It's December!

Hey guys! It's already DECEMBER! What the heck? It feels like I just entered the MTC yesterday. 4 months. Wow! I still can't believe how fast the previous 4 months has been for me. It's crazy how fast time flies. I am loving it out here in Tremonton, Utah! I'm so blessed to be a missionary because it's the best!

Day 1 (Tuesday, November 26) - We got a notice that our house was going to be inspected the next day and our house is kinda of a disaster so we dropped all of our activities and drove down to Ogden to pick up cleaning supplies at the mission office! We then spent the majority of our pday cleaning up the house and it was SPOTLESS! It was so nice having that house to be so clean and not have to worry about having clean dishes for breakfast. Hahahaha!

After cleaning up our house, we were invited to go to the YSA ward's (one of the wards that we cover) thanksgiving dinner. It was so delicious and there were so much food. Elder Vickers and I were chatting a lot with the people of the YSA ward and they are all really cool. A lot of the guys there shared some really amazing missionary stories. It was a pretty cool dinner. I left the church building with a FULL stomach so it was all good!

Day 2 (Wednesday, November 27) - Elder Vickers and I got to see Robert Hall and we got to talk about prayer. We also talked about how helpful goals are and how they help us reach to the end! We set up a goal for Robert to gain confidence with prayer. This is what we came up with for Robert to gain that confidence he needs: 

-pray by himself

-pray vocally by himself

-pray as a couple

-pray as a family

-pray with missionaries

-pray with a small group.

I feel that the list we made to help Robert gain confidence with prayer will help him immensely! I'm excited to see how it goes. Our landlord told us that we did a very impressive job with cleaning the house and that he wants to do more inspections so that way, the house stays cleaner. Yay..... ;)

Day 3 (THANKSGIVING, November 28) - The Misrasi family (Part Member family. Parents are less active and kids are not baptized. Typical PM family style) invited us over for Thanksgiving breakfast. Oooh! That's the first! Sister Misrasi was got divorced and then married to Brother Misrasi. It's Sister Misrasi's ex-husband's turn to have the kids over at his house for thanksgiving dinner so the Misrasi family just created a tradition for every other year and that is thanksgiving breakfast. We had so much food. I was worried that I couldn't eat everything that they put on my plate. I was so FULL by the end of thanksgiving breakfast so Elder Vickers and I went to the Stake Center and I lied down on the ground, refusing to move for a hour. Too much food! ;)

Three hours after that, we headed over to Kevin's (an investigator that has a baptism date for December 14 which will not happen because he still doesn't keep commitments) and he cooked a 21 lbs turkey. It was a massive "bird". That's how Kevin calls it. It was funny how he calls it!

I'm pretty sure that I have gained so much weight due to all of the food that I ate on Thanksgiving! :)

Day 4 (Friday, November 29) - It was Black Friday so Tremonton was so quiet. Almost everybody went to Logan or Ogden to go shopping. Elder Vickers and I knocked on 75+ doors on that day and nobody answered. It was by far the longest day on my mission. But a MIRACLE happened on that day!

I wanted to talk to someone about the gospel and it was 8:30pm so it was almost time to go home. Elder Vickers wanted to go back home to relax. I denied and told him that I want to at least talk to one guy. I decided to pull into this nearby mobile home park place. We were driving really slow and we saw this one lady pulling out bags of something out of her car. I quickly drove to the curb and ran out to her and offered my help. She said no and we got to talking. Her daughter comes out and grabs a bag. Her mother (the one we have been talking to) wants to introduce us to her so she starts to SIGN to her. I was taken aback. I got focused and started to sign to her. We just did the basic get-to-know stuff and she went inside. After that, I felt something stir inside of me and I felt like I should talk to her more. I asked her mother if we can go in and asked if there was a male who is above 21 years old inside. She said yes to both! It was crazy! So Elder Vickers and I go in and it turns out the daughter and her boyfriend are 100% deaf so we got into a conversation in sign language and a lot of things came back. Elder Vickers was totally lost and was all in his dream. It was great! I loved every single second of that conversation! 

Day 5 (Saturday, November 30) - We got to stop by Kevin and  we just talked about how the gospel blesses us and he told us that he went to a Catholic church last Tuesday! :( It sucked hearing that so I'm guessing that the baptism wouldn't happen. :(

We got to visit an old woman named Wendy Head whose son died in a car accident last year and this is her first holiday season without her son so she feels alone. We just shared "Mountains to Climb" video (amazing mormon message! watch it!) and gave her our number just in case she needs help. It was a pretty cool lesson.

Day 6 (Sunday, December 1) - We got to contact a referral who is Brother Christensen. He fell 12 feet off of the ladder and he broke his back in 39 pieces or something like that. He spoke really quietly. We gave him a blessing of comfort and he said that he felt good after that. We then started to talk about the Holy Ghost. He was like, "yeah, I believe that.". It was pretty cool!

Elder Vickers and I got to go to the 8th ward (one of the wards we cover) sacrament meeting and it started off really slow. No one would go up. I decided, "What the heck.. I'll just go up and bear my testimony." I got up and just did it. After that, people just kept on going up and most of them were talking about missionary work and it was awesome! It was one of my favorite sacrament meetings by far! 

Day 7 (Monday, December 2) - Elder Vickers and I got to go see Jessica Espinoza. She went OFF! She dropped us. Last night, she brough up a concern and went on complaining about how crappy the bishop (he is awesome btw) and how Tremonton has it out for her and that's because of us. It shook Elder Vickers really bad and he didn't talk at ALL for the rest of the day and it was hard trying to see other people after that because I didn't want to do everything myself. I want to bring Elder Vickers into everything I do because I want people to trust him when I leave the area.Nothing much happened yesterday. :(

Thank you for all of the letters! Thank you for the love and support, I really appreciate it! Through joy & peace, or pain & sorrow, REMEMBER whose footsteps you follow. BE MIGHTY! Helaman 10: 4-5. Love you all! Have a great week and stay strong! Be safe! Love, Elder McGrath

So many sheep!

View of Bothwell farms

Elder Vickers in the car!

Me, Eric Hansen, and his son, Mason Hansen. They are AWESOME! They are one of my FAVORITE members in the Tremonton West stake! They love love love the New Orleans Saints. hahaha

Mason Hansen (some kid that's really cool. he loves the Saints from the NFL) and I with the new CoD: Ghosts poster