6-24-13

Dear Family,

This has been a great and crazy week! Honestly don't even know where to start with this email. I guess I will just start with a congratulations to Kailei and Brad for their wedding, and thank you to all of the people who helped make that day super special for them! The card board cut out of myself looked pretty dang good if I do say so myself! hahaha I also send my thoughts and prayers to everyone as they prepare for Grandpas funeral. I am so thankful for the life that he lead and for the understanding that we are able to have that he still lives and that he is in a better place. Doesn't make it any easier, but at least we can hold strong to those beliefs! As I watched the broadcast on Sunday, I was very moved by the fact that President Monson said that he had been really having a hard time with the loss of his wife! I don't think anyone came up to President Monson and told him that he needs to get happy or that he needs to get over it and have more faith in the plan of Salvation. It was an answer to prayers for me that even the prophet of God struggles with the loss of a dear loved one. So for all the family who may have had some people get down on you for grieving the loss, don't let them get to you! We have a testimony of this Gospel, but it still hurts! I am just so thankful that at the end of the day, we are still able to have all of our memories, and to be able to know that we will be with him again in just a short time. 

Speaking of the Broadcast, what an inspired and uplifting experience! I hope that as many members as possible were able to go and to feel loved and supported by our great quorum of the the 12 and other leaders of the church. As I sat and watched that historical broadcast, I was inspired to become a better missionary! I don't consider myself lazy by any means, but at the same time there is soooo much more that I could be doing. I was so impressed by the story of Scott and the boldness that Elder Perry explained that he had.  For a young 20 year old missionary in today's age to be compared to the sons of Mosiah is amazing! I was so motivated by that comment and have rededicated myself to talking to anyone and everyone on the street! As we have been out in down town of San Francisco, it blows my mind how many people we see each day each minute! Ha Mesa is nothing compared to even the smallest city out here in this mission. We are small town living compared to what I have seen this past week. I have seen crazy people wearing some crazy things! (Don't ask!) Poor Elder Santiago... He cried the first night that we got back to the apartment after being out in down town! He lives in a very very small town in the Philippines, and grew up on a small little rice farm. He had never seen anything like what we saw out there that night. He has since adapted to the culture I think, but I have to keep a close eye on him. Haha I don't know how many times I have had to grab his arm and pull him along with me tell him not to stare at different things that go on out there. Saturday though we went out to the pier out by Alcatraz and we started seeing some amazing blessings! We got off the Bart (Mesa light rail type thing) no more then 30 seconds off the Bart we were approached by a man who said that he was a member and that he had a daughter out on a mission. We talked for a few minutes, and as he walked away, another lady came up to us and told us that she was sooo thankful to see two white shirts and ties out in down town! She said that she had been praying to see missionaries out there for months and that we were an answer to prayers. We had a group of young ladies that came up to us and said that they were members and that we needed to teach the friends that they were with. ha the friends were just as shocked as we were and kinda just shuffled away, but man was it an amazing experience! Every where we turned we were being thanked for being there or meeting less actives and giving referrals. We didn't find any Filipino people, but we sure did hand out a ton of cards and pamphlets to white people! This work is taking off and we are so blessed to be apart of it.

Me and Elder Santiago have made a deal that I am going to turn him into a powerful and bold missionary if he will teach me the language asap! I haven't learned a thing really yet and it has been so hard for me to switch from Cebuano to Tagalog. But we are excited to have our deal and our new goals that we have set! We are working so hard. I have never been as tired as I have been the last three days ever on my mission. We have been basically running from place to place and trying to get used to the new areas. What an adventure we are having!

Our investigator pool now that we have split the area is very very low. We only have one investigator at this point... Her name is Sister Amporias, and at this point is not very solid. I have faith that she has great potential, but at the same time, we are worried that she is going to drop us here in a week or so. We keep praying for her and studying for her in hopes that we will be able to keep her around. We are really hoping that we are able to find new investigators as the time goes on.

We were very blessed on Tuesday to be able to go and have dinner with the Sudweeks family. They came all the way from Brentwood to take us to dinner. Haha I didn't realize how terrible I looked in the picture I sent home the other week at Wendy's... I guess I scared Sister Sudweeks a bit and so Brother Sudweeks wanted to come take us to dinner. The zone leaders gave the ok, and so it was awesome to be able to spend the time with them. I was able to talk with Brayden for a bit and to catch up on how things are going with him and all his auto stuff. He will be up in BYU Idaho in January, and so I hope to be able to go and visit him and Elder Garver when I get home, maybe going and spending a few days with Aunt Kim and the family! I was very thankful to be able to spend that hour with them, because Brother Sudweeks has a spirit about him that is just addicting! Honestly just being in the same room with him for an hour made me feel so much better! He was able to share a few words of advice and council with me that helped a bunch too. I will always be indebted to this family for their love and kindness! 

My mission sure is going great! I love this work so much. The more the leaders talk about hastening the work and all these great changes that are going to be taking place, I just wish that I could be a missionary forever! It was a great feeling, cause I have been a bit trunky this past week with all the things going on and with the news of Grandpa. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for the funeral or a part that you would like me to type out. I think the funeral is this coming week, so it's probably to late. But in Grandmas letter I sent last week there are a few more stories and a few more thoughts that I shared with her. Ha mom sure got a surprise when I told her about the reasons for me ditching school. Ha guess momma doesn't know everything! I honestly thought for sure that we were caught a few times as I was driving away and saw grandmas van coming down the other way! Haha They probably knew something was up, but I am just so glad that I was able to share those memories with Grandpa. President sure did laugh hard at a few of the stories I told him. Talking about all the years picking oranges and the most recent time with him and his walker telling me to get up in the tree. I'm not sure if I told this one last email, but he would always tell me that I was picking the small ones! Ha I looked down at him holding on to that walker and told him that if he was going to complain about the once I picked then for him to get up in the tree and get them himself! Ha I had to be careful what I said though, cause honestly he was the type of man that would have tossed the walker to the side and climbed right up there with me! Ha great times great times! 

Well I am off to watch the zone play football... My back is still really stiff and sore and I have promised two doctors I would take it easy!.. (Think that will stop me from playing for a bit?! My cleats are in the car just in case. Never was one to keep my promises to doctors when sports were involved. I can see mom shaking her head saying that she has no sympathy for me!=P) 

  

I hope everyone knows just how much I love you and how much I appreciate your love and support for me through the past few weeks. I have really come to love prayer and the scriptures as those were the only things that I could turn to for peace. Of course the Savior was right there though ready to help and support me through these hard times. I am doing so much better though now, and just need to get back into my exercises to work off all the fast food that I turned to to fill in the empty spaces I was feeling. Haha it filled in a lot more then just the empty spaces I'll tell ya... But I hope that there isn't even a shadow of a doubt in any ones mind that I KNOW that this is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! I am so blessed to be a missionary at this time of the world. I have seen so many blessings as we have been diligent and have worked hard even through the hard times. I love what I do. I love the scriptures. We had another experience the other day where we had to stand our ground and support Joseph Smith. I have no idea where some people get some of their material. Actually I do. Just like in the Book of Mormon times, the Gadianton robbers are just as real as they have ever been, and satan is still at the head of that organization. I have seen and been faced with some really out spoken people the past month of my mission about their beliefs and about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. My testimony has just become stronger and stronger though as we stand up for what we believe and don't allow people to make us look dumb. Like the promise in the scriptures, if you follow the commandments and do what your supposed to do you will not be confounded before men! This work is true! It has been and always will be. There will be people who try to stand in its way, but will find very quickly that they are about to get ran over with the speed of growth that is about to happen. I hope that everyone is feeling this great spirit and that they have jumped on the potato truck and are ready to help us missionaries! We can't do it without you. We will fail, even in our huge new numbers, if the members do not step up and have our backs with people to teach. Please help the missionaries. Fill their planner with affective activities and then be there to help them accomplish their tasks and teach their investigators. I love being a missionary, but let me tell you, I am just as excited about being a member missionary when I get home. There really is beginning to be no difference other then the tag between the two. This work is moving forward at great speeds. Please be there to get on board when the opportunity comes your way. I love you all so much and will be on again next week to email again! Thanks again for all that you do. I love being able to contact you each week!

Much love,

Elder Shelley

pictures: 1. Wishing Brad and Kailei well
              2. Rocking the wedding tie

6-16-13

Dear family and friends,

I'm not sure where to even start! I'm not totally sure that everyone that I email is aware, but I got word this past Friday from my Mission President that my Grandpa had passed away. This came as a complete shock to me, and honestly it hurt pretty bad.. ok it hurt really bad! I am not totally sure how, but I was able to call home and talk to my family that night and check up with everyone. Everyone is doing ok, at least as well as we could be dealing with the fact that we had just lost the man that we were all so very close to. Just a quick update on how I am doing, is a LOT better today then I had been this past two days. I don't think I slept much or at all Friday or Saturday. I tried to talk to my companions about how I was feeling, but they really didn't understand, and I think that it was so awkward for them, that they just kept changing the conversation and talking about something else. I didn't know where else to turn, so I called Elder Siegel in the other San Fran zone and tried to go out there to see and talk with him. He was busy all day with lessons and didn't have time, so I was left to my own thoughts and feelings that weren't doing anything but causing pain and heart ache. President finally called me that night to see how I was, and when he realized how hard it was for me, he made plans to come to our ward on Sunday and to sit down with me during Sunday school and talk it out. I had been asked to speak in sacrament meeting, and my topic was fathers and the examples that I had at home!. That was not coming together at all, cause the only thing that I could think about was Grandpa and it hurt so bad to even think about it, that I couldn't prepare. I have never prayed so hard in my life I don't think as I have the past few days. I knew that I needed God and I needed Christ to really get through this time! Like President had told me, he said you need to take your time to mourn. Cry! Punch your pillow! Do whatever you need to do to be able to get out the anger or the feelings that you are feeling, and then PRAY! You need to hit your knees and beg for the spirit to be able to get through to you! You need to be able to teach and do your missionary work, without loosing your great memories of your Grandpa! I found myself praying all day long. I never really stopped. I couldn't or things would just get harder and harder. So Sunday President came to church to hear me talk. Elder Packer of the quorum of the 70 actually came also to see how I was and to hear my talk. He told me that I did a heck of a job, and that he was actually worried to follow it and have to share a few words! Isn't that cool?!?! I thought that it was a great compliment especially since I could barely talk through my whole talk. Well afterwards, President sat me down with Sister Meredith and told me that he wanted to hear all about Grandpa! It took me a while to be able to calm myself and to be able to tell him a few stories. I told him all about how we would bowl together and how he would swear, but that Grandma would always get mad at him! Then he would just swear under his breath thinking that we couldn't hear him! hahaha WE COULD! I told him about how he always wanted to take us kids to Wendy's whenever we would go out for our birthdays! ha I told him how when I was in little league grandpa tried to teach me how to throw a curve ball, but taught me wrong! I told him about all the times we went and picked oranges, and how the most resent time we went, I had to drive and pick, but he followed with his walker and told me that the ones I was picking were to small! Haha I told him "Grandpa if your going to complain about my oranges, you get up in this tree and pick them!" Then he would laugh that old laugh that we all remember and tell me that he wouldn't want to show me up in tree climbing! Haha I don't think Grandma even knows this next one, but when I was a senior in high school, Grandpa would call me during class and tell me that Grandma had just left to go shopping or to the church or something and that she would be gone for at least an hour. He would tell me to go to Wendy's and get him a frosty or to Lenny's and get him a root beer float! I would then jump the fence and ditch school to go in my truck to get us a treat! He always made me take the evidence with me though, cause no matter where we would hide things, Grandma always found it! So I would take the cups and throw them away at school once I got back. That was with out a doubt one of my favorite memories of Grandpa, that I don't think anyone even knew until right now. Haha No wonder I had such bad grades! I  was always at Grandpas eating ice cream! It's a wonder that we never got caught. Knowing mom and Grandma though, they probably knew!

I have been studying my scriptures the past few days on the plan of salvation, and have found some really amazing scriptures that have helped me not get over it, but to be able to deal with it better! I don't think I ever want to get over it fully, but I do want to be able to feel peace. I made a video this morning, for the cousins that I am trying to figure out how to send to you! What I may have to do, is have a member upload it to you-tube, and then send you the link and then just delete the video once I know you have watched it. I would like all the cousins to get together and watch it. I really have put a lot of time into it, and I think that it may help a little bit. I have one that I am trying to get to Kailei and Brad also, but the video files are to large. I may have to put them on dvds and them over night them to you if its not to much. We will see what I can do. Keep checking your emails the next few days, and see if I send you a link to something. It may just come in the mail the next few days. 

Honestly with all the trainings that Elder Peralta has had to go to becoming a new trainer, and the past few days with me not really being able to focus and work, the work hasn't been super great this week. We did have three investigators come to church which is great, and we are looking to set a few new baptismal dates this week if we can get in with them! It has been a rough week, but man has it been a revelatory week for me. I have come closer to the savior this week then ever before! I hope that everyone is doing ok, and that you are all staying close to each other. That is the only way to make it! I wish that I could be there with you all, but please know that I am there in spirit. Saturday night I was fully prepared to tell President that I wanted to just come home 6 months early, and be there to help support the family. But as I was preparing for my talk on Sunday and thinking about Grandpa and all the memories I had with him, I knew that that would be the biggest disrespect that I could do to him and his name! He would want me to stay and finish strong! I am so glad that I changed my mind set and got the spirit back with me, because Sunday after church we found the man that Grandpa was talking about that he saw in a dream!!! Ha I know that we all laughed and had no idea what he was talking about, but when he said that he had dreamed that there was a man looking for us, and that we needed to be ready to teach him he was serious! A very nice Native American man came into the church yesterday and told us that he had been looking for where the church was for the past month or so. He had looked at the church a few weeks ago, but didn't think it was the right place because we didn't have a cross on the church. He finally decided to come in and just ask if anyone knew where the mormon church was. We were standing right at the door when he walked in! We sat down right then in an open class room and taught him for like 2 hours!!! He had so many questions, but is very very interested. He is worried that he is not going to be able to keep his Navajo culture if he joins the church, but we are working with him to see what is ok that he does and what is not. His name is Sam Yazzie and he is actually from one of the Reservations in Arizona! We hit it off like right away, because I told him that Grandma Shelley had served on one of the Reservations. We talked a lot about the culture and about the spirit that he felt in the church! I am so glad that I was able to get the spirit back in me asap because if I hadn't, maybe the Lord wouldn't have put that man in our paths! Grandpa was so right when he told us that there was a man who was looking for us! I think we may have just found him too! 

I love this Gospel so much! I love you all as well. Thank you for the prayers that have gone out to my family in this time of need. We have really needed them, and will continue to need them. Please understand, and know that I have a very strong testimony of the Plan of Salvation! I understand that Grandpa is still here around us and that this is a time to try to celebrate his life and all the great memories that we were able to share with him. Take the time to mourn for him! It is needed and the thing to do, but be prepared to hit your knees and ask Heavenly Father to strengthen you and to help you through it! It is nothing but easy! I thought that it would take a lot longer for me to get ok with it then it did. But I truly believe that Grandpa helped me to feel comfortable. Tears still come to my eyes so easily. I cry in every prayer in every lesson, and anytime we talk about the plan of salvation. Our members and investigators have been so amazing about it though! They have truly been a strength to me and have helped me through this tough time! I am so thankful to have a mission president who would travel an hour to get to me and to let me tell him all the amazing stories about Grandpa! He gave me a blessing that changed my life too! He really loves us as missionaries and even told me that he would claim me as his son if given the choice! He told me how proud he is of me, and he said that I am a lot stronger then he would have been. He has really helped me through a tough time! I love my savior! I love that his atonement makes up for all the unfairness of life! His perfect atonement is the thing that made it possible for us to be an eternal family! I love this gospel so much! I love the temple and the fact that Grandpa and Grandma were able to get sealed those years ago and that we can know that they will be together with us all again! My heart goes out to our family and to Grandma especially! Please watch over her and make sure she knows how much I love her and that 7 months is going to fly by then I'll be there to help out again! The Savior lives! Grandpa lives! Grandpa is teaching the gospel now probably even better then I am. May we all live by his example and continue in faith in such a mighty work as this! Shall we not go on in so great a cause?! With all my love and prayers!

Love,
Elder Mackay Dale Shelley

ps the picture of course is of me at Wendy's in Grandpas memory of all the great times and memories that we shared!

San Fran district

6-13-13

Dear Friends and Family!

Just got back from one of the best Temple sessions I have ever attended! I wish that I could explain why, but that wouldn't be ok haha. Just know that this work truly is a revelatory work as I have said before- I really felt the spirit and really was inspired and received some very needed answers to my prayers. I have been working very hard on a sanctification process that we have been doing in our zone. We have really been focusing on the fact that the work of the Lord truly is being hastened, and that if we don't continue to sanctify ourselves, we are not going to be able to be used by the Lord. Part of this process has been going through our mission lives and picking out a few things that we need to either stop doing, or start doing! I was actually pretty discouraged when I first prayed about what I need to stop doing, and made the list- it was HUGE!!! I knew that it was going to be a long list, but I had no idea about all the things that I need to stop or give up to really be able to be prepared for the Lord to take over! I have made the decision that I was going to take half of the list, and take the next three months to work on, and then after that take the last three months of my mission to work on the second half. I have been working on this list for the past two weeks or so, and let me tell you, I have never been happier! I have seen so many blessings and so many miracles in my own personal life that you can't even imagine! The scripture that says "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise!" That is sooo true! I'm not saying that I was doing anything to make me unworthy or bad, but I have a few things that I need to fix to make me more prepared for the work of the Lord! It honestly has been fun to really have to dig down and work to change the things that I need to change. Through it, my studies have gotten better, my prayers have gotten so much more heart felt, and my all around spirituality has just gone through the roof! I am so blessed to be able to say that the Lord knows me and that he loves me! We have been working on this as an entire zone, and we have seen so many blessings that we had been needing for quite some time. The Lord knows us individually and is willing to help us and bless us, but we need to do the things that he needs us to do first. I am so excited about all of the new missionaries that are coming into the field, because as we went to the new missionary training, there are some really powerful missionaries that have entered the field. Most of the most impressive ones, are the sisters! They blew me away with their testimonies and their desires! I told President after the meeting that we sure are blessed to be able to be getting all the sisters that we are. By September of this year, we are going to have over half our missionaries be sisters! Which is going to make over half our elders be either District leaders or Zone leaders! It is so amazing to be watching all of these changes be happening! I am super blessed to be one of the leaders, who get to train the new missionaries that come in! We are seeing such improvements in our mission, that you couldn't even imagine the difference in the spirit that you can feel! I am so excited for Ryker and all of those young men who have made the choice to serve! They will never regret the decision to serve. We always tell our youth out here this. "You will never regret serving a mission, but you may regret not serving!" That is something that I can bear testimony of! I have never regretted serving, but let me tell you I really would have regretted if I hadn't come back out! This mission is the one that has changed me through and through!!! I LOVE missionary work! I loved serving in the Philippines, but this mission is the one that has really helped me to raise my vision. It's probably just because I have served here longer and I understand most things that are said to me, but I have matured in ways that I can't even tell you! I  am getting closer and closer to the man I want to be every day! I still have a long way to go, but I finally feel like I am getting closer.

Our investigators are really starting to do well. We had four at church this past Sunday and that was amazing! We found two new investigators, and one of them is really solid. She says that she has been searching for the true church for years and that she just wants to be able to feel the spirit at church. She said that she isn't sure if what she felt at church was the spirit, but that she hasn't felt what she felt there before. She will come to find very soon that that really is the spirit! We are so excited for her. She is going to go far! Her name is Lourdes. Haha I think I spelled that right! She is an older lady that lives with her daughter who works like 24/7, and so she feels very alone. Our church is really going to be good for her. She has already made some really good friends, and is doing very well. We are very sad to say that Johanna is not going to be getting baptized anytime soon. Her parents will not allow her to. They are born again Christians, and are very die hard with it. They were actually pretty upset when they found out that she wanted to get baptized. They gave her the permission to meet with us, because they thought that she would realize how wrong we were, and then just back away. So that fell through. Her mom is now living in the states with her, and so we are hoping that maybe we will be able to meet with her and her mom and be able to help her mom see why Johanna wants to be baptized. Who knows, maybe this will be a blessing in the end, and we will be able to convert both her and her mom! We have been really praying and fasting for them and so we shall see what happens. We haven't seen either of them for about a week and a half now, so its been kinda tough.  Please keep them in your prayers!

Well guys we have got to get going! We are going to go and play some pool at a place just down the street from our house. Neither Elder Peralta or Elder Santiago have ever played pool and so we are excited! Thank you all for all of your prayers and your love for me. I pray for you every day every time I pray! Happy Fathers day to all of you amazing fathers out there. I can honestly say that I owe a very special Fathers day wish to many many men in my ward and in my life in general! I wouldn't have been on a mission today if it wasn't for all of you amazing friends and leaders out there who have kept me in line and have helped me through the hard times of life! I owe my dad the biggest Fathers day wish of all though! He is my biggest inspiration! I pattern my life every day afters his. I have yet to meet a man in 20 years who is more loving and supportive then my dad! Ha- he has been so patient with me, and has loved me when any other dad probably would have kicked me to the curb. ha- I have actually had people who have told me that they would have just shown me the door and kicked my butt on the way out. But he never gave up on me! He may not have supported the choices that I was making, but he was always there to help me through the hard times and love me through them! He is my best friend now, so happy Fathers dad pop!

I have a testimony of this Gospel and this work as I hope you all know! It has changed who I am and I am so happy about the changes! I don't ever wont to go back to being the person that I was. I have been blessed to be able to see a bigger picture of life and what I can get out of it! I love the Book of Mormon! I finished it cover to cover for the 5th time on my mission! I have a goal of two more times, and so I have got some reading to do! Ha- if Sister Dairman was to read that, she would probably die in the spot to hear me say that I am reading anything! But I have come to love the scriptures! I LOVE the temple and can't wait to be able to get back to the Mesa temple to do work there! It is truly a blessing to have the house of the Lord as close as we do! Thanks again for everything! I am about out of time, so I need to get this off! Love you all and hope to hear from you soon!

Love,

Elder Shelley

6-3-13

Dear Family and Friends,

Well this week has been a crazy one! We have been working like crazy and finally were able to get our lessons up about 7! We had been teaching 7 lessons every week since we had gotten here, and just couldn't seem to get over that hump. We even got to 7 last week by Friday, and then had every single lesson cancel or fall through for the rest of the week. It was nuts. This week we were able to get to 11 which doesn't seem like much, but it was a huge jump for us. We were able to get in with a few of the less active people in the ward and really got to be able to meet with a few key focus families! The work out here in Daly City has started to get going strong!

We found a new investigator this week from the formers list that we had in the area book. Our area book is a joke, but we have been working to clean it up. We have probably over a hundred former investigators, and so that is great to be able to go through those and see if any of them are interested again or if they have any friends that are. Kenneth is the name of the man that we found. He is the uncle of one of our recent converts, and seems to have a pretty good decider to get going in the church. He has quite a few issues with the Word or Wisdom, and we have a feeling that he may be gay also. That is a pretty big problem among the Filipino men both here and in the Philippines. We are going to talk to him about it and see just what is going on there. We are hoping that he is not and that if he is that he does not act upon the feelings and be able to start progressing in the gospel. He is a very very good singer and actually sings semi professionally. He is more of a volunteer right now, but he is really trying to get his name out there to the different groups around and to get everything moving forward. I am excited to be able to have a new investigator though. We have been trying so hard lately to get in with people that it is a HUGE blessing to be able to start to strengthen our teaching pool. 

Elder Santiago is really starting to be a good missionary. He has always been a great missionary, but he has now really started to get comfortable and to be able to share his thoughts and feelings with others and to let the ward members get to know him. He is going to really go far in this work as long as he continues to progress like he is. Elder Peralta is amazing as usual! He never stops amazing me with the knowledge that he has and with the love that he has for the gospel. He works so hard, and really has to hold his own in this companionship because I don't speak the language! I know just enough that I can make the people think that I speak it, until they rattle off this huge sentence and I look at them like Elder Calhoon did in the Best Two Years! Some times I even wonder if they are speaking Tagalog or another dialect that they know. Elder Peralta just laughs and tells me that they are speaking Tagalog and to keep working on it. They are very understanding though and have been helping me a lot. It is nothing like Cebuano though which is tough cause I have been mixing up words like crazy. I don't want to loose my Cebuano, cause it's actually better now then it was in the Philippines! But I am afraid that I will have to just let it go if I want to learn Tagalog and the sentence structure. It's all good though. Things are going to come together I am sure. 

I got the opportunity to be able to go on a 24 hour exchange with Elder Makaya in his area last week. He is doing sooooo well. His teaching skills have gotten so much better, and he is really loved by those members out there. I know that the members out in Brentwood really enjoyed him also, but he seems to really have stepped out of his comfort zone in this area and is really doing well. They are struggling to find as are we, but they are keeping their heads up, and are really doing what the Lord wants them to do. I am very pleased with the district and with the work that is happening out here. The Zone Leaders were talking to me the other day and were saying how pleased they are with the increase in numbers that has happened and with the spirit that they are feeling in the zone with all the changes and new missionaries that have come in. We have really been blessed out here to be able to work hard and to receive some really needed blessings.

  

I was finally able to get the MRI stuff all figured out. It took WAY to long, but it is going to happen tomorrow. We are hoping that it's just a muscle thing and not a disk issue. I'm not too sure if President knows yet, so we are hoping that its nothing! haha. I should know by Thursday what is going on and what will need to be done from here. We just keep praying that it will be a quick fix and that we will be able to keep going strong. Thanks for all the prayers in my behalf. I have felt those time and time again through out the past year and a half really. The time is flying by, and I don't like it! There are never enough hours in the day it doesn't seem like. We have got so many things going on this next week just with District leader and Trainer responsibilities that we will be lucky to be able to teach any lessons haha. It's all good though. We will be getting to go to the temple next week on Wednesday, which reminds me, our p day is going to be on 

Wednesday next week rather then Monday because of the temple trip. The Brethren have asked that we use our P-day to go to the temple rather then missing out on prime work time. So I will be emailing next Wednesday!

I love this work! I love this gospel. It is the best choice I have ever made, and I don't regret the decision for a second. I have had a few people ask me the last few days why I came back out after being released and basically becoming an RM. I just kinda laugh and tell them that if they knew the story that it really wasn't a choice! (President Johnson knows what I am talking about!) I was called Tuesday and left Friday and that was that! But I would have chose to come back anyways! This is truly Gods work. His son is at the head of it and it is being hastened day after day! We are so blessed to be apart of all this great work, and I can't tell you how many blessings have come my way just in the past few months! We have had the opportunity to give some really really neat blessings, and my testimony of the Priesthood has been strengthened so so much! Dad was right in his letter when he said that we need to always be ready to act when called upon! It is neat to be asked if we have oil and all three of us be able to pull it right off the key chain and be worthy and ready to use it! I have been able to be voice in quite a few very special blessings, and have seen lives change both physically and spiritually! I have been given inspirations that I have not acted on in blessings in the past, and let me just tell you that that will never happen again! All you young men out there please read my words and prepare yourself for what you hold in your hands! Even when your hands are "empty" you hold in your hands something that is more precious then the finest Gold, and that is our Heavenly Fathers Priesthood! Never forget that and always be worthy and ready to act is my prayer! I love you all and love this church and this gospel! Thanks for the prayers again and I will talk to you all next Wednesday!

Love 
Elder Mackay Dale Shelley