First Week in NYC!

So this has been awesome so far! To start I will just say that the gift of tongues is real. I have grown so much in spanish this last week and it is not because I am a crazy smart person. jaja. My trainer is Elder Mcbride, he is from Arizona, and he just got done being trained last week so basically he knows a lot more spanish than I do, but he isn't fluent. Soooo it is quite the experience for the both of us everyday to try and understand and converse with people! jaja. The Lord has helped us so much.

So kinda funny story: We are teaching this 20 year old Dominican kid named Victor and he is one of my favorite people ever. He loves me for some reason jaja. We can barely communicate but we bond! He is getting baptized on the 10th of October! But the story is this... So we were teaching him yesterday and we had him say the closing prayer. So he starts the prayer "Heavenly Father" and then I am not exaggerating when I say that there was about a 20 second pause of silence. jaja I peak my eyes open and he is just leaning over to his brother whispering and smiling. They both look at me and we all just kind of start to chuckle. Then hearing the chuckling, my companion peaks as well. Victor sees that and just starts laughing! So we are trying not to laugh obviously and then victor says "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." and we all just bust up! So the entire prayer was just "Dear Heavenly Father. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." jajajajajaja I love Victor. He kinda has a learning disability, so I forgive him but yeah it is just funny! If that prayer was a "sandwich" (like we always describe prayers) it would have been just bread! Funny funny kid.

I have been really blessed to start off in the best area for speaking spanish in the whole mission. I am in the Northern Manhattan zone/Inwood and it is approximately 75% or more spanish speakers! I don't feel like I am in the USA at all! It is nuts. Plus they are all Dominicans basically and let's just say that Dominican spanish is not even close to what they taught me in the MTC! jaja! They mumble a ton and like never say the "s" in their words! I am picking it up little by little though, so it's all good. The other missionaries said that once I can understand a dominican, I can understand anyone that is speaking spanish and with a lot less effort jaja, so that is something to look forward to. 

We tract a lot and my companion makes me give most of the lessons! It is hard, but it has sure helped me grow. That is how life is really. Challenges are the fastest and most effective ways to grow, so I am happy about it! Life is really good here in NYC. The only thing is that everyone seems mad all of the time, so I smile at everyone!!! I am just trying to brighten this city up in any way possible jaja. Little by little. 

I get my ipad on friday and then I will send some pictures next week! Love you all!

Love

Elder Mackintosh

I'm in New York!!

I have been here in New York for 24 hours and I love it.  My mission president is President Smith and he is just the coolest guy.  He is so genuine and has a really strong and powerful testimony.  I love him and his family already. 

I have been assigned to the Manhattan North zone and it is seriously the coolest and best place to start. This is the place that has the most Dominicans by far and everyone says that it is the best place to learn the language! I'm told it's 75% Dominicans - that will help me a ton to pick up the language I am sure! Yes, I know it will be hard of course, but that is what I signed up for - it is all good. 

My companion's name is Elder McBride and he is from Mesa, Arizona - he is a REALLY nice elder and I can tell that he is obedient and hard working, so that is good.  He just barely got done being trained and now he is training me a day later. (jaja)   His Spanish is good, but he isn't fluent and he is already a trainer!  Crazy!  We will have a lot of fun and growth because we will be out of our comfort zone every single day talking to people in Spanish.  He promises that I will come out of the next 12 weeks better at Spanish than the other elders that came with me and better at teaching because he says that he won't let me rely on him 100% of the time.  He says that tonight he will let me talk quite a bit and we have two appointments set up for tonight so that should be interesting and fun. CRAZY, but exciting though.  

Just know that life is good.  I am trying to do my best everyday - I love it!  You are all in my prayers and I thank you for yours.

Love,
Elder Mackintosh

This is my awesome trainer Elder Mcbride from Mesa Arizona. 
We are going to do good work here. 

Last MTC Email!

Hola!!

Wow this was such a great last week. To start off, thank you to everyone that thought of me on my birthday and for all of the prayers! I pray for you too. 

So on my birthday I received some packages from home (so that was great already). During class I left to go to the bathroom, and when I returned to the classroom my district had drawn birthday wishes all over the chalkboard, and my teacher had brought hostess cupcakes for everyone to share! Heck yeah!  Then later at dinner my district made me a "cake" which consisted of 7 pieces of toast with nutella between each one, and then a thick coating of nutella on the outside as well! Crazy unhealthy but incredibly good, so I am not complaining. (jaja)  At dinner as well, all 500 missionaries sang happy birthday to me! I always feel awkward in those situations but it was a lot of fun and everyone made me feel like it was a special day. So yeah, It was great! Thanks again.

Side note: some of my favorite things in the entire world are sunsets and sunrises but unfortunately my schedule is just barely off to the point that I miss both of those things by a span of about 15 minutes every single day jaja. so that is one thing that I miss and I am looking forward to occasionaly seeing once I am in NY next week!

I had a pretty cool experience this week with teaching. On Saturdays we teach what is called TRC and that is teaching (usually) members that just volunteer to come, but also we could teach non-members that have been invited by teachers as well. SO, this last week we taught a non-member and it was incredible! So you know how I don't know spanish yet? Well when I am in the lessons, I can speak really well actually! That is a combination of the spirit helping me and the fact that I know gospel topics in spanish really well. (jaja) But besides the language thing... we were teaching a lesson about receiving revelation through the Book of Mormon and it turned pretty powerful. We had to teach the kind sister what revelation was and how she could receive it. I was testifying at the end and said that I knew that she could receive personal revelation and then randomly I felt prompted to bare testimony that God loves her personally and knows her.  When I followed that, she started crying, and then I started crying!  I pointed out that the spirit was in that room and that was the feeling that she had. She loved it!  We invited her to pray that night and study the Book of Mormon for guidance.  She said she would, and I will follow up with my teacher on how that woman is doing! (How is that for the first time teaching a non-member?!) It is one of my favorite experiences so far for sure and it strengthened my testimony a lot about promptings. Loving life and I am so blessed. We all are so blessed.

Another side note: we watched Meet the Mormons and for one thing, seeing NY for a second made me soooo excited and for another thing, that was the first time that I watched the missionary part at the end and didn't cry! Guess I am happier to be here than I was with leaving when I watched it before my mission jaja. 

If you want some good scripture reading this week here are some good ones about faith!!!  Alma chapters 32 and 36 and also Ether 12. These have helped me a lot since I have been here. Love you all and thank you for your support!! 

Love from a 19 year old,

Elder Mackintosh

 The 7 layer Toast Nutella Birthday Cake!

My awesome district!

It's always great to run into a familiar face  - Josh Mortensen from my home town and high school 

...and also Heritage Tours. 

P-Day is Wednesday!

Hola familia y amigos!

My pday is now Wednesday from here on out, so SURPRISE! jaja. Yet another great week here in the Mexico MTC. I leave here in less than 2 weeks now (the 15th) and that is absolutely crazy to me because I feel like I just got here but at the same time I am SO excited to get to NY and start talking to real people about the gospel! I teach even more lessons now because now we do role play lessons with other missionaries from my district and it is amazing to me that even though I know that they aren't actually the person that they are pretending to be, I can feel so much love for them both from myself and from God. I have had so many spiritual experiences already in those lessons and I have been getting better at letting the spirit teach the lesson instead of my companion and myself. Had to say goodbye to a district that I became really close with (two elders in particular that I know I will be friends with after my mission as well) and that was pretty hard to do... but also exciting because that means that my district is the oldest in the zone now and that we are the next ones to head out of here! Awesome! Spanish is coming along nicely, I read some of the spanish that I tried to write my first couple of days and wow I am much much much better now jaja! The Lord has helped me so much and honestly I am not worried about the language. It will come. 

Funny stuff: So back at home to start family night we used to always sing a hymn to bring in the spirit but usually that didn't work because I would just be laughing the entire time from hearing my fathers pretty terrible singing (no offense dad jaja). WELL my companion is like the same as my dad I realized except with less rythm and he thinks that he is really good, so he just sings really loud all of the time! Singing in spanish is already a little bit harder with the rythm because we don't know the language, so having someone with poor rythm already sing it, just makes for a good time! jaja! It is bad because I end up just laughing the entire song and not bringing the spirit in very well but I just don't have the heart to tell him that he is a poor singer and the cause of my laughter jaja.. Love the kid though! He is a great missionary and just an all around great guy. Luckily he will be in my mission as well so I won't have to say goodbye to him (well kinda) in two weeks. 

Life is good though! I read a great talk this morning and would invite anyone wanting to just read something awesome to read it. it is called "The Four Steps on the Stairway to Heaven" by Dan Clark. SO GOOD! Inspiring talk, so please take some time and read it. You will not regret it. 

I just want to share quick testimony that this church is true and that God knows each of us individually and knows what we need. He is just waiting for us to ask him. 

Love you all!

Elder Mackintosh

 My District! 

My companion still doesn't like taking pics with me  - jaja

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.