Happy New Year's Eve

Hola mi familia! This Christmas has been an amazing Christmas. It was a lot better than last year. Long story, short. Christmas 2013. Ate dinner at old man's house. He kept putting food on my plate. My stomach couldn't hold it all. Threw up in the bathroom.

The GOOD NEWS is that this Christmas, I ate some delicious food AND I didn't throw up so that was amazing! :) A LOT of great things happened this past week. So, prepare for a MASSIVE email! 

First off, Cherry Lui. She is so awesome. She is from Wuhan, China and we have been teaching her for a couple months now and she is progressing so fast. She is doing very well. On December 21, she wanted to feed us some authentic Chinese food and that was her gift for us for Christmas! How awesome was that! 

Last Saturday, we went over to her house and a strong aroma of Chinese food flooded my nose. It felt like I was in heaven, Chinese edition. She cooked a lot of different dishes that originated from China. She then proceeded to explain each dish and told us the name. The name were crazy! I am pretty sure that the names didn't register in my brain. I gotta tell you, those food were AMAZING!!!! It was a TON better than Panda Express. I think I can't even eat at Panda Express anymore. Americanized Chinese food isn't as good as real Chinese food. 

The next day (Sunday), we had a great discussion about Heavenly Father. Cherry had an amazing question about the nature of God. Her biggest question was "Why would God let bad things happen to good people?". It was great that she is asking those questions. I can easily tell that she has a big desire to learn more about Heavenly Father. To answer some of her questions, we read Mosiah 24: 8-16, which talks about how the Lord eases our burdens. What a great scripture! Needless to say, Cherry is doing amazing! She is learning a lot and attending church every single week! :) 

A few days ago, we had a great lesson with the Wilson family. The Wilson family are from Missouri and they grew up in the Pentecostal faith. They are a really cool family. Elder Quintero and I (we were on exchanges at the time) were able to teach them the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was sooo good. Elder Quintero and I did very well. Everything went super well. The Spirit was super strong! The coolest thing was that Michelle (the mother), Jake (oldest son, 16 yrs old), and Shayleigh (only daughter, 14 yrs old) were agreeing with everything we said. I know that they felt it and they knew that they felt the Holy Ghost. I could tell. As we were teaching, Joe (the father) was kind of not paying attention. He was looking intently in the pamphlet, reading every single word in the pamphlet. I guess that was good. At the end of the lesson, we talked about what they have learned and when we called on Joe, he brought up some concerns and the concern is simple. The Godhead. The only thing that is stopping him from believing that Joseph Smith really did see God and Jesus Christ is the Trinity. He says that he believes that God, Jesus Christ and Holy Ghost are as one, not three different personages. The difficult thing is that there is so much evidence in the Bible, alone, that supports the ideology of the Godhead as three separate beings, unified for a single purpose (Moses 1:39). Our next lesson with the family will be interesting. We will be discussing about the Godhead. We have a bunch of scriptures that supports that fact but it will be a challenge to share the scriptures and ask him questions that will help him teach himself that there is three separate beings in the Godhead. It will be very interesting. 

Right after that lesson, I was kind of disappointed because I was absolutely certain that the lesson was delivered powerfully and it was according to their needs. The transitions were seamless. The questions were thought-provoking. I knew that I needed to keep working hard so I got myself over that blip and kept working. Last night, we went over to the Andersen's house (the Wilson family's fellowshipper. They are really good friends with the Wilson family and the father is in the Bishopric so he's good at teaching. A+). We were able to get into a discussion about the Wilson family. Brother Andersen said that Joe had some "spiritual" experiences in the Pentecostal faith, which is why he is "firmly" rooted but he feels like he can be baptized very soon when this Godhead thing gets resolved. I was so happy. I can definitely see the entire family in white in front of the temple. The only reason why we got a lesson with them is that they are curious to know how families can be together forever. They grew up with literally no family whatsoever. Their immediate family is all they've got. They want to make it last forever so that's why they're curious. I am so grateful for Heavenly Father and for His love towards us. I know that because of His love, He has provided us with His plan that allows family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Families CAN be together forever! :) 

That same day, we had an amazing lesson with Erika. Erika is the woman that is friends with a recent convert that our Zone Leaders baptized. Basically, during the lesson, we got to get to know her and her background. She has four kids and she grew up pretty broke. She went through a lot of hard times in her life. As a result of hearing her talk, we showed her the Mormon Message, "Mountains to Climb" and she was really touched by the video. We talked about Jesus Christ and I was able to invite her to take the step and follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized on January 24th. She accepted that invitation and she is now preparing to be baptized on January 24th!! :) 

Draco is an amazing kid. That kid never fails to impress me. He is progressing extremely well. He is coming to church and he even got his mom, Krista, to go with him. If Draco ever decides to serve a mission, he will be a great missionary! I can already see that in him! We had an amazing lesson with him last Sunday and we taught about the Restoration. So, while we were teaching Draco and his family, his little brother, Jayden, was not paying attention during the Joseph Smith part and as we were moving into the First Vision, we asked if there was any questions, Jayden raised his hand and said that he was confused. We asked Draco to tell him what is happening. He then proceeded to explain to him everything that was happening and the coolest thing is that he did an excellent job! Draco is still set to be baptized on February 7th and the coolest thing is that he is so solid! He wants to start working on his baptismal program and he already talked to uncle (who is very active) into baptizing him! I am sooo pumped for February 7th. It will be an awesome day! :)

Last of all, the Goble family!!! Christmastisms are

so much fun! The Goble family are soooo awesome! Yesterday morning, Grace, Charlie, Bella were able to follow enter the waters of baptism and be baptized by their father, Peter. It was an incredible baptism! Zoey Hale, the cousin of Grace, Charlie and Bella, were also baptized too! It was a grand total of four! We tried to invite Marlowe (the other cousin who is 12 and not baptized) and her mother refused to! :( Oh well, it was still amazing! I am so grateful for the opportunity to be there for the Goble family the entire way! They are an amazing family! Now, Elder Freitag and I are planning on working more with the family and trying to get Cole (the 14 years old son) to get the Priesthood and to the Temple alongside with his parents to do baptisms for the dead! 

As you may tell, I had an incredible week in the Utah Ogden Mission! I am loving every moment out here. I love being a missionary. I love being able to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love inviting people to take action on changing their lives for the better. I know that the Gospel can change lives and bring our spirit brothers and sisters closer to Jesus Christ and access His cleansing power. I am so grateful for our loving Heavenly Father for His love towards us. No matter who we are or what we have done in the past, Heavenly Father loves us, no matter what. I know that by living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we can find true happiness that all of us seeks to have in this life AND the life to come. I have seen it happen to people multiple times. I know, with all my heart, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true!!!

I love you all and stay strong! Have an amazing and safe week. You can do hard things. Love you!!! Love, Elder McGrath

My presents

The real meaning of Christmas

Before opening presents

View from my house on Christmas Day. Do you like the snow?

Christmas Day Speedball tournament. Of course, I won! :D

the story is that we pulled over to help a car that was stuck in the snow. It was very windy and freezing. The car was pretty stuck in the snow so it took us about 15 minutes to get it out of the snow. We had to dig out a lot of snow and everything. We had inadequate clothing. We thought it wouldn't be as cold as it was. We were DYING of cold. You can see in the picture that Elder Freitag's ears were red and my cheeks were red!

The Goble's baptism

Goble's post-baptism party. They are rich!! :)

Cherry Lui took this picture on her phone while we were at her house eating dinner!

Having some fun with Frank Lui (Cherry's son). He is 9 years old.

Merry Christmas

Hello everyone, Thank you for all of the emails that you have sent me. It was so awesome to see how the fam is doing! :) We had some pretty big miracles happen this past week and seriously, I love miracles. Those miracles make up my mission! I love being a missionary so much because I get to witness miracles every single day. Those miracles really strengthen my testimony of the Gospel! 

Yesterday, we had a pretty big activity happen in the Logan East stake. In honor of the Christmas season, the East stake put on a grand event that exhibited hundreds of Christmas créches, a live nativity and a bunch of background music that played Christmas hymns. There was a ton of nonmembers there and it was amazing because we were able to talk to everyone. We should've filled the baptismal font! ;)

The Goble family are super solid. The baptism is definitely going to happen on the 29th and I am super stoked for it! Four baptisms and it will be very exciting! :) The Goble family are doing very well. They are doing everything they need to. On the 28th, they will be cooking us some delicious steak. I am super excited for that. I haven't had a good steak in a while! Also, another really cool thing is that Brother Goble is preparing himself to baptize the kids and he is going through his final interview on the 28th so the Bishop can determine if he is ready to baptize the kids. I think he is ready. :) It will be an exciting day!!!

A few days ago, we had an amazing, super inspired lesson with Draco! Draco's mother told us that she can see that Draco really cares about learning more about the gospel. She sees that Draco is putting forth the effort that she wants to see, all because Draco has been going to church, reading the Book of Mormon and praying every single day. Remember, it is always the small things that matter! That day, we talked about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and man, the Spirit was super super super strong! At the end of the super amazing lesson, the Spirit told us that the time was right for us to invite him again for baptism. We invited him to be baptized and he told us that he really wants to be baptized. The mother asked him if he wants to be baptized in January or February. He chose February 7th as his baptism date. He is soooooooooooooo solid! It is unbelievable! Guess what, February 7th is my 18th month mark. It will be a pretty special day! I am so stoked! 

Last Sunday, we had a huge miracle happen. It is with the Wilson family!! We saw Brother Andersen and we started talking about the Wilson family. He is trying super hard to find a time but he is not able to yet. We told him that we can give it a shot. Right after that conversation, we went to his house and knocked on his door. Joe (the father) answered and was really happy to see us. He immediately invited us in and we started talking for a bit. We talked about setting up an appointment and we set one up for TONIGHT(Tuesday) AT 6pm!!!! The coolest thing is that the entire family seems super open about meeting with us. I cannot wait to meet with them tonight and teach them simple truths about Jesus Christ and invite them to follow Him through baptism!

So, last Saturday, one set of the senior missionaries got us into singing a bunch of Christmas songs during the feeding of homeless/poor people because of the Christmas season. I was pretty shocked when they wanted me to be in it. Who would want a deaf guy in the choir? The whole event was amazing. We sang a bunch of songs and we finally were able to get into contact with this lady named Erica. Erica is a nonmember 40 years old woman whose best friend got baptized in the Cache stake (the Zone Leader's area). Erica is very interested in the Church right now because she needs a lot of hope in her life. She went through some difficult times in her life and she desperately needs the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will change lives. Erica saw that in her friend's life. She wants that for herself. We found a family that wants to feed us tomorrow and we asked them if we can bring a friend that is pretty much broke along with us. They were more than happy. It was amazing to see how Christmas brings out the best in people. Jesus Christ is awesome! He is literally the central figure in all of human history. Without Him, we would be nothing. We would never become like Him. 

We had a few pretty sick lessons with Aaron Marez! Last Sunday, he fed us dinner! We had some great discussions about the Church and Jehovah's Witness (JW). He told us that the Gospel makes sense in him. We were able to clarify the meaning of 144,000 people mentioned in Revelations 14:1-5. Apparently, the JWs believe that the 144,000 are the "anointed one". Blasphemy. Jesus Christ IS the Anointed One. One of the greatest privileges of being part of God's church is that we have a living Prophet who are able to interpret the word of God and clarify doctrine. Without prophets, we would be lost and confused about certain doctrines. This would always lead to building of other churches. That is exactly what happened during the Great Apostasy. Nicene Creed was created in ~325 AD, almost 300 hundred years after Jesus Christ died. Without living prophets and apostles, error crept into doctrine and before they knew it, original truths were corrupted. Therefore, we need a living Prophet today. I am so grateful for Thomas S. Monson. I know he is a living Prophet of God and that he does receive revelation from Jesus Christ for behalf of the church. For those who are wondering about the 144,000 people, read D&C 77:11. Joseph Smith clarifies the meaning. It's actually really cool! 

 We had an amazing lesson with Cherry last Sunday! It had been a while since we met with her and we followed up on her Book of Mormon reading. She said that she read a little bit every day and now, she is in 3 Nephi! What the?! She is doing super well and she is loving the Book of Mormon! So, that day, we were teaching the first principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, faith. The entire lesson shifted from faith, acting on our faith, then prayers, receiving answers to prayers and the Book of Mormon promise. She was asking so many questions. I can see a huge desire in her! It is amazing to see how much the Gospel is blessing her life! She also wants to make some authentic Chinese food for us this Saturday! I am actually looking forward to that. A Chinese native making real Chinese food, no Panda Express. Haha. 

This past week has been absolutely amazing and I am so grateful for the opportunities to serve the Lord. I love the Gospel and I love being able to share it with everyone I come into contact with. I love you all! Merry Christmas and have a blast in Singapore!!! Love you all!!!!!! Love, Elder McGrath

Christmas tree --> presents were from the Murphys, Goble family, Evertsen families and others. A lot of people that we are helping are giving us presents. It's crazy awesome! :) I hope you like the Christmas tree I made! ;)

Surprise party for Elder Coronado!

Week full of miracles

Hello everyone, Thank you for all of the emails that you have sent me. It was so awesome to see how the fam is doing! :) Elder Freitag and I are doing super well in Logan! We are working super super hard and we are talking to everyone that comes within our sight. As a result, we had some amazing miracles happen and it was incredible to see the hand of the Lord in everything we do. I love the Gospel so much! I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and for His sacrifice for all of us. He loves us! 

First off, the Goble family is doing amazing. I am really proud of them of how far they have come to this point. They are doing excellent! :) The four baptisms are definitely going to happen on the 29th of December! It will be sooooooo exciting! I am still going to count it as a "Christmastism" because it is still close to Christmas! It will be awesome.

The Goble kids are super pumped for their baptism and they have been attending church consistently for the past few weeks now. :) I love being able to see the change in their life as a result of following the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Draco is doing soooooooooo awesome! Seriously, that kid is a stud. When he makes a commitment, he really follows through. He is reading the Book of Mormon, reading the pamphlets that we leave with him, praying AND attending church. The fact that he is 10 years old amazes me. His maturity level exceeds far above his age. A few days before last Sunday, we had an amazing lesson with him and his family and we committed the ENTIRE family to attend church the following Sunday and we told them that we will be there at his ward! We showed up to the ward and we could not see the family anywhere. We were freaking out because if he didn't show up, that means he would haven't kept the promise that he has made to his mother and after all, he would never get baptized. The sacrament meeting, on the other hand, was absolutely awesome and it was super uplifting so it was fantastic. After sacrament meeting ended, we got up and started talking to the members and talking about some of their neighbors who are not members of Jesus Christ's church. Suddenly, I saw DRACO at the corner of my eyes and it was amazing to see him. We said thanks to the members and went over to Draco and started talking to him. He told us that he is loving church and that his family didn't want to go so he called up his good friend (who is strong in the Gospel), Gideon, who happens to be his fellowshipper. He called Gideon for a ride to church so he can attend church. WHAT?! MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never heard of this happening before. A 10 years old kid going out of his way to attend church when his family didn't want to. Amazing. 

Elder Freitag and I had a great lesson with Aaron Marez. Since he told us that he doesn't want to go through the missionary lessons again, we decided to talk about the Church Organization. We shared some scriptures from the Bible (Primitive Church in the Middle East), the Book of Mormon (the church in Ancient America) and the Doctrine and Covenants (the church nowadays). After reading the scriptures and helping him make the connections between the primitive church and the nowadays church and after showing him my Priesthood Line of Authority, he realized it and exclaimed, "Wow, you guys really do profess to be part of Christ's church and you guys are speaking the truth!!!" Yeah! The LDS Church is the exact same church as the church that Jesus Christ established when He was undergoing His earthly ministry. At the end of this lesson, we started talking about baptism and he told us that he really wants to be baptized. His desire is burning now but he has some pretty big obstacles holding him back. Please please please pray for him. He would really love to have some prayers sent his way.

Max, the 14 years old boy that we taught for the first time last week, is an awesome kid. We had an awesome lesson with him last Saturday and he is a stud. We talked about why he is wanting us to come back and teach him more about the Gospel even though his dad is super anti-mormon and would not let him get baptized. He told us that he really has a desire to learn more and he was asking all of the right questions. We then asked him what he wants to get out of this. He told us that he would like to get baptized if this is what he wants to do. He also mentioned that his dad would let him get baptized if he really wants to and shows that commitment to his father. He is on the right track right now. We had an awesome lesson about Jesus Christ and His Atonement because he had a lot of questions about Jesus Christ and why He died for each one of us. We also invited him to come to church and guess what! He did! He came to church!!! 

Last Friday, we had a huge miracle happen. We were going to one of the Christmas parties in one of the wards that we cover. It is the Foothills 1st Ward of the Logan East stake. At the party, we saw our senior couple missionaries that we work closely with to find and teach people about the Gospel. We went over and they introduced us to the Wilson family. It was my first time meeting them! :) They are an awesome family. The family is:

Father - Joe

Mother - Michelle

son (16 yrs old) - Jacob

daughter (14 yrs old) - Shayleigh

son (9 years old) - Ethan 

The Wilson family is soo cool. They told us that they are looking for a different church. They don't practice their beliefs very much. They are a Pentecostal family. We, along with Elder and Sister Murphy (the senior couple missionaries), got to give the Wilson family a tour of the church building. As we were going around, we talked a lot about the church organization and how it is similar to the primitive church. They marveled at that fact. It was soo awesome! At the end of the church tour, Elder Murphy bore such powerful testimony and the Spirit was super strong. At the end of his testimony, Elder Murphy invited the entire Wilson family to take the discussions. Each one of them accepted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next day, the Murphys told us that the Wilsons told them that they are very excited to start meeting with us and learn more about Jesus Christ and His Gospel. :) MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will be starting to teach the Wilson family later this week! I am so pumped to start teaching the Wilson family this week! :) 

I love all of the miracles that I get to witness on my mission. It really strengthens my faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I know that God lives and He is our Father in Heaven. He strives to make us happy for all eternity by allowing us to be together with our families for all time and eternity. I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ because I know that when I seek to follow the Gospel, I experience more peace and happiness in my life. I cannot imagine my life without the Gospel. 

I love you all and have fun in Singapore! Be safe and take lots of pictures. Don't forget to watch the #HeIsTheGift video on christmas.mormon.org if you haven't yet. It is sooo good! I love you all! Stay awesome! Love, Elder McGrath

Text from Aaron Marez. We gave him a Priesthood Blessing the night before

Christmas party!!!

Elder Coronado and me

#ShareTheGift

Hey y'all!!!! This past week was so amazing!!!!! Last Thursday was one of the best days I have had on my mission. We had two NM L/W (L/W = lessons with a member present. NM = non-member. LA = less-active)  and two LA L/W and all of those lessons went extremely well. 

One of those NM L/W is with Rica. She is from Taipei, Taiwan. She lost her baptismal date, which was going to be this upcoming Saturday because she is going back to Taiwan this Thursday for Winter Break. We committed her to keep taking the lessons through Skype. She was really happy about that. Also, the highlight of this lesson is following up on her reading assignment. We assigned her to read 3 Nephi 11 and she was able to read it! We asked her how she felt when she read it. She then began to describe the feeling as "magical"! We were ecstatic!!! We bore our testimony that she felt the Holy Ghost strongly and we also mentioned that God told her through the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. She said quietly, "Yeah, He did.". WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! She is becoming more converted each lesson! :) 

We also had a couple of great lessons with the Goble family. The baptisms will be held on December 29th and it will be GRAND! So, what's going to happen is that there will be two convert baptisms, a 8 years old baptism and their cousin is coming up from Texas to be baptized with her cousins! There will be a total of four children following the example of Jesus Christ by entering into the waters of baptism and making the baptismal covenant with the Lord. It is going to be very exciting. I am SOOOOO pumped for the baptism. It will be grand! 

Also, we had a huge miracle happen with one of our less-actives that we are teaching. His name is Dallas Nutt and he served two tours in Afghanistan and Kuwait, respectively. Right after his two tours, he had a brain aneurysm. The brain aneurysm happened about 3 years ago. His wife just left him two months ago. :( But nevertheless, we had an awesome lesson with him last Thursday. We were asking about how he is doing with church, prayer and scripture study and he is doing well on the first two but not on the last one. He seemed really upset about that so I asked him what was on his mind. He completely broke down and told us everything. It was incredible. He said that he really wants to become a better man. We shared the video, "True Christians". After watching that video, we had an awesome discussion about how we need to do the small and simple things, like service and scripture study, outside of church. That is one of the ways we can become a better man. He seemed very determined to keep all of his commitments that he has extended. What a miracle! 

Elder Freitag and I had a sick lesson with Aaron Marez. It all started out with some chit-chat about Christmas and he told us that he hasn't done very many Christmases in his life and I replied with "why?". He then proceeded to tell us about how he grew up a JW. We asked him about his views on both JW and the LDS church He said that there is pros and cons about both religions. He went on explaining about the LDS church. It was only the Word of Wisdom commandment that he doesn't like. He talked about how Jesus Christ drank wine back then and how come we can't. We shared a scripture found in Daniels 1: 6-20. After that, he said, "Oh, I didn't know that the Word of Wisdom is found in the Bible." Well, duh!!! The Gospel isn't new. It existed all the way back to Adam and Eve. It was lost during each apostasy and it was always restored with each dispensation. If you have any questions concerning about what I just mentioned, please feel free to message me on Facebook and I would be more than glad to help shed some light for your understanding. 

Guess what?! Draco and Krista (Draco's mother) came to church last Sunday and ... they loved it!!!! Wooooooooo!!! We taught about Draco last Sunday evening about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he is keeping all of his commitments. His mom, Krista, said that she is impressed with how much Draco is doing to prepare himself for baptism. Yay! 

We didn't have a lesson with Cherry and Frank because the lesson fell through but they came to church! :) 

Last Wednesday evening, we got out of a car and were walking to a member's house because they told us that they have a couple referrals for us. There was this 14 years old boy walking his two dogs. We went over and started to talk to him. We had a great conversation and he told us that he used to go to church every single week and he never got baptized. We asked him if he wants to start going back to church now and he said that he can try it out again. We set up another lesson with him for Saturday. He gave us the address to his house. Then, the next Saturday came by, we looked at the address one more time and guess what, it was the one of the Ward Mission Leader's house. We thought it was a phony address but we decided to try it anyways. As we walked to the house, the WML came up to us and told us the entire story. Long story short, the WML is the kid's stepfather. The real father is working as a mechanic for the US Army and he is serving in Japan right now. He is super anti and would never let the kid get baptized if the kid really wants to. So, we just decided to do the "He is the Gift" message. After the message, we asked him if there is anything we can do for him. He looked on the ground for a second and then looked at me and said, "Can you guys come back next week?". Having never received that answer from anyone before, I was stunned. There was a 10 second silence and then, I said, "Uh, yeah. Yeah, we can definitely do that! Same time, next week?". He agreed to that. Hmm, what a miracle. I was not expecting that at all. haha. 

This past week was super awesome. I absolutely love being a missionary. I love being the Lord's representative. Let us all remember Jesus Christ during this special time of the year and #ShareTheGift!!!!! christmas.mormon.org and share that video with everyone you know! I love you all and enjoy your week. Stay strong and you can do hard things! Be safe and don't forget to do CPR! :) Love, Elder McGrath

Christmas Tree.. Look at the presents. See that picture of #HeIsTheGift!!! :)

I didn't know that Santa was soo old.. ;) I found this while out working.

I am thankful for Jesus Christ

Hey familia! What a great week, even though a lot of lessons fell through! It was truly a week full of miracles and amazing lessons. I love being a missionary so much! I love teaching the Gospel to all those people that needs the Gospel in their lives. I have seen the Gospel change people for the better and the personal relationship with their Savior, Jesus Christ has helped them get through tumultuous times. I am so grateful that we get to live in this dispensation!

Seriously, I cannot believe that it is December 2014.. Time is escaping by too fast. I am super glad that I am making the most of my time. We are always out and working hard. The number of teaching appointments is getting too high. We keep having to find splits to come with us so we can hit two lessons at once but this past week was a little difficult because a lot of our lessons fell through BUT our numbers are becoming amazing and I am so pumped. :)  We have three baptisms coming up. We are hoping for a fourth one because the fourth one could be the Goble kids' cousin, Marlowe. If everything happens the way we want it to be, oh my, it would be absolutely amazing. It would be a grand Goble family baptisms with four of the Goble kids being baptized by Peter Goble (the father)!  Please pray for that to happen! It would be so sick if everything works out! 

First off, Thanksgiving was amazing! We only had one dinner appointment so I was really happy about that! I didn't stuff myself with too much food to the point where I will throw up, like last Christmas. That is one thing I am thankful for. :) We got to eat with the Franckowiak family. It was really cool! The father is a Physicist and a Math teacher! He was telling Elder Freitag and I all about the things that are happening in the field of mathematics. To be honest, things kept going into one ear and out of the other ear. It was confusing but nevertheless, I immensely enjoyed the Thanksgiving dinner!

With Rica, things are going great but we found some sad news. She is going back to Taiwan for Winter Break on DECEMBER 11th, two days before her baptism. Because of that, we will have to push the baptism back to January. I am pretty sad about that part but man, we had a super awesome lesson about who God is. Since she is from Taiwan, she didn't really know anything about who God is so we decided to focus on the entire lesson on Heavenly Father. The Spirit was present during that lesson and boy, it was strong! We were able to connect everything to the Book of Mormon and we talked about how it is the word of God and that is one of the ways that we can become closer to Him. Rica has committed to read the Book of Mormon every single night and I am hoping that will happen! 

The Goble family are doing sooo awesome! We had a lesson with them last night and we decided to re-teach the Restoration to help solidify their understanding of the message of the Restoration. This time, we asked questions that helped them teach themselves. We were able to correct a few points and at the end of the lesson, something incredible happened. After talking about the Book of Mormon and Moroni's promise, we asked if anybody had any questions. The oldest daughter, Grace (she is also preparing for baptism), asked us how we came to know that the Book of Mormon. It was a great thing that I was able to testify about how I came to know that it is true. My companion, Elder Freitag, was also able to testify. I never felt the Spirit so strong in the lesson. It was incredible. Grace is only 13 years old and she has the desire. You can see it in her eyes. That is what the mission vision means to me. True conversion through baptism or reactivation that leads to the Temple. 

The lesson with Draco went super well. We talked about the basic fundamentals like Jesus Christ, Holy Ghost, the Book of Mormon and baptism. We invited him to be baptized but the mother got in the way. She told us that she will be talking about it with him and see if he really wants to do this. I am praying fervently that he will keep having that desire that he had a few days ago. 

Last Sunday, we had a fantastic lesson with Cherry and Frank Lui. We wanted them to know what Christmas really means so we decided to focus the lesson on Christmas and the real meaning of it. We shared the video labeled, "He is the Gift" and it was amazing. We talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how we need to remember Him during the Christmas season. Remember: 

"Christ" = Jesus Christ

"mas" = more (in the Spanish language) 

So, obviously, Christmas is the time when we should remember Jesus Christ more. 

I testify that He is the light, the life and the hope of the world. I know that He sincerely loves each one of us. I know that his cleansing power will cleanse us, no matter what we have done in the past. With the Gospel, we can feel pure and clean and power to push through the difficult times. I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that by following His Gospel, we can see the blessings of God unfold in our lives. I testify that those blessings are critical. Those blessings contribute to our "never-ending happiness" (Mosiah 2:41). Keep the commands, read the scriptures, and pray! By small and simple things, we can feel His love enter in our lives. I cannot imagine my life without the Gospel. I am thankful for Joseph Smith and that he had courage and determination to usher in the long-promised dispensation of the fulness of times. I am thankful for Jesus Christ and for what He did for the world. 

I love all of you guys. You all are amazing and keep the good work up. Stay strong and you can do hard things. Philippians 4:13, Alma 26:12, Luke 1:37. Have an awesome week! Love, Elder McGrath

Thanksgiving dinner