Hey guys, Thank you all for your emails. It made my
week! I really enjoy reading all of your letters and seeing how everyone
is doing. I miss you all but I know this is what I need to do. So far,
the past three months have been the hardest three months but it was the
most rewarding. I love being able to see the change in people and as
they do CPR (church, prayer, reading the scriptures), they begin to have
a desire to become closer to Jesus Christ. It's what makes all of the
work I have been doing worth it.
The area that we are working in is going dry and
it's tough knowing that it's pretty easy to get baptisms in the mission
but when Elder Scott left, we have no baptismal dates and some
investigators are telling us that they don't want to meet with us
anymore BUT I know that with faith, anything can happen. We just need to
work harder to find new people that are ready to meet with us.
Day 1 (Wednesday) - We were out all day knocking on
so many doors (I lost count of how many doors we knocked!) but we got to
teach some people.
The first family is Robert
Hall (the guy who is living with his fiance and have been taught
everything in order to get baptized. Robert can't get divorced to his
current wife because his current wife would not sign the papers.) and we
started talking about the gospel and how it blesses us. His fiance came
in the last 5 minutes and they told us that they have news. Robert and
his fiance have been talking about the commandments and they decided to
start keeping the Law of Chastity.They are not sleeping together
anymore! Wha?! I was stunned when they said that! I was so happy BUT
Robert still can't get baptized because he is still living with his
fiance. :(
We got to see Kevin and he invited us over for Taco
night last night. It's rare that a nonmember invites the missionaries
over for dinner so I was SO excited! :D
Elder
Vickers and I got to go see the Misrasi (less active parents with
nonmember children) family and we talked about the Gospel of Jesus
Christ with an object lesson. We did the bowl with pepper (as sin) and
had one of the kids dip in the water with their finger (that has soap on
it) and after the kid dipped in, the peppers "ran away" from the
finger. Try it out! It's REALLY cool! We compared that to baptism and
that when we get baptized, our sins get washed away. The kids were
astounded and kept asking if we could do it again! It was a great
lesson.
And for the last lesson, we got to go see the Egli
family (part member family. Jaxson Egli got baptized last month but the
mother and the daughter is still not baptized and as a result, we are
still teaching them). We started talking about baptism and how it helps
us receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The fellowshipper was sharing so
many great stories of how the gift of the Holy Ghost was helping him
endure the trials of his life. It was great.
At the end when I felt the time was right, I invited
the mother and the daughter to be baptized. The mother shot the
invitation down straight off the bat by saying that she is not ready and
that she needs to solve personal issues which we can't help with. The
daughter said maybe. She wouldn't set a date. We concluded the lesson by
bearing our testimonies of baptism.
A few days later, Brother Egli (who is a less
active) texted us and said that they don't want any more missionary
discussions and would be calling us when they want the missionary
discussion. :( I did NOT enjoy reading that text.
Day 2 (Thursday) - We got to go see Jessica for the
first time in weeks (Jessica is the manly-female) and we talked a little
about the the Restoration but we had to cut it short because she had
something to go to.
We also got to see the Glover family and we got to
talk about how families can be together forever. It was a fantastic
lesson and the family said that they want to get sealed so it was a
GREAT day! I highly enjoyed teaching them about the temples. :)
Besides those two lessons, we were out contacting
people on the Unbaptized List (UBL) and I had someone slam the door on
my face! Dang it! It was the first time in three months that someone
slammed the door on my face. I wanted to see if I could go without
having that happen for two years!
Day 3 (Friday) - We had our zone study and Elder
Vickers and I set our baptism transfer goal of 1! Since the area is
going dry, we just set up a goal of one because we will have to work
towards it! I am hoping to have someone close to baptism by the end of
this transfer. ;)
Since the area is going dry, we have been going
around, checking out the referrals and seeing if they would like to have
us over and we also checked every single name on the UBL. We had no
lessons planned on that day (which is rare) but it turned out that we
had TWO! :D
We got to share a quick spiritual thought with the
Fiveash (part member family) family and the one who got baptized in
Clinton wants to have Recent Convert lessons! It was SO good to hear
that! I love hearing that phrase, "I want to have lessons!". :D
We got to see the Hansen family (a member family)
and they gave us a referral! We talked about missionary work and invited
them to invite a family to the Savior of the World (it's like the Mesa
Arizona Easter Pageant on a smaller scale! It's this weekend and I'm
looking forward to seeing it!).
Day 4 (Saturday) - It was snowing, like snow falling
from the SKY! It was crazy! Elder Vickers was telling me that kind of
snow we went through is nothing. It's scary hearing that. A lot of
people are telling me that the temperature outside (it's in the 30s
Fahrenheit) is warm. It's scaring me! ;)
We had FOUR lessons planned last Saturday and three of them fell through :(. It's tough seeing lessons fall through.
But
we had one lesson! :D We got to see Jessica (the manly female) and we
talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how Jesus Christ can help us
endure our many trials. I know that Jesus Christ knows the pains,
sufferings and afflictions that we endure. He knows how it feels. He
wants to help us. He reaches out HIS hand for us so He can help us but
it is UP TO US that we reach out with our hands to allow Him to help us.
I testify to each one of you reading this that He is there and that He
lives!
After the lesson, I just took Elder Vickers around
and had him meet all of the influential families so it was a great day
despite three lessons falling through!
Day 5
(Sunday) - Last Sunday was a fantastic day! Elder Vickers and I got to
go to THREE different Sacrament meetings and all of them were fantastic.
Going to sacrament meeting helps me feel the Savior's love and as a
result, my relationship with him gets stronger! Going to church helps
strengthen our faith!
During one of the Sacrament meetings, Elder Vickers
and I got to hear the Stake President speak and he spoke on missionary
work. He also mentioned that the Stake has awesome full-time
missionaries and that they could trust us. He also said that he knows
that we work hard despite not having any baptismal dates and that we try
to get people to commit to be baptized. It felt SO good hearing that
and the Spirit was STRONG!
Every 1st and 3rd Sunday, Elder Vickers and I have a
correlation meeting with each one of the Ward Mission Leader (WML) and I
texted out a reminder. 6 out of 8 WMLs came to the correlation meeting,
which is a record for me! :D We got to talk about each investigators
and we also talked about inviting them to be baptized. We also talked
about those investigators who are REALLY close and we need to make them
take that last step to get baptized! Despite the difficulties, I love
working with the Tremonton West stake! It was a fantastic day!
Day 6
(Monday) - Elder Vickers woke up sick. He couldn't talk so I gave him a
priesthood blessing and I had him stay in bed and sleep. It was hard to
resist the temptation to crawl back in bed and sleep! But I took a
shower to help wake me up and I just read the Book of Mormon and watched
all three episodes of The District 2 (amazing episodes!).
Elder Vickers felt better by that night so we went out
and ate dinner at Kevin's house! It was SO much fun! He makes delicious
tacos. We talked for THREE hours and it was a blast. We were sharing so
many funny and amazing stories about life in general. Then after that,
we talked about baptism and he said that he wants to get baptized! I had
the widest grin on my face! BUT he said that he wants to hold that off
for a while and make sure that baptism is what he really wants to do! We
told him to pray about it and see what God says. I have faith that
everything would work out!
After being with Kevin, I got to go introduce Elder
Vickers to one of my favorite bishop in the stake, Bishop Jensen of the
Tremonton 8th ward. He is SO cool and down to earth. We talked about the
people who are in need of help then we shared a quick spiritual thought
with him and his family. After that, since he watches NBA and NFL, he
was updating me on everything! It was so much fun talking to him about
sports and certain players (like Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant
and other amazing players). It was a great night.
I love being a missionary! I love being able to help
the people around me become closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's a
great day to be a missionary in the Utah Ogden mission! Stay strong in
the gospel because I know that the gospel is for ALL OF US. I know that
Heavenly Father loves each one of us despite our flaws. We are not
expected to be perfect but we are expected to try our best. He will take
care of the rest and I have seen that countless times on my mission!I love you all and have a great, safe week! Love, Elder McGrath
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