What's good everyone?!? Hope it's been
a fantastic week! This week for us has been super awesome! We've seen a lot of
miracles and my testimony that the Lord truly directs his work on the earth
today has grown so much! I love that as missionaries we get a front row seat to
his work and get to witness his hand in the lives of others every single day!
It's really not us doing this work, it's all Christ ha,ha we just try to put
ourselves in a position where he can use us for good! Let's get to the
highlights...
Each week we do weekly planning where we set goals for
the week and plan how we'll help our friends. This week we went into it feeling
pretty discouraged because our effort has been there, but over the past few
months Odenton has been a pretty slow area and we haven't seen a ton of
progress. However, we decided to turn to the Lord in prayer and it was so cool,
all 3 of us received revelation and spiritual promptings about how we can
improve our finding efforts and where to shift our focus which has led to some
serious progress and growth this week!
Wednesday was miracle number 1! That night we were
going to visit Sister Brown (the older lady in our ward I talked about last
week,) and she gave us some doughnuts she's the best ha,ha. But anyway, when we
pulled in we saw a family walking and immediately all 3 of us felt the
impression "they're ready to hear the gospel!" So we got super
excited and decided we'd try to find ‘em and talk to them after meeting with Sister
Brown. When we left, we were driving to a neighborhood to start knocking and we
saw them walking again! At that point we knew God wanted us to talk to them, so
we parked real-quick but they turned and we lost ‘em. After knocking for like
30 minutes we came to this one door and the lady said she wasn't interested but
told us to ask the family who rents part of their house. So, we go around to
the backside of their house and knock on the door and it's the family!! We
probably startled ‘em our smiles were so big when they opened the door but it
was so cool! We taught them about the plan of salvation real-quick and how we
can live with our families forever! They really liked it, only downside is
they're moving so we won't get to keep meeting with them but so glad we were
able to be directed by God and plant seeds in their lives! God truly directs
his work people!
Thursday we got to do service at a state park called Bacon
Ridge 🐖 and trim some
bushes and trees. Also, gotta do a cool hike and it gave me some serious Eagle Island
vibes, great memories ha,ha. We also saw another miracle, found a guy named
Jack while knocking who was super interested about the restoration of Christ's
church and the Plan of Salvation! Scheduled a follow up lesson for this week,
super excited for that! That night we had a lesson with my boy Jeremiah, super
good talk about the power of the Book of Mormon and he's starting to keep
commitments to read it more!
Friday, yet another miracle, met a guy named Matt who's
super interested in the church and had a great talk about the Book of Mormon!
So cool to see how God helping us see miracles as we continue to rely on him
and improve our finding efforts!
Saturday got to go to the Spanish area again with my
boys! Super fun time and had some really good practice speaking! Got to make my
first calls in Spanish which was super scary at first because it's hard enough
to understand Spanish in person, not to mention over the phone ha,ha. It
actually went really well though and I knew God was helping me out! We also got
to go to a baptism for a member's daughter that night, super cool experience!
So awesome to see the support and love from the small but powerful branch,
Latinos are so awesome! I got my first taste of Latino “time” and parties ha,ha
they had a ton of food, delicious Tres-leches cake, and it was like 3 hours
long 😂 so fun though.
They all loved my last name - it makes them laugh every time and they usually
ask "McDonald's? Like hamburgers and chicken nuggets?" followed by
more giggling 😂 it's the best
ha,ha
Sunday, Jeremiah came to church with us on his own
which was amazing! So cool to see his desire to come and even though the
sacrament meeting talks were a little random in topic. 😏 I know the
Lord was able to touch his heart and testify that this is the true church!
Sorry for the long email ha,ha but quick spiritual
thought, comes from the talk "Grateful in Any Circumstance" by Elder Uchtdorf
from April 2014. In this talk he focuses on how gratitude is not based on
things, but needs to be our focus in every circumstance, not just when things
are going good! One of my favorite quotes is "How much of life do we miss
by waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?"
This is so true and definitely something I want to work on! I invite you all to
read this talk and look for God's hand in your life every day, see the good and
be grateful! Love you all have a wonderful week!
Con amor, Elder McDonald
Word of the week: escoger (to choose) we get to choose
every day if we will be loving, happy, kind, and follow God and our Savior
Jesus Christ! Make that choice each day!
Invitation of the Month: GRATITUDE PRAYERS!! How'd week 1 go?? I
really liked expressing more gratitude to my Heavenly Father each day it helped
me be happier and recognize his hand more in my life! I promise we'll see
blessings too when we choose to be grateful!!
Pics:
Bacon Ridge!
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