October 18, 2010 Letter

Dear Family,

     Sounds like y'all had a busy week.  This week for me wasn't all that busy but it was a really good week.  We had the Valverdes show up to church yesterday.  They are a family that hasn't been to church in like a year and their daughters haven't been baptized.  We now have them scheduled to be baptized on the 30th!!! So that is really cool.  There are three daughters, two of which count as convert baptisms.  So that is two baptisms for the month of October.  Then we also had C come back to church again and said that she wanted to get baptized on the 6th of November instead of waiting til May 1st.  We happily agreed to set it up.  So that is another baptism.  Then we also have two more dates that are set for the month of November.  That will be five in less than a month's time if they all go through!  Cool huh?!?

     Glad to hear that the Seegmillers talked to you.  Sister Seegmiller has been writing me like 3 letters a week since last week.  She is really nice and sends me letters.  Ask her to give you Jordan and Kasidy's addresses on their missions.  Then you can give them to me. =)   

You saw Oliver?!?  What is that boy doing with his life?  Tell him to get his butt on a mission!  Tell him to write me too!  What the poop, he should be gone already!  The Savages don't go out of town often.  I know that there was a baby blessing last week for their grand daughter, so that's prolly why they weren't there. You do know that Natalie is at BYU right?  You know that is why you prolly haven't seen her around too often?  Tell Matt that he is a bum for not writing me back. 
Not cool man.  Tell him that I want a picture of this girl he is "SEEING".

     So there wasn't really too much to report on this week.  It is getting harder and harder to write in my journal every night.  I am like 4 days behind.  The only thing funny that happened this week was when this old couple picked us up from a zone meeting.  They picked us up and the old lady started talking to us.  "Sorry that we are late boys, we are just (FART!!!) running a little behind today."  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  I tried so hard not to laugh at this extremely elderly woman who was so kind as to come with her husband to pick us up, but it was so hard to hold it in.  I'm pretty sure that she didn't even know that she farted.  That was what made it even better.  Pretty sure her husband knew that she did though.  I could tell by the grimace look that he gave as he looked over at the front seat.  HAHAHA!!!

    

     -Elder Michael McNinch

PS-  I like sour patch watermelons, swedish fish, starbursts, and skittles

PPS-  If you could go trough my boxes of stuff and find my holy bible box and send me my four by four rubix's cube I would much appreciate it.  I figured out that the rubix's cube is a great object lesson for active member lessons.  Especially when there are kids there.  Their minds pretty much explode at the end of the lesson when it is solved.

PPPS-  Yes I did go on a Sea Camp trip to Catalina my 8th grade year.  BUT!!!...I paid for the entire trip myself from the money I got helping dad with painting jobs.

PPPPS- If you could send me more stamps that would be great. =)

love you bye!

October 4, 2010 Letter

Dear Family,

Texas weather stinks.  It was blazing hot like a week ago and now its like 50 degrees every morning. I don't understand it.  This week hasn't been too entertaining as far as the work goes.  Conference was awesome!!!  That was about the only fun thing to report this week.  My favorite talk by far was Elder Uchtdorf's talk during the priesthood session about pride.  So COOL!!!  I loved his talk Saturday morning as well when he said," I know that you are all wondering by now what this has to do with flying a plane."  He's a hoot.

It is so nice getting letters from all of you.  Yes that means you too, Grandma and Grandpa.  I do read them.  Thank you all so much for everything that you have done for me.  I know without your examples I wouldn't be where I am at today.

HA HA HA okay so yesterday we were in Allen for conference to watch it at the stake center.  I meet this guy Brother Dalton.  He asks me where I am from and I tell him Henderson, Nevada.  He was like," NO WAY!  Me too!!"  Then he asked me if I knew any Savages.  HA HA HA HA!!!  Know them?!?  HA HA HA they were like a second family to me.  Turns out that he is best friends with *Natalie's dad since college.  So funny.  He said that he would call Brother Savage and let him know that I was alive. Man what a small world.  First it was Sister Fisher (mom of the kid Blake who wrote on my facebook wall) who dated dad in college and then now Brother Dalton that is best friends with Natalie's dad.  Oh and then Brother Don Lewis in the Melissa ward is cousins with *Rex Lewis.  HA HA HA.  I know like everyone here somehow.

Well everything here is fine.  Our tire blew out yesterday and so we have to go into Plano to get it fixed today...wonderful waste of a P-day.  Anyways...this church is awesome.  I just kept thinking during conference how blessed we are with the organization of the church.  How pure and simple the doctrine is.  That if you were to fly around the world on a Sunday and listen to all the lessons given in the different parts of the world, they would all follow the same doctrine.  There is no other church in the world that can say that.  That has a membership as knowledgeable about their beliefs as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  This is Christ's church upon the earth today.  There is no way that it would be in such order if it wasn't.  I love when people say to me that we worship Joseph Smith or that this church was founded by Joseph Smith....please just read my name tag.

ELDER MCNINCH

          THE CHURCH OF

  JESUS CHRIST

    OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

...thank you.

Love all ya'll

*(Natalie is Michael's girlfriend and Rex Lewis is a good friend of our family)

September 27, 2010 Letter

Dear Family,

     This week has been especially crazy.  We have taken on the apostle's promise that if we will get 20 contacts a day that our weeks will be filled with teaching appointments.  Well...we have 22 new and old investigators.  YEAH.  6 of which are having baptism dates set this week.  Yeah we have a TON of teaching appointments.  So awesome.

     So this week's story is about this nice black lady that we met while we were tracting.  She was sitting in the front seat of her car with the back hatch of the car open.  She had a ton of stuff just kind of all piled in there.  We asked her if she could use any help.  She was so confused as to why we were asking, but eventually she said that she could use our help if we were serious.  She went on as we were helping her, telling us about her life story.  She had been in Katrina and lost her home and some family members.  Namely her grandmother.  She then told us how she had been with her husband for 10 years and he had been cheating on her for eight.  This was the reason for moving and the stuff in the car.  This was her second husband and she has 4 kids.  Crazy.  We started talking with her about the church and what not and how life is really hard at times, but through Christ's Atonement we can feel comforted.  She said that she knew that and asked where she could find one of our churches down in Houston where she was moving.  We called the Elders in Houston and they are going to help her move in when she gets there.  She asked for a card with our names on it so that she could remember us and the name of the church.  When we gave her a pass-along card she started to cry.  We told her everything was going to be okay and that Heavenly Father would take care of her.  She proceeded to tell us that that wasn't the reason she was crying.  She said that she had been looking for that picture. (the one that was on the pass-along card that we gave her).  She explained that before the hurricane her grandmother had let two young men come in and share a "message" with her.  She (lady we helped)  was there when her grandmother let them in, but didn't want anything to do with another church.  Turns out that at the end of that visit the missionaries gave her grandmother that pass-along and told her that they would be back to teach her more.  All that this lady remembered was the picture on the card; not the name of the church they belonged to.  Her grandmother was investigating the church prior to the evacuation.  The last thing that the grandmother said to her before the evacuation was that she felt at peace because of the message that the young men had shared with her.  The grandmother didn't evacuate and was killed. This woman had been searching for that picture for 2 years or so trying to find which church the picture was from, and there we were.  It was so amazing.  This woman was so greatful just to have us help her repack her stuff in the car, and then we brought her the picture.  She was speachless.  She gave us both huge hugs! ( I know that is not allowed, but would you ever try to stop a crying black lady from giving someone a hug?...I wouldn't either)

     It was so amazing to see how the Lord works in our lives.  I know that I am here for a reason.  I know that this gospel is truth.  That Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father live, and love each and everyone of us.  I love you all.  Happy General conference week.  Happy Birthday dad.

love- Elder McNinch