September 12, 2011

Hey everyone!!!

      Thanks for all the emails and everything. Today was an aweosome Pday  we went to the castle it had the coolest view and we were reminded about how many more buildings we still have to go to and knock doors, and about how amazing the beach looks that we can´t go to. The water is so blue here. One day, one day. Hey happy birthday to matt, Logan and Dad. Hope you all had a good one. Dad yours is still coming up but I hope you have a good one. I sent a letter today for you all.

    Well the weather has been cooling down here but it is still super hot out. The people here only come outside after like five when the sun is going down. Or they are all at the beach. It is amazing how many people go to the beach almost everyday. I think I would too If I had a beach that close.

     So we are working really hard to get our investigators to understand that they need to be baptized. We have a bunch that are at the point where they could be baptized right now but they just won´t accept our invitation. It is definitely frustrating but when we look at it from their perspective it is understandable, Two random kids in a shirt and tie that come to their house and tell them they need to be baptized again. Yeah I would be a bit freaked out too. Well everything is still running smooth, pray for victor to stop drinking and pray for the Black people to be home when they tell us they will be. I love you all and know that the church is true no matter where you are in the world.

Love you all.

Elder McGarry

September 5, 2011

wow! that is so awesome that he is going on a mission. i knew he had the potential to shape up. i was worried about Jackson during Jr. high and high school. wondering where he was going to go in life. that makes me super happy. do you think you could get me his address?

well everything is going great here in alicante. we have this man named Victor that has been having  a lot of trouble with alcohol and smoking and the other day we went to his house and he opened the door and we could just see this huge change in him, we knew that something new had happened. So we went inside and he told us that he was done with smoking and drinking and we could tell that he hadn´t had any of that stuff for a while. he has a strong testimony of everything already and it is just so awesome to see his life change. now we are teaching his wife who just got back from ecuador, she doesn´t smoke drink or anything so i think she will just be a matter of time.

    Today we are going to play basketball. i play a lot of soccer and i think i am better at soccer now than i am at basketball. so i thought it would be a good idea to go play some today. everything is going good with the work here. although we are running out of people to teach so this week we are going to work on finding new investigators. we have a lot now but they aren´t really going anywhere so we want to get some fresh people started.

    i don´t think there is anything else that i need in the package so just put whatever in there. i am happy to recieve anything. thanks for all you do mom. oh and while Torie is at college i was wondering if you could maybe call her every now and then or something.

Love you mom

Elder McGarry

August 29, 2011

Well hello my dear family,

This week has been crazy, good, but crazy. We had 4 investigators come to church, it was so good to see them there. We had a guy named victor that we have been teaching for a while now. He has a lot of problems with smoking and drinking. We are trying to figure out a way to help him with these problems, its difficult because he needs to decide to stop doing them. He spends too much money on alcohol and smokes so he is always complaining about the bills that he has to pay that he doesn´t have any money for. So what we tell him is that he needs to use the money he would use for his beer and cigarros to pay for the bills. It just amazes me how many problems there are from breaking the word of wisdom. Not only health, but money is a big loss from it too. I can´t believe how many people here smoke, probably 1 out of 100,000 don´t smoke, and that is me and the other missionaries. If any one in the family ever decides to try a smoke or a drink, I will slap them. Keep that in mind, you will be Mitch slapped and it won´t feel good. So anyways I have seen a lot of change in the life of victor, he is wanting to know about Christ, the only problem he has is the word of wisdom, So pray for him that he will have the desire to stop drinking and smoking.

Also, we have a baptism set for the 17^th of September, we are hoping that all is going to work out. Juan Carlos decided that he wants to be baptized on the first of October, so we are going to try and make it a little bit sooner for him. All is going well in Alicante. Me and elder forrest are trying to focus on getting new investigators. So we are working with faith and asking the lord to put people in our path day to day. I am already half way through the transfer which is absolutely crazy to think about. So all in all everything is going smooth. Thanks for all the emails and support. I love you all.

ELDER McGARRY

August 22, 2011

Hello!

Well i have some super good news!!! I now have one baptism on my record!!! We are trying to figure out how to download the pictures to a computer here, if not I will have them printed and sent out to you. Everything went well with the baptism. Her name is Sandra and She was baptized by her husband Santiago. It was awesome. We have three more dates of baptisms, a girl named lina ( the daughter of Sandra) is on the 3^rd of September and a black couple ( Jennifer and Christopher) are on the 17^th of September, happy birthday dad, if those two work out then it will be your birthday present.

That was about the only thing that happened this week. We are just cruising around Alicante trying to find new people to talk to and teach. I did spend one day with another elder in Elche, Elder Hamilton, Elche is definatley a lot cleaner of a city but I feel more like I belong in Alicante right now. It is super hot and where ever we go the topic of the discussions are always started by the frase ( Que Calor!) so then we just talk about how much I sweat and then we teach a lesson and leave. Pretty routine. I am hoping for some rain sometime soon but I haven’t seen a cloud yet so I don´t think it is coming very soon. Well I love you all and thanks for the emails.

Love Elder McGarry

August 22, 2011

Hello!

Well i have some super good news!!! I now have one baptism on my record!!! We are trying to figure out how to download the pictures to a computer here, if not I will have them printed and sent out to you. Everything went well with the baptism. Her name is Sandra and She was baptized by her husband Santiago. It was awesome. We have three more dates of baptisms, a girl named lina ( the daughter of Sandra) is on the 3^rd of September and a black couple ( Jennifer and Christopher) are on the 17^th of September, happy birthday dad, if those two work out then it will be your birthday present.

That was about the only thing that happened this week. We are just cruising around Alicante trying to find new people to talk to and teach. I did spend one day with another elder in Elche, Elder Hamilton, Elche is definatley a lot cleaner of a city but I feel more like I belong in Alicante right now. It is super hot and where ever we go the topic of the discussions are always started by the frase ( Que Calor!) so then we just talk about how much I sweat and then we teach a lesson and leave. Pretty routine. I am hoping for some rain sometime soon but I haven’t seen a cloud yet so I don´t think it is coming very soon. Well I love you all and thanks for the emails.

Love Elder McGarry

August 15, 2011

Hey

Life is so great on the mission. I have some good news for this Saturday, so we were at this house eating on Sunday, in this family the only member is the dad, he is married and has 2 daughters, one is 16 the other 4. so while we were eating, the wife of this man just flat out says ¨I want to get baptized this Saturday!¨ I about jumped out of my seat. Wow! So we are setting up an interview to make sure that she is ready. But that was just an awesome experience!

I am starting to understand Spanish a lot more. There are still a lot of people that everything they say just goes straight over my head. But other than that everything is going great with the language.

Today we went to an activity with the ward up in the mountains about an Hour from here. It is called Castalla if any of you want to look it up. It is muy bonita so I took a lot of pics. I am going to send a card home soon so you can be updated on pictures. Me and elder forrest have been working hard and the lord is blessing us with people. One good thing I learned this week is the importance of service. We were helping this lady and her ten year old son with a giant grocery bag, then we got stuck in the elevator at their apartment and then we taught them a lesson, all because we helped them with their groceries.

I learned another thing also, if you and your companion are always doing the right thing the lord will protect you. We were going to church and some one threw an egg at us and it seriously missed us by inches. So cool! Miracles happen all the time. Sometimes it takes me a few days to realize them but they are happening everywhere.

The church is true and I know the book of mormon brings the truth of our church. If you read the book of mormon, you will know without a doubt that the church is true. Moroni says it better than I do. But I am seeing this book change the lives of people here in Spain. My mission is going by fast. I can´t believe that I have almost been out 4 months. Wow

Well I love you all

Love

Elder McGarry

August 8, 2011

Hey everyone, so all our baptisms have failed us, but that is okay. We are working hard and trying to find new people to teach. We have two more dates for baptisms one is on the 20^th of this month and the other is on the 3^rd of September and they seem to be going a lot more smoothly than the other ones that we had.

So this week has been really awesome, I had my first Zone Conference, Pres. Clegg is so awesome. I left that conference feeling like I could do anything. It was an awesome experience. The work here in Alicante is going smooth and there is a lot of help from the members here. We just had another transfer and me and elder forrest are still together so we have at least another 6 weeks here in Alicante. That was good news because elder forrest knows Alicante a lot better than I do. It is pretty crazy how they do transfers they just call you tell you where you are going and then 3 days later you are gone to that place wherever you are going. It is almost like getting your mission call over again because every place we can go here is so different than the other. I love it here in Alicante and I am not ready to leave yet apparently me and elder forrest have some unfisished work we need to get done.

Mom I got your package and my asthma is fine. I was wondering if in your next package you could send me a three ring binder. Just a small one. I need to organize my papers here but they don´t have three ring binders. They have four ring binders. They are just trying to one up America. But that is okay we have Dr. Pepper and Reeses on them .

I really do love spain this place is filled with people from all over the world and I am just feeling my testimony increasing every day. I love the people we are teaching and just want to help them change their lives for the better.

Well I love you all

Hasta la proximo lunes

Elder McGarry