Getting yelled at by an Italian

 

This week absolutely zoomed by. It was the most productive week I've had on the mission since Brazil. It felt like we were always doing something and never had time to take a break, which is a pretty awesome problem to have!

Today we had one of the coolest p-days ever. A family took our district to a private beach to play some ultimate frisbee and make some sand castles. Then we went bowling and got unlimited wings. The district is really funny right now- we all have really different personalities and backgrounds but we get along so well and laugh really hard. Too bad transfers are in a week and we are all probably gonna get split up :/

This week was a total spiritual high for Elder Ahlstrom and I! Ahlstrom had an idea to start praying for opportunities to use our priesthood. Well in the first four days of praying for these opportunities, we got to give five blessings!

We started doing this on Tuesday. That day we had a lesson with Barry Allen (yes that's his real name) and he asked us for a blessing. As we were leaving, a man named Joe stopped us and told us of his history with the church. We had an awesome conversation with him and he also asked for a blessing. Everything was just SO obviously guided by the spirit. When we were walking away I just started tearing up out of gratitude for having opportunities like this and being one of the Lord's servants.

Funny side note: when Barry asked for a blessing, he pulled out some lottery tickets and asked that we used some extra blessings for those.

I did exchanges in Melbourne with Elder Checketts (one of my fav former comps of all time!) We visited a family that had hired some people to help them move, led by Jerri. Jerri is the most stereotypical strong-personality and loud Italian man. He basically yelled orders, cursed at us in broken English, and made us laugh our heads off for 4 hours straight. Well, we ended up being absolute homies with the workers, especially Jerri, and they all committed to coming to church. Jerri was really inspired by the work we do as missionaries and praised our parents for raising us well (shoutout to Vicki and Stu). Too bad they're not in my area.

A deaf young man named Noah has been coming to church the last few weeks. We have had a hard time communicating with him and teaching him, so we referred him to my cousin, Elder Bryce Wormell, who is assigned to teach in sign language! We are super pumped about Noah and it's really cool that me and Bryce are able to do work together even though he's serving far away in Texas.

Other than all that, we taught some good lessons and did a ton of service this week!

This week I started doing an in-depth study on grace. In the next week or two I am gonna be looking up scriptures about grace and listen to some talks about it. I think grace is not understood very well in the church and I don't think we talk about it enough! Many people think that Latter-Day Saints believe we are saved by works, but that's just not true! We are saved by grace and we are elevated by our works (and elevated by grace as well!). Without grace we are DONE-ZO. Christ's grace completely saves everyone from being subject to the devil and if we allow it, grace can help us change and become more like Christ! That sounds pretty great if you ask me!

<3 Elder MacLay

PS most of my pics from this week are just straight up of my family back home. MAJOR SHOUTOUT TIME to Marli and Brandon on their engagement!!!!

Let God Prevail

 Woowee I haven't been very good at these group emails but here's some updates from the past few weeks!

Elder Perry went home on Saturday so now it's just Elder Ahlstrom and I. We're gonna get some awesome work done together! 

The most special family I taught in Brazil got married and baptized this week! I found Sandro, Andreia, and their four kids while knocking doors on a VERY hot (and difficult) day in January in Porto Nacional, Brazil. It's been the biggest blessing to be apart of their conversion! I was able to do some video calls to watch their wedding and baptisms.

We woke up early one day to go on a run and do personal study on the beach during sunrise. When I was studying, a big rasta-looking guy came up to me and we absolutely hit it off. We had a super deep conversation about religion and found common ground on a lot of things, even though he seemed kind of extreme in some views. A good example of that would be his 'prophecy' that I would have many children with many wives.

We've been helping a lady named Stacy as she stops drinking alcohol. She has an extreme alchohol addiction that has absolutely messed up her life and the lives of her kids. We've had some really spiritual and uplifting experiences with her.

We had a cool music night with the Hendricks (member family) and the Laplants (investigating family). We played some hymns for them and the spirit was really strong! I got put on the spot by my comps and had to play a song I wrote a little while ago called Peter's song (name of the song pending lol). It's basically about Christ's relationship with the apostle Peter. We can easily relate to both Peter's love for Christ and Peter's imperfections in following Christ. Steven loved the song and really opened up to us after, which is a huge answer to our prayers.

I don't have time to go into a lot of depth with the people I've been teaching, but please pray for Mark, Lana, Jaide, Stacy, Steven, and Alana!

I accidentally ate a blazing wing at Buffalo Wild Wings (blazing is their hottest flavor) and started coughing profusely.

I feel like I mention something with animals in every email but we've taken two stray cats under our wing. We set food out for them, gave one of them a collar, and named them Darren and Leticia (after our mission president and his wife). They hang out on our porch and greet us when we leave the house and come home. Do they only like us because we give them food? Perhaps.

So much more happens that I would love to include, but I don't know where to start and I don't  have time. If you really want to know more, send me an individual email and I'll give you a more specific rundown!

Major shoutout to my niece Paisley for her decision to be baptized! So proud of that cutie.

I absolutely loved General Conference. In the wise words of our beloved prophet President Russell M. Nelson, LET GOD PREVAIL.

<3 Elder MacLay