It has been a nice week. The weather is slowly warming up here. Fianarantsoa is such a different place. The church is very small here and faces some difficult challenges. Last Sunday I conducted for the first time. It was hard, especially doing it in another language. I also conducted at Branch Council. Thankfully, I'm more used to that. We did financial training this week. South Africa representatives worked with me and then I worked with the members translating. Lots of new things this week.

We have a few really amazing families that we're working with and preparing for baptism. One met the missionaries when he was just standing out in front of his house. The missionaries walked by and asked if they could come in. Afterwards he said that he doesn't know why he let them in, but he just said yes before thinking. Since that time they've been doing really well. I'm really excited for them. We've also been working with a young man (he's two years older than me) who was recently reactivated. He has been bringing one of his friends to church with him who is also very interested in the church. It's exciting and I hope they can help one another.

This week was a massive gathering of Catholic youth in Madagascar. They all came here to Fianar. The center of action was just outside of our house. There were 50,000 people thronging the streets. It was pretty wild. There were tons and tons of buses that brought people flowing into the city at a massive rate. This little city turned into a large city over night. It was a little hard to find people to teach because so many people were doing things to support the gathering. It was cool to see people from all over the country. There were a lot of new dialects. It was a unique experience. Today everyone is going home. They're getting back onto buses and leaving. It was weird that the city could swell with people and then shrink again so quickly.

One thing that has been on my mind a lot lately is an answer Joseph Smith gave about how the church was governed. More specifically, why people were so desirous to be obedient and follow the counsel of leaders. In response he said, "They are taught correct principles and then they govern themselves." I've been thinking about the concept of correct principles, especially working here in a place with a lot of difficulties. I think a lot of times we want to just correct people and tell them what to do. That works, but it causes less growth in the individual and can only be maintained by constant supervision. It's a bit damning. On the other hand, teaching correct principles is inherently liberating. Perfect teaching of correct principles will lead to true understanding. Then people can choose for themselves. At that point there are no excuses. I think teaching and explaining doctrine is so important. Sermonizing is one thing, but explaining an expounding is Christ like.