Wow! What an amazing week

Hola mi familia!!!! Wow! Talk about a fantastic week! Heavenly Father is so awesome and I am eternally grateful for His blessings! I have gotten to see a lot of blessings that happened this week!

First off, transfers end tomorrow. Elder Freitag and I are STAYING together! This will be our THIRD transfer together! We are going to be the only English speaking companionship that is going to cover two stakes. It is going to be SOOO busy but awesome! We have a lot of work that is going on and we can't afford to waste time and that is why I am so grateful to have a car. Elder Freitag and I will have to do a lot of splits because we are picking up investigators left and right! It is so amazing to see how the work is progressing. 

Elder Freitag and I wanted to stay together and keep both stakes soo bad. We even called President Hiers and requested that we stay together. He asked if we can handle covering two stakes one more transfer. We were ecstatic to hear that! I am so pumped to keep working hard with Elder Freitag! 

This past week, I was able to receive a testimony of how we can gain blessings after much tribulation. D&C 58:2-4. For the past few weeks, Elder Freitag and I went through some difficult times when some of our investigators that seemed to be progressing started to drop us or fall off completely off the radar. It was extremely difficult because we came to love these investigators and were rejoicing in their progression but that screeched to a halt when they dropped us spontaneously. It was crazy. 

So, I want to do something different this time. I want to share the biggest, most awesomest (I know that isn't a word but it doesn't matter. :) ) news at the end. So, here are the big news: So first things first, we had a great lesson with Rica. We committed her to read the Book of Mormon. She is still shooting for December 13th for her baptism. A lesson fell through so that was a little difficult but things are going super well! Please pray for her. 

Guess what!!! Facebook finally got useful for us now!! Elder Freitag and I found MahRyan on Facebook now! We both requested to be her friend and she accepted our friend request! We are planning on stopping by tomorrow night with the WML and hopefully, things will go back to the way it was because she has expressed a huge desire to be baptized! She even went to the Bishop on her own and requested to be baptized. Please pray for her also. She really needs your prayers. Also, pray for her mother, Brandy, and that her heart will be softened by the Spirit and all concerns, pertaining to meeting with us, will be resolved. 

We will be eating with the Wilson family! Remember that Pentecostal family from Missouri I told you about a couple weeks ago? It is a nonmember family of five. They are really good friends with a member of the bishopric. We will be eating with them soon and I am so pumped. It will be so amazing!

So, we met with a family. They are living with the Gaines. It is a nonmember family of 5. They have a 10 years old boy, 8 years old boy and a 4 years old girl. They are a family that practice Paganism. It is the oldest, recorded religion ever to be practiced. It is really cool hearing about how they practice it. One of the kids named Draco (yes, Draco. The exact same spelling as the kid from Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy!) started asking us questions about the Church. We answered them all. We asked the mother where he got all of these questions and she said that he has a lot of LDS friends and the next thing she said is that her kids have complete religious freedom. To sum it up: she said that the kids are free to choose their beliefs. It is really cool. 

After that, we asked Draco what he thinks about the Church. He told us that he loves the Church. He also said that he wants to become LDS. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is a cool kid and we are going to start teaching him tomorrow night. We will commit him to a baptismal date tomorrow. It will be awesome! 

Cherry is doing awesome! We had her meet with Becky Mitchell. She goes to China every single year and is a super strong member of the Church. She told Cherry about the Church in China. She even mentioned that you have to be a member of the Church in order to go to the Church. She also mentioned that you can meet with the missionaries in Hong Kong. It's a good thing that she lives in Wuhan, which isn't that far from Hong Kong. I was really nervous because I couldn't read her face and see how she is taking everything because Becky was talking about baptism a lot. When we invited her, she almost dropped us because she doesn't want to be baptized. At the end, she took everything super well. She even invited Becky to teach at her university (she is a visiting professor at USU) and was so happy! We gave her a language study edition of the Book of Mormon (it has three different columns: one in Chinese. one in Chinese (but it shows how you pronounce the words) and the last column is in English. She was so ecstatic to get that Book of Mormon. You can really tell that she is becoming converted! I love it so much!

So, the best news for last! We got to meet with the Goble family last Saturday. It is a really cool family! The parents are awesome and they have 5 kids. Cole is the oldest and he got baptized when he was 8 years old. Then comes Grace (11 years old), Charles (9 years old), Isabella (8 years old) and Mack (4 years old). They are so awesome! We found out in the first lesson that the mother is a recent convert and that she got baptized right after Cole was born. They were active for about 9 years and got sealed in the temple and everything. Then, all of the sudden, a few years ago, they fell less-active. The ward started to work with them and to try to help them. Years passed by, countless missionaries stopped by to start trying to teach them. No success. Elder Freitag and I were the first missionaries to teach everyone else except the mother. It was awesome.

Last Saturday, we invited Grace, Charles and Isabella to be baptized on December 13 but they wanted to be baptized on December 29 because they have family coming up to Logan on that day. Grace and Charles will be a convert baptism while Isabella will be a 8 years old family. Our main focus for that family is to get the kids baptized and the family BACK on the road to the Temple and help them stay active. Last Saturday, we invited them to come to Church and they all committed to come.

The next day, the ENTIRE family came. Luckily, we were able to speak in that ward so we can kinda control how well sacrament meeting goes. It is always nerve-wracking when a speaker talks about some deep doctrine thing and the investigator leaves church very confused. 

I was crazy nervous to give that talk because I wanted to do a really good job. I prayed a lot during the sacrament so I can have some help. Miracles happened. I never spoke so well and I could see that everybody could understand me. I was going to speak on missionary work but since the Goble family was there, I talked about Jesus Christ and His Atonement. It went really well. 

Later that day, we had a meeting with the Stake President, we were sooooooooooooooooo excited to share the news with him. He was absolutely thrilled about hearing the kids accept the baptismal date. When we told him that the entire family, including the father, went to church, he was stunned. He couldn't believe it. He even said, "Pete even went to church?!?" He was really happy about that! 

Last night, we had an awesome lesson with the Goble family. We taught the Restoration and we committed the kids to read the Book of Mormon. I am glad to report that they are doing well. The parents are going to meet with the Bishop to sort out all of the baptism details like who is going to baptize them. There are three Goble families in the stake. Yes, three! They all are less active so the Bishop and the Stake President are a little concerned about "offending" them. Please pray for them. The names are as follows: Peter, Alexis, Cole, Grace, Charles, Isabella, and Mack Goble. ALSO, pray for Deserae and Marlowe Goble. Marlowe Goble is a cousin of Peter and Alexis's kids. She met with missionaries twice and backed out of the baptism right before it happened. Sad.. But, we are going to try to have Marlowe get baptized with Grace, Isabella, and Charles. It will be a grand day for the Goble family. Please pray for them all. It would be much appreciated! 

Man, it was a great week. I love being a missionary so much. I love seeing the blessings that comes from doing hard work in the Lord's vineyard. I am thankful for Jesus Christ and what He did for each one of us. I know that He truly loves each one of us, no matter what we have done in the past. I know that we all have a loving Heavenly Father, who loves each one of us so much! I love love love love being a missionary! I love serving Him with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength. He helps each one of us, day and night. I am so grateful that we have a loving Heavenly Father! 

I love you all so much. Have a great week. HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Remember and be thankful for Him!!!! Love, Elder McGrath

Speedball with my zone!!!