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Monday, May 21, 2012

Hey family,

So it's been another week! I guess that means I only have one more email after this one. Kinda crazy to think that I am actually going to come home. The work here is the same as normal. Honestly, I wish that I had something super exciting to talk about but nothing is coming to me. We didn’t have any baptisms this last Saturday but we did have an awesome meeting with the district councilman over missionary work. He had lots of great ideas that we can try to get the branches more involved in missionary work. Members here kind of forget the importance of helping missionaries. But we will try to rekindle the spirit of conversions in the branches. Well, others will because I am being transferred to Freetown so I can have a slow death in the apartment next to the mission office. Which might be nice because I think I will have water finally for my last one week. Maybe that will help my transition back to American standards. Honestly, I am going to be sick when I get home if I am not careful. You sent that package and the candy in it virtually put me into cardiac arrest. I was not feeling good after eating some few sweets. So if you plan on feeding me sweets and candy and stuff when I get home, you can take it easy for a bit so I can get readjusted so I don’t eat to much and pass out. Thank you so much for the package by the way. It is awesome to feel the love that I get form home. It is great to know that I have so much support. I just hope that I don’t disappoint anyone when I get home. I have changed but we will see how much people like me now.
So I guess the excitement for the week is that I got stung by a wasp. Ya, we had a wasp nest in our house in the hallway. Just one of the things you learn to deal with here. As you can imagine, everyone is too scared to kill them. So they multiplied until I found one in my bed and it stung me. I got vexed and went and grabbed a can of bug spray and matches and went redneck style on it. Yep, we torched them! Let me tell you, that is the best way to kill bees but they can get angry when you burn there wings off.

Wow - this week I almost lost it. I almost got into a brawl with 4-8 people because I was so vexed. And I am sure that I could have beaten the tar out of all 8 of them. You would not believe what happened. Here I am, sitting at the church, my companion is doing an interview and I look out the window and see people are gathering and watching something. I see this man with a whip, beating someone like he wanted to kill them. So I grabbed another missionary and ran out there to see what we could do. When I get there, there is a maybe 7 year old boy, hog tied and they are beating him like you wouldn’t believe. He was laying on the ground bleeding and looking half dead. Anyone who knows me can imagine where it went from there. I am not sure if I turned green or not but I am sure that I looked like hulk. I definitely acted like him. I started to untie him when someone tried to stop me, notice I said “tried” to stop me . . . I am telling you, I would have beat up all 8 of them if I was not a missionary. After I untied this boy and helped him to get up and go, we had a nice talk with the parents and the people there. Well, it wasn’t that nice but it was the truth. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I don’t know exactly what he did, but I know that he didn't deserve a beating like that. I guess the people there are lucky I showed compassion. Afterward, I went back to the church and cooled down. These people are lucky that there is not really anything like calling the police or they would have found themselves in a heap of trouble. Moving on . . . .
So since I am being transferred, I am going to miss the next baptism. Which is sad. We put lots of work into finding these investigators that are going to be baptized and my companion and I helped our zone to have around 20 so that will be great. We are hoping for about 60 baptisms for our zone this month. We have been working hard and they are doing great. I think the biggest thing is that we are doing what we are asked to do. Even president has recognized that because he is leaving the whole zone the same this next transfer except for me because I am going home. Like dad says, "don’t change something that works".
Anyway, things are great - thanks for the gifts and most of all, the love. I don’t have much else to say except I think I am going to miss this place. As much suffering as I have endured, I love the people here. I love this mission. I love you guys Talk to you next week.

Love Elder Kev

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