Week 23, Jan 23 - Pictures of Telde, the dessert, the beach, the mountains, the green

Week 23, Jan 12 - Los Reyes Magos

Well it was another week here in paradise. Dad, I want you to know that I started off today in my nice, first world shower with almost uncomfortably hot water. And then a cockroach fell on my head and I had to kill it with a spoon while naked.

This week started off with a nice four days of tri-panionship. Elder Sarango is Zone Leader, and he goes to Zone Meeting once a month. These tri-panionship days have happened 4 times now, but this was the first time with Elder Norrell and Elder Nash. Elder Sarango leaves, we stay and spend part of our time in Telde and part in Vecindario while he goes to Madrid and then to another island for intercambios. We stayed in Telde for Monday, with nobody to meet with and EVERYBODY on the streets, because it was the day before Reyes. And nobody wanted to talk, because they wanted to watch the parade or go shopping. We were very tempted, being in tri-panionship, to go and buy Reyes Magos costumes and see if we got more contacts, but that´s against the rules. Tuesday was very similar, because everyone was home and sleeping and forgetting the whole reason the Reyes Magos existed. So not a whole lot of teaching happened in Telde this past week. 

But I think I loaded up some pictures of what happened Tuesday night... We bought a Roscón de Reyes, the traditional food of January 6th. It´s a big giant sweet bread doughnut with nata on the inside and prizes - the guy who gets the haba (some sort of nut) has to pay, and the guy who gets the king "será coronado con gran alegría". I didn´t get either. Kinda like Christmas cake Russian Roulette. And we bought one made for 8-10 people and ate the whole thing. My companion probably ate 45% of the Roscón, and we all regretted it when we next needed to use the toilet. 

At Zone Meeting, we found out that our new Mission Presidents would be the Packs, from Mississippi. They´ll get here in July, a little before my halfway mark.We alsofinished this year with 496 baptisms in the mission, 4 away from our goal.... We were very close. President Jackson is looking through all the paperwork to see if he found any that were overlooked. We also have transfers this upcoming week. I don´t think I´ll leave, but it´s a definite possibility. I shouldn´t be saying that I want to stay, but.... I really like it here. And there´s so much more stuff to do. 

Our investigator, Juan, decided the other day to give us Christmas gifts. He gave us shoe polish, cologne, and a tie. Obviously we have a bad shoes, bad smell, and bad taste in ties. I was actually really surprised to see someone non mormon know EXACTLY what missionaries can use. The only thing he forgot was peanut butter. 

Well that´s it for the week! Today we´re headed to knock a building with 114 apartments, a size unheard of here in Telde. Sadly, there will probably be a couple rejections. But that is just fine - D&C 84:85 says "Iré delante de vuestra faz. Estaré a vuestra diestra y a vuestra siniestra, y mi Espíritu estará en vuestro corazón, y mis ángeles alrededor de vosotros, para sosteneros." Every missionary´s favorite scripture - and I´ll add that sometimes He´s buoying us up through loving family and friends that have sent M&Ms, Peanut butter, Reeses, ties, cards, letters, notes, and lots of other amazing American christmas presents that makes missionaries work with a little spring in their step. 

Love, Elder Stew.

Week 22, Jan 5 - And the work continues

Not much has happened in the last week. Holidays aren´t very nice to missionary work, because people never remember the Christ in Christmas - and as a result are obsessed with themselves and buying and sales and parties and have way too much prisa to talk with us. We´ve spent a lot of time contacting. But a couple cool things have happened:

We took directions from two midgets, which later turned out to be incorrect.

A crazy Cuban woman got our phone number (which isn´t very hard - we give it to everyone) and now she keeps calling us and yelling about how she has our book and then . .  . I´m not sure. Not even the native speakers understand her. She has called from 3 different phone numbers trying to get in contact with us, every time yelling frantically and unintelligably

We´ve contacted several Nigerians, which is always fun because they have deep voices and cool accents and really, REALLY spicy food (Elder Norrell got some serious acid reflex/heartburn). But then you have to learn how to give a lesson in English, and THAT is hard - I have to talk about the gospel only in Spanish or Spanglish now, which I didn´t think would happen. 

In relation to a menos activo who said continuosly he´d come to church but never did, the ward mission leader told us, "Ese hombre . . tiene más palabras y menos acción que un diccionario." That was funny. 

Juan (more on him later) came to an English class wanting to learn how to pronounce some words for a song he´s been learning. And, upon realizing that Elder Norrell has a very deep voice, he decided that for English class they´d sing together. (I´m very grateful Juan was our only student that night.) Long story short, now I can´t get Elvis Presley´s "Can´t help falling in love" out of my head. 

The ward mission leader was released, put back in as Elders quorum president, and now we have counselors in the Branch Presidency for the first time in two years! But also no ward mission leader for the forseeable future. In a branch of 40 attending members, there´s not a lot of priesthood leadership. Both the Branch President and one of his counselors have only been active for 2ish years. We´re very, very close to an apostasy - thank heavens for the Manual. Apparently it used to be worse - things like the Branch President paying members, using tithing and fast offerings, so that they´d come to church on Sundays. Another Mission Leader quote - "Casi nadie sabe la locura que era ésta rama."

We´ve signed up more than 25 people for English class . . more stories on that when it starts. 

We met someone named William Guerras, who told us how evil religion was for causing wars, and how we were just nutcases trying convert everyone and his 20 dollars per month paid to the UN did more than all of us put together. How ironic. 

We have a progressing investigator named Juan - his brother is a menos activo and really, Juan´s been the only real member reference we´ve gotten. He´s been coming to church for the past 2 months and yesterday, he shared in the Principios de Evangelio class (taught by Hermana Doli, the Stake President´s maquina wife) that he´s pretty sure that joining the church is in his future - and we´re going to try and give him a fecha this coiming Friday! We´ve tried in the past, but always gotten lukewarm answers - a couple prayers from home sure couldn´t hurt - It´s sure not going to be us that convinces him he wants to be baptized.

And, for a spiritual thought, I challenge everyone who reads this letter to find a copy of "Remember Lot´s Wife" by Elder Holland. I think it´s a BYU speech because that´s what my copy says, but I have no idea what that means. I assume if you google it you´ll find it. It´s a great talk to read during January. 

Love, Elder Maxfield

P.S. Thank you in advance for any mail/packages that were sent - It all comes this week on Thursday.

Week 21, Dec 29 - The Purple Lady

Well, here´s the weekly letter - it definitely feels more natural communicating like this instead of through skype. It was defenitely weird to see all of you instead of just read. But it was so cool! All the missionaries were definitely a little homesick afterwords, including me. But that changed after a good solid night of contacting and getting rejected every single time :) It´s funny - Contacting is that activity that seems to get most missionaries down about life - but I always feel really good about it. In fact, after most boring meetings (don´t tell anyone I said that - but they do exist) I am really, really excited to go street contacting. We don´t have a lot of success during the holidays - the whole country seems to be infected with a dangerous deadly disease called "prisa". And here, that´ll last at least until the 6th, because Christmas starts on the noche buena (Christmas eve) continues through the 26th, then New Years Eve and New Years, and then Reyes Magos on the 6th. I know I might be a Spanish scrooge, but I do NOT like Reyes Magos - it has seriously gotten in the way of proselyting. 

There´s not much that´s happened since we talked last - Except for one experience. We were visiting menos activos with Christmas letters around one of the sketchier parts of town called Las Remudas. We knocked a door, expecting just to drop off the letter, and a woman probably Grandma Maxfield´s age opened the door. Instead of just asking for the letter and calling it good, she invited us in. First, she was wearing all purple. Like those lady jackets and pant suits - all purple. Purple earrings. Purple necklace. Purple shirt underneath the lady purple pant suit. Then we walked in. ALL OF THE WALLS WERE PURPLE. And the rug was purple. And the Christmas tree was purple. And the Christmas decorations were purple themed. The dog was wearing a purple bow and collar. She offered us water and a pastry, served on purple dishes and the pastry had purple frosting. The couch was purple. The lightbulbs in the lamps were purple. The kitchen table was purple. Even the knife she used to cut the pastry was purple. There was modern art on the wall, the kind that Dad likes with the simple squares and lines - and they were differing shades of purple. And the dog´s name was violet. (al final, she didn´t really want us there - just too nice to tell us to leave. She wouldn´t even let us share He is the Gift, and EVERYONE likes that. Sad, because she really liked the church when she was involved.) 

Well, I´ll take this little time I´ve got left to say that I am grateful for Christmas - it is the best time to reflect upon what we´re giving away as missionaries - the hope that comes from Jesus Christ.

Adios, hasta Enero 2015!

Elder Stewart Maxfield.

Home cooked lunch

Week 20, Dec 25 - Christmas in Telde

Christmas Dinner with Zone at the Old Mission Home

Christmas Dinner American Style

Opening Presents

The Christmas Nap

Week 19, Dec. 15 - Baptism and New Companion

So I got a new companion last Monday, after I wrote. Named Elder Norrell. He´s pretty darn cool. He´s not Elder Dyer, but we get work done. He´s been up north, in Madrid, and now down here in the islands (what the missionaries call a 3-mission mission. Because those three areas are all very, Very different.) He cooks, cleans, preaches, teaches, has the Spirit, and sleeps during MedioDia. It´s a goood time.

Saying Good-bye to Elder Dyer 

I´ve been  showing him the ropes, which is pretty fun. Things like, "Don´t talk to that guy, he´s nuts. And thisa Testigo. And the bus stops here. It goes there. Well. I guess is doesn´t go there. We´re lost now. I really should have paid attention last transfer." Not really like that, but we have been lost twice because, why not take the new guy to places you´ve never been? Yesterday we wandered around an unfamiliar beach pueblo, because people are ALWAYS on the beach on Sundays. (Seriously. Sunday is a holy day of rest - at the beach.) But we didn´t go out on the sand or close to it or anything bad like that. As soon as he gets to know the area, we´re going to do splits - the members are really excited because for them all the work necessary is showing up, and we´ll do all the planning. Working with the members is funny here, because there´s not very many. There´s ten people in Ward Council and 40 that come to church every week - the ward mission leader told me there were "Muchos jefes y pocos indios" when I asked him about ward Council.

We also had a baptism this last week  -  TWO. One of them was Ezikiel, and the other was an 8 year old. Baptisms are really, REALLY stressful because I want everything to go perfectly. But it´s very rewarding to see an inactive man watch his son get baptized, and then to watch a baptism of an 8 year old whose mother is only partly active. It makes the stress and the letdowns and the missed appointments and everything else that makes Missionaries get down worth it. I´ve been reading the "History of the Church" by Joseph Smith and there´s some pretty cool stuff in there. If I remember right, the editor and compiler of Joseph´s history makes the following comment regarding the scripture, "After much tribulation come the blessings." He says that means not that tribulations might come, but that they have to come. Also that blessings have to come as well. I thought that was super cool and can totally apply it to the mission. The stress and heartache from investigators can surely be listed as tribulations - but after a lot of those you see things like Mercedes and William and a growing church. I love it here.

(Pause for a second. I´m realizing how fun it is to read scriptures and Mission Stuff. Our church library has a few books in English that I´ve taken advantage of. Since the MTC I´ve read the BOM twice, the New Testament, Jesus the Christ, Our Heritage, Our Search for Happiness, A Marvelous work and a Wonder, Articles of Faith, The Miracle of Forgiveness (still on that one - Spanish) and three volumes of History of the Church.  We also just barely got the Liahona with all the Conference talks. Yessss. You realize how incredibly AWESOME Joseph Smith was when you read History of the Church.)

I seem to have contracted a cold or allergies or something. Runny nose, teary eyes, lost voice, etc. It´s a good thing oranges are in season because they are really, REALLY good for when I´ve felt like this - The Mercadona lady gave me a really wierd look when I bought 5 pounds of oranges for one person. But other than that, I feel great and I won´t let it impede me from working. That´d just be downright silly. 

While we´re on the subject, Skype calls next week - no letters. P-Day will be Christmas. I´ll be at the old mission home with all the other missionaries from the island from the morning until around 6:30 that night. Which corresponds to the early, EARLY morning at home until eleven thirty (7 hour difference to the Canaries).  I have no idea how to put on contacts, nor what sort of money it will cost. I´d like to do it earlier in the morning (Utah Time), at 8:00 or sometime around there. What we can do is assign Maren or Dad (seeing as they´re the IT of the house) to check out the account I created for the family under Mom´s email before I left (mom should have the password) and try and add me as a contact or something (if that´s necessary) and we can start the call then (at 8).  Maren can work her technology gismo wizardry from both ends. I´ll be on my email starting at 1:45 (7:45am Utah) and we can email for a second before it gets figured out. It won´t take very long. Our very technologically un-savvy Mission Leader asked us to set up a skype call for him with someone on another island, and it didn´t take longer than ten minutes. So I´m sure we´ll figure it out. If you guys want to change anything, email me and I´ll see it while Santa Clause is doing his thing over there (From about midnight Utah time onward I´ll be able to check my email.)

Well, that´s all folks. The Church is true. 

Elder Stew.

Week 18, Dec. 8 - Transfers in Telde, Stewart Gets a new Comp

Well transfers just occurred. I´m staying right here in my little spot of heaven. (It really is very nice in Telde.) My trainer got transferred to Cuenca - A city on the easternmost part of the mission in Castilla - La Mancha. He´s going to be very cold and need to work very hard. Being the missionary that he is, he was very excited for the work (but not so much for the cold - He´s from Arizona.)

Last picture of zone before transfers

I´ve been assigned a new companion, named Elder Norrell. I haven´t heard anything about him except for that he´s from Texas. So more updates when he arrives - I put my old companion on a plane for Madrid. at 6am this morning and he´ll be here later tonight. Right now I´m with the Zone Leader Elder Sarango, from Ecuador. He sure makes the Spanish learning go faster.

So I have a lot to say and not very much time. Some new pictures should have uploaded, so tell me how that works out. If we´re lucky, we´ll have some from the baptism that we did today. Yep. Today. My trainer let me take the lead on this one, and everything went. We had the idea to have William baptize Ezequiel, (The guy who we just baptized a month ago), and it went GREAT! The only thing was that William´s nerves got to him and he messed up the prayer like 7 times. But it was beautiful. William was being awesome (as usual) and Ezequiel loved the spirit that he felt. I had the idea to have his seminary teacher give a talk to have his seminary friends give talks and prayers. And then, in typical Mormon fashion, delicious food came out of nowhere to finish it off. (Sometimes I think the relief society just creates food out of nothing.)

William baptizing Ezequiel

Mercedes is William´s wife. And she is.... She brought Columbian food to the baptism today. She ALWAYS makes us food when we go to her house. She loves the missionaries (she started crying when my companion gave his last testimony yesterday.) She insists on staying after ward functions and cleaning up. She explained to the Sunday School class yesterday how we shouldn´t read the scriptures - we should "escudriñarlas"  (I think it´s a mix between ´scrutinize´ and ´study´). There was an investigator who felt/looked a little uncomfortable at the baptism today, not really talking to anyone. So she walked up to him, took him by the arm, and said, "I made these sandwiches. Eat one and tell me they´re good. I don´t want there to be any left." (She did the same thing to me at the ward BBQ a couple weeks ago - she makes so much food!!) As she did what the members were supposed to have done (fellowship this investigator) she winked at me and later said, "I could tell he needed a friend if he was going to come back." That´s to say how awesome Mercedes is, and not that the members had forgotten or that they´re bad - there were a lot of investigators there. She told us the other day that she knows she´s going to get baptized, she just doesn´t know when. 

Mercedes wasn´t that way when we first started teaching her. There was a time when she thought we were pressuring her too much, that wearing skirts at church was too hard, and reading the scriptures was just adding onto it. She almost went back to her old church. BUT. The members of the relief society literally saved her. From day 1 they were all friends and she never stops telling us how great it is to be in the relief society. I have no idea what they do in there, I just know that it works miracles. I am willing to bet that her desires to progress came cheifly from two places, neither of which was us nor her husband - the relief society sisters and the spirit. 

President Hinckely said once that every new convert needs three things in the church - A job, to be nurtured by the good word of God, and a friend. As missionaries, we focus WAAAY to much on the second. And as an investigator, there´s not much you can make them do on those first or second categories. But everyone can have a friend. The other things will come later. I am so grateful for our rama that has accepted every investigator with open arms - nothing would happen if the members were shot off or acted like the church was a club, hazing the new guys. 

There´s the missionary message for the week - be a friend to everyone. Even if they´re new or shy and even if they don´t want to be friends with you. 

Saludos from a place that has never, ever seen a white Christmas, 

Elder Stew.

Eating a fish, picture most likely taken by a native

Stewart baking - but what?  I see powdered chocolate mix