I am in the Greenfield Area of the San Jose mission. It is the farthest south area in the mission so I am about a two hour drive from the mission office. Its super chill down here and everyone is really cool. This is a Spanish area so, in most of the lessons, I don't know what is being said but my companion speaks Spanish very well so he will translate for me if anyone asks me a question. He does most of the teaching though.
My companions name is Elder Olenslager. He is from Utah and is a really cool guy. He has been out for about ten months and I am his first trainee so we are both learning. We have two other elders that live with us in our area. Elder Johnson (he is new and came out with me) and Elder Aranda. Elder Aranda is a native Spanish speaker so he is really the pro out of us all. He has six months left in the field.
I am loving this area! The people are all very nice. We do have a lot of Spanish investigators but the members are still mostly English so dinners are about 50/50. The Spanish members are a lot more loving. I have eaten lunch and dinner at a members house pretty much every day so far. On Saturday we were at a Spanish members house for dinner and were eating a bean soup with cactus and peppers in it. It was very good and I ate everything. Then they got me another big bowl of it and I got about halfway through that and I was stuffed so I left it there and tried to pick up on some of the Spanish that was being spoken. The mother saw that I wasn't eating anymore and turned to Elder Aranda and asked him if I didn't like the food so he turns to me and translates and says she wants to know if you don't like her cooking. I started to respond, "No, it is very good, I am just full." But I got cut off after the word no, the mother clearly understands no, so she starts to go off in Spanish about how I don't like her cooking. Then everyone is laughing at me as I am trying to explain that I did like it and finally the mother goes to the freezer and brings back some Ice cream and says to me that I get Ice Cream because I was honest with her and told her I didn't like her cooking. So I just let it go because she didn't seem too upset. Then the rest of the night she was worried because I was going to be hungry in the morning and it was fast Sunday in the morning so she is asking me if I want a sandwich or something and I'm like no thank you I am full. But anyways it was a long night of not understanding anything.
Then Sunday night we had three different families feed us dinner and another family that wanted us to come over for dessert so I think we ended up with a late lunch, an early dinner, a normal dinner and dessert and then a dessert. I was so full by the end of the night.
I love the members down here and we do a ton of work with the less active members. Its all about working with the ward down here, it is great! We have a super awesome ward mission leader, his name is Josh and his wife Sarah. They are both super helpful and will do anything for us. There is a lot of great work going on down here and it is super exciting! I am loving it.
It got down to 60 last night and I felt cold... That's really bad. But its so beautiful here! I did get the bedding and the greenie package. It was super awesome! I love all the food! I can't seem to get away from food here.
I didn't get to write until today because the libraries are closed on Mondays in this county but my p-day is on Monday. So when I get transferred it will go to emails on Monday. I think that is everything if I think of anything else it will have to wait till next week!
I love you all and pray for everyone everynight!
Love ya lots, Elder Maxwell
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