It's been a really good week. Last night we had dinner at the Alexander's with Maxwell and afterwards he was interviewed for baptism. It was an interesting night. We sat down in their living room and President asked Maxwell to tell us about himself. He started off by telling them about the time he was in prison and they only had a bucket to use the bathroom in so the whole cell smelled terrible and they'd have to get up on their tippy toes to suck fresh air out of the small barred window in the wall. Then he told them the story of how he got his name as a young boy and about how his mother died when he was a child and his father's other wives didn't like him so he was sent off to another village to go to school. The school was super strict so he ran back to his father and his father sent him back to the school. For some reason he needed to change his middle name when he went back to the village and now his name translates to 'slave of god'. While he was telling this he'd get up and jump around and stretch his arms out to tell his story. President and Sister Alexander were just like 'what's going on?'. I was dying laughing inside. So then he tells us about how he ran away from school and went to another city where they mine for diamonds, and all the different odd jobs he did to stay alive, and about this lady he met that had no children so she adopted him and she was super wealthy.  Then he told how he was falsely accused of harming the village chief's wife so they threw him in prison but his adopted father went and spoke with the President of Sierra Leone and he got out of prison. Somewhere along the way his original father and stepmothers tried to poison him so they could take his inheritance from his adopted parents and then he got married and then the civil war broke out, and on and on. We were seriously listening to him for an hour or so telling us about his story of how he got here. Finally President was just like "Maxwell, can we carry this conversation over to dinner?" So at the dinner table he tells us about how he forged documents so he could flee the country and the UN put him in Russia where it was so cold that 'your pee pee would freeze before it hit the ground'. He explained the miracle of him getting a job there and finding a new wife and finding a Christian church and then how when the Soviet Union fell they started killing foreigners so he fled again wanting to go to Canada but he ended up in North Carolina all so he could find the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There's a ton of details I left out, but it was quite the story. I was actually thinking about recording him telling it and then writing it as a book; it'd be pretty good. So he goes into the interview and they're in there for a bit while we talk with Sister Alexander and then after 30
mins or so he comes out. President is smiling and Maxwell throws his arms in the air and screams "praise GOD" "thanks be to GOD!!!!!!". He had this huge grin on his face and was so excited and he ran over and hugged Sister Alexander. It was pretty funny. So he'll be baptized this week by Brother Y who's a convert from Liberia.

I also went on exchange with Elder Richins this week. He came out with me and we stayed in the same room in the MTC so that was a fun reunion. He's in Greensboro, which is a 2 hour drive from here, that was terrible. But we found 2 new investigators and I got to play basketball in the morning with Elder Everett! He had a baptism on Saturday.

We also did a lot more transfer planning and had a broadcast on Wednesday from the missionary department. They changed some things up in our schedule so we're planning in the morning now instead of the evening. They also lowered the amount of key indicators we report from 9 to 4. Now we're only focusing on new investigators, Sacrament, baptismal dates, and baptisms which our mission was already focusing on so not a big deal. We really like the new schedule though, it's been a nice change.

Today we went to the Charlotte Museum of Southern History. It was a pretty good deal and only costed $5! This week we have Zone conferences so I'll be driving around the mission a lot.


Love ya!