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

Paso Robles!

April 27, 2015

Well the first week in Paso wasn't bad at all!

A. Paso Robles is awesome the branch here is great. but I suck at names, but I am good with faces! Here I have meet a couple of less actives and investigators and I will talk about one that I can put a name to the face.

Cynthia is a daughter of a member, she is less active, her best friend is serving a mission and I forgot to ask where but her dad LOVES to talk to us. When we try to teach her he comes and tries to talk to us and then Cynthia tries to leave so we went for a walk and to talk with her and we talked about her and her life. Boy has she changed in the past 2 transfers, she talked about how 3 months ago she would have told the missionaries to leave her alone, and not very politely, but she talked about how she has always loved Jesus and went through a lot of tough times. God helped her through it. and then we talked about missionary service and if that is something she wants to do, she didn't say yes but she didn't say no, so we have our work cut out for us!

but the branch here is awesome they are very close to each other the ward mission leader was a missionary 2 years ago and is very good and doing what he is doing and helping us out with our investigators it just a great place to be and its going to be fun here!

C. Elder Jones is awesome he is just down to earth and wants to serve the lord the best he can.

T. well this week has been an adventure and its been a fun one. This week I just learn to be my self, have fun, and enjoy this new area. Most the time in a new area I take time to adjust but this time I was just myself and I felt comfortable after the second day here (which is when i finished unpacking) it has been interesting to be a missionary and I can't wait for what I learn next!

S. well this week we helped at the food share and it was good, there was a lot of work to do and we got it done fast we were the last group to start and the first to finish all our work they had for us to do it was a lot of fun! 

yep it was a fun week!

thats my district Elder Rosenlof, Elder fyffe, Elder Goad, elder Magoon, Elder J

ones and me!

well have a great week!!

-elder joshua mackay!

Bye Bye Newbury

April 20, 2015

Well I am leaving Newbury.... as much as I dont want to!

But I will be going to Paso Robles into a Spanish Branch.

But that's not all, last night we had a mission wide fire side and we had someone show up.

His name starts with a D and end with avid Arculeta, yes David Arculeta came and visited our mission!

But this is how the week went:

A. well my last week in Newbury park was great I learned a very awesome skill, Baking. A less active member taught me how to bake Tres Leches and it was super fun and they even came to church this past Sunday! It was awesome I love Mexican food.

As it is my last day here, which sucks... I love this place so much, all the people I meet like Angel and his family, the Rivera family and Zeya, Elena, Rodolfo and many many more and plus I hate goodbye and suck at saying them. The thing I learned from these people is incredible, from Angel I learned that anything is possible even when the odds are stacked against you, the Rivera family taught me how to love and support each other and how to suck it up and HIT, from Rodolfo I learned that there is never a dull moment in life and if you think there is just look around you and see all the beauty there is in this earth.

The members here are awesome. Seth is awesome, he is doing his very best to prepare himself to serve a mission by inviting his entire football team to play basketball with us. Our ward mission leader bro Judd is working so hard to get the ward leader to do their jobs with us to work as one, our unit leader bro Jensen is just full of love for every person that we need to help. Those are only a couple of examples about how this area is the greatest or one of the greatest areas in this mission.

But as good as Newbury is I hope Paso will be the same.

C. Well Elder Berg is awesome we got to go to the temple on his birthday and it was just a fun day he is awesome and I hope he works hard for his last transfer he is entering.

T. Well last night with bro. David Arculeta it was awesome, the spirit was very strong, I thought it was super cool when he sang the last song "glorious" because I could tell that song means a lot to him and he loved to be a missionary he has done a lot of missionary work both before and after his mission. Well during his mission as well! I can do the same. and I will.

S. This week we helped our ancestors in the temple. But we also helped Jim clean up his back yard.

Yep it was awesome this week was great : temple, Davie, and a lot of fun!

ok we have Seth and his father, and then his family. the Warne family. and the temple

See you around!

-Elder Joshua Mackay 

P-Day fun!

I was sent these pictures by a couple of moms... I love to see this smiling happy face!

Another Week down the drain

April 13, 2015

Well hello there, everyone looks pretty happy well at least those whose faces I know!

well its week 6 so hopefully I don't get transferred cause those suck sometimes

well this is my week!

A. well I LOVE Newbury Park this was been one of my favorite areas so far. What is really wierd about that is that this is such a slow area and it a lot of hard work. Which normally I get tired of pretty fast but it seems to me that my faith booster fuel supply was been awesome here. 

This week we had exchanges and I went with Elder Gaylor and we just went to las casitas it was awesome! We talked to everybody we crossed paths with, we did a little service, we went to go see some members who moved and see if they needed anything it was just a great day. Then we went to see Zeya. who said she would get baptized in the future but isn't sure if she is ready for that step now, which is good but the sooner the better right! We are going to focus on her this week and see what happens.

This week we talked with Elena, she is a former - she got really sick so we couldnt see her- and on the exchange I thought we could stop by and see if she is around and she was feeling awesome is what she told us and that she wants us to start teaching her again and then she made us some tamales which were awesome.

C. Well elder Berg was been awesome I really hope we can stay together this transfer. That would be great, he is just awesome, he doesn't say much but you can tell he is always thinking about stuff and hopefully its good stuff which I am sure it is!

T.  Well this week I had my patience tested, we set up a tv with chrome cast to watch part of conference during Sunday school and all we needed to do was hit play and it would have started to play, but some of the members -bless there hearts- thought that we wanted to tv on the other side of the room. and unplugged the tv and then moved it over there. which then turned everything off and then when we were setting it up again, a member thought she could help by putting the cords on the tv stand and well she lifted up the power bar to move it she turned it off........ and we had to start the whole set up process over again. Now many of you who knew me would know i would have got VERY annoyed at that but yesterday everything was fine. and I realize that I have changed a LOT. which is good.

S. This week we helped someone trim their tree so it could fit into a fire place.

It was a lot of fun best part about it is a member went to canada to visit his girl friend and brought my some caramilks!!!

and so last week p day we went to the m.a.s.h. site so here are some pictures, never watched to show but some of you older people might have, a member said its also on netflix if you want to watch it

but have a great week!

-Elder Joshua Mackay

Easter Week #becausehelives

April 6, 2015

well this week was awesome!!

And this is what happened.

A. Here in the los Robles Spanish unit it seems that something isn't clicking. People come to church, they show up, but through out the week we see them doing thing that they shouldn't be doing and I am sick and tired of it. We have talked to everybody we can find, we knock on doors and we do a lot of service, but there isn't a lot of stuff happening, and then the weird thing happens, I am not upset about it, it is just fine. I love it in fact. I really hope that I can stay here longer, if I could get my wish,  until I finish my mission. Something that has happened to me to this point, is as long as I am doing the thing I am supposed to do, then everything else just falls into place. 

This week we had an awesome opportunity to talk with Angel and talk about what he is doing with his life, his body has fallen apart because of his choices and he knows that he was been a member for almost his whole life and wasn't been living it, but Elder Berg and I needed a ride to the temple and he seemed like the perfect person to take us, well his wife would drive because he is very blind. We were able to talk to him about temple blessings and how he should set a goal to go there someday it was great!

So this week being General Conference we watched it all alone in the church, there was less then 10 members who showed up to watch it with us, but we had an investigator text us after the Sunday sessions were over and she said she loved it and that Elder Zabellos talk was her favorite. It was awesome!!

C. Elder Berg this week has been coming down with something, cold or something similar. but he was never complained or anything and we worked pretty hard this week it was good!

T. Well the big question that I brought to conference is: what is the most important thing to do after my mission. and every person talked about the answer it was very clear to me what I should do. I really enjoyed elder M Russel Ballard's I thought it was cool how he talk about raising the bar for new missionaries and here i am and now he wants us to raise the bar for when we get home it was pretty cool to think about.

S. This week we help move a barn... yep a barn! Well unload the barn for the trailer and stack all the wood together it was pretty fun!!

so general conference was great. everything else is great and it going to be funny!

So to the family who want to send me something for my birthday, the 21st is a transfer day so I might not be here in Newbury so if you want to send something send it to

3301 W Gonzales Dr

Oxnard, CA

93036

that the mission office they will make sure it gets to me 

oh and pictures!!

so we have a balancing egg, post easter egg hunt put on by a member here. and a puzzle i have been working on in my spare time

and go watch because he lives the new one

hope you had a great week!

-Elder Joshua Mackay