Week 7

9/26/16

Hello everybody!

It's been a long/short week! And I forgot my journal so I'm not going to remember to tell you like anything that happened. We had a day this week when literally all of our plans fell through. We were super blessed by a member who needed service! Yay! We cleaned her house, held her neighbor's rat, and ate dinner. It was good. We have been blessed with a lot of referrals lately, most of them have not been real, like they send us to social justice buildings and stores so hopefully the ones we got over the weekend will be real and they will want to meet with us. 

I spoke in Sacrament meeting this Sunday and it was good, as far as I'm aware :) I had a talk prepared for a week and then Saturday night I knew I needed to completely change my talk so I wrote a completely new talk in 30 minutes the night before I had to give it. Everyone told me it was good, I had to read most of it instead of looking up because I hadn't had the chance to read through it before hand. It was mostly quotes and less of my comments so yeah. Now you know :)  

Yesterday we had a Mission Conference with Elder Schwitzer from the First Quorum of the Seventy and that was super awesome. His wife met with the Sisters before the conference and that was super uplifting. She helped us recognize our spiritual gifts and then told u that if we have a desire to have someone else's gifts all we have to do is ask God and then work for them, we aren't restricted to the many talents we have already been given :) I did a terrible job of explaining that, sorry. Elder Schwitzer gave us some really great training on using the Book of Mormon and teaching Repentance. President Tateoka made some changes to the mission, the biggest one being temple attendance. The previous mission president would let all the missionaries attend the temple around the time of General Conference. President and Sister Tateoka have been praying, received revelation, and consulted with Elder Schwitzer and decided to not have us go to the temple anymore. They feel like our work with the living is more important than with the dead right now. It think it's really cool that the work I'm doing is so important that they don't even want us to go to the temple to take away from this work. I hope that made sense. It is a little disappointing that I won't get to go to the temple, but I'll just have to come back after my mission and go :) 

The work has been really slow here. We had a lesson this week with John, who we met last week, and it went really well. He wanted to go to church, but he ended up not making it because he worked the night before, but he had a lot of great questions and wants to keep meeting with us. We have a lady that we contacted who has been reading the Book of Mormon and has lots of questions, but we haven't had a chance to meet with her yet. 

Thank you for all your prayers. I love this work and even though I'm not seeing the fruits of my labors, I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to. 

"Learning for ourselves that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true can be one of the greatest and most joyful experiences in life. We may have to begin by relying on the testimonies of others--saying, as the stripling warriors did, “We do not doubt our mothers knew it.” This is a good place to start, but we must build from there. To be strong in living the gospel, there is nothing more important than receiving and strengthening our own testimony. We must be able to declare, as Alma did, “I … know these things of myself.” (Elder Craig C. Christensen I Know These Things of Myself)

Love,

Sister MacKay

Celebrating Sis. Densley's birthday

Finally saw rain :) and a giant spider 😳

Week 6

9/5/16

Hello everyone!

I can't believe it has been 6 weeks since I left the MTC! Transfers are this week so one of the sisters in my district is going home and an elder is being transfered. I will be staying with my companion for at least another 6 weeks. 

We went to the river today and had lunch with a member so I don't have a lot of time to email today. So this will probably be short. So we have a lady who just moved into our ward and we asked her if we could come by her house to get to know her family better. She told us that she would have to ask her husband. Later in the week her husband called us and said that he had been excommunicated from the church but his wife wanted him to meet with us and start going back to church! That was exciting! I'm so proud of his wife for having the courage to tell him how she felt.

On Wednesday I got my iPad! We got up at 5:30am and a member drove us to Newberg, a three and a half hour drive through the mountain. We were there for a few hours just having some trainings and then lunch. It was super great to see the missionaries from my MTC district that came out with me! It made me super sad that Sister Maxey (my MTC companion) has to go home for medical reasons :'( We set up our iPads and then went home. 

Big surprise, all of our lessons fell through again this week....So I haven't had the chance to teach anyone in awhile. However we did get a few miracles this week.

One of our members gave us a referral!!!!!!!!!! So when we went to see her, she wasn't home. So as we were leaving, we stopped to talk to this guy and he cried when I testified of Jesus Christ and His Atonement and he wants us to teach him again!!! Then!!!!!! We saw that our referral was home so we went to see her too and she was super nice and wants us to come meet with her again!! 

 

And aonther miracle for this week is a long story so I hope I have time for it. So one of our members, Cindy, gave us a referral a few weeks ago to see Bob. We saw him and talked to him about family history work, but he wasn't really interested in us teaching him. Later, we found out some information for him to know more about one of his ancestors so we went back this week. We briefly talked with him, but he seemed very uninterested. Then! On Sunday we found out that the members that Cindy is staying with were having Bob over for dinner. (They were having some of our elders over for dinner because their son is serving in Taiwan where Elder Wang is from) So long story short, the elders taught Bob the whole Plan of Salvation and now Bob wants to have us over for dinner and have us teach him!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!

One of the nights when we were walking home, after dark, trying to get home before 9, we heard a child yelling. We couldn't tell for sure but it really sounded like they were yelling for help. We didn't know what to do since it was time to be home, it was after dark, and we weren't sure what was happening. So we said a prayer, but still didn't really know what to do. Sister Densley was really worrying about it so I called the police department and asked them to send an officer out there to check. Not sure what came of it, but its an interesting story so I told you about it :) 

"Our Savior experienced and suffered the fullness of all mortal challenges 'according to the flesh' so He could know 'according to the flesh' how to 'succor [which means to give relief or aid to] his people according to their infirmities.' He therefore knows our struggles, our heartaches, our temptations, and our suffering, for He willingly experienced them all as an essential part of His Atonement. And because of this, His Atonement empowers Him to succor us--to give us the strength to bear it all." (Dallin H. Oaks Strengthened By the Atonement of Jesus Christ)

Well, my time is up so that's all you get this week. Have a great week everyone! And Happy Birthday to my baby sister EmmaLee!!!! Can't believe she is 14! 

Love,

Sister MacKay

Week 5

8/29/16

So this week, not much has happened. This will very possibly be a very short email. We made cookies for some of our members. We got to go to the Addiction Recovery Program with one of our investigators that we ended up dropping later in the week. That was sad but he just isn't quite ready to live the gospel. The Addiction Recovery program was really great though. The Spirit was super strong. 

We did service at Bethlehem Inn again. I love it there so much! It is such a great program they have there and it is just so amazing how much help they provide to people. We met with one of our investigators and she told us that she is going to quit smoking!! That was super exciting. So something about my area, everyone here cancels appointments. So we find much more success in just surprising people with a visit. It gets a little frustrating at times because that means we never have any definite plans so we have to come up with a million back up plans that usually fall through as well. 

I got to lead weekly planning this week so it took longer than usual but it was a really awesome planning session. While we were planning we felt like we should call the investigator that canceled on us last week(well he didn't show up and never answered our calls or responded to our texts.) So we called him and he answered and set up an appointment for this week so pray that he will actually come this time!! We helped some members pack up their kitchen. I finally got to teach a real lesson and we had a member present!! Super exciting stuff! They seemed super interested in coming to church, but they didn't come so that was disappointing. 

District meeting was awesome as usual. We shared a video with one of the members and it was super awesome. I would strongly suggest that you all watch it because it is really inspiring! It is called Lift. 

I got to go on my first exchange this week! I went to Prineville and I was with Sister Bell. It was awesome because she taught me more about setting goals and making a vision on how to achieve those goals. She also taught me how to do a church tour and a Restoration tour. That was really great and I really want to do a Restoration tour with our investigator this week. If you don't know what a restoration tour is, ask the missionaries to do one with you!

Enos 1:12

12 And it came to pass that after I had prayed and labored with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith.

Mosiah 1:6-7

6 O my sons, I would that ye should remember that these sayings are true, and also that these records are true. And behold, also the plates of Nephi, which contain the records and the sayings of our fathers from the time they left Jerusalem until now, and they are true; and we can know of their surety because we have them before our eyes.

7 And now, my sons, I would that ye should remember to search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby; and I would that ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers. 

THE CHURCH IS SO TRUE!!!

Thats my week. I hope everyone is doing well. Thank you to everyone who emails me and keeps me updated. I love you all!

Love,

Sister MacKay


us being silly while we made letter openers out of butter knives
 
our letter openers

we found an awesome field of flowers

Week 4

8/22/16

Hello everyone,

Most of our teaching happened on Tuesday. We were able to contact a lot of people and we got two new investigators :D That was awesome because I was able to teach the First Vision for the first time!! The day after this fantastic day of teaching and spreading the gospel we had a not so good day. I had a door slammed in my face for the first time so that was fun. All of our appointments for that day were cancelled as well. But we did get to do service and got some free food out of it so that was good. That night we ate with a member who really lifted our spirits :) She was so happy and energetic and she took us to a fancy Italian restaraunt. So all of our appointments for the week cancelled so once again it was a week of walking and contacting with little success. The Lord keeps reminding me that I am in a sowing mission area and not a reaping, at least for now. I was told this when I had to give our white handbook training in district meeting. I was inspired to teach about service and how no efforts are wasted. So Sister Densley and I are trying to find opportunities to serve and plant those seeds. 

I love Bend because everyone has a dog! I get to pet dogs everyday which is definitely a tender mercy because my life is not complete without a dog in it. So since I can't have a pet, I get to enjoy other people's pets. I got to play with a Saint Bernard and a Newfoundland puppy!!  

I also finally found someone who knew where Taylor, AZ is! She has family there so she showed me her history books of Taylor and we talked about the town. It was really cool. I learned so much about my town on my mission haha. I did not know that the Post Office is the same one they built when the town was founded. There was an old picture of it and I was like "That's my post office!" Anyway, that was fun for me.

So...Saturday night. Its almost time to go home. The sun has set and we want to contact one more person, a less active that bishop asked us to see. We walk up to the door and it is open so we knock and this guy pokes his head around the corner with a huge smile on his face. He comes over, looking a bit confused, and looks at our name tags. Looks at me and goes, "Hello Sister Mary and Sister Densy!" He shakes our hands and then asked us if we are having fun knocking on people's doors in the dark. (We haven't said anything but "hello" at this point) He was talking very fast and he was not letting us get a word in haha. Finally after him going on and on about random things I was able to start answering his questions. We talked for awhile about a bunch of things and then he asked us if we wanted water. I don't know why, but i said "yes". When he walked away, Sister Densley looked at me, I looked at her and at the same time we said, "He is so high! What do we do?" hahahaha! He comes back with one glass of water and before he hands it to me, he takes a drink and said that he was proving to me that he didn't poison it... It was the weirdest conversation of my life! He said stuff like, "You guys are girls like you shouldn't be knocking on random people's doors! Like what if I was a creep and invited you in to hang and have spaghetti?" :'D He took a picture of us and then we decided it was time to go so we said goodbye and left. When he closed the door I could not contain my laughter!! I was dying! It was so hilarious! So yeah...don't do drugs :D 

So that's my week in a nutshell.  

Sister MacKay

 

The Elders came to our apartment to put a carbon monoxide detector in while we were gone and this is the note they left. Then some pictures of the deer that were right next to our car when we parked to meet with our ward mission leader. Fun stuff.

Sister MacKay

 

Week 3

8/15/16

I can't believe that it has only been three weeks and at the same time it feels like it has been so much longer than that!! I feel like this week flew by and I don't remember much of what happened. We did more finding, which didn't go too great because no one was home and when they were home, they did not want to talk to us. the people who do listen to us, have no desire to have religion in their lives. They say that they believe in God and stuff like that, but they don't see the importance of organized religion or going to church. We did have a lot of service this week. People in Bend will rent their homes to people who come here on vacation so we went to a potential investigator's home to deep clean their home since they would be renting it out. That took six hours with my companion and I plus the two other Sisters. It felt good to do some good hard work. We have also been helping a member move. She is moving into an apartment in another members home so she was trying to get rid of a lot of her stuff so she gave us a lot of food haha. I was very grateful for that. We helped with the Great Giveaway which was crazy. So on Thursday and Friday, people can bring in donations and then Saturday morning they open the doors for anyone to come in and just take anything. It is all free. They had it on the news so there was SOOOO much stuff donated! It happens in the Stake Center and every room was packed full. We helped organize and fold clothes on Friday and then we went to help out for a little bit on Saturday. The place was a disaster zone so we helped organize what was left and then came back later to help clean up. When we were cleaning I found a stuffed animal so I took it because it was super cute haha. 

We had an awesome day on Thursday. A member was going to bring us dinner but she got called into work. We were fine with that because we were at the apartment anyway for weekly planning so we could have just made dinner. She insisted that we come to her work, take her card, and go get dinner. So we did haha. We stopped on the way to get our tire tread depth measured and so I was standing there, looking at a map, trying to find where she worked. I probably looked prettty stupid so this guy walks up to us, introduces himself and asks where we are trying to go. I sadly can not remember his name because I was trying to remember the instructions he was giving me but he was in a UPS uniform. So this very kind UPS guy helped us find where we were trying to go and then an awesome member provided us with food. I love the people here.

On Friday, I had my first Zone Conference! It was in Redmond which is about 30 minutes away from here. They do a car inspection and hand out prizes for the cleanest cars so we got our car cleaned this week. We got 2nd place, the prize being a box of Cherios. We talked about teaching with the Spirit and they gave us some training on the cars and transfers. It was really good. We had an appointment right after the conference so we rushed out of there, but our appointment got cancelled..again. We had dinner with some members that took us out to eat :) and then they sent a picture of me to my mom! They are so great!

We had someone refer themselves to us so we went to contact him. He just wanted a Bible so we gave him one and then I gave him a Book of Mormon and we taught him about that. He didn't want to set up an appointment to take the lessons right now, but he took our number and said he would call if he had questions. I finally got to meet one of our investigators this week. We talked with her for a long time and it was really awesome because everything I said and taught her was totally guided by the Spirit! I was pulling out scripture verses and passages from the pamphlets, it was really cool. She is going to take a lot of time, but I know we can get her there.

We actually had an investigator at church this Sunday!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!! He has health issues and he only has a bike to get him places. His doctor told him to not ride it right now so he said he couldn't come. We asked our ward mission leader if he could give him a ride so he got ready and came! It made me so happy! That was my first time meeting him because he always cancels our appointments. 

I got a package from my family!!! That made me so happy! My mom sent me everything I needed, she is so wonderful!  

That is pretty much it for the week. 

Love,

Sister MacKay

   

      

Week 2

8/8/16

Hello everyone!

We did a lot of finding this week. We have a lot of less-actives so we went around trying to contact all of them. Most were not interested, but a few wanted us to come back. Everyone here is so nice, even if they don't want to hear what you have to say, they just kindly tell you they aren't interested, its great. We had an investigator cancel his appointment with us and now we can't contact him so that made us sad. However, we were blessed with a new investigator :) We said a prayer to decide where to go next and Sister Densley felt like we should contact a potential investigator this time. So I picked the name that stood out to me and we went there. It was at an apartment complex that didn't allow parking for anyone but residents so we tried to find somewhere else to park, it took forever, but eventually we parked. We walked over there and when we got there, Sister Densley remembered that she had already contacted this lady and she was an athiest that didn't seem very interested. I said we should try in any way. We knocked, and waited but she no one was home. As we were leaving, a man came out of his apartment so we decided to talk to him. He was super interested, but he was late for a BBQ so I gave him a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment! Yay! The reason I made sure to include all of those odd details is because everything makes it so that we were in the right place at the right time to catch him as he left! He ended up having to cancel his appointment and we are working on setting a new one, but I know he is ready for the gospel. 

We did a service at Bethlehem Inn which is this really awesome place for people who lost their homes or don't have jobs. They are given a certain amount of time to get a job and get back on their feet. Its really great so we go there every Wednesday to help wherever we are needed. This week we helped in the kitchen, doing dishes and preparing food. 

So we listened to this really great talk that I would suggest to everyone, its called "The Missionary Next Door". Please listen to it! It is awesome! 

I'm getting better at talking to people so that is great, the Lord is giving me the courage and the words to speak. Also, I found out that it is illegal to gas up your own car in Oregon. Like there are people at every gas station specifically to do that. What in the world? 

On Sunday, on our way to go see a family we are teaching, we decided to stop by a less-active member's house to give him a flier for an event we told him about when we met him. We gave him the flier and as we were leaving, he asked my companion if she wanted a free guitar!!!???? What?! She was in shock, like I had to say yes for her (she loves music, she has a great voice and although she can't play guitar, she wants to.) It was so crazy! This was the third time we had ever even seen this guy and he just gives her a really nice guitar! 

1 Nephi 9:6

       6. But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words. And thus it is. Amen.

Love,

Sister MacKay