Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Success!

Sup pup!

So since I titled this email "success" I should probably talk about why I did that first. So this last few days have been my most successful ones so far. We have one person with a baptismal date!
He is a friend of some teenagers that we have been working with lately. He is awesome and he genuinely wants to get baptized! Love it. Also we have had a lot of success with the inactives lately and this week we 6 committed to come to  church! 2 came last week and they hadn't been in years! I'm so excited right now and just loving the work. The Lord is blessing us so much. Everything is amazing.

On a very sad note... My grandpa Mackintosh passed away on Friday. It was really sad to hear the news over emails from my parents. My grandpa Mackintosh is someone that I look up to so much. He is someone that can keep you laughing for hours and make you feel so loved. He
was a hard worker and not only a goal setter but a goal achiever. He was a strong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and a devoted servant of the Lord at all times. Basically, I love that man and it is a blessing that now he can be with me out in the field!
If you have seen pictures of my grandpa, you have seen what I will look like when I'm older jaja dimples and all. I LOVE MY GRANDPA!

Other stuff that is going on in New York is everything jaja. Life is crazy here! We went to Harlem the other day for a stake activity for the youth and it is a crazy neighborhood over there!!! Lots of people that really hate white people jaja. It was an interesting experience!
Some people that didn't like us and it was obvious and then also people that liked us a little to much jaja yeah I will just leave it at that! It was fun.

I am not fat but I fluctuate a lot out here! I came out here at 140 lb and now I fluctuate between 145 and 155! I'm still scrawny though because 155 lbs is as big as I have ever been in my life jaja. I eat a lot of ramen noodles and then also members have liked us more lately so we have been getting fed a lot! Good stuff. Dominicans make such good food!

Currently my roommates are trying to help me get rid of my sarcasm because our mission president said that we shouldn't use sarcasm. I will admit that it is the hardest thing that I am going through so that's a good thing and bad thing for that to be the hardest thing
right now! I'm not try into get rid of my sense of humor, just trying to redirect it (jaja) difficult!

Well that's all folks!

Elder Mackintosh


New York Subway

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

What A Week!





Hey family and friends!

Okay so this week was so up and down for me! So last Friday we had Elder Arnold of the quorum of the seventy come and give a special multi-zone conference all day. It was really spiritual and he really told us how missionary work should be done and what we need to change. It was intense and yes we changed a lot! So that was great and then we went home and didn't get to do anything besides our studies for the rest of the day because of time. Well slowly (I don't know why) I just got really discouraged.. Like really - probably the lowest I have been on my mission and I guess it was just all the changes and the language were stressing me out or something. Yeah it was just not fun!

But....

The next day I was able to go to lunch with my buddies parents (Elder Stockton Sharp) and that changed my mood right around! Such a blessing to see them and just have that time out perfectly to calm me down at my most stressed time! So HUGE shout out to Shelly and Bret (Terb) for that.

Okay, so the past couple weeks we have been doing this jumping exercise in the mornings and it is called air alert I think. Well here is the thing.. It's awful! Jaja like it's pretty hard but that isn't what I hate about it, it makes me so sore! And we walk a lot, so that isn't that fun! Hopefully my body gets used to it and my legs get massive.

This last week we met with some new investigators for the first time and those went well! Some potential in those people for sure. But our main push this week was with less actives and we have 2 that have already started back at church last Sunday and then 3 more that are committed his week! Soooooo exciting! Bringing people back is every bit as exciting as baptizing new people. Love it.

So yes, life is good now and I'm a happy camper! NY is still crazy but I love it.

Love you all,
Elder Mackintosh




A message to "the fam!" 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

A Nice Surprise for Mom!

Wow - what a nice surprise to wake up to.  I was sent this wonderful text message and photo this morning....

October 9, 2015


Dear Sister Mackintosh, we met your son in the elevator at the Temple, and invited him and his companion (from our son's ward in Mesa, AZ) to dinner last evening. We went to a Dominican restaurant in their area and had a good meal. We were impressed with these two young missionaries--their devotion and focus on the work. Congratulations to you on your youngest of seven!

President Bench, counselor in the Temple presidency.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Blessed



Hola!

So this week actually did go by like ridiculously fast to me... Since the last time I wrote, there has been 3 baptisms, none by my companion and I, but people are making covenants and receiving the Holy Ghost, so I'm happy!! 

Conference was so good. It is just different as a
missionary - everything really is. It was great to know that a lot of people that I love we're doing the same thing at the same time! I learned so much over conference and I think the biggest for me was that almost every talk mentioned faith and that is something I am trying to apply more. As a missionary I have plenty of opportunities
to act in faith (jaja) blessings, tracting, teaching, and honestly just speaking in Spanish in general.. So faith is important! Developing unwavering faith is something I am working on and it is great because the more I exercise it, the stronger and easier it gets. Weird right?

God is real.

Something else that I am applying specifically from conference is the "ponderizing" one scripture a week. It is going great so far! My
scripture is 1 Nephi 21: 16 "Behold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." And it becomes a little more meaningful every time I see it. I love it!

I think that I will continue to count how many people smile back at me each day because it isn't very many and I want to have you all understand a little bit more of what it's like here. It's so weird to me that New York is such a populated place but everyone is so antisocial! It's really weird... for example we invite people to share the gospel with their friends and they always respond that they don't have friends... Like what?!  Be social people! Kinda hard to spread the gospel if no one
talks. jaja.

Miracle: we were about to walk into a building to tract and all of a sudden is guy walking by says "hey can I ask you guys a question?" And we say of course and then his question is "how do I become a member of your church?" And I'm just like freaking out inside! He found us and is really interested! He went out of town the next day and won't be back until next Wednesday but we have an appointment for when he gets back. Also his name is Jose and we meet about 10 people with that name everyday, so that's fun - makes it easy to remember names.  jaja.

Life is good! We are all so blessed.

Elder Mackintosh






Thursday, October 1, 2015

New Yawker!

This week went by so fast... I swear I just had p-day like a week ago. crazy jaja. But really, time goes by pretty fast everyday and that's just what happens when you are having fun. 
I have had to grow a lot this week because my trainer is making me lead some of the lessons!! But it's not so bad because I just share a scripture, talk about it, ask a question and then they talk for like 20 minutes straight - Dominicans loooooove to talk! I'm not mad about it though! jaja.

That baptism that we had set up isn't going to happen now, because when he was in the Dominican Republic before he moved here, he was baptized. Well when he got here, they couldn't find his baptismal records so we got the clear to re-teach and baptize him. This last weekend my companion felt like he needed to ask for the records one more time and sure enough, they were there. So now we aren't baptizing him and currently have no progressing investigators, but we are working hard to change that!!! We will change that.

Funny Story: Yesterday we were walking down the sidewalk and saw a couple of rats running back and forth across the sidewalk and they were huge! We were watching them as we walked and suddenly my companion trips on something. We look back and it was a dead rat in the middle of the sidewalk! NASTY! I really don't like rats so I guess I will just have to get use to that. Luckily our apartment is pretty dang nice for the area - we don't even have bugs, let alone rats.
For those who have asked; send letters or packages to:
700 white planes road
Scarsdale, NY 10583 
They bring me mail on Tuesdays.
I don't know if I said to do this before already in my emails but either way, go to YouTube and watch "missionary work and the atonement" (I think that's what it's called but obviously I can't look it up jaja). That video really humbled me and brought me the spirit SO STRONG.

Love you all!

Elder Mackintosh