Elder Max Kimball: Atlanta Georgia Mission: Big update on Elder Kimball

July 7, 2014

This week was kind of crazy. On Tuesday our district leader was emergency transferred to take an elders spot that got sent home. So I became the district leader on Tuesday. We were in a threesome for 2 days because the old district leaders companion had to come with us. Then his new companion got here who got reassigned here from the West Indies mission because he got sick there. So all of that happened and also my companion was in more pain this week then he has been so he was kind of out of it. We did have a couple good lessons though and R is still getting baptized on Saturday. We expect a lot of people to be there because his wife has been a member of that ward for a long time so she knows a lot of people. It should be good. She bore her testimony on Sunday and it was really nice. After he gets baptized though I'm not sure who's going to be up next since we haven't been able to find that much. We were on exchanges with the AP's on Saturday and found a family of four that we are meeting with again tonight so hopefully they will be willing to accept a baptismal date. Thats about it. Have a great week.

Are you busier as a district leader? Not really a whole lot. I have more conference calls and meetings. and I have to lead district meetings on Tuesdays. I also have to go on exchanges with the other elders in my district. We will take lots of pics at the baptism. They have to wait a year to go to the temple.
I would like to come back next summer. There are tons of people that said we could stay with them when we come back. When do you think we would do it? I will let you know when I get my release date. I'm pretty sure I'll be home in December.

July 14, 2014

So this week was pretty much all focused on making sure R got baptized. Which he did. We were worried that they were just going to forget about it because they are so old, so we visited them everyday to make sure they were still ready for it. Everything went very smoothly on Saturday and it was a really good baptism with lots of people. They made it to church without a problem on Sunday and he got confirmed. Not sure what we are going to do next. We don't really have anybody else promising lined up. Hopefully Elder Provstgaard feels good this week because we need to spend a good amount of time tracting so we can have some people to teach. Overall a great week because we got to have a baptism.

What is the best thing about your companion? Best thing probably is that he is really funny and great at talking to people which is good when we are out finding. What have you learned? A new thing I have learned is probably how to read the scriptures better and get more from them. What has been your biggest blessing while on your mission? Biggest blessing, I don't know if i can think of a specific one. Just all the many things that I have learned put together.

Just some random things we emailed...

hello. for dinner we had rice with beans and sausage in it. i don't really know what to call it. we just shared a scripture and elder provstgaard played the ukulele. not really anybody lined up as of right now. thats an interesting experience with the Jehovahs witnesses. always good to be nice to people no matter what and if they are going to share something with you you can always share something with them. yes alma 26 is a good chapter. i just finished reading jesus the christ for the second time. pretty good book. sounds like a fun week. yeah i did rapell of the waterfall. it was pretty fun. i think i have hiked up higher. i don't remember. maybe there wasnt anything very exciting up there.

Elders Provstgaard and Kimball

July 21, 2014

Hello. Our week was not that great, didnt get out very much. I don't really have anything to write in another email. He still has lots of pain (companion). Should be better after this week though. On Thursday he goes to the hospital to get a nerve block epidural. Last time he had that he felt great afterwards. I liked the package, thank you very much.

I really don't know what you should send her. She said send stuff that you like to eat. (Max asked me to send food that was good for you to his friend Alexa that is in the MTC)

Bear lake looks really fun. I'm excited for jackson hole next year. I do remember that I didn't like it there that much because you couldn't wakeboard or ski because of the waves. That's a crazy story about dad. Not very smart. That's no good about the car doing that. Whats wrong with it?

Sounds like a crazy flight to florida, and dad has to do it with all the kids. I got all the pictures, looks fun. I mailed the kids letters this morning.

July 28, 2014

This week was a pretty good week. First, Elder Provstgaard went to the hospital on Thursday and is all fixed up now, so he is good to go. Today was the day to get transfer calls and we haven't heard anything so we think we are staying here and staying together. So we will be able to have a very productive transfer coming up. This week we had a miracle because we were able to find 3 new investigators. The day before we went to the hospital we decided that we would go out and tract a little before we had dinner. We decided on a place to go and started. We knocked one door and the guy wasn't interested. The next door we met a lady named L. The first thing she said was she believed God and Jesus were not the same people and we said we agreed. That is the first person I have met that did not believe in the trinity since I have been in Georgia. She then talked about how she is looking for a church that teaches what she believes for not only her and her kids but her whole extended family that lives in the same neighborhood. They said they were really busy with school starting at the beginning of August but next Sunday we should have all of them at church. So that was pretty exciting. Next week we are going out and finding tons of new people so it should be good. That's about it hope everybody is doing well and has a great week.

Hey mom this week went alright. I'll write another emailabout it. It is very hot here. I looked at the weather and I think its hotter here than in Destin. I do remember going to church there. That's cool they made it a ward. Funny that you are having the missionaries over. I guess get them while you can since you can't in utah. What mission is that in? Maybe they know mason? That flight does not sound fun. Thanks for sending the package to Alexa, I hope she likes it too. When is syd officially moving out? I'll email Sydney and see how shes doing.

Aug. 4, 2014

Transferred to downtown Atlanta with a new companion Elder Smith

I think it will be pretty safe to send packages. You most definitely flew over my apt when flying into Atlanta. Max lives a mile from the airport. So when we flew into ATL on our way to Florida we were so close to him!

The last Elders did live in a pretty bad place with lots of gun shots. Their neighbor was a big drug dealer. But they moved like 6 months ago to a different place that's not too bad. It smells really weird, that's about it.

Yep I'm excited to have you guys visit. Sometimes I look around at the train station and I cant see a single other white person. Do you have any crazy stories? Nothing too exciting yet. We saw a guy wearing a crown and a cape on the train today. A recent convert we are pretty sure was a little drunk bore his testimony. The ward is supportive though. Everyone wants to have their friends have the gospel, which is pretty cool. A lot more missionary minded then the more wealthy wards. My comp has been here for 8 months, so I will probably only be with him for one transfer. How do you find your way around? We have a gps and maps and my companion has it all memorized.

Atlanta is pretty crazy. Lots of crazy people out walking, and on the buses and trains. My companion is cool, hes been out for about a year. The ward itself is quite the place, especially my first day being fast Sunday. Lots of recent converts bearing their testimonies.
I literally live 1 minute from the airport. There are planes flying over us all day.
The beach looks really nice (in Florida). Glad the missionaries were fun. Did you find out what mission they are from?

Aug. 11, 2014

Alright so the area I am in now is doing great. We have two baptisms scheduled for this upcoming Saturday and we are finding more people all the time. It seems like everytime we are walking or get on Marta we find a new investigator. Its super crazy hot and humid, but its worth it to be outside to talk to all these people. One of the people we are baptizing is named R. His wife has been a member since 1993 and she was kind of less active. He is now being baptized, and she is an awesome member now that comes out with us to teach all her friends in the neighborhood.

The other lady is named S. She is from a nicer place in our area. Her and her husband have lots of member friends and they finally deciced to investigate. S is ready, her husband is taking a little longer but he should be getting baptized here in the next couple weeks. Things are going great with them. Both were at church on Sunday plus a couple other people. There are too many new people to talk about, I don't have time. We have one more lady on date named T that is super excited to get baptized, she just has to stop smoking.

Things are going great and I'm excited to be here. I talked to President on the phone the other day and he said I will probably stay here until the end. Which is fine with me. Well thats about it talk to you next week.

The zone leaders found me a bike. If they didn't President Harding said it was his personal mission to find me a bike. haha. We actually get fed more here from people with less income than I did in my last area. There are some good places to eat right by us. We just don't have that much money. I'm about out of time.

Our zone conference is tomorrow. My companion is Elder mcdonald-smith. There is a lot to do here. There is a baptism just about every week if not 2 or 3. What is your sacrament meeting like? There are some amens, also more conversation between the person on the stand and the audience. The music is not that much more exciting. We had a ward talent show on Saturday though. That was pretty amusing. The train is really easy, it's all the bus routes that are hard. I hear from connor a lot more than mason. but it does sound like they are both doing good.

Hello. Im now in the atl west zone, which is the opposite end of the stake that I was in at the beginning of the mission. I talked to president about my release date. Dec. 16 or 17 sounds pretty official. He is going to get back to me soon. But I will for sure be back that week before Christmas. Sounds like you had a good week and a good birthday. School starts so early here. It has already been going for a week for some kids, and other schools started today. This has been a fast summer.
Our ward has about 150-200 in attendance, but almost 1000 on the ward roster. Pretty crazy though. A lady had a seizure yesterday because she got so worked up about her car being broken into during sacrament and her whole ignition system being ripped out. Pretty wild.
Today for pday we are just going to take a nap. We had a really busy pday last week because it takes so long to get anywhere. Our district has 4 sets of elders and 2 sets of sisters and a senior couple, all in our ward. Our mission just got a ton of people from Africa because of the Ebola thing, so we have one more companionship than we usually do.

August 18, 2014

This week was pretty awesome. We weren't able to find anybody new to teach this week but for sure the best part was our two baptisms on Saturday. It was pretty amazing and really well attended. R had come a long way to be baptized. He was pretty much an alcoholic about 8 months ago when Elder Smith met him and he is now baptized and a priest in the aaronic priesthood which is pretty cool. Something that was also really cool was after the baptism we went out to lunch with S and her husband. We got the chance to talk to her husband, who has been taking the lessons in south Carolina where he works, and he said he just needs to wait till his schedule settles down and then he will set his own baptismal date. They are also looking at this really nice house on the same street as ours, and they really want to have missionaries live there if they get it. So that would get us out of our apartment.

This week we had a mission goal of every companionship having 4 investigators at church. We had 5 and were one of 19 companionship's that hit the goal in the mission. That was pretty cool. Other than that not too much else. Elder Smith is getting shoulder surgery on Tuesday because he got hit by a car on his bike (hearing this does not make me feel good) a while ago. So not sure what next week is going to be like. He is going to be on medication and in a sling for 6 weeks so it should be interesting.

Yeah I miss swimming. That's the first thing I want to do, after I eat some cafe rio and betos. My companion is from south london. He wasn't too surprised about being called to the US. Yeah i like him. We are just from different cultures so that's hard sometimes.

Is it hard to just go up to people and talk to them? No it's not too hard. Alot of the time people just come talk to us. Yep whenever I see another white person I think what the heck are they doing here.

Do you still tract during the week? Nope we don't tract at all during the week. There are so many people on the street. Yeah S was the one that sent you pictures.
I forgot to tell you I got my official release date. its dec 17. Did you find a bike? The zone leaders got me a bike, but then we gave ours to the other elders in our district since smtih wouldn't be able to ride them starting tuesday because of his surgery.

Downtown Atlanta is a pretty coveted place to be. Everybody wants to come here. Yeah i know a couple people that have been in Alabama.

Good job to Sydney. She did better than I did in the scholarship business. There's not going to be anybody home. Yep karlee just told me she saw you guys. Elder barnes is in our stake, but different zones because the stake is so big, but our zones combine for zone meeting so I see him once a month here.

Nice haircut. Thanks im going to have to find my own barber when i get home.

I'm not sure what Elder tshuma does. he said he was just going to work to save up for school. He wasn't sure whether or not he would come back here. Alexa is doing good from what i hear. Just learning how to speak german which doesn't sound fun.

I will get school figured out. Karlee said she would do it for me since she knows the uvu system pretty good. I had a dream a while ago I came home but i wouldnt let you guys pick me up at the airport and i just took a taxi home and you got really mad.

jacks crazy on the big slide. Since when do they let you go down head first?