I am very happy with the work and feel very blessed.

Elder Measom is very cool (I spelled it wrong last week), he is from the group that came out just before me and he plays football ( American) and is very good at it.  It is nice being with athletic companions. He has a couple brothers and a sister and is in the middle. He likes to golf, and to eat and cook, and he's lived in a few places Wyoming, Colorado, and maybe somewhere else but now his family is in Utah. 

 

This week was nice, besides the transfer day, we were in Varna all week.  We got basically a full week in our own area, which was very nice. Although, we will have to start going on exchanges again this week to make sure we get to everyone this transfer. We found some really cool people and things are going pretty well with them.

 

We had a very diverse cultural week to say, we found one guy from America (San Diego) and he's lived all over the place and worked as an electrician on a bunch of embassies. He is married here now with a son and when we met with him, it turns out he actually is a member! He wants us to teach his son and wife but the wife has heard some rumors, that are pretty common here, and at the moment she is against that.  So, we can only meet with our American friend. But it is okay and he is really nice and I hope that we will at some point be able to work with his whole family! We also had a lesson in Russian with a member translating for us, that was neat I could understand a lot of what they said but they don't understand Bulgarian very well. We met one younger guy from Bulgaria but has lived in Turkey and we were able to get him a Turkish book of Mormon and help him figure out how to get in contact with the missionaries in Turkey when he gets back.  Then we also found a guy last night from China who has been living here for fifteen or so years and his Bulgarian wasn't super good but he was interested and said we could share our message with his family! And to top it all off we had the Baptism of our investigator from Iran on Saturday and that was good. Of course we are working with a number of Bulgarians too and things are going well I am very happy with the work and feel very blessed and am very grateful for the success we are having! 

 

Being here at the Black Sea, there are quite a few tourists, so it will calm down a bit as the summer ends but there will still be people here and it will be fine. 

 

My short sleeve shirts are pretty baggy but I actually took a couple in this morning to a seamstress to get them taken in a bit and it's really cheap here it's probably only be like 8 lev for the two of them which is probably a bit more than five bucks. My shoes are doing fine I just need to replace the laces they are starting to fall to bits. 

 

Have a super awesome week and keep being awesome! I love you! 

Elder Maxwell

It's all good!

This week was good we had our training meeting that Elder Hoy and I presented and I think it went pretty well, it was kind of like a district meeting just with a lot more people so it's not like it was anything to new. I do enjoy teaching so it was fun to do a little bit in English and about missionary work, which I also very much enjoy, so it's all good!

 

Shumen

 

This week we had some exchanges in Shumen I really like that city it has very nice people and I got to work with an Elder from my MTC group so it was fun working with him and we had a lot of success and met a lot of really cool people! Although, crazy story, while we were there the other Elder that Elder Hoy was working with woke up and passed some kidney stones so he kind of was in pain a bit and they had to take it a bit easy that day. I sure hope that I never get kidney stones, it would not be fun. 

 

We had a lot of kind of weird lessons this week with a lot of new people, so it made for an interesting week, our investigators are progressing pretty well. One of them had a really rough beginning to the week (his wife had passed away a long time ago from cancer leaving him with his young daughter) and his daughter had a spot on her leg the doctors thought might have been cancer but they had to run a test to see so for a couple days our investigator was really worried and he told us that he took his book of Mormon with him everywhere and even kept it next to him while he slept. And he had been having a hard time with prayer but he said he prayed so much, and in the end it turns out it was just a spot so everything was good but I think it was a really good experience/ learning moment for our investigator. 

 

So, I am staying here in Varna!  My new companion will be Elder Measum, he is from Utah so he will be my first Utah companion! He is cool I know him from when I was in Sofia so I am excited to work with him! My elbow is fine, I think I just bumped it hard or something.  

 

Have an awesome week, share something about the church with someone and have some fun!!

Love you! 

Elder Maxwell

If on your mission, you really start missing home, you're probably not working hard enough! ( or you have a sick companion).

I actually got to make some curry this week, my companion got some nasty sickness and he was down for a couple days so I got some extra study, cleaning, cooking time. I made that tomato curry stuff it was really good then I also make some fajitas with some homemade tortillas (I was a little worried because I had never made them before but they turned out pretty well). It was a bummer, because I was stuck inside while my companion was recovering, but it was good to be able to cook something real good! Although I would take real work over cooking any day, it's a lot harder to not miss home when you don't have a lot to do, so Ben if on your mission you really start missing home, you're probably not working hard enough! ( or you have a sick companion).

 

So this week has been pretty good, it felt a bit longer but it wasn't bad. We were on exchanges in Veliko Turnovo this week and it is a really cool city, there are a lot of hills there, it is basically built on the side of the mountain.

 

 

It was good, we had a couple good lessons and we found some cool people contacting so we had a good day there. It also is the furthest away city in our zone so we had some pretty long bus rides.

 

It was weird too, this week, I bumped my elbow or something and it got all swollen and sore but I just soaked it a bit before I went to bed and it's basically all better but it looked kind of bad for a day!  

Teaching this week was good, we have two investigators who very likely will be baptized on the 24th, one of them is really cool, he has been coming to the English courses for forever and he teaches kick boxing so he is pretty fit and he always comes to church and has a really strong desire to do what is right. When we asked him if he would stop drinking coffee, his only real vice, he didn't even hesitate to say yes! And when we taught him about the Sabbath day, after the lesson as we were heading out, he told us "I didn't know we weren't supposed to buy stuff on Sunday but now I will buy everything on Saturday!" it was just cool to see how readily he is accepting everything he learns and embracing the gospel in his life! 

 

I've only ever been to Mission council with Sisters there, but it is good that we have their input and all on the sisters (from their exchanges and their views of things), so yeah I would say it is good that they are there. Girls are weird so it's good there are girls there who already understand so I don't have to worry about trying to think of things from a sister point of view or something weird like that.

 

The transfers are only 6 weeks here now so this is the last week of our transfers, 6 weeks goes by really fast!  I'll most likely be staying here in Varna, which is good, I like it here! So have an awesome week, I gave you all some pretty good ideas for stuff to do so I'll be following up on that next week to see how it all went! 

Love you! 

Elder Maxwell

We just worked and worked.

Things are going well here.  We didn't have a ton of time in our own area this week, but we were still able to have a really good week, which is nice.  It is hard to be an example when we don't have a ton of time in our own area but the Lord makes up for the time we spend in other areas. We had a couple days just packed full of lessons and we had a lot of success contacting so I am very glad. I was a little worried at the beginning of the week that we wouldn't be able to get much going but I guess I just got to trust a little bit more.

 

So this week on Monday, we had to travel in to Sofia for council meeting.  Tuesday, after that, we went out to Burgas to work with the Elders there and we were with them all of Wed.  I was hoping I'd get to see some of the members but we never ran into any of them.  It was good to be in the city again! It is really cool going on exchanges, I don't know what it is but we always seem to have a lot of success with them wherever we go.  I guess that is just another blessing to help uplift and encourage the Elders!

 

We finally got back to Varna Thursday morning and we just worked and worked to make up for all the time we missed and it turned out really well! Plus we have some really great missionaries here in Bulgaria and I am glad that I get to work with them and learn from them.  Overall, things are going really well, it's hot but not too hot, we have people to teach, we are finding more people out on the streets and we have a lot of members who are very willing to help us teach! 

 

Teaching is going well, we have a couple investigators with dates in Aug. one for the 17th and another for the 24th so hopefully we'll get a couple baptism weeks in a row. And actually this week, there will be a baptism from the Elders here and also from the Elders in Shumen ( a smaller city that comes into Varna for baptisms) so that will be good!!

 

Messenger bags aren't too bad mine is pretty small but it is good for my wallet and camera and planner, I got it for free from my trainer when he left so I can't complain! 

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love to you all! 

Elder Maxwell

You will have to try some shopska salata it's a very Bulgarian dish they love it here. It's basically cut up tomatoes and cucumbers and sirene (a crumbly white cheese kind of like feta but it only really exists here in Bulgaria) then a little bit of vinegar and oil, it's not too bad and great for in the summer!

The mission is going well, we are finding some cool people and our teaching pool is a lot better than it was when I first got here.  We have a few really cool investigators, a lot of very potential investigators and a couple with dates for baptism this next month!

 

The travels this week were good, Ruse is a very pretty city and the Elders there are super awesome so I really enjoyed working with them for the day. This week we have a lot of traveling, we are going to Sofia right after I finish writing.  We have to catch our bus (7 hours) and then we have mission council and then we are going out to Burgas to work with the Elders there (there is a new district leader who needs some training) then we will finally get back to Varna to start our week on Wed. night - so there will be a lot of traveling this week!  We travel basically with buses here, the trains have too many stops and are usually and hour or two longer, so we just use the busses.

 

Bulgaria is probably about the same size as New York, maybe even smaller. Mostly we are just here on the east side in our zone so the furthest city for exchanges is about 3 hours away which is a lot better than the 7 but still pretty long.

 

Here they grow tons of sunflowers out in the country, so when we travel, we go by huge fields just filled with sunflowers and they are very pretty and yellow! 

 

Our new apartment is very nice, although we never really have time to cook with our schedule so I haven't done too much.  I did make some banana bread once but that's about it, I haven't really had time to cook anything else special.

 

Oh yeah, and crazy story from this week, the other Elders here in Varna had a baptism and they had started filling up the font down in the lower floor of our building here then came up for district meeting.  Afterwards, they went down to check on it and the hose had come undone and the whole downstairs had gotten flooded!  We had a to help, for a few hours, pushing all the water into the bathroom so it could go down the drain and then mop everything up. It had only gotten to a like an inch, so not to much got ruined, but it took forever to get rid of all the water! So be careful and watch the font when you are filling it up!!
 

 

We keep busy, I am happy, my companion is cool and we get a long really well! 

I love you all! Have a awesome week! 

Elder Maxwell

We are still working hard!

So this week was pretty good, we had our zone conference and that went well, I always love zone conferences!

 

We are still working hard to find some new investigators we don't have a ton and a couple are progressing pretty slowly so we really need to find some new people! But the last few days we've met several pretty nice and potential people so we will see how it goes with them.

 

One cool experience from this week was while we were contacting, we stopped a little bit older man and his wife and while we were talking with them we found out they were going to help out with a free lunch for the needy that  a local church puts on every Saturday. We had been looking for opportunities to serve so I jumped on this one and offered our help, they had already done pretty much everything but he invited us over to meet some people and see their church. While we were there, a young man came up and said some not so nice words but the guy who had invited us calmed him down and so he stayed and talked with us and in the end we got his number and yesterday had a really good lesson with him!

 

We finally got our air conditioner fixed so now we aren't roasting but it still is pretty hot outside. I really like this city it is big which is good for having options in where to contact and the branch here is probably the strongest branch I have been in ( meaning they would be fine and still function well if the missionaries were taken out). 

Christian will be traveling from Varna to Ruse for exchanges this week.

This week we'll head up to Ruse for some exchanges and that will be fun.  It'll be my first out of city exchanges! We'll be traveling a lot this transfer because we have a lot of cities in our zone and to get to all of them at least once we will be traveling every week which is a little rough because our zone is pretty spread out so that's a lot of time on a bus, not my favorite but I'll do what I've got to do. 

 

Have a great week and congrats again on the mission call I am very excited for you Ben!!

Love you all,

Elder Maxwell

So yeah, Life is Good in Varna!

Varna is pretty awesome, the members here are amazing!  We have a much bigger branch here, which is a great blessing, it is pretty hard in the smaller branches.

 

We don't have a view of the sea just a bunch of annoying seagulls that nest outside our window and make a ridiculous amount of noise very early in the morning. It is pretty hot and a little humid so I'm a pretty sweaty Elder by the end of the day. Our air conditioner is also broken, it fried the day before I got here so I've been living in an oven all week, but they should be coming to fix it this week which is good because I'm not a huge fan of the heat.

 

We do a lot of walking when we contact, we only use the buses to get out to the further sides of the city for appointments, but it is good and a very pretty city. There are two other sets of missionaries here some sisters and elders.  I'm here with Elder Hoy as a zone leader, so I'll get to travel out to some other cities this transfer for exchanges, I'm excited to go to Burgas and see the members there again!

 

About my companion: he is from Canada (Edmonton), he has two younger sisters, he's a quarter Chinese.  He likes a lot of things: soccer, Canada, food, cool stuff. He doesn't like seagulls and I can't think of anything else he doesn't like.

 

We don't have a ton of investigators, but we are finding some cool people.  The members here are really helpful in teaching and we are working on getting them to invite their friends and such to things.

 

I think we'll have a great transfer, it is a bit of a change of pace to have a companion that also can speak Bulgarian and knows whats up and all.

So yeah, life is good in Varna!

I love you, have a great week!

Elder Maxwell