Elder Max Kimball: Atlanta Georgia Mission: Work, work, work and shaking the hand of an Apostle

October 28, 2013

Hello there. Stuff in Thomaston has slowed way down. I don't know what is happening but apparently it is mission wide. The amount of new investigators and people with baptismal dates is trending downwards. I don't know if it is the time of the year or something but it's really strange.
We got dropped this week by G after she texted us and told us not to come by and then when we walked by her house there was a note on her door that I believe was specifically for us because it said that nobody should knock on the door unless they had an appointment to speak with someone. It was really weird. We still talk to her boyfriend M but he got shot 5 times like 20 years ago and is stuck in a wheelchair and has a hard time understanding us. We are not sure what to do with him.
We did get to get in contact with a kid named D. His mom is a recent convert but she drives a truck so we never see her. Elder Summers was teaching him back in July but hadn't taught him since. We got in contact with him and set a baptismal date for November 16. He's only 14 but he's really mature and I think he will follow through with it.
Another cool thing happened with our investigator C. I think I told you about how she was very interested but impossible to teach because of her crazy work schedule. Well because of a mix up with her schedule she didn't go into work and they got upset and fired her. And then when they found out that it wasn't her fault they offered her her job back, but she said she didn't want it. So she lost her job, but overall I think it was meant to be. For right now she is open to being taught whenever and she's looking for jobs that won't have such crazy hours. We stopped by last night and talked to her and she was very excited for us to come back, and she had also talked to her little sister and she is interested in coming to church as well. So I think some exciting thing should be happening with them.
The highlight of the week was definitely getting to see Elder Oaks on Saturday. We had the Georgia Atlanta Mission and the Georgia Atlanta North Mission there so there was a ton of missionaries. So about 550 of us all got to go and shake his hand. There were also 4 Seventy's there and Elder Suarez who is in the Presidency of the Seventy. Both mission presidents and their wives spoke and then Elder Suarez and his wife spoke. Then Elder Oaks and his wife. Elder Oaks talk was way cool. He only had about 45 minutes to speak but it was still good. He got up and said, "don't listen to anything that I say but listen to what the spirit has to say." He then told us that he had 6 hours of material ready but he was just going to use the spirit to discern what people in our specific audience needed to hear. It was way cool.
(Is this my son saying a talk was "way cool"....love missionary work!)

Elder Kimball on his way to Elder Oaks conference.

All of the Georgia Atlanta Missionaries! Max is on the first row of Elders behind the Sisters. 6th from the right.

(Part of Max's letter to me) Oct 28.

We had a pretty good week. The weather here is awesome. It's so nice. A lot of the leaves are changing. Most of the dirt around here is red, I don't really know why.
I got the package. It really did come in two days. I especially liked the pumpkin bars, I had actually just been thinking about them and then I got them in the mail so that was good.
That's so cool that Anthony got his call. I guess he's speaking spanish. There are a couple elders here from the Dominican Republic that I'm friends with that are really cool.
I did get to shake Elder Oaks hand on Saturday though so I might have you beat. (I got to meet Sheri Dew and shake her hand at a fireside).
I'll talk about Ginger and Elder Oaks in my other email.

We kind of do both things when it comes to dinner. Sometimes we make our own, other times we cook together. We are supposed to have monthly inspections, but since we are in the middle of nowhere no one comes down here, so we haven't had one since I have been here.

By the way I was just on lds.org and read the article about Kirtland and there is a picture of bro. Haymond, I don't know if you have seen it yet. Also any pictures you see in articles about missionary work could be from my mission because they came and did a photo shoot here. (they were in the October Ensign and New Era) I saw some of people I know just a minute ago (on LDS.org). Anyway I'll write the weekly email now.

November 4, 2013

This week was pretty similar to last week as far as what happened. We have 3 solid investigators, but for some reason they cannot keep appointments. All three of them know people in the ward so we have people ready to teach with us and fellowship them, but they always skip appointments. I feel like I planned my time better when I was 13 than these people do that have jobs and kids and stuff. They kind of just jump from one thing to the next and never know what they are going to be doing the next day. It's really hard to plan to see people that don't really have a plan to do anything. But we are working with them as much as we can to get them to be more consistent.
Our most promising investigator, and the only one with a baptismal date is D. He is in a tough situation and we are not sure how to help them out. His mom is a recent convert but she drives a truck and is always on the road. So he lives with his little sister and older sister who is only 17 but has a 22 year old boyfriend that lives at the house. That is the only way it is legal for T, the recent convert, to even leave the kids at home. She doesn't like the boyfriend but if he leaves she doesn't know what to do with her kids. So since D doesn't have any adults with him ever, he kind of just does whatever he wants, which makes it hard to get him to keep appointments and come to church and stuff like that. But we are going to keep working with him and hopefully can get him baptized before Elder Summers goes home.

(part of Max's letter to me) Nov 4

For Halloween we had a trunk or treat and a dessert contest 2 weeks ago so that was fun. There was no trick or treating or dressing up for us on Halloween (the boys couldn't understand why Max was not dressing up and trick or treating). We worked until it got dark and then a guy in our ward came to our apartment and cooked dinner for us. We did carve pumpkins last p day though. Lots of members gave us candy and stuff . And everybody in our apartment got packages from their parents so we have been eating a lot of junk. I was really glad it was fast Sunday yesterday.
Everything is going ok. Actually this sunday we were talking to the sister missionaries about how they always get fed way more than we do, which happens in every ward for some reason, so they stood up in relief society and told everybody to feed us more, and them not as much so that was nice of them.
Clothes are ok. I could use a couple cardigan sweaters. Maybe like a blue and a gray one. (Max asking for a cardigan sweater....wow! He didn't even tell me it had to say Northface or RVCA on it). its getting pretty cold once the sun goes down. I can't really think of anything else right now. Elder summers flies home the 21 of november. I'm sure he would love to see you at his homecoming.

Store bought boxed mac and cheese is a staple for everybody. If you go to someones house you are almost guaranteed to eat that. So you don't have feel bad when you feed it to the kids for dinner because everybody in Georgia does that.