It's All Good - Week #15

All righty everybody, welcome back to my weekly e-mail. This week was especially great because of Christmas time!! Christmas time is awesome. I love it so much!

Anyway lets jump right into my week

so Tuesday me and mc-cheesy went down to tell city for district council and for a fun little exchange. for some reason mc-cheesy decided that this exchange was just going to be all 4 elders working together. It ended up being super dope. We did service for a food bank, and met some amazing people. Also we came out of it with sooooooo much food. They were closing up for the Christmas week so somethings like milk had to go, so we ended up with more groceries then we bought on Monday. Then we headed over and worked on a farm for like 4 hours. It was awesome. They had 2 massive bulls, and 3 llamas, and so many goats. So i took a couple pictures with the llamas and Michal Jordan. Then after that we went out and gave this amazing family a blessing. Their house was the coziest thing I have ever seen. Plus they made us grilled cheese sandwiches. I felt bad, but I downed them soooo fast. Everyone else was basically finished with their first one and I was finished with my 3rd one. Then we had a lesson with brother Lofgren. He gave me this recliner and put the massage feature on, man oh man, I was really close to falling asleep, but i hung in there. Then we drove home and got some cookies from the LeClair girls so that was exciting!

Wednesday was solid, these emails get decently long so it wasn't anything special. We had dinner with the Hughster. Her daughter was in town so we got to meet her. 

Thursday was kinda an interesting day because it was Christmas eve. Pres basically said it was another p-day so we had 3 p-days this week. We went shopping for any Christmas sales but didn't find much. At the end of the night we also went over to the Scotts for 4 hours. This is where we had a traveling Christmas dinner. (basically just things joseph and Mary would have eaten back then) except we had a whole bunch of stuff they wouldn't have had, like BBQ Deer. We also learned how to play the game of mahjong. Let me tell you, i could write a whole email just on mahjong. The actual game is so much fun!! Me and Tristan took many a dub. Everybody said we cheated, but that's besides the point. Afterwards we had a Christmas devotional and that was ok. 

CHRISTMAS BABY!!! I love Christmas, just the whole season of celebrating Christ's birth is amazing!! I'm grateful for all the people who thought of me this Christmas season!! anyway, we went over at 6:30 sharp to the Scotts house and we didn't leave until 7. We brought all of our packages and opened them there. You already know for 3/4 of the time we were there, we played mahjong. It's the freaking best. Another great part, was that I got to talk to my cute family!! They are awesome!! So we hung out at the Scotts all day, which was an amazing blessing I cant thank them enough. We played lots of games, like Tenzi, Nertz, upside drawn, chameleon, and of course mahjong. Monica Scott is the best and worst person to play any game with. It was a great time and I'm super grateful for the opportunity to know that family. 

Saturday was the post Christmas sads man. You get all hype and happy for Christmas and then its like get out there and work, which we did, but my mojo was lost. I got it back don't worry but twas a rough hour or two. We drove an hour and a half to Salem for a leadership council, and I'm convinced half of the district leaders are complete buffoons' but that's besides the point. It was a solid meeting, and there were some good people there which made it solid. I was still on my mahjong high, so now the zls, and sister lance want me to teach them how to play haha. On the drive back our Bluetooth gave up and so i wasn't hanging in there very well. i was a really bad co-driver. Undine and BunBun gave me a little bit more energy towards the end.

Sunday was ok. Nothing to special, just contacting. We did get to talk with Colin, and he's giving us his couch!!!! How nice. I'm really gonna miss him, but Florida is getting a great man, and they will be blessed. 

Sister Scott talked on Sunday and shared a story. When the Kellys moved into Jasper the Scotts invited them over for dinner. They invite the missionaries over every Sunday and retire to the living room for a spiritual thought after dinner. One of the youngest Kelly's, about 6 at the time, was crawling around. Her head was the perfect height to keep hitting the coffee table edge. She Kept trying to bump her head over and over again on the table. Every time she would try, brother Kelly would put his hand in between the table and his daughter. Eventually after numerous attempts he picked her up and told her, "You keep making very poor decisions." It was kinda funny, but it got me thinking. How many times in my life has heavenly father put his hand in front of me. How many times has he picked me up and told me "You keep making very poor decisions?" How many times have I tried to make a poor decision over and over again, only to be stopped by my loving heavenly father. He understands every choice that i make and leads me onto a path of love and kindness. I can choose to follow the path set for me, or try and keep bumping my head on the table. That choice is everything. He loves me enough to keep putting his hand in front of me, no matter how many times I try and bump my head. I am so grateful for that eternal love.

Love you guys, thanks again for all the Christmas wishes!!! Shoutout to Landon, he goes through the temple tomorrow I think. I'm excited for another brother to take another step, that next step on that path. Love you man!! Love you all!!

Te amo!!

-Max