Off to the suburbs, get ready Dural

BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELTS BECAUSE THIS IS GOING TO BE AN ACTION PACKED, EPIC EMAIL OF TOTAL AWESOMENESS AND MIRACLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

So, we will start with the title. Dural. the super rich area in the mission where I will do lots and lots of door knocking. Elder PhimPhan (remember him?) was there for 9 months. ahhaha so I'm excited! My new companion is Elder Ferguson. I literally know nothing about him, but I will inform you next week about how awesome he is! Yes, so that is next week. 

Boom, this week. SOOOO SMASH!!!!! So, this week was the zone competition. We had two teams "Alpha lion tiger puma cougar cats" versus "omega wolf jackal dingo dogs" Of course, Alpha lion tiger puma cougar cats destroyed the others. Basically, whoever got the most points (did the best in finding and teaching) won the competition over the three day period. So, some ways to get huge  points was baptismal dates. Elder McCleskey and I were able to get 3 people on date this week. BOOM!!! SO SMASH!!! MIRACLES!!! 

Youk is super super solid. He's on date for March 24th. He will be in a picture below. Kyle is awesome as well. We are going to hot pot tonight with him and his mom. He's 17 so we need permission to baptize him.. whoops, sorry, he's on date already! Also march 24th. BUT GUESS WHAT??? HE TURNS 18 ON MARCH 21ST(Reeses bday too) SO BOOM!!!! MIRACLES!!! many more miracles occurred this week and they are not all able to be contained on this email. So ask away next week. :) 

SO!!!! This week was so awesome! And to top it all off, we went to the most awesomest place ever this morning. that is why I'm so late now.... sorry. :) 

We went to Watson bay. The view was absolutely incredible. It reminded me a little of the southern tip of the Big Island in Hawaii. So pretty. Pictures will be included. The ferry ride was of course awesome and it will be missed a lot when I go inland. 

Okay! my companion said I need to finish. Love yall heaps!!!!! 

Elder Maxfield

Weet-Bix

Zone conference!!!!! And Book of Mormon Musical training!!! So this week we had both of those. On Tuesday we had a special training meeting because the Book of Mormon Musical is coming to Sydney in a week or so. We are all super excited for it to come; because even though it makes fun of us, it brings us a lot of publicity!! So, we were trained on what we are going to do for the play, and what to expect to be asked by people. So, I think the best way to find out what we're going to be doing, is for you to check out the Melbourne campaign that the church did last year for the play. We will have a giant, 10ft tall Book of Mormon out in the middle of the square. Missionaries will be there to answer questions and help people find out whats inside the book. In the display will be some questions that the Book Of Mormon answers and some pop up displays. It'll be so cool!!!! I'm excited for it to start!!! 

This week was also zone conference. President, Sister Checketts, the zone leaders, the assistants, and the sister training leaders all gave training. I found that in each of the 5 trainings, we were taught different things that we need to do in order to really see progression in our investigators. I'm excited to implement those things into my work and see what happens. 

I love this work everyone! I hope yall know that. I love my Savior and I am privileged to testify of Him every day. Please follow Him and His teachings. Its the best thing you can do ever. 

Love yall heaps!! 

I've been getting questions of "what is weet-bix" weet-bix is the best cereal in the world!!! Its 97% wheat and is the best with honey. 

HELLOOOOOO

Okay, miracles galore!!!!! 

1) I found golf clubs and a Socceroos jersey!!! So cool!! I've been wanting both of those

So for the rest of the miracles, they're actual miracles. I've been working on increasing my faith in Jesus Christ and trusting that as long as I'm working, we will find success. So this Friday, before leaving the flat, we prayed to have a miracle. On the way to a lesson 5 minutes later, we met Josh. He had been in Australia for 10 hours and was lost. We helped him and then invited him to games night. He came and was super excited to meet everyone. He wants to meet up again!!! He's awesome!!! 

The next day was really rough. At the end of the day we  did a finding competition with the district. Whoever got the most points won. We did so bad and knew we were going to lose. Just no one would talk to us. So we were a little discouraged, but I told Elder McCleskey that on the way home (5 minute walk) we were going to find someone. Guess what??? We found Siyu!! He's awesome!! He is super keen to meet up and wants to come to games night tonight and learn about our church!!! Woohoo!!! 

Sunday, we met with an investigator. This person has lied to us before about believing in God just to make us feel good. So we prayed before that he would tell us the truth. He did and now we know how to help him. 

Miracles happen when you have faith. My faith is not as strong as it could be but as we try to increase it, God will openly bless us. 

I love yall heaps!!! 

Elder Maxfield

Its Australia day... and in other news, we had a baptism in the district

So Happy Australia day everyone!! I don't think anyone here really cared about the day. Even the Aussies didn't seem to think it was a big deal. Chinese New Year will be bigger here than Australia Day. HAhAHAHHAHA

So, two cool experiences this week. 

1) THREE GOT BAPTISED!!!!!!!! 

That was so awesome to see her be baptized. She seemed so happy and I got the opportunity to participate in her confirmation. Shes going to be such an amazing member of the church and she might go serve a mission. That's so cool!!! 

2) The Australia Sydney North Mission and the Australia Sydney South Mission will become the Australia Sydney Mission in July!!! WOAH!!!! One mission, 320 missionaries, baptisms.... 30000000. Its going to be so cool!!! I'm excited for the change but we are sad that President Checketts is going home. I hope the transition is smooth and everything works out well. But if you guys know anyone going to Sydney, L:ET ME KNOW!!!!

I hope you have a good week everyone!!! 

Love yall heaps!!!

Elder Maxfield!!

We celebrated Australia day with Vegemite toast and I took a bite out of raw Weet-Bix in the morning. YA Australia!!!! 

Spring Festival is the worst!! But the best too

So, everyone is in China now for Spring Festival. Chinese New Year for all of you who don't know what Spring Festival is. It sounds super cool, but it takes everyone away from us. There are also exams going on right now, so everyone is busy and cant meet up. Needless to say, a lot of finding was done this week. It was so fun though!! 

We also had trade offs with the zone leaders. That was awesome!!!! Elder Bush is the man!!! We did such good work that day. We played a finding game where we competed against everyone else in our area. It was exceedingly fun. We all tied though, so that's not okay. 

Sorry, this week was kind of dull, but I want to share with you that my testimony of the Book of Mormon has again been confirmed this week. Twice, I prayed to know if it was true. Twice, I received an answer almost immediately. I cannot deny what I know to be true. I love the Book of Mormon. I know it is the word of God. Please, read it. It will change your life. I love you all heaps.

Love

Elder Maxfield

Ice cream with Elder McCleskey

Pump up speeches and ice cream

So this week was pretty fun. I'm staying in UNSW!!!! I love this place! I hope I can stay for a while. 

I've heard that the last few weeks emails have been kind of confusing. Sorry about that. I will try to make them better. 

This week, I'd like to share just a couple experiences. 

1) Nash (in the picture below) is on date for the 10th of February! He is so awesome. I think I've talked a little bit about him before, but he's from Thailand and is learning so fast. He can play the guitar and teaches guitar lessons. So far, we have taught him the first 3 lessons and the 10 commandments. He hasn't had any problems with any of it, and when we showed him the baptismal interview questions, he said he had no problems except for the stuff he had never heard of before. haha. So we are excited to see him continue to progress. On Friday, we went to get ice cream with him, and it was so fun. He is really an awesome guy. 

Yesterday we had our amazing zone leaders give us a pump up speech. We believe that our zone is going to do incredible things this transfer. We have to work super hard, but we feel its possible. For me, I'm going to work on my motivation. I feel like I've been making excuses to not talk to people on the street, and that's not okay. So I am going to work on my motivation to go out and work hard all day every day. We've set some pretty high goals for the transfer, but we feel its possible if we work hard.

I was studying about faith this week and I read that literally, all things are possible if its Gods will. I realized, that our goals as missionaries should always be God's will; so why would they be impossible to achieve. I need to have more faith that we can achieve them. 

I love yall heaps

Elder Maxfield

Teaching Spanish to Chinese people

So this week was awesome. About halfway through the week, we got a text from Three. She said that she had felt the spirit and she feels that she had felt it before but hadn't really accepted it. LITERALLY THE BEST TEXT EVER!!!!!! Three is so awesome. Shes preparing for baptism on the 20th of this month. I'm so excited! 

This week was a lot of teaching and a little bit of finding. We are sad that our district is falling apart. Sister Cookson goes home this week, Sister Vega is moving to the city, and.. that's it I guess. haha.

To finish off the letter, I'd like to share my testimony on President Monson. 

He is a prophet of God. He was called to lead and guide this church over these last few years. I've appreciated all he has done for this church as he has followed the direction Christ gives to him. I love this church and am excited to see what President Nelson will accomplish. 

Love yall heaps

Elder Maxfield

PS: We are teaching Three Spanish, just for fun. IDK if I mentioned that earlier.