A Cool Fishing Pond

Well everybody, sorry I am late. We actually just got out of the hospital, so sorry about that. Hopefully we will be more on time next week. We were playing soccer this morning and Elder Gariki decided to play barefoot. He ended up like splitting the web on his big toe and it left a really deep cut. Anyways we took him to the hospital and he got 4 or 5 stitches in it. Just so y'all know, Malagasy hospitals are kind of insane. We got him there and they gave me this slip of paper and told me to go to a different building and give it to someone. I went to the building and there were about five stations all doing diferent things and I had no idea what was going on and it took a minute but we finally figured out what was going on. All this time we had to find one specific surgeon because our mission doctor told us to and it was just insane. Then the doctor kept trying to give us instructions and stuff in English and I kept telling him to just speak Malagasy because he sucked at English (no one here is good at English). Anyways I finally figured out what the flip he was saying and we got that taken care of but it was an adventure for sure. I think we're going to be in for a slow week though because I don't know how well he will be able to walk so we will have to see how that one turns out. Also had a way cool breakthrough this week with Sitraka. I don't know if you remember her but she's 18 and she's the one who hasn't been allowed to get baptized because her parents are from different faiths, but they refuse to sit through lessons with us. Lately she hasn't been allowed to come to church because her mom heard a rumor in the Catholic church that the Mormons worship the devil on Easter. It has been way hard on her and on us just because she was so close and we didn't know what to do about it. Saturdaywe went to teach her about a commandment or something I don't really remember our lesson plan. Anyways we got there and when we started her mom happened to be in the room. This was about the first time we've had the chance to confront her so I switched the lesson up on the fly. I was planning on talking to her about the history of the early church and just confront how there have always been rumors about the church and how they can destroy people’s lives. We didn't actually end up getting that far. Her mom cut us off as soon as we finished our brief summary of the apostasy. I guess she didn't like that I told her Christ didn't start the Catholic church (which is true it was Constantine in 313 A.D.) She was kind of mad. She went off about how all missionaries are the same and we just want to come in and force everyone to follow us. Anyways we fought back and forth for a long time, but she just wasn't having any of it. Somewhere around the middle of the "lesson" Sitraka jumped in and totally stood up for the church. It was way awesome to see her stand up for what she believes in and her testimony because she has been way scared to say anything to her family. Anyways we for sure won the argument. Final score: Missionaries 1, Mean moms 0. So yeah it was a pretty good week. Love you all!!