Week 50: "What We Do in Life, Echoes in Eternity"

Okay just awesome today opening my email.  Because i got news of 3 mission calls!!  How awesome. A shout out to my cuz blake going to Africa.  Thats so awesome and cool!  then my friend Adam going to Australia so cool too!  And lindsay getting her call any day now.  Im proud of all of them. Nothing better than to serve a mission at this time in your life!

I enjoyed reading everyones letters today.  Mom thats game of the Bucks sounded so cool!  I kinda forgot about football  haha  but i miss watching the bucks play and even more when they are winning!  And thanks about the lesson you had on sunday!  Interesting about how the blacks came to have the preisthood, i dont know that much about it!  Dad with your crazy 12 day trip for USANA and thanks for your advice!!  I really liked it;  and yeah i remember the Guzowskis (however you spell it) when i used to play with the daughter my age!

This week was pretty good!  Again my compa and I get along really well!  I feel like he could be brandon or michael because we always make random, wierd noises in the house and in the streets with stupid faces haha its awesome.  And sense we get along really well our teaching is that much better and we can feel the spirit. We are really raising this area more than it has been for awhile!

This week nothing to exciting like the past 2 weeks. We had interviews with president Jordan. It was good and he taught me some new things that im going to put into pratice!  We taught Alfonso on tuesday and he is still going strong like ever.  We could only teach him once last week because he had a lot of work to do in his job.  But guess what?  He came to church again!!!  Woohoo.  And guess what else?  He has read all the way to ! Nefi 12 in 2 weeks.  More than what i read haha  how awesome is that.

We are going to teach him tonight so pray for him!  Oh i just remembered.  In this lesson last week we had him pray at the end the lesson., well we do every lesson, but this time was special.  We had him ask God directly if the things we have taught him are true.  And he did but he also asked about his baptism if he should continue on and when he asked that he like paused for a second and we could all feel the spirit and he tried to go on to finish but he couldnt, he almost started to cry but held it in.  SO he ended the prayer.

It was so powerful prayer.  I have never felt the spirit or see the spirit touching someone time after time like i have with  Alfonso.  He is really prepared  to hear the gospel.  And i feel so blessed to be the person to help him!  The next morning i was thinking about it and just felt so grateful that the Lord is using me to teach His children.  Im so grateful to be here on my mission, what a blessing in my life and it will be for my future family ;)

The mission really turns boys into men.  Yes im saying im a Man now   haha.

What we do in life, echoes through eternity!

Love you all,
Elder David McNamara

Week 49: Cold Day in Mexico, but the Spirit of God Burns Bright

Hey family and friends!

Well this week was the BOMB!  It was really fun and full of adventures.  Tuesday lets just say we had a experience that i thought it would never happen to me.. Starts with E and ends with a M,  Thats all i will say, if you want to know more write me and ill tell you.

Wednesday was the COLDEST day in Mexico history im sure.  It was 4 degrees...celsisis like 40 degrees farehiet!  I was rocking a long sleve white shirt and when it started getting dark we had to go home to put on a sweatshirt!  It was honestly that cold that i need a long sleve shirt and a sweatshirt!  Crazy. The next day was hot like always. haha

Last week i dont know if i told you about the drunk guys that we talked to last sunday. We were walking to a members house and on the way some drunk guy was like HEY!! you come here!  i ignored him like 3 times then i was like what the heck.. lets go talk to them.  SO we talk to them all and stuff and the one that was talking to us was drunk but not so much but his friend Alfonso was drunk out of his mind.  His eyes barley open and about fell down 3 times while we were talking.

So we set up a cita with the mas sober guy and we go on wednesday night. Turns out the direccion he gave us was the house of his friend Alfonso, so alfonso comes out and lets us in. He wasnt drunk at all this time. We start talking and getting to know him and all. Turns out that he actually wants to know more about us and about God.  Because he doesnt believe in God or Christ.  After his grandma died he stopped believing. And her death really affected him.

So we taught him the restoration of the gospel.  And OH MY GOSH, that was the most spiritual lesson i have had in my mission ever!!  My comp and i felt the spirit guiding us and telling us what to say. We bore our testimonies a ton.  We knew that Alfonso was feeling the spirit as well.  At the end of the lesson i felt impressed to bare my testimony about how much God loves us and how Christ lives.  So i did and I havent felt the spirit that strongly in awhile and Alfonso about cried and then my comp bore his testimony too and Alfonso started crying.  It was an amazing lesson.

So we go back on friday night and teach him the Plan of Salvation.  First off we could see a change in him. He did his hair, put on nice clothes and all and a lot better than the first time we taught him. We asked him how it went with reading and praying. He read the chapter we left with him..twice! And another chapter, then he started reading the book of mormon from the title page!! No one does that. It was awesome. And he prayed and all.

SO we teach half of the plan of salvation and near the end i get the impression to talk about baptism. I had no idea how to bring it up all of the sudden. But i tried my best and it worked perfectly. We read in 2 nephi 31 all about baptism.  My comp had no idea what i was doing so i had to teach the whole part with the scriptures.  It was amazing, it was deffinately the spirit guiding me knowing what to say.

The whole time we were talking about each scripture we read i had a thought. "you need to invite him to be baptized" I had a mini battle within myself haha i was a little scared to say it and didnt know how to bring it up and all. So i decide okay ill do it.  So i find a way to do it and i invite him to be baptized "Seguira el ejemplo de jesucristo y sera bautizado por alguien que tiene el sacerdocio de dios?"  He said "Si, yo quier" Yeah i want to. Then i told him we had a date prepared for him on the 28th of deceber, then he is like "Wait, let me check if im free that day" He pulls out his phone and checks then says " Yeah im free that day!" So it looks like we will have a baptism after christmas!!!

One more thing about Alfonso, he came to church yesterday! He got there before we did!! And guess what? He cut his hair, shaved his beard, and took out his lip ring he had. He is honestly changing so much so fast. Its so amazing! Its awesome. Another thing my comp told me after the first lesson with him he said "I have never heard you speak so perfect and clear spanish before" What a testimony right there that the lord really puts the words in your mouth and if he needs you to do something...He will help you do it!

That was the cool experiences this week.  We also taught a lesson this morning, yeah on our p day. We have a new investigator that has a lot of potential!  Do you want to know his name?  Here it is... Tlakayoltonatij ...And no i did not just type random letters even though it looks like that  haha  thats really his name.  Its kinda hard to pronounce it haha

Lets see..about one more month and i get to talk to you all over skype!!!!! OH YEAH im excited to see your faces!! I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder McNamara

PS:

yep that peper is a Habanero peper. I almost died but it was so worth the half peso price

Week 48: One Year to Go! Now Returning Home November 10, 2014 ...Wow!

Hey Guys! hows everyone doing? I hope well.

This week was really good. I have been in a wierd, happy, crazy mood pretty much all week haha  Our area is a little difficult right now.  Honestly no one is there in their houses when we go there, what a coincidense huh?  Its pretty frusterating.  So what else can we do?  Contact people in the street and the houses.

This week I contacted 14 people.  That only the people that I actually had a converstion with, the other people that flat out rejected me and just went back inside i didnt count or can count how many!  HA  So im becoming pretty pro at contacting random people and starting a conversion from nothing and moving it towards the gospel!  Its kinda fun and interesting to learn about the peoples lifes.

Friday the district leader did divisiones with me.  He came to our area to check how we were working and how we can help.  I love my district leader.  He is crazy and so cool.  His name is Elder Marecus and he is from Paraguay.  So all our citas fell through...nothing out of the ordinary.  So we went around looking up referencias and contacting.  SO we go to this one house in the mountains to look up this one person and she wasnt there but her mom was.  And her mom barely spoke spanish.  She speaks the native language here, Nahualt.

So all of the sudden Elder Marecus starts speaking the natvie language asking questions and stuff.  He has been in this area the same time as I, but he learned the other language.  By the way he speaks english, porteguesse, spanish. and some other language.  So that surprised me.  He asked her if she believed in God and if she knew that god loved her.  She said no to both and told us to leave..okay esta bien!  But i learned how to say I know that God lives...Nai mati toteco estok... its a way hard language.

Oh also with my district leader we were talking in the morning about what we did before the mission and stuff and somehow we got to talking about doing backflips and we started practicing them in our house haha We both can do them and I have videos of it haha its pretty cool and crazy.

This week we didnt have any cool lesoons.  Just the normal.  But a service moment.  Ready?  here i go.  So yesterday we were up in one of the mountains in our area going to a cita we had but it fell through.  I had no idea where to go because everything in our agenda fell through so i decided that we where going to go to the other mountain.  SO we had to go down this slope with a few rocks in place as steps but there arent really any.

There were this teenage kids in front of like 16 17 years old laughing and stuff.  then they started to climb the stairs on the other mountain.  By the way the stairs are the worst to climb.  The picture i sent like last week with the stairs and trees and all behind..those stairs.  The teenage kids started to climb them and there was this women in her 40 or 50 with her little daughter beside here.  She was carrying a huge bag of corn on her head!!

I watched to see if the kids were going to help her but nope!  So i ran up the rest of the stairs to help her.  I asked her if i could help her and she didnt say anything, then i said it again but at the same time took the bag off her head...and OH MY GOSH the bag wieghed about 100 pounds!  I about dropped it because i didnt expect it to be that heavey, i mean she was carrying it on her head.  So i carry it down the insane stairs and to her house there in the valley.  Then i asked her if we could past by some day and talk a little bit and she said yes.  But the lesson there is to help people!!  Especially the teenagers these days. ( Im 20 now so ya haha)

Remember the women martha that we taught last week.  We werent able to teach her this week but guess what???  She came to church!!  One of the members in our area past by and brought her to church.  I was so excited that she was there and so happy!  I never thought that someone coming to church would make me so excited and pumped!  haha but she enjoyed everything especially the hyms and i was watching the whole time haha she sat up front.

And she got all emoincioal during the sacrament.  It was awesome!  After she said that the whole meeting she felt an imense peace inside her that she has never felt in her life. That she felt safe, happy, and at ease. What a testimony right there.  Its so awesome and amazing to see others experience the joys of the gospel for the first time in their lifes.  It builts my testimony just seeing it!

This past week has been pretty cold actually.  Or i have gotten used to the crazy hot heat.  But on thursday it rained all day and was cold and i got soaked and was freezing the whole day.  ANd the next day i woke up with a cold haha  Its been really cool in temperature here.  Its nice and i like it!  Just not my annoying running nose.

Thanks for your emails and your love!
I love you all!

Love,
Elder McNamara

PS:

Just so you know i will be home on November 10th of 2014!!
Just a little update for ya.
I will send you a hand written letter next week for your birthday dad!
I promise!  I love you dad
Oh, and I'm a artist with soup haha

Week 47: From Dia de los Muertos to the Resurrection of Christ

How are you guys doing?  I hope great!

This week was pretty well. I really like my new companion Elder Santeliz. He is quiet most of the time and has a soft voice but hes cool. We get along pretty well. He has 9 months in the mission so i have to show him and teach him a few more things. I like it though. I have to talk a lot more and lead around. Like in the lessons and stuff. I like the challenge and I feel a lot more comfotable teaching.

I think I have felt the spirit more this week in the lessons than I have before in my whole mission. Just because I have to rely so much more on the spirit than i have before. Its so cool to be let by the spirit.

I think it just hit me how comfortable I am with Spanish now. I speak well and fast like the people here haha just with an american accent and i can understand everything. Im definately blessed with that.

This week lesson wise was a little difficult. Difficult to find the people in their houses or just know with who we should go with. We went with an investigator that we have that has been taking the lessons from the missionaries for years now.  And we showed up at their house and he was drunk.....we prepared a lesson for him and everything but we didnt teach him obviously because he wouldnt remember it  so we talked a bit and with his son that was there. His son actually seemed interested so we set up a cita and left.

Another day we contacted a reference that Elder Garcia and I recieved like 5 weeks ago.  She is such a sweet lady.  She is in her 50s, she has red hair (like Katie, haha) and is really nice. We sat on her front pourch and started talking about her family and her job and stuff.  And then how she has felt blessed in her life.  She has some really cool stories and she really has been so blessed in her life. I think everyone is!  They just need to take some time and look back and the miracles that have happened.

We started teaching her the resturation.  It was a good lessons but got even better when we started talking about when Cristo was here and about the atonement.  She started crying when we talked about that and shared our testimonys of christ.  Then we shared the Jose smith story and she started crying again when we shared the first vision.  the spirit was just so strong!!  She accepted a book of mormon and said she was going to read it.  We have another lesson with her on friday.  We´ll see how it goes!

Well last night we taught a couple who just had thier baby. And now they are going through problems in their relationship. they are on the point to get married. But they are having fights and stuff and they lack communication between them. Like the guy, Julian, comes home and eats and goes a sleeps and they dont even talk to each other or say i love you or any lovey dovey words towards each other.

So last night I had to be a marriage counsiler for them, because my comp didnt know what to say. I asked them questiones like what did they like first like about each other and what did they do before with one another and questiones like that.

Then i shared with them about Katie! I talked about our relationship and how much we care for each other. because we have the same amount of time together as them. It seemed to help them and we left and they were finally talking to each other!

I never thought that i would talk about katie in a lesson, but i did and it helped them a lot!

So that was my week pretty much! want to hear some gross things i have eaten this week? Im going to rate them with first being the one i kinda liked better to the last being i couldnt stand it one bit.

1st Chicken feet...It actually wasnt to bad a taste, just when it reached my stomache i wanted to throw up
2nd Pig stomache... really really gross! I didnt even chew it, i just swollowed the pieces whole haha
3rd Cow stomache...I tasted it and about threw up on the spot. I refused to eat it!!

So their was my menu for the week. Saturday night i threw up at like 1 in the morning. I felt so sick to the

stomache and it was the worst throw up i have ever had in my life!! Then i threw up again at 6 and i felt like poop the rest of the day and a little today! But i will be all good!

Here's a picture of the Mexican Halloween in the Huasteca!  Here its called Dia de los Muertos or in the native laungue Anauctl its called Xantolo.

I love you all. Have a good week!

Love,
Elder McNamara