On October 16th, Benjamin Maxwell, left his home and family for two years to serve a mission in San Jose, California.

As a missionary: He will teach of Jesus Christ and His gospel. He will have doors slammed in his face and be yelled at. He will meet people from all walks of life. He will stretch himself. He will learn about himself. He will learn of his Heavenly Father's love for him and for all His children. He will learn to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. He will serve the people of San Jose. And he will LOVE more than he though possible.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

What a week it has been!

     What a week it has been. I don't know where to start.

     Well, Thanksgiving was this week I think so I'll start with that. We woke up pretty early and went to play in the turkey bowl with the ward. There were enough guys there to have an okay game but they were all really into ultimate Frisbee so we played that for most of the time but its not as good as football. That's for sure. After sports in the morning we went to the church and played some basketball with just us elders. Some good two on two. Super fun and really good exercise. We got to go home and shower after that and then the dinners started.

     First, we went to the Tuckers home. We got there early enough that they didn't have all the dinner ready yet so we just ate pie instead and had eggnog. Super good that they didn't have dinner ready yet though. It would have been a long day if they did. We went straight from there to the ward mission leaders house. Super cool guy and his wife. This was the first Thanksgiving that they had put on as a married couple so it was a good time. Standard Thanksgiving meal - nothing out of the ordinary. We all sat around and got fat. Had some more pie and talked a lot. After several hours of eating and talking we went to our next dinner at the Garzas home, that's right a Hispanic household. That means a lot of food! They cooked two turkeys, one for us and one for them and they wanted us to eat it all while we were there!  We did our best but we ended up taking it home with us. We then played charades with the little kids and I am now the master of charades for that family because I had two lucky guesses. Then we went home and that was Thanksgiving for me. Pretty simple. Just a lot of eating.

    Cool experience of the week happened the next day. Myself and Elder Olenslager were going around to all the appointments that we had that evening and everyone was gone or cancelled on us and then our dinner canceled on us so it was a super down day at this point so we decide to pull over and try to figure out who we should go see. We both got a feeling that we needed to go visit a semi-active member family so we drive all the way to the other side of town to go to this home. When we get there, the house is super dark. No lights on, looks like everyone is either asleep or not home.  We were are like, "great, lets just try it anyways." So we go to the door, knock, and the son comes to the door. He is a priest and is super active, he lets us in and his dad is there but his mom (who is the less active one) is at work. We start talking to the father and he tells us that he was working early in the day and had hurt his back. He then asked us to give him a blessing. Then right at that moment his wife calls and says that she is on her way home from work and she was stopping to get dinner to bring home and they ended up getting 40 tacos from taco bell for us all to eat. Then after dinner we were able to give the father a blessing with the mother present and pray with her which are all huge steps for that family. We ended that day very well and we got fed. It was a huge blessing for us.
 
    We also took one of our investigators out with us this week. He wanted to come contacting with us and to some of our lessons. The only reason he isn't a member yet is because his father won't let him get baptized until he is 18, but he is a super active non member. We had some really great experiences with him and we helped him grow his testimony. It's super important that we are always trying to help our investigators and member grow their testimonies. I really do love the people that we work with down here in Greenfield.
 
    Transfers are this weekend and I am 95% sure that I will be getting transferred to a new area so don't send any mail until I get to email next week and I let you know where I am at. I am sad that I will most likely be leaving Greenfield but I know that I will be sent to wherever the Lord needs me next. I am here to do his work, not mine.
 
   That is pretty much my week, I'm sure there are some things that I missed but I got what was on my mind so that is good.

Love you all a bunch,
Elder Maxwell

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