The Big One

June 15, 2015

Well this week I died but you'll read about it later!

A. Paso is doing great there are some fire here and there dang lighting storm.... oh well. but its been a fun week with a lot of heat. actually this week a member left for his mission he is going to do great we took him out with us a lot and he is as ready as any missionary I have seen.

So this week we saw Jose a couple of time it was been fun we have been trying to teach him how to read and it has been going great he gave him and his daughter (martha) a book of mormon the kid one with lots of pictures and they are reading that together and we can feel the change in the home it was been awesome!

we also had a super solid lesson with Cynthia and it was awesome we talked about trials and we read the story of Job and how he always trusted god in all that happened. it was a powerful lesson and then trying to set up a FHE (family home evening) with her and her best friends family well see what happens.

so I have done the impossible, this week we had a member take us out to eat at a burger place, and on the menu they had a burger called the big one. it's a 5 lbs burger the member saw me look at it and told me that he has brought a ton of missionaries there and only 6 have tried it and none of him have finished the burger in under 30 minutes so its free or its $37.... he then told me that he thought I could do it and so I tried it, oh man he was excited, he called the ward members and the sister missionaries, and it was crazy, but 27 minutes and 52 seconds later i finished it and he started dancing and being well himself really he is awesome. But the coolest part was yet to come so I am sitting there and a kid and his mother came up to us and talked about how he watches a tv show called man vs food and he has always wanted to see someone finish the burger and that day, I made his dreams come true and we talked for a little bit, it was weird I never thought that eating a 5lb burger could bring someone to like missionaries!

C. Elder Jones is awesome, very patience, very humble, very kind what more do you need in a companion?

T. This week I learned that members make everything roll smoothly, we have been trying to find a less active named Hugo and so we knocked on his door yesterday and a van rolled in next door and 4 kids in there sunday best got out of the van and into the house and a father in his white shirt and tie followed and then a little kid who looked at us so I waved at him and he turned around took 2 steps and looked back and then he came to talk to us, but his dad came and got him but we know these people are either members or need to be so we knocked on their door and they were members so we talked to the dad about the neighbors and then he asked us to share a message with his family so we did and long story short they committed themselves to help us get the less active family to come back to church and the dad even speaks Spanish and everything is going great!

S. This week we went to the food bank and bagged food for days!! 

yep it sucked I never want to eat 5 lbs again (in one sitting) but here are some pictures of the burger... and Fabian who left for his mission in Mexico City

yepp have a great week!!!

-Elder Joshua Mackay

Paso is going to suck... in the summer!

June 8, 2015

well this summer is going to be hot and dry most of Paso can't water their lawns.

But other then it being hot, it was a great week!

A. Paso Robles is awesome, we have had a hot and rough week, it seems that everyone went to the beach and left us in paso.... we had a great week. We meet a girl named Martha this week she is Fridas sister we gave her a restoration pamphlet and asked her to read it and talked about it and so forth, but we didn't have a book of mormon on us... oops, but the next day we went by to talk to Frida, and she told us that Martha stole her book of mormon to read it... I love people who want to learn the gospel.

We also meet with some peoples mothers and watched a video with for a dinner message and they loved it and one of them came to church on sunday and it was awesome, now we just have to get the other one to come too and bring her less active daughter to come back to church! it would be awesome!

We also were able to meet up with the Villa family and read out of the Book of Mormon with then it was 2 awesome lessons and it worked out great! We talked about the Son of Helamen or the 2000 stripling warriors it was great but they didn't make it to church.

Then Friday Elder Jones desided to go to Oxnard with the other district leaders in the zone and left me with Elder Comin and Elder Peterson and boy was that fun we helped a member move into a house and an investigator move out of a different house it was a lot of fun!

C. Elder Jones is awesome, he is doing his best to be his very best and it has been a journey up here some times with this district but it has been awesome to see it happen.

T. well this week it was HOT long day every day and in the morning I hated the idea of getting out of bed because i knew what was going to come, 90+ it was awful but every day around 3 I felt a new source of energy and it was hard to stay out and work everyday but I am glad that I did it cause that "faith energy" is better then anything I have ever felt.

S. Well this week we sorted the bread at the food bank and for some reason I couldn't eat bread for a day afterwards.... ok it was only until dinner.

yep so the new district is Elder Jones, Elder Magoon, Elder Payne, Elder Rosenlof, Elder Wiate.

theres a picture.

well see you soon I only have 12 p-days left so I gotta make them count!!

-Elder Joshua Mackay

Another 6 weeks for me in Paso!!

June 1, 2015

So it's transfer week and I am staying in Paso with Elder Jones which sucks cause now I don't get to see half my past companions go home....

But, yep it's going to be great!

A. Paso is doing awesome, we are making a lot of head way with some of our investigators. It is weird it is like they think we are going to hurt them or that we are the police and they are VERY shy for the first 2 lesson and then it's like they want us to come by, maybe I shouldn't have grown so big to make them more comfortable..... Like one of our investigators Lupita she tried to keep her distance and wouldn't really answer questions but know she wants us to come by, it was been great and she said she would help us with our spanish. She is awesome she is a senior in high school and she has a 3 month old baby boy, were not sure where the dad is but we dont think he is there with her. She loves to learn more about Jesus Christ and is starting to read when ever she is done homework and is done taking care of the baby because he is sleeping she was shown me that it is a rough life out side the gospel! I could never imagine going through that, people are awesome.

We have been working with Cynthia and she is taking baby steps we have been trying to get her to pray about what she should do next but it hasn't been working. But hopefully we can help her out more, this week we read out of preach my gospel with her in chapter 5 (the holy ghost) and it was really good and we had a great lesson and we learned that we just need to go over the basics with her and take it a lot more slow because we were going to fast for her.

C. well Elder Jones is great I have said it many times but it is true, I cannot wait to stay with him for another 6 weeks it will be good!

T. Well this week was a week of firsts, mainly translating english into spanish during stake conference it was fun! but it built my testimony about the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues, because I had no clue what the people wanted to say in their talks I just tanslated what I understood and added my thoughts to it, it was good. i only got 2 complaints first that I spoke to far into the mic, second that I spoke to closely into the mic.

S. this week we went to the food bank again and i went noodling.... for lettuce it was buried under lettuce leafs it was very fun, and now I want to go fishing.... but it will have to wait cause there is no water here...... its great

yep it was a lot of fun!

pictures

so there we are translating.. we took the picture during a song.

i felt artist this week....

and we found a cool little church on top of a hill surrounded by a winery

Exchanges... 3 in 3 days!

May 25, 2015

well hello there!

It has been a great week and we found a TON of tanks, it was awesome.

A. well this week we went on a hand full of exchanges it has been very good. We had some solid lesson with Cynthia this week and they were awesome. The first one was with Elder Toa and we talked about small and simple thing and I failed the lesson - of counting all the "f"s in 1 nephi 1:1 it has a good one and I even learned things, and then we talked about prayer, it was very good. The prayer lesson was with Elder Fyffe, it was a good lesson as well and she commented on praying about going on a mission and hopefully that goes well.

Exchanges went very well with Elder Toa we found a couple of great solid people and it was an awesome day. Then with Elder Fyffe we had a good day, but appointments fell through and it was just rough... but it was very fun!!! and then with Elder Goad in the english ward it was awesome we found some people to talk to and it was an awesome day!

One of the people we found on exchanges was Liz. The sisters wrote that there was a awesome guy and no name so we tried it and she opened and wanted to learn more about our church. and so we talked and it was awesome!! we are going back this week to follow up on her reading!

C. well out of all the companions I have had this week, I missed Elder Jones the most. It was been awesome working with him and hopefully it doesn't end next week but I would love to be at transfer meeting to see all my friends leave, well mixed feelings - I would and I wouldn't. its a rough life....

T.  this week I learned that English Elders can't speak spanish.... and that when they do testify of what they think you taught it still invites the spirit and it was awesome to see the spirit working through the language barrier.

S. this week we sorted rotten apples from good one at the food bank.. it was awesome!!!

On exchanges with Elder Fyffe we missed the turn and almost left the mission area but we turned left and found a ton of tanks and a chinook heli flying around so we took pictures acted like spies and left... it was fun.

anyways have a great week!!!

-Elder Joshua Mackay

Well it has been a good one!!

May 18, 2015

well hello there its been a great week!!!

and this is what happened 

A. this week has been great!! we had a lot of lessons and a lot of success and a lot of great journal entries. so to start out the week we had a dinner with a part member family in the branch and it was great we talked about honoring our parents (the day after mothers day) and then we went to go see another part member family and we watched the mountain of the lord with them it was great they had a lot of questions about temple that the movie answered better then we could.

It was a great start to a great week... Then we were eating dinner and we asked the son about to leave on his mission if he wanted to come with us to see an investigator, unfortunately the appointment with her fell though, so we tried a former named Mario, we knocked on the door and long story short he died on the 4th so we talked to the family about the plan of salvation, they are shaken up about it so we said a prayer with them and will stop by this week to see what we can do for them. but then Fabi (the member) asked if we have seen Jose, we haven't seen him in a while so we stopped by his house and had another great lesson with him, and it was great to get our minds off of what just happened...

It has been an awesome week with a lot of awesome things going on, the last one is Nelly, Sunday we were in Shandon knocking through the potentials list and then we had to go to San Miguel to pick our ward mission leader to bring to dinner so we could go inside so we headed over then via back roads so we didnt have to go to paso and then to san miguel and we were going to get there super early so we tried Nelly who lives out in the back roads and we had a great lesson with her about prayer to seek revelation she is going through a tough time in school and trying to figure things out it was awesome and filled in the time for traveling faster then we thought.

C. Elder Jones is awesome he is very concerned about the district and it has been great working with him.

T. this week we did a zone activity and it was a lot of fun but one thing the happened is when I was blindfolded on the hike I couldn't hear Elder Jones so I kept on trekking up the hill and when I started to feel grass rub against my leg a realized I shouldn't be there and I found my way to the path and then I heard him say stop so I stopped and turns out in my journey on the grass on the way there Elder Jones was telling my to stop but I didn't hear it and then I ran into an elder, didn't feel it and he went down (fell over) and then I hit grass and got back on the path and hear him tell me to stop. but what i learned is when we don't listen to the spirit or in my case elder jones we get off the path and sometimes we take others with us and knock them off the path... but we always need to find our way back to the path.

S. this week i tackled a tree!!!! it was awesome a less active asked us to come remove some died trees and that is how I removed one, I chopped one, pulled one, tackled one and hand sawed another it was awesome!! and then I cooked the burgers to eat afterwards!!

yep it has been awesome week and the only pictures i have to prove it are of this fox we found, i named him redd. he is awesome he is my friend.

anyways have a great week!

-Elder Joshua Mackay

I found these pictures of the blind folded hike on the Mission blog. He is in Orange Timpview apparel as usual:)

Happy Mother's Day!

May 11, 2015

well how is it going? good great!!

ok well this week was awesome and were is what happened!

A. Paso is doing awesome! something I learned this week is that the full name of Paso Robles, is the city of el paso de los robles. which i thought was funny!

but we had a less active we have been working with invite us to watch her play soccer and we were in the area and stop by for a second and i guess we were bad luck charms cause her wrecked her ankle, well not to badly but she won't be playing soccer for a couple weeks, but since I played football for awhile, I semi know how to take care of injured limbs. We helped her tape it up and taught her the basics of treatment and I gave her some of my good icy hot to feel better she says she is doing a lot better.

but thats not the point, she is so hard to meet up with cause she is always playing soccer and now she can't so we had a couple super solid lessons with her this week and she said she will pray about going on a mission and work on reading PMG to learn more about what we and her best friend do from day to day.

we also had a investigator come to church he is in a part member family the parents are less active and she wanted to feed us this week but after a lesson with the son this week we learned that he is totally ready for baptism but his dad is not ready to baptize him. so we are going to start focusing on the dad. and go from there.

C. Elder Jones is awesome and he has a great family too. but this week a learned a lot about Elder Jones that I would never have thought of in my live, there is a member who is really good at reading people and there personalities we talk to him for 5 minutes and he know us just about as good as our parents do it was super cool and he talked about what it means and what we do and even talked about what type of person were going to marry, that was the weirdest part but we will see in a couple years.

T. well this week something happened yesterday at church.... the speakers didnt show up both of them..... so the branch president said he will talk for a second and then open it up for other people to talk, so I being a missionary thought oh I better get something together to share just in case and then I learned that there are so many great stories of mothers in the scriptures and thats awesome there is: eve, mary, the mothers of the stripling warriors, emma was also a faithful mother and wife, and then sariah. the list is endless and it was a great talk I prepared and didn't even use because the president talked for the whole hour and he did a good job too!

S. this week we did some volunteer work at the food bank and it was a ton of fun! and smelly too!!!

so guess what i found my camera!! but i never lost it!!

so that is lake nacimiento to get to the northern part (were people live) we have to leave the mission for 2 miles. it was fun going up there though

well have a great day!!

-Elder Joshua Mackay

Another Week in Paso Home to gross water!

May 4, 2015

well this week i learned the water here is bad BAD.

But it was a great week!

A. Well paso robles is awesome, I love it here, this weekend we had a mothers day party in the branch and it was a huge hit! we worked super hard on making sure all the less active mothers in the ward knew about it and finding them rides to get there and they did we fill the little gym we used and there wasn't any food for the late comers. which is bad but for us it was great cause so many people came!!! 

this week was been a little bit slower then other weeks we worked super hard but it just felt like time stood still for a lot of this week. but we had some great lesson with Andriana, it was awesome we had planned to talk to a less active about prophets so we had a Liahona with us from May of last year to show them how the prophets were and read some talks but we brought it to meet with Andriana and she asked about the magazine and so we talked to her about prophets and such, and then a couple of days later we meet with her again and she asked us why we decided to serve missions and so we talked about our conversion stories and bore testimonies and there was a powerful spirit, but then she noticed she was late for work and had to leave.

C. Elder jones was a very powerfull testimony he is a great elder and he will be a great elder until the day he dies in 50+ years

T. Well this week I found some old testament dvd and watched them during lunch and had a great crash course on the old testament it was a great refresher! 

S. this week we helped someone old move a ton of furniture into someones apartment and boy was it heavy!!!

but ya this week was great and more fun thing are to come!! I can feel it in the air, or is that just the gross water particles who knows anyways have a great week sorry no pictures this week but I will have some for next week!!

-Elder Joshua Mackay