me love my mission so much.

im trying to attach pics now. one is of a huge croc. and the other is of us with some snapbacks we bought. this week was awesome though. the weeks are flying by. almost too fast. i still have so much to learn. so the pics arent working :(  sorry. maybe next week. i am so excited to talk to you this week!  

Jennifer's girls

*Mom's note: Four days later we were able to Skype with Elder Madsen! He looked fantastic and sounded amazing and made us laugh as usual! He was at an Internet Cafe, and had to stop midway through to go outside and purchase a card for more internet time. He shared the story he mentioned above about their investigator, Jennifer, & her two daughters. This is the story:

Jennifer is a single mom trying to support herself & her two girls, age 5 & 3. Jennifer wakes up at 2 am and starts making porridge to sell for the morning. With the money she earns each morning she is able to send the girls to school. If she doesn't earn enough, they don't go that day. One day when the Elders went to visit, Jennifer was holding her youngest who was very sick. She was limp & pale, & Jennifer didn't have enough money for a taxi to take her to the hospital. The Elders asked if she would like for them to give her daughter a blessing, and she said yes. They took that opportunity to bless her, then stayed with Jennifer a while longer. Before the Elders left, the sick daughter was up, talking, looking and feeling better, and even gave them a high five as they were leaving. Needless to say, Jennifer wants to continue taking lessons and learn more about the Gospel.

Our family was so touched listening to this experience. As a mom who has had children in need of blessings, I know of the power of the priesthood that can help to heal, whether immediate or not. After listening to this story, I felt so grateful that our son is experiencing these glimpses of our Savior's love for his children. We had a very Merry Christmas.

Charity is a Gift from God December 14 2014

Hi family!

your week sounds amazing! i cant believe you got to go meet david archuleta and i can totally see momo flipping out over him haha. dad im sorry you're having stress at work. i cant even imagine all that you do. i can say this though, you're in the position you're in because you get stuff done. your work wouldnt know what to do without you. and sorry the dog tipped the tree over. thats s-no fun ;) hehe see what i did there. mom there is a guy i can get a nativity scene from. its not the africa animals though, but it is hand carved. its pretty sweet. i can look for the africa carved one though if you would prefer it.

so today i set up a skype account! so we should be able to skype on Christmas. this week for me was crazy. we are seeing more crocodiles. we saw a HUGE one. it was huge. it was in deep water. and as i pulled my camera out to take a pic he went under. he was directly under us on this little drop off. it was awesome. and i'll attach a pic of another little one, and of some little dogs.

we are working with a really cool brother and sister. the sister, named jennifer, cant read. she can speak english well but she cant read or write. so we teach english every saturday. she loves it. and her brother is awesome. we are hoping to have both of them baptized on the 27th of this month. this week is zone conference. haha planning for it is so stressful. that is one thing ive learned that i hope to keep with me, one day this will just be behind me. so there is no point in letting the stress get to me. just keep calm with the eternal perspective in mind. its super hard, but it has been helping.

This is our chapel, 8:35 Sunday morning

Ha ha, this dust was at the chapel, which is on the second story. The dust was blown up here, and we GET to clean it...every week...

while we were at church i realized something, its there at church that you will meet the humble seekers of truth. they are seeking and have faith enough to come and see for themselves if this is the truth. i love it. while we are teaching the classes, they just take what is taught as truth and they act on it. i also had a realization about charity. i sometimes thought that charity just gives you more tolerance so that annoying people didnt bug you so bad. haha but this week i was proven wrong. there is an elder that i am annoyed with quite a bit. he was a comp of mine. he is in my zone. lately i have been trying to pray for charity every day. and while he was speaking at a baptismal service, i just felt love for him. i didnt know why. but i just felt this sincere love for him. charity is a gift from God. its pretty hard just to get ourselves. it requires Gods help, and it requires that we seek and ask for it, and that we will act on impressions we receive. to do certain things and respond certain ways when put in difficult situations. this work is not easy! but its awesome.

tomorrow is zone conference. we are pretty excited. today has been hectic. love you all!!

elder madsen

The Hot Dry Season December 7 2015

Hey family!

to answer some questions, we have quite a few investigators. the main ones right now are augustine, kate, abigail, jennifer, lawrence, godfred, newton. they are awesome. i am picking up twi (the dialect) a little i guess, not a ton. i still can understand more than i can speak. its mainly the greetings that are useful and several gospel terms. we spend quite a bit of time contacting. some days we dont have time to contact because of the people we are currently teaching. we have a zone conference on the 15th. im not sure if i will speak. but they will typically have at least one zone leader speak so i dont know. i dont get nervous in front of members. missionaries i do get a little nervous, president cosgrave for sure. but once i start speaking it goes away.

mo i cant believe you are getting ready for college. haha and kennedy im glad your puppy and i will get along. i cant wait to meet her! mom kumasi was cool. i love that place. by the way the ties are awesome. i cant wait for you all to see them. i really hope i get to skype. we will go and try to make it work. so for now, just plan to skype. if it doesnt work, you'll get a call from me. which is cool too! i just want to see all of you. so i have a couple things to talk about.

                          

1. the weather here is getting so sweet. its now the hot dry season. its not humid allllll the time. usually my back and face is pouring sweat by the time i walk out the front door, now its not like that until about an hour of walking. sometimes we'll go a whole day without getting too sweaty. its so nice. the bad part is the dust. i'll attach a picture of my scriptures. that amount of dust that came in our room was JUST OVER NIGHT. you can even look at the sun for a couple of seconds because of how much dust is in the air.

                                

2. haha, this taxi driver told me he thinks the reason americans speak fast is because they dont want those who are learning the language to understand what we are saying. i was talking on the phone while we were driving home, and he asked my comp what language i was speaking. it was super funny.

3. one reason i love my mission. it has really given me the "opposition in all things" experience. i will appreciate so many things at home now. i have so many fhe activities that i want to do to help our fam see how much they really have. this mission has opened my eyes so much. i love it!

4. another pic ill send is of this horse we found named future. haha he is awesome. i wanted to sit on him, but thats against the rules so i just had to pet him. and it really got me excited for the trips we'll have, dad. i want to go on like a week long horseback trip. fishing and just camping. i want to SO BAD. i cant wait for that.

this week was really good though. we had some awesome lessons and the trip to kumasi was fun. this week was even faster than the last. my mission is flying. my sister mtc mates go home this week. i cant believe that. i have about 6 months left! i have some news though. with the way they are changing things in the mtc, my mission might be extended for 2 weeks. its not official yet, so ill let you know what happens. haha also, on the way home from leadership council. we were in a pretty crappy taxi. and we were trying to go up a hill. the car just kind of stopped and died. then we heard a huge BOOM! a really hot wave of air came through the car and the front started smoking. so we all jumped out. we ended up getting a different car. it was an experience though! sorry i dont have too much to write this week. it was fast. we did a lot of the same things.

love you all!!

elder madsen