sammission: Week full of miracles

Hello everyone, Thank you for all of the emails that you have sent me. It was so awesome to see how the fam is doing! :) Elder Freitag and I are doing super well in Logan! We are working super super hard and we are talking to everyone that comes within our sight. As a result, we had some amazing miracles happen and it was incredible to see the hand of the Lord in everything we do. I love the Gospel so much! I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and for His sacrifice for all of us. He loves us!

First off, the Goble family is doing amazing. I am really proud of them of how far they have come to this point. They are doing excellent! :) The four baptisms are definitely going to happen on the 29th of December! It will be sooooooo exciting! I am still going to count it as a "Christmastism" because it is still close to Christmas! It will be awesome.

The Goble kids are super pumped for their baptism and they have been attending church consistently for the past few weeks now. :) I love being able to see the change in their life as a result of following the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Draco is doing soooooooooo awesome! Seriously, that kid is a stud. When he makes a commitment, he really follows through. He is reading the Book of Mormon, reading the pamphlets that we leave with him, praying AND attending church. The fact that he is 10 years old amazes me. His maturity level exceeds far above his age. A few days before last Sunday, we had an amazing lesson with him and his family and we committed the ENTIRE family to attend church the following Sunday and we told them that we will be there at his ward! We showed up to the ward and we could not see the family anywhere. We were freaking out because if he didn't show up, that means he would haven't kept the promise that he has made to his mother and after all, he would never get baptized. The sacrament meeting, on the other hand, was absolutely awesome and it was super uplifting so it was fantastic. After sacrament meeting ended, we got up and started talking to the members and talking about some of their neighbors who are not members of Jesus Christ's church. Suddenly, I saw DRACO at the corner of my eyes and it was amazing to see him. We said thanks to the members and went over to Draco and started talking to him. He told us that he is loving church and that his family didn't want to go so he called up his good friend (who is strong in the Gospel), Gideon, who happens to be his fellowshipper. He called Gideon for a ride to church so he can attend church. WHAT?! MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never heard of this happening before. A 10 years old kid going out of his way to attend church when his family didn't want to. Amazing.

Elder Freitag and I had a great lesson with Aaron Marez. Since he told us that he doesn't want to go through the missionary lessons again, we decided to talk about the Church Organization. We shared some scriptures from the Bible (Primitive Church in the Middle East), the Book of Mormon (the church in Ancient America) and the Doctrine and Covenants (the church nowadays). After reading the scriptures and helping him make the connections between the primitive church and the nowadays church and after showing him my Priesthood Line of Authority, he realized it and exclaimed, "Wow, you guys really do profess to be part of Christ's church and you guys are speaking the truth!!!" Yeah! The LDS Church is the exact same church as the church that Jesus Christ established when He was undergoing His earthly ministry. At the end of this lesson, we started talking about baptism and he told us that he really wants to be baptized. His desire is burning now but he has some pretty big obstacles holding him back. Please please please pray for him. He would really love to have some prayers sent his way.

Max, the 14 years old boy that we taught for the first time last week, is an awesome kid. We had an awesome lesson with him last Saturday and he is a stud. We talked about why he is wanting us to come back and teach him more about the Gospel even though his dad is super anti-mormon and would not let him get baptized. He told us that he really has a desire to learn more and he was asking all of the right questions. We then asked him what he wants to get out of this. He told us that he would like to get baptized if this is what he wants to do. He also mentioned that his dad would let him get baptized if he really wants to and shows that commitment to his father. He is on the right track right now. We had an awesome lesson about Jesus Christ and His Atonement because he had a lot of questions about Jesus Christ and why He died for each one of us. We also invited him to come to church and guess what! He did! He came to church!!!

Last Friday, we had a huge miracle happen. We were going to one of the Christmas parties in one of the wards that we cover. It is the Foothills 1st Ward of the Logan East stake. At the party, we saw our senior couple missionaries that we work closely with to find and teach people about the Gospel. We went over and they introduced us to the Wilson family. It was my first time meeting them! :) They are an awesome family. The family is:

Father - Joe

Mother - Michelle

son (16 yrs old) - Jacob

daughter (14 yrs old) - Shayleigh

son (9 years old) - Ethan

The Wilson family is soo cool. They told us that they are looking for a different church. They don't practice their beliefs very much. They are a Pentecostal family. We, along with Elder and Sister Murphy (the senior couple missionaries), got to give the Wilson family a tour of the church building. As we were going around, we talked a lot about the church organization and how it is similar to the primitive church. They marveled at that fact. It was soo awesome! At the end of the church tour, Elder Murphy bore such powerful testimony and the Spirit was super strong. At the end of his testimony, Elder Murphy invited the entire Wilson family to take the discussions. Each one of them accepted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next day, the Murphys told us that the Wilsons told them that they are very excited to start meeting with us and learn more about Jesus Christ and His Gospel. :) MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will be starting to teach the Wilson family later this week! I am so pumped to start teaching the Wilson family this week! :)

I love all of the miracles that I get to witness on my mission. It really strengthens my faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I know that God lives and He is our Father in Heaven. He strives to make us happy for all eternity by allowing us to be together with our families for all time and eternity. I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ because I know that when I seek to follow the Gospel, I experience more peace and happiness in my life. I cannot imagine my life without the Gospel.

I love you all and have fun in Singapore! Be safe and take lots of pictures. Don't forget to watch the #HeIsTheGift video on christmas.mormon.org if you haven't yet. It is sooo good! I love you all! Stay awesome! Love, Elder McGrath