Baby Footprints

Well shoot, gang. This week flew by so quickly I didn't even have time to smell the roses. All I've got is a little story this week!

Baby Footprints:

We were teaching this new person, we'd met him a week earlier and were preparing to teach him again. We went to his apartment and he started off with a prayer right away but right after he said amen he posed a question,

"In America, why do doctors imprint baby's feet?"

I knew in an instant why he was asking and desperately tried to think of a way to bring the conversation back to the gospel but he insisted. 

Let me explain,

In Africa, people are a lot more superstitious and if you asked the average African the most common form of death besides old age, "witches" would be a very popular answer. My own companion is also a staunch believer in witches and explained to me long ago the easiest way a witch can curse you. Basically all the need to do is find someone's bare footprint and/or "buttprint" and they take a little bit of dirt from it, cast a spell or something and bam. You have either a broken leg or you die. 

So the second our friend was talking about footprints I knew that's what he was on about. I told him it was just a medical practice but he wasn't buying it. I told him about my formerly club footed biological brother (you have to make that distinction when talking to Africans) and tried to make up a reason based on that story. He had none of it though and clearly wanted tofish a specific answer out of me. He kept asking and asking telling me that America is the only nation that does it and kind of just waiting for me, specifically, to Tell him that Americans practice witchcraft and that America was evil. 

I eventually took the easy way out and told him I didn't know. He got a little frustrated because "I was a missionary and needed to know all things."or whatever.

 Elder Shiday, who didn't realize what was going on tried change the subject to the Book of Mormon which he successfully did for about 2 minutes. But when He mentioned America, our friend snapped back to the old question. It was around then Elder Shiday caught on.

He kept asking and asking and we kept telling him we didn't know and that we didn't really see the significance of the question. He became even more frustrated because we were acting dumb. Finally, he reiterated the folklore behind the footprints 

He was even more frustrated because it he then reiterated the folklore of footprint cursing and was still waiting for my confession. I felt like John Proctor the entire time, eventually we excused ourselves because there was no way he was going to let us talk. 

Y'all, I know I don't know much but I do know this: The Book of Mormon is true. I straight up love the Book of Mormon and I hope y'all love it too.

He vous aime,

Elder Murdoch

Pic 1: being super uncomfortable at in n out 

Pic 2: Bob Ross reincarnated 

Pic 3: Sum lizards an Elder caught