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
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