Elder Tyler McFarland's Mission Blog: Love Caldwell

Welcome to an awesome week.

We gave a training to 3 zones. I liked the topic. It was stressful, but I like talking in front of people about the gospel. We talked about good questions and listening. It was a call to repentance. I thought I was a pretty good teacher, but I realized that I stink because I don't use good questions and I don't listen as much as I should. We also came up with our zone goals for this month. We went to a super good taqueria called Los Gueros again because it is just that good. I went to Englwood to go on an exchange with Elder Preston. He is the definition of fun. He is hilarious. We taught well and tried to give a guy, who was in prison, a Book of Mormon. The police didn't let us :( stink.

Wednesday we switched back and preached the good word. Thursday was the same story. Friday was pretty cool because we picked up another Elder so we could take him to the temple as well. We played soccer that night. There was a sister from Megan Blume's mission there and she got the biggest black eye I have ever seen. It was HUGE. Poor girl. She was super funny about it though. She made a bunch of jokes and she seemed like it was going to turn out fine. So that was an adventure.

Now... Saturday was the day of days. We 3 woke up at 5:30 and got ready. By 6:30 we were over at the Vaca's home to eat empenadas. It was a good meal, but we were all so anxious to get to the temple. We left at 7:30. The Vaca's drove so it was infinitely faster and smoother than the trip that we had planned for the zone. It was cool to be in NYC. We got to the temple and the baptisms went swimmingly (haha... I miss diving and swimming and hot tubbing). It was so cool to be there with the Vaca family. Diana decided to wait for her family before she goes to the temple. So we are going to work with them. After that we used our P day that we didn't get last week to spend time with the Vaca family. We went bowling and I talked with Nancy the whole time. She is one spunky grandma. She loves her family so much. I want to be as loving as her one day. After that we ate at this super good Ecuadorian Restaurant. Super food. We then played games with them at their house until it was time to start proselyting again.

We finished off the crazy week with a calm Sunday. Alvaro came to church and loved it. Baptism will probably happen the first of February. We did have a crazy lesson though. We were invited to share a message with a contact we had at her church. We thought it was a good opportunity to share what we believed with her and her brothers. But they took us into a lecture room and lectured about why the Sabbath day is Sunday. I tried not to bible bash, but I guess I looked angry when I told the man, "we could be wrong, but I dont think so." I went on to share my testimony. Sadly I didn't have the Spirit and so he didn't listen. He told us we had come to listen, not to teach. I felt bad that I hadn't listened better to the Spirit and kept my cool. But we left on good terms with the man and the contact. I don't plan on going back there soon.

After that we got the Spirit again and visited with a cool family named the Cielo family. The parents just got married, but the mom has 3 kids. One is on a mission in Italy! It is interesting to see the other half of the missionary: his family. I hope that you all are feeding the missionaries and keeping the commitments they give you. It's awesome to be close to missionaries.

It has been a great week and I am excited to serve this week! Last week of the transfer and we never know what awesome surprises we have coming up. God does his work.

I believe that the Book of Mormon is true because I feel good when I read it, which is the spirit telling me it is true. Off of that I base my testimony of the Church and of Jospeh Smith. I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. Thats awesome.

Keep me in your prayers!

waz good

Jersey Strong

Life is good in the gospel.

Love you