Dear Family & Friends,
This week just flew by and it's February already! We have been very busy this week with a variety of things. We welcomed the Todd's from Provo this week to our mission. They are serving as a Member Leadership Support couple in Antsirabe. He was a professor at BYU, (GO Cougars) and taught Mechanical Engineering. He and his wife have traveled with BYU students to many places in Europe and Singapore to learn about International Trade. He has served as a Stake President in Provo. They will be a great addition to our mission. Sister Cornelius has been entering baptism records, answering many emails, and getting supplies for missionaries, ordering supplies, and answering questions. Elder Cornelius fills his day with financial matters, apartments, and vehicles. Never a boring moment in a Mission Office.
This week we had a cyclone off the south east coast of Madagascar. We have been tracking it as it moved toward us. Luckily it stayed in the ocean and didn't do a lot of damage inland. We got some heavy rains and winds yesterday. Reunion had roads closed and heavy rains there. They have a highway that runs along the ocean and the waves were coming onto the highway so they closed it down for several days. This is the time of year for cyclones to happen so we keep track of them in the office. We had missionaries in one town on the southeast in lock down for one day until the cyclone passed and kept close contact with them. They are all fine and said that it wasn't that bad.
Last Saturday we went shopping and took some interesting pictures along the way. T

This is a man selling hats, there had to be at least 50 to 100 hats on his head.

We will send more pictures later. Hope all of you have a great week, love Elder & Sister Cornelius

A local market

A hand cart

Hubcap store

January 28, 2013

Dear Family & Friends,
This past week we were busy with welcoming in a new couple the Richards from West Jordan. They are the Humanitarian couple and Elder Richards worked for the U.S. government and they have traveled all over the world to places like the Congo, England, Europe, and many other places. They have a son currently serving his mission in Leeds, England. We have our last couple coming on Monday, the Todds. They are a Member Leadership support couple and will be serving in Antsirabe two and a half hours from Tana. We have been getting wind and rain this week and it is nice because it cools things down.
I want to share a story from one of our missionaries that he shared with me. He and his companion were invited to go to an orphanage to teach English. When they got there it was a compound that used to be a milk farm for cows. There were 610 kids at the school for orphans. When the missionaries went to teach the orphans they had about 400 kids, all standing, fixed into ranks by age like little soldiers. All 400 of the children sang to the missionaries and he said they were the cutest kids he's ever seen. When the missionaries started to talk to them in English the students smiled and giggled. They want to learn English because they are told it will help them and they love America. The missionary taught them Simon Says and Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes.The kids loved it and had a lot of fun. The missionaries loved this experiences and will be going back every Friday to the orphanage to teach them. I will ask the elder if he can give me a picture of the kids, he said he took some pictures.
We had Zone Leaders Counsel on Thursday with 7 elders. The mission is working on in-actives, family baptisms, father led families, and centers of strength. Centers of strength is building the kingdom around churches so that the recent converts can attend church near their homes and not have to travel great distances. We loose too many converts if they aren't close to a church, because they have to walk too far or ride buses to get to church.
We have had a great week and we will close with this scripture from D & C 72: 3-4, "And verily in this thing ye have done wisely, for it is required of the Lord, at the hand of every steward, to render an account of his stewardship, both in time and in eternity. For he who is faithful and wise in time is accounted worthy to inherit the mansions prepared for him of my Father." We hope that as we a winding down our mission here in Madagascar that we have been wise servants and that when we render an account of our stewardship that the Lord will be pleased with our service. For it is our desire to inherit one of those mansions prepared by our Father for us and our family.
Love, Elder & Sister Cornelius

Picture 1043 is Sister Florine and Sister Scoville our P.E.F. sisters. 

Picture 1065 is Elder Barclay & Steele our A.P.'s that we work with a lot. They are Great missionaries.

Dancers

January 19th

Dear Family & friends,
It's a beautiful summer morning, with a slight breeze blowing and we got a nice rain last night. It's supposed to be in the 80's today. We just thought we would make you envious of us here. We welcomed the Caron couple from Canada this week. They live in Montreal and she was an Art History lecturer and he was a professor in electromechanics. They will be serving in a coastal town called Tomatave as Member Leadership Support. We had a welcome dinner for them on Thursday and they left Friday morning. Today we have a couple coming from West Jordan, the Richards. They will serve here as the Humanitarian couple.
We have a brown Gecko that is living in our bedroom. It startled both of us as it ran across the floor. We like them because they eat the bugs. We have several living around our house that are green and brown. The tomato plants that we planted in our yard had to be pulled up because they were all rotting. So that was a disappointment. We do have corn and cucumbers growing however. The pineapples are in season and are so sweet and delicious that you can't get enough.
President Adams shared a talk with us on Wednesday morning called "True Believers in Christ" by Elder Neal A. Maxwell. This is just a few of the points that he shared with us. :Two virtues of the meek are that they are not easily offended and they do not resist counsel. Nor are these lowly in heart inclined to see themselves as being "above" all the seemingly routine duties of discipleship. duties are not to be rejected on the basis of "I've done all that before," as if God were required to supply us with new thrills. Mortality has been described by the Lord as being like working in a vineyard--never as an afternoon at a carnival. Besides, how could we pretend to be true believers in Christ, if we shunned the chores of the kingdom!" "Furthermore, we will find that when we have personal spiritual experiences, which keep us close to the Lord, these will almost always occur in the course of carrying out the specific duties named earlier, since it is not enought for us to have once been close to the Savior. Alma said, if we have once "felt to sing the song of redeeming love," can we "feel so now?"
We send our love to all of you and hope you are having a great week. Love Elder & Sister Cornelius

The road we drive every day.

On New Years Day we ate lunch at the Adams' house. I made Chicken Pot Pie but forgot to put the chicken in. I must be getting old. After lunch we drove up to the Queen's castle and took a tour with two tour guides who spoke English, sort of. We learned a lot about the history of the place and took lots of pictures.                                     Us in front of the queens castle.

 The first king Andrainamananina had twelve wives. He built this castle for his first wife and build smaller Castles on eleven other hills around Antananarivo and had royal trees planted on each hill. Our hill in Andrainarivo has one of those trees and that is where Richard G. Scott dedicated this land for proclaiming the gospel. His first wife had thousands of Malagasy people killed who became Christians when English missionaries came into Madagascar. She is called the wicked queen. She killed the Christians because they put Jesus Christ above her in their worshiping.

                                                A view of Antananarivo from where we were.

There were Malagasy people everywhere staring at the Fahsas, or white people. They go there because they think the ground in sacred. There is a Protestant church still used there for worshiping. The little kids followed us and listened to the English. We took a few pictures of them. There were globe spiders in most of the trees and all over the old buildings.  There are no poisonous spiders or snakes in Madagascar the guide told us and the children play with and eat the spiders. They use their silken webs for many things because they are so strong.

We had a wonderful time and afterward went back to the President's home and played Chicken Foot   and talked until 8:00. It was a fun day.

We are still teaching our English class on Saturdays and enjoy working with students who want to learn and improve themselves. Today I taught them "The best gift that you can give yourself is self improvement." I really believe that to be true and I told them that what they are doing in trying to learn English is going to benefit them in the long run. We are enjoying our association with the Malagasy people. They are very good people and are very polite and respectful.
Today at our church they are having a baptism for the daughter of a doctor. They have a large spread of food in the culture hall and they had the choir that we heard singing on Christmas Eve preforming. There is a lot of people that attended the baptism. We are missing our grandson Landon's baptism this weekend and wish we could be there for him.
We hope all of you have a wonderful year and are blessed with good health.
Love, Elder & Sister Cornelius

In addition,  This a baby cameleon that was in our kitchen. We had them born in our garden.

This is a picture of the hotel which is close to the mission office, it's called the Panarama, we will be staying there the last week of our mission. 

This is inside the origional kings home, this is where they prepared food and ate on the rock.

This is a statue of one of the queens that was near a bathing/swimming pool. This little girl was hugging her.

December 28, 2012

Dear Family & Friends,
This week has been busy and a great week. On Saturday we attended an open house at our church building. They use these open houses to invite people into the church and learn about what we do. They had displays for each organization. Attached is a picture of the Relief Society display. On Monday we went to a Christmas concert on Christmas Eve. The concert was given by a group called Antso which is made up of young people from both Stakes here in Tana. They sang songs in English, French, and Malagasy. They sang several songs from the Messiah. It really helped to invite the Christmas spirit. On Christmas day we Skyped with our family, had dinner with the couples at the President's home and watched the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional. It was difficult to be away from our family, but we had a good day.

 On Wednesday we had a departing dinner for three missionaries going home. We ended the evening by sharing our testimonies and that is always a special time. The Elders shared some of their experiences and how they had grown to love the people here and how hard it was for them to leave them. One of these Elders had served as a Branch President and he had a lot of spiritual experiences in that position. He had so many gifts given to him by the members that he had to take an extra bag home.  President Adams bore testimony that the most important conversion that a missionary gets on his or her mission is their own. On Thursday we had missionaries coming in to get their luggage for transfers, and on Friday we had transfers. . We are enjoying our mission and hope that all of you have a wonderful week. Happy New Year's to all of you. We hope 2013 brings you many blessings in your home and lives. Love, Elder & Sister Cornelius

 

At the open house that was held at our church last Saturday. The Relief Society Display. 

These cute girls were wanting their picture taken in fron of the Temple that is in the entry way of our church. 

Us with the children at the open house. 

Our Christmas dinner with the couples at the President's home.

This week on Monday Elders Allred, Ewell and Smith put up the office Christmas tree. They had a fun time doing this and there was only three legs for the tree, so we had to do some inventive work to get it to stand straight, then we found another leg but it was shorter than the rest, interesting, but it is Madagascar. The next picture is of Sister Cornelius by the finished tree. We haven't had a lot of rain this week, we think Madagascar is in a drought like Southern Utah. We have been praying for rain for here and there. It has been hot here all week. We planted a small garden of tomatoes and corn, the tomato plants are huge, but no tomatoes on them yet. The corn stalks aren't very tall but we have a lot of corn coming on. It will be interesting to see how well it does. The next picture is of a Muslim Mosque across from a lake that used to be covered with green plants. The people get into the lake, cut the plants ou,t and feed them to their cows. We drive by this place about every week when we go shopping and have watched them cutting the plants and hauling them off in hand pulled carts. We need to get a picture of that. It seems like we never have our camera with us when we need it. Next week will be very busy for us with auditors, meals, Zone Conference, and saying goodbye to the Grays our Humanitarian couple. We are having our office Christmas party on Monday, Zone Conference on Tuesday, a farewell dinner on Wednesday, and the Grays depart Thursday.

We send our love to all of you and hope you have a wonderful week.

Elder & Sister Cornelius

This past week we said goodbye to one of our missionaries and hello to a new arrival. One of the traditions here is to have the departing missionary share something from his mission that made an impact on him. He said that the people here have made the most impact on him because of their friendliness and humility. He told of one convert on his mission that  was a wonderful young man who accepted the gospel without reservation. He is currently serving as a ward clerk and preparing to serve a mission. This was a highlight on his mission. We had a wonderful meal prepared by the Mission President's wife. We are working on getting new apartments for incoming missionary couples and moving missionaries into new apartments. There are always things to keep us busy here in the office. This morning we heard a sad story from Frede who is the secretary assistant here in our office. His cousin had been saving for a long time to build a new home. He took the money out of the bank and was going to pay for the materials he needed to build his home. They don't use checks or credit cards here much, mostly a cash society. At 1:30 this morning some robbers came into his home, shot him in the stomach and cut his thigh with a knife, and stole all of his money. When he went to the Military hospital to be fixed they stitched him up without using anything to deaden the wound. He said it was very painful. We wouldn't want to be in his shoes.
We are in the planning stages for an office Christmas party and a farewell dinner for the Humanitarian couple who will go back to England Dec. 13. They will be missed here because they are such wonderful people, always doing something for someone. They have helped to bring water to many villages in the 18 months they have been here. They have helped to put needy people into wheelchairs, and have started a food initiative program to teach people how to have better yields from their crops. They also do dental hygiene. All of these wonderful projects were funded through Humanitarian donations from our Church.
We would like to close with this thought by President Monson about teachers, "The teacher not only shapes the expectations and ambitions of pupils; the teacher also influences their attitudes toward their future and themselves. If the teacher loves the students and has high expectations of them, their self-confidence will grow, their capabilities will develop, and their future will be assured. A citation to such a teacher could well read: “She created in her room an atmosphere where warmth and acceptance weave their magic spell; where growth and learning, the soaring of the imagination, and the spirit of the young are assured.”
We send our love to each of you. Elder & Sister Cornelius

                     Frede, who helps us with everything here. We couldn't do our jobs without him.

                  The lake with a moument of a former king or President. We pass by this often.