Makes me wanna take a back road! Makes me wanna take the long way home!

This was an Interesting week!! First off... Elder Jessop and I are
going to make a lawn care business when we get home. We mowed 2 huge
lawns this week and are becoming quite good if I do say so my self. As
always we mowed Sis. Becks lawn but also one of the Recent Converts in
the Ward had surgery on Monday. So he needed us to mow his lawn and
will for the next few months. Sooo we will become pro's.

The entire week was yet again very difficult. I thought about titling
this article as "I was preaching out loud; thinking bout quittin; but
right bout now I'm sure glad I didn't; cuz just when I thought it
couldn't get no hotter; I caught a glimpse of spiritual power." (To
the tune of The farmers daughter) I've come to understand what the
definition of Hot is. California people-- Yes it's hot there. Middle
of the day when its pushing 110? At the hottest? Doesn't hold up to
the 93 degree with 90% humidity weather we have here. Sis. Flaherty
(MTC District) said it best in an email she said a few weeks ago. "I
would rather Bake, than get boiled" I have one word for that.
Truuuuuuuuuu..... It's sooo hot. Yesterday (Sunday) we had a fireside
that got out around 8:45ish and we left the house and choked on how
hot it still was outside.

This week was hard once again. We had such a tough time tracting this
week. Let me tell ya. I CANNOT WAIT FOR ELECTIONS TO BE OVER!!! We got
into this guys home who told us how great Donald trump was and how we
needed to "get rid of the trash we have in the White House right now"
--His words not mine-- I'm sooo sick of people telling us about who we
need to vote for and why and Yada Yada Yada! I DONT CARE ANYMORE! We
aren't here to talk about politics! "We are the missionaries! Would
you like to hear the gospel??" Is what we say to that. Hahah fun
stuff....

So! We had another great lesson with "N" and her whole family!
They loved the first discussion! The daughter "A" really, and I
mean really, enjoyed the first vision. She took so many notes! Then
yesterday they were at church!!! And we don't know how well they liked
it but we will find out later this week! We do know that "A" loved
it. She was at the fireside that we had with the youth. We talked to
her and she told us that she can't wait to learn more! She took a ton
of notes and during Sunday school she talked about how she learned
about the first vision. Oh man I can't tell you how excited I am for
her and the family!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope y'all had a great week!
Love
Elder Maxfield

Time to put the subject into context. Elder Jessop and I were in the sticks and were using my gps. It told us to go down this dirt/gravel road to get to another road. Long story short. The road ended. But pretty area. 

This is the lava that is pouring from the sky. It's beautiful! Just don't be outside. Ever. It's too dang hot.

Zone conference on Friday! Such a good meeting! 

Help the next one in line; always stay humble and kind

Okay I'm gonna be honest, this week was hard. So I'm not going to have
too much to say.
First off Amber told us that she couldn't meet with us for a while
until the end of the summer so that was upsetting.

Next, we had 2 days where we had absolutely ZERO lessons. None. Nada.

Then we had someone invite us to read the bible. Hahah that's funny.
I've studied that every day for at least 45 minutes for the past 2
months. It was ironic because when we asked her a question about the
bible, she didn't know what to say. She didn't know the answer. That
made me chuckle.

I came to find that I'm not afraid of guns. We talked to this guy who
was getting out of his car and had this really really nice pistol. He
pulled it out of his car as we walked up to him. And he held it off to
the side of him as we talked to him for a second. So Ya haha it
didn't worry me at all.

We taught Natashia again and had a really good discussion with her.
She really opened up to us and she wants to learn more! She is
really self conscious. We invited her to be baptized. She said that 
she would like to learn more. But she was
leaning towards yeah! So that was exciting.

But yah that was the week. It was tough But it's all good.

Love y'all

Elder Maxfield

Really pretty sunset. Andrea is in there if y'all can find her haha 

Mom edit - Andrea is someone in there Ward that was walking by when he took the picture

Oh we meet again corn stocks. I see you've grown. Not really meeting your full potential though. There are taller stocks everywhere else. 8+ feet. These are maybe 6

This was the funniest thing ever. We didn't knock but left a Book of Mormon and this card.

Mom edit- zoom in to see what they wrote on the pass along card.

God is great; root beer is good. And people are crazy.

This week was full of hard work and lots of prayer. As you know, last
week we started off on Fourth of July. It was such a great day
especially here where the military and members of the army are all
over the place. The fireworks were crazy! The laws are very different
here on restrictions on fireworks… Wait what restrictions? People were
lighting off fireworks all night long. It was really cool because we
had to be inside at 8 o'clock but we were able to see a lot of
fireworks because people were lighting them off around our apartment.

The next day, Rachel's birthday, we biked around a lot. We went and
visited some of the members in an area about 6 miles away from the
apartment. One of the families we visited is moving to Hawaii!! They
will be lifting at the Schofield barracks for the next three years if
not longer. (I'll visit them when I get back really great family)

That night a HUGE STORM came through. Like this storm was one of, if
not the biggest storm I have ever been in in my life. The thunder woke
me up at 1:30 and didn't let me fall asleep until 4:00. It was so cool
to see the constant lightning allllllll around me! It did start to get
annoying around 2:30 because I just wanted to sleep.... But yeah.
There were 3 big storms this week (including a tornado warning green
skies... #sketchcity) but none came close to that first one.

One of my highlights of the week was on friday! I FINALLY GOT TO MEET
PRESIDENT STONE AND HIS FAMILY!!!! Oh my gosh I already love them so
much. When they walked in, my heart kept pounding because I just
wanted to get up there and talk to them. Sis. Stone and I made eye
contact for the first time and I could tell she knew exactly who I
was. When the meeting ended, all of the missionaries went to go shake
their hand in the foyer. When I went up, they didn't even look at my
name tag. Hahah the first thing Sis. Stone said to me was "Elder
Maxfield! We LOVE sweet Anne!" We then proceeded to talk for a little,
while holding up the line of other elders and sisters waiting to meet
them. I just can't wait to talk to them more. Another thing that they
said was that anything that the Johnny Dalton and his wife said isn't
true. 😂😂

Mom Edit - Anne is one of Reese's best friends from Hawaii. She grew up in the same stake as Pres. Stone.  
Johnny Dalton and Doug (Reese's Dad) were on the same mission together. Doug was Johnny's trainer (first mission companion).  Johnny later went on to go to school with Pres Stone.  


The other, really spiritual part of my week was Saturday. On
Saturday morning, during elder Jessop and my comp Study, we wanted to
practice tracting approaches. Elder Jessop found a scripture real fast
and shared it. What the goal was, was to work on different approaches
for us to do when we knock on a door. When tracting, we Kinda get into
a set of certain words that we use all the time. My goal was to use
different words. So, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to
say during this practice, I couldn't think of anything! We sat there
for about 15 minutes waiting for me to figure out what to say. I
eventually pulled out a scripture that I had looked at the day before.
Alma 34:32 tells us what the purpose of this life is. It says

"For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God;
yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their
labors."
This tells us simply what our goal in life should be. But no matter
what this is the purpose of our life. Later that day we were out going
to knock on doors. Elder Jessop knocked on the first door. No one
answered that door. My turn was up. I went up to the door wanting to
use what I had studied earlier that day in Alma. I knocked on the
door, a lady opened and I introduced who we were. I then proceeded to
ask her what she thought the purpose of this life was. She responded
saying that she had been wondering that for the past little while. I
then proceeded to read that scripture to her. She loved it! She wanted
to hear more and learn more about what we had to say. We then talked
to her and talk her the first lesson. We will be going back there on
Saturday. I cannot believe that the exact thing that I had studied
that morning was the exact thing that this lady needed to hear.


Well, that's my week! I know that God loves us all. He will bless us
as we come closer to him. I promise he will.

Love
Elder Reese Maxfield

Helped make desert for Sis. Beck this week.

AYO!!

Sis. Beck, Taniesha, Elder Jessop. I showed them this trick that Hannah showed me at school. Remember dat? Ayo

Brought to you courtesy of the Red White and Blueeee

Fourth of July week has been so much fun! Something that I don't know
I have explained very well, we live literally 10 miles away from an
army base so everyone here is military related. So everyone loves the
fourth sooo much! Everyone wishes everyone happy Fourth of July! I
love it.

This week was awesome! Yet slow haha on Tuesday I went to a trainer
trainee meeting where we meet with all of the people who are still in
their first six weeks. So basically everyone I came out with! It was
down in Nashville and it was also president Anderson's last meeting
with the mission. Tears were shed. Sis. Anderson cried so much! She
had absolutely dedicated her past 3 years to study and service. She is
a huge example to everyone in this mission. She knows everything about
the Preach my Gospel book. She can't remember how many times she has
studied it.

During the meeting we talked about many things, but something that
stuck out to me is tracting approaches and study habits. If you know
me/went to school with me and studied with me, you know that I'm not
very good at staying focused or studying the correct things. I learned
how to better focus my efforts during the hour of study time, and be
prepared for the day ahead of me.

This week was tough... All of our investigators were out of town. All
of the less actives we have been visiting were gone. So guess what we
did ALL WEEK!?!? TRACTING!!! Yaaayy! My favorite. We only got one new
investigator from it but almost everyone was super nice to us! We are
working on this one area that is very wealthy. Most of the people are
content with life and aren't searching for religion. Or another
religion that is. I've come to find and meet some really cool people!
One guy I talked to is 60 years old and is training for another
triathlon! Some other people are high level pilots for the army.
Others are high ranking generals, owners of companies. It's basically
the Alamo or Danville of Clarksville. Haha

Speaking of Danville, President Stone arrived here on Thursday! I'm so
very excited to meet him. So many people have told me so much about
him. Sounds like a great guy.

If anyone is keeping track, it's transfers this week! Guess where I'm going!?

Love
Elder Reese Maxfield

Downtown Nashville.

Best Book of Mormon placement ever