Voodoo dolls, They're real

 September 23, 2019

Well, I'm no prophet but I believe this will be my last week here in Baguida! After 4 mutations here I've come to love this ward so much! Haha, I guess I will say that about every ward and with all my amis but it's true every time. We had a baptismal service last Saturday for 2 of our amis and we saw a miracle worked in getting one of them (fr. Kossi) baptized. He had told us he wanted to get baptized as soon as possible because he had been reading in the Gospel Principles book and saw the consequences of if he didn't get baptized. Well, we couldn't meet with him for 2 days during the week because it rained buckets but almost at the last second we were able to meet with him and he had prepared himself by reading all the brochures! The baptism was for all the wards in our stake which has 5 wards so there were tons of covenants made that day! 

Baptism collective

So, here everyone confuses "family tradition" with voodoo so a bunch of the times it's hard for people to separate the two. For example, there are many members of the church who still are scared to death of family curses and constantly ask in Sunday School if they can eat the meat of voodoo sacrifices at family parties. 

Anyways, we were teaching the sister of our recent convert and she told us one of the weirdest traditions I've heard so far! So, she had had twins but one of them had died. According to tradition when one or both of the twins die you have to make a little statue of them, almost like a doll. That statue then becomes that child who died. The twin or the mother has to carry around with them for the rest of their lives and has to "take care of it". When you eat, it eats with you, when you sleep, it sleeps with you, you call it by the name of the person who died and if you do special ceremonies for it, it can do stuff for you. For example, if you feed it beans it can open a portal in your future so that you will be able to accomplish _____ thing. CREEPY right!? Well, she told us that it was at her house and that if she were to get baptized what would she have to do with it. We then taught very clearly the first and second of the 10 commandments and about the spirit world and I hope by the end she understood. Many times it's crazy to me that such simple commandments and truths that we take for granted are BIG deals to other people who don't know any better because that is what they were taught! Even more grateful that I was born in the gospel!! 

Love y'all!

Elder Briggs

Splits with Elder Teisho (trops chaud)

A stuck car we helped get out. This guy in the driver's seat was sitting up to water at his waist by the time we got it out!

Still trying to find where it says the name of God just in their regular bible, but all the hairdressers seemed to figure it out.

This is my little sector friend! She is hands down the cutest girl I've met here. Like, if there was an African Shirley Temple, it would be her.

Haha no joke this is what our entire sector looks like! All our amis ask "how did you get here without getting wet?" Our answer always the same. "If you have faith, you can walk on water "😉