¡Más milagros!

The miracles just keep happening... So first I will share a miracle moment, and then I will share a spiritual moment that happened the other day. 

Miracle: so on Sunday we were in companionship study and we were figuring out what to read with some investigators that day if they hadn't had a chance yet to read from the Book of Mormon. Well I was flipping through my scriptures and a part that I had marked caught my eye. I began to read it and before I even really figured out what was going on in the scripture, the thought came to me "Hermano Manzano needs this" and so knowing that was a spiritual impression, I wrote it down. 

AND then...

Yesterday, when we were meeting with Hermano Manzano, Hermano started by telling us the thoughts he has been having the past couple of days. We begin the lesson and we read the verses that I had felt impressed to share with him and it was amazing! IT APPLIED TO HIM AND HIS THOUGHTS EXACTLY. Exactly. I explained to him how it came about for us to read this and how I knew this is what he needed. The spirit was so strong and he was so happy. To me it was a huge miracle because we have been struggling to make any progress with him lately. I'm so grateful to have had the Holy Ghost tell me what he needed to hear and grateful that I was able to follow the prompting and be a tool in the Lords hands.

Spiritual experience: so I will not go into to much detail on this because it was a very spiritual experience... we went to a lesson with an investigator named José. To start off, we followed up with him asking if he had been able to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. He said he had read the introduction and prayed and that he believed it was true. He said he will continue to read and pray and he said that he thinks that he will get his answer. Well we continue on with the lesson (the plan of salvation) and at the end something great happened - we talked about where we go after this life and the spirit was very strong in the lesson. He started talking about how it all makes so much sense to him and how he could feel the spirit. He said that he believed it was true. As my companion and I testified to him I felt so much love for him and could see so much potential. Everyone was crying and I felt impressed to say some things that I had never thought of saying in my
life but they were spirit guided and special. My companion invited José to baptism and after about 20 seconds of silence he said "oraré" (I will pray) which with how strong the spirit was and how much faith he has, that was like hearing a yes to me. :) It is just so special to me to be a missionary and be able to have moments like this when you see people through the eyes of God and you can see how much potential they have. It's so awesome to be here doing what I am doing. 

The last thing: We were talking to someone on the street the other day and they said something like "yo soy lo que yo soy y siempre seré lo que yo soy" meaning "I am what I am and I will alway be what I am." I walked away from that just thinking about how amazing it is that we can change. We don't have to have that prospective of no growth. We don't have to be the same tomorrow as we are today. We can be better! And we should be! Let the atonement change you.

Sorry this one was a little long but it was just a great week! Thank you for the love, support, and prayers.

Love you all!

Elder Mackintosh

These are the stairs that we went up and down last week while finding the apartment of the woman that fell down. (see last weeks email)

P.S. The story continues, the  lady who we helped, called on Sunday and invited us to have lunch with her this Friday! Next week I will have an update on her. 

On Fridays we make brownies and cookies for investigators and

members and drop off notes too

 Natural history museum

Miracles!!!

I want to talk about something that I have learned this last week. The more grateful we are for the things we receive, the more God gives us and the more sensitive to recognizing those gifts we will be. It's pretty awesome! This last week we have been talking about the miracles that happened that day and it has made me so much more grateful and humble...

So here is a sweet miracle that happened:We give out pictures of Christ with our number on the back and we give those out to like everyone. Well we were talking to a man on the side of the road right next to our building and he said he wasn't interested, but I could tell that two women standing behind him were listening. I gave them a card and said "we are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Here is a card with Jesus Christ on it and on the back is our number. If there is anything that we can do for you, like take out the trash, move furniture, whatever kind of service, call us and we will be right over." (I would have talked more about the church and the restoration of the gospel, but we were about to be late home and didn't have time)  We shook their hands and left. Well a week later we are about to leave the apartment to go and do a district language study and suddenly I get a call. I answer it and the voice on the other line says "Hello, we met a few days ago and you said to call you if we needed anything. The woman that I look after has fallen down and I can't help her up. Can you come help her up?" 

First off, no one ever calls us and second off, we love service. jaja Of course I said YES. At first she gave us the wrong address so it took a little longer than it should have to get there,  but eventually we found it.  We walk in and sure enough there was an older woman sitting on the floor.  We took off our bags and we picked her up and put her in a chair. She was very very very grateful and invited us back for "either tea or coffee" ....we decided on hot chocolate jaja.  Such a sweet blessing and a little miracle to be able to give that service.  It was a great feeling to know that first people she thought to call was us - the missionaries that she met on the street a week earlier. It was a great experience.

MIRACLES! I invite you to try and notice your little miracles everyday. I promise you that they are there. God loves us so much.. It is incredible to me.

I wish I had more time to write about my studies and such, but this is running a little long. 

Until next week!
Love you all so very much,

Elder Mackintosh


Here are pictures of me cooking at an investigator's house and then a screenshot of the weather on Sunday!  Brrrr! 

1/4 of my Mission is gone. :)

Hi y'all,

First off, last week my email wigged out (all of the missionaries here had the same problem) and all of my drafts deleted. So if there was an email that I never responded to of yours, know that I had the intentions. Sorry! I don't even know if that made sense. English is hard. jaja

So on Friday I will hit my 6 month mark and I'm not sure honestly if it has gone by fast or slow but either way I'm very grateful to be here in New York and to know the people that I do. I'm just trying to not think about the time and just trying  to work hard everyday!

Lately I have been thinking a ton about goals. Goals are so important! Now that I'm district leader I get to help people with their goals and I figure out goals for the district. One of my responsibilities is to keep track of all the contacts information (name, address and phone number) everyday as a district. Well by the end of the week we had 30. I knew we could do better than that. At our district meeting I focused on goal setting and achieving and while I was sharing my testimony at the end about goal setting my grandpa popped in my mind - I talked about my Grandpa Mackintosh and how he passed away a few months ago and one of his last things of advice to me was to have goals and achieve them.  

THEN it finally connected and hit me so hard that HE has been helping me set my goals lately. The past month and a half we have been hitting the majority of our goals and have been trying to set them very prayerfully. It is just all so cool to me! Man I now have a new love for goal setting and have a testimony of it now. I've discovered that goal setting plays a huge role in reaching our potential and if you haven't already set your goals, I invite you to look at your life and set some goals - jaja just do it! 

Our new goal for the week is 40 and we are already at 23 and it's only the beginning of the week... So yeah! Goal setting works.

Rafael is my favorite human being ever. But again his baptized for the 13th has been pushed back because he can't move into his new place until next month. (If you don't remember why that is an issue - back track several emails). Kind of a bummer, but at the same time he has a strong testimony and strong desires to follow Christ.

I had a proud parent like moment yesterday as Rafael bore testimony of how he used to believe only in science until about 2 months ago and how now he is 100% that there is a God and that he loves him. It was a tender moment.  He also told us that he is learning how to recognize the spirit in his life.  I'm felt incredibly lucky to be a part of his conversion. I love Rafael!

Love you all!

Elder Mackintosh

This is Jesus Cárdenas from Peru. He went back to Peru this

last week and I will probably never see him again... 

It was hard to say goodbye to him. Tears were shed from both of us. 

 Me and Victorian. I met him tracting during my first

week in New York! He was one of my first lessons that I ever taught tracting and

he was baptized last weekend in the English ward! He is the sweetest

man. I'm so happy for him.  Great man. 

Elder Cruz Santos jaja took a picture of me as we were walking down the street.