Week 26- another week another 1000 miracles

Dec 16, 2013

Hola mi amigos como estan!?

Pues Felix Navidad

esta semana fue muy bien como siempre.

Lunes. during dinner one of Hna Pacheco's friends showed up, she met with the missionaries before but in Carpintera (a town north of Ventura) and we talked to her about the book of mormon because it is only the most important thing about our gospel. We asked her if she had a question and she did and then Elder Cavazos answered it with the Book of Mormon as I was talking to one of the girls who also had a question so we did a Q&A session.

Martes. we had a lesson with the Gonzales family and when we started (felipe) he thought that babies need to get baptized or they live in "limbo" we talked and he didn't say anything and I said "tenia pruguntas" and he said "no tenia pruguntas" and believes that babies don't need baptism. woohoo. and the mother (Carmen) wanted to get baptized! but she doesn't want to go to church alone and felipe can't go tell January. that was Tuesday!

Wednesday. we had 3 people with a baptism date!! so we visited the Vera family or the Pinedo that what the kids last name is and we asked them if they wanted to get baptized and they said yes and we asked them how about we set a goal for the 28th and they said yes!! so we create a plan to prepare them for the 28th. Wednesday was great!

Thursday. was better then Thursday! so we had 3 lessons first was with the Pinedo kids and we showed them "on the way home" a movie released by the church that talks about a family who lost a daughter/sister in a car crash and there family is falling apart and the gospel brings them together. they got baptized in the movie so we wanted to show them how we do that. second was with a man named Eusibio he is dating one of our members for awhile but he doesnt want to feel pressure or take missionary lesson so we shared a Christmas lesson using both the bible and the Book of Mormon and gifts God and Jesus have given us and what we can give them oh it was so good you should have been there. and third with Jose Gracia he didn't have much time so we just talk/gave a condensed version of the Christmas lesson he loved it and asked us to come back Saturday.

Friday. after a good doctor visit and weekly planning Elder Cavazos played the flute for the English wards Christmas party he did pretty good and then got chosen to play for the Christmas zone devo. on Wednesday this week. 

Saturday. so we went back to Jose's house and taught him the Plan of Salvation he like it a lot and after we finished he showed us his church's webpage and showed us the thing that were the same but he said ours made more sense. we then showed himlds.org and showed him who to research topic using lds.org and he said he is going to read some stuff. I'm not sure if that is going to be good or bad. but after that we headed to Ojai they replaced the Spanish elders up there with English ones so we got all the Spanish into our area. so we taught the Torres family all are members but the father oh and the mom and dad aren't married.. but we had a great lesson the spirit was very strong. we set expectations with him and his family it was very very well done i feel.

Sunday. we missed the Pinedo kids at church so we had to drop there date so we went to visit them to talk about it and set them for the 11 of January (they didn't know they had to go to church 3 times before getting baptized). so all is well. we also talked to Maria Carrera she has those vein things in her foot (like my mother) and she is getting them removed (huhh) but we some how remembered that she wanted us to visit her son in Ojai so we stopped by and talked to him he was busy but told us to stop by later. and reported what happened to Maria. so that was Sunday.

so sorry but i forgot my camera at home so pictures next week :( 

but hope you have a great week love you all take care!

-Elder Joshua Mackay

Week 25 Hola

December 9, 2013

 

Well hello there, I didn't see you looking at the computer screen, well or your phone or tablet.

 

So this week has been great, very interesting in a lot of different ways.

 

So to start of the week Monday, as many of you are aware I stayed in the San Buena Ventura Branch, so I didn't go to transfer meeting... :( I hear it was really good! A lot of great missionaries going home. But Tuesday morning we got a call from our Zone Leaders, they gave us a call with a special assignment to go to Camarillo  to help the United Methodist chursch set up for an event called "no room at the Inn" where they display nativity sets from around teh world. We spent from 9am to 4:30 pm moving tables, boxes, chairs, and many other things. We were so tired but it was tiring! But all is well I got a good nap on the way home:)

So Wednesday after District meeting and language study  we found out that the new sisters branch didn't dinner. So we made a few calls (1) and found them dinner and after dinner we went down the stairs to an investigators house (Moreno Family) and we started talking about Chapter 7 and out the window we saw the other Elders ( Elder Moreno and Elder Fernandez) run by heading to the sisters dinner, following we saw the sisters run by and the Elders again  and then the sisters came back and me and Elder Cavazos were confused about what was going on. So after our lesson we headed to the car as we unlocked the car the sister came and explained the whole story and lead up to the point, that they had left the lights on.

Thursday. Oh man, so at 4ish we picked up some recent converts and walked with them to the Vera's house and they had a great lesson about how baptism has changed their life. After the lesson one of the recent converts Crystal invited them to church, and told them that if they say they are going to come, they better come. It was great, but whether they came or not you will have to wait... Then we taught Jose Gracia and he is golder then the gold plates!! We taught the restoration and we loved it and then he told us about his fellowship in Santa Paula who would come to Ventura to go to church with him! He asked all the right questions about the church, doctrine, oh man so much gold!

Friday, we went alone to the Vera's house this time just to see what they thought about the 3 kids and all that. Somehow we started talking about our bodies and tattoos and piercings and we then proceeded to teach them about how our body's are temples and we shouldn't do those things. Elder Cavazos showed them his hole for his brow piercing.

Saturday. We thought before dinner we should stop by the Vera's house and remind them about church, but their mom was there. She is a less active member and we have been trying to see her since Elder Cavazos joined me (we have been together for 1 transfer and going on 2) so we had a lesson about church attendance and the mother said she would go to church for 1 hour on Sunday and leave her kids with us! We were so excited that we showed up late to dinner! But after dinner we had a lesson with Hermono Torres and we taught him the plan of Salvation because he thinks his Grandma is dying soon. (she is 105 as of yesterday/Sunday) and he knows a lot about the Plan of Salvation just not the whole thing like where we wait to be judged and other small things like that. We also had a lesson with Guadalupe the daughter of Guadalupe we taught her the Restoration and she also loved it and said that as we spoke that she felt it is true and just felt peace, well that is how she described it.

Sunday. If you haven't watched the Christmas devotional from the first presidency go look at 3 Nephi in the last chapter, and read the 2nd verse and then continue to repent and watch it;P That's all I got for Sunday.

Have a great week love you all take care. and Happy Holidays

-Elder Joshua Mackay

Sunset at the cross

Elder Fernandez, Hermana Howell, Hermana Fitzpatrick, Me, Elder Cavazos, and Elder Moreno (only the sisters left)

Elder Van Every (he came home) Elder Hofhienz

Week 24 Transfers

December 2, 2013

so im staying 6 more weeks here in the good ol' San Buena Ventura Branch

so highlight of the week was the baptism we had on Saturday oh it was so good!

but anyways the week went a little like this:

Monday was a normal, p-day with shopping, washing everything. but after 6 we went over to join a family home evening with the Diaz family and they were watching "a special witness of Jesus Christ" its a good movie it just all the of the 12 and the first presidency bearing testimony of Jesus Christ. oh so good and after the movie me and Elder Cavazos bore our testimonies. and then went and made a program for the baptism on Saturday.

Tuesday. so something interesting happened that day during distract meeting we were coming up with ideas for service and Elder Smith (Distract Leader) asked me what i was thinking and i said "it sounds crazy but helping people to set up or take down bouncy houses" and he said i like that idea so we prayed to help people with bouncy houses, lights, and washing dishes. and then in the evening we talked to the Gonzales family about faith and hope. it was a pretty good lesson and they are looking forward to meeting tomorrow.

Wednesday. we had a couple lessons that day. starting with the Vera family they were watching a scary movie when we came over and we asked them how they sleep after watching that they said its a long night but we talked about prayer and there is a great scripture in Alma 37: 37 that talks about praying to the lord before you sleep and he will watch over you and in the morning you need to pray giving thanks for the thing that he has given so we shared that and headed on our way. we then went to Hna. Ruth lopez's house for dinner and her boy friend Eusiebio was there and we talked about the 12 tribes cause hna was confused about them (we talked about them in Sunday school). after we meet Ricardo (the one who got Baptized) and talked about the priesthood and what it mean and what you can do with it. and of course where it comes from.

Turkey day!, i mean Thanksgiving, i mean Thursday. well happy Thanksgiving to all of you. hope it went well and for some reason all of our evening lesson cancel to meet with there family(who would ever do that). but we had a great thanksgiving dinner with the branch and we meet an x-Elder Vaca Guzman from South America somewhere i cant remember. but that was thrusday.

Friday. so we talked to Ricardo and he changed his mind on the pictures he wanted for the program so we went to do some Black Friday shopping to print out 2 pictures our total on black Friday was $0.50. and then we went to change the pictures. but for we meet with a resent convert (baptized in june) to talk about "stand ye in holy places" (talk by John Bytheway) but her cousin came to town from Oxnard so we shared it with her as well.

Saturday. all day Saturday i had butterflies in my stomach. my first baptism and i have to do it in Spanish :S. but all went well i spend a lot of time that day repeating the pray in my head and out loud. Elder Cavazos must have been tired of it, but we taught some people thing as well. first we talked to Julio Flores and we taught him the Restoration, until his dad came in and told us to go away, well nicely he did. so we left after we prayed. then we went to a Jakie Orozco and she has been talking to her cousin (a member) about the three kingdoms so we talked to her about that and explained that a little using combo sizes! and oh course the baptism, where the water was way to hot and i want to repeat the prayer 5 times and his elbow and foot didn't want to be baptized but other then that it was a great service and then the english crowd moved in and did there baptism. yep it was all good.

Sunday, was a great day we just meet with some members and less actives and resent converts cause we thought we were both leaving but were not so here we are!

anyways have a great week love you all

- Elder Joshua Mackay

Week 23 1 more week in the Transfer

November 25, 2013

Hello!

So where you think am going? Staying, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Santa Barbabra, or somewhere else?

so this week was great well better then that we had our first zone conference!

so Monday! or cleaning day cause zone conference is on Tuesday so we did everything and cleaned  out car and went bowling as branch missionaries (3 companionship's) 

then we had a lesson with Magaly and we taught her the Restoration and she really liked it and thought that this might be the true church with all of Christ teaching restored to full form. so it was pretty solid.

Tuesday we had Zone Conference so we had a long but very spiritual day in the church. we didn't get out of the church until 7:00 pm and we got there at 9:30 am but every moment was worth it i learned a lot and how i need to improve my teaching skills using scriptures, defining words, and direct commitments. it was great!

Wednesday. the week begins with a bang! so we got a new scripture to use for obedience its D&C 130 : 20-21 and we used that to share with everybody that day.. ok only the dinner message but its a great scripture look it up! after we taught the Bribiesca family about the tree of life and they como siempre (like always) liked it a lot. then something awesome happened! Ricardo Zavala wanted to meet with us at the church so we headed down there and we started talking about baptism and he said he wants to get baptized on the 30th. so we taught him the 10 commandments and test drove the interview questions and started to create (in our minds) a baptism program (whos going to pray and give talks) so Wednesday was a great day. 

Thursday. in the morning Elder Cavazos read the story of the ten virgins and wanted to use it that day well teaching people. so we were knocking door and we came across a women from Mexico named Lara who had dinner with a member the night before and she asked of after talking about how God loves us today so he called a prophet asked if we could say a prayer with her so we taught her how to pray and we prayed with her. then we visited the Bribiesca's home and only the mother was home so Elder Cavazos took the chance and shared the ten virgins story and we talked about how we can prepare our families for his coming. then we went to talk to Hna. Arenas about Ricardo (they are dating) so we wanted to make sure everything was alright, but he was there so we thought it might not be a good idea to do that at that time so we shared a bible story of the ten virgins and talked to Ricardo about what he can do to prepare for his baptism. and we set up a time for his interview on Saturday, we also created a baptism program.

Friday. after weekly planning and all that fun stuff we eat some food and headed to correlation meeting. after that finished he followed Hna. Arenas home to meet with Ricardo and teach him the final lesson The Law of Chasity, but we found out that they don't live together and have set boundary for what they do and don't do, Hna Arenas is the Best!

Saturday. the day of Ricardo's interview. so we meet him at the church that night and Elder Carter came down from Filmore to give that interview and all is well so were having a baptism this week (if all goes well this week and he doesn't change his mind)

Sunday. most of church Elder Cavazos and I made sure that everyone knew about the Baptism and made sure that the people praying and talking knew and are planning on going as well after church we made some tune salad sandwiches (so good) studied Spanish and went back to work after dinner we went over to the Bribiesca's and Luis and the mom went leaving to get some food for dinner so they asked us to come back in 30 minutes so we said that works perfect. we headed over to see Magaly (she wasn't home) but we saw a man talking on the phone driving passed so we walked over to talk to him and he was just standing outside and we started speaking to him in English and he only know a little English but after we heard dios after we asked "do you believe in god" we switched to Spanish and we had a great chat with him and we invited us over on Thursday. but we got to Magaly's house and her mom opened and we started talking to her about what we are teaching her daughter. and she asked if we could share it with the whole family after they get back from Mexico to visit there grandpa who is very sick and about to pass away. so we might be getting 2 more families this week!

this week was great hope your was as well.

-Elder Joshua Mackay