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?

Week 94 - The final transfer

Well, it´s finally here - my replacement in the office! His name is Elder Gustafson, from New Hampshire. He´s a good guy and it looks like he will also be finishing up his mission in the office. Now it will be harder than ever to not get trunky, as I slowly but surely give up all my responsabilities. It´ll be fun! It will be nice because as I shed my office work, I can get back in to actual missionary work as much as I can.

This week we´ll have a small transfer, with only six going home and seven coming in. Pretty normal as we move people, luggage, money, iPads, and all the other stuff that we deal with. 

Keep sending me the fotos from Rome! You´re seeing all the cultural stuff that for me is only a side-perk. This should be interesting as you inch closer and closer to España. (also, dont forget to send me the pictures of the Maxfield reunion in Florence that we talked about on Skype.)

Not much to do this last week, as we did transfers and I filled out more completely my spreadsheet on inventories for the pisos. Trying to keep track of what the missionaries buy and where it ends up. 

I had my quarterly interview with President last week. He asked me what my goals were for the transfer - and I told him I don´t want to die and I want to hoe to the end of the row. We suggested that I make a goal to talk to at least 10 people a day - something that will be quite hard. To be honest, it will require finding interesting ways to bring up the gospel in situations where it´s not as comforatble to do so. But that´s o.k. I think it will be good practice for home, when stopping someone with an enthusiastic "We´re missionaries!" will be less than appropriate and won´t make any sense. I like the opportunities I have to find to share the gospel in a way that will be great practice for back home - with people like cashiers, security guards, random guy in the store. Just strike up a conversation, and worse case scenario is that you have an awkward moment. It´s the sort of thing that the Lord looks for from the non-full-time missionary folk (which I´ll be in two short months) - taking advantage of every small opportunity given to us. 

Love,

Elder Maxfield

Week 93 - Waaaay awesome Excel Skills

We have had a great last week. Today we went to Toledo for P-day, which was great. Elder Doxey served there, so he told us all about the different things that he had picked up on while serving there. And this time, I didn´t buy any swords :).  Not enough pasta, like we say in España. But, it was cool as we walked around the old, old part of the city and imagined what it´d be like to have been there in medieval times. We had an interesting experience when we ran into some Mormon American tourists (as usually happens in Toledo). They stopped us, and the lady said, "Now you young Elders, when do you go home? Doesn´t matter. When you go home, I want you to get married as fast as you can. I have a beautiful daughter and she´s not married yet because people like you don´t want to. Will you do that?" And then she just about gave me her daughter´s phone number so I could ask her out in two months. 

There´s a reason I don´t usually like running into Americans.

This week was also pretty normal in terms of the office work. I found some new excel tricks and updated by my now-massive spreadsheet to include all sorts of important information. 

We had a couple fun lessons, but you already know that our area doesn´t have much. We are helping a fairly recent convert get back on the book-of-mormon reading habit every day. It´s almost tangible, the change when he does and when he doesn´t. It´s striking to me the important things that I need to be doing when the mission is over. These are habits that have been hard-formed and will need to be kept up if I hope to maintain myself spiritually. 

One thing I´ve learned in the past couple weeks is the need for constant spiritual nourishment. We have a missionary here who isn´t doing too hot, and so President emergency-transferred him to us. He´s a good kid, but I can tell it´s hard on him to start off his mission doing.... not much. Our goal has been (and mine still is) to necessarily sacrifice the "spiritual" work and the chances for spiritual growth so that he can have them. It´s interesting when your time to do spiritual things is so limited how you hang on to every little opportunity and treasure it. Sunday I had the chance to give a blessing. I´ve been working hard to keep myself worthy for a long time now, and I could feel my "confidence wax strong" as I laid my hands on her head. I said some things I wouldn´t have said to this sister in any other circumstance, and the blessing was short  - I was scared to see what she would say when I finally said "amen". She looked up at me with tears in her eyes, saying that it was exactly what the Lord wanted to say to her. 

That is probably one of the most important things I´ve learned from the office (besides my mad Excel skills - I can be waaaay more productive for Nate now, if he´d hire me.) The need to constantly nourish yourself spiritually, and when you´re in a situation where that´s just not quite as possible - treasure up every chance you get. 

Love, 

Elder Maxfield

Week 92 - Elder Bednar visits the Mission

Today we went to see a castle! We were sitting in the office, thinking about what to do, when Elder Doxey said, "Let´s go see a castle." So we looked up "castle" on our maps on the iPad (not google maps, some other wierd application) and we drove for about an  hour straight north until we hit a little town called Buitrago del Lozoya. There´s an old church and a castle on a hill overlooking the river (very defensible). There´s some super cool history behind it, but no need to go into detail here. 

So, on Saturday and Sunday we saw ELDER BEDNAR. It was amazing. Dad, there were several recurring themes included in the notes you sent me from Lonn. We spent three hours in a discussion, with one quick break (because, and this is an apostolic quote, "The mind and the heart can only recieve what the rear end can endure."). And he taught us as agents. He asked questions the whole time and invited us to act and to write on small plates what came into our hearts. We had prepared by reading several of his talks, and he led the three hour discussion with only four questions - 

1. What stood out to you in your preparations?

2. What are you learning about the process in which we are learning?

3. What questions do you have for me?

4. What have you learned today?

When he opened up the discussion to "inspired questions" - that is, questions that have to do with the current speaker, place, and moment that you may not be able to ask ever again - he called on me. So I asked him what he had done to prepare himself for our meeting. And I got the sassiest apostle answer I had ever seen - "Elder, I´ve been alive for sixty-five years." I asked what I could do to get to where he is now, and he said to be content with where I am and to consistently experiment and try to not be afraid of messing up - because that´s how you learn. I remember from the "conversation on leadership" about the lawn-trimmer theory of management. There was more to it, but suffice it to say, it was awesome. I learned a lot, not just from him, but as to HOW to continually learn on my own. Huge boost. It was a great week! 

Elder Maxfield.

Week 91 -Office Logistics

Well. I´m finally taking the time to write home. I´m sorry I´ve been so unreliable. Two Mondays ago we had transfers, and I was the organizational mastermind behind collecting suitcases, money, and getting folks to the airport on time. It was good practice. So, we didn´t really do anything except that. It was fun, and I only lost one suitcase in the process :). The next morning we had to take my old companion Elder Avila to the airport. I´m going to miss him. He was a funny guy, even if we didn´t always get along. Interesting how that works. Then, this last P-day, we were doing great. We studied, played soccer, chess, some version of the mafia game - up until about 5 o´clock, when we had to drive people around until 10. It was a long Monday. And yesterday, we had the Mission Leadership Council, which was not nearly as fun when you´re behind the scenes. We had a lot of things to do, drives to make, and so now,Wednesday night, I can write. 

Not much to tell, seeing as we´ll be talking on Sunday. I´m doing fine. We haven´t had much proseylting work recently, and that´s kinda tough. But we try to get our studies in and we make things happen.  

Week 89 - missionary "work" from the office. The Lord is still needed.

I´m sorry, it was a really crazy P-day and I´m trying to get caught up on all my work. I had hoped to start writing yesterday, but it didn´t happen. If it makes you feel any better, my week was just as interestingly boring as the week before :) 

I´ve been negotiating leases, which is really fun but really stressful. I´ve been practicing the best way to explain who we are and why we don´t make money and how the apartment will basically be a revolving door for foreigners without a background check or a job.... Nobody really understands the first time. My recent hurdle has been government subsidized housing - It´s exactly what I want, when and where we want it, but.... government protection does not include missionaries. I´ve become more Republican in the office because I´ve now seen what a massive, sprawling, ineffecient goverment does to normal life. Heaven knows we don´t need that. 

I´ve also been paying bills and trying to collect Security deposits - Old spanish people try to take advantage of the American with a only slightly high-school knowledge of Spanish laws, but I´m ok - they haven´t gotten me yet. One guy threatened legal action, another tried to make me pay 70€ for some sheets, and another one just sent me some bills that I already paid. But they didn´t get me :). 

I had an interesting thought last week when I got swamped with a bunch of stuff - and that thought was something I´ve felt at several different parts in my mission - how I can´t do it all by myself. I´ve been blessed with a keen intellect and it´s helped me through many tough spots. But really, the only thing that is ALWAYS guaranteed to push through a sticky situation is the Gospel. Met that several times where Stewart´s critical thinking couldn´t solve a problem but humble prayer could. Be honest, have faith, trust in the Lord, and things will all work out, like President Hinckley said.

Week 88 - Thoughts on Conference and the Prophet

This week was just about average. Right now I feel sick, have a landlord threatening a lawsuit, I´m behind on the bills, and I have a big ´ol tax project to start and then promptly finish.

Needless to say, although the week was just about normal, the day is not so great. Even though I did buy some half-off football boots which are going to make my feet feel a whole lot happier next Saturday. 

Thanks to busy office stuff, last P-day was not a writing p-day. So quick news is that my buddy Elder Regehr (of Sandy) has been replaced by a new friend, Elder Kirby, of Lancashire. He´s British and he´s fun to have around. He´ll be taking Elder Weiss´ spot when he leaves in 2 weeks. 

I want to take a quick second to share two things: The first is from the amazing General Conference we had. I was impressed by President Monson´s two talks, in part because they were short. I had been preparing myself to really listen to what he had to say (he is after all, el portavoz del Señór), and so I hung on to every word. I found myself thinking several times, "Why did he choose that? OF all the things he could have said, he chose to tell us about the sanctity of the Priesthood - and then in less than a minute the awesome power of what it can do." I mean, his talk was less than 4 minutes, and one of the key parts was a modern priesthood holder commanding a boat to turn around. That´s pretty wow. 

So all of that was on my mind when Elder Doxey (using our favorite digital area book that only the office has... yes.) called an American woman who told us she wanted a blessing for herself, her daughter, and her physically handicapped granddaughter. My first faithless thought was, "I sure hope she doesn´t ask us to heal her. It won´t happen." I struggled with this really up until we got into the visit. But by the time that we actually performed the three ordinances, I felt calm enough to say whatever the Lord wanted me to say. Elder Kirby gave the blessing to the little girl, and it was sweet, and short, and the spirit was strong. When my turn came to give the blessing to Barbara, I remembered what President Monson said and I knew I was going to say whatever the Lord wanted me to say. Among other things, I told her that we promised her peace and security from harm if she would hearken unto Jesus Christ. It turns out those were the two things she was looking for most - not a miracle healing. 

The priesthood is the power of God. I felt it, and I feel so honored to have that with me. Wherever I go, it goes - and if I honor it, those promises are much more than empty words. When we finished the blessing, Barbara was crying - who would I be to do something stupid and forfeit the opportunity to give that feeling to someone again? I understand a little more what Brigham Young said when he called the Priesthood an "onerous duty" - it´s hard work to be willing, obedient, and worthy at "all times and all places". It´s stressful. Sometimes, it seems easier to relax and not put the things of God at the top of the priority list - but I know that it was serious pondering of the prophet´s words that made me ready to have a powerful spiritual experience on Tuesday. I know even more now of how important it is to be a worthy priesthood  holder and to surround yourself by them. I know what a blessing it has been to have had that my entire life and if I don´t mess it up, to have it the rest of my life. It´s the one power upon which we really can ALWAYS rely, and as a result, it´s the only one that matters. No, I´m not going to slack off on my office duties, I´ll do the taxes and I´ll get the bills paid, but I´m so grateful for the absolute certainty that I have that those things are overshadowed by the need to worthily bear the Priesthood.

Love,

Elder Maxfield

Week 86 - Easter

It was a pretty great Easter. Up front, tell everyone that nothing has happened at all in Spain thanks to what happened in Brussels. It was actually funny to get an email from a concerned mom in Utah, wondering what we were doing to protect the Missionaries. I had no idea how to respond - "Uh... nothing? They don´t actually know about it yet, and.... " I don´t know, maybe that makes me a bad oficinista, but I figured most important was that we keep on working. 

Easter was a very nice Sacrament. I´ve been translating for the Packs and the Youngs, and so I don´t get as much out of them as I used to, but it was still very nice. I was able to do a lot of thinking, and I felt the spirit very strong. I don´t think because there´s anything magical about the date (something you have to clear up when talking to anyone religious in Spain) but because, thanks to the date, I put focus in receiving revelation and committing to act on it. If I could have that strong of an experience every week, it would mean a lot for my spiritual growth. Personal goal. 

I´ll be writing more on Wednesday - P day had to get split into two parts this week thanks to Customs, the Temple, and our weekly Office planning meeting. Today we went to IKEA and got a companions eyes checked. Good day. Good Easter. The church is true.

Elder Maxfield

Week 84 - Stewart the Landlord

Last week! And the week before that - Living in the office is definitely interesting. 

Thanks to the almost continual movement, we haven´t done much preaching-wise. But, we did get a new companion two mondays ago. His name is Elder Doxey, and he´s here to replace Elder Dugan. He´s my new desk-mate, and he´s a good friend. He´s fun to have around. 

Two weeks ago, as we were planning transfers, we got a notice that 4 missionaries would not be coming to the mission. It was very sad. And then, two days later, we got a notice that three of them would be coming in - AFTER we had planned everything. President came in and decided instead of trying new travel and companionships, he´d put all three of them in trios. My only part was trying to find beds for them - without letting their future companions know anything. Totally not a suspicious phone call when a day before transfers the oficinistas call wondering how many can fit in your piso. But it all worked out. Then we stayed up late planning things, got up early to take people to the airport, ate great food that Hermana Pack and Hermana Larsen gave us, and then fell down exhausted. AndWednesday morning I remembered that along with these changes, I´m district leader - and I had to plan a meeting on the fly. But it went great. We had an awesome discussion about who we are. It stemmed from a conversation I had with President during an interview. (That´s a fringe benefit of working in the office. We´re blessed to work with President a lot.) We were discussing the troubles a certain missionary was having when he commented, "I think the root of the problem is that this missionary just doesn´t know who he is. If he really understood his calling and what the Lord had called him to do, this wouldn´t be a problem." How true that is. Elder Peterson asked in the meeting why we didn´t explain the how - the process, the tricks and tools. That´s important, but the focus of our meeting was that when we actually truly understand who we are, then tricks don´t matter, because "your confidence [waxes] strong before the Lord". 

Anywho, back to transfers (I know that´s the most interesting part of my week). I spent a good chunk of time creating an excellent way to check if apartments have room - it involves an excel document with key data info of ALL the apartments linked back to one big report. The idea is that, using this, I can quickly make reports to President about which pisos could expand and include other missionaries.  I was very pleased with myself until Elder Regehr commented that I did something similar (but not nearly as easy) the transfer before - and President had looked at it, studied it - and put missionaries in apartments that were NOT on my list. I learned that although information leads to inspiriation, revelation does not limit itself to what a report says. 

Not much else to report. We´ve got one landlord calling his lawyers, trying to force us to do needless repairs to an apartment, another who refuses to put his information in the church system even though it´s how he´ll get paid, and some missionaries who, while wrestling, broke the sink off the wall. I don´t even want to know how. But, all is well.

Elder Maxfield

Week 83 - an excellent week; investigators and rental contracts

We have had a great week - which is nice to be able to say, because we´re entering to transfer week which is apparantly the worst time of our lives. What´s nice is that on late office nights Burger King will deliver to the office for no extra charge until all hours of the night :)

I´ll start off this email with my favorite (and only...) proselyting story of the week. We went to Manolo´s house to see if we could track down his inactive, unemployed son. Manolo is this sweet old man who´s calling is ward missionary and who just hangs out with the missionaries ALL DAY. We call him and say, "Manolo, what are you doing?"

"Well I´m just at home."

"Right, but what are  you doing?"

"Waiting for some missionaries to call me."

So we were at his house when his son comes out and says, "I have questions that no missionaries can ever answer, and that´s why I won´t come to church." I was expecting something like polygamy or weird false stories about Joseph Smith, but he said - "Why is there so much bad in the world? Why don´t I have a job? Why can you say God is my Father when my life is so bad? A real father doesn´t let his children suffer." I was taken aback, not because the questions were difficult but because they were so textbook - I mean, every missionary learns the stock responses to questions like these. Babies without baptism? Moroni 8. Christ only loved the jews? 3 Nefi 11. Bad world? 2 Nefi 2. Right, it´s just so easy. 

But as we started talking, it was apparent that many APs and oficinistas (usually fairly good missionaries) had tried the same things and nothing. But as we talked, I had an idea, an idea so simple but that I had never tried before. And that´s why I loved this experience - because I know now what I didn´t know in the moment that it was a stroke of inspiriation from the Spirit. I said, "Are you a guy who likes to run?"

"Yeah."

"Ever run a race?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I just wanted to say that I finished. I didn´t care about beating everyone else, I wanted to do something hard."

"So it wasn´t easy."

"Hombre, claro que no."

"That´s how this life is. It´s a race, and our Father wants us to finish. If he takes away the hurt, he also takes away the achievement. He wants you to finish the race - and when it gets so hard, He has given you a Savior to help you without taking away everything you´ve worked for. The world is tough - but it has to be so that you can finish and say you´ve done a hard thing."

Morea looked at me and said "You´re the first elder who´s been able to answer my questions." I know it was the Spirit who gave me those words. He didn´t come to church, and I don´t know if he will - but nothing feels greater than being a tool in the Lord´s hands to help one of his children.

In other news, my greatest challenge this last week was working with Spanish realtors. I wrote part of a lease in Spanish (THANKS NATE!!!!) and we´re working on getting an apartment in the Canary Islands for a couple who got to Spain on Saturday and the realtor STILL won´t give me anything! I´ve been promised that they can move in tomorrow, but it´s pretty stressful to say, "I´m on it, hopefully it´ll be ready" to President and be doubting on the inside whether or not it´ll actually happen. Uy. 

Well, that´s been my week. Excel sheets, great compainons, late nights, airport trips, and realtors...... 

The gospel is true.

Elder Maxfield

Week 82 - How to find time for everything? The reality of life.

This has been a pretty good week. I worked on most of the week trying to get a bunch of safety information for all the apartments, which meant calling all of them. A little tedious but I did get some cool responses:

"Hey Elder. Do you have a Carbon Monoxide detector"

"Uhhh, I don´t know."

"It´s a rectangle with a black lever and a test button? It might be on the wall near the floor or on the ground."

"Well I found a rectangle with a black lever... but there´s no button."

(Insert five minutes of frustration trying to figure out if we´re on the same page)

"Well, just send me a picture of whatever it is you´ve got and I´ll check."

Then I got a call a couple minutes later, "Remember that thing? Upon further investigation, I discovered it was the doorbell."

I also recieved a letter from the guys in charge of the cars. - "In the fourth quarter of 2015, 65% of accidents were preventable. The major cause of these accidents was ´hitting an object or another parked vehicle whilst moving slowly´". Which is why we back people up EVERY TIME. 

My only other novelty is just being sick the entire last week. I think it´s the office disease, but I´ve been told there´s no such thing. But what´s nice is just that I´ve been pounding Oranges and Sudafed and Ibuprofen so I feel a lot better. I bought myself a 3 kilo malla of oranges and life is good. 

As for investigators, it´s been a slow week there, as usual. This area needs a lot of work to get it back up on its feet, there´s just not the time to do that. We´re supposed to leave every day at six. But the amount of work and the changes that we´re going through to prep for one senior couple´s departure and another´s entrance. So we don´t have the time to either do our office work nor our proselyting perfectly - and I know that we could do at least one of them perfectly and the other one sub-perfectly, but that´s just not the way it is I guess. It´s like a story I read once about two missionaries in Germany. They decided to be PERFECTLY obedient to ALL of the rules - including standards of excellence, studies, even all the things you don´t usually think about. They whipped out their Manuals and an extra list of rules from President, and put it all together. And it didn´t work and it didn´t work until one of them tried a different route - and they discovered that it was completely possible to be perfectly obedient, provided that every day have 25 hours. I´ve decided to take it as a lesson to do my best and then just be content, even when my best just isn´t good enough. That is frustrating.

Church was nice this last Sunday. We have so many people every week that we have to transmit the sacrament to two other rooms. I did the translating for the Packs, which was interesting. I had to apologize for my spanglish every couple of minutes, but it went just fine. 

All in all it´s been a good week. The Book of Mormon is coming along well for the nosecuantos time, and I am feeling better. The church is true.

Elder Maxfield

Sheep Crossing

Stewart, Son, & Grandson

Week 81 - Fat and White

Every day is different but at the same time just like the day before. All four of us live in the same piso (THAT is a party) and we go to the gym, have breakfast, study, and then head over to the office. Elder Weiss is the only one with a European Driver´s license, so he´s the one driving around Madrid and parallel parking EVERYWHERE. It´s pretty scary. Nobody in this entire country knows how to drive. We´ve almost been in three or four accidents because of completely oblivious drivers. We jam out to MoTab and EFY music as we get fat and white in the office. I´ve been here for two weeks, and I think I´ve walked less than in one day in Alcalá. Let´s see. The three minutes from the piso to the car. Parking, to the elevator, to the office, work til 6, to the car, to the lessons, home. Maybe 1km all day? Yep. Fat and white Elder Maxfield will be the one coming back to America.

As for the day-to-day stuff. Well, I talk to Oscar about all the cars. (you´ll never guess which missionaries crash the cars the most - the APs. Their car is so scratched up that day 1 I was told to only repair it when absolutely necessary.) I call Spain´s biggest water, light, and gas companies to set up what I call direct-robbing services. I´m not sure if it´s a thing in America, but here it´s common practice to sign a paper giving access to the Power guys to suck money out of your account without your consent every time. Like, instead of billpay, where I say direct deposit on this day - they just suck it out and send you a bill later saying"you paid this much. have a great day!" The other day I whipped out a bill that said, "Three weeks ago we took from you 3,000€ for gas. Buenos Días!" And there´s basically no way to do anything but just eat it... oh well. Man, these emails are going to start getting boring. 

We´re also starting a practice called the Hold List. I call it the Blacklist. If you make an oficinista mad by not doing what he asks (or in my case, not cleaning your apartments. In Elder Weiss´case, not sending him your residency info), we cut off your money until you do what we want. People don´t send in Baptismal Records? Stop all their cash. Folks react much quicker to a lack of money than a lack of home teachers or calling for their new convert..... As Grandma Frazier would say, "Stupid Missionary."

Our ward here is also amazing. They all have a serious desire to work. The bishop, the ward mission leader, and the Elders´ Quorum President are all brand new and want to see success. That´s really nice to have. Elder Weiss and I went to go deliver a cake as a favor the other night, and just as a surprise the members said, "No, stay and share it with us." Really just good people. We celebrated a member´s birthday the other day - she´s been baptized since the 70s and is a temple worker pretty much every day. I love seeing people like that.

OH! The other week, we had stake conference. It was excellent. And guess who just happened to show up? All my friends from the Canary Islands!! I thought for sure I´d never see them ever again, and there they were. What made it cooler - they recognized me. My name not so much, (they all called me Más Fiel, which means most faithful, cause Maxfield was just too hard.) but they all said, holy cow, and remembered the time I had spent in Telde. Pte. Deniz, Pte. Gonzalez, Manuel Leon, Doli, everyone´s kids - it was so cool. The only one missing was Carlos Castro, the Uruguayan mission leader. 

We don´t have hardly any inverstigators, so that´s no fun. But I made some cool spreadsheets, so I guess that´s also nice. We say in the office that maybe your purpose is not, "invite others to come unto Christ" but rather "Do x, y, z, etc. SO THAT everyone else can invite others to come unto Christ." 

Elder Maxfield

Week 80 - My New Life

So I´ve been transferred. Gas, water, light, cleaning them, fixing the sink when a wrestling match takes it off the wall, weird noises, bad neighborhoods, etc. That is my new life. When I was out there - in the real world - I used to make jokes about the mandatory "stupid pills" that they must be taking in the office..... And now Elder Weiss has informed me that it´s actually the rest of the mission that takes the stupid pill. AND HE´s RIGHT! I got a call the other day and the missionary was like, "I need a new piso. This place is not fit for human habitation."

"What´s the issue?"

"It´s just, it´s terrible. The windows are dirty, it smells bad... I just... it´s not ok. I need a new one."

"Is it clean?"

"...."

"When was the last time you cleaned?"

"Uh...."

"Clean your piso Elder. Then we can talk."

 

 

The last time I went to bed on time.... I don´t even remember. It must have been before transfers. I am having a great time, in part because I´m replacing Elder Larsen - that guy is a MACHINE. He just works and works and works and then finds better ways to work.

 

I also feel really, really good about my new companionship. In left to right on the picture I sent, it´s Elder Weiss, Elder Regehr, Elder Dugan, and then me. Weird assignement, new job, GREAT companions, fish-out-of-water feeling. Ever since I was trained, I´ve been in some sort of leadership position - leading the area, Senior comp, trainer, district leader, zone leader.... But now? I feel like a greenie all over again. It´s excellent. I am excited. Life is good. And there´s no need to publish that list of my leadership positions - it was just there to add backstory.

 

Elder Maxfield

Week 79 - Transfers

Well, I have now been given my last area in the mission: San Sebastián de los Reyes. I´ve been told this next assigment will last me the rest of my mission. It is about 30 minutes NW of Alcalá, and it´s in the same zone. It´s the area where President lives. My new companion is Elder Weiss, Elder Regehr, Elder Dugan. That´s right, three different companions. 

I´ll be working in the office. My new responsabilities are pisos, rent, cars, utilities, and everything in between. I´ll also serve as translator for Elder Young, a senior missionary who doesn´t speak a lick of Spanish. So if anyone breaks a window - that´s me. If anyone has a cold shower - I´ll be there. If you have a three-mile-an-hour sideswipe crash and total the car - Who ya gonna call? Me. I am going to get fat and white, sitting in front of a computer until7pm for the next six months. I´m not super sure how I feel about the assignment, but it´s what the Lord wants me to do. My P-day today was initiation - I´ll be replacing Elder Larsen, (from the canaries) who is NOT an 18-year old missionary and thus expects a lot more. My brain´s a little fried, so if this is all incoherent, let me know. I was also up until 2:30 last night packing, because I was in denail and didn´t even start until 11:00. Pretty good, right? Pack up your entire life in less than 4 hours. And, Elder Weiss came to pick me up in our sweet ride (cause now we have a car).

Elder Avila and I finished the week out well. He was, well, himself up until the last moment. This is going to be a very different dynamic than it was in Alcalá. I´m sad to go, but to be honest.... I figured I was leaving ever since the transfer started. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone- but it was nice to be able to say with surety, "I´ll be back in July." That ward treated me so well - I think we ought to go to church there if we can. 

I just re-read the email, and I seem a little negative about the new post - it´s not like that. I´m excited for the chance to learn a completely new skillset, with some of my good friends from the mission. I´ll also get to hang out with President, which is always fun. God seems to know exactly what we need, even if we´re too silly to realize it. He has a plan. 

Me.