Week 67 - Learning Finances and the gosple

 I guess if I get a long email, I can respond like it was a conversation, something I don´t do very often. I sent you an email with some suggestions from the office, but as for "needs".... I don´t really have any specific ones. Surprise me! By the time I get the package it´ll be my birthday anyways :). Actually, I bet it comes pretty fast. When I was in the islands, the package had to make it through spanish mail, through the office, to the Concilio, to the zone leaders, to the zone training in the island, to my district Leader, to me. Vaya problemas. Now, thanks to my new responsibilitiy, I can cut out about 3/4 of that process out - Elder Weiss is working in the office. He´ll make things happen. 

So, even with my new 25 year old companion, I am learning a new "mom" strategy - Teaching finances! I mean, we live on a fixed income and never have any emergencies so it shouldn´t be very hard to budget.... but you´d be surprised. We´ve got half the month left, and my companion has less than a quarter of his money. And every time he mentions how little money he has, he follows it up with, "Let´s go buy a gym membership." or "When we go grocery shopping, remember I need some chocolate filled cereal - but not the generic brand, that stuff tastes like cardboard." "No, Elder, you don´t understand. If we go buy Dominoes instead of cooking, we will actually save money." "Do we have any frozen pizzas in the piso? I want one." And today, we went to go buy laundry detergent, and I explained the principle of buying in bulk and buying by the pound - although the price might look more expensive, it´s only 9 cents a wash instead of 30. Like I said, we´re learning finances, along with the gospel.

My favorite story of the week. We teach a guy named Jesus, who I think I´ve mentioned in a letter or two. He´s a pain in the rear, and last Saturday, I repeated the same lesson I´ve repeated four times now - COME TO CHURCH! Sometimes it´s the intentional topic, sometimes we stumble onto it. For a long time I´ve been avoiding it, trying to get him to progress in other ways so that this doesn´t become a wall. He always has excuses, and when we offer to fix them, he doesn´t like our solutions and he leaves with, "church just isn´t that cool anyways." We bore our testimonies, and I left thinking that it was a waste of time.... again. Seriously, this guy has been investigating for months and he won´t do anything unless it fits in his schedule - and sunday mornings are for sleeping and nothing else, just like the past 28 years. Sunday came, and we were talking with some members before church started, and I had completely forgotten the lesson, because it always ends the same way. And I hear the door open and lo and behold, JESUS! He came! He sat down and started a lovely discussion with the First Counselor´s wife. I was just dumbfounded. I´m very accoustomed to peopled saying they´ll do something and not doing it - but saying you won´t do it and then actually fulfilling your commitment? I almost lost it. We´ll see what happens in the lesson tonight, but THAT, mom, was a miracle. Mormon 9 - miracles only stop because people stop believing, the fact is that miracles do happen in our days!

Sorry about the shortness, I had to plan a blitz, plan for flu shots, plan for some reports, and plan for getting legal in the country... finaly! I love you mom!

Elder Maxfield