Here is Cooper's first email home from Madagascar:

hello fam. all is well. im in an area called antsirabe. its way nicer than tana. my comp is an albino malagasy.how cool is that? he speaks english and french as well as ida could. he is freaking awesome. oh and by the way i baptised two people on saturday. it was crazy. i took a two hour bus ride south of tana and got here and my comp said to get out my baptism clothes because we will be baptising here in two hours. i cant type very fast because they have the french keyboards and they are messed. tell austin i am proud of him and that the people of equador dont know what will hit them here soon. antsirabe is a lot cleaner and nicer than tana. my càomps nam is elder ranaivoson. he is legit. he will be an apostle someday. the members here are so freaking awesome too. we have branch missionaries who help us out like twice a week and there is like 10 of them. they are the strongest and most faithful people i have ever met. i have an hour to email and its random when wz do email so dont stay up to email me. i was one of two missionaries from my group who got to leave tana. the other was elder mclaughlin. he is in tamatave. way up north. he had a nine hour us ride there. oh and by the way elder lunt is in my house. the pews cousin. he is cool. he has lst over 50 lbs here. i can already tell i have lost weight too.its so cool here; so cool; you see the mos poor people you ever seen in your life. liuke tv cant show you how poor these people are; yet they are willing to do anything for the church. even if it meant giving absolutey everything they have. nmy testimony has grown 100 fold since i have been here. we teach about 40 lessons to investigators a week here and on average have 10 to 20 investigators to church a week. toda we taught a lady about the WoW and she said 2 months ago she prayed to god to know if this is something she should follow. and just a few weeks later she went cold turkey and has been clean from beer; tobacco. and smoking all at the same time. ad we set a bapt date for her here in 3 weeks.she is amazing. the people work so hard here in mada. i feel so bad for the pousse pousse drivers. they are people that pull you around town on like a wheelbarrow thing and they are barefoot most of the time and they run miles and miles a day just to barely be able to feed there familys. i have a bike here. its a piece of hud but it gets the job done. there are miracles that happen here in mada all the time. people come to church with no shoes and the only pair of clothes they have and sometimes they wil walk for miles and miles just to come to church for a few hours. everyone back home is so blessed; so blessed. i almost cry everytime i leave a house because these are the happiest people in the world and they have absolutely nothing. like i seriosly dont know how they arent depressed and hate god for all their trails but instead they love him and would do anything for him. i forgot my cord for pictures so next week i will send some pics. i love it here. i can aleady tell these nexr 22 months are gonna be the best thing that will ever happen to me. the food is ok. my butt isnt. in two ways. my poop is like vomit and its sore from sitting on a hard bike seat all the time. haha oh well. my malagast hasnt improved really at all but i dont care. i love the work and the people. have a good. elder smith