SURPRISE!

I forgot to tell everyone that Elder D. Todd Christofferson was coming to speak to us! He spoke yesterday and it was truely amazing to have an apostle of the Lord talk to us in such an intimate setting of around 500 missionaries! He spoke for about 10 minutes and then just did questions and answers. A girl asked about accessing the atonement more and he gave a really spiritual response. He got choked up and didn't know if he would even be able to talk about it. It means so much to him. It should mean so much to us. No one has or ever will sacrafice more for you than the savior did. And what I loved that he said is that "Jesus Christ will be there for you every step of the way. through your hardest and lowest times. through your best times. he will be there. He loves you so much more than you can comprehend and He is there for you. Talk to him and be grateful for his sacrafice every single day." not word for word but that is the summary and what I got out of it! Amazing man. 

I am very much in the flow of everything now. Getting up at 6:30 honestly isn't even that bad anymore and I love the work and I love the everyday struggle to learn. I LOVE IT! 

The district that I have gotten really close with leaves next week and that is a bummer... but I know that I will be friends with a couple of them forever. They are so amazing and I learn so much from their words and examples every day! So blessed. I just walk around here and just can't help but think about how blessed I am. I have been given soooooo much and I will never be able to fully repay God for that (read Mosiah 2:22-24) and think about what I have been thinking about! LIfe is good. LIfe is truely great. I can't wait to get to the mission field and feel a huge struggle again jaja. is that weird? I am just excited. 

My spanish is getting better every day! I'm still not very good at it, but my teacher told me and my companion yesterday that she has noticed that we are the hardest workers and that we have improved the most! I have a long way to go and I am just trying my best to be strictly obedient about every rule here because God knows best and I know that he is blessing me for trying my best. Love you all so much! 

Here is the view from my classroom and a pic of my companion and I! he is never ready for the pictures lol. Great Elder.

Elder Mackintosh 

The view from my classroom. 

 Week 3 - selfie. 
   

'Twas a good week!

'twas a good week! Really. This week was much faster and much easier to focus on the spirit than the week before. 

I teach about 10 lessons a week in Spanish and one is to someone that doesn't speak any English, so that was crazy but really cool as well! It is amazing to see the spirit convey the message through my broken spanish haha. This week there was several times in my class where everyone was crying because the spirit was really strong. My teacher Hermano Gomez is an incredible guy! He is from here but served a mission in the Salt Lake City South mission and speaks like perfect English and Spanish and is fluent in sharing the spirit as well. It will rip my heart out to say goodbye to that man.

My district is full of some great people and they help me grow every day! Grateful for them. I will attach a crappy picture of us at the Mexico City temple open house today. Which was amazing btw!! That temple is huge and full of the spirit. My picture doesn't make it look cool, so google it. 

I play soccer every day with the latino missionaries and I have improved a ton! So maybe I will play some college soccer or something lol jk I am awful. I don't know if I told this in my last email, but on my first Sunday here I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting!!! hahaha crazy, but it went well and it was in 100 percent Spanish. 

Life is good here and I am in a good flow of it all. In less than a month and I am in the mission field!! That is exciting yet scary at the same time. haha. 

Well I love you all and truly appreciate your support and prayers. The church is true and I can PROMISE you that, but you need to find out for yourself if you haven't already. Pray with real intent. Please. 

Much love,

Elder Mackintosh

Mexico City Mexico Temple 

My District at the Mexico City Mexico Temple

My Casa!

Week One - MTC

Mexico City - Missionary Training Center
August 13, 2015 - Week One

First week here in the MTC was sweet! the first couple of days were really really long but the last couple of days have been awesome and full of the spirit. Learning a language is difficult but I am slowly getting it! Life is good. The church is true. I will write more next week, but a quick story I will tell about me teaching my 4th lesson in spanish last night. 

So we were having a mediocre lesson because it is hard to teach in spanish when you barely know it haha but at the end I bore my testimony in spanish about the truthfulness of the gospel and THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG AND GUIDED ME SO MUCH TO GET MY MESSAGE ACROSS! it was amazing. After that testimony, we challenged the "investigator" (a teacher that just was playing a role of an investigator) to baptism and she accepted bc the spirit was testifying to her as well. Awesome experience and now I have to go prepare my next lesson that I teach in like 2 hours haha. Life is good here. for real. I love being a missionary.

Love you all,

Elder Mackintosh

Mi Casa

My companion is awesome and we teach some pretty powerful lessons for only knowing a little Spanish! 

The food is good and all you can eat, I don't think I have put on weight though because we play an hour of soccer every day and I eat a lot of fruit and salad. All is well. 

Let the journey begin...

The Mackintosh Family

Skye is our Caboose

Kelsey, Shandi, Xian, Becky (mom) Scott (dad) Tosh, Skye, Sara and Myley

Seven children -  Four are married - Six grandkids and one on the way!

August 5, 2015  - The bitter/sweet Airport drop off :( 

Salt Lake City Airport - Family and friends saying our good-byes for two years.  Lots of hugs and tears. 

And there he goes.....