King of kings, Lord of Lords, GOAT of GOATs

                     

Transfers were this weekend and both Johnson and I are staying. We get along well and teach well together, so we're excited for the transfer.

We went to chronic taco this week. When we were in line there was this guy sitting alone in a booth and Elder Johnson complimented him on his shoes. Then the guy says, "y'all look like you play basketball." We get talking to the guy, turns out he's Nick Anderson (who played with Shaq and Penny Hardaway on the Orlando Magic team that went to the finals). He's working in the Magic front office now. He gave us his number and said we could hit him up whenever we want free tickets to games. So if you want Nick Anderson's number just let me know lol.

I sang/played Silent Night with a ukulele at a ward relief society event. I wasn't expecting the whole ward to show up when I agreed to doing it, but pretty much everyone was there (including multiple investigators). It went well though.

Ray surprised us with a bunch of presents. He read to us a journal entry he had written about how much we've helped him, how we are like the sons he never had, and he said the Spirit prompted him to make this a special Christmas for us missionaries. It was like Christmas morning as the four of us opened a bunch or presents from him. I have been so lucky to teach some of the most amazing people on my mission. 

Today we were playing basketball with some other missionaries and some trash talkers came up to us and challenged us. Little did they know, they were basically challenging the Florida Orlando Mission all-star team. Yep, we best them real easy.

We had a zoom devotional with Elder Rasband and Sister Radband. Hearing an apostle testify is quite a testimony builder.

It seems like we only have really good days and really slow/hard days, without much in between. We're grateful for the good days though! 

<3 Elder MacLay

I have a lot of pics this week, including a pic with my new homie Nick Anderson!

Do it for the boys

Elder Brower's companion finally got here so we are no longer in a trio. His companion is Elder Duarte, who's straight out of Brazil. We all live together and it's been a blast. Duarte is hilarious and energetic. His broken english makes him even funnier. His life motto (that he repeats several times a day) is "Do it for the boys."

Jennifer (who was on date for the 19th) straight up moved to Georgia this week out of the blue. She's being really stubborn/difficult with the missionaries over there.

Ray loved the Christ Child video and we had some more wholesome baking sessions with him.

Funny story time: Shaquille Oneal lives in this area (really close to the temple). Word on the street is that several years ago, he went to the front desk of the temple and asked if it was possible to buy it. Yes you heard me correctly- Shaq tried to buy the Orlando temple. Apparently he thought it was a beautiful building and he decided he wanted to own it.

Also, Justin Timberlake is likely moving in to the Moscrip's neighborhood in the next few months. The Moscrips said they might be able to pull a few strings so that we could help JT with the move. 

The First Presidency Christmas devotional was amazing. Holland's talk was so powerful and I appreciated Rebecca L. Craven's shoutout to my great grandpa Heaton Lunt!

<3 Elder MacLay

Saved a fetch like me

 Thanksgiving was great! The last two weeks have been good but a lil slow. 

I've probably eaten more food this week than I have any other week in my entire life. We had three Thanksgiving meals and every other day we had members give us insanely huge and delicious meals. I got really close to throwing up on multiple occasions, but it's all worth it for the gains.

Mason is on date for December 26th (gonna make for a dope bday) ! He's the most awesome  and pure kiddo.

Jennifer is on date for December 19th. It can be a little tough to deal with her and get her ready, so send some prayers her way!

We had some awesome lessons with Ray. On sunday we helped him with his christmas lights and he taught us how to bake some christmas treats. He's the kindest, funniest, and most wholesome old man. He offered to buy us some Disney World passes but unfortunately we can't take him up on that offer. 

Our mission has started cold calling to find people to teach! It's obviously not our go-to source of finding, but it's more of a time filler (and obviously miracles come from it every once in a while). We have some funny and awkward interactions with people over the phone. It's great. On our 3rd call, we happened to call a less-active member from another ward and she was offended we didn't know who she was. She was like, "What, are you guys just cold calling people these days??" And I said, "Well believe it or not, YES."

For Thanksgiving we got invited to play some football with some guys in the ward. Well one yoked tongan guy that played football for BYU invited all of his yoked tongan friends and we got WRECKED. Haha it was so fun though.

The Moscrips invited us to go indoor skydiving with them. We are hoping and praying that President Ashcraft will let us because that would make for the coolest pday of all time.

We got a nice thing going right now. We are still covering both the Windermere and Olympia wards as a trio. It keeps us nice and busy.

<3 Elder MacLay

P.S. The mission is testing out instagram on some companionships to see how effective it is for finding. That's why you might have seen my steezy new official Elder MacLay missionary account on IG. If you haven't seen it, go give it a follow @paytonmaclay