Everybody Dance Now

 

What's up guys, sorry it's been a while since I sent one of these. 

The last few weeks have been great! A lot of spiritual and really fun times.

First, we had the baptism of Celly, Lucas, and Edson. It was probably the most spirit-filled baptismal service I've been to. They were seriously the most prepared family ever. Edson walks into church looking like a general authority. It feels really rewarding to have been involved in their conversion.

I played/sang Grandioso Ês Tu (How Great Thou Art) for the baptism

When we were setting up, Lucas (who's 11 years old) was like "dangit I forgot my goggles!" He wanted to wear goggles during his baptism so he could see underwater. 

We got vaccinated a couple of weeks ago and the vaccine wrecked us. We were all in pain for the next night and couldn't sleep. The next day it had us really drowsy. Like two days later we found out the Johnson and Johnson one that we took got discontinued.

Irma Raquel in the ward puts on zumba classes and invites a bunch of nonmembers. We've met a few people to teach there and we bring investigators every week. The only problem is that I'm really bad at zumba, but we have a really good time haha.

Raquel is the daughter of President Cooper (Brasilia mission president) so she called him so I could talk to him again. It was great to catch up with him.

We had dinner with Elder Daniel Amato and his family. Elder Amato was just called to the quorum of the seventy. Him and his wife Sister Amato are really nice but obviously a little bit intimidating. We took a picture with him because he'll probably be an apostle someday haha. Sidenote: their house is boujee.

We've been teaching a lady named Debora. She was a referral from another investigator. She seemed to be progressing really well, then on the 4th lesson with her, she dropped an unexpected/hilarious bomb on us. She told us she had a dream years ago of her getting baptized in a temple. Then she casually dropped the news that she was in fact baptized in the church when she lived in Brazil! She went inactive for a while and then miraculously was referred to us by one of her friends here in Orlando.

We have a lot of really awesome people progressing right now. Keep them in your prayers please! 

I'm in a trio to finish up my mission. My companions Elder Brower and Elder Hadfield haven't been zone leaders before so I'm just showing them the ropes. Because we are in a trio, there are 5 people in our apartment. Our apartment is one of the smallest and ghetto-est in the whole mission, so it's a real fun time.

For those who don't know, I'll be finishing up my mission on May 6th, so this next week and a half will be my last push here in Florida. I'm really grateful for all the divine experiences I've had and that I'll continue having.

<3 Elder MacLay

Missionaries With Attitude

 

Hey guys! I'm doing well here in my new area. We are teaching the gospel and English to a lot of really dope Brazilian people. We are staying pretty dang busy. 

Celly, Edson, and Lucas will be getting baptized on April 19th. It will be a really special day for them because Celly's mom passed away on April 19th. They are SO prepared for baptism. Teaching them has been a blast.

Lucas always asks God for money and chocolate in his prayers. His logic is "God can do anything so might as well shoot my shot by asking."

Other people we are teaching that need some prayers are Danielle, Vanessa, Leandro, Joyce, Alice, and Debora.

My last companion Elder Taylor got sent back to his original assignment in Brazil. My new companion is Elder Brower, who I already knew pretty well. 

Easter and General Conference were amazing. I especially loved Nelson's talk on faith and Renlund's talk on life, fairness, and Christ.

There's too many stories from the last week and too little time, but here's a BUNCH of pictures

<3 Elder MacLay

TRANSFERRED to Windermere Portuguese North

 These last two weeks have been BUSY. Transfers came around and they surprised me real good. Last week I left the Windermere ward to serve in the Orlando Portuguese Ward. My new apartment is about 10 minutes away from my old one. I'm whitewashing the area with Elder Taylor.

My last week in Windermere english work was great. I'm gonna miss the area a lot. I had a really good relationship with a lot of the members and the people we were teaching. 

My first week in Portuguese work was nonstop. We've been so busy we've had to skip some meals and haven't had time to unpack yet. The missionaries in the area before us didn't do much, but there were a TON of uncontacted referrals and stuff. Our teaching pool already has some amazing people in it, which is a huge blessing and miracle. 

We do a lot of english classes along with the spiritual lessons. The English classes are fun because it helps us get to know the people we are teaching. We have a lot of freedom with how to teach the english classes, so Elder Taylor and I take full advantage by inviting people to memorize the lyrics to Forever by Chris Brown. 

We've had a lot of really spirit-filled moments. Last night we had a lesson with Celly, Edson, and Lucas. When we walked in, Celly had the Joseph Smith Restoration video playing on the TV and said she was just trying to learn more about the church. We talked about the Restoration of Christ's gospel and the Spirit was really strong. They immediately understood and recognized the truth of the message. I was definitely touched by the Spirit, too.

There was a huge BBQ in the Portuguese ward on Saturday so that gave us a good opportunity to get to know the people in the ward and introduce some of the people we are teaching. Elder Taylor and I work well together and I can tell people like us together.

President Cooper's  (my old mission president in Brasilia) daughter Raquel is in the ward. She leads out on zumba classes and invites a ton of nonmembers. It's a good opportunity for Elder Taylor and I to improve our zumba skills and find new people to teach. 

Raquel and I surprised President Cooper by giving him a call. It was awesome to talk to him again.

The guys in my apartment right now are awesome. All of them have Brazilian families which has been really helpful for my portuguese. We started freestyle rapping last Tuesday and haven't really stopped since then. Sometimes we rhyme when we order our food to flex on the fast food workers. My freestyle skills have increased exponentially.

Funny story time: We played ninja strike after dinner with the Merkley family. Ninja strike is basically a game where you swipe at each other's arms to get each other out. Long story short, Elder Reynolds accidentally gave a mean uppercut to Elder Brower's face. Brower busted his lip, ran to the bathroom, got blood everywhere while I fell to the ground laughing.

Well this was a long email but to sum it up, we are grinding and having a lot of fun!

<3 Elder MacLay

Dropped my oatmeal

My companion Elder Cook got sent back to his original assignment in Brazil. I'm in a trio with Elder Brower and Reynolds until transfers next week. We are covering both the Windermere and Olympia wards and the work is POPPIN. We've been super busy and the members of both wards have been feeding us like crazy. There was a two day span where we got fed SEVEN times. 

I did exchanges with Elder Spillet, who's a new missionary and one of my favorites in the mission. We had one of my most memorable days of my mission. We had a really powerful lesson with Barbara and put her on date for baptism on March 20th. 

We also had lunch at the Rampersand's house. They are a really nice catholic family and they live in Isleworth, which is the neighborhood where all the rich celebrities and CEOs in Orlando live. They are an extremely kind and humble family that wanted to feed us because they heard we dedicate two years of our lives to teach the gospel. Their house is SO COOL and they want to have us back.

We went fishing with a guy named Juan as a pass-off lesson with the sisters. Juan is a total homie and taught us the basics of fishing. We hit it off and we'll be setting up a time to meet with him again.

Fishing was a bust tho, all we caught were little tiny fish to use as bait for big fish.

A member took us out to eat at the Bay Hill Club. We show up and find out it is BOUJEE. Everything on the menu was really expensive. Turns out, this club hosts the Arnold Palmer Invitational which is this huge pro golf tournament that will be going down this next week. 

We are teaching a Brazilian lady named Danielle and she is awesome. She likes coming to the english ward but we generally teach her lessons in Portuguese. My portuguese is rusty but I've gotten to use it a lot more lately.

I started reading the book The Infinite Atonement and it's cool how often it emphasizes the importance of The Atonement of Jesus Christ. Without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there wouldn't be any other doctrine, hope, or salvation. There's nothing more important to understand than The Atonement of Jesus Christ.

<3 Elder MacLay