Family Reunion with Cousins

One week to go

It´s been a great week. We´ve worked hard, slept little, and really tried to do what the Lord wants. President Pack challenged the mission to talk to 25 people every day. Something that isn´t too hard, but it gets hard when it´s a Sunday night and nobody´s walking around. Well, Elder Lords and I decided that we are going to get this goal every day sin falta. We didn´t see much fruit from it this week. But, last night, we were with the Elders from Aviles and we had about two hours left. And we thought, "Let´s go for it." Between the four of us, we recieved 14 references. For a comparison, in the four days leading up to Sunday, we had recieved 4. It was a huge miracle and we had a lot of fun. 

Not sure why that last one sent by itself... But whatever. It´s been a great day. We had a 4th of July barbeque in the church and played some Uno and some soccer and some basketball. It´s been a great P-day. We also bought some gypsy pants. They look straight out of Aladdin. (pictures en camino)

Well, there´s nothing I can say in my last letter home that I haven´t already said. The church is true. The Atonement is real. The Book of Mormon is true. Joseph was a prophet. Christ lives - and speaks. Work hard, see blessings. The past two years have flown by faster than anyone could have ever told me. I´m not sure what to think about the future. It´s quite scary. Here, I know who I am. I know my purpose. The world will do its best to make me forget that or get confused. But, as Nefi says, "No importa. I know in whom I have trusted." Through Him, I can do it all. 

Anyways, I´ve got to go on an intercambio to Aviles and get to work. ¡hasta ahora!

Elder Maxfield

Testimony of Book of Mormon

Week 97 - 2 Weeks to go and a baptisms!

As for me, I'm doing great. Trying to leave it all on the track with

Elder Lords. He's a good companion. We had a baptism this last

Saturday, Enrique. A good man. His confirmation was on Sunday and he

cried and cried. He came up to me afterwards and said, "I forgot you

in my testimony, but don't worry, I didn't actually forget you. It's

just that I'm old. And sometimes I forget things." This last week we

also had a family home evening with a member of the District

Presidency and his family. They talked about prayer and we all shared

stories of how we had seen prayer change our lives. It was a really

spiritual meeting, and it was great because the recently baptised

member from the Ivory Coast was there. Helped me to once again realise

the need for the small simple things in our lives that bring about a

slow but mighty change of heart. I especially noted that difference

because earlier in the day we taught a missionary from another church,

a Mexican group called "la luz del mundo". (Interesting fellows. They

believe in a restoration as well and they have an Apostle. They also

go to church every day. And I thought 3 hours a week was bad). He

wanted to talk all about baptism and how and why and when. Which is

good - except when you have that discussion without prayer, without

the spirit of the Lord. I thought, "Anything you learn won't benefit

you at all!" A scripture came to mind, not sure where it came from,

"With all thy getting, get understanding". He wasn't going to get it

without prayer.

Anyways. We went to the Dinosaur Museum of Asturias today. Pretty

cool. Except they thought it would be appropriate necessary to show

how dinosaurs would have... Well, made more dinosaurs. So the last

exhibit, the finale, was two massive skeletal T-Rexes with an

explanatory plaque. Only in Spain would that be ok.  There was also a

picture on the wall that said, "Es posible que los dinosaurios

murieron gracias a que Noé no les llevó en su Arca. Pero estas

creencias están sin evidencia."

Funny people. Working hard, it'll be fun to see you.

Elder Maxfield

Week 96 1/2 - Leaving it on track

And as for the plan, it will work - I've talked to my office

companions and it'll be just fine to have the courier come there. They

should be there all day Wednesday, and as long as he doesn't ask for

any money it'll be just fine. I'll do my best to get it all in one

maleta but it'll be tough unless I leave a lot of stuff behind.

As for me, I'm doing great. Trying to leave it all on the track with

Elder Lords. He's a good companion. We had a baptism this last

Saturday, Enrique. A good man. His confirmation was on Sunday and he

cried and cried. He came up to me afterwards and said, "I forgot you

in my testimony, but don't worry, I didn't actually forget you. It's

just that I'm old. And sometimes I forget things." This last week we

also had a family home evening with a member of the District

Presidency and his family. They talked about prayer and we all shared

stories of how we had seen prayer change our lives. It was a really

spiritual meeting, and it was great because the recently baptised

member from the Ivory Coast was there. Helped me to once again realise

the need for the small simple things in our lives that bring about a

slow but mighty change of heart. I especially noted that difference

because earlier in the day we taught a missionary from another church,

a Mexican group called "la luz del mundo". (Interesting fellows. They

believe in a restoration as well and they have an Apostle. They also

go to church every day. And I thought 3 hours a week was bad). He

wanted to talk all about baptism and how and why and when. Which is

good - except when you have that discussion without prayer, without

the spirit of the Lord. I thought, "Anything you learn won't benefit

you at all!" A scripture came to mind, not sure where it came from,

"With all thy getting, get understanding". He wasn't going to get it

without prayer.

Anyways. We went to the Dinosaur Museum of Asturias today. Pretty

cool. Except they thought it would be appropriate necessary to show

how dinosaurs would have... Well, made more dinosaurs. So the last

exhibit, the finale, was two massive skeletal T-Rexes with an

explanatory plaque. Only in Spain would that be ok.  There was also a

picture on the wall that said, "Es posible que los dinosaurios

murieron gracias a que Noé no les llevó en su Arca. Pero estas

creencias están sin evidencia."

Funny people. Working hard, it'll be fun to see you.

Elder Maxfield

Week 96 - The work goes forward

Well, it´s been a great week. I really love my new companion. He´ll be the companion I spend the shortest amount of time with - only the next three weeks - but he is a really good missionary. He is a hard worker and he relies on the Spirit. A really good friend, and an excellent person to finish the mission with. 

We´ve got a lot of work as well. We´re teaching a funny old Spanish man named Enrique. He´s got no teeth and just wants to come to church and belive in Jesus. We´ve taught him everything and it looks like he´ll get baptized this coming Saturday. He´s a little deaf, but he loves coming to church and he loves reading the book of mormon. I´ll send pictures next Monday.

My personal studies have been going really well recently. I´ve been focusing on the Book of Mormon and I notice how with every page I feel my tesimony growing - of the Savior, of the Restoration, of Joseph Smith, of everything. It really is the keystone. We had a lesson with some interesting folks this week - missionaries from another church (that also believes in a restoration with Apostles) and a very, very evangelical woman who told us that women should be apostles and who showed us a video of her "alabanzas" at church, with maracas and the apostle in a short skirt leading a song that says "donde hay el espiritiu de dios, allí hay paz y libertad". Anywho. The two of them got into a short argument about whether or not the bible said the following:

1. We MUSTgo to church every day (Acts 5:42)

2. Churches MUST have apostles (Eph. 4:11)

3. Churches MUST have musical instruments.

And as they talked, I realized something that LeGrand richards wrote a long time ago - we don´t do anything in the church because the bible says so - We do it because a living Prophet says so. If all the bibles were burned and nobody in living memory knew what they said, we would still be doing the EXACT SAME THING. And that was they key that the Book of Mormon helps us realize. Like I said, good studies.

We also had a great Ward Council meeting. My companion said that many times it´s just a complaining and calendaring session -  but we changed that. We took as much time as we could to not complain nor talk about activities, but to discuss people. It went great. We recieved names and ideas to help people with their FHE and where to go to get references from the members. We´re doing a lot of stuff, and I´m excited. The work is going forward!

Elder Maxfield

Week 95 - Surprise Transfer

This last week was pretty darn normal. Office work, training Elder Gustafson how to do my job, etc.

During office meeting President made a cryptic remark - although he´s mentioned many times that he doesn´t want me to finish in the office, he´s also told me that that´s probably what´ll happen. But then, on Wednesday, he said that he might have to send me out because a missionary was having a hard time adjusting. They didn´t want him to go home, but he send himself home. Although I really wanted to get out and work (because Elder Gustafson has already taken my whole job) I didn´t want to hope it happened because that would mean somebody else had to go home. And the mission has meant the world for me - I couldn´t actively look for somebody else to leave. 

But then - this missionary decided to stay. And ANOTHER missionary did something stupid and went home. So President called me into his office and said, "Elder Maxfield, I need you to go out of the office." At this point I was so excited - finish my last four weeks doing more than office work! And then, President said, "We´re going to send you to Gijón." GIJÓN!! For those of you who know your Spanish geography (Squid) that´s about 20m away from OVIEDO. WHERE I SERVED. Yes, I am free to hoe to the end of the row and give these last four weeks my all in a place that I already know and love. I think the Lord has blessed me a lot with this opportunity. I am so excited and I´m certainly not going to let it go to waste. Not that I´ve wasted my mission, but this is certainly going to be more fulfilling than the office. I´ll be able to finish strong here. I am so excited. My companion is Elder Lords, an excellent missionary from Idaho. It was his companion that did the stupid thing, so I´m hoping that we can get some work done. 

It was a bummer to leave the members and missionaries in San Sebastián, but this is an opportunity that I never could have expected. I feel so blessed and so lucky. 

So it wasn´t that normal of a week at all :)

It´s kinda hard to express how I feel right now. I had almost resigned myself to not getting much done these last weeks. Sure, I was going to work and not die - but I was already doing a bunch of sitting around while my companions worked with not much to do. I kinda felt que sobraba yo. Not sure how to say that. I was certain I was going to finish normalito, just keeping things going and slowly edging myself out. It was going to be hard to not die. Every day you were getting closer (geographically and time-ly) and I was losing responsibilities. Not exactly hard, but I want to finish on the right trajectory.

It´s like the Lord said, "I have something else planned for you. Now do your best, get all the gas out, because you still had something left. This will be your last chance to do missionary work without a serious distraction. You´ve done well until now - but this is my blessing to you to leave it all on the track. It´s going to be hard to not give up, because this job will be harder than the past and you´ve got an expiration date that is closer than ever. But I need you to put your heart in it and give it your all, this one last time. Now GO."

I am so excited. So, more info on ASTURIAS in the coming weeks.

Elder Maxfield

P.S. I ordered the ECON books. I sure hope they show up before you do. Not sure there´s anymore administrative tasks. How many maletas are we sending home vía sending them and not carrying them? One or two? How much stuff do I have to ditch?