Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host

John Dillin. It is November 24th, 2021 and we are in part two of what for me is a very

interesting and important and powerful and informative episode on Mormon Stories podcast.

So if you haven't joined us for part one, we just spent a good was it three hours with

Gerald and Mackenzie Benzie. But mostly we were focusing on Gerald Benzie because I've been

putting out a call in recent months and years to interview Mormons from Africa because the Mormon

Church, as we know, is really investing in Africa as a way to have a chance at future growth everywhere

else in the United in the world. Basically, including in Utah, the church is shrinking. If

it weren't for birth rate, the Mormon Church would literally be in decline. It's only the birthrate

that keeps the Mormon Church at a like a 0.5% growth rate right now. But because there's been so many

defections and hemorrhaging of people leaving the church and the super low activity rates of Mormon

converts throughout the world, the church is in freefall most everywhere. But it's where it's

growing is in Africa. So I've always wanted to just hear from African converts to the Mormon

Church about what would make them join the church. And that's what we did for part one. If you

haven't checked it out, go check out Gerald's interview because he talks about growing up in Zimbabwe,

growing up as a kind of a Christian, kind of as a native traditionalist, spiritual person,

but raised in private schools, religious private schools, and ultimately what led him to the United

States, which then led him eventually from Milwaukee to Provo to then go through like four

different sets of missionaries, Mormon missionaries, and eventually convert to the Mormon Church.

So that's where we left off in part one was Gerald not only sharing with us what led to his decision

to get baptized and all the pressures and influences and dynamics and factors that led to that.

We also talked about ways that Gerald felt like he wasn't given the full and honest story and

...