Week 37 - April 20, 2015 - Gesundheit

For Family

So I got the new green missionary companion! And he is amazing. He comes from Switzerland, and already speaks a good amount of Spanish. Which for him is not very impressive because he speaks German, Swiss German, passable English, and French already.

One of the coolest experiences of the week came yesterday. I´ve kinda been pounding away at the ward council about the need for giving more callings to less-actives, medio-actives, YSA and new converts. And they had done quite a bit, but I wasn´t hoping for much seeing as Ada just got baptized 2 weeks ago. But Lo and Behold, Sunday morning they called her to be a primary teacher! A perfect calling, which I´m about 90% certain the branch president didn´t know about. I´m going to apologize now for any and all grammar issues - we´ve nearly eliminated English from the piso to help out his understanding. It works great, unless it´s early and my brain doesn´t speak spanish and his brain won´t speak spanish or english and then he speaks german and I speak english and World war 2 starts up again. (Kidding. We have yet to fight at all.)

The best part about Ada finally getting a calling was that I was able to set her apart! I told the Branch President to do it, but he said, "Elder Másfiel, es su trabajo." (Elder MostFaithful, it is your job.) The spirit was so strong while I gave a blessing in still sub-par spanish, and I really felt the truthfulness of President Hinckley´s message that every convert needs "a friend, a job, and to be nourished by the good word of God".  

Training is pretty darn fun. The best and worst is that now every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Elder Maxfield is doctrine. And everything I do is subject to intense scrutiny so that it can be copied exactly. I have a habit of starting out street contacts by asking "Have you ever seen men like us before?" And sure enough, 30m later, Elder Weiss was doing the exact same thing. For 12 weeks, we read about teaching and studying and what we planned for lessons. I told him that EVERY lesson needed to have some sort of explained doctrine that the person did not understand before, a testimony and a committment, and how omitting any one of those parts was not the way the savior taught (See 3 Nefi 11,12:48). And later that day, I glanced at his brand new Spanish PMG to see he had written just that. 

Bunch of stuff happened about 30seconds ago. More next week! The work is true. Salvation and hope and life are in and through one man and one name - JESUS CHRIST. And He really likes to pick inadequate missionaries for His most important jobs, because it tends to make them much better.

Elder Stew

For Me and Eric

Elder Weiss. He needs a fairly long backstory. Grandma and Grandpa Weiss moved from Switzerland to Chile, where his dad was born. He married a Chilean woman, and then they moved back to Switzerland. So he is Swiss, with a Swiss last name, but with Chilean parents and the ability to understand most spoken spanish. Reading, grammar, speaking, are a different story. He speaks enough English to get along, but only from school and not enough to understand sentences like "Well how ya feelin´ today?" So English has been nearly eliminated from the piso. And our 1 hour of Language Study got a whole lot more interesting, because although his English vocabulary is quite large, grammar is tough to teach to someone who only REALLY understands German. For example, I had trouble explaining what is Albedrio o el verbo aprovechar. Because I know what they mean, and I can translate and explain well enough into english or spanish at this point, but not really with his limited vocabulary. Oh. And he also only spent 2 weeks in the MTC despite speaking NO spanish upon arriving in Spain. Like I said, a very interesting challenge you don´t expect when getting a green companion.

He´s 22 years old with a girlfriend committed to waiting at home (and he´s writing her as lovey-dovey a letter as can be written with words like gütenhimer and shlëifershwitzen) Yes, I made those words up. But he did teach us a german tongue twister about a self-contracting water hose that goes like "shlufershultzen slufe shulin shlufen shlitzen shflutzen. Being Swiss, he spent a year in the army (so being away from home isn´t that big of an issue), has all his money is in Swiss banks (which makes me laugh) and owns a Swiss army knife from the actual Swiss army. 

We´re working hard on being obedient, which isn´t hard thanks to the Swiss army. He understands obedience and leadership by example having been a Lieutenant in charge of 30 men. We have trouble with diligent studies, which I understand - Thanks to 12 weeks, we leave piso at 1 every morning and come back at 2 for lunch - so missionary work only occurs at nighttime. I have trouble because I want to keep up the same work ethic and lesson numbers I had with Elder Emmett, because we worked really hard to improve the area after a series of bad weeks with his last companion, and now we have 1.5hrs less per day. As to your other questions, yes. We work hard to be happy in all the ways a missionary can be happy. 

I feel excited but also a little scared. I´ve definitely asked the Lord for more help and I´ve felt more humbled than ever after getting this responsibility. It has made me pray more and strive to be better.

Which is maybe why I have this responsibility. 

Elder Stew

District Meeting

Elder Weiss (Switzerland), ElderMaxfield (Utah), Elder Porritt (Utah), Elder McWhorter (Idaho), Sister Barkle (Australia), Sister Toone (Utah), Sister Stephenson (Utah) and Sister Valverde (Peru/Chile).