Spanish Cooking Lesson #1 - Tortillas

Week 42 - May 25 - "Cause every little thing, it´s gonna be all right."

Well we just had transfers. I will be staying with Elder Weiss to finish training him, but I bet that means I´m gone in six weeks. (That´s the fourth of July for those of you following along at home) 3 of the 8 people in the district left, which means this coming week is in for lots and lots of . . . fun for them. That first week with a brand new companion is rough. 

The Ipads came to the country finally! The only problem is that only those missionaries legal in the mission get them come June 10. Not really fair, since I am TOTALLY illegal and every time I try to do anything about it I get a message from the office, "Don´t worry. About a thing. ´Cause every little thing, it´s gonna be all right." We´ll start a protest soon, I´m thinking about writing up a list of grievances on the current mission secretary.

As another funny story, Elder Weiss and I had to stop a minor apostasy this week. The elder´s quorum pres. started explaining that, in times of emergency when you really, REALLY need to give a health blessing and there´s no consecrated oil around, you can just use vegetable oil or water instead. We stopped that as fast as we could.

Other news on Angel - the guy is progressing like crazy! He reads the book of  mormon every day and his testimony is increasing! The other day he said, "Look, just explain all the commandments and commitments and covenants I´ll do at baptism - and we explained all the major commandments and he just said, "yes. Yes. Yes. I´ll totally drop coffee to get baptized. Faith? Why don´t we open to Hebrews 11.1 or Alma 32.21? I love the symbolism of baptism - dying and being reborn in Christ." We are so excited to see his faith growing! We´re also best buds because he´s a big history nerd and is always coming across some ancient Spanish Dollar or 1870s solid gold american specie. which we sit and chat about and where it might have been and what wars it might have paid for and which famous people might have used it. And the other day, after I commented that the bible was too heavy to carry around all day, he gavea me a little pocket bible with an introduction, "may the flaming sword of the Word always be with you." Found a new best friend and the next branch president. 

Oh, we need some advice - what are some fun games that fit the following criteria?

1. Easy to play

2. Easy to explain

3. Easy to learn

3. Keeps 30 people´s attention for about 45minutes

4. Requires few materials. A whiteboard we do have.

It´s that every friday night we have the job to do the game portion of the FHE and we´re rapidly running out of ideas. Any brainstorming would be super helpful for us! It doesn´t help that I´m still district leader and all my creative energies go to not making District Meeting totally boring and the same every week - life is hard, and the creativity skills I haven´t used/developed are being pushed to the limit. 

Love, Elder Maxfield

Mission Conference, Madrid - Photo Bomb

Week 41 - May 11 - Life is good and the gospel is true

Vegemite - it´s yeasty soy saucey tasting stuff that Austraians love, the color of nutella and the consistency of toothpaste. Hermana Barkle got some in a package, and then we told all the spaniards it was special austrailian chocolate. It worked every time, and we laughed and laughed and then the members laughed and promised not to help us with any missionary work next week. 

We also met a primary-aged kid last week with a lighter in his hand and a dead pigeon on the ground, trying to light it on fire. Just one more proof of how much teh world needs help. 

P-Day was kinda crazy, thanks to the whole zone hanging out in our area - I had to run around and make sure that the whole group had member guides to do splits, hence a shortened email time. But it was really fun! A member showed up and said, "I need a missionary to go do these home teaching visits!" so I said, here, take elder Voss and bring him back by 10. And then another member said,"I had an investigator call me and he´s in the back room can someone come help us out?" And i said "here take this elder, bring him back by 10". So we had some confused missionaries, but it all went great! We´ve gotten pretty good at adapting to sudden situation changes. "Elder Maxfield, can you give this lesson for FHE? It should be about 45 minutes long. We´ll start the meeting in 2 minutes" Thanks to some divine inspiration and a continuation of the gift of tongues, I planned that lesson during the announcements and opening hymn. I love being a missionary. 

We had a cool experience this week as we found an old investigator - Angel, a spanish elementary school teacher. He introduced himself as looking for missionaries he met twice 6 months ago. He had an old mormon friend and investigatoed with him 20 YEARS ago. But he stopped by and told us how a lack of morality and respect for marriage was destroying the world. So we quietly slipped him a Family proclamation and took his number - when people think like that and then read the family proclamation, Mormons become the coolest people ever. He has come to church TWICE now, and he keeps talking to members about what he needs to do to join the church. We are really excited. My favorite part was how he started off our first lesson by sharing a powerful positive spiritual experience regarding the book of Mormon, and then started to explain all the things he read that meant the book of mormon HAD to be true. "When Cortes arrived, he found the indians worshipping a cross - the Book of Mormon is the best possible explanation." "Have you heard of how the native american religions are basically corrupted christianity?" "There´s a rock in Ecuador that depicts pretty much exactly Lehi´s dream." Things like that, that made me realize we weren´t only talking with someone prepared - but someone who was kinda cool too! We got pretty darn lucky, and I bet he gets baptized soon.

In other news, we had Zone Conference. It´s always great when President Jackson shows up. He explained that some of the numbers are significantly low, and then gave some mission president pump-up discussions to help rectify the problem. It was awesome. We finished the meeting by watching Secretariat´s final triple crown race - and President said, "Now who was the horse in second place? Nobody remembers you if you don´t try hard and win. Be Secretariat. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen." I figured he was channelling the spirit of Captian Bob. Afterwords we had some bomb equatorian potatoes and rice and peanut sauce that Elder Weiss and I helped buy/cook. That was stressful, but really rewarding.

Today we´re headed to play soccer with Mateo, some less actives and the Gijon elders. Life is good, and the gospel is true. I love the Book of Mormon.

Elder Stew

Gringos take it 10-5

Week 39 - May 4 - First baptismal interview, listening to the spirit

Well we had another bomb week here in Oviedo!  Not sure where to start. Sorry about last week, I had to make a fone call right in the middle of emails. Elder Maughn needed to chat.

I got the chance to do a baptismal interview! It was one of my favorite experiences thus far. She got baptized yesterday (so you already know the end of the story) and it was almost as cool as her interview. Not very spiritual for me, because I spent the whole time making sure no small children drowned in the font. And Elder Weiss performed a very clean dunk, so todo salio genial. But back to the interview. We sat down, this being the first time I had conducted an interview and the second time Claudia had been interviewed. So she knew more about it than I did, and the hermanas had prepped her well. I´ll be honest, I went in with doubts not about her worthiness but about her understanding of the need to come and partake of the sacrament. It´s been tough to get her to church. BUT! As we talked (and I did the interview Bishop Grimm style, finishing the questions in about 2m flat) I felt the spirit confirming what I had hoped to believe - that she was ready and worthy. It really reminded me of the experiences I´ve had with the LDM - Compare Alma 32:27 and Ether 4:11. I really wanted to believe she was ready, and I was looking for that answer . And the Spirit told me that yes.

We thought long and hard the other day about what is the best thing to do for Ada, the dominican woman who was recently baptized. And we decided that all the next lessons will be taught in member´s houses - great way for her to get friends and we don´t have to actually teach the lesson. Just sit down and relax and make sure no one goes apostate. And it has been an AMAZING decision in terms of her growth, the members growth, and our peace-of-mind when it comes to lesson planning. I´d really reccomend that folks who want to help the elders make their homes open for NDH AND offer to teach a short lesson on baptism or something. Really helps.

Funny story, we had a VERY apostate Gospel Principles class on Sunday, which meant I had to take over halfway to clarify comments like, "Before Adam and Eve fell, when they gave birth it didn´t hurt." Teaching helps the teacher, inasmuch as he knows his doctrine. 

Love,

Elder Maxfield