Week 16 - Hi to you all!

Hello to my friends and family!

I hope you had a great week and are hopefully enjoying warmer weather than I am! It's just cold here all the time, snowed like 6 inches again the other day! I don't think winter will ever leave!!

I will tell you this though; this was one of the craziest weeks of my mission so far! My new comp, had to go home because of a medical condition, so now I am down in Stony Plain (Parkland County) in a tripanionship, meaning I have two companions, and serving both here and in Barrhead. I live in Stony, then we commute up to Barrhead/Westlock a couple times a week. It was stressful taking over the area all by myself, but I think I have everything all figured out! The members up there are helping me out and are like a family to me! I talked to the mission president though, and I will most likely be back up in Barrhead at the end of this month when the new elders come out. So I guess it's a unique opportunity to be able to serve somewhere for three months, then live somewhere else and serve in another area for a month along with your area, then go back to your old area! We have been back once to teach since, It was like going back to my old home!

Being in a TRI is much different. Now you have to deal with two companions..good and bad I guess. Their names are Elder Coombs, from  Beaver, Utah. Then Elder Lee, from Korea originally. There is once again that language barrier a bit which can be difficult, but that is how it goes as a missionary. The first couple days were brutal, but things are smoothing out. We are getting everything figured out, and more than anything it's just patience and realizing it is only a month that this will be happening! haha

The work with investigators kind of was on a standstill this week because of all that happened. But we will be back on hopefully with all of them this week. Things were going good with them, that was the most frustrating part about coming down here and leaving my area (well sort of leaving). Is things were going good with investigators, less-actives, and the members! It feels like I left the area completely, which is not so, so I just gotta remember that and keep on keepin' on with the people up there in Barrhead! With all that being said, that means that I don't have any new news about those people. We have been able to have appointments down here and I have enjoyed teaching them. it's fun to be able to meet so many more people and be able to realize that this is my whole mission area, and I can help every single person out that is in my mission, not just my specific area. So I am learning a lot! 

Every week I am noticing that my knowledge is growing. Sometimes it is weird to me that I have only really been studying the doctrines for like 4 months, and this is how far I've come! To think where I will be in another 20 months, it is almost unimaginable!  I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to help all of the people here with my knowledge I have obtained. Another gem of missionary service is that all the things I learn will stick with me for the rest of my life, and the blessing of the gospel I am finding now have an effect for the eternities. I hope you are all feasting upon the words of Christ as I have been able to do. Yes, I know you don't have a bunch of time set apart in your day to study the scriptures and other church materials, but even a little bit every day. President Gordon B. Hinckley talked about how our testimonies are like a muscle. We must use it and nurture it to grow. If we simply just let it be, it will begin to decay and eventually become useless. I hope you all do not let your testimony wither away. I was reading this morning in 2 Nephi then in Doctrine and Covenants, about how we must be tried and tested to prove ourselves worthy of the most amazing gift of eternal life. Trials and tribulations are necessary for our salvation. They allow us to grow. And as it talks about in Ether chapter 12, we must exercise our faith before we receive the witness of the truthfulness. How true it is. We must test ourselves, or rather the tests will come whether we like it or not. Continually find yourself building that faith and relying on the Lord for all that you need in your life. We will never be left alone when we need him most.

I love you all dearly! Write me people, I am getting bored! Okay not really, but I would love to hear from all of you! Let me know how things are going! 

I will talk to you all very soon!

Love, Elder McFall

My new mission area (temporarily expanded to Stony Plain in Parkland County)