Green Kia Soul, buzzed head, miracles, etc.

 This definitely was a week to remember!

First of all, I buzzed my hair and that is quite a change for me. I now look like a 16 year old eminem fan or something. 

Today my newer companion Elder Ahlstrom wanted to get a guitar, so we hit up a music store close to our apartment. We met this old guy named Steve who was THE FLIPPIN MAN. He shared a lot of similar spiritual beliefs and really admired our desires to serve missions. We talked to him for a long time and he gave us a mini concert with some inspiring songs he's written. He's gonna be in a video we're making on facebook so stay tuned! Also if you want to hear his music you can look up Steve Hodak.

We had the most amazing miracle on Tuesday. In the morning, we started doing a daily "power prayer," which is basically a specific prayer asking for specific miracles, such as finding someone really awesome to teach or something of that nature. Fast forward to that same night, we were playing uno and eating a burnt pizza for dinner when we got a call from Sister Hendricks. She told us to come over as ASAP as possible because they had this girl named Jade over at their house.

We hit it off with Jade right off the bat. She shared a lot of the story of her past (I won't get into it but she has been through a TON). She's been really strong through everything and has turned to Christ for peace. 

We gave her a blessing and the spirit was SO strong. It was the most spiritually guided I've ever felt while giving a blessing. We've been able to teach her twice and the lessons have been jam packed with the good ol Spirit.

We do teaching roleplays to help Elder Ahlstrom with his training. He was originally assigned to France so we let him practice teaching us in french. I've taken on an alter ego named Jacque Croissant for these roleplays to really help Ahlstrom embrace the French language and culture. Jacque Croissant is on the quiet side, but is a very classy man. Not to mention, he's a pretty golden investigator. Haha. 

Go have yourself a nice week. Never forget that you are a child of God with infinite capacity!

<3 Elder MacLay

Good ol fashion emergency transfer

 

The last 2 weeks have been awesome!

We had an unexpected transfer this past week. A really awesome elder in our zone had to go home, so President Ashcraft had to make a few changes. Elder Checketts got sent away to Melbourne (sad because he's def one of my all time favorite comps), but we picked up a brand new missionary to take his place here in Merritt Island! His name is Elder Ahlstrom from American Fork, Utah and he's been really great so far! Training him will be a breeze. He was originally assigned to Paris, France, so our trio is quadrilingual (is that even a word??) with portuguese, spanish, french, and english.

I'm also the new district leader here and that's been pretty fun opportunity to get to know all the Elders in my district.

Before Elder Checketts left, we got to celebrate his birthday in STYLE. We threw him a surprise party, where everyone in the district came over to our place before he woke up. We took him downstairs and gave him a good ol fashion surprise. We topped it off with some birthday basketball.

There was this one really funny dinner appointment we had. It felt like the dinner party episode in The Office, where it seems like Michael and Jan are trying to make their guests as uncomfortable as possible. The dad showed us a surprisingly long video of his flag football defensive highlights from a ward Turkey bowl (keep in mind this is a man in his 50's haha). We endured a lot of other cringy homemade videos (it felt like they were observing our reactions to the videos so we had to act entertained) and some political rants. The family is really great though! They have the biggest hearts, especially for missionaries.

We had a really special Restoration lesson with the Laplants. They had us over for dinner and we gave a message afterward. Well, we were originally supposed to finish tearing out a tree from their yard so we showed up in our non-missionary clothes. Then when we got there, they were like, "Nope, you're not allowed to work today. We made you dinner, though." Haha it felt so weird to have dinner and teach a lesson in a Flamengo Brazil soccer jersey. Afterward, I told the greenie Elder Ahlstrom, "yeah so that pretty much never happens." Haha. The lesson went SO good though. 

We saw Prison Mike on a motorcycle. Will include a pic.

As a companionship we studied the talk "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. That talk has some major heat in it. There are so many important principles I learned from it. 

One thing I learned is that life is practice for heaven, not a tryout. We need to learn to live God's law and follow the Gospel here on Earth so that we can keep up with Their work up there in the next life!

Lots of love

<3 Elder MacLay

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Beach, PLEASE

We went to the beach as a zone to watch the sunrise today! We can't swim but we are allowed to get our feet wet and stuff. The beaches here don't compare to Laguna.

We had a dinner appointment with the Hendricks and they invited their neighbors (the Laplant family) to join. It was a loophole to be able to teach in person. We really hit it off with the Laplants and now we are helping them work on their yard twice a week. They're pretty golden.

We post stuff in facebook groups to find interested people. I posted the question "What's your favorite Bible verse?" on a Christian group to strike up some conversation and this one guy commented, "stupid... whole Bible is good." Haha it got a good laugh out of me. 

We did exchanges with our zone leaders so I spent the day in Melbourne with Elder Erickson. We had a really thought-provoking conversation about strengths and weaknesses. Since then, I've been self reflecting a lot and studying Christ's attributes to try to make myself better. I invite everyone to do the same!

Church is back!

Lots of love from Merritt Island, Florida

<3 Elder MacLay

"Hurricane evacuation and getting yelled at by Steve Young"

 This week was definitely one of the most fun of the whole mish 

We got a mad pump fake from hurricane Isaias. We heard word of a hurricane and got evacuated but it ended up raining for like 5 minutes then everything was fine. But just to be safe (we live on an island on the coast), President Ashcraft sent us to stay with the AP's further inland. We basically got a free 3 night slumber party with some of the coolest guys on the mish Elder Luke and Elder Soto. We had way too good of a time with those guys. 

My companion Elder Checkett's grandparents are mission presidents in England and had a virtual devotional with Steve Young on Saturday! We tuned in and it was really good. But it kind of cracked us up because it felt like Steve Young was giving us a halftime locker room pep talk. He was getting HEATED, but it's not every day you get to be yelled at by a 3 time super bowl champ.

Steve Young talked about loving people without expecting something in exchange and it was really good. Go read Moroni 7 sometime! 

I was able to talk to Lidiane (investigator from my first area in Brazil) and she is going to talk to the missionaries down there so she can get baptized! I miss her family a bunch.

Technically we have a guy named Steve on date for January 2029. He lives in our area and was a referral from some sisters in our zone. Unfortunately, he's got 8 or 9 years of prison ahead of him so I may or not be married and have kids by the time he's baptized. Haha

We've been playing a ton of basketball and I feel like I'm getting my skills back. We've found a couple of interested people while playing at some outdoor parks. 

This is probably the happiest I've been in my whole mission. Even though it feels like I'm doing a lot less overall, I'm finding peace in doing everything in my control.

"The truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done."

<3 Elder MacLay