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.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

It has been a wonderful week full of craziness and confusion and blessings and upsets!

It has been a wonderful week full of craziness and confusion and blessings and upsets, but through it all it is still just a week! JUST A WEEK! What on earth is going on! It feels like it has been a month! So much has happened this past week that I don't even know where to begin. So lets start with Tuesday morning. We wake up on Tuesday to go to play some sports with other missionaries and half way through (so about 630 in the morning) my companion randomly runs up onto the stage and then he ran and jumped off the stage like John Wilkes Booth. No joke, he went soaring off of that thing. His air time must have been five seconds! Then to no ones surprise gravity kicked in and brought him to the ground. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but in my companions case he decided to keep his right leg in the locked and secure position. This is good for standing or sitting occasionally but it is never good for a landing. So, as always in this case, the landing didn't end well and my companion bruised his heel. He hasn't been able to walk on it all week and we are waiting to see if it is fractured or not.

So, because my companion has not been able to bike or walk all week, I have been doing a lot of exchanges this week. I have spent more time with my good friend, Elder Le Beau, than I have with my own companion! (not true but it feels that way) It has been really fun trying to set up rides with members for every single lesson that we want to go to. Oh, and if we want to eat dinner at members homes now we need to get a ride there or have them pick us up for dinner. Its crazy how dependant we are on the ward right now. Honestly this is kind of like what we need the work to be like. Very involved with the members but I really don't like the part where we depend on them for everything. So that part of the week has been a little bit stressful but it has really taught me about how important it is to have set appointments and being in tune with the members to help achieve the goals that we set. I know that the Lord has a purpose for all of this and I feel like one of those was to give me time to be with Elder Le Beau. We have grown really close in the past week and I have been able to help him a lot and he has been able to help me a lot. I know that we never would have had this opportunity if it wasn't for my companion jumping off the stage. It sounds funny, I know but it really has been a blessing for me from Heavenly father.

Another amazing thing that happened this week was yesterday! We got to go to the beach as a zone! We drove all the way down to Carmel by the Sea. It is so nice, I took lots of really cool pictures and got a really nice tan. Unfortunately tan lines are unavoidable on a mission, but it was still a really great time. I caught a crab and fed it to a sea anemone. It was awesome. Then we fed hermit crabs and snails and little fish to little anemones. It was an amazing day and perfect weather. Enjoy the pictures and don't hate me because of them. (note from mom: more like envy him, it is only 13 degrees here in NY this morning!) Just know I love you!
Had my third district meeting today. Last week I did a district meeting about helping less active members and investigators and we did a cool activity where we had to build towers with oreos! This week I talked about Faith and Preparation and we did a cool activity with the alien baloons that you sent me. It was cool. It has been fun being a district leader. I love my district and I want to keep helping them as much as I can. I have learned so much from them. I have learned patience, I have learned responsibility, I have learned love (can you learn love? If yes... I did), and I have learned how important it is to embrace opportunity. All of these things are important and will help me throughout my life! Learn them sooner rather than later!

I love you all so much and I love hearing from you! I also really like pictures, send me more pictures of things. They are the best. I will try to do the same.

Love, Elder Maxwell

No comments:

Post a Comment