Pullin weeds for Grandma Elva

HI!!! Hey everyone!!! How are ya?? First of all, ISABELLE????? WHAT!??!?!?!?!? So cool!!!! I'm so excited for you to go on your mission!!!! 

Okay, so this week was pretty cool. We had interviews on Thursday with President. Man, I love going to those. I always feel strengthened and re-energized after them. His advice is always good, and he definitely knows his missionaries. I think that's the best part. He seems to know and understand me, and of course, I'm his favorite missionary ever. :) (I'm sure all of you expected nothing less hahahahah) I'm kidding. He's great though. And Sister Checketts is awesome!! She seems to have such a deep love for each of her missionaries, just as if we were her own grandkids. :) So interviews were really good. 

We helped Elva Mitchell again this week with her garden. SHES THE SWEETEST LADY EVER!!! I love her so much! She's basically like my Grandma here in Australia. She has us work for her, then feeds us, then talks to us about her life and our life. We've been doing this once a week for the last few weeks, so its been great! This last week, as we were leaving she said "I need to find more work for you so you can keep coming over" and then as we were walking out the door "I love you guys!" AWWW SHES SO SWEET!! I love her!! As we were weeding her garden, we pulled out this massive weed. It took a shovel, and several cuts and scrapes to rip out. (picture below.) 

Happy Luke was finally able to meet up with us!!! He had a good week when he was trying to be Mormon. He didn't receive any answer, but he felt healthier and had a more clear mind. That's a start. We challenged him to continue another week with church, praying, reading, and then no coffee and some other things too. He accepted. So excited to see the results and the progress. Its slowly coming along I think. 

Saturday was trade offs with the assistants! Man! That was so fun!!! Elder Thornton is so smash!!! We went to Macquarie Uni and talked to people there. They were all relatively nice, not UNSW of course.. but really nice. hahaha We actually found a dude, and sat down then and had a lesson with him. That was so fun! 

Overall, good, busy week. I love the work yall. Miss you like crazy, but I love it here. Keep being

awesome!! 

Love ya heaps

Elder Maxfield

Lots o people to meet!!

Hey everyone!!!! Hows it goin??? 

So this week was pretty dang eventful! Well, actually not really.. Lol. There were a few cool things that happened though! First off, we had a mean pday last week. i made chicken enchiladas, and everyone else brought salad and rice and drinks and stuff. So we all just went to the park, ate, played basketball, etc.. Elder Ferguson and I  raced across the soccer field; yeah, I was sore the next day. HAHAHAHHAHAHA!!! Oh well. That was pretty fun though. 

Then later in the week we met up with some of the leaders in the ward to discuss what families or individuals have been neglected or need visits. We found one family who the woman, brother, ex-husband, and kids all live in our area and are less active. Within that "clan" there's a potential of 12 unbaptized kids who have never received the opportunity to receive the gospel because of their parents inactivity. So, we're going to be really careful about how we go about this. We want to really give these kids a chance to hear the gospel and decide for themselves; and hopefully bring some members back to church along the way! So that's exciting!! 

On top of them, we identified several other less-active families. Friday was so fun!!!! We were asked to do service for the Trujillo family, who is preparing to sell their home (its massive lol). So we painted the house (a portion of it) and then he took us to lunch. Which was great because we ran out of food on Wednesday. Hahhahaaha. Then we went over to Sister Mitchell's house and continued to help her out with her garden. Shes so fun! She told us her whole life story again and told us some cool details that she didn't tell last time. She's so nice though! 

I'm really optimistic about the work going forward with this ward. I hope more can happen with the less-active members than has been happening with investigators. No update on any of them.. 

Well, love ya'll heaps and I hope you have a great week! Remember I'm always praying for you! 

Love

Elder Maxfield

No subject

Hi everyone!!! 

Well, this week wasn't super crazy, but I have a couple fun stories. haha

So Wednesday was probably the most eventful day. We got on the train in the morning to go to Jeans house; just to visit her. (Shes a member) So yeah, we got on the train and were waiting for it to leave. elder Ferguson and I were sitting in the main car, facing each other, and a girl came and sat a few seats over from me. Then, a guy came running up and asked us if the train was going to the city. (he was probably 60 or so..?) We said yes, and he came and sat down in between me and the girl (who is a college student). This guy immediately starts talking to us and we can tell he's a little crazy, but really nice. So he starts talking and asks us where we were from. We told him and then another university aged guy came onto the train and sat next to elder Ferguson. The older guy then introduces Elder Ferguson and I to the new guy saying "these are my Mormon friends. He's (pointing at me) from Alabama, and he's (pointing at me again) from Kansas." I said, that's 100% incorrect. haha and the college guy said "you just pointed at the same person twice" hahaha So I think the college guy knew it was going to be an interesting train ride, cause he started to record immediately. The older guy proceeded to keep asking weird questions and say weird things. 

He at one point introduced the girl as his "youngest girlfriend" The guy was so funny!!! But crazy too. Idk, see if you can find a video on youtube or something. It was hilarious! 

I don't know if that made much sense, but yeah. :) Then we saw Elder Bush, who's supposed to be home, and his family. They were visiting Jean the same time we were!!! So that was pretty cool to see him and his family. 

Also, I got to sustain the prophet this week. I believe that he has been called of God. I know that by following the prophets, that we will be protected from harm and from Satan. He is guided by God and Jesus Christ Themselves. Follow them, and you will have the happiest life that God has planned for you. 

Love yall heaps! 

Elder Maxfield

1) We pressure washed a pool. That square took 15 minutes to do.. 

2) Possibly the best fort ever constructed!

General Conference and Saturday services

This week was yet another crazy week. So I'll give a synopsis. 

Aaron is doing a lot better. He seems to be willing to act and try to go out and meet people. I know that he'll get better when he does this. I've seen it happen before in him, so he'll get better again if he reaches out. On Friday, we went over to talk and we created a pretty cool plan with him. We made a list of all of his interests and we're planning on going and doing lots of them with him. While we're doing that, we'll teach him some principles of the gospel. He came to conference Saturday afternoon and really enjoyed it. He said after conference that he feels "a discouraging spirit leave him" (he told us about how discouraged he is) and that he loves how united our church is. He later told us that he wants to belong to something. Elder Ferguson said that he's more than welcome to belong to our church if he wants. hahaha We're going over tonight to make curry with him. 

We made a plan with Happy Luke. He's been really frustrating, but we think we've made a plan. He wants a list of commandments (so just the commandments in the lessons) and he will then do a "3 month trial" of Mormonism. During that time, hes gonna pray and come to church and a bunch of other stuff to see if he gets an answer from God. I know he will. At that point, its up to him to do something about it. 

Conference was great! We missed Saturday morning session because we went to a Seventh Day Adventist church. Our ward mission leader is trying to get us to go to different churches so that we can get to know the congregations and they can ask us questions. That way they feel comfortable with us and will invite us over. So we did that on Saturday morning. There were 8 people at the church, but that's okay. Conference was good. Definitely answered some of my questions. I'm so excited for this new direction that the church is gong with "ministering"!!! I think its a great idea and definitely inspired. I'm looking forward to watching the Saturday Morning. I've heard that's a good one. And that's when I'll be able to sustain my new Prophet and President of the church. I believe that he has been called of God and that he will not lead us astray as we follow his counsel. 

Love yall heaps!!! 

Elder Maxfield

1) sushi and dumplings last monday!!! 

HEY!!!!! Hoppy Easter!

WOAH!!! Reese is going home... thats not okay. hahahaha Im so excited for him and for all you at home!!! 

Okay, first of all, sorry for last week.. I was super distracted and ran out of time to email, so I neglected the group email... SORRY!!! 

Okay, so this week was nuts!!!!!!! AHHHHH 

Tuesday we had service in the morning for Griselda. Shes from Peru and is super cool! We cleaned out one room in her house, and it took 2 hours.. the room wasn't even that big. ahahaha But after that, we had a few really good lessons. So Aaron is really progressing. We talked with him about setting a schedule and trying to do something every day to reach out and do something service oriented. Later on in the week, we visited him again and he said that he felt a lot more peaceful and that his mind started to clear a bit. (hes bi-polar and is in a really hard place right now) But hes improving a lot. We are about to start teaching him gospel lessons. OH! And Tuesday night we went to get ice cream with the young men. They're so cool! We just got to know them and we talked about basketball and sports the whole time. They're so awesome!!!! I'm excited to work with them more. 

Wednesday was zone conference. That was so fun!! We pretty much just had that though. Not much to comment on. 

Thursday was trade offs. Elder Wu and I taught griselda and Carolina. Carolina is from Chile. So a member who speaks Spanish helped us out a lot. (he taught the lesson lol). BTW these were Elder Wu's investigators not mine. 

Friday... I don't think anything...? 

Saturday was transfer calls!!! We had steak (mine looked like a chicken but if you flipped it, it looked like Australia.) I'm staying with Elder Ferguson! I'm so excited for this next transfer. We're gonna have a ton of fun and hopefully the area can get moving a little. The ward is really good and willing to help, but we just need to have investigators to use them. We'll see how that goes. 

Sunday was Easter!!! We had church and then went to the Mitchell's house for Easter dinner. They were beyond nice and we just talked about music and Easter and a bunch of other stuff. They had a ton of family over, so it was just like home. I had a really good time. 

That's pretty much the week. I'm doing awesome and am really enjoying the ward.

Reese! Have fun at home!!! Give Mom and dad and the girls a big hug for me!!!!

I love yall heaps! 

Elder Maxfield