Thank you all so much for the emails and the news about all the missionaries preparing to enter the field! Please pass my love on to all of those guys and if they have time tell them to drop me a line or two! I am sooo excited to watch the new stream of Elders and Sisters enter the mission field armed and dangerous! That is a line our mission is using knowing that the Lord is arming his missionaries with the tools and the traits they will need to really be amazing missionaries! We start to see the new missionaries start to come in mid February or so. We are so excited!
Peggy is doing ok. She set a date for baptism with us but is really struggling with the idea that she has to get baptized again. She was pretty offended when she heard that we don't recognise her baptism as by the proper authority. She is praying really hard about it and trying to get an answer. She is struggling with the WOW and had to be living it by last night to have the date go through. She didn't come to church either so we are a little worried about her. She didn't answer her phone this morning when we tried to call and schedule appointments so we will see how all that goes.
We are super excited to start teaching a new girl named Colby. (yes like the cheese!) She is a Filipino girl who is 19 and has a less active mother who has been coming to church for the past few weeks. She is very interested and wishes that I spoke Tagalog because she said that would be fun to take the lessons in her native tongue. Dang Cebuano! hahaha I can understand her when she talks to me but she can't understand when I reply. It was something that she had in common with us though so that really broke the ice well. We talked a lot about the Philippines and about my experience there. She enjoys reading the bible but never really felt like the catholic church was for her. She made the decision that Saturday coming up after finals that she was going to really investigate the LDS Church and then make a decision from there. She is as Golden as Golden investigators get we think. We will see how everything goes, but we are preparing to set a date with her for the first of the year! The Lord has blessed this area soo much and we are so excited that he has allowed us to be the missionaries that were here at this time. We have no idea how long we will be together but we went on exchanges with the zone leaders last week and they said that the spirit that is in our apartment and our companionship is night and day from our first transfer together! That was so good to hear because we have really been working on our relationship and helping each other to grow and to progress. Thank you all so much for the prayers and the support! We really felt them.
Tyler Heath is still doing so well! He has yet to miss an hour of church since he was baptized and is really enjoying it. He is going to be given a few families and a companion for home teaching and you should have seen the joy that came into his face when he found out that he was going to get to go and teach people like the missionaries do! We talked to him about maybe serving a mission but he is really attached to his family and gets really home sick. We talked to him about a service mission in the area and to not give up on the idea of it. He liked the idea of serving people and teaching them but not having to leave home so in a year that may be what he does! We have seen such a change in that young man it is amazing! We are so blessed to have been here to watch this transformation!
Christmas is around the corner and the Lord is prepared to give us the gifts that we need and ask for. Are we all prepared to give the Lord the gifts that he deserves? Our family has been so blessed the past year and a half from the time that Kailei left for her mission. I feel like we all need to pay him back for the things that he has given us and so my challenge to you all is to think about all the things that the Savior has done for you personally, and then to think of what you are going to do or what gift you are going to give the savior! He gave his life for us that sacred night in the garden and on the cross. The least that we could do is to serve him and to be the best we can be. Look around for those that are less fortunate than we are and do something kind for them. What ever it may be start thinking today what you would like to give the Lord for Christmas. I am so very blessed to first of all be alive and second of all to be back in the mission field. I have been through a lot of struggles and hardships but through out it all the Lord has carried me through the worst of it and has supported me through the times that I needed to grow! I am so thankful for the opportunity that he has given me to stretch and to grow. I would not be the person that i am today if it was not for the challenges and the struggles i have been through. I would still be the same old kid that i was in high school. I have such a testimony of this Gospel and love it so much. I wish that I could say that I was always faithful and that I never questioned it. But even through all those questions and all those trials I have come to know for myself that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only true Gospel on this earth! Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God and through the things that he went through we are able to be free from the bands that Satan has placed in our paths. We have the fullness of the Gospel at our finger tips! Please take advantage of that and do everything in your power to receive the blessings that come from this church! I want you all to know how much I love and miss you. But I know that even though we are miles and miles away, we are all together through our faith in Christ! It binds us together and makes us strong! Stay true to the faith and remember the true meaning of Christmas is my prayer and testimony!
With all my love,
Elder Mackay Dale Shelley
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