I cannot say how happy I am to be able to serve here!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Tacos sound pretty good we actually had velik den yesterday which is their Easter so I had forgotten completely about Cinco de Mayo.  Easter is pretty big here, they all had the whole week off of school and pretty much nobody works this weekend.  One thing that they do that was pretty cool they dye the eggs, then everyone takes one and you take turns hitting them against each others eggs on the ends and the last person with an unbroken egg gets extra life and health or something like that. But I liked it we'll have to have some egg battles when I get back!

This week was a little crazy but it was very good.  The new elders didn't get in till Wed and we didn't get them as companions till Thursday, so from transfers on Tues, to when we got our companions I was with a couple other Elders who also were getting some greenies.    My new companion is Elder Taylor.  He is from American Falls, Idaho.  I'm not really sure what he really likes to do, he doesn't play any sports, he did play the trumpet for the school band but they were pretty small so they didn't have a marching band. He is third in a family of six.  He has 2 sisters and 3 brothers and he has been to Kenya and on safari (so I'm a bit jealous of that).   His dad works for Zions National and his mom stays at home and I can't think of anything else. He's a really good missionary and a very hard worker and his Bulgarian is already pretty good! It is kind of tiring training, at least for the first bit, I don't think I've been so tired since I first got into country and was all jet lagged! But it's all good he is a great Elder and I'm glad to work with him!

Also this week one of the young women in the branch found a bag of puppies in a dumpster, they still are very young and have to be fed milk through syringes. I got to feed one of them they are pretty cute and awesome, I named him Pepe! I will have to send you a picture of him next week I forgot my camera cord today. 

Teaching has been going really well, I actually feel like I have had some of the best lessons of my mission this last week with Elder Taylor! We had one lesson Saturday with this young guy and girl that Elder Ferwerda found with me when he was down here on Wed. They were so cool and the lesson was very good, the spirit was so strong and we were able to commit them to baptism for the 8th of June! Also, we had a lesson with one of our progressing families yesterday and we taught the word of wisdom and the mother really liked it but the father was very, very set on smoking and drinking coffee.  At one point, he kind of flipped out a little and was all "I am going to smoke and drink (coffee, he doesn't drink alcohol) till I die, whether that's when I'm a 110 or next week I do not care!"  We just kind of sat there for a bit and then testified to him that this was not a commandment from us but from God and that God will bless us if we keep His commandments. We told him we cared about him and we wouldn't force him to do anything but we promised him if he tried it for one week, he would see the difference and that God would bless him. And it was amazing how the spirit was able to change the feeling that was there and he agreed to keep the word of wisdom for a week to see if there was a difference!

I cannot say how happy I am to be able to serve here and help others to experiment upon the word, like it says in Alma, and to taste the fruits that come from that!

So yeah that's really cool and thank you for the recipes I'm going to have to try them out.  It's really easy to get fruit and vegetables here.  They are really cheap and they have fruit and vegetable stands all over the place. I'm really excited for the peaches to be back soon and the watermelon!!

I love you all!!

Elder Maxwell