Week 76 – Happy Day!

There is no reason to be sad, if you are stop. On that note, things are picking up right now in the life of Elder McFall. Things seem to be coming together, just not really in the way that I had pictured or imagined. It seems that so often as missionaries we are focusing so much on that goal of baptism that we fail to realize that our Lord rejoices over ANY soul that repents and returns unto him. I love the scripture in Moroni 10:32 (maybe that is why it is my missionary scripture) about inviting all to Come unto Christ. That is the essence of missionary work; it is at the core of our defined missionary purpose, which is also synonymous with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With that in mind, we have been doing a great deal of work with Less-actives recently. It is so neat to help some I guess rediscover the gospel and how it can bless and affect their life. Complacency seems to be our biggest offender right now. People just stop doing those simple things in their lives. They stop going to church for a multitude of reasons. They no longer read from the scriptures. They fail to say their prayers. Honestly it is sad. Those are 3 things that truly are simple, they don't cause us to expend any great effort, but doing those will ALWAYS keep us on the path, if we want that. I am just grateful for how simple the gospel of Jesus Christ is. We have been seeing these less active members start to come to church, one for 2 weeks in a row now, and we meet weekly. She wants to be that great example for her 10 year old daughter and she wants to make it to the temple. That is the common thread with all those that we teach, we focus on the temple and to any other covenant we have made, or will make and put that in the center of their minds. When we begin to get a glimpse of what we could have, that sacrifice doesn't seem so hard anymore. The blessings of the gospel are innumerable, simple as that. 

We did teach our investigator Tanis, her husband Quinn wasn't around. She is the one we are really focusing on right now. She does want this, she wants to develop her faith and see that really come back into her life. What she needs, just as we all do, is a true knowledge of the Atonement. The enabling, redeeming, and exalting power it brings. I think if you even glimpse what that can actually bring you will want to at least experiment on it. That is where we are at right now. 

Our other 'gator named Ken we taught a couple times this last week. It has been a huge blessing working with him. The only unfortunate news there is he is moving, just an area over though so we will pass him over this week and he can continue on to his baptismal date at the end of May. Exciting though because the missionary, okay one of them, that we will pass him to is Elder Winnie who I know from home and is from our same stake! So that is neat! 

A scripture that has special meaning to me, I would say most recently, is one that is consistently on my mind is D&C 84:85, "Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man. " I honestly have seen that over and over. When I teach, not sure if this will make sense, but I go in there with a game plan but when we teach I do everything I can to allow my mind to go blank. Now that probably sounds terrifying at first, but it isn't. As soon as I do that I have felt over and over as I have treasured up experiences and the many things I have studied that scripture and word just begins to flow.

One scripture that has come to mind over and over again recently has probably been "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?" from Luke 15:4. Well really anything from Luke 15 as it has 3 very illustrative parables of finding that which was lost. I guess it has been on my mind for a couple of reasons. One would be for the fact is that is what I feel a great portion of my time and effort is spent doing, and in doing that it is just as valuable to our Savior, as it states in verse 7 of that same chapter. He finds great joy in the soul that repenteth, so should we. There are some lost sheep I tell ya, but we can find them. I guess I am beginning to get a glimpse of how our Father must feel. Makes me think of the scripture in Moses 7:29, "How canst thou weep?" He does so much for each of us, and I do feel that he weeps over His children that stray and will do all that He can to bring them back unto him. Honestly as much as I can sit here and tell you that things are great and I find great joy in teaching the less actives, it has been hard to find that same joy as you feel over someone you are bringing into the church for the first time. I don't feel burdened, but rather comforted? Sometimes you fall into that thought trap, even when numerous scriptures say otherwise, that He is only proud or happy with the work you are doing when it is connected with baptisms. But really the scope is much larger; it is about Covenants as a whole. We need to help ALL of our Father's children on their covenant path. Baptism alone is insufficient to return to Him if you do not have the Temple Endowment, Priesthood for males, and Sealing. We focus so much on the first that we fail to realize when we baptize someone, really the cross hairs are on the temple. 

Other than that things are moving forward. We are working our absolute hardest to help each person here in the ward begin to understand their crucial role in the Work of Salvation and how they each can be ministering and teaching as the Savior did. Interesting how when we emulate the example of our Savior not only do we become like Him, but we then have a greater desire to help others find that joy for themselves. Gosh, the gospel is good. 

Love you all!!!

Elder McFall

Week 75 - Okay and Okay

Well I sure do hope you all had a great Easter weekend and were able to really enjoy the whole time. I know I did! It sure is good to hear from all of you though, glad to hear that you are all doing well! At least from what I hear everyone is doing well. Things up here in Edmonton are just moving right along, which is good! I will start from where I was this last weekend with everything at church with Elder Soares of the 70 coming up to our Stake. He has been touring around with Elder Christofferson and visiting different stakes and everything to give leadership training, which is generally done about every 3 years. So that will explain why he was here and addressing us. from what I hear he was over in Sister Davis' mission over there in “Winterpeg”, sounds like fun! It was just really powerful to hear the testimony of someone who has had the gospel truly effect and change their lives, and have responded to the face of adversity with such great faith. He shared some personally experiences and everything that were really eye opening, I just hope that I can develop my faith to be able to respond in that same way when things go wrong. Well okay, hopefully things just won't go wrong. 

Teaching this week we had a few really great experiences, the Lord is blessing us greatly right now with some choice opportunities. We were able to teach Quinn and Tanis two times this week. We are focusing on the Plan of Salvation due to life and what she has gone through. Really just trying to help someone reconnect with God and realize that He loves them infinitely you would think is easy, but it is a rather difficult thing to do as this all comes from experiences they need to have. And from what we read from the Book of Mormon in Alma 32 it comes with first having that desire and that desire will lead to faith, or at least faith promoting experiences. That is what we are working on now; having that desire turn into more than simply a desire.

Another experience we had though was just incredible. We went to go get a hold of this brother that previously Elder Spencer and his companion couldn't really get a hold of. We knocked his door, he was home and he invited us in... okay actually his roommate invited us in and his name is Ken. They are both from Uganda, and they are just the coolest guys! We sat down and Ken was talking about how he was hoping we would come back and talk to him sometime because his mom and sister had gone to church before with John (the less-active guy). He has incredible faith, a great desire, and this just led one thing after the next and we taught him the first part of the restoration. He ended by saying how we made his day! We then saw Ken last night and we finished the restoration, really gave him a good intro to the Book of Mormon, and then he accepted the invitation to be baptized on May 31. What a guy! So excited for him and the changes that he is making, but also I am excited to see the blessings flow into his life. 

Other than that we have been visiting a lot with different less-actives here in the ward. There are some that we have really been able to establish great relationships with; the type where they will call us and invite us over because they are having just a bad day and need to have a good message. But that is all on top of the regular visits we have with them. Now we just need to take that and get them back to church and then onto the temple! More and more the less-actives we are working with are from the Philippines also, I love it! They are all such good people. One we are working with made it to church for the first time in a long time this week and has plans to make it a regular thing, life is good! 

Okay well, I love you all! The sun is starting to shine up here! Things are warming up! I will talk to you all very soon! 

Love, Elder McFall

Week 74 - Happy Easter!

Kamusta po kayo? I guess I should start getting back into the Tagalog since that is just a month away before the flood gates open. Should be fun though! So I have decided I will finish up what happened in last couple days of Bearspaw. We found a new investigator down there named Carrie, she has two kids. We actually invited her out to the potluck we had last Sunday, she came, and then we taught her last week also. It went so well. She is Christian and wants to basically just come to Christ and learn more about Him and His message. It is something that is so neat to see, so prepared! Hopefully all will go well for her down there. We also found a new investigator down there named Ted, taught him the Restoration really simply, ended with him saying the prayer. It is so powerful to see someone prayer to our Father for the first time. You can just feel the spirit reach out to them, and really work to have that individual feel that God truly does love them. What I love asking people is basically if there really is a God and He really does love you, do you think He would want to communicate with you? Then you can talk all about the spirit and revelation and how we are able to feel those things. We are essentially enabling others to find conversion and receive answers to prayers, it is a beautiful thing. We also taught Amanda and her kids last week, really got the kids into it this time in talking more about Christ and His church, basically the message of the Restoration. Each time I teach a child it just makes me think of how we must all become Childlike as we learn, so pure! 

Okay so basically the Castledowns ward is a new adventure entirely! I am excited to be up here though! This seriously is exactly what I need right now. The ward boundaries are huge and a ton of different places where people are quite frequently, which is good cause we can talk til we drop. This ward has a lot of less active and part member families that we will be hopefully working with, so that should be good. We have a great bishopric up here though, they are on key. I have only met two, but both are not Canadian, super diverse! I love it though, our bishop is hilarious. We are really focusing on bringing everyone together and working together as a ward in this Work of Salvation. There is so much work to be done, we must work together and they are doing all they can. It seems that I seem to be a breath of fresh air for the missionaries here though. I guess being really positive and talkative is something they missed! We will see how that goes! My companion is Elder Spencer, from Boise, Idaho! Things are going well so far! We are doing all that we can to get things in order and hit the pavement running. I am excited for all that lies ahead of us and what we will be able to accomplish. I don't want to be that companion who just drags his companion around, he wants to work don't get me wrong, but just a young missionary! It is exciting! So many adventures lie ahead I tell ya. We found a new investigator couple the 2nd day I was here, their names are Quinn and Tanis. They are real good people, really have enjoyed our visits so far. They are both completely non religious, not too much of it ever in their lives. We basically testified of the Atonement the first time we were in there and it just hit home. We will see where it goes, things are looking good though! We also taught this lady named Aileen. She is what we call an "eternigator", basically meaning she has met with missionaries forever. But me, being me, went in there and really established expectations and asked the questions that needed to be asked. We now know she is wanting baptism and all things in the church, she has a testimony of everything already, now we just need to fill in the gaps and figure out why she hasn't been baptized. 

Well, hopefully this week you will have a chance to really look to our Savior. You should look at the site easter.mormon.org... good stuff people. I am looking forward to things this week as we will have the opportunity to talk about our Savior even more! I am excited to be where I am at right now, Things are going well and going in the right direction. We have been doing a lot of less-actives and lost-sheep, some really neat experiences. Always neat to be there and realize that you are an answer to a prayer. I love you all! Have an amazing week! 

Love, Elder McFall

drake.mcfall@myldsmail.net

P.S. here is a great clip for each of you to watch 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-00-006-he-is-risen-john-the-beloveds-witness-of-the-resurrection?category=topics/easter&lang=eng

I'll be emailing next Tuesday; another made up holiday up here.. HAPPY EASTER!

My new companion, Elder Spencer

Last zone training meeting (ZTM) in Bearspaw

Week 73 – General Conference!

I am glad that I will get yet another one of those on my mission, because I am pretty sure I have gotten more out of conference than any other time in my life! I get successively more each time! I mean there are probably a number of reasons, but we will get into that later. I hope you all enjoyed it and your testimonies have grown under the influence of the Holy Spirit. I am so grateful for the many words of how we each need to stay true to what we know, stand up for what we believe in. Whether that be convenient, or not, this is what we need to be doing because this is what the Lord expects of us. I am grateful for the encouragement we were given in understanding our Covenants. Surely we are a covenant making and covenant keeping people! I am so glad to have the great blessing of knowing that these covenants are offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that these are only acceptable before God as administered by His authorized servants, through Restored Authority. What a blessing we have right at our fingertips! Our rightful and eternal inheritance is completely up to us to what extent we lay hold. 

The Lord is seriously blessing us right now! We now have another fellow on date for baptism; it will be for May 24! Oh, it is Ulysses! Gosh he is a good guy! He teaches himself. He is incredibly smart, and absorbs very well. We taught more about the Book of Mormon, and its key role in our conversion. I wish you could have been there for the lesson. In his prayer at the end he basically said in asking that if the Book of Mormon was true and said well okay either this book is ingenious, or if it is from you... wait I think it must just be from you! He basically said that if he were the "Big Man" he would have given us the Book of Mormon because it just makes way more sense! Things are good there! Should continue on!

Amanda is still on date, we will get back to teaching her again this week... actually tonight. Should go there! Life is good right now. 

This last week we also had our Zone Training Meeting, I will get that picture out next week hopefully once it gets sent to me. It went really well though, we recreated our Missionary Department training and things went well... I will miss giving those training's.

I guess that brings us to the news that I will be getting transferred. I have been in this area since September, it has been rewarding. I have grown to love this area, I absolutely love this ward, I will miss those we are teaching immensely. I am excited for the change though. I will be getting moved up to the North side of the city and "greenie breaking" an Elder who just finished getting trained. Should be fun! At the end of that I will train one of the Tagalog elders that comes out in May. I am excited for the great things that lie ahead! So much work to get done I tell ya! 

Well I probably missed something, but ta ta for now. Love you all!

Love, Elder McFall 

My final district as a Zone Leader with Elder Pitts