WOW!

NO TIME TO WRITE!

So much happened this week and I'm mad that I don't have time to write all the awesome details. There were many miracles, a baptism - YES Luis got baptized!! The bishop baptized and confirmed him and it was soooooooo good. Coolest weekend ever! 

I am a District Leader.  I am a trainer! Woot woot! My trainee is Elder Cruz Santos from Idaho/Mexico and he is the coolest ever - native Spanish speaking but speaks English too. He is cool. I'm very lucky to get a sweet missionary like him. Seriously, I feel so blessed here in NY. Crazy stuff.  

Unfortunately Rafael didn't get baptized because of housing complications but he will get baptized on the 30th.

So much joy in my life right now!

Elder Mackintosh

 Luis's sweet baptism.  January 16, 2016

Elder Filipe Castro from my dad's Provo YSA ward. Yep, the first missionary that my dad sends off from his YSA ward is to my mission - what are the odds of that?   

 My new companion; Elder Cruz Santos from Idaho/Mexico

Changes!

Hi family and friends!

First off, next week my pday will be on Thursday. Sooooo just don't be alarmed when I don't write next Wednesday.

This last Saturday was a pretty special experience. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came and talked to my mission for 2 hours! I don't have time to tell you everything I loved about it,  but I will say that I know that he is an Apostle of God. I know it. Shaking his hand, looking him in the eye, and feeling his testimony through out his talk. Yes, he is an Apostle and yes, this is all true. All of it! The church, God loving us, the plan of salvation, all of it. It is real.

Raphael's wedding didn't happen last week, he is trying to find a new apartment to move into before his baptism on this Saturday. Lots of prayers that he will find a place to move into. Faith!  He asked if I would be the one to baptize him - so that is pretty exciting! Love him. Also Luis is for sure getting baptized on Saturday! He is so prepared and excited. I'm crazy happy for him. He is a lifelong friend for sure. I love being a missionary!

Soooo other big news is that starting next Wednesday I will be training a new missionary, taking over 30 more streets, and the new district leader. That's a lot of changes! Pretty crazy.  I know I will be growing a ton during these next 3 months.. Woot woot! It won't be easy  but if the Lord called me to do this, I know I can do it. It is a great opportunity!

Love you all!

Elder Mackintosh

Me and my roommates right before the meeting with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. 

Hello from Elder Mackintosh and Elder McBride

A Week of Miracles!

Hey hey hey,

This week was full of miracles! Here's my favorite; the sister missionaries were walking by some teenage boys and  the boys were talking with some pretty terrible language. The sister missionaries decided to stop and share the gospel with them. Well none of them were interested, but one of the boys said, as kind of a joke, he would send missionaries to talk to his parents. Well the sister missionaries gave the referral to us and told us the story and we didn't know what to think, but decided to look the people up and the mom was actually super nice and we set up an appointment. Well the appointment came and we brought a member with us and it was one of the best lessons that I have ever been a part of. The spirit was so strong and she is now very interested in another appointment and message. Miracle, coincidence, fate? I'm calling it a miracle. :)  

Being in NY for New Years was fun but mostly because I'm a missionary and not because of any of the celebrations. jaja. I have set some goals for this year though. My mission president told us that he sets goals to grow the way that Jesus did. Luke 2: 52 is where it talks about it. I set goals in the 4 areas that Christ grew and I'm so excited! I invite you all to do the same. I will attach a picture that lists what areas to set it for just in case the scripture isn't clear.

I'm so excited to have this whole year in front of me. Life is so good and I'm so blessed.

The baptism of Rafael has been moved to the 16th, but the wedding is still happening this Saturday. Super excited for him! Rafael and Luis will be sharing their baptism next week. I love those two guys so much. So blessed to know them. 

Love you all as well! True dat.

Elder Mackintosh         

Skyping on Christmas Day

From mom, Becky Mack :)

"Skyping with Skye on CHRISTmas Day was the Best.Gift.Ever.  He looks so good and sounds so HaPpY!  He truely loves being a missionary and I love being a missionary mom.  Count down to Mother's Day until I get to see my son's face and hear his voice again.... 229 days, but who's counting? teehee ME!"  

Christmas in New York

December 23, 2015

It doesn't seem like Christmas in two days, it's been in the 70's and is suppose to be 72 degrees Christmas day. Super weird. This is not normal, but at the same time it does feel like Christmas because we have done of a ton of caroling, free gift wrapping, miscellaneous service, and watching the church Christmas video like 500 times. So yeah, it is Christmas in New York.

This week was so sweet! Rafael has a baptismal date for Januay 9th and getting married on the same day as well! He is so excited and we meet with him everyday because he is THAT excited. I love him. Also we set a baptismal date for January 16th with Luis and he is so cool as well with a great story I will soon share! He texts us everyday with his questions about his Book of Mormon reading and he is just loving it.

Saturday we did 2 hours of free gift wrapping for people and it was actually fun! I'm not very good at gift wrapping, so I just held the sign and handed out cards jaja. Still great.  Later that night we had the ward Christmas party and wow was it a party! So much food, singing, and dancing! I didn't dance but it was a lot of fun. Rafael went to the party and loved it! while at the church we showed him the baptismal font - SUCH A COOL EXPERIENCE! He is amazing - wish you all could meet him.

The night of the party, I don't know what was wrong with me, but I couldn't fall asleep! I think something I drank had caffeine or something because I literally didn't fall asleep until 5:30 in the
morning. I was in bed for 7 hours without sleeping! Then I still had to get up at 6:30, therefore Sunday was a hard day for lack of sleep, but a huge testimony strengthening day - the Lord carried us, we had some sweet miracles.

Well that's it from me about Christmas!

Love you all!

Elder Mackintosh

An apartment picture in front of our Christmas trees bc swag.

Today I went to Rockefeller and saw the tree and such  - that was really cool. 

Rockefeller

Okay, so for REAL...

Hey all!

Okay so for real this week I had some funny things happen, but I'm not going to share them because I kinda just want to share a serious email this time.

As a mission we just finished studying the Book of Mormon in 100 days and then today for the last day we were asked to write down our testimonies. Well I want to share what took me half of my personal study time to write. Here is my testimony of the Book of Mormon as of today:

"Yesterday I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the fourth time in my life and I have a couple of things to say. My testimony on the Book of Mormon is strong, but interesting to me because to be honest I haven't totally had any moments when I have asked God and then it has just hit me like "Wow, this book is actually true." The way that I have received my testimony of the Book of Mormon is by studying, pondering, applying, and then noticing how things/I change. 

The Book of Mormon has helped me many times in my life when I have had questions or poor feelings, all I have had to do is pray and read. The answer is always there! 

My testimony of the Book of Mormon is also strong because I absolutely know without a doubt that Joseph Smith was a prophet and was called of God to restore the church of Jesus Christ again on the earth. I have had a few very special experiences and confirmations about Joseph Smith being a prophet. I will bare testimony of the restoration to anyone that will hear me, because it happened. I know that the Book of Mormon is true because Joseph Smith was a prophet and if he was a prophet, it is all true. It is! 

Yes, I have prayed and done the things in Moroni 10: 3-5 and guess what, it hasn't came to me the way I thought it would. I was expecting to just suddenly have a crazy powerful spiritual confirmation right then and there and that hasn't happened for me. Although my prayers haven't been answered in the way I was expecting, God has NOT ignored my prayers.  Many times in sharing my testimony of the Book of Mormon, the Holy Ghost was right there as well - testifying. The Holy Ghost testifies of truth and if the Holy Ghost testifies of truth while I bare my faith filled testimony of the Book of Mormon, doesn't that mean it's true? Doesn't it? YES. 

I bare my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the love of God that is felt through the application of the principles and doctrines in that book. It is all true. I share that and invite you to give the Book of Mormon a chance to improve your life. It will. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."

I feel so blessed. Things are going well! We had a couple of rough days this last week.. But ended really strong and are now doing well again. We are teaching some really awesome people.

Below is a picture of a member named Jesus Cárdenas and he is one of my favorite people in the whole world! He loves us and we sure love him. He even gave us a shout out in testimony meeting, such a great man.

Love you all and have a great Christmas! Christmas.mormon.org

Elder Mackintosh

Aint Even Cold!

Hi peeps,

So I looked at the weather a couple days ago in lehi and it was 25 degrees and a toasty 50 degrees here, so I'm happy! jaja. It actually rained today and it is December! But I'm sure it will get real cold real quick.

This last week was kind of a long one. It wasn't bad, just for some reason it seemed long. Thanksgiving was a pretty good day! Dominicans don't know how to celebrate Thanksgiving really, we went to a Peruvian members house to eat and the food was soooo good, but unfortunately she only gave us one plate each.. So on our way home we stopped at Dominoes to grab some pizza because we still wanted to keep the tradition of getting stuffed on Thanksgiving. We shared a slice with a nice homeless man. 'Twas a good day.

The work is going really really well now. We have 4 or 5 investigators with like real potential and desire! We are going to extend two baptism dates tonight, so keep us in your prayers! I gotta go to a lesson right now actually, he is a great man with a great story that I hope to share soon. I am so blessed - we all are.

This week my ponderizing scripture is Alma 5: 27-28, I choose it because I'm working on humility. Humility is the key to everything. Pride is the destroyer and we see that in the Book of Mormon over and over again. Humility is huge!! (I will send my screensaver a with my ponderizing scripture every week.)

Also here is a video of what my bishop made me do in the middle of his class on Sunday jaja. It was an incredible lesson. I'm glad I can understand enough Spanish to know it was a great lesson.

Funny happening of the week: The other day we were teaching this less active member that I love and all of the sudden in the middle of the lesson he started rambling and telling us about this dream that he had a couple of years ago in broken English instead of Spanish for some reason.  He says "so there was big dog. Big dog. Big BIG dog (with actions) okay so really big dog. Then, it chase me! And I run, I run, and I scared because the big dog you know. And I run in building and big black guy. Biiiig black guy (puts his arm up in the air to show how big he was) yes big black guy (stands up with arm still raised so that he can show he is even bigger but really doesn't get any taller because he was the same height sitting on the stool jaja) and he hug me. (He pick me up and he hug me) He say to me; 'No you run. Dog like you.' And he pet dog."  And that was his dream.

Well by the end of the story I literally have tears running down my face laughing (my companion is
laughing but keeping it together better than me) and it doesn't even phase him the whole story! I was laughing mostly because I don't know how our lesson turned into that and it was just a funny dream that literally had no explanation or tie in to the lesson or anything! It was so great.

Love you all! The church really is true! If you don't know yet, ask God! He will tell you.

Elder Mackintosh

This picture was taken today at Central Park after I got my hair cut.