Utah is COLD

Tremonton is awesome! I love the members here because they feed us too much food but the good thing is that Zarse is a vegetarian so he requests a least some servings of vegetables/fruit with each meal. His plate never include anything associated with meat/pork, it's just all vegetables/fruit. Because of him, I have been eating A LOT more vegetables and fruits. I'm beginning to like peaches. I had a couple servings of peach pie topped with whipped cream. It was crazy delicious! 

Day 1 - I did exchanges with Elder Marasca who is from Brazil! He's crazy cool and an amazing missionary. I loved teaching with him. After hours, we were talking about Brazil and Saudi Arabia and how the cultures are different compared to America. 

I was in Marasca's area and we had a dinner appointment with his Stake President. It was a blast because he's not an uptight, weird president. He was really cool and told a lot of hilarious stories from his childhood. I had a great time eating dinner with him!

After visiting the Stake President, we went to a lady's house and we taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how we can become closer to Jesus Christ. The Spirit was super strong in there to the extent that the investigator was crying! We set up a baptismal date with her and she accepted without giving any thought! We were stunned by how fast she accepted the invitation. A lot of people just hesitate then accept. This experience really strengthened my testimony of the Holy Ghost and how it can testify to the people that we teach. It was a really awesome experience!

That very same day was Elder Marasca's pantiversary. I don't know what they do in other missions but every six months in the Utah Ogden mission, the person burns an article of clothing. Six months in, you burn a tie. A year in, you burn a shirt. 18 months in, you burn paints then right before you go home, you burn a suit! Basically, we call 6 month mark, tieversary and so on.. I think you can figure out how we name the event now. It was awesome and I took some pictures of Marasca's pantiversary. You can see his pants being burned in the pictures. It's awesome.

After having a great day, I bumped my head into a sign post! I know, it's embarrassing. ;). Upon reaching Marasca's home, we got out talking and Marasca asked me if I need help bringing my stuff in. I declined and turned out and bam, I hit my forehead on a sign post that was right behind me. I didn't even see it! Right after that happened and I felt blood streaming down my face, we got back in the car and went straight the hospital. The doctor said that I got really lucky that I didn't need any stitches. He just glued it up and waived the fee. 

Day 2 - I had my second exchange in the row on this day but it was with one of my ZLs. His name is Elder Thorn and he is from Michigan. He's 6'6" so he's pretty tall and he played HS basketball. He's really cool. He is serving in Brigham City so I got to travel there. Brigham City is AWESOME! His area is right by the Brigham City temple so you can always see it. It was awesome. 

We got to teach a 18 years old kid who got into a horrible car accident. He's in a wheelchair so we taught him about the Atonement and how Jesus Christ knows how he feels (Alma 7). He really liked it and wanted us to keep coming over. It was awesome hearing how he enjoyed our lesson.

After teaching the kid in the wheelchair, we got to see a guy who needed to be taught one more lesson in order to be baptized and he was ASKING SO MANY QUESTIONS. It took us almost 3 hours to answer his questions and to teach him. It was a good thing that he was a cool guy so I enjoyed teaching him. 

Day 3 - After taking our shower and doing Personal Study, the electricity went out meaning that nothing worked! We both were starving so we took some stuff to the Stake Center and cooked there and did our Comp study. It was nice having something different in the morning. It was awesome! 

We got to teach Jessica (the manly female) the Plan of Salvation. After teaching her and answering her questions about how life sucks for her and why Heavenly Father put her on Earth with all of her challenges. I felt the Spirit when I was answering her questions on why we have challenges and used my deafness to connect with her. I think she felt it because she then had a smile and wants to get baptized! Woot!  The Gospel is changing her life! It's awesome! Other than teaching Jessica, it was a slow day! :(

Day 4 - KRAMER GOT BAPTIZED! It was awesome seeing Kramer get baptized. I had no idea how to prepare for a baptism so Zarse taught me how to do everything but he forgot to make sure that the baptismal font is being filled with water (it takes 2 hours to fill up the font to an appropriate level). Oops. 

After seeing Kramer get baptized, we got to go visit the Broamas family. They have quite an unique background. They are an old couple but the father is Presbyterian and his wife died a long time ago. Right before his wife died, they both made a promise not to change religion so they can be together in the after-life. The woman is LDS and his husband died a long time ago but she's really old and can't go to church. She requested the Church to bring her sacrament and they haven't been doing that. We had to talk to the bishop and make sure he understands the situation. We got to teach the Broasmas about the Book of Mormon and taught them how it is important to us and how we can gain a spiritual witness.

Our stake (Tremonton West Stake) had a stake-wide hoedown. We got to participate and we contacted a lot of people and got some referrals. We also got to talk with the members and increase our bond which is always a good thing! :) 

Day 5 - I gave two (yes, two) talks that day in two different wards. It was on being truly converted. I just used Elder David A. Bednar's talk on being converted unto the Lord (It's AMAZING! Read it, if you haven't yet). A lot of people came up to us after sacrament meeting and told Zarse and I that we did an incredible job and inspired them to align themselves with our loving Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ and their teachings. It was awesome being able to be a positive influence as a missionary. 

We got to go up and do some contacting up in Marble Hills. Marble Hills is a place on top of the mountains and you can see all of Tremonton and most of Brigham City. You can even see the temple in Brigham City! It was crazy awesome... and cold. It was in the 50s and it was really windy. I was super cold and Zarse was laughing on how cold I was. He said that he is excited for me to experience Utah winter. Really? I'm not looking forward to the cold! ;)  

We got to see Wes and Shelby Hamm. Wes is in the Army and did a tour. He was stationed in Kuwait so Wes and I talked about the Middle East and how it is alike. It was shocking to hear that it's pretty much the same. We both talked about Saudi/Kuwait for about a half hour while Zarse was standing there bored (he had no idea what the Middle East is like). I love being able to connect with people and just talk about stuff we both have in common with. It's the best way to get people to trust us and want us to come back teach them the gospel. 

Day 6 - We got to see Dixon Silva who is Brazilian which is really cool! He is leaving behind his family because of financial reasons. He is having a hard time finding a job here in America so he doesn't have to rely on his wife for money. He wants to help fund the family's needs. He is a really good guy! We taught him about prayer and how he should ask Heavenly Father if what he wants to do is right. We also taught him about the Holy Ghost and how he can find the answer to his prayers through the Holy Ghost.  

One of our WMLs had us come over and begin teaching this part member family and we basically did How to Begin Teaching part in PMG and taught them our purpose and what our goals so we can set expectations for each visit. It's to help them know why we are here. It was awesome. They felt the genuine love that we had for them so they gave us a bunch of cereal boxes because the father works for the cereal factory and can take home three boxes after each shift. We have too much cereal. I'm not complaining.. 

We got to do refresher course with Mica Glover to help her prepare for the baptismal interview for this week. She is ready! If the interview goes well, which it will, she will get baptized on Sunday afternoon because her aunt is getting married on Saturday. We wanted to do the baptism as soon as possible so Sunday Afternoon is the best day for her. 

It's a great day to be a missionary in the Utah Ogden mission, even though it's getting too cold! ;). I love reading all of your emails so keep them coming! I love you all and have a good week! -Elder McGrath

Being a missionary is a HUGE blessing in my life

Hey guys! It was so awesome to read your emails! Whoever is playing Jake in Ping Pong, please beat him for me! He needs to stop being so lucky! ;) 

The best thing of this week is that Elder Tibolla (the old man who is in charge of the vehicles for the mission) gave me the privilege to drive. Elder Zarse and I called him up and told him that I need to learn the area because Zarse is going to get transferred soon. The best way for me to learn the area is by driving. Elder Tibolla accepted and gave me permission! Being able to drive our car (2012 Chevy Malibu) is awesome! Everything runs so smooth and it's very tempting to go fast on that vehicle on the long, straight roads between farms. It's so hard not to do that! 

Day 1: I had my first exchange on this day. An exchange is where two companionship pretty much switch companions for a day. I got to be with Elder Smith who is from TEMPE, ARIZONA! How CRAZY is that?! We were talking so much about Arizona and how awesome it is. He is a big fan of guns and computers so we talked mostly about computers. It turns out that he knows more about guns than computers so he gets confused when I start talking about computer parts and how it's revolutionizing the computer world. I also got very confused when he gets deep with guns, specifically names for guns. 

Anyways, we got to go teach this 8 years old kid who has very active parents (they were converts) and he hates church! He kept telling us how we spend too much time in church. We taught him about CPR and when we did the object lesson for that, he was freaking out how we did it. He kept trying to figure out how we did it. He pretty much stopped listening to us and started focusing on how to make the object lesson work. We had to stop and teach him how to do it. It was quite funny! After meeting with this kid, we got to go to one of the WML for Elder Smith and he is a STUD! He is so awesome. We got to go to his house and chill so we can get to know him better so he can better serve Smith. After that, we went back to Elder Smith's house and spent the rest of the night talking about the end of the world stuff from the Bible. It was VERY INTERESTING! I love talking about that kind of stuff. 

Day 2 - We got to teach Jessica on this day and when she opened the door, she was putting makeup on. It's like looking at a grown man wearing makeup. To be honest, I was gawking at her face because it was so strange seeing that. Zarse had to elbow me in the ribs to get me back to reality. It was a good thing that she didn't notice that, it would've been embarrassing! We taught her more about the Atonement and she is FINALLY understanding. We shared a couple personal stories and left! 

One of the Garland Elders told us that there is a family who gives out free cereals out to missionaries. Zarse and I really wanted something quick and easy to make for breakfast so we headed out to the address and holy crap, the family is SUPER nice. The mother's father served a mission with Thomas S. Monson as his mission president. It was CRAZY hearing their awesome missionary experiences. They also gave us so much cereal. You'll see how many we have in the pictures below! Apparently, their daughter works for a cereal factory or something like that and she gets bring home 3 bags of cereal after each shift. They have a closet stuffed with cereal and we get to take as much as we wanted. We took so much that it was a huge hassle to bring it all into the car in one trip but WE DID IT! haha! 

I had a really scary experience the following night. We were doing some contacting and we were out in this house that was a referral by someone in the stake. It was in a middle of NOWHERE! I told my companion that when we get a chance to go to the bathroom, I need to go! The door opened and there was this old man who looked like a regular man! He said, "not interested" and was in the process of closing the door when Zarse interrupted him and told him that I needed to go the bathroom. He immediately looked down and said, "ok but YOU have to stay outside. Only he can come inside to use it." I was about to say no when my companion agreed. I immediately had this bad feeling that something bad is going to happen. I went in and as I was walking towards the bathroom, I see this old scary woman staring at me like she was watching my every single move. It was REALLY creepy! After I used the bathroom and I went out, I see this man that opened the door and woman that was staring at me outside of the bathroom with their arms folded. It was scary! The guy said, "Are you done?" I replied with showing gratitude and asked, "Is there a time when we can come back and teach you about the gospel and how it can benefit you and your family?" The old man rejected straight off the bat. I was taken back by how fast he responded. I was stunned. After a few moments, the old man said, "Are you here as a missionary or as a civilian that needs to use the restroom?" I replied, "Both." He responded with why and I told him my missionary purpose. His face got so pissed and by the way his face was looking at me, I honestly thought he was going to kill me. I ran out of the house and into the car, I literally sped off! Zarse was so bewildered by how I reacted. It was a funny experience now but I was so scared! haha!

Day 3 - Zarse woke up morning extremely sick and I was worried how we were going to be able to go to our appointments. He asked for a blessing and I gave him one. I was super nervous and shaking but I just said what came into my mind. He said that he felt so much better after the blessing and he also remarked how incredible the blessing was. It made me so happy! The Priesthood was truly restored through the prophet Joseph Smith!  

Most of our appointments fell through (again...) that day and we decided to go contacting. We were in this area and these two really cute girls came up to us and started talking to us. They also remarked that there was these three guys and one of them is preparing to go on a mission. After thanking the girls, we went up to them and started talking. We talked about home and how awesome it is to be a missionary. It turns out that they're from the Fieldings Stake which is an area that we do not cover. We helped their aunt move and after that, they fed us dominoes. After sharing a spiritual message, they said thanks and gave us a whole box of pizza as a thank you! The people here give us TOO much food. I swear I'm getting fat now! 

Day 4 - This was a pretty slow day because we were spending some time doing contacting that was not working :(. We got to see Kevin and he wanted to have dinner with us. We accepted and he made ribs and pistachio pudding. It was incredible! I ate so many ribs and pudding. I really need to start paying attention on how much I eat now. We shared a spiritual message and left. Zarse told me after we left that we have a dinner appointment to get to. WHAT?! TWO DINNERS IN ONE DAY! What the?! We had enchiladas and I had one portion of it. I ate it all pretty fast and the mother was like, "You need to eat more, Elder. You are looking pretty hungry!" Uh, no. I'm super stuffed! She put more food on my plate and smiled at me. I ate it all again and to be honest, I almost threw up right there because I had so much food. I can now see how the mission weight gain average for Elders is 40 pounds and for sisters, it's 50 pounds. 

Day 5 - We went to 3 ward councils which were pretty much a waste of time. All they talked about is how the ward can better greet the people that we bring into church. After the last ward council of the day, we had a guy that gave us a lot of referrals! WOOT! He was a stud! 

Zarse and I got to give more talks! Yay! It was so much fun being able to inspire people to do missionary work! We had a lot of people that told us that we did a pretty good job and one of them even told me that Zarse and I are SPIRITUAL GIANTS! It felt really good hearing that!  

We got to see a guy named Paul Panasulk and it turned out that he made dinner for us. It was so much food but it was delicious. I stuffed myself.. again... I need to stop eating so much! After eating, we got to talk to him about eternal families and how it is possible to live with our families forever. He liked it a lot!  

After we left Paul's house, I asked Zarse if we have a dinner appointment and guess what he said.. YES! What.. 2 dinners again! Tremonton is such a good town and the people are feeding us a lot of food! This family did the same thing with putting food on our plates. They put way too much food and it was hard for Zarse and I to eat it all because we were so stuffed. I weighed myself last night and I gained 5 pounds because of the two dinners! Haha!

Day 6 - It was a fantastic day! We were super busy! Today, we had 2 cancellations for appointments but we set up so many more appointments for the next week! Everything is going to get MORE busy now, I'm so happy! The work is truly hastening! Kramer is going to get baptized on this Saturday! My first baptism! Yay! We had a little refresher course with him last night to prepare him for the baptismal interview last night! He is so ready! It is an exciting time for him! 

We had a dinner appointment with one of the WML and he brought in a less active. We ate dinner and taught her about CPR. The WML and his wife as well as the less active were ASTOUNDED by how we did the object lesson for CPR. Their eyes pretty much popped out! The WML's wife kept saying how awesome it was! It was nice being able to do that! 

I have a baptism set for the 21st (Kramer Newlon) and another one set for the 28th (Mika Glover) It is an exciting month for Zarse and I. Please check out eldermcgrath.blogspot.com. I post spiritual thoughts up on that blog. Let me know if you like it!Everything is going FANTASTIC here in Tremonton. It is absolutely beautiful and I LOVE being a missionary! It is the best thing in the whole world! I love you guys and have a great week. Stay strong! The Lord will watch over you and protect you in times of need! 

Viel Gluck ("Good luck" in German, Zarse has been teaching me German!) Love, Elder McGrath

I don't think I want to come home

Hey guys! Keep the emails coming! I absolutely LOVE them! They are so awesome and make me smile so much! A ping pong table in our HOUSE?! Whaaaa?! Jake, you better not get too good! I still want to be able to beat you! 

Tremonton, Utah is just absolutely beautiful! The sunsets are BREATHTAKING! Zarse says that I get too distracted when the sun sets. He thinks it's really funny because we will be talking then when I notice the sunset, I pretty much zone out and focus on the sun. I have a couple really cool pictures and I hope you enjoy them. Another thing I love about Tremonton is the stars. Because I live in a farm, there are rarely any light around me. It's almost pitch dark. As a result of that, the stars are so visible. I can literally lie down on a patch of grass and stare at the stars because there is SO MANY of them!! Since you guys love the journal type emails, I will definitely continue to do so!

DAY 1 (Wednesday) - It was a really exhausting day. We helped Jessica (the manly female) from one house to a house about a mile long apart. She has so much crap in her house. It was just me and Zarse doing all of the heavy lifting so I was absolutely exhausted! A little background on Jessica, as some of you may know, she was born with both male and female organs and grew up as a boy. About a few years ago, she underwent a sex-change operation. She used to a millionaire because she owned a super successful mechanic shop. She went through THREE divorces and have two kids. After we loaded all of her stuff on the trailer, we headed over to her storage unit. When she opened the door and upon seeing the items inside, I almost stood there in awe. There was SO MUCH CRAP in there. It was a HUGE storage unit and it was filled with useless crap! We could barely get inside. It was FILLED up with crap! One of her friends said that Jessica hates to sell off her items for some unknown reason and as a result, she hoards all of her stuff. My comp and I saw all of these exercise equipment and she saw us looking at them and told us, "Take them". We became ecstatic! We quickly did her stuff then unloaded so much exercise equipment in our car. It was awesome! We also got to teach the Egli family (the dad is a less active and everyone else is an investigator) and we taught about the Restoration. After seeing the 20 minute movie and having the fellowship (our ward mission leader also tagged along) bear his testimony, the mother said to us that she believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet and wants to go to General Conference! We told her that we would like to go with her because we are getting tickets to it next month! She wanted to go because she is starting to have a desire to follow Christ! WOOT! CHA-CHING! All of our efforts are working and she is caring enough to feel the Spirit and as a result, she does now have a testimony! All in all, it was an awesome but tiring day!

DAY 2 (THURSDAY) - All of our appointments fell through which was EXTREMELY disappointing but we kept on pushing and something incredible happened! We got a call from one of the ward mission leaders and he told us that Max (the excommunicated person) wants to feed us dinner that NIGHT! We were literally jumping for joy! Max is a wonderful person who really wants to change but addiction is really controlling. It really puts things into perspective for me, I'm really glad that I didn't try any cigs, alcohol, or any other addictive substances. Max expressed to us that he has a desire to follow Christ because he really does believe in the gospel. He also told us that he is terrified of every day because of the Second Coming. I felt so bad for him because he made a few bad choices and the consequences is really biting his butt. We talked about what we can do for them and I'm considering of making mormon cigs which is like a box with inspirational quotes and scriptures. I'm going to have him throw out all of his cigs and use those instead. I heard that 80% of the time, it's a habit. Your body is used to doing it so it wants to do it. (I hope I didn't confuse you there but I rewrote that sentence a bunch of times, this is the best of my ability. Sorry!) 

Day 3 (Friday) - In the morning, we headed out to Brigham City for Brigham North Zone conference which the APs (Assistant to the President) and President and Sister Hiers (our mission president) came. The APs taught us a tool called the 5 essentials which is basically How to Begin Teaching (Chapter 10 of PMG). Why is everyone taking that part and tossing a new name on that and calling it their own idea? It's so stupid! After Zone Conference, we went tracting and came across Dawayne who is a less active with a bunch of tattoos and cigs. After talking to him about the gospel, he told us that he wants us to start teaching him and get him re-activated. I was stunned by his words. He wants to come back because he said that he wants to be clean before God! It's awesome! We had a dinner appointment with Brother Lewis (one of the ward mission leaders, WML) and his wife. They invited a less active to come and she talked about the challenges in her life. After she finished her INCREDIBLE stories, I felt that I should talk about my deafness, the Atonement as well as sharing 2 Timothy 1: 7. Right before Zarse and I headed out to our last appointment, Sister Lewis told us that the Spirit was really strong in there and she was glad that Zarse and I got to teach her about how Jesus Christ can help her get through her trials. It was really awesome hearing that!

Day 4 (Saturday) - Zarse and I got to attend the Tremonton West Stake Baptisms service. We had an investigator (will talk about him later) come with us. There was a total of seven 8-years-olds getting baptized! It was awesome! Zarse and I got to be witnesses for one of the girl's baptism. She got baptized by her grand-father. It reminded me of my own baptism 11 years ago. I can't believe I still remember about it. It was bittersweet! :) Zarse and I also got to bear our testimony and again, I took the testimony and talked about the Restoration. I did it in English, Zarse did it in German, and we had a recently returned missionary who went to Brazil bear his testimony in Portuguese. The Spirit was REALLY strong even though we can't understand the language. The Spirit is universal!! It was a really cool experience to be a part of! I love it! That night, we got to talk to Kevin! Kevin is a 52 years old and lived in Utah for pretty much his whole life. He talks really fast but he does it so clearly so I could understand him. He had us show our homes on Google Earth and it was awesome to see Zarse's home and yes, I showed him our AZ and KSA home. He was flabbergasted by the fact that I lived in KSA while Zarse lived in Germany. It's a big world out there! :) We had a long discussion about religion which I took a big part in. Zarse said that I asked a lot of questions that resulted in a lot of thinking so it was a good thing! :) After that, we had a prayer; right after the prayer, I immediately asked Kevin to see if we can set up a date to come back and teach more. Kevin laughed and said, "Aren't you eager? You know what? You're Elder Eager and Zarse is Elder Serious!" HAHAHA! Apparently, I thought it was the CLOSING prayer, not OPENING prayer! It was a hilarious moment. 

Day 5 (Sunday) - Yes, we had a talk on this day. Zarse loves giving talks in Church so he tries to set up a lot of talks. I have to go along because he's my companion but I'm getting really good at giving talks. Zarse said that I kinda get really personal with my stories. I tend to share more stories than share scriptures. Personal stories seem to make everyone more receptive to my message which is what I really wanted. Later that Sunday, we went and taught Paul Panasulk. Paul has a LDS wife and daughter but he doesn't really care about religion. He had a lot of missionaries come over to have no effect on him. Zarse and I talked about family because Paul had a huge family and how families can be together forever. He broke down and said that he wanted to learn more. WHAT?! We made a change? Zarse and I left the house with so much joy in our hearts. The Spirit is really strong between the both of us. I love teaching people because you can totally see if they really take your message into their hearts. I love it so much! 

Day 6 (Monday) - Yesterday started out slow and then progressed out to be a day that was utterly FANTASTIC! It was mind-blowing because the Lord is blessing us SO MUCH! He really does LIVE! We saw Jessica and she went on and on about how the world seems to hate her so much and want to annoy her to the point where she flips out. She is a huge whiner and it was hard not to laugh about her false statements about the world. I finally jumped in the conversation and talked about my deafness and how terrifying it is for me able to talk to other people with confidence with a fear of judgement. When people hear about my deafness and how Jesus Christ has helped me so much through prayer, their hearts become softer and as a result, they want us to keep coming over and teaching them. My deafness and my experiences with it is a POWERFUL tool. Personal stories is the most effective way of connecting with investigators and less-actives. We taught Alex (he's the one who went to the baptismal service last Saturday) and he has a severe case of Asperger's Syndrome. He has an attention span of about 10 seconds so we teach in series of two sentences then we pop in a question right after to keep his attention. It took us a hour to teach him what a prophet is and how prophets help follow God. A HOUR! I have to admit, it was fun teaching him. In order to teach him, we have to really understand what we're teaching so we can explain it in simple terms and also in few sentences. We invited him to read the pamphlet that was on the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Later that day for dinner, one of our WML (who works at Dominoes) sent us Dominoes. Zarse got veggie and I got pepperoni with italian sausage. It was so awesome and I'm so glad that we got great WMLs! WMLs make a huge difference in our work! They helped us so much in our work! I love them! Last night, I got to teach the Egli family about the 10 Commandments and the Word of Wisdom. We invited them to pray about it to see if it was true. It was an enjoyable lesson to teach. Zarse remarked after the lesson on the way back home, that I'm getting more confident with talking now! The mission is truly changing my life which is so awesome! Serving the Lord brings forth blessings beyond imagination! 

It was such a great week and I love being a missionary so much. I don't want to come home until August 2015. My mission should be getting PERSONAL iPads (meaning that each one will get their own iPad and the iPad is tracked and has the Area Book - a lifesaver - in it. Each area will get an iPhone 5 later this year. It's so awesome. It's a great day to be a missionary in the Utah Ogden Mission! Utah Ogden mission is a special mission and I'm glad to be called to serve in that mission. My AP's and mission president is just SO AWESOME! I love you guys and write me. I love it when you write me! It literally makes my week! Love, Elder McGrath

Tremonton is absolutely beautiful

Hey guys! I absolutely loved reading your emails and it keeps making me smile! I love hearing about how everything is going and the progress of the Jubail Branch. A primary! That's so crazy! I never imagined it to grow and become an excellent branch (it already is ;))! Now to the important part:

Day 1 - The bond between Zarse and I are becoming better everyday! I really enjoy companion study because we both teach other awesome things about the gospel. I honestly learn so much during personal and companion study. On your mission, you pretty much learn doctrinal topics at warp speed. I love it. Last Wednesday, Zarse and I wanted to understand the Plan of Salvation better. We drew what we know and then, we found several scriptures pertaining to the Plan. We then found scripture verses relating to them then we linked them all together. It is absolutely a brilliant plan and because of this experience, I feel so blessed to be a child of our loving Father in Heaven. He really does love us and He gives us blessings and miracles every single day. We may not notice it because we are not looking for it. It's right there in front of you. You need to open your eyes. :) 

Last Wednesday night was the BEST! Zarse and I got a call and a family named the Theurers wanted us to come over and have dinner with them. Zarse wrote it down as Thyers so I thought it wasn't my relatives. As Brother Theurer picked us up, I sat shotgun and he immediately said, "Hey, I don't recognize you. What's your name and where are you from?" I answered his questions and told him about my great grandmother. He asked me what was her last name. I replied with Stucki and he literally freaked out. He kept saying that we might be related. He went on and talked about how the Theurers and Stucki grew up in Tremonton. Later that evening, after dinner (we had enchiladas which were absolutely delicious!), Brother Theurer pulled out his family history book and showed me the picture of the family. I was NOT expecting that all. I saw a picture of me when I was about 4 or 5 years old with the entire Stucki family. I even read great-grandma's and grandma's biography. Grandma mentioned all of her kids and gave the birthdates and everything. Everything checked out and it was a CRAZY night! I was so happy that I got to see them! They also told me that we both live on the SAME farm that my great-grandma grew up on. I was really meant to be here in Tremonton. My family is so far away in Saudi Arabia and I have cousins in Pocatello, Idaho and Draper, Utah as well as some family influence here in this beautiful town! 

Day 2 - It was a super slow day, partly because we wasted too much trying to find our investigators on facebook and teaching random people on facebook. Nothing much really happened but we also had a dinner appointment. The majority of my dinner appointments (I think all but one) served some kind of meat. I'm guessing that the citizens living in Tremonton has this weird love for meat. I always got ribs, pork and mashed potatoes. I'm beginning to love them and you're not going to believe this! Almost all of the families that we ate dinner with served chocolate as a dessert. It was hard eating all of it at first but it's getting easier and I'm beginning not to mind the taste of chocolate. This all sums up to the fact that I may like chocolate. :)

Day 3 - We got a random call from a dude and he said that he was baptized at age 8 but fell away from the church in his teenage years. He said that he has been coming to church for a while and wants to start having missionaries come over and teach him about the gospel! Zarse and I were ecstatic about this blessing. We didn't find him. HE FOUND US! He even went through the efforts of contacting the bishop to get our phone number. He is a great guy! We taught him later on in the evening. He was very curious about the Book of Mormon and how we came to know that everything is true. We basically taught him about faith and reading the Book of Mormon diligently. We also talked about Moroni 10: 3 - 5. He was receiving everything really well and you can easily see that he has a desire to "know the truth of all things". It was a fantastic evening and I really enjoyed teaching this guy. His name is Elias or Eli for short. 

Day 4 (LAST DAY OF AUGUST WOOT!) - Zarse and I did SOO much service here in Tremonton. We literally wore our p-day clothes all day! It was a nice change from having to wear church clothes all day! Apparently, a lot of people are moving out of the town and as a result of this migration, people are moving in. The first family we helped move in is named the Fiveash family. The father and his oldest daughter got baptized about six months ago. The others are accepting the gospel but they don't feel like they are ready to get baptized. The father served two tours in Iraq and got a purple heart award. He is getting money from the government because he got some sort of PTSD or something like that as a result of serving two tours in Iraq. He is a really cool guy! When we were helping him, we had a STRONG member presence from the TP1 (Thatcher-Penrose 1st) ward and I'm glad that a lot of the ward came to help. We unloaded and brought into the house so much furnitures and clothes. The U-Haul (the vehicle which they used to transport everything over to their new house) was literally FULL! We unloaded everything in about 40 minutes. That's how well we all worked together. It was a great opportunity to get to know the Fivash family as well as members of the TP1 ward. It was a great experience. Also, the Fiveash family moved to this awesome part in Tremonton called Marble Hills. Marble Hills is on the mountains. You can see all of Tremonton, Brigham City, even BRIGHAM TEMPLE! It was so cool! 

We also helped Jessica (the manly female who was born with both XY and XX chromosomes) move. It was just me and Zarse who showed up. As a result of this, we have to move ALL of the furnitures ourselves. We were so exhausted. I was so exhausted to the extent that I made sure I did everything before 10pm so I just went to bed a half hour earlier. We are going to move some more on Tuesday and we know that some extra people are going to be there which will be fantastic. Also, one of the guys own a sub shop here in Tremonton and he is going to give free SUBS to everybody that shows up. CHA-CHING! 

Day 5 - We attended ward councils in the morning, which were kinda boring because they talked mostly about people that I haven't got the chance to meet yet. We attended the YSA (Elias was there!) and FV1 (Fairview 1st) wards. Zarse and I got to bear our testimonies. We both pretty much taught a topic briefly so we can try to count it as quality gospel conversations (one of the key indicators that you report to the ZLs). I taught the Restoration while Zarse taught the Plan of Salvation. It was really cool. A lot of members approached us and told us that the idea of teaching to members and investigators at church is an ingenious idea. :)

We also got to teach Fabian (the guy who can't grow hair. At all) today about 2 Ne 31 and how we need to be baptized in order to reach the Celestial Kingdom. He took it really well and he is reading the Book of Mormon on his own. He even tells us about what he read. Now, because of what we talked about, he wants to get baptized. We need to finish teaching the rest of the lessons in order for him to get baptized. It was an AWESOME day!

Day 6 (YESTERDAY!) - Some appointments fell through on this day so it was a tough day but we got to meet Max Bates. Max is a really cool guy and he was born and raised in the gospel. He made some bad choices which resulted in excommunication from the church. As a result of this excommunication, he got addicted to smoking and drinking. He lost his family, job and a lot of money as a result of this addictions. He told us that he really believes everything in the gospel but he just don't live it. He also told us that he WANTS to live but the physical addiction he has are too much for him to handle so he succumbs to the temptations. I really want to be able to help him with his problems and help him get back on the track for salvation.

I love being a missionary. It is the best thing in the whole world. It makes my day when the people we teach care about us and begin to have this desire to change their heart for the better. It's an awesome job and I am honored to be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! I love you all and have a great week! Love, Elder Sam McGrath