hey mom,

well it sounds like it "snowed" in vegas and you will be having somewhat of a "white christmas" haha. my weather has been pretty nice but where i am at it is somewhat hot like 80's, so ive been sweating every now and then but ya it has been raining pretty often. last week wasnt very fun i fell and slipped in the mud trying to avoid a puddle but fell into it. its gets freakin muddy here. im in the dustiest areas in the whole mission so when it rains the mud gets saturated with water so it is really slippery. so i guess you could say that i am having an brown christmas? haha. anyways i cant believe you already got a different car... and its gutless!!! well i guess as long as its cheaper that is all that matters. but we might have some shidas (problems) when it i get back cause i am your and grandpa's child. i love me some power hah. make sure that you say thank you to aunt margaret and tell her that i appreciate it cabisa (alot)!!! and please tell everyone thank you that do things for me! and im not sure if i can skype on christmas? i will ask for sure cause that would be awesome if we can. well from what i hear about calling is that i call you the day before Christmas to see what time is good and then i call on Christmas and talk to you guys. but idk if i call you or if you call me cause for me to call you is /-3 a minute or 3 cents a minute for me but idk how much it would be for you.

but me and elder vilakati are doing pretty good. im training him but when people from africa go on a mission, the first three months they have to go out with the missionaries. but ya sometimes we cant understand each other for some words but for the most part its pretty easy. being a district leader isnt too bad. i am now in the upper hill district. in the district there are 8 missionaries. 4 elders and 4 sisters. one of the other two elders is the zone leader who is over two or 3 districts. so the 4 sisters call into me every night to tell me that they are home safe and if they have any concerns or anything like that. like last week, the sisters called me and said that they needed a baptismal interview so i went and interviewed one of their investigators. also i conduct a DDM or a district development meeting. there we have certain people to teach us about how we can be better missionaries or more Christ-like and stuff like that but that is pretty much all that i do. i still go to the same branch cause the other wards and branches are like an hour and a half away in a train and a matatu. and ya if the mission president really wanted me to be transfered i could every 6 weeks but im pretty sure that i will be in athi river for about 3 more months. if i could go anywhere i would like to go to Eldoret because it is nice and cool there.

but this week nothing too exciting happened. on wednesday i conducted my first DDM. it was on Christ-like attributes. luckily elder smedley was there since he broke his foot so we had enough for every missionary there to give like a 3 to 5 minute talk on each one. i think it was pretty good except for some of the sister missionaries. we start with a song and end with one and one sister will not sing the entire time. you have to kinda ask yourself, " what kinda missionary doesnt sing?" haha Bogus! after the DDM, my companion and i went with sister Kabamba and sister Chilumba, to their area Riruta to interview a guy named Bonface. ( dont ask me where he got his name, people here like to name their kids from the bible- like a lot of girls here are named Dorcus haha) but the interview went well but it was way weird that i was the one who had to interview him in order for him to be baptized.

we meet people in weird ways here. when we were on our way out for church the gate guard told us that a member came early and gave him her number for us to call her. so we called her and met her a little bit later. and fun fact.... she was not a member ha. she wanted to know what our church does for orphans and im not gonna lie i had no idea what to say to that. but i just told her to talk to the bishop and told her that she had to come to church to talk to him and then she said that she would come after she went some where. which usually means that she wasnt coming to church. but she did. then we had a really kool lesson. not because the person cried or something like that but..........(dramatic pause to add emphasis haha) it was the first time i bible bashed a little bit haha. i did pretty good too haha not gonna boast that i know the scriptures that well cuz i dont, but the guy is a J-dub or a Jehovah's witness which is a church that started after ours. but they believe that once we die, we dont exist and then we are resurrected. so we had to show him what happens in both the bible and the Book of Mormon. but its seems like he wants to know the truth and has been reading the book of mormon but he is kind of fighting against it. but it was a good lesson. one kool thing that i saw or hilarious thing i saw was some guy on a piki piki ( motorcycle ) towing another piki piki so ill send you a pic hah. but that was my week.

i hope you guys all have a great week and if you can find any more christmas songs feel free to send them cause christmas is my favorite time of season hah. i love and miss you!

love elder maxwell

ps you dont need to send sweats unless you have already bought them. i guess in reality its expensive and i would rather you just send like some more spice packets especially yellow rice. also i wanted to ask you if you could make me like a recipe book with the calendar. with mainly things that are made from scratch like refried beans, good salsa without a blender, fired rice, garlic potatoes and spaghetti sauce like with tomatoes and without tomato sauce cans cause anything in a can here like like 500/- and up which is like $5. but i wish i could send big stuff from here because the dresses here sammy would love and they are probably be like 6 bucks!

pps if you can send me some of the music from the byu boys choir thing that would be awesome too.