What a fabulous week! I am sure that I am bound to stay in Fremont for half of my mission! I got transferred into Fremont again! I have to move apartments again but I am staying in the Central Park ward. The only thing that is really changing is that I will no longer be in the deaf branch. It is very sad because I loved the six weeks that I got to serve there! I am going to miss the branch so much, the people there are so kind and thoughtful. They are always taking care of us missionaries! So now that I am back in Central Park only I will be needing a new companion.. I will be getting a new companion fresh from the MTC on Thursday. I am really excited that I get to train a new missionary because that means I will get to E-mail really quick again on Thursday and tell you about him! I am also excited because it is going to be so much fun having a new missionary as a companion! Only downside is that I have had stress headaches all week but I'm sure they will pass once he gets here. I hope that he is super cool and is just a lot of fun to be with. Christian or Austin, any advice on how to best train the new guy?
My address will change back to 4200 Bay st #209, Fremont CA, 94538
Which by the way reminds me of the wonderful package that you sent! Thank you so much. The package got here on Thursday just before the fourth of July. Perfect Timing. Unfortunately I had to go into the post office to get it and it closed early on Thursday and was closed all day Friday so I didn't get to have my celebration until Saturday night, but it is a good thing you sent all the glow sticks because we stayed up late making cool videos and taking cool pictures in the dark. We all had a lot of fun. Elder Domingo loved it because he can't hear anything so things that light up and look cool are perfect for him! We all had a really great night. I missed being with the family on the fourth because we didn't really have anything fun to do all day. Fireworks are 100% illegal in Fremont. They don't even put on a show so we didn't even get to see anything. The fourth of July is basically illegal here because all day I didn't see a single neighborhood picnic or parade or anything so it was very lame.
Have a really cool story to share this week. We have a new investigator that we got last week and we were teaching him again this week. This is the perfect set up by the way. A member became his friend and invited him to hear the missionary lessons and then invited him to come and learn in his home so each lesson is taught with a member in the members home. Perfect. So, back to the story. We are teaching him the second time and he has some questions about the apostasy and the need for it and why the priesthood was supposedly lost from the earth and they were all really great questions but the member was taking it upon himself to try and answer all of the questions right there on the spot and prove to his friend that our church is true and his is not. Now I didn't want to be rude and tell him to stop talking but the things that he was saying were way beyond anything that his friend needed to know. He even brought up the organization of the catholic church. The friend isn't even catholic so after about ten to fifteen minutes of him going on and on. I could feel the spirit telling my to stop him but I had no idea what to say so I put my arm in front of him and this is what came out, "I don't want to offend you but I want to take this conversation way back to the beginning. Can we start with the basics?" I had been praying in my heart that the holy ghost would help me and would guide all of us and it did. After I said that the member replied with, "I am going to let Elder Maxwell talk now." He didn't say another word until I gestured for him to testify at the end. After that happened the friend had an opportunity to share his person experiences of how he has come to know his savior Jesus Christ. I was then able to tie all of his experiences into one thing that is common between all things that you believe in, Faith. We were able to open the Book of Mormon and read about how faith is not a perfect knowledge. Then I tied it back into the beginning of the lesson with all the deep conversation and I said that all of these things help us understand and they are all important but none of it is going to matter to any of us if we don't have our foundation built. It was an amazing lesson and was guided by the spirit. I know that the member and his friend and myself all learned a very important lesson about letting the spirit be the teacher and letting the spirit guide us in what we need to do.
Thank you for everything you do for me! I love you all!
Elder Maxwell
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