Week 8, Sept 29

Telde is still the best place to be. These people have lots of things
going for them:

1. Everybody walks everywhere. Cars are required to stop anytime they
see a pedestrian, regardless of if there´s a crosswalk (apparently
it´s the law). The whole city/town is super pedestrian-friendly and
there´s always someone to contact.

2. There´s this stuff called "goffio" that´s just a canary islands
thing. It´s like ground up corn and other stuff that you mix into warm
or cold milk with a little brown sugar. And man is it good! Can´t
really describe what it tastes like... Suffice it to say I bought a
ton of extra milk this week because it is fantastic. There´s a saying
when something is REALLY Canarian - "Canario como el Goffio" - and if
you respond to that by saying how much you love Goffio, you have
instantly made a new best friend, despite my terrible Spanish.

3. The Medio-Dia. It´s really nice because we just have one meal
besides breakfast (not sure how healthy that is) and we use the other
time to clean, study, plan, and occassionally Elder Dyer takes a nap.
(He´s been a little under the weather and tired and stuff. I told him
to drink orange juice and not touch me.)

4. There are beautiful parks EVERYWHERE.

5. Dealing in coins and sometimes cash - pretty much all transactions
can be preformed with change alone, so I feel like a pirate with all
my gold.

We have had so many awesome experiences. Since I last emailed, we got
a new investigator named Carolina. She showed up to English class with
her member friend, and she liked reading out of the LdM (because we do
a spiritual thought at the end of each class) and so we scheduled a
day to talk about religion and stuff. Since she loved the LdM - we
asked her to read Mosiah 2 and she read 6 chapters after that as well
- we showed her how it testified of Christ and how it could lead us to
him. When we asked that after she gained a testimony through the holy
ghost if she would get baptized - She said yes! We have a baptismal
service planned for 3 saturdays straight in October. How cool is that?
    The Spanish (here they prefer to be called Canario) do not belive
in a lot of things. The most important is peanut butter. Where it does
exist, it is not peanut butter - it is something that smells like
peanuts but without any taste (The peanut is an important ingredient.)
The second would be going to church on a regular basis - Pretty much
everyone says they belive but "no practicante." They also don´t belive
that smoking is bad for your body or that people should dress normally
in public - Sometimes it seems like a goal to show as much of your
body as possible without getting arrested. And that´s not just
immodestly dressed women - Old men wander the streets wearing short
shorts and that is all. Babylon, the missionaries call it.
    My district is super cool. It consists of me, my companion, our
District leader Elder Thunell, and one of the Zone Leaders Elder
Sarango (no English). Usually Zone leaders are a companionship, but
our zone is 5 different islands so the two islands with the most
missionaries have one zone leader each. We also have a Senior couple
on the island. I don´t see them a whole lot except for District
Meeting when Sister Larsen cooks us American food. Best meeting ever.
I haven´t tried anything beyond eggs yet.
   Spiritual thought for the week - Obedience. Missionaries always try
to do ANYTHING that will bring the spirit, because they know that the
spirit converts and that the spirit teaches. This means obedience with
exactness - all the rules, all the time. I have truly seen that when
we get up on time, leave the piso on time, and do everything to bring
the spirit miracles occur - like a member bringing her friend to
english class and then church. That lesson was super powerful because
we were earnestly searching for the spirit by being obedient and
studying specifically, and because there was a member there. That is
the only way missionary work gets done. Whenever the spirit is there
and members help out.... Miracles.

I love you all!

Elder Maxfield