Humbled!

This week has been amazing...

So something that hit me pretty good the other day is during study time in Preach My Gospel under the "pray to know the truth through the Holy Ghost" section - The first line says "this message of the restoration is either true or it
isn't."  that hit me pretty hard.. I read that during my personal study the other day and it caused me to ponder about it for the next 5 days or so.  Isn't that amazing how simple it is though? No "maybe" or "well some of it is true" NO. It is true or it is not. I have been thinking about the doubts that I have had in my life and also thinking about all of the testimony building experiences. I have come to the conclusion that It is true. The restoration is true. All of it. I just love how simple this is! Sure, some things in the gospel are harder to accept than others but what has helped me just this past week even is just knowing
that The First Vision is a fact. It happened. Because it happened I am here in New York serving the Lord as a member and missionary of his one and true church. HOW COOL IS THAT?! I don't know if that sentence has as big of an impact on anyone else, but it changed me and my perspective and for that I'm eternally grateful.

Today I had the opportunity to go to the temple here in Manhattan. It was a very spiritual and humbling experience. I had questions answered and personal revelation received. Humbling. Something that hit me is how many prayers are being offered for the missionaries throughout the world. My eyes tear up to think about all of the people praying for me and the other missionaries in the world. I thank all of you for those prayers... they push me to keep going in the hard times and make me go faster in the good ones.

Lots of miracles and such happened this week, but I will leave my email with those two paragraphs. Please know that I appreciate your support and even if I am unable to reply to your email, know that I'm grateful for it. Just tell yourself that if I didn't reply it is because I'm telling a stranger about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Love you all,

Elder Mackintosh

Pictures:

Teaching Luis and his mother. Luis was the one baptized in January. He now has the priesthood and blesses the sacrament and has taught the lesson in Elders Quorum. His mother is now very interested in the church.

 George Washington Bridge. The bad lighting is killer to my photography loving heart, but it is what it is... jajaja

The zone from last cycle! We just had transfers by the way and I will be here for another 6 weeks at least still in my first area!

¡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. 

I Fell Down The Stairs

Hiiiii,

So with that title you are probably wanting to hear that story, but before I tell it I will talk about some other things.

It snowed a ridiculous amount! From what I heard it was the 2nd worst snow that Manhattan island has ever seen and it was only second by 1/10th of an inch. Tons of people had their cars stuck in their parking positions on the side of the road. I will send some pics so you can understand. We helped shovel so many people out! So many. It was a blast because people were walking around charging money to shovel them out, but we were walking around doing it for free. People loved
it and actually we got some good contacts from it. It was a ton of fun!

Rafael was supposed to be getting baptized this Saturday but Satan really doesn't want him to, so something happened again! Ugh. He was on his way to church and his boot got stuck in the snow and when he tried to pull it out he fell down! He got a little hurt and won't be able to move out this week so now his date is Feb. 13. He is Okay and excited still. Love him.

I fell down the stairs the other day.. Jaja! My boots were wet and so were the stairs, so that is a bad mix. I slipped at the top and fell and slid down the whole flight of stairs! The funny part is that I took out Elder Cruz Santos on the way down and I was on the phone with Rafael! Jaja We laid on the bottom of the stairs laughing/hurting. I now have bruises all down one side, but it's all good. Experiences. jaja loving it.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Mackintosh

P.S. Mom, You would be proud of me! The other day for my personal study I read over my Elder Jeffrey R. Holland notes and he said; "I need you to know who you are. We need you."  So, I started thinking "Well, who am I?" And I found my self writing "I am..." Statements for the next 20 minutes jaja. It was great and it made me think of you because you like the whole "I am..." positive affirmation statements thing.

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