Happy Mother's Day

We want to wish all of you mothers a Happy Mother's Day. The weather is starting to get cooler in the days 70's and evenings 50's. We haven't had any rain for a while and the air is getting bad again. We have both had colds and coughs this week. On Saturday Sister Cornelius taught English for the last time here. This has been a good experience to get to know the people better and to see their desire to learn another language. They hope to come to America thinking that they will have a better life, but they can't afford to do that. One of the students Nadia is very bright, she is working on getting her Masters and she speaks English very well. She asks a lot of questions about words and what they mean. I am turning the class over to the missionaries because I need some time to get things organized before we head home in six + weeks. We will be in Cedar on June 27 and we get to come to Utah with 8 younger missionaries who will also be heading home.

Picture 4515 is a poinsetta tree that is full of color this time of year. It is above our parking lot.

Picture 4542 is a group of Malagasy elders plus two others that are not Malagasy, Elder Ewell and Sister Da Costa. This was taken Conference weekend.

In closing we just want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with all of you and we hope you have a great week. Love Elder & Sister Cornelius

May 6, 2013

Last week there wasn't much out of the ordinary routine other than we got our tickets to come home. We will arrive in Cedar on June 27. We are happy and sad at the same time. We will be happy to see all of you and to be home in clean air. We will be happy to be able to wash and dry clothes at the same time while being able to cook in the oven. There's not enough power here to do that. We will be sad to leave all of our new friends and the missionaries that we have came to know so well. One of the Elders that went home in April said, "I hope you're enjoying Madagascar while you can because you will miss it so much. When I got home I felt like I had left my home and gone to a foreign country. "

We know it will be different from what we have become used too, but we also know that our time here is coming to an end. Our mission has changed us for the better and we are grateful for the experiences we have had. Yesterday in our fast & testimony meeting we heard many wonderful testimonies of how the gospel of Jesus Christ had changed peoples lives for the better and how happy they were to be members of the church. One sister bore her testimony of the importance of baptism, her son had been baptized the day before. We have found that the Malagasy people are very humble and excepting of the Gospel truths. They have wonderful testimonies.

 We will end with the following scripture describing Moroni Alma 48:13, "Yea, and he was a man who was firm in the faith of Christ, and he had sworn with an oath to defend his people, his rights, and his country, and his religion,even to the loss of his blood." In verse 15 it adds, "and this was their faith that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of god that he would prosper them in the land, yea warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger." If more of us were like Moroni what a difference it would make in this world and in the world to come.

When you think your life is hard just be glad that you have a nice home that isn't flooded out like the one attached.

Love, Elder & Sister Cornelius

This week was a transfer week on Thursday. We had two missionaries leave here on Monday to leave from Reunion where they started their mission. Transfers are always busy with the missionaries coming and going from the office. We enjoy seeing the missionaries that have been serving in other towns that we haven't seen in a while. On Saturday Sister Cornelius taught the Relief Sociey about personal hygiene and how to make Chicken Noodle Soup. The sisters enjoyed the warm soup. Then on Sunday Sister Cornelius was asked to teach the Relief Society lesson when the teacher didn't show up. It was a good thing that the spirit had prompted her to read the lesson that morning. The lesson had to be inperupted so there wasn't much time to cover all of it. The lesson was from the November Conference talks on Faith so that is an easy topic to cover at a moments notice. I would have never imagined teaching over here because of the language barrier. We read Ether 12 about having faith. verse 4 is one of my favorites.

The picture below is what happens when people go through the trash and they don't pick it up every week. We see this everywhere. The next is the missionaries waiting for conference to start. We hope all of you have a great week and we send you our love.

Elder & Sister Cornelius

April 13, 2013

This week has flown by with lots of things to keep us busy. The President has been interviewing missionaries and when they come to the office they need supplies, money, candy, and to talk. It's always nice to talk to them and to feel of their spirits. Elder Cornelius is finishing up his office manuel that he is putting together for future Finance Secretaries to have. He doesn't want others to be in the same situation he was in, not knowing exactly what they were supposed to be doing without someone to train you. I was lucky to have a manuel and used it often to learn my job. But there are always changes and new things to learn so I have also updated my manuel as well. We are very excited that Cedar is getting a Temple, that will be a blessing for our community, but will also require a sacrifice of time to staff it and clean it.We know that the good people of Cedar City will all do their part and we hope it is finished soon so we can all participate in the blessings of having a Temple near our homes.
Sister Cornelius has been reading a book called Divine Signatures by Gerald Lund and I would like to share a few thoughts from the book. In this book he talks about how all of us have trials throughout our lives and that no one in ammune to trials. The way we deal with these trials, whether we are strengthened by them and our testimonies grow, depends on our knowledge of Jesus Christ and how much he loves us. If we allow these trials to overcome us and we fall away from God also depands on how strong our testimonies are. Elder Lund said that when we feel that our burdens are too heavy and our trials too difficult we just need to think of what our Savior had to go through, he was mocked, spit upon, whipped, scorged, and hang on the cross. He did all this for us and he knows what it is like to feel pain and sorrow. We need to call upon him for strength to overcome our trials to to continue on. He does know how we feel and he does understand what we are going through. If you haven't read this book, I would strongly recommend you read it. He tells some wonderful stories of how other people have had tender mercies and divine signitures in their lives. I was strengthened as I read each story.

I am including a few pictures; 

The first one is three men moving their household furnishings in a cart. Aren't we glad to have moving vans? 

The second picture is of a hand pulled cart full of water containers. They fill these full of water at a water station and carry them on their heads to their homes. They don't have running water in their homes. Aren't you glad to have running water in your kitchen and bathroom? I am.

The last picture is a man selling peanuts on the side of the road.

We send our love to all of you,

Elder & Sister Cornelius

April 6, 2013

Dear Family & Friends,
 While all of you are enjoying Conference in your homes we have to wait for two weeks to watch it. Thank goodness for computers. We should be able to read and listen to some of the talks this next week. We are looking forward to hearing from our Prophet and the apostles. Conference is always a great time to be reminded of those things the Lord would have us do to improve our lives.
On Monday night we had a family home evening with all the couples and the lesson was on The Tender Mercies of the Lord a talk given by David A. Bednar in the Feb. 2012 Ensign. We talked about all the tender mercies we have felt on our mission and how the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. If you stop and think about all of the events that happen in your life on a daily basis and looked at all that you were blessed with those are gifts from God. Elder Bednar said, "The Lord's tender mercies are the very personal and individual blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindness, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ." When you stop and think about each of these things you realize that you have been blessed in so many ways. Each day we feel that our life is being touched and directed by the Lord. We couldn't accomplish all that is required of us without his help. You will be trying to solve a problem and not sure how to do it when an idea pops into your head and you are then able to solve the problem. An example of this occurred yesterday. I was prompted to call and check on a flight that was to leave today. When the call was made the flight had been cancelled and no one had notified us. I had to rebook the flight. If I hadn't followed the prompting President and Sister Adams would have gone to the airport and not had a flight. The drive to the airport takes about an hour. Everyday we are blessed with help to accomplish our mission here and we are very grateful for that help.
We had a sister missionary come into the mission this week, she is from Madagascar and will be a great addition to our mission. This week and next the President is doing interviews so we have had the missionaries in the office which is always nice. We went to inspect apartments on Thursday and 4 out of 5 passed which is much better than our last visit. Word got out we were coming.
In closing we send our love to all of you and hope you are all doing well. We hope you will feel the Lord's tender mercies  in your lives and that you feel his love for you.
Elder & Sister Cornelius

March 22, 2013

We have had auditors here for a few weeks and one of the ladies that was here told Elder Cornelius that she liked being here because it felt good here. She isn't a member and had many questions about our church. She couldn't understand that we were paying to serve a mission and that the other couple were doing the same. She asked how we did that and Elder Cornelius told her we had saved money for several years so we could serve a mission. That is a very hard concept for a Malagasy. They don't have extra money to save because they aren't paid a lot,  She also had a hard time with believing that people would donate money to the church for Humanitarian and missionary work. These concept are very unfamiliar to them.
We also had President Donnelly here for a few days having Public Affairs meetings. He had two men from Salt Lake City who work for the church directing the Public Affairs all over the world. They ate dinner with us last night along with the Murdock's who are from Montecello, Utah. They live on the border of Blanding and Montecello. They are a Public Affairs couple who had visited here before.
The couples we work with here are wonderful people, we have a lot of fun having Family Home Evening together and playing games. someone made the comment that will stay in contact with the couple more that the missionaries when we leave because of the bond we make here. We will see if that happens. Our Humanitarian couple shared their experiences in Tulear helping the victims from the cyclone with us. One lady who isn't a member commented that our church was the first one to give out aide to the needy and how grateful they were for the help. I have included a picture sister Richards shared with us.

This is a group of people that were helped. They are going back to some remote village on Friday to give out food and other supplies.
We will end with this thought. Be grateful for what you have because you never know what tomorrow will bring. Tell those that you love just how much you love them and appreciate all they do for you. Moroni 7:47.
Have a great week. Love, Elder & Sister Cornelius

March 17, 2013

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you. This week has been rather uneventful with not a lot of things going on, just the normal routine. The weather has been warm and pleasant, with a few evening rain showers.We had  a Zone conference for the other half of our Tana missionaries on Tuesday. There was a recent convert couple who shared with us their conversion story and told us what convinced them to join the church. They said it was the Book of Mormon and the way they felt when the missionaries were teaching them.The missionaries who were converted to the church shared their conversion stories and then they did a role play where they practiced contacting someone on the street. They then evaluated how they did and gave positive suggestion on ways to improve. It is always enjoyable to be with the missionaries and feel of their great spirits. We have been trying to create and update manuals for our replacement couple. The Finance office didn't have one so Elder Cornelius is working on creating one so that future Finance secretaries will have something to refer to when they have questions. Elder Cornelius didn't have that privileged when he got here, so he had to learn the hard way by trial and errors. Sister Cornelius had a manual is is just updating it. We hope to have these done before we leave. We'd like to end with a story we heard in Zone Conference about the importance of following the spirit. A missionary shared this story with us. He and his companion were walking down the street and they had three houses in front of them. They were going to go to the one on the left first, but the spirit told them to go to the one in the middle. There was a man standing by his house and when he saw the missionaries he greeted them warmly and told them that he had been taught by other missionaries years before but hadn't joined their church. He looked at the bigger missionary and said, "You remind me of the missionary who taught me. Please come in, I want to hear more about your church." Sometimes people aren't ready to hear the truths of the gospel until something changes in their lives, this opens their hearts and minds so that they are ready to learn more. They become teachable. We should never give up on our family, friends and neighbors but keep loving them and setting an example for them.
We are looking forward to a visit from our former mission president next week. He is here for meetings and is coming for dinner Wednesday night. We send our love to all of you. Continue to pray for the missionaries, they need your prayers.
Elder & Sister Cornelius