Guadalajara: 10/22/12

so the hard times keep rolling here in good ol apatzingan ...haha... i think its funny how situations may not necessarily improve, but amidst all of it we can still remain stoked on what were doing. i love too how the Lord throws in a little thing here and there to keep our batteries full and to help us keep chugging along. 

crusty socks that stand up by themselves hahah

 this past week i had another few little experiences that kind of jump charged my batteries on mission work again you could say ...haha... so i have been thinking a lot of new things that we can do here in apatzingan to bring mision work back to life, as i touched on in the last email, and this week i received some inspiration that not only stoked me and elder nielson up, but also the ward members too! so we've been trying to work with the bishop on making a ward mission plan and put it into practice but it just hadn't been working and so we finally decided to just take matters into our own hands haha. so anyways i made up a ward mission plan, that was actually based off of the HB 3rd wards 2011 mission plan haha, and took that along with a member reference program that i came up with that i decided to call "Apaciente Mis Ovejas" (cheesy i know but whatevs haha) to the ward council this week and i ended up just blowing these peoples minds haha. it was classic but yet so cool being in that room explaining it to them and seeing their faces just be like dang this elder means business haha i'm glad were on his team. they all were stoked on the idea too and more than willing to participate to see more success here. 

the district 

we're going to start to put the new program into practice this week and well i have a feeling that were going to see some great results from it. but i think one of the best results from it was how much it pumped us up as elders here haha. coming out of that meeting we were like new elders showing up in the mission field haha full batteries. because seeing the ward councils reaction to the plans and having their support 100% on top of receiving the revelacion to make the plan and everything was just awesome haha i cant really think of the words to describe how it made me felt. because now with the new plans in place were going to start making mission work a spiritual experience for the members, not just a service opportunity. it invites the members to receive personal revelation in thinking of who to share the gospel with, and then them making the first steps in sharing and teaching the gospel to these people; as opposed to before when we'd get references and come to find out that the people had 0 desires to listen to us or have anything to do with our church haha so its gonna be a big helper for us haha. 

chupacabra cave!

the bishop also asked me to speak in sacrament and share with the ward the plans and all that stuff. my main focus though of the talk wasnt really what the bishop had asked me to speak on haha, because yes i did touch on those things, but it wasnt what i focused on. i decided instead to focus more on helping the members prepare for these new programs. it basically was like a talk that i would give to prospective missionaries, because basically were going to create a little missionary army of the members here in apatzingan haha and so i talked to them as if i was preparing a ward of just future missionaries to be prepared for their mission service. because i feel as though preparation is one of those things that we look over too much in the church haha sometimes we go into things solely on the precept that we will be "given the words to say in that very hour", but yet overlook that we need to "treasure up the words of life continually" which more or less is telling us that for the majority of times the things have to be there first for the Spirit to bring them to our minds, and we need to be prepared for these occasions. it really made me realize how alot of the things that the church teaches are based in the doctrine of preparation haha something i had never really though of before. one thing i asked the members here to do that im also gonna ask all of you to do is to pray for the Lord to prepare you to be a better tool in his hands, that he may be able to fine tune you so that youre ready for whatever he may need you for. and then in addition to praying to be prepared for his work, ask for opportunities to be tested and put your preparation to test. because what good is it asking to be prepared and to be a better disciple of him if we dont have plans of putting it to action haha. 

 this place looks a lot cooler after the rain

and well ya thats the little invitation i leave to all of you out there wherever you may be at reading this letter and i'll be praying for you all that you'll see some great results out of it. and plus because theres really nothing wrong with being over prepared for anything, because really who knows what tomorrow has in store for us. take care everyone, thanks for the love and prayers, and just know that i send plenty of love and prayers right back at you all! have a wonderful and i'll be talking to you all next monday on my birthday! so cool!

much love from mexico,

         Elder Maccarthy