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.

Monday, January 27, 2014

This has been the most incredible week on my mission.


      My new companion Elder Irvine is a champ. He has been out for 20 months and he thinks that I will be the missionary that kills him. I hope so, the more time we spend together the more I am going to learn and the more amazing work we are going to be able to do. He is from Riverton Utah. He is in the Chinese program so he speaks really good Chinese but he is very happy that he gets to serve in the English program to end his mission. He is trying to teach me how to count in Chinese but I have decided that it is way to difficult for me to learn unless I have been called by God to learn it.

     So many amazing experiences this week. We set three new baptism dates and got two new investigators. And we were always busy the entire week. It has been amazing. Starting off, we had a lesson with a less active member who really likes to bible bash. This was my second time meeting with him and the first time he was pretty friendly but he was still bashing a lot. So this time when we met with him he was very hostile. He came at us with everything he had and was trashing everything that the church believed in. It was like no matter what we said he was convinced that it was completely wrong. Elder Irvine taught me a very important lesson. He looked this member in the eyes and testified of what he knew was true, then the member looked at me and I testified of what I knew was true. Then we stood up and said that we had to leave. The guy then proceeded to yell at us and tell us to turn our backs and walk away like all the others. He continued to yell at us until we were on our bikes biking away. As soon as we got out of sight we pulled over and we said a prayer together. We asked Heavenly Father to bless us with the spirit and to help us feel peace. We also asked the Lord to help our friend and to soften his heart. Right after that prayer I was overcome with a feeling of peace and comfort. I truly felt the love that Heavenly Father had for us and for him. I knew that the Lord had protected us and kept us from harm. We had an amazing day after that.
 
     Another amazing experience was when we were able to teach the primary kids on Saturday morning. They were having a primary activity called "Future MTC" We got to help out with that by teaching all the kids a class on Preach My Gospel. It was really cool, we had all of the little kids read the missionary purpose with us and then we had them do role plays of inviting their friends to church activities like their own baptism. It was a lot of fun and I think the kids had a good time. It is a lot different teaching the little kids than it is teaching all of our other investigators but the message is still the same. God loves each and every one of us. He knows us and he cares about us.
 
    In church this week we had two of our investigators come to church. It was the first time that I ever had an investigator at church! Super cool. They had a really good time and felt very welcome. I think that they will come back and hopefully we can set a baptism date with them. They were only able to stay for sacrament meeting this week but after sacrament meeting we taught Gospel Principles. We had a really awesome lesson on the plan of salvation. After Gospel Princibles the Elders Quarm Pres. came up to me and asked me to teach the lesson in third hour so I taught a lesson on the atonement and how it can heal. It was a really good lesson and as I thought back to what I had taught I realized it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Over all it was an amazing week and I have learn so much from my new companion. I love Elder Irvine so much. I love all of you so much and I know that the gospel will bless our family. Hold to the rod! Keep up the amazing missionary work that you all do.

Love you lots!
Elder Maxwell

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