"HEY, DEDICATE YOUR WHOLE LETTER TO ME." -ELDER JARVIS

Well, looks like I gotta do this now. So on Wednesday, Jarvis left, and Elder Tobler came in. I'm actually pretty stoked to be his companion again.  This will be our 2nd transfer together in 2 completely different areas. He was such a good missionary in the city, and is way good door knocking too. 

On Wednesday, elder Tobler got to the train station at around 10:30, but there were still missionaries on the way (not arriving until about 2:45) so we took some luggage with us and dropped it off at the flat and came back. We talked about the area and just caught up overall in those 2 hours of driving. It was fun. Then we got back a little early, so we went to the Big Merino. If you don't know what that is, it's the biggest attraction of Goulburn. Look it up on Google. Pretty cool stuff hahahaha. Then the other missionaries got here and we went home. 

I guess the main thing elder tobler and I have been trying to work out this week is how we are going to work with our schedule and drive the other elders around everywhere. It's been pretty frustrating. But that's okay. It hasn't taken tooo much time. Just a bit. One thing that's cool though, is that elder tobler is super positive about everything, so that helps a lot. 

Overall, it's been a good week. Very busy, full of meetings, running around and such, but not too much to really report on. 

Just want to let you know, elder tobler is the man and he wanted me to dedicate this letter to him. I think he deserves it because he gave me a really great compliment this week. He said "one thing I really appreciate about elder maxfield is how much hes grown since the last time we were companions."  I'm glad the only thing he complimented me on was the fact that I was trash before but I'm not as trash now.  I'm just kidding. I know what he meant. Lol. Hes a great guy. 

Well, love y'all heaps!!!!! 

Love Elder Maxfield. 

Ps. On a more serious note, I just want to testify that Jesus Christ is there to help you in any worthy cause. I've seen Him change and improve me, and others time and time again. He is there to help us become the people we were meant to be. Let Him shape you and mold you. Although it's tough, and we usually fight it, when we let Him shape us, we will see how beautiful the workmanship of His hands is. 

Love y'all. 

Elder tobler 

Actually a super cool picture of the sunset

C is for cookie, and cookie is for me!

Whats up party people??? So this week was wild! Ill start off with the subject line. So its like a bajillion and a half degrees right now, so we have been trying to be creative so we don't have to knock doors in 100+ degree heat. Its been fun. So we decided to make cookies for heaps of members and bring them to them. But there's a catch. With the cookies, we issued the Chocolate chip challenge to them! WOOOOOO. Basically, we gave them the cookies, a pass along card, and a copy of "The Living Christ" and challenged them to give one of those out (or do some form of other missionary work) and text us about it after they finish. We're hoping that this can generate some excitement about member missionary work in the ward. Hopefully it works. If not, at least the cookies tasted good. 

So, other than that, we just had transfer calls. ELDER JARVIS IS GOING TO THE CITY!!!! I'M SO STOKED FOR HIM!!!! Hes served mostly bush his whole mission, so this will be a completely new experience for him. As for me, Ill stay here for a third, and Ill be comps with Elder Tobler again. hahahaha. That'll be way fun. I'm actually super excited. I loved serving with him last time, so serving with him again could be a lot of fun. 

Other than that, not much else is happening.  We got a new investigator that seems really promising this week. I was on trade-offs so I wasn't at the lesson, but Elder Jarvis said that he was really keen. So that's exciting!

Well, love yall heaps! Hope you have a great week! Stay warm! 

Love Elder Maxfield

Just another day out here

What's up everyone!!! 

So my email today will probably be a bit shorter, but we'll see. 

So to start off with, mission basketball is over. We haven't gotten final results yet, but as of last week we were sitting in 2nd place with many zones just on our heels. However, we DESTROYED the work this week as a zone, so we'll see what happens. 

In other news, this upcoming week is week 6 and I'll most likely be staying next transfer and Elder Jarvis will go. He's been here for ages so he deserves a transfer. Hahaha. 

So I think Friday and Saturday were the coolest days for me. Both because of the things I learned. Fridays DTM was great. We learned about consecration and being obedient. It was great! Saturday we were filling up the baptismal font for the sisters baptism so we had a bit of free time. I read a talk called "The Fourth Missionary." It was super good. It just talked about the difference between doing good things because you're supposed to and doing them because you know it's the best thing and you want to do that. So it was really good. It helped me out a lot. 

Other than that, not a ton happened this week. Just your average week. No real news on any of our investigators. They're all pretty busy, so we haven't been able to meet with them. Hopefully this week. 

Love yall heaps! 

Elder Maxfield

ELDER LI!!!! hahahaha

"If you were a horse, Id shoot you all"

Well I'm not gonna explain who that quote was by or who it was directed towards. Just know it wasn't to me and my comp or anyone in my mission. Just thought it was a funny thing I heard this week. Hahaha. 

So this week was slow as!!!! Elder Jarvis basically rolled over and died on Monday night after our legendary ascent of the not-so-peaked slopes of Australia. He got really sick. I'm not sure how, but he did. On Monday night he had zero energy, Tuesday he had fevers that would spike, and then drop, so he spent the whole with massive temperature changes. Then Wednesday he got strep throat and has had that since. Fun times. 

Despite the death being had in my flat, we had some cool miracles. Yall remember Matt? The super keen guy? So he texted us and told us that he wanted to meet Tuesday. He then described some struggles hes going through but he really wants to follow God. Hes the man. We'll meet with him again on Wednesday this week. So excited for that. Hes a great guy. 

Thursday the Narooma Elders came over early cause zone conference was the next day. So i spent the day doing two-half-day tradeoffs with them. I would go out while someone stayed with Elder Jarvis and then come back and they swapped haha. It was fun. I feel bad for Elder Jarvis though. Hes getting better. 

Zone conference was great and interviews after were great too!!! President and Sister Runia really have a lot of love for us and I'm so grateful for them!!! After interviews we headed back home and stopped at Little Caesars on the way for dinner. We bought soooooo much!!!!!! Man, it was delicious!!! 

In the words of Marty Mcfly, "That's all folks." Love yall heaps! Hope you had a good and safe new years!! 

Elder Maxfield

PIZZA!!!!!!!! 

Happy Chrissy from down unda!!!

Hey everyone!!!! So, no, that's not how they say it here, but it definitely is the quote of the week. 

This week was kinda eh. Christmas week in Canberra is pretty dead. On top of that, a heat wave came in and we hit 100. Almost every night our bedroom was 90+ degrees at 10:30pm. Woohoo, no air con!!! My favorite! But that's okay. 

Hey so i just want to share a couple miracles and fun experiences this week. 

1) Matt has been off the radar for the last 3-4 weeks. Hes literally the most busy 18 year old i've ever met. Its crazy! So since our first time meeting with him, we havent really seen him. Been rough. But last night he texts us out of the blue and says "hey guys, i want to get baptized." So we told him that he needs to meet with us. Well, we now have an appointment with him!!!! I'm so excited!!!!! I'm really looking forward to teaching him again. Hes a great kid! 

2) So i would save this one for last because of chronology but i want to save a really cool miracle for last. So today we went and hiked the highest peak in Australia!!!!! Mt. Kosciusko. It actually was a wayyyyy easy hike. That's okay though. It was sooo fun!!! When we got there the temps were cool but really nice for a long sleeve and shorts. Then as we kept hiking, the winds picked up. Towards the top gusts of about 50mph were hitting us. Hahahha. It was so cool!!! We chilled on the top for a bit, i got my yoga pose in, and we headed back down. About 1/3 of the way down, that wind was added too by rain, then thunder hahahhahaha. Well, needless to say, it was an amazing time had by most (my comp is now seeming like he's gonna get really really sick... he'll be okay) But yeah. That was a party. It was so nice to be out in the actual wilderness again and hiking. 10/10 my happy place. Aspirations for 7/7 each continent's highest peak is building. Everest and Antarctica is a stretch though.... not sure i'll ever even think about doing those. 

3) So Elder Jarvis and I have been planning a devotional for a little over a month now. That happened last night. At first, we were really really excited about it and were keen to make it happen, but as time went on, we realized a problem... there might only be 5 people that show up to it. And that was a realistic thought. That very much was a possibility. Well, we decided we were in too deep and couldn't pull out, so we went for it. One thing that kept running through my mind yesterday was "attempt to be creative, even if the results are modest." I felt that we had attempted and we were about to see modest results, but that's okay. Well, we show up and at around 6:30pm, a couple people trickle into the chapel. Then at about 5 till, many more people showed up! We had an attendance of about 40 people!!!!! We thought there would actually only be a max of 20 people. But that was a miracle!!! Then the devotional started. The speakers were absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!!!! In each of their topics that we assigned them, they took a different twist than normal and they all flowed together so well!! The musical items were great!!! And most importantly, i felt the Spirit sooo strongly. I accredit that devotional's success 100% to the Lord because of His infinite mercy and kindness. He was willing to make our little devotional something memorable, at least for me. 

Well everyone. I hope you have a great new years!!!! Love yall heaps!!! 

Elder Maxfield 

Christmas zone pic

Because everyone knows how tough i am, i cant smile. 

Gotta take a yoga picture on every mountain

SKI MAP!!!!!!!!! Wait... isn't this Australia...?

"Im not palagi, youre palagi"

Holy driving! Man, we went up to Sydney twice this week and I'm absolutely smashed. Driving that much really makes you tired. (thanks Mom for being a taxi driver while we were growing up!!) Well despite the long drives, the trips were a lot of fun! The first one was MLC. We had a really good meeting. President gave a training on sacrifice and helping people understand what sacrifice actually is. Sometimes people will sacrifice things like their bed until they get a baptism or other things like that, and President basically told us to chill. hahaha. It was a really good training though and he taught us a little more about the meaning of sacrifice. 

Sister Runia gave a great training about faith in Christ, not faith in outcomes. That was some hardcore wisdom right there. Its sometimes hard to find the difference. A lot of people will say (including myself all the time) "I have faith that _____ will happen" when really your faith should be in the Lord and His ability to make that happen so long as it is His will. It was a really great training. 

After MLC we had trade offs with the AP's. That was a ton of fun!!! We were able to work hard and have a good time. It was so cool! We made a goal to teach several lessons that night, and then we headed onto the street. Literally the first guy we talked to was like "yeah I have time right now, what do you have?" So we taught him right then! SO cool! I love street contacting. ahhaha

Coming back from Sydney, we helped Bishop move. That was a crack up!!! So he has like 4 sons, and they all speak Samoan. One of them, during the middle of the service was like "Hey palagi!" (white boy) To which I responded, "youre palagi" He said "I'm not palagi, youre palagi!!" Thus i was stuck in a battle with a 7 year old samoan kid. hahahaha. It was pretty funny. Such a fun family! 

Well, Mike got baptized this week!!!!! I taught him in Sydney, so we headed up on Saturday for that! It was really cool to see him again and everyone else. Crazy though! We got to the chapel at 4:30pm for the 5pm baptism. The font (which takes 2-3 hours to fill up) hadn't even started yet. So everyone grabbed buckets and filled them up in sinks to speed up the filling process. The baptism that followed also made it a more memorable one. It was really great! 

Well everyone, I hope you're having a great Christmas and that you're able to remember its true meaning. Christ came for each one of us so that we could come to Him and be saved. I love Him and I'm trying to learn more about Him. This Christmas, I invite you to give yourself the best gift ever, and do the same; learn of Christ. Love you all heaps!! Merry Christmas!!!! 

Elder Maxfield 

The baptism

Hey party people! Its Christmas!

Hola and hi all of my friends and family.

Well, this week was pretty awesome. We kicked it off with a MEAN trade-off in narooma! So let me explain narooma real quick. It's basically a super super tiny, extremely pretty beach town. The elders flat down there is like a 5 minute walk to the beach that literally no one is ever on (so missionaries are allowed on it year round). So it's just a nice place to be. So we did trade offs down there and it was a lot of fun! We taught soooo many lessons. We taught (both companionship total) about 6 lessons on Tuesday and talked to heaps of people! Also had a service project in there too. So it was a pretty full on day. It was a lot of fun though! Elder Greenig and Petersen made it a lot of fun.

Friday was mean as. We did a trial run for a mission challenge. Us against my first zone (Harbour north). Of course we SMASHED them!!! They had no chance. But it was a lot of fun. We worked really really hard and found a ton of success from it! We were able to knock into a guy who studies religion and is willing to hear more about us. He invited us in right there and we taught the first lesson. We weren't able to set a return appointment cause he doesn't know when he's free, so we'll just stop by another time. Also we taught a lesson to Kai. He's a really nice Tongan guy. He's super huge but literally the most gentle guy ever. So cool! He really loves christ and loves the church. Just needs to put that into action. We had a really good lesson and the spirit was felt. So that's good. 

Other than that, just a typical week. It was a ton of fun. We worked hard and found a lot of success which is really good to see.

I love the work people! I hope you are all having an amazing Christmas season!! Love ya heaps! 

Elder maxfield

Narooma

Pizza for days!!! After destroying a house. I'm keen to do construction hahha. 

Also narooma.