Elder Mackey's November 21, 2011 E-mail

Dear Mandy,

 

I don't think I am a "bit" little brother. :p I am doing good. Last week was pretty awesome! Elder Zwick came to our mission for a mission tour. He came to our apartment to check it out and then he prayed for us and our appointment we were having right after. :D Then we had a training from him and his wife and it was awesome! During the break he came up to me and apparently President told him about my accident. He wanted to give me a blessing and asked if I wanted one. I said ya! It was so awesome! He pretty much healed me in the blessing. But I thought it was so cool that I had a General Authority lay hands on my head.

 

The coldest I have experienced so far or from when I payed attention was 28 degrees with wind shield 18. Our first day of snow was on Saturday. It was at least three inches of snow! And guess what, I fell for the first time on the first day of snow fall. This is my companions first area on a bike so he was slowing down while coming up to the side walk and I was coming in pretty fast and hit the curb to miss him and went straight down. It didn't even hurt. Then I fell a few times the next day because it all turned to ice and I was trying to slide on the ice with my bike. I do have plans for Thanksgiving. We have a Turkey bowl in the morning (I am praying the snow will melt before then which its says it will) which is a big huge one they say. They have three games going on and tons of people come. Then we will be going over to a members home for Thanksgiving. So that will be my P-day and I will be writing letters then.

 

I think we had Thanksgiving at our house but I don't remember. We had the opportunity to go to a members wedding reception and they gave us the left overs and there was so much turkey that we got! I am going to be sick of it by the end of this week. I am with you, I love the sides; the jello, chips, carrots with that good dip. Thats a bumber that ASU lost. oh well. Maybe next year or the year after that so I can be there to watch it.

 

I have experienced a man who was like "the hypocrites when they pray". He prayed for like 10 min. saying Jesus Christ and "in the name of Jesus Christ" like half the time and the majority of the prayer was about how God is one and that they knew Him and the Bible was the only word. What I really liked about it was that my companion and I were very calm and not bashing. I said at the end, "well we have no purpose here in teaching you since we have already answered your questions" and the guy goes while trying to fake cry "you have a purpose, and that is to find out God and find God." I think there would be some spark in the other guy that we were teaching and his wife maybe.

 

The investigator (****) that had a baptismal date set will not be able to get baptized on Tuesday. :/ She loves coming to church and she will continue to but she has one thing that is holding her up. She has a strong testimony of the other questions so we are waiting for God to work miracles with her. She is so solid. President said that once she starts to live the thing she struggles with that she can be baptized on that day. But she is working towards it.

 

That is awesome about the Baptist lady. The Baptist out here really focus on the "rapture" which has no Bible reference.

 

I remember going down those McDonald slides in wrestling with a tray. You go really fast. I do concur with the smell of pee in the balls area. Not very sanitary especially for children.

I feel though that I'm not being a perfect missionary wastes Heavenly Fathers time that He has set apart for me. I will try to improve my relationship with Him and ask for more help. :) I love you and thank you for your prayers! I still have not received any packages yet so I dont know if you have sent them yet or not. 

Love,
Elder Mackey

Elder Mackey's November 7, 2011 E-mail

 

 

 

haha!

 

Dear Mandy,

 

haha Sorry I wont do that again. I was going to do it all black and then you had to highlight it but then I thought that was dumb.

 

My week is went pretty well. Its like we are starting from scratch. Its tough getting the area going. There are pictures of Elder Whitehead and I raking the leaves of our new investigator. There were a ton of leaves. It was fun, I am having a lot of fun with Elder Whitehead. Another investigator that we obtained while we were here as a date set for November 22. That was pretty cool. Tracting on Halloween was fun too. Although we were talking to a group of young kids and their parents and one of the kids kept hitting me in the face. He did it like 5 times. haha It was hard for me not to pick him up and throw him...not really but man. We got candy while we tracted and some people would talk to us. But very ineffective.

 

I still have not received any packages yet or letters. :( I hear that they are thinking about having the post office be closed on Saturdays. I hope that doesn't happen but I think it has or will. Thank you for all of the notes that you wrote and mom sent to me. :D They made me smile and feel loved! I forgot to take them with me today so I cant really respond specifically but I will next week hopefully. I will write it down in my planner. 

 

That is an awesome story/ miracle that your ward had! That is so EXCITING!  Keep me in the know about the families that are still going. I love hearing stories of re-activation.

 

--

Love,

Elder David Mackey

Elder Mackey's October 31, 2011, E-Mail

Dear Mandy,

Wow Adam is amazing!!! He has so much faith! Way to go for him. I did send him an e-mail. Man I wish I had that kind of experience.

So it is getting really cold now. It was pretty foggy today and chilly. I am now in East Bloomington. I am in Presidents ward with the AP's. This ward is awesome!! They help out so much with missionary work its just crazy! We really don't have to do much except tract, teach, study, and be obedient. So my companion, Elder Whitehead, and I white washed the area so we knew nothing here. He has never served here and he actually has never been in a bike area and he goes home in 2 transfers. We just had a wedding followed by a baptism this last Saturday. It was awesome! We got in here with a baptism and wedding. That was pretty much it though. We don't have anyone else. Maybe one but we called and she said she wasn't interested. There hasn't been missionaries in this area for 2 weeks. But we were visiting a less-active and as we were coming out Elder Whitehead contacted a lady who was walking by. We invited her to come to church and she said she had a previous engagement but felt she needed to go. She did and she had a great experience. It was the Primary Program. There was this one kid who got up there and started to say his part and then he says "I don't remember anymore" loudly and throws the mic up and gets down. It was so funny. So yes this is a bike area and it is a huge one and I will be in it for probably the whole winter. My companion is awesome! He works hard and he contacts really well. He teaches with the Spirit and finds with the Spirit. We cook a lot here which is good because I am getting really good at it. :) Although I do need recipes that are good. And spices, good ones please. :) Maybe not as good as Kevin and Ju. I did not get Her package yet. :( The ward had it last Friday but we were thrown into the ward and we didn't know about it so we didn't attend.

The Police story is not even that cool. We just tracted into this one house and the girlfriend was really interested and was trying to leave the place. We stopped by again and the guy answered and he was really mad and said that he was going to call the cops because we were there again and said stuff about our church that was not true so I wanted to beat him up but I said have a great night and left. Ya I probably made it sound like it was intense but it really wasn't. 

I think we are finally on our feet here in this area and now we will be working our butts off I hope. I love you all! Oh, I have a request, Can everyone in the family send me a letter in the mail, like every person, and send it so I get them all on the same day. I just think it would be so funny for the lady in the office. So just coordinate it with everyone. You don't even have to send me a long letter. It could be a little note on a 3 by 5 note card. :) Also all the nieces and nephews send me something and send it in its own envelope. I hope you guys agree. ;) I love you and thank you for your prayers. :)

Love,

Elder Mackey

Elder Mackey's October 18, 2011 E-mail

Amanda says "FYI - I asked him why he was emailing on Tuesday in stead of Monday, and I asked why the cops were called and what happened."
No for real. It wasnt bad, we just walked away from the house. We e-mailed on Tuesday because it was Columbus Day and the Libraries were closed (they actually weren't, only some of them) so they said we could e-mail on Tuesday. We are gaining a lot of trust with the Ward! This is awesome because now the ward will hopefully begin to give us referrals. But that is not the hightlight of my week. So this last Friday Elder Cook came to visit the mission. It was so awesome! The first thing he did was shook all our hands and ask us where we were from. Then he explained why he did that. He was giving us a "spiritual interview" where he looks into our eyes and see how we are doing. I knew they did something like that! He said that everyone looked good spiritually and physically. He talked about how we need to focus on having all those we are teaching keep commitments.  His wife spoke too and she is a very musically inclined person. Very sweet. Also, President Clements worked for Elder Cook in a law firm and they have known each other for a very long time so they are really good friends. Its starting to get cold here like 50 - 45 defreeze!!! I need to go and take my boy to get some warm winter stuff. I love you all! 

Love,

Elder David Mackey

Elder Mackey's October 10, 2011 E-Mail

Dear Mandy,

 

Well it was pretty hot during the beginning of the week. We had to start wearing suits all the time now (except on bikes) and I think someone complained to the President (which I'm glad) that it was to hot for suits. So they moved it to last Friday. It has been really nice. There are leaves EVERYWHERE. Its so fun to bike right next to the curb and then put my foot down and gather a huge pile of leaves that makes it up to my lap. Crazy huh? How is Grandpa doing with his recovery? I love them. :D Was the fair fun? I dont remember ever going to any fairs. I went to one down here and it is way boring. Cool animals but ya not my way of entertainment. Actually I went to a fair in Mesa with the Blood family and Lauren went to. Did you throw up at all? Which one did you go on? the one off of the movie Sand lot? :P

 

On Sunday we had an amazing lesson to end the day. We are teaching a women whose husband is in Iraq right now. She has four kids. She said she was going to make it to church earlier but didnt make it for some reason. We were a little bumbed and we tried getting a hold of her throughout the week but were unable so we were nervous that she dropped us. I was praying and praying that this lesson will not fall through and it didnt. We were able to get two Sisters there to the appoinment and we decided to teach CPR (church, pray, read) instead of throughing more information on her with the plan of salvation and it was very spiritual. Everyone in the room was crying (except me) and it was just awesome! It boosted my excitement and will to do better. (And then all of the sudden I got a ton of rejection and cops called on us the next day)

 

Thank you for the quotes! I love you Mandy! You are awesome!

 

Love,

Elder David Mackey

Elder Mackey's October 3, 2011 E-Mail

Conference was awesome!! I had a lot of prayers answered for sure. Tons of talks for investigators came to mind. Too bad none of them came. Hopefully they watched it on the Internet. So this past week was so awesome!! We had some amazing miracles!!! One investigator we tracted into a week before accepted to be baptized. We will see how serious he was. He kept saying sure and ok. He wants to quit smoking. Then we were in the area and thought we should stop by this one kid. We were going to do it next week but the idea came to our mind. We stopped by and his parents were out front. Their son (the kid) moved for good to Texas to do pipe lining. We taught the parents the restoration and invited them to be baptized! They accepted. The mom said that she was saying a prayer looking for guidance and she knows that we were an answer to her prayers which she asked like a few hours before. Then after the last session of conference we were going over to our dinner appointment and the neighbor was outside. We talked to her. She was very friendly and open. We asked if we could teach her at the members home and she said yes. We did and it was a spiritual lesson!! We invited her to be baptized and she accepted!!! So 4 accepted baptismal invitations during this week!! That was a pretty uplifter.

 

I came into the mission with the determination that I was going to be 100% obedient and I am not even close to that. Mandy, I feel like I am getting into the "funk" again. :( Its hard to get out of this funk. Seriously I thought I would be a better missionary than who I am right now.  Well I love you oh so very much. I love the family and I am so grateful to be apart of this family. Thank you for your prayers. and that picture is so funny and thank you for sharing that with me!
--

Love,

Elder David Mackey

No E-Mail for October 3, 2011

Elder Mackey's September 26, 2011 E-mail

Dear Mandy,

 

So we found General Conference 2008 on CD in the apartment so we have been listening to that all the time in the car. It was great! So the Weather here "I think" is getting a little cold. The people here say it is really nice and great but I think it is cold. They laugh at me. I thought I was ready for the winter but then I am remembering that my toes froze a lot. :/ I do miss the one season state. Its easy to prepare for that...shorts or shorts. :D

 

I am finding out that my companion is very different than I am. He is too laid back and tells me that I need to be more "loose". He is just a green bean though haha. I just laugh. Anyways this week was pretty hard, we received a lot of discouragement. I mean we got a huge package with the sender Satan, Lucifer. (that was a dumb joke hehe) That's the thing though. We can be interested and open it up and get the surprise or just leave it alone and still have a positive attitude and receive the blessings from God.

 

Its hard for me to write right now because my feelings are going all over the place. :/ Thank you for your prayers Mandy. I love you very much. I read the letters you gave me before I left on my mission this morning. Thank you so much for those letters. :) They are great council for me to follow. I think I am being a worry wart. ha


--

 

Love,

Elder David Mackey

Elder Mackey's September 19, 2011 E-mail

Whaaa Hannn!!!  This is the funniest saying that I have heard. My district leader, Elder Dillard whom I will love forever, made it up when he was young and been saying it since then. It means "whats happenin?" There is this special way to say it and its just great. He got the Mission Presidents Wife to say it now. She calls us the Whaa Hannn club. haha Its just silly. Anyways....

 

Yesterday was the Presidents Fireside and I was called to do the musical number. She wanted me to sing "Redeemer of my Soul." This meeting was so good and the Spirit was strong! This Fireside is where a few recent converts are chosen to speak about their conversion. There is a missionary from Ohio, the big time hood part, who told his story. He joined like two years ago and then went on a mission. He is 26. He got shot twice, he was in a gang. But anyways, then there was this guy who found out the church to be true during trial and then went to jail for 10 years and read the BoM, Jesus the Christ, Bible, Miracle of Forgivness, and a bunch of other stuff 10 times. He got out and then got First Presidentcies approval to be baptized. It was so good! It was a good Spiritual day yesterday. I will put in here my letter to the president.

 

Dear President,
Thank you for the opportunity to attend the Presidents Fireside. That was a very spiritual meeting and I was able to participate and even contribute to the meeting. What a blessing! I think it was good for Elder Van Orden to experience that to boost his enthusiasm. We are going to be running chapel tours on Tuesday at 6:30 pm to help with the members in inviting their friends in missionary opportunities. This will help them invite their friends to something a little less overwhelming and help them get into the church to feel the Spirit, see the Christ center pictures we have and to have a lesson from the missionaries all at the same time. I feel that this will be a good experience and will hopefully bring success into this area. Elder Van Orden is doing great! He is a really good companion in helping the investigators in their individual needs. We are on tract with the training guide and I am helping him learn the lessons. I am trying to work with helping him talk to everyone no matter what situation he is in. He is a little shy about that but he is working on it.
We found this couple while tracting and they said they have been meeting with the mormon missionaries for 28 years. They said to stop by another time and so we did and we caught them working on their yard. We dropped our bags and went straight to work. They were impressed and felt bad we were working in our "nice" clothes. They let us "fellowship" with them and I learned how to take the conversation and environment and direct it all towards the plans which we have made (which was restoration) and we were very bold and testified powerfully in te Book of Mormon and about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I invited the wife to be baptized and she accepted. I then invited the husband and he declined saying he was already baptized. So then the wife backed down. :/ She said she will read and pray about the Book of Mormon and so did the husband. The Spirit was so strong in the house and I learned how important it is to point out the Spirit and then TESTIFY! This Saturday a member will be coming with us to help with their yard and also teach. I am trying out here. I hope it is what Heavenly Father wants. I just dont see baptisms. I know thats not how you measure success but I would like to have a baptism. I love you President. :D
Love Elder Mackey

Thank you for all your love and prayers. Pray that I will get a baptism!! I really want one really bad!!
--

Love,

Elder David Mackey

Elder Mackey's September 12, 2011 E-mail

Dear Family,

 

It is a lot of work being a trainer! I have never ever thought about someone and worried about someone so much. Thank you so much Grandma Flaherty for the e-mail! I am actually not serving in Blaine. I did serve in New Brighton just under Blaine. I am still in Farmington. My new companion is Elder Van Orden who is from Blackfoot, Idaho. He is the youngest of 5. He works really hard and wants to be a great missionary.

 

I have been playing the piano a lot at random peoples homes because it helps us get into their home. But I really like it because I don't play piano that much so I get my practice at random peoples homes. Whoa, a missionary just walked in who has both legs cut off. He has two prosthetic legs!! Man its so cool.

 

Anyways....umm well I am just working really hard trying to train my "boy" so he doesnt go down the deep end.

 

Missionaries want to use the comp so I got to go. I love you all.....
--

Love,

Elder David Mackey