Finding times to meet...

Hey, so this will be really quick because me and my companion, well really just him, went golfing today and we got stuck behind some old slow golfers so it took a little longer than we thought. I just drove the cart and handed him clubs and I may have hit a couple balls at the driving range but golfing isn't really my sport. We went to this golf club called Thracian Cliffs it was way pretty and a very nice course so I got a lot of sweet pictures! 

 

So from this last week, our investigator was still out in a village helping his friend who has a sick father so he wasn't able to get baptized so we will see when he gets back into town. We found a couple new, pretty cool people this week.  One met with the missionaries a few years ago and showed up to church before we could even schedule a lesson with him! It's weird because recently it's been pretty easy to get our investigators to come to church they all love it but finding times to meet with them during the week has been near impossible! But overall it's been really good.

 

This last week for meals, (when we were in town) we had a chicken week and did a different kind of chicken every night from all sorts of cultures. We had fried chicken and apricot chicken and chicken fajitas and a chicken roast! So my stomach has been very satisfied this week! Oh and also last P-day me and my companion went suit shopping and I found a nice dark grey one for a good price so I got it, it's a nice European style suit not a super slim fit but it is a good one I will have to try and get some pictures to you all! I will make a note to be sure and do that next week! 

This week we met some guys who are sailors from Manila, Philippines and we talked with them for a little bit.  One of them was a member, he showed us his CTR ring and all and I told them my dad works there pretty often and they all knew the Sutherland call center so I am guessing that it must be pretty big there. They all were very nice and it was cool that one was a member! 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Maxwell

It went by way too fast!

We have been doing a lot of traveling in the last two weeks.  I've had about 30 or more hours on a bus, so that is quite a bit but this week I've only got a few more hours, over to Ruse and back for exchanges.

This week was good, we were in Sofia at the beginning of the week then we spent a day in Veliko Turnovo again, it's a very pretty city.  Elder Measom and I go on runs, when we go on exchanges there, (for our workouts) so we can get pictures of the city.  I'll have to send some soon, I forgot my camera today.

 

Things are going well with our investigators, most of them were pretty busy again this week so we didn't get a ton of meetings with them but it was still good. We might have a baptism this weekend, it depends on if our investigator is back in town, he is out in a village helping a friend that is sick, but he is ready - he's just got to be here!  We haven't got any families that we are teaching at the moment but we have a few younger, clean, impressive guys we are working with but we are doing our best to find some families! 

 

Other exciting news, the branch president got married this weekend to one of the members so we have a new young solid couple in the branch! 

So, my mission President and his wife are amazing! They are from St. George Utah, or at least that is where they were living. They've got 4 sons and basically they are just incredible examples and great teachers. Plus they are such loving and kind people I am very grateful for them and everything they do!

 

Not too much new or exciting this week, it went by way too fast! But I hope all of you have a great week and that everything goes well! 

Love you,

Elder Maxwell

The people are just so incredible!

This week was good, we had a training meeting for all of the leaders in the mission, so there was a lot of us there.  It was all the way in Sofia so we lost some time to travel but it was really good and I learned lot.  Plus, they had the elders from Turkey skyped in because they all are training.  After the meeting Sister Wilstead let us talk to them for a little bit so I got to talk with Elder Bennion for a little bit!

 

Also, that one picture I sent you of the family I had been teaching in my last area, the grandmother and the grandson (the two in-between Elder Taylor and me in the pic) got baptized this last week and they are still working with a few of them in the family! I wasn't able to go to the baptism because it was all the way over in Blagoevgrad but I called them that night and got to talk with them for a little bit! It made my day when they were passing the phone to each other and every single one asked when I was going to come, I wish I could go so bad, maybe sometime though I will have the opportunity. 

We did a lot of finding this week, all of our investigators were really busy so we didn't get many lessons.  We were out on the streets a lot, but it went well, we talked with a ton of people! There was one guy that either us or the other elders had talked to last month and he came to church out of the blue and after sacrament meeting I went and talked to him and he had really liked it. He told me he had two questions: Where he could get a Book of Mormon? and Where he could get a hymn book? (he sings in a choir and really liked the hymns!). So we set up a lesson with him that afternoon and it was incredible, he probably is one of the most prepared people I have ever met out here on my mission! So I am excited to meet with him again this week!

 

We also had exchanges in Burgas and this time we ran into a few of the members so I was able to say hi to them and talk with them for a little bit, they are doing really well down there.  The branch president is incredible and the members are awesome, I would definitely serve there again.  I would probably serve in all of the cities I have been again - the people are just so incredible! 

This week we have mission council so we have to go back into Sofia and we have exchanges in Veliko Turnovo so we've got a bit of traveling again but we got to do what we got to do and as long as we work hard we will be blessed with success!

 

I really enjoy working with Elder Measom, he is a super missionary and we get along really well.  He probably is among one of my favorite companions, he is pretty similar to me and we are able to joke with each other a lot, it is a lot of fun and we work and teach really well together! 

 

So things are good and I am enjoying serving here in Bulgaria. Have a great week! 

Love you! 

Elder Maxwell 

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