Transfers - Week 12 Adams Hill/Lackland

October 17, 2016

Well, another 6 weeks has gone by so we have transfers again. Not much
is changing this transfer. I'm going to be staying here with Elder
Peterson. But it's going to be my last transfer. And that's pretty
crazy.

We had a pretty good week. We were able to teach Victor a few times,
he is still doing well. We got a couple of great people to start
teaching. One of them is a man named Efrain. He is a great guy, who
really wants to change. The problem is that he lives in a super
sketchy Motel 6 so it's kind of interesting teaching him. But he has
been reading and enjoyed it a lot.

Lately we have been seeing a ton of success with less active members.
Every week there is like 3-4 less active families that show up to
church. It's been great to see them reignite the fire that they once
had. And it's always great to see the many blessings that come to
there lives as they start to partake of the Gospel once again.

I'm super excited for this transfer. Working with Elder Peterson is
hilarious and we work super well together. Hopefully we will be able
to see even more success in these next few weeks.

Here's some pictures, the first is from last Pday when we played
soccer at the church. The 2nd is from District Meeting. There is a
senior couple in our district and Elder Storrs is just a massive troll
and brought a skeleton with his wife's name tag on it. It was super
funny. And then there's a district picture with the skeleton.

Have a great week. Love y'all!

Elder Mackay

Victor's Baptism - Week 11 Adams Hill/Lackland

October 10, 2016

We had a pretty great week.

We did exchanges this week with Hondo and so Elder Trent came here
with me for a day. That was hilarious. It was pretty fun to be with
him again for a day.

Victor also got baptized this week. It was super great. He is
literally the funniest little kid I have ever met. When we were
teaching him about fasting he was like "are you sure this is a real
commandment? I feel like you just want me to go on a diet." It was
pretty funny. The best part is that he totally looks like Choncho from
the movie Nacho Libre. He always says hilarious things. But the
baptism went super well. A lot of people showed up.

It has been great to see his family come back as well. They have
started attending church and have been able to see a big difference
from it. At the end of the baptism Victor's parents shared their
testimonies, the spirit was very strong.

Now we are just trying to work with all the other people we have so
that they can make that step as well.

Have a great week, love y'all!

Elder Mackay

MLC and General Conference - Week 10 Adams Hill/Lackland

October 3, 2016

We had a super good week. We have been super busy and so it has been
crazy trying to get everything done. But it's worked out so far.

Last week we got a referral for a lady named Vanya. We were finally
able to actually teach her this week and she is awesome. A lot of her
family members are Mormon and she has seen how much happier they seem.
Basically right at the beginning she said that she wants to become a
member. Well she has loved everything so far and now her and her 9
year old son are getting ready to be baptized on Oct. 29th.

One thing that I have noticed is that you can usually tell if someone
is ready to here the Gospel by the way that they receive the
missionaries. It talks in Preach my Gospel about how those who are
prepared to receive the Gospel will recognize the missionaries as
servants of the Lord. Vanya is definitely a great example of that.
When we were talking about her baptism she said how she feels like
Oct. 29th was too close. Then said how she feels like after a year she
will have changed enough to get baptized. Literally all I said was
that baptism is important and we need to do it as soon as we can. Then
she just said that she trusts us and will do it whenever we want, said
if we think she is ready for it she will do it.

We also did 2 exchanges this past week. First I went over to 6th Ward
with Elder Duford. It was a pretty great day. I had to do a baptismal
interview while I was over there which was pretty fun. It was
definitely the longest interview I have done. The lady had a lot of
concerns but once those got resolved she was super excited for her
baptism. So that's good! For the second exchange I stayed here and
Elder Smith came with me. I did exchanges with him like a year ago
when he had just barely came out. So it was great to see how much he
has grown.

On Friday we went to MLC. Those are always awesome, you just get to
hear amazing trainings from President and the Assistants. And then the
next 2 days were General Conference. So for the past 3 days we have
just heard so many awesome talks and trainings. So by Sunday night we
were pretty tired. Too much revelation. Vanya actually came to one of
the sessions. She has 3 kids and a niece who live with her. And all of
them are young. Her 6 year old son actually has autism and just has a
ridiculous amount of energy. So basically he was running laps around
the chapel. But it was great, her kids were going crazy and it just
looked like a tornado had come through but she was just so focused on
the talks. It blew her mind that we had prophets and apostles today
because she had always grown up thinking that the heavens were closed.
So she was listening so intently to what they had to say.

Sometimes I feel that we don't remember how much of a blessing it is
to have living prophets and apostles. The way that Vanya focused on
what they were saying made me realize that we should all be like that.
The heavens are open and we have the chance to listen to a living
prophet of God. Que bendición.

Have a great week, love y'all!

Elder Mackay

Elder Duford and I.

No Trespassing - Week 9 Adams Hill/Lackland

September 26, 2016

We had a pretty good week. It's been raining the last couple of days
so that's been super nice.

We got to go on exchanges with the assistants. That is always cool. We
both went up to their area and then I went with Elder Stanley. It was
a pretty good day. Their area is a lot of gated communities and we
ended up getting kicked out of one for "trespassing". That was super
funny.  This lady escorted us out, it was great. Even the police
showed up haha. It was the first time that either of us had been
kicked out like that. But we ended up having a few great lessons. It
is always great to go with the assistants cause they are always just
amazing and teach you a lot.

We were able to teach Victor again. He is still doing super good. He
got an iPad and just loves to play games on it, so we showed him the
app and how it can read the Book of Mormon to him. He is definitely a
fan of that.

There is a part member family that we were also able to get a hold of
again. The husband is a less active member and the wife and daughter
aren't members. I had taught them forever ago but we haven't had
contact in a long time. Well we finally got to have another lesson
with them and it went really well. The wife really wants to go to
church but the husband is kind of lazy and is a bit scared to come
back. But they did end up coming to a baptism that some other
missionaries had. They enjoyed it a lot. Now we just need to work with
them more so they can get baptized as well.

The work is going great here. God is definitely blessing us.

Sorry, I don't have pictures because I suck at taking them..

Have a great week, love y'all!

Elder Mackay

Sopa de mariscos - Week 8 Adams Hill/Lackland

September 19, 2016

We had a pretty great week. It has been super hot again lately. It was
cooling down for a bit but now it is just super hot again. There has
also been thousands of butterflies migrating. So our car is just
covered in dead butterflies that we have hit.

We had a great Zone Conference this last week. The Main theme of it
was prayer and receiving revelation through prayer. It was been super
fun to apply the things that we learned there. We have been having a
lot of great experiences with people as we teach them what prayer
truly is and as they pray with real intent. We have been able to see a
lot of people have their prayers answered.

I went on exchanges this week as well. Elder Sarles came here with me
for a day. He is a great missionary. It is always great to go with
other missionaries because they all do missionary work differently and
it is cool to see and learn from the differences. And every missionary
is just so good.

I probably had the weirdest meal so far this week. We were eating
dinner and the lady served us some soup that she had made. Well she
called it sopa de mariscos which just means seafood soup. And
basically what it consisted of was shrimp, squid, scallop and fish
eyes. So it was super weird. Luckily it didn't actually taste bad.

I also got to do a baptismal interview for a couple that will be
getting baptized on Saturday. Those are always fun, I love talking
with people who are about to get baptized. Victor is still doing
great. And he is still just as funny as ever. His family is also doing
really well, so we are excited for them all to move forward in the
Gospel together.

Have a great week, love y'all!

Elder Mackay

Da un grado mas - Week 7 Adams Hill/Lackland

September 12, 2016

This week was pretty great. I was in a trio with Elder Hart and Elder
Peterson until Thursday and then it was just Elder Peterson and I.
Being in a trio is kind of weird, its a lot different. But it was
pretty fun.

Right now we have one person with a baptismal date. Its this 9 year
old named Victor. He is probably the funniest kid I have ever met. It
can be super hard to teach him because he is always just running
around all over the place. But he is doing super good. His family has
started coming back to church with him as well. So it has also been a
great way to help his family out as well.

My new companion Elder Peterson is pretty great. We have way to much
fun together. We both know a bunch of slangy, super Mexican phrases so
we just use them and then people think its hilarious and talk to us.
Its pretty awesome.

Right now we are trying pretty hard to work with the members a lot
more. We keep getting given less and less miles so it is super nice to
have members drive you around. And missionary work just always goes
way better when the members are involved.

I hope everyone has a great week. Love y'all!

Elder Mackay

Transfers - Week 6 Adams Hill/Lackland

September 5, 2016

Well, we have transfers again this week. It is super fun because since
I am a Zone Leader I get all the transfer information the night before
and then we had to call everyone in the zone and tell them where they
were going. That was pretty fun.

But for transfers I am going to be staying here and will be getting
Elder Peterson as my new companion. It should be pretty fun. I
actually had exchanged with him this past week. So I have already
worked with him a little bit. It should be pretty fun.

This past week was pretty great. We were able to teach a lot of
lessons which is always fun. The members have actually gotten super
involved in visiting less active families. It has been super great. A
lot of people have started coming back to church because of members
visiting them. It has been awesome.

We started teaching a few people who are doing pretty well. The
biggest problem that we are having right now is that they don't want
to be baptized because they don't want to go against the traditions of
their family. Even though they know it is all true. So thats rough.
But we are working on it.

Everything is going great. God is blessing us a lot.

Have a great week, Love y'all!

Elder Mackay

The District