Week 15, Nov 17

Tomorrow we have zone conference, so today we´re in the neighboring island of Tenerife. We took a three hour boat ride, and the canadian sister missionary got sick. So now we´re on a greener island with the whole zone - about 30ish missionaries. 

Stewart and his companion on their way to Zone Conference

We played soccer today for P-day, which was a great time. Afterwords, I was sitting in the goal letting some other guys practice, when President Jackson came up and said he would like to take a coupld penalty kicks (he spent the whole P-day calling us over and interviewing us on the sidelines, gauging our comfort and generally seeing what´s up.) So he shot - and I blocked it. And he shot - and I blocked it again. Everyone yelled that I should let him score (because President seemed like he would keep shooting until he beat me), and then he scored. He said, "Remember, Elder Maxfield, I can send you anywhere in the mission". So if I end up in Parla next transfer (known as the pits of the mission) everyone knows why. Haha. 

Stewart Plays Goalie

Mission President Shoots

So my last email got cut off - I was talking about our ward mission leader. He´s awesome. A picture should have uploaded with him and all the primary kids, because that´s his second calling. We went to go catch frogs at the ward BBQ, the Elders, the kids, and the Ward mission leader. He put a indian feather in his head and said, "How." He definitely makes the work go faster. 

So my Spanish was going quite well - and it is, I can understand everyone pretty much all the time. But sometimes I mess up. The other day, instead of saying "Can we close this meeting with a prayer (despedir)?" I said, "Can we wake us up with a prayer (despertar)?" So that was fun. Down here in the Canaries, people eat the "s" in most words (or the z or the c, when those letters make the "s" sound"). The other day in church, someone was talking about fishers of men. BUT. If you take out the "s" sound from the word fisher (pescador) you end up with sinner (pecador). So I spent a good two minutes wondering why Jesus was asking his apostles to be sinners. So the Spanish is coming along, poco a poco. Really I can see every day that the Lord blesses His missionaries with the gift of tongues. Sometimes I´ll not have much to say, and Elder Dyer will start looking for a scripture - and then I have to open my mouth to bear my testimony. And EVERY TIME it has been filled with vocabulary and the subjunctive and not perfect things but good enough for the Lord´s purposes. Wow.

We´re going to baptize somebody else coming up soon - Ezikiel is his name. He´s 15 and his dad is a menos activo who called wanting us to reactivate him. He was very back and forth and they missed church for nigh on 12 weeks. (They met him before I came) Until one week when either they ran out of excuses or just felt like coming. They showed up, only for the first hour. Then Ezikiel came to the ward BBQ. Then they came to church again, and Ezikiel stayed the whole time! And then he decided to go to seminary the next morning. And he hasn´t missed seminary since - even though it starts super early in the morning. And then one time, he came to English class and one of the English class attendees said, "I haven´t seen you here before. Are you a member of this church?" And he just said, "Sí." His testimony is super strong and this 15 year old kid taught me that if you want the blessings of God in your life you need to DO something. What a stud. 

We have another investigator named Juan - keeps the cleanest house I´ve ever seen and made us meatballs the other day. He´s a brother of a menos activo, and he loves church. Baptism - very probable.

That´s all I got today - I love you guys!

Elder Stew

Week 14, Nov 10

In terms of eternal spring - it's really weird. It's hard to judge time because it's still the same temperature it was back in August. All it does is rain occasionally and then go back to sunny all the time. We got soaked last night in a freak rainstorm - it was awesome.

Oh yeah, the cookies - my oven is gas powered without a pilot light - we light it with a lighter and you can see the actual fire, hence a not very even heat distribution. I'll work out the kinks.

I had my first D&C bash the other day. We got back in contact with someone who (maybe) had been excommunicated. He had LOTS of weird questions about worship on Sunday. We answered them all from the Bible (because Sunday worship is a primitive church thing) and he said the following - "I don't believe the Bible. It's wrong and was translated too many times. What does Joseph Smith say?" We were dumbfounded. Nobody EVER cares what Joseph Smith says. We tried to help him out, but it was nearly a lost cause. 

Our Ward Mission Leader's name is Carlos Castro. He's from Uruguay, and he does work. He is very intense during our correlation meetings. We told him about the experience with Jesus (the excommunicated guy [ironic, right?]) and he told us, "Don't waste your time with that guy. All he's good for is to get information about his family and see if they're interested." And then, two days later, Jesus came to church AND he brought a new investigator for us. 

So there's not very many members in this rama, which means that everyone has several callings - and the ward pianist alternates between three of the young women. (Emma and Squid, take note).  Carlos' other calling is in the primary, and it's hilarious to see the change that comes over him between High Priests and the Obra Misional and hanging out with the Primary kids. He kinda reminds me of Grandpa Frazier, except for he speaks Spanish and I very rarely see his un-serious side. 

Well there was going to be a lot more to this email, but I've just been kicked off. Suffice it to say that Telde's had a great week, that I'm healthy, that the potato is God's gift to missionaries, and that next chance I have I'll fill you in on the Rama BBQ because there are some pictures I uploaded related to that. 

Love, Elder Stew.

Week 12, Oct 27

I found a cockroach in my bathroom, it was disgusting, It also died I lot easier than I thought - A good solid smack with a shoe and it was not doing any more living. Welcome to the Canary Islands.

It has been a great week here in Telde!! I´m trying to load photos to Dropbox, so we´ll see what happens. As for mail - the Telde address works just fine, about a 7-day delay, and sending it to the mission home means I´ll get it once a month. No matter when mail gets to the mission home, I wait until Leadership council, when the Zone Leader will go to Madrid and bring everything back. So that´s how mail works here. (which means I haven´t seen Grandma´s package she said she sent, and I won´t see it until Leader meeting in two weeks.)

I think it´s probably cooling down in Utah now, right? It is pretty close to Halloween - Maren´s test is on the Ancient Americas (Aztecs, Mayas, Incas) and it will be printed on orange paper with Halloween jokes. That is how awesome Mr. Felt´s class is - I still remember. But anyways, it´s still hot here. My companion said he hasn´t really felt a temperature change since he got here in June. Which means that this Christmas will be hot and humid - but not rainy, because it NEVER rains here. It started sprinkling after church once and the whole rama lost it, huddling inside waiting for the men to go and get the cars. Those who walked to church just waited out the 30m drizzle.

We just had transfers - my whole district is staying. I´ve been told that you usually stay in the Islands for 6 months (although that rule has definitely been broken) or four transfers. I was my companion´s third transfer here, and we will be staying until the next, which ends on Dec. 7. After that I bet he leaves and I stay to Area-train, which basically just means I´d introduce the new guy to the area. But anyways, for the next six weeks my trainer and I are remaining in Telde. 

I had a super cool spiritual experience this week. Elder Bednar gave a talk, (an MTC devotional, not sure if you guys could find it or not) where he talked about spiritual promptings. We watched it in the MTC and his main point was basically that you never know when the Spirit is talking to you - just be a good boy, obey the commandments, honor your covenants, and the spirit will direct you and YOU WON´T KNOW IT. 

My companion and I were walking down the street, headed to go and visit a Menos Activo who is never home. Really, we just had 30m to burn (late at night with no lessons that managed to remain planned) and this guy lived 15 minutes away. So we went. We were headed down our usual route, and I said, "Nah, let´s take Castile y Leon" another street that was close by. It didn´t really matter and I have no idea why I said that. But as we were walking, we met an Argentinian man and his cat (whom he had named "kitty," not knowing that meant cat in English). We stopped to say hello, and as we were talking, he said, "Do you guys like Tortilla? I just made some for my kids, they´re coming home right now." So we ate his tortilla, toured his house, talked to the cat, and shared a 2 minute message of the Restoration. He loved it, and said, "So are you guys going to take my number or something?" Turns out, he was an old investigator whom the other missionaries before my companion (other - read: lazy - not my words, but my companion´s) had stopped teaching. How cool is that? In the moment, I would not have said anything about the spirit. But based on what Elder bednar said, I know that I was being led "not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." 

We have this pueblo in our sector called Jinámar. It´s a super sketchy government housing district - We´ve met two transvestites, my companion has stepped in poop, and someone threw a rock at him. The people there are very humble and ready for the gospel (due to their Latin-American-esque circumstances) but they´re just hard to find sometimes. When the Canary Islands was its own mission, there were a couple Elders assigned to just Jinámar, and they did work - door knocking, baptizing, etc. There´s a member in almost every of the 50-odd buildings. But one thing led to another, and now there are a boatload of menos activos, all of which are hard to find. We met one man who went inactive because somebody offended him, another who found Anti-Mormon material, another who said that he´s not a member of our church (even though the records say he got the priesthood), etc. But we found one guy who hasn´t been to church in 20 years because he felt like the Branch President wasn´t doing his job. He used to be the Elders Quorum President. When we knocked on his door, he let us in and we started talking. And, unlike every other Menos Activo we´ve taught, he said, "I know now that I never should have left." How cool is that?! He came to church the next week, and he brought his nonmember brother too!

Alright, I gotta write the President now. I love you Mom. Thanks for the pictures.... Sorry I couldn´t be there to help finish the deck. But it looks so awesome!!

Elder Maxfield

Week 11, Oct 20

This week´s letter will have to be short. We got stopped on the way to letter-writing by a man who yelled out, "Hey, it´s the Mormons!" We went over and said hello. It turns out he was totally nuts. I could hardly understand what he was saying, but I caught the words "Mormon" "Jesus" "Heaven" "America" so I felt like we were on the same page. He also asked us some weird hypothetical questions with appropriate gestures, like "What would you do if you were reading under this tree and somebody cut it down right then?" We told him that we had to go, and he responded by kissing us on the forehead, on the hand as we shook hands, and on the pass-along card that we gave him. Maybe we´ll cross paths again.

It has been another great week in Telde! I´m convinced that this is the best place in the mission. That picture I sent was of me and the man we just baptized, William. He is just the best. (I´m pretty sure I already told you about him...) He loves church, loves reading the Book of Mormon, and his wife will get baptized soon. Every time we teach them she insists on cooking. And even though he´s baptized, we still go over a lot to teach the new member lessons and to teach her (because she´s still an investigator, technically). And then, one of the rama members showed them the chart where you can sign up for feeding the missionaries. AND THEY SIGNED UP. They´re both South American and are our best friends. 

This is a picture of our rama, faulting maybe 1/3 or 1/4 at Willy´s baptism. There´s an old man in the back, behind a girl in brown. His name is Parreño and is the coolest ever. Not sure why, but he kinda reminds me of Grandpa Walker. He loves church and helping out, and he always tells the same old man stories. One of these he told last time in Sacrament, and I could not for the life of me figure out what the story was about. I know for sure I heard the words "las papas" meaning potatoes, "los papas" meaning popes, misioneros, finca meaning farm, and catolico. So not sure. But he´s so cool and the very definition of enduring to the end.We´re great buddies (when I understand him, about 90% of the time)

Sorry it´s short, but rules are rules.

Love, Elder Maxfield

Week 10, Oct 13

Being a missionary is super awesome. Every day we get up at 7:00 and
exercise until 7:30. We then get ready and eat breakfast, and personal
study starts at 9. I´ve been re-reading the Book of Mormon, in english
because my Spanish is still coming along. Then we have companion study
at 10. Here, we plan a little for the day, read from the white bible,
and practice the lessons we´ll be teaching our investigators or
practice contacting situations. These are super helpful for learning
Spanish, because my vocabulary is still very small but I´m very good
at talking around things. Speaking in Spanish is just one big giant
game of Taboo. After that we have language study, and I read things in
Spanish to practice grammar and learn new words, be it the Missionary
Library (Except Jesus the Christ... Not in a foreign language), old
Liahonas, or an investigator´s philosophy homework - he promised to
read the Book of Mormon if we´d help him with philosophy. We´ll see
what happens. Then, depending on the day, we have either training
study (12 weeks) or we go out and proselyte. Walking around this
city/town/village is super fun. There are parts that are really nice,
like where the Stake President lives, and then there are the
not-so-nice parts. There´s farms, where the people live with their
goats, and then there´s nice homes as well. We have an investigator
named José who lives in half a house. It was half torn down, and then
he moved in. He lives among piles of rubble, random garbage, and he
laid down some linoleum floor next to his bed, which is on
cinderblocks. He wrote in what appears to be charcoal on the wall,
"And ye shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, might, mind,
and strength." Very Evangelical man... He´ll be converted the second
he reads the Book of Mormon. He also steals cable and electricity from
the neighbors, which he was very proud to show that he rigged up
himself.

We do a lot of contacting, because we´re always out walking. It´s a
really great time. Sometimes we say hello to people and they just give
us a death stare. Sometimes they run away. And other times, they chat
for a second and are super golden. William, the guy we just baptized
on Saturday (after a 9-month dry streak! Woot!) was 1000% prepared by
the Lord and was also met as a street contact. Miracle. His baptism
was so cool!! I couldn´t stop from grinning the entire meeting, and he
was so excited. His testimony at the end was so powerful... I just
wish I had understood it all. The Spanish will get here.

A typical day, after all our study, involves contacting as we head to
our various lessons in various pueblos - some in the mountains, some
on the coast, one called Jinamar where there seems to be millions of
apartments in which nobody ever answers. We teach on benches, in
parks, in pisos filled with cigar smoke, or in nice homes. After
MedioDia, which is both lunch and study time, we go and do it all over
again until we literally collapse into bed at 11 - not like a rut, but
like a groove. I am loving missionary work. I love you all!

Until next week,
Elder Maxfield

Week 9, Oct 6

Time seems to fly by here. I never really know what day it is until I look at my calendar. 

We had a baptism last week! It wasn't our investigators, it was some others from another island who came here to be with their family. But Elder Dyer and I took the opportuity to teach all our investigators about baptism and then take them to a baptismal service! Because everyone is "Catholic" here, you HAVE to go to a baptism if you're invited - it's just the thing to do. We definitely took advantage of that.

We have one investigator whose name is William, from Ecuador. He is getting baptized this saturday! We've been teaching him for a while now, and he is super cool. First lesson when he was asked what he knew about Jesus (before I got here) he responded, "Well it's pretty cool how he provided the example for us by getting baptized. That means we all should get baptized as well." That. Never. Happens. William's wife, Mercedes, needs to be very very sure.... that happens a lot here. Oh well - She'll ripen soon enough, being as religious as she is and with her husband having the priesthood. My companion, the President, and PMG all say to "find the people who will listen." That means, that if you're walking through this white field that is all ready to harvest, you have to harvest the ones that are ready - and not just sit next to a green piece of corn waiting for it to ripen. That corn you do your best to encourage, but you might have to leave until later. For example, about six months ago, some investigators were "dejar-ed" (left behind for later missionaries due to lack of progress). We found their information amidst our newly organized piso (yeah!) and went over to say hello. They were super excited to see us, still had their Book of Mormon, and made us lunch - they were Peruvians and the food was unbelievably good. So now they're our new investigators, and I'm pretty sure they're ripe this time around. 

We also have a new investigator named Daniel, who we contacted in the street. He LOOKED like a punk kid with his headphones and beard, but he turned out to be very religious and was really wondering what to do about baptism. We went to his house and met his family, and they're super spiritual too! We left some B.O.M.'s and if they read, they will get baptized this month. If they don't read, they'll get baptized in the near future. It was super cool because that day we talked about how, during contacting, we need to "fear no man" (Elder Uchtdorf). And we did, and it turned out just like the Lord promised. 

General Conference was the best!! Our investigator came to the Stake President's house and loved it (Especially since Elder Uchtdorf told her that she needed to stop doubting). It was actually not that difficult to listen to it in Spanish (including the one that was originally in Spanish. Holy Cow!!!)

Spiritual thought for the week: Think of what it would have been like to be Alma - he goes from the vilest of sinner to a missionary to the high priest AND chief judge, and then both of his father figures die (Mosiah and Alma). How much would he have had to rely on the Lord? Through him, all things are possible - including speaking halting Spanish and not knowing how to teach. The Spirit and the Atonement have the power to change.

Elder Maxfield.

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