Dear Family & friends,
We were saddened to hear of Danny Websters passing, he was a wonderful man and father. He will be missed in our community. This week has been enjoyable in Madagascar. On Wednesday we had seven Malagasy missionaries come into the office to be set apart for their missions in Ivory Coast, & Benin, South Africa. Four were sisters, and one of the Sister we knew from our trip to Fort Dauphin. We met her there and visited with her and her mother. She had also come into the office to fill out her visa paper work. She speaks English very well and so it was easy for us to communicate with her. She gave Sister Cornelius a pretty pin that she admired on her. We took a picture of six of the missionaries. Ten missionaries left on Thursday to serve in Africa, three were from the Stake, so we didn't meet them. Our Humanitarian Couple, the Grays just had 10 new water projects approved by the Church, 30,000 people will benefit from this wonderful project and will have running water in their village for the first time. They are also busy with a Food Initiative program that teaches people how to garden, rotate plants and fertilize. They will be very busy for the next few months before they leave to go home. We also are seeing great success with the P.E.F. program that our new Sisters, who started in July, have started. They now have over 40 people starting the program to further their education. President Adams said this will be such a great benefit for this country to have educated L.D.S. leaders who want to learn and will help this country grow in the future. There was only 5 people using the P.E.F. program when the Sister started their mission in July. Sister Scoville is also having great success in teaching English on Wednesdays and Fridays. Both of those classes are growing and she has got a list of referrals for the missionaries to contact.
Next week Elder Cornelius has two Church auditors visiting from South Africa. He will have a busy week with training and going over the financial auditing. Sister Cornelius has been busy with receiving orders, entering baptismal records, helping missionaries, etc.
We send our love and prayers to all of you and hope you are doing well. We'll end with this thought; If we honor the Sabbath Day, we receive great spiritual and temporal blessings. The Lord has said that if we keep the Sabbath day with thanksgiving and cheerful hearts, we will be full of joy."
Love, elder & Sister Cornelius