Tomorrow I will probably have a different favorite tie.

Ian my favorite tie is long and a few inches thick at the bottom but it is skinnier at the top. It has some blue on it and some grey and some black. Also tomorrow I will probably have a different favorite tie.

So spring pretty much is here, it's getting pretty warm.  Today is a bit cloudy but overall the weather has been very pleasant. They already are hanging up the martinitsi (tassel things) that is from baba marta (grandma march) which is the first of March.

So a little bit more about my new companion, he is from Riverton, Utah and his dad is Swedish.  He says he knows a little Swedish but has forgotten most of it as he has learned Bulgarian. He is a chess player and that is what he did before his mission, tournaments and teaching chess lessons, so by the end of this transfer I hope to be a little better at chess! He is super enthusiastic and energetic so even if I wanted to be trunky, there is no way that it would happen, but I would never want that, there is too much work to be done and the time is running out quickly!

So we have a baptism this Saturday with an investigator we worked with back in January who had a couple barriers preventing them from entering into the waters of baptism but they have overcome those now and this Saturday will be able to take that next step!! So we are very excited for them.

Other than that, the week has been good.  We have found some great new potential investigators that we should be meeting with this week so we hope to have many new investigators working towards baptism by the end of the week! Our other investigators are doing well and we will keep working with them and striving to improve and help them even more!

Thank you for all that you do and for your shining example! Have a great week!

Love ya,
 Elder Maxwell

I am grateful for what I got.

So, for transfers I am staying here in Sofia and I will be serving with Elder Gustaffson. I've met him before and have had role plays and such with him when I have visited his city on exchanges for district meeting and also in zone meetings. He is pretty cool and I am excited to work with him.  He is like a chess champion or something too so I probably won't ever play him in chess so he doesn't think I'm really dumb or something. But yeah I am pretty excited for this transfer we have a few investigators that I think will be ready for baptism soon ( took 'em long enough) but it is better to baptize someone when they are ready because that is a big commitment and we don't want to baptize a burden for the branch. So I'm looking forward to this transfer!!

This week was good, we are working to find and get to know all the members in our area.  We have a lot of them here in Sofia and our area is pretty big, size wise, because the members aren't super concentrated in one area so, we had lots of teaching on the buses and walking inbetween members this week!

Our investigators are doing well, one cool thing from transfers (shows that they really are inspired) we have an investigator who works here in the city but basically lives in Pleven so whenever he isn't here for work we couldn't meet with him but Elder Parkinson just got called to Pleven so now our problem is solved and we will be able to teach him everything he needs to know before his baptism!

Other than that our week was pretty good we got a couple new investigators that are really cool although I'm still looking for a whole family to teach!

 

 

Food from this week, we had a member make us шкембе чорба (shkembe chorba) it's a type of soup that they have here made from milk and other stuff and with stomach meat... but she didn't have any "shkembe" so she just made it with mushrooms (гъби-gubi)! It was pretty good and I bet if she had made it the real way it would have been good too but at the same time, I am grateful for what I got.

I love you all! Have a really good fun week and eat some nachos for me!
Elder Maxwell

Wondering why I had never done these things before!

I think you sent us a bit of your cold weather or something because its snowing again here! Well it snowed this morning then it mostly melted and now it's snowing again but it's not super cold so it's not bad. Although I wouldn't mind some sunshine and warm weather!

I can't believe that another week has gone already gone by!  The time just flies by, it was weird this last week we had a correlation meeting (as an office elder we had to attend) and they were talking about preparing for the June group passport stuff - that was really weird, they're already getting ready to replace us!

So this week we've got the monthly zone training meeting that Elder Parkinson and I get to teach so that will be good and then transfer calls are on Saturday  so I will find out then what will be happening, I think I probably will be staying( I hope so!) but we will see what the Lords plans are!!

Ian here is a rhyme thing for you (it's like the bubble gum, bubble gum one) you can practice it if you want:
 

онче бонче
счупено пиронче

риба щука
махаи се от тука

едно две три, кой излезе... ти!

(or phonetically)

onche bonche

schuupeno pironche

riba shtuka

mahai se ot tuka

edno dve tri, koi izleze... ti!

(and the translation)

eenie, meenie,

MO

the fish Pike

go from here.

One, two, three. Who came out... you!

 

This last week we have really been working on getting the members to help us more in the missionary work and it is starting to pay off! We have one member who went and visited a less active lady who lives nearby her and the less active wants to meet with the missionaries (her husband and maybe daughter are not members) and also when the member was there the lady's cousin came and also has interest to learn more about the church! So we have meetings with both of them this week and we are doing everything we can to find and teach families!! We actually have one family we are working with, the husband isn't a member and they have 3 little kids ( oldest is 7) and it is going well with them.  The husband was a bit reluctant to meet at first and we couldn't really have lessons with him but then we had a couple FHE's with them and the husband has really opened up and is beginning to progress!!

 

Other than that nothing too new this week we are trying to work with an older lady in our area and her son who isn't a member but the son doesn't want to have a "lesson" with us so we are going to see if we can get them both to the activity we are having on Saturday!!

It is incredible how much potential there is with less actives and part member families I feel like my whole mission has been just trying something new from "Preach My Gospel" that we may not have applied before and then afterwards wondering why I had never done these things before!!

I Love you all! Have a great week!!
Elder Maxwell

 

Photo of the day!

 Me and a couple of Elders from my MTC group at a training meeting.

Being in Sofia has it's advantages!!

Thanks for the heads up on the time change it's always good to be prepared and as a missionary you can't really look up these things you just find out about them the night before when the assistants realize that everyone needs to be reminded about it.

The American family had us over for a late breakfast today so we had a wonderful meal of pancakes, biscuits and gravy and American cereal so being in Sofia has it's advantages!!

 

Whew, March, time sure does fly. This week was pretty good, we had a couple really awesome incredible days and the rest were pretty average but I guess the average days really help you to appreciate and be grateful for the days where everything is super good. Although every day is filled with miracles you just have to look for them sometimes.

 

We spent a day in Pazardzhik on exchanges working with the Elders there.  I got to work with Elder Watson and he's a great missionary and we had a great day!! Pazardzhik is a pretty small town at least in comparison with all the places I have served but in some ways that is nice, they still are only a group there but they have potential to become a branch soon.

 

Also, we found some great new investigators this week one was a former investigator who had lost contact with the missionaries somehow but we had a quick lesson with him in a park and committed him to baptism the end of march, so that was incredible! He got sick though this weekend and wasn't able to make it to church but next week we will make sure that he can make it! We also had a contact who we had met on the street a few weeks back and we finally were able to meet him and he brought a friend and before our lesson we gave them a little tour of the church and explained all about the rooms and we ended at the baptismal font then we baptized them! Not really, but we did give them the tour and the spirit was so strong they aren't very religious but they have a desire to learn more and I am sure that the spirit touched there hearts in our meeting. We committed them to be baptized but we didn't get a date but I expect this week to set a goal with them for that!
 

Everything is going well for us we have 2! Family Home Evenings we are going to tonight one with some members and their friend and another with a less active and her non member husband and kids! So remember FHE is a great missionary/ activation tool!

 

My companion is doing, well no sicknesses or anything and he hasn't gotten tired of my cooking so we're doing well. we get along well and it's all good!

Not to much new, I love you all!! Have a great week!

Love, Elder Maxwell

Yup, that's all I've got for today

So our training meeting went really well and the week was a pretty average week for us, lesson and finding wise.  It wasn't a bad/difficult week, but it wasn't an incredibly amazing week either. We did have a lot of help from the branch president this week, he helped us out in a couple lessons and with some less actives.  He is a really good branch president and since he didn't have work this week he helped the missionaries a lot!

We tried doing more member work and re-activation work this week and it has been going pretty well.  We found a couple less active families that would like to meet and we have members that we are helping to work with their friends so hopefully we will get some new investigators soon out of that.

Church was really good for us yesterday, we had a good number of investigators come and one investigator stayed for all three hours and it was his first time! So that was good, it is usually pretty difficult to get them to stay for all of church I think it helped that we had our member fellowshiper, who helps us in lessons, with him the whole time. It is going well with him, he has a great desire to know the truth.  But, he sure does love his beer so we are making sure that he has a good solid testimony and understanding of Joseph smith and the restoration. We are trying to meet with his whole family but for now he keeps saying no, ( his wife is a little skeptical), but we will keep trying because I Love teaching families, plus that is how the church will really grow.

It wasn't just good that he came to church, it was like every single lesson and talk were meant for him and the questions he has.  I kept thinking, "Man, I sure hope he is paying good attention because this is perfect for him!!" So, we were blessed to have inspired talks and lessons for our investigator!

A couple of our investigators are out of town which is difficult.  Not being able to meet with them, we try to keep in contact with the phone but personal visits and lessons are just so much better!
Yup, that's all I've got for today I love you have a great week!

Elder Maxwell

I am very happy here in Sofia

 This week was pretty good.  We had a big leadership training meeting and that went really well, although it was pretty long and took up quite a bit of time but I think it was well worth it and I learned a lot! I love how dedicated our missionaries are, even though we had a great year last year and had to re-set our baptismal goal for the year, we are always striving to be even better to better apply Preach My Gospel and to be better missionaries! I have seen how it has changed my mission and I love it!!

We had some really good lessons this week, mostly because the members that we had coming were perfect for our investigators! We have one investigator who knew the missionaries 15-20 years ago and we had a member come and it turns out that his wife was taught by the same missionaries that our investigator knew!! So they got along really well and after the lesson the member asked us to call him the next time we had a lesson so he could come again! That was awesome for me and it made me feel like I was doing something right, it was just a great night. Especially because we had another lesson with an American family we had found a while back and we had a Bulgarian come who had served his mission in California and he was so excited to help, he was showing us his English scriptures from his mission and everything on the way there.  It was so fun to see how happy he was to help us out! I love working with the members and the branch president here has been super helpful and we have an incredible branch mission leader!

So, I am very happy here in Sofia and we are seeing lots of little miracles everyday as we are teaching and meeting with people and even as we are out on the streets!  Before my mission, I wish I had watched more of the district movies and watched how they taught and gone out with the missionaries to teach more and studied more from preach my gospel. I wasn't a very well prepared missionary but I am glad I have had wonderful companions and an incredible mission president who have helped me learn everything that I need to learn!
This week we have our training meeting that Elder Parkinson and I get to run so hopefully that will go well and other than that it will be a pretty normal week. Hopefully, we will be able to get some more investigators with dates for baptism this week!

I love you!! Have a great week!

Elder Maxwell