2.23.14

Hey,

I'm glad to hear that Maddie got baptized and that Granddad was able to do it. Our mission leader is pretty old in our branch and he loves baptizing people so it reminded me of him repeating the words a million times. This week was super long, but very successful. We left with a girl named Andrea (return missionary) to go visit basically the entire relief society and a couple of our investigators and she put us to work...we have been super focused on the people that we have marked down in our agendas to go visit, that we forget about all of the many people that the Lord places in our paths to visit in the streets and all of that. But by the end of the week, we had increased the assistance in the church by 50 percent...all we need is to get 25 more people in the church to take the sacrament and our branch will be a WARD... which the mission has been trying to do since the time that Pte Smith (my mission pres.) served in my exact branch. So things went well this week… but i am definitely dead now. Luckily we get to go to the temple...we're going on an 8 hour bus ride to Montevideo with the zone for a zone conference and to go to the temple so i am super excited. Oh and i gave a talk in church yesterday about repentance and it went really well. I based everything off of the conversion of Alma the younger (the chapter when he was telling it to his son Helaman. 36) I used a personal story about the part where Alma says that he didn't want to return to the presence of his father. I said that in high school i failed a test and i knew that my father was going to find out, but i didn't tell him because i knew he would punish me. Later in that week i was driving to go to a friend’s house and I received a message from my dad saying, ''come here now, son. You're in big trouble.'' and I went on to explain how the drive home was awful...i did not want to return to the presence of my father to receive the wrath he had there waiting for me. I also explained the importance of Alma thinking about his MANY sins. sometimes we are willing to repent of the BIG sin but forget about all of the little sins to lead us up to the action...like not praying, not reading the scriptures, not going to church, putting ourselves in dangerous locations, not breaking up with our boyfriend/girlfriend...if we are trying to stop smoking but we don't stop buying the cigarettes we will never stop smoking...so for three days and three nights Alma was tormented...he didn't only risk his soul but the souls of others. I said that every one of us will be placed in moments like this where we will have nowhere to go… without knowing what we should do… no way of escaping... but like Alma, we have to remember who came to the earth to redeem us from sin. So that we can experience what Alma did...there couldn't have been anything so intense and awful as was his pain but at the same time, there couldn't have been anything so sweet and incredible as was his happiness. It was a good talk and everyone, of course, liked my stories and stuff. 

But we are rushed today because we have to get on a bus and leave early so i don't have much else to say. I will email you next week. 

E' McRae 

2.17.14

So this week was a pretty awesome week! We have been teaching this woman named Ema for a while and she has 78 years old and got baptized on Saturday. I gave the talk about baptism during her baptism and kind of explained the story about how we helped her and what a pleasure it was. I explained how she reads the Book of Mormon all the time and when we arrive at her house she has like 136875 questions (which is what I love). We would answer her questions and she always asks for forgiveness for being so difficult. She said that if she was going to choose a new path of life, then she had better be sure that it was the path of God. She doesn't hear very well so we basically lose our voices after each lesson with her. But she was progressing super well and when we asked her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized, she said yes immediately. But...she said she wanted to know everything about the church before she was baptized or like, be completely prepared. We told her that we would prepare her for her baptism. When we had finished teaching all of the lessons and she attended the church 3 times in a row we asked her, ''HNA EMA!!! DO YOU FEEL READY FOR YOUR BAPTIZM NEXT SATURDAY?!'' she said that she was unsure...we had already taught her everything so we asked if it would be ok to give her the baptismal questions right there to see if she was ready. We asked if she believed in God and that he is our eternal father...in his son Jesus Christ...restoration by Joseph Smith...Prophet Thomas S. Monson...(when we got to that question she was like...''but i haven't gotten to meet him yet. I know he is a prophet but when will I get to meet him and the 12, and the 70?'' She had an incredible testimony about tithing, Law of Chastity, modesty (when she was younger her husband told her she couldn't wear jeans out in public anymore because they are too revealing) and the word of wisdom. The last question was the most important though...Do you feel ready to make this covenant with the Lord to take his name upon you and follow his teachings for the rest of your life? Or something like that...and she said,'' yes. I will always follow Jesus Christ. He has answered my prayers every time i pray to Him. On days when i am feeling bad, or my body hurts me, I pray to my Father to have His son comfort me...and when i finish my prayers, I find you two standing at my door. '' She asked if she could get baptized that upcoming Saturday instead of the next one and her baptism was the most spiritual one i have had. She had her hearing aid out so she couldn't hear ANYTHING! But the entire time she was smiling and saying things to me like like...''look, child, look at all of the people that came to see me! What a quantity of people to see only me!'' I told her, ''That’s because you're SO special Ema!!!'' she smiled so big and got tears in her eyes. Elder Mar baptized her (nice and slow) and when she came out of the water she was like...''Did I do good? Did i do it right?'' and Elder Mar said, ''YOU DID SO GOOD EMA!!'' She smiled again and teared up and said, '' that’s because I felt Jesus helping me the whole time!'' she went on to say the closing prayer and it was the best prayer I have ever heard! I was so glad that the Branch members treated her so well and told her how special she was to them because she couldn't hear a thing but kept saying, '' Did you hear what they said Elder?! They said that they would help me with anything, just like you guys!!!'' and then Sunday when she received the Holy Ghost, she asked again, to the first counselor, “Did I do it correctly? I know I did it correctly because I can feel the spirit inside of me” and of course we told her. ''YOU DID SO GOOD EMA(:''  I loved this week...it just makes me feel so good...I thought about it and kinda got teared up... i can't imagine how our Heavenly Father feels. One of his beautiful daughters chose to accept Him and follow the path straight to him. The doors to His kingdom opened up for Ema that night when she was baptized and He can't wait to see her again… And I know He will, because Ema's doing SO GOOD, and like she said, she will always follow Jesus Christ. 

Anyways, another reason I loved this week was because I got to see my favorite person in the mission right now. He lets me squeeze his cheeks whenever I want and runs up to hug me anytime i get to his house! His name is MA(:

But that’s all that happened this week. Loved the email! I'll talk to you next week!

2.11.14

Hey,

So changes happened and I’m staying here with Elder Mar.  We will watch Carnival together...jk, we're going to be here trying to convince people to go to church instead of staying up all night until 6 in the morning to watch people dress up (or not wear clothes at all) so that they can go to church. I sent a long email to Spencer telling him to go on a mission. We're building the branch here. It’s still hot. I emailed Grandma with a bunch of love. We are working with a woman that reminds me of Granny. I'm anxious and afraid to baptize her on Saturday because she might not live until her confirmation if you know what i mean...not much has changed. I love you all...read your scriptures and go to church.

E' McRae

2.3.14

Thank you for your stories...I’ll definitely use them. This week was definitely a good week numbers wise... our zone leaders are stoked that we are having success and the people are starting to come back from their 3-month long vacations. The only problem is that with Carnival coming up, nobody is awake...they are all passed out until like 6 pm. Something cool happened though...our mission pres. changed the schedule. We leave earlier in the morning to proselyte (or however you spell that stupid word) go back to the house to do companion study, then leave when the siesta is over...that has been helping us out a lot but it is very difficult to study after lunch when you're super tired and want to pass out in your chair. Changes are coming up and pres. basically told E' Mar that he’s changing areas and going to gain leadership responsibility. I really love E' Mar and he is definitely one funny Mexican. It’s still hot here...we live in the same house as the Zone Leaders though and they love us… so they pay for ice cream every Friday so we can eat it as we plan and melt in our house. I'm starting to forget about a lot of things...in one of our English classes, i was supposed to say a prayer and i had no idea how to do it. I definitely feel like I’m doing the exact same thing every day though, so these emails are getting boring to write and i don't really have the desire to write people anymore so sorry if my emails start to suck. I'll stick with really big things that have happened and leave the rest in my journal. Hope everything is going well...missionary work in Uruguay is going crazy and we are going to open a new area in Brazil so i might have to learn more Portuguese. That’s all i have for today...played soccer with some hood-rat kids and bought a sweet Cristiano Ronaldo jersey for 5 bucks.

E' McRae

1.27.14

ALMA 26:36

THE OZ PRINCIPAL voy a explicar

Thanks for the stories from President Hinton! I'm going to use the one about the bird house and his son. I am also writing a girl named T.V. She has been preparing to be baptized and she told me that she gave her testimony in conference or something. She said she’s going to BYU I before she serves her mission and says she’s having some problems with her mom. Her mom goes to CCV and doesn't want to sign the paper so she can be baptized. Honestly this girl is awesome and i would do anything to have an investigator like her. She wants to be baptized and i told her that if she had any problems or questions she could go to you because you're AWESOME with young women and helping them achieve their goals.

Also, this week we were able to have interviews with Pte. Smith and he was talking about the OZ PRINCIPAL...a book that he wrote (that you have to buy and read it and tell me the awesome things it says about being successful). I'm going to rant for a little bit...he is so awesome! His book is like one of the most known books in business and he’s a millionaire. NIKE had to pay him millions to use the slogan JUST DO IT because he owns that phrase!!!! Anyways...he was talking about all the problems that we were having here in ARTIGAS. People were saying, siesta sucks, its 126 degrees, Carnival is coming up, vacations, the lideres are gone, ward doesn't want to help and blah blah blah...he wrote all of them on a white board towards the bottom of the board and drew a line above them. He said, “Now...these here are reasons for why we are not having success. Some can be excuses but others are just legitimate reasons...there are so many people that are really good at figuring out the problem. You guys are all really good at figuring out why there isn't that much success in Atrigas and that is AWESOME. But some of you are BELOW THE LINE THINKERS. How do we become ABOVE THE LINE THINKERS? You ask yourself the question...WHAT MORE CAN I DO? There are a bunch of people who are good at pointing out flaws and problems, but there are very few people who figure out what they can do TO SOLVE the problem.” (When i heard this, i immediately thought about DAD and i...we are good at finding the problems and complaining about why things suck, but we rarely try to solve the problem) He said, if you want to be above the line, you have to SEE IT (see the problem for what it is), OWN IT (realize that it is your responsibility and that you are a part of the problem) SOVLE IT (figure out what you're going to do to solve the problem) and DO IT (don't just talk about what would solve the problem... do something about it and actually work! ) He talked about that and i just thought it was amazing...and so true. My companion E' Mar has been saying...well, we don't have many people in the church because everyone is on vacation...and i was getting frustrated cause i hated that excuse. I asked myself...WHAT MORE CAN I DO? There are still people here in Artigas that we are teaching that are not going to church. Until EVERY SINGLE one of them go to church, VACATIONS can NOT be an excuse for me...I explained this to President and he loved it. We also got the chance to go out and teach with him because he served in this area when he was here on his mission. He thought it was incredible how I teach and really loved how I want to have success. I asked him if we were allowed to read his book and he said of course not but your parents will love the book and really it will help their lives...as long as it doesn't interfere with their lecture of the scriptures!

Time’s going kind of fast...it is pretty crazy how I’m 1/4th of the way done... but seriously, the only thing i want is for the people to go to Sacrament Meeting. Thanks for the comments and really PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me stories about tithing and how it has been a miracle in your lives. I know DAD would love to write me an email about an incredible spiritual experience about tithing.

Thanks love you!

1.20.14

Hey,

first things first, before i forget...i need some stories about tithing. We're teaching a bunch of families about tithing all of the sudden, and our lessons basically explain what tithing is, what the money is used for and then we say, “if you pay tithing the Lord will bless you.” It doesn't seem very affective because the people still just say, “well the Lord is already blessing me and the blessing that I want is the money,” or they say, “well God knows why I’m not paying my tithing, so i don’t have to talk about it with you”  I don't know… these people are so thick-headed sometimes. It’s just that I’ve always grown up in a house where if you don’t pay your tithing, you know that you are saying, “forget you Heavenly Father, and forget the life you gave me!” I've never had to wonder about paying tithing… because I’ve never had to pay tithing (because I’ve never earned money – really) so i don't have too many stories to tell the people.

Another problem that we are having is people not believing in the prophet. They say they'll believe in Joseph Smith and the prophets in the Book of Mormon and Bible, but when it comes to Thomas S. Monson... “oh he just doesn't do anything. If he’s the prophet, then why isn't he going to Africa and saving all of those dying children? Why isn't he like the Papa and presenting himself everywhere?  Why doesn’t he make miracles happen to show people that he is called of god? The prophets these days are just political.”  These are the kinds of things STRONG members in the church said to us as we taught a class on prophets. (btw- i can't see the letters on this key board so if there are mistakes, sorry) Some of the things people say make me want to slap them in the face...they don't even listen to the prophet and think that they have a right to criticize him.

The other thing that i wanted to talk about was home teaching. This is the number one thing that Uruguay is missing. Each week we work with a couple of families to try to get them to go to church and when we tell them that we will remind them and sometimes go look for them, they go to church. But then we move on to another family and then the old family stops going to church. The only thing that these people need is home teaching… people just to remind them to go to church, or to stop by their house and say, “hey, stop watching TV and go to church.” These people forget the day of the week and literally just forget that it’s Sunday. If we had home teachers, we would definitely be able to focus on families that really need help and we would have more than 45 people show up for church, The leaders say that home teaching won't work though because the news told them that they should stay out of the sun from the hours of 10 am to 5 pm...and they can't go after 5 because they have their own families to work with.

My area is ok but the leaders here are almost useless... in Cerro, the leaders worshipped us and did whatever we asked. Here, we had a talk with our second councilor about Alma and Almulek and their success when they worked together to bring more people unto the Lord. So we asked if he would be willing to go with us for an hour on Sunday to visit one family each week and he said...that would be amazing if it were possible but it’s a hard thing that you guys are asking for. I showed him the scripture in the beginning of the Book of Mormon when Laman and Lemuel said retrieving the plates was a difficult task but they still did it...and do you know what he said? “Oh but they had four people to go retrieve the plates...we would only have three, me my companion and him.” I looked at him for a minute with my companion and realized that he was dead serious and I just started to laugh so hard with E' Mar. I could not believe this response. I am trying to find a positive way to get these people to leave their caves to work with us...without tearing their heads off.

Our investigators are awesome though. I love a lot of the members and the nonmembers. We have one lady that is almost about to die and she calls us both Zapata (because that was the first Elder that visited her) and she will get baptized once the doctor clears her. We have another guy who is super funny and says that we're his best friends. We just need him to stop smoking and to stop trying to flirt with the sister missionaries.

I don't have much more to say. Last night, the power shut off and all four of us woke up almost dyyyyyy (i got really angry at the Y for not working) ing of heat because our fans shut off. So we slept for about 3 hours and sat outside until the power came back on so we could sleep. I miss soccer still. I go through games in myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy head a lot and we see a bunch of soccer games going on in the houses of members and that doesn't help. Other than that, all is good. I really just need help with the tithing and prophet topics.

Thanks for everything.

PS everyone says that Mom and Abbie are the prettiest girls they've seen in their lives.

1.13.14

Hey, so I’ve been trying to take the mega pixels out of the flash ware gigadrive but stumbled with the memory database system battle galactica 3000... translation: i didn't know where the memory card was so my companion figured it out for me. I hate cameras.

We had two baptisms on Saturday and I baptized this 260 lbs 9-year-old who is the nicest kid ever… and who loves when it when I play the drums on his stomach! We are playing a lot of soccer here now and are getting a bunch of people to start going to church again because I keep beating them in the sport that they think they invented. Everything is going well and there isn't that much to tell you.

I received the pictures though and will finally be able to prove to these people that I have a family. Abbie looks like a model though and I’m sure a lot of people will be asking me for her email address. Conner looks like he has a fat face (i can't blame him...I’m getting so fat here) and Gavin looks like a stud!!! Dad looks bulbous- like me.

Well i hope i get the pictures and the memory card. I'll talk to you next week.

Photos: here’s the baptism pictures...our branch president was being pushy and rushing us because we started ten minutes late… so we weren't really prepared for the pictures.

1.6.14 photos

Me and E' Mar about to fight in Brazil and the cow we murdered and ate for New Years.

1.6.14

Send some pictures!!!! At least send me pictures over email so i can show these people that i really so have a family...some of them won’t listen to me unless i show them pictures of my family.

I love being here in Artigas! Cerro was awesome for the people, but here is just soooo much better. The people speak Portuguese sometimes but they all pretty much worship me...as opposed to in Cerro “it smells like mushrooms and everyone looks like they want to hurt me” (Elf). We had a conference with our stake president here and it was awesome! There are a bunch of North Americans here who are training and still don't understand a word people are saying, so the stake Pres. made me sit next to two new missionaries (one is in the group before me) to translate what he was saying. I remembered being in that state of complete confusion and not understanding anything...it’s incredible how much i understand now just naturally (like not having to concentrate & translate in my mind)

We had an experience with a little girl named Victoria (9).Her year was just awful in her eyes because...basically so that you can understand, she got a B plus in school in one of her classes instead of an A and also her uncle was in an accident with his motorcycle and was in the hospital.(He's fine now) but for this little girl it was an awful and difficult year, so we gave her a blessing of comfort and the next Sunday she bore her testimony in church (balling the entire time) about the missionaries and how much she loves them and for helping her find happiness again. The people here don't have too many problems but they still know when they don't have the spirit in their lives and so they will look to the missionaries to bring that spirit back.  They don’t understand that they can invite the spirit back into their own lives.

What do i do with this camera memory thing? I really would like some pictures...even if they're the old ones from a couple years ago, just send them to me, please (electronically so i can use them next week).

Not much has changed...my Companion E' Mar is hilarious and awesome. He’s from Mexico so my Spanish is getting better again. That’s about all that’s going on. They don't feed us here because I’m in a branch of 40 some people...so we actually have to buy food and cook...which sucks.

E' McRae

Pictures: we baptized Jorge on my birthday… we watched the fireworks for Christmas… we babysat these two rodents while her mom did baptisms for the dead for the first time in the temple… and we baptized her dad… and Paige is now serving her mission in IndianaJ

12.31.13

Hello,

You have no idea how badly i want to be there playing 10 games of soccer a day!!!! One reason is because i got transferred finally to a place called Artigas. It’s gorgeous, borders Brazil (i went there today and had a delicious, cheap meal with people talking to me in Portuguese thinking i can understand them), and every day here it is 126 degrees...I thought I was going to die last night. I slept for about 2 hours and sweated the other 6. My new companion is from Mexico so i am glad i have a Latin companion to improve my PORTUGUESE and Spanish. We're in a branch, not a ward, so there aren't that many people that go to church… but at the same time, supposedly, we're getting a bunch of baptisms and raising the numbers during Sacrament Meeting every week.

So last Friday I woke up and was freaking out about the baptism we were going to have (this was when i was in Cerro) because the stupid font wouldn't fill up, and we spent the whole day in the church doing companion weekly planning. By the time the baptism came around, at 6pm, Hna. Porto (who we spent Christmas Eve with and who is my favorite Hna.)  came up to me with a cake and was like, “where do you want me to put this?” We were baptizing her husband, so i said, “you really brought a cake to your husband's baptism?” Then Elder Bedke was like, “OH YEAH, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE!!” I completely forgot that it was my birthday because I was too busy being mad at the font the entire day. Well we baptized Jorge then went with him to the temple the next day and it was one of the most spiritual parts of my mission. Hna. cried in the baptism and at the temple and kept thanking us the whole time. She lost her first husband to cancer when she was inactive and said that she had been praying ever since to have the priesthood in her home. She realized that Jorge was her answer to her prayers and knew that he would be the one that she would be sealed to for eternity. It’s just super cool when you help people make those life and afterlife decisions.

Hey i didn't get any pictures from you guys...what the heck. But i am still thankful for the ties and the treats!!! Well I’ll be here close to Brazil where soccer jerseys are 5 bucks, its hot as H and the people here are rich and beautiful. Talk to you next week. Feliz Ano Novo! (Feliz Año Nuevo...Happy NewYears) Portuguese that was(:

E' McRae

12.23.13

Tell Conner he better practice speaking when we skype because I am going to be speaking ´´ugly´´ Spanish...I never understand Mexicans and I’m sure he sounds like a Mexican when he speaks Spanish. I was just thinking and talking about that CD and was wondering if I could have it...there might be a way to send me the song electronically but if not I really don't care that much.

So this week sucked...well it sucked and then it was good at the same time. We worked our butts off to visit and invite over 50 people to go to church the Sunday before Christmas… as a gift back to Jesus Christ… to show gratitude for everything that He has given us.  We had a bunch of great lessons with the less active members and new converts, we went and basically RAN around from house to house searching for the people who said they would go to church and we have a goal to get over 150 people to attend church before the year ends... for the past couple weeks it has been...(starting from the day the wards were combining and the new bishop was to be announced) 162, 125, 109, 110, 100...with this last week we thought that for sure we would get at least 40 new people to attend church due to our hard labor but...nope, 14 people went. After hearing and seeing that only 100 people went to church, I was frustrated and wanted to drop the cane on all of those lying, selfish, fools who don't even have ONE hour to show their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that they are grateful for what they have...I wanted to go to all of the families and chew them out so bad and curse them and their upcoming year...but then I remembered what my good old companion Elder Xavier said to me, “ningún esfuerzo es mal gastado...not one effort is wasted”. I thought about the 14 that went and how one of them was preparing to serve a mission and hadn't gone to church in a long time. She said she loved church and felt the spirit so strongly and couldn't wait to go out and bring others unto Christ, another one said that she was so happy to see all of her family in church, another one said that she was so glad we went and looked for her mom so that her mom could see how happy the church makes her, and I'm sure there were others of the 14 that needed to hear the beautiful message that our bishop gave about Christmas.  When I thought of this, the spirit testified to me that we didn't waste our time running around looking for people or teaching all of those lessons. I'm grateful for the 14 that went and will try even harder to get the other 36 to feel the love of Jesus Christ before the end of this year. I love my area and the people here even though they make me want to rip their heads off sometimes. I just want them to receive the blessings that the Lord has waiting for them in the sacrament room. Not one effort is wasted!!! 

 

Can't wait to talk to you guys...i have no idea what i want to talk to you about but I’m sure you guys will have some things...it'll be weird. I watched Monsters University in Spanish with my district today and couldn't stop laughing...Merry Christmas and we'll talk to you soon. I'll send the pictures in a bit.

E' McRae