19th - 25th September 2015

Hi I'm fine, just tired. I get my flight plans tomorrow so I'm excited for that!

I hope I go to Croatia first and not to Serbia Bosnia or Montenegro!

I'm just enjoying my here emailing you guys! be right back I have to put my clothes in the dryer.

Today I'm going to get my suit, and some pants and ties dry cleaned!

We skyped a local Croatian yesterday which was really cool.

There isn't any free time really, except gym which is meant to be for gym and when you have personal study at night I usually just do personal study and language study and comp study but yeah there is always something to do, when we slack off its usually just talking and joking around.

Maddy dear eldered me during the week, Logan did a while ago I got there package from Solfrid which was really nice! tell them thanks for that! I emailed a few of my mates who have left to go to there missions so hopefully they are doing well!

We had some guy who stayed in a room near us his name was Wiley and he had pretty bad autism, I don't even know how he got on the mission, he was going to go to Lithuainia and he never showered or washed his clothes he stunk so bad! It was disgusting, anyways they kind of realised he had bad autism and sent him to a service mission back at home in the states! When he showered it was a big thing and a shower with soap was called a "premium shower" quite a funny guy though!

I'm playing volleyball and a few other sports now, basketball can get a bit boring now since a few of the guys I usually play with have left the zone

I think they are used to me now although they don't say dam or hell or prick they really don't like that haha although I'm friends with a few chill guys, elder Parkinson and elder Jex who don't care :) they want me to study at BYU when I get back ahha

I have to go now, love you guys! have a good day tomorrow! if you think of any questions just ask, I'll send some photos later today! bye bye! say hi to Rach and /Faith too :) xoxoxox

These are all the pics I have sorry :/ I will have lots by next p day because it will be my last p day! and I'll get you some photos of the flight plans and all that jazz ect.. thanks so much for the pictures you sent, its so nice to see pictures of the family even if they are old ones, I wish I put them on the hard drive before I left!

These are some nice pictures I took with the camera! how good does the moon look hahah :) the ball is actually very very small!

This is where I like to study when we have study :) that is elder Parkinson! the mountains are huge here! also mum I just got the package with the dictionary in it! its a really good one, although inside the dictionary a couple of the pages have like smudged dirt finger print marks of some sort, it's all good though it still is great thanks so much :)

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 


Adriatic North Mission 

12th - 18th September 2015

Hey family! how is it all going!? I saw the photos of the basketball and I take it everyone lost :/ I hope everyone isn't too salty. I am going to be honest I was very sad when I found out that Richmond lost :( 3rd year in a row. It is okay for me though because no one knows about footy over here so it doesn't matter so much, I feel sorry for dad.

I got back from the temple about an hour ago which was nice, we did sealings which was also very nice I enjoyed it! It will be so cool when we can get get sealed as a family! I have sent lots of photos so I hope you are all happy with that :) I don't know what I'll be able to take over the next few weeks but I'll try to find something, the camera quality on this camera is so amazing, photos come out so well on it! I only got 2 emails this week, one from you and one from Teagan so I can write lots to you :D

This week has been pretty chaotic with one of my companions chipping a bone off in his femur he has to have surgery tomorrow which sucks, we have been in and out of the doctors all week, the only plus side is we got to go out of the MTC! There was a fast food restaurant called chick-fil-a across the street which is quite popular here and I can see why the nuggets were so good, not sure whether that was because I am sick of the MTC food or whether its actually good, but either way we went there for lunch.  It was weird because every time we are sitting in the doctors or walking around everyone is saying hi to us and saying thanks for serving ect.. it is so weird that people actually like the missionaries! I shouldn't get used to it though because it will definitely not be like that in Croatia. We realised after that we weren't suppose to go to anywhere other then the doctors, but that's okay, no harm done.

This week we did our first skype call to someone who actually is from Croatia and is living there, we actually ended up skyping someone from Serbia in the city called "Novi Sad" which in translation means "new now" her name was Tanya and she was about 60-70 years old and you could tell she had PTSD from the war big time, our teacher later told us that he baptized her and thought that she could of been saved by the grace of God and that baptism wasn't necessary, but she turned up to church every week, she met through the free English classes that missionaries hold at the chapel every week. It was so hard to understand some things she was saying, she spoke a little bit of english to us so that was nice. In the end we got our message across, and that is all that mattered.

So I heard that the medievil feast was on! I hope that was fun and you enjoyed that Rachael! I remember I was looking forward to that and I got gastro the day before the feast so I missed out on it :( that was one of the times where I was sick and I didn't want to be! I hope everything is going well at home, it sucks you got no pictures for me :P 

We have a couple of people going to Macedonia which is in the Bulgarian mission but they have to stay at the MTC as their visas haven't arrived, I think it is because of all the things going on in Syria ect... so they are pretty gutted that they have to stay longer and they had to watch those leave who they arrived with, I know I would go nuts if I had to stay longer then 9 weeks! This weeks devotianal was spoken by the president of the primary, sister Wixen, it's so cool to have someone high up in the church speak every week and they are right in front of you! 

I received your package with the scarf in it this week thanks for that! and the cream is really good. It would be really nice if you could send me a pocket dictionary, I know some of then will have mistakes but yeah we do kind of have a dictionary but it just has church type words in it and I want something that has normal words in it. If you order it from amazon you can get it sent directly to here within a few days. Elder Geertson loves that scarf that came as well! 

Apart from all the chaos with elder Matthews knee there isn't too much else that happened this week, we did get a new zone president which is cool, his name is president Wiseman. My companions also got called as zone leaders which is cool, I'm still online coordinator which means I continue to do nothing at all :) It is starting to get a little cooler here which is really nice, I'm sick of it being 35 degrees everyday, it's actually been raining too which is also good! I have met quite a few people here going to Sydney mission and Brisbane mission and they all seem pretty excited, they all don't know what  AFL footy is! quite surprising. 

Well it makes it so much easier to think that I only have 18 more days left here! we get our flight plans and itinerary in 7 days! apparently we go from Salt Lake to Chicago then from Chicago to Frankfurt Germany! then from there to Croatia! Then I'll find out whether I'm going to Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia or Montenegro. I won't be serving in Slovenia because that is a language taught on its own here, but nothing is impossible. 

This week my testimony of the power of blessings was increased after helping give elder Matthews a blessing for his knee, it was just me and elder Deleeuw, he had never given a blessing so he did and it was really cool, I anointed and you could really feel the spirit. Every week on a Tuesday night after the devotional we have our own little testimony / devotional review in our room and the spirit is always so strong in there and this week so no different, everyone usually cries, I don't but I definitely feel the spirit :) I am so excited to get out to the mission field and meet all the people of Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia!

Love all of you!

​1 converted 100000 to go

​this is elder McMillan he is going to Bulgaria

​This is elder Coleman he just left to Bulgaria as well, he is really good at baseball.

​everyone is sleeping during personal study!!! wowww

​more people sleeping

also Jex sleeping

me and Parko just chilling on p day!! 

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

5th - 11th September 2015

Bok! Family!

This week was pretty boring to be honest I will give you a day by day run down on the fun and boring stuff I did!

Friday: To be honest I don't even remember Friday, I just remember it was a long day, we did have the tie draft which was nice I got a better tie then what I put in which is nice! it was a blue/grey/silver!! 

Saturday: We had a lot of studying to do on Saturday we taught our fake investigators like any other day, I chilled outside for personal study time which was really nice. Saturdays and Sundays are the worst because I can't receive dear elders on those days, I have to wait for Monday. On a Saturday night at 9pm we sing from 9pm till 9:30pm which I thought I would hate but I actually enjoy it! Liam would absolutely love it here there are so many opportunities for people with music. I'm pretty certain I won't be able to but there is a choir that I can join that goes to the general conference as missionaries so if I can get into that I will so then I will be able to go to general conference you might be able to see me! I'll tell you if I do. But I doubt it.

Sunday: It was fast Sunday so there was no breakfast or lunch which sucked but in the end it was good, I'm glad they had a good dinner. The temple walk we did was really nice as usual I like to relax and sleep. 

Monday: Monday was nice but a bit annoying at the same time, I couldn't get any of the dear elders because it was labour day and nothing was open at the MTC it sucked! But thats okay I got a lot done that day.

Tuesday: In the morning we had service for an hour as usual, we got all our jobs done early which was exciting! We had gym at 9am instead of our usual 3:30pm. I played basketball which was fun I played better then I usually do! That night we had elder Causse speak he is in church bishopric and from France, his talk was so good I really enjoyed it! It was about being bold and that being bold is being humble. He talked about opening your mouth and not being afraid! At the end of his talk he played a song on the piano, it was out of the blue and not what was meant to happen, you could tell he was only new at piano but he did well and it was cool to see someone live up to what they speak about. Now you might be thinking why the title of my email is "Geeeeeez is the pope catholic?!" Well me and my mate Parko (Elder Parkinson) had a funny experience! We were walking to the MTC store where a man in his 50's asked for our help lifting some lawn mower type thing on to the back of his truck, he had 2 people who were about 20 with him but they looked like they didn't know what they were doing , anyways so one of the guys were on the truck and the old guy was with us on the bottom lifting it up and his hand got caught on something, he was screaming and mad as! One of the workers said are you okay? and he replied in a really angry loud american voice  "GEEEEEEZ IS THE POPE CATHOLIC" wow it was so funny hahah 

Wednesday: Wednesday was pretty normal once again, although our district got assigned to be a host for new missionaries coming in. We met them at the curb where they said their final goodbyes we then took them to get their name tags, books ect.. then took them to their room where they drop their bags off then to their class! For those speaking a language it was so funny dropping them off at their classes where they get spoken the language at for the first time, their faces were priceless, because it was what I would of been like when I first arrived at the MTC. My first person I hosted was going to Sydney Australia! He is speaking some Samoan language so that was so cool to see, the rest were going somewhere in america. So that alone took up a good 3 hours, after that we just got back to studying. 

Today! Well today I went to the temple as usual, went to an endowment session, ate my waffle with whipped cream, maple syrup and 5 pieces of bacon. I am about to start washing my clothes after a basketball session with the Bulgarians because they are leaving on Tuesday, I get along with pretty much all of them, one of them will be serving with Myles Mits which is really cool! Nothing really special has happened today but yeah I have TRC tonight which is where we do the equivalent of home teaching to those who speak Croatian (usually its just RM's from our same mission) so I guess I'm looking forward to that.

I'm really sorry again I got no pictures! there is literally nothing to take photos of, I can't take bags or anything into the cafe I can't take pictures in class, I can't take pictures at gym and you have already seen my room, and I take it you don't want to see what the toilets are like... I'll definitely get some this week with all the Bulgarians that are leaving on our temple walk on Sunday.

Congrats to Faith on winning the netball grand final! That's so cool, the EH is coming along nicely dad it will be cool to see the finished product. I am glad that everything is going well and that rusty is doing fine :) You can send my emails on to Elder Rice! I'm sure you will all miss him! Its weird to think that we are fellow missionaries! I just saw about 6 people leave for Melbourne so maybe you will get one of them in our ward, one of them is friends with one of my comps he is kind of Asian looking with glasses you might get him, if so look after him.

I'm so excited to see how the tigers do this weekend! You should of gone to the game dad, I know we don't match up well against the roos but I think we can get up if we play our best!! you will have to send me and stats and things :P

I'm not sure what else to say, things are going alright over here, I have a few pimples coming up here and there which is annoying, it's because I'm sweating around my collar so much ect.. oh well... I'm pretty well used to the MTC life by now so nothing is really getting new at the moment, if anything special happens ill tell you all. I'm really just keen to get out of here and on to the field! I hope everyone in the ward is doing well and that they are all having fun! 

I Love you all and I am missing you heaps! if you reply to my email with any questions within the next couple of hours I will be able to reply so feel free to! 

LOVE YOUSS!

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

28th August - 4th September 2015

Hey family it's me again! It feels like it was just the other day when I emailed you last, things are kind of flying by. I received your care package the other day, thanks so much! I know it costs heaps to send things over so after you send the last couple of packages don't worry about anything after that, I will be able to make it to the mission field in one piece! 

Thanks for the photos the cake looks very yummy and I love faiths face in one of the netball photos! what a classic! Today at the temple we did endowments which was nice although I nearly fell asleep during the video. Once I got back I had 2 hours sleep and now here I am waiting for my laundry to get done :)

So for basketball does that mean the grand final is this Monday? or the Monday after? It was good to see that the tigers are still doing great! I h'ope we don't play North Melbourne in the elimination final, they have the stick on us. 

This Sunday is fast Sunday so I'm not sure what is going to go on. I take it we won't have any breakfast or lunch though :( last Sunday my companions and I taught priesthood which went for 45 minutes and went really well, I didn't realise that teaching in english is so much easier then I thought!

We had a tie draft last Friday night and I saw a red tie which looked nice and it ended up being a Utah State College tie which apparently is awesome to some and hated by others, the rivalry between schools here are quite funny. By the sounds of it things are starting to get back to normal at home, I hope that everyone is getting over their colds ect... I am definitely over mine i just have to make sure that i stop eating so much food, I'm 75kg last time I weighed and that was at the start of the week, before I left I was around 68kg - 70kgish so I have put on a fair bit! Too bad its all going to my stomach, I figure I'll lose most of it when I get on to the mission field because I won't have that abundant choice of food.

This week we had an apostle speak! Dallin. H Oaks I was sitting about 10 meters from him, and when he left via his car I was even closer, I gave him a wave! He spoke on the importance of teaching people, not lessons. Making sure that you have that spirit with you and that you learn how to teach the plan of salvation off by heart and teach the why we are here and the why ect... before you teach things like commandments and the whats. I'll send some notes over from it, I think it could be a great help to the young men preparing for their missions and what they should be focusing on, most of his talk was from PMG so if they learn that they will be alright.

This week the language is getting more intense as we learn more and more grammar rules, I completely get pretty much every rule I'm just struggling to memorise words, cases and phrases. I am definitely not one of the smartest ones with the language in the class, I'm probably in the middle if anything lower. I just need help in remembering all my words and being able to put them into sentences a bit quicker, we do a language assessment this week so I guess I'll see where I am really at, I'm not too stressed though. talking to Myles Mits he said you'll learn more on the field then anywhere else and that he didn't know too much leaving either. \

I don't have really any photos this week I'm sorry :( nothing special happened and we couldn't take photos of the Elder oaks which kind of sucked! I know you will be reading this email at 7am just as the kids have left for seminary! I'm missing everyone so much. This week I spoke to some people and found out I get to call you when I'm at the airport before I leave to Croatia so look forward to that!! then on Christmas we can skype! I heard that Richard is leaving the the NT again which would suck :(

So I have some questions, what's going on at home? anything in the house changed? is Logan working with Callan? How is the red rago going does anyone drive it? What's going on in youth has anything funny happened? How is Oscar going!? 

Liam's stories at his ski camp were very funny! One thing you realise when you go on your mission is that the little things are the things that matter, the photo of the family on my wall that I see when I go to sleep, the absence of Rusty walking around the house and being a funny dog is something I miss so much, the background noise of kids screaming, the sound of the tv, the car starting, there is so many things to miss! Also mum I am brushing my teeth, in fact I look forward to it! There is nothing else to do in this place.

Hopefully this week I can learn a lot more words then I did last week, I'm really looking forward to working hard and really getting into it, I feel like I can get a bit slack at times and just kind of day dream about nothing. I am sure it will get better I just need to keep pushing on.  There is 11 others going to the same mission as me and there are about 50 missionaries already there so we are 20% of the mission! I get along really well with Elder Parkinson, Elder Jex & Elder Geertsen, we always go outside for language study as the weather is very hot! Elder Parkinson (aka. Joey, Parko) looks the exact same as Joey off full house! hence the nickname Joey! Ill send you a photo next week, His mum sent Dr. peppers for me and him, they have been in the fridge the last 2 days so they will be nice and cold! Elder Geertsen's mum sent the green shirt which will be in the photo I will send, it is the Philadelphia Eagles and that's the team that they support!

I dont know what else to add.... I really enjoy receiving the dear elders every night it lifts me up everyday. Hopefully this week will be a bit better and that I can get more done. Oh I forgot to add I got my calling! For the next 3 weeks ill be Online Coordinator which means I do jack all, So that was nice haaha I wouldn't want to be Zone or District leader that would suck. I make jokes about being online coordinator all the time and talk about how I have so much authority and that I can send missionaries home if they take more then an hour on the email! 

One thing I realise at this MTC is that they throw the word exact obedience around a lot and I can understand why they do that but sometimes I don't understand, there are a lot of stupid rules that I struggle to follow such as, wearing the same type of clothing as your companion ie. short sleeve or long sleeve or suit or sweater. Making sure that you are always with your companions 24/7. ect......

I have kind of ran out of time for emailing sorry it was so short! 

love you heaps!

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission