sammission: 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!