March 26, 2012 Letter

All y'all,

This has definitely been most interesting week. Started off on Monday with the loss of an investigator. Oh dear goodness. We were at a member's house for dinner and teaching a lesson to their non-member friend that lives with them. Good gracious. I don't really know all that was said (real hard to interpret what 3 people are yelling at each other about when they have no teeth) all I heard was something about "If there was a fire in there was a fire in the house". These precious souls got in an argument on whether or not it was okay to break a window if there was a fire blocking the doors. The owner of the home said that the guest (non-member) was not allowed to break any of the windows in the home because the insurance said that they would not pay for the damage to the window (yes, I am fully aware that that makes no sense whatsoever). The guest in the home FREAKED out and started ranting and raveing that she was not about to live in a house where she couldn't break a window to save her life in a fire. She said, "I may burn in hell, but I am sure not gonna burn up in this house!" Elder Whicker and I were trying our hardest not to laugh our guts out. Their argument was completely pointless. Anyways...so the guest proceeded to pack her things and throw them towards the front door. She had one of her other friends come and pick her up right then and there. In short, we lost an investigator to an imaginary fire drill. Probably one of the most ridiculous arguments that I have ever witnessed.

Tuesday was crazy. It was raining like NONE OTHER! All day! The dirt road, which is the only way to or from our house, was completely flooded. I don't even know that Noah could have gotten across that thing. So we were stuck inside until five o'clock when the great lakes that had formed outside our house had finally drained. We then went to a few appointments before having to leave to drive to Mt. Pleasant, Texas for another sleep over. We had a specialized training on Wednesday in Longview again so we had to drive half way and stay the night. We stayed with Elder Drake and Elder Moody, two awesome Elders. Elder Moody is one of the spanish missionaries that I came out with. (I think that I told you that in my last letter...not sure though)

So Wednesday we spent all day in Longview. Literally...ALL DAY! We left Mt. Pleasant at 8 got to Gilmer at 9. Left Gilmer and got to Longview by 9:30,and then stayed there until 6:30. We didn't get home that night until about 10 pm. Not cool.

Thursday we spent doing service that we had promised some members. This is where the real fun began. We went to Sister Hills (way out in the boondocks) to rake some leaves. Everything would have been fine and dandy had she not had a mammoth for a dog. The thing was HUGE! Great Dane/ Lab mix. The dumb dog was fetching LOGS! I would toss a LOG like 10 or 12 feet and the dog would actually bring it back to me! Pretty sweet, but the dang thing wouldn't leave us alone. So that took longer than we expected. Then we rushed over to our Branch Mission Leader's house to help him out. He is a chicken farmer for Tyson. He works so hard! He had promised us that he would come out teaching with us but was afraid that he was not going to get all the work that he needed done. So we decided to help. Oh boy were we in for a treat. He has 6 chicken houses on his property. Each house holds approximately 23,000 chickens. Our job was simple. Go through each of the chicken houses and pick up all the dead ones. No gloves, no nose plugs, just your bare hands and the sweet smell of sweaty chicken. To put it very plainly, I never want to be a chicken farmer...ever. Kind of funny actually. The branch mission leader knows Matt and Penny and Aunt Mimi and Uncle Lee. They used to live in Richfield. Small mormon world. Their names are Jedd and Lavonna Rasmusson.

Friday was just kind of a blur, don't really remember what happened. I know that we had a marriage class with one of our Marshallese couples that we are teaching. If that wasn't the trunkiest lesson that I have ever been apart I don't know what is. All about marriage and family and kids and home and AHHH!

Saturday was awesome. We had a lesson with Vanessa and her three kids. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ through different Bible and Book of Mormon stories. We invited the whole family to be baptized and they accepted! They have a baptismal date for the 22nd of April. We are so excited! That means that by the end of April the branch will have had 22 baptisms for the year thus far! So awesome.

Sunday was great. 14 investigators at church! Sorry gotta go!

Love,

Elder McNinch

March 19, 2012 Letter

Hello Family,

Congrats PAT! Way to go kid! Can't believe I missed it. It's alright though. You'll just have to hit some more when I get back. Now all you got to do is make a deal with Dad so you can get a new xbox. Ha ha ha. Dang Ryan! Sounds like you got roped into be one of Mrs. D's slaves this year. Hope that you're alright after that long day's work. That's kind of what missionary work is like. Except you where a shirt and tie all day and the people that you talk to don't want what you're trying to give them. Ha ha ha. Just kidding.

So this week has been pretty awesome. We helped ordain Reilly Lakjohn (recent convert) and Brother Pate to the Aaronic Priesthood, we set 6 baptismal dates, and a marriage date yesterday. Four of the dates are with the Pate children. They will be baptized by their father on April 8th. The other two dates are with a couple that is from the Marshall Islands. They are also our marriage date. We got all of the civil marriage stuff figured out today and we hope to have them married and baptized by the 8th as well. Oh, and we had 14 of our investigators at church yesterday and had the Branch President call us with a referral for a lady who had a date in Beumont, Texas (also for the 8th of April) that has just recently moved here. If we get to meet with Vanessa this week and set her and her family's dates that would be 11 baptisms just in the month of April. I cannot really explain or express the joy that I feel. We also helped a part member family move. The husband and two kids are not members. They are hilarious. Brother Thomas (the man who's cow I helped birth) gave us the invite to come and help. Glad that he did because it definitely softened some hearts. The husband is now willing to have us come over and teach. This was also the second time in my mission that we used a horse trailer to move someone. Who needs Uhaul anyway?

Needless to say missionary work is going very well here. We are not only having a lot of sucess in baptisms but in retention. Idabel, Oklahoma is the promised land. Okay...so to funny stories of the week. We recently went on exchange with the Zone Leaders again. I got to be with yours and my favorite Elder Clint Johnson. The same Elder that was in my MTC group. We had a great exchange together. We tracted a really ghetto apartment complex, had a baptismal interview, and let a bird in the house. So let's go over all of that shall we? The ghetto apartment complex was great. We were looking for a woman who was/is a member of the church that the church cannot currently locate. This sister's name was Sister Trampp. Yes, that is her name. Don't worry mom, this is official church business. We didn't ever find Sister Trampp, but we did find a little girl who had hopes that she would one day be espoused to Elder Johnson. I believe her exact words were "Wow! He's so hott!" The baptismal interview went great. It was for a boy named Bodee. He is the son of one of our recent converts. We were so glad that he passed his interview. During his lessons when we'd ask him what Jesus Christ did for us he'd always say, "Didn't he come down from heaven and kill the devil?" ...no Bodee. Not quite. So hopefully that is all dispelled now.
Alright so now the bird story. Elder Johnson is a big advocate of camping apparently. The McDonald's (members we live with) have a deck on the south side of the house. It has been a custom for missionaries to sleep outside on the deck to look at the stars at night as they go to sleep. Guess it reminds all those good ol' Utah boys of back home. Well...stars don't really matter much to me. Didn't really see a whole lot of those living under the bright lights of Las Vegas. But, I agreed to sleep outside on the deck for Elder Johnson's sake. We picked up some mesquito repelent (for my sake) and headed home. We got ready for bed, packed our stuff, and went down the hall to the guest bedroom which leads to the deck. I bathed myself in repelent before I headed out the door to the deck. As I was opening the door I made the comment to Elder Johnson that if anything big bit me or attacked me while I was out there it was his fault. Just then, this winged thing decided to fly right at my face. It bounced off the top of my head and started flying around the room. At first I thought that it was a bat and that both Elder Johnson and I were about to die. Turns out that it was just a little bird. Well, this little bird ended up being a huge problem. As the bird is flying around the room he is pooping on everything in sight. All over the bed and the freshly washed linen, the floor, the sewing machine, etc. So now what do we do? We can't open the door for very long because then all of the bugs will come in, but we gotta get this dumb bird out of there. We come up with the brilliant plan to scare it towards the door and hang up a sheet across the room so it has no other way to fly out. Well, turns out that the bird was smarter than us and flew over the sheet. So we tried to get the bird near the door and turn off the lights so that the bird would just naturally go where there was more light. After about five minutes of watching this stupid bird sit in the moonlight we decided to scare him out the door. Of course the dumb thing didn't go out the door, but instead flew into the large mirror on the wall. Alright, so we figured that the bird needed a little bit more light outiside to be even remotely interested in flying back out the door. I went and got a flashlight and positioned myself outside the door with the light shinning down from the top of the doorway. Elder Johnson shut off the lights again and the bird flew right to the edge of the doorstep. I'm thinking "Sweet! Now all Elder Johnson has to do is scare him out the door." Elder Johnson whispers, "Hey Elder McNinch, can I use your pillow?" I say yes. Thinking "okay, Elder Johnson is going to toss the pillow at the bird and scare him out the door." Next thing I knew, there was a bird coming at me at about 30 miles per hour. It hit me in the chest, flopped on the deck for awhile, then sat up on its feet twitching its neck to one side. I thought for sure that Elder Johnson had killed that stupid bird. "Elder Johnson! I told you to scare it! Not bat it out the door!" "I'm sorry Elder, but that was the only guaranteed way he was getting out of here." Turns out that the bird was just fine. We finally got the bird out of the house and all of his poop cleaned up. However, by the time we got out to sleep on the deck, clouds had moved in covering Elder Johnson's precious stars. Moral of the story is: Never shoot for the stars because life will give you the bird.

Hope that y'all have a wonderful week. I miss and love you very much.

-Elder Michael McNinch

March 5, 2012 Letter

HOLY COW!

 

Wow, so this week was kinda crazy! But hey, what do you expect? I live in the middle of nowhere! Ha ha ha. I am really loving it here. I think that the people here are absolutely hilarious. So let's go through the week shall we?

 

Monday- We had a family drop because the dad went psycho on the mom for letting us come and teach her without him there. We felt so terrible when we came back by for the return appointment! She was at the door and she was whispering, "I'm sorry I can't let you in! My husband is here and he doesn't want anything to do with religion!" I actually felt pretty scared at that point. Really I just felt bad for the family. It was a family of 5 and all but the dad had an interest in the gospel. Other than that we had a pretty good day. We shot rocks at bottles with a wrist rocket and took care of our shopping and laundry.

 

Tuesday- This was my first district meeting as a district leader...well besides the MTC. We talked about how the first two principles of the gospel are found in every chapter of every book in the missionary library. It is just my companion and I and one other companionship. 2 companionships in the whole district. We're kind of like the exiled ones because we live so far out in the sticks. We're too far to meet with any of the other companionships for district meeting. Ha ha ha. Tuesday was a great day for finding. We found 8 new investigators in an hour of tracting. I love it here! We also met with the Griffith family this night. The wife was just recently baptized (first week I was here). Now we are teaching her son who is 11. Crazy kid. Off the walls ALL the time. I love that family though. We always go and play a game with them and then relate it to the gospel.

 

Wednesday wasn't anything special. Thought that it was funny that our dinner appointment for the evening was the cub scout Blue and Gold banquet. Ha ha ha. I could not remember the cub scout oath to save my life. Something about following Akeala? I thought that we were supposed to follow Christ?

 

Thursday- We set up for Austin Haney's baptism. We made the program, called all of the people participating, and planned out the rest of the week. This night we ate with the Wright family. Easily one of my favorite families in the Branch. Sister Wright would NOT let me wash or pick up any dishes. I don't understand what it is but for some reason people don't like it when you pick up your own plate after dinner at THEIR home. I don't know. I'm trying to have good manners mom.

 

Friday- Ate sooooo much food! Brother Melton BBQ'd for us. Good gracious. Gained about 10 pounds in one sitting...then I got up, got some more, and sat down again.

 

Saturday- We had the baptism of Austin Haney. It was wonderful. He was so excited. Pretty sure that he forgot extra underwear and a towel. Felt bad for the kid. Reminded me of the first time that I went to go and do baptisms for the dead. Totally forgot to change my underwear. Anyways...Austin's grandmother is Sister Gamble, the one that we gave a blessing to just the other week. She was able to attend the baptism of her grandson and I don't believe that there was anything that could have made her more happy.

 

Sunday- ONE OF THE BEST DAYS OF MY MISSION! So it started out with Austin Haney's confirmation. Went smooth as smooth could be. After that we had 4 of our recent converts (between last week and the week before) stand to be sustained by the Branch as the newest members. That was an amazing feeling. Then as we looked around at the congregation we realized that we had 10 of our investigators at church! They were all sitting with members of the branch just smiling away. 

 

Think this is good so far?! JUST WAIT! 

 

After church we rode out with Brother Thomas to his ranch in the BOONDOCKS! Like we drove for an HOUR to get there. They not only were our dinner appointment for the evening but they had invited the Pate family over. The Pate children are all investigators of ours. So we had an awesome dinner and then tried to teach about baptism. Well the kids were half way asleep because it was fast Sunday and we had just consumed an enormous meal, and the parents didn't seem to be paying much attention either. Well, the discussion kind of faded into another topic by some of the other adults at the table (aka- lost control of the lesson) and it was time for the Pates to head home. After the Pates left we started to pack up our stuff for Brother Thomas to take us home when all of the sudden here comes Sister Thomas on a four wheeler. She says, "Kelly! One of the cows is having a difficult birth, I think we need to help her." Brother Thomas turns to us and says, "I'm sorry Elders, do you have many appointments this evening? I might lose a cow if I don't help." We called and rescheduled the appointment while Brother Thomas and his son saddled up the horses to go rope the cow. They got her into the corral and roped her down and started to work. The cow kept standing up and falling over, standing up and falling over. Brother Thomas yells to his 10 year old grandson, "Go get the calf-puller" I was thinking, "They make those?" The kid came back with this crazy looking contraption, meanwhile Brother Thomas is arm deep (no gloves) in this cow's...business. He takes the chain on the end of this "calf-puller", wraps it around the front hooves of the calf, and starts to crank on the other end of the contraption to pull the calf out. Well, that was supposed to work, but the dumb cow kept standing up and falling over and kicking. Brother Thomas yells to me, "Elder! I need your help!" I'm looking around to see which one of his grandkids is named "Elder" He said, "I need you to pull on the hefer's tail, so you can push her over!" WHAAAT?!? So I run over there...in my suit...and grab this nasty, bloody, slime coated cow tail and start yanking on it as hard as I can. The cow tries to counter act the pull, gets off balance, and then I pushed that cow as hard as I could! Down goes the cow. As soon as it hit the ground Brother Thomas cranked the rest of that calf out like none other. I helped deliver a cow. Not something that I ever thought that I would do on my mission but I did. Now the blessing of this "ox in the myr" story is not bloody hands or dirty shoes, it's when we were driving home. We got a call from Brother Pate who asked, "So who do I talk to to get my family baptized?" The biggest smile creeped across I and my companion's faces. This is the Lord's work.

 

Sorry I'm out of time. Love y'all!

-Elder McNinch

February 27, 2012 Letter

Hello,

Well this week is a little more interesting than the last. I'm pretty much used to the whole "country" thing. It's kind of ridiculous, but hey...it's where I live. I am most definitely taking pictures of the new area so don't you worry your little heart mother. I have a lot of pictures on this sd card that I have been meaning to send home to y'all. I just wanted to know if you had all the videos that were on the previous card saved to a disc at home? I will send y'all the memory card in the next few days.

 

Cool things to report on from this week. We got to have a sleep over with other missionaries, I got to meet Elder Kevin R. Duncan of the Seventy, I got to go on splits with Elder Johnson from my MTC group, and we had 3 baptisms on Saturday. The sleep over was absolutely necessary because we live in the BOONDOCKS!!! We had a meeting that we were going to in Longview on Wednesday (meeting with Elder Duncan). Well, Longview is 110 miles away from Idabel. No bueno for missionaries who are limited on the number of miles that they have a month. So we drove down to Mt. Pleasant, Texas and stayed the night with some other Elders. Elder Moody and Elder Drake. Elder Moody came out with me so I know him pretty well. He is hilarious. Then from Mt. Pleasant we drove into Gilmer, Texas. Then from Gilmer we drove to Longview. It was kind of crazy. Fun, but crazy. All in all it was about 4 hours of driving with all of the stops.

 

The meeting with Elder Duncan was great. Other than the fact that I was asked to sing a special musical number again. They always ask me to sing when there is someone important coming and it scares the heck out of me! It didn't sound all that great, but it wasn't terrible. All I know is that Elder Jones was the reason that I had to sing. He was my companion two transfers ago and he is one of the assistants. I am POSITIVE that he volunteered me for that wonderful musical number. It's whatever though. The meeting was amazing. If I told you everything that I wrote down at the meeting this letter would be way too long, and I don't have a lot of time right now.

 

Friday I got to go on exhanges with Elder Johnson, who is now my zone leader. He and I were in the MTC together and he is one of my most favorite missionaries. Truly will be one of my most close friends for the rest of my life. He is in Gilmer right now so that was an adventure to get there. But, when we did finally get there, we had a blast. We went out tracting in the middle of nowhere. As we were tracting we found this dog (more like the dog found us). It was huge! It was a Pyranease? However you spell that. My spelling is the first thing that is going to leave me as I serve out here. 

 

Anyways...the dog followed us around the whole time that we were tracting. I guess it was a body guard from Heavenly Father or something. After tracting with the dog we went to dinner. The little girl at dinner was hilarious. The only thing that she would eat was butter. I was dying laughing. Like, her mom would spread the butter on a biscuit and she would pick off the parts of the biscuit that had butter on them. Then towards the end she got tired of it and just decided that she would go for the whole thing. She reached over and stabbed the butter with her fork and took a big bite. YUM! Ha ha ha. The really fun part of the exchange was when we got pulled over for speeding. The cop came up and asked for registration and what not. He was the nicest cop that I have ever met. He said that it would just be a warning and that he would go and run the license real quick and be back. Awesome. We felt so grateful that we decided to give the cop a Finding Faith in Christ DVD. He accepted! Who would have ever thought that you could share the gospel when you have been pulled over? It was great.

 

Saturday. Oh sweet Saturday. We got to see 3 people become baptized members of the church. Yes mom I took pictures. They are on the memory card that I am sending. Two of them are a couple. They are from the Marshall Islands. There are a lot of Marshallese people here in Idabel. They all work at the Tyson factory. Then again, Tyson and some railroad company are the employers of more that 3/4ths of every one in a 70 mile radius. (we recently figured out that our Branch covers about 6,000 sq. miles) The rest work at Walmart or the casino. Anyways... the third person was a part member family. The wife decided that it was time for her to join the church.

 

Sunday we got to go out and meet the family that drives 68 miles to church every Sunday. Man, THEY live in the boonies, not me. The family is awesome though. I'll have to send you more updates next week. I don't have a lot of time on the computer today. This library only gives you an hour to email so...yeah...gotta go. But I love you all so much you cannot even believe. Being out in the "wilderness" makes you miss home a lot more I have noticed. Don't think that I am getting all mushy gushy or I can't hack it out here because I miss you so much, but do know that I miss y'all. I love you very much and I will talk to you next week.

 

Love,

Elder McNinch

PS- yes they can write to me here in Idabel. Otherwise I would only get their letters once a month. So yes, please write me here!

February 20, 2012 letter

Oh deer,

"Where am I?" You see, that's an interesting question. The name of the city that I am CLOSEST to is called Idabel. I know longer live in Texas. I am in OKLAHOMA! Ha ha ha. Part of my area goes into Arkansas! Ha ha ha I love it! We live with a member about 5 miles outside of town. I tell you what folks, if this ain't the boondocks then I don't know what is. Remember how I thought that I was in the middle of nowhere when I was in Longview? Doesn't even compare. My first few days here were my first sign that I was no longer in "the city", but after Sunday I now KNOW that I am in the sticks.
Monday was a bunch of packing and saying goodbye to people and what not. Tuesday morning was transfers. That was a lot of fun (as you probably saw). The mission recently ordered trucks for some of the missionaries to drive and guess who got to drive it out to them!?! Yours truly! They are pretty sweet trucks. Chevy Colorado's with a 3" lift and after market rims and tires. Anyways...so Elder Morris and I drove the truck out to Lindale, TX where I met my new companion Elder Whicker. Elder Whicker served in The Colony and Little Elm when I was serving in Frisco so I already knew him pretty well. After the hour and a half drive to Lindale we drove with a member another hour to a place called Mt. Pleasant (smell of the town= not so pleasant). That's where my companion had parked our car to save miles. From Mt. Pleasant we drove another hour and a half out to the wonderful city of Idabel, Oklahoma. Ooo boy! We got home, unpacked what I needed for the day, and headed off to dinner. Dinner was awesome. Oh my goodness. We ate dinner with a man named Buddy. You know how sometimes we would watch Blue Collar TV? Well, let's put it this way. Buddy doesn't have to watch it. He lives it! It is so great! His son (28) was poking fun at him for being "old" and Buddy was jeering back at him with some of the funniest sayings that I have ever heard. I was in tears all night from laughing. Everything in Buddy's home is a nice John Deere yellow or green. Yes, even down to the toliet. I LOVE these people here! Buddy is a convert to the church. The two missionaries that taught him are some of the greatest ones that I know. Elder Ryan Hurd being one of them (he was the missionary that I met in the temple before our mission). Buddy has one of the strongest testimonies that I have ever heard. Hearing him bear his testimony after dinner was one of the greatest moments of my mission. Let me tell you, I cannot wait until fast Sunday. Ha ha ha.

I cannot tell you how many new phrases I am learning out here. Favorite one of the week is, "You bet'r git on dat lika duck ona Joonbug!" Ha ha ha. I almost peed my pants when I heard someone say it. The funny thing was that they weren't kidding. They meant it. It was in a normal, casual conversation. Something else that I am finding interesting here is that it's very culturally diverse. I mean apart from the 80% who are backwoods, you have a lot of people from the Marshall and Gilbert Islands and different Indian tribes. It's pretty awesome. In fact, most of our investigators right now are from the Marshall Islands. Sometimes we need to have one of them translate the lesson for us. It is so awesome.
Within the first three weeks of being here we will have 4 baptisms. We already have set 2 new baptismal dates with 7 more to be set this week. All with new investigators from this week. I will have to give you details on all of them in the coming weeks.

I had the opportunity to see someone healed this week. Her name is Carol. She has been ill for quite sometime. She suffers from some type of cancer and usually cannot have any visitors because of her weakened immune system. Her grandson, Austin, is 11 years old and wants to be baptized. So we went over to visit and see what we could do to help her, as well to talk to Austin about being baptized. Grandma let us right in and talked with us for a little while. She is currently on a breathing machine so she usually doesn't talk very much, but we had the chance to talk to her about what we could do to help her and her family. She expressed that she wanted her grandson to be baptized and someday go on a mission. She said, "If y'all could do that for me, everything else will be a piece of cake." I said, "No problem, I love cake." We set a baptismal date for Austin to work toward and left with a prayer. The next day we felt like we needed to call Carol to talk to her more about the baptism and what not. She could barely talk on the phone. I asked her if she needed a blessing, and she said that that would be wonderful. We went over as soon as we could. We got there to find out that Carol had developed pneumonia over the past few days. She said that she was in terrible pain. We gave her a blessing, promising her that if she would have faith enough, she would be healed and that the pneumonia would not overtake her. We left her with a word of prayer and a couple of extra blankets, telling her that we would be back in the morning to see how she was doing. The next morning we arrived at her home to find that SHE answered the door. Carol was walking around and talking like there was no tomorrow; breathing tubes still stuck up her nose. It was amazing.

So, now to Sunday. The day that I knew I was in the boonies. We had a meeting with the Branch Mission Leader at 8 and then we went to go wake up all of our investigators for church. As we were leaving the church parking lot we had to stop. Boonie clue number 1- A pack of deer came running out across the church lawn and darted into the woods on the other side of the building. I just kind of sat there and said to myself, "That just happened..." After the deer and trying to wake up our investigators, church was almost ready to begin. We were in printing programs when the Relief Society President came in saying, "Elders! Come quick! I need to borrow you. I have baptisms for you!" Say what? We go into the hallway to meet a family who just drove 68 MILES to get to church! 68 MILES! That is a long drive to church. They haven't been to church in about 15 years and all of their kids want to be baptized. Ha ha ha. Miracles much? But really what killed me was that they had to drive 68 miles to the NEAREST building. Boonie clue number 2. Then Sacrament service started and I starting to read some scriptures as I normally do. I couldn't help but look at all of the deacons as they stood up to pass the sacrament. They all had a common theme to their attire, and that was boonie clue number 3. They all had huge buck knives on their belts with abnormally large buckles. Awesome.
Needless to say, I LOVE my new area. Good luck getting mail here. My new address is "Rural Route 2 Box 602, Idabel, Oklahoma, 74745" No joke on the "Rural Route" part. That's really what it's called. I didn't even know that those kinds of addresses existed. We live with members and they are great. Their names are the McDonald's. Yes, ee ei ee ei oh, I live on the McDonald's farm in Oklahoma. Yes mom, you can look at all the picture cd's. The rest of the stuff is all books and talks and stuff that I want after the mission. Yes I got to see April Feliciano get baptized by her boyfriend Christoph McLaughlin. It was an amazing experience. Glad to know that we are not going to move before I get home. That is nice. School? Ummm...yeah...need to pray about that one.

Love,

Elder Michael McNinch

Transfer Day February 14th 2012 Pictures

First up I just want to say that this hair looks nothing like

THIS hair!

Now for your viewing pleasure....

There are more pictures, but blogger is being difficult and I can't get them all uploaded.
You can go here to see more. (Clickety on the word "here")

February 6, 2012 letter

Goodness,

Glad that y'all figured out the whole email thing. I was getting kind of worried that my emails weren't getting to you. I enjoyed getting an email from Aunt Enner last week. It was much appreciated. Please know that I love and miss all of you dearly.
I did get your really large packet in the mail. Glad to see that everyone is doing well. I love how Shawn and Michelle's family had 3 surgeries in a two week period. That has to be some kind of record. I loved seeing all of the pictures of everyone. It made me really happy. I'll have to make a list of addresses that I need so I can write all of them and see how they are doing.
I interrupt this email to tell y'all that the man that is sitting in front of me is listening to "Hot-blooded" by Foreigner and dancing his heart out. Ha ha ha. I am about to pee right in my pants. It's really funny because he is Hispanic and doesn't really know what the words are, so he is just kind of singing whatever comes to his mind. It's even better because he is using headphones but the music is up so loud that everyone around us can hear it. Ha ha ha. Okay...back to the letter.
Brent and Brittany got to meet President Durrant?! That's so awesome. Really crazy that they are in my mission. Transfers are coming up...who knows? Maybe I'll have another east Texas experience.
Jordan Miller is home huh? That must have been a pretty sweet talk. I bet that the girls in the ward were all swooning, weren't they? Elder Miller is such a stud. I love that kid. Glad to know that he is home safe now. No more freezing cold winters in New York.
So y'all have a new Elder. Where is he from? It seems like y'all have had a lot of foreigners. That's kind of cool. Everyone always freaks out when I tell them that I am from Las Vegas. They always say, "...no really...where are you from?" Ha ha ha...I'm a missionary...I don't lie! It's kinda funny. We have this girl who is getting baptized on Saturday who says the same thing. She told me yesterday at church, "When I first heard that one of my missionaries was from the city of sin I had to ask myself How can someone holy come out of the city of sin?" I thought that the statement was funny in general, but even more funny that she called me Holy. Ha ha ha. I have been called a lot of strange things on my mission, but never Holy.
So I understand that stamps are up to 45 cents now?! What is up with that?! Doesn't the government know that missionaries all over the US are outraged!?! I handed the letter to the teller at the library post office today and he said, "That will be 45 cents" I said, "What?" Then he explained that it is now 45 cents a stamp. I feel like my world is closing in on me. My companion just had to buy four 1 cent stamps to put on all of his letters today. Seriously?!? We need to get Romney in there fast so he can fix this mess. He'll go to bat for the missionaries for sure.
This week was fun. Getting everything all set up for April Feliciano's baptism. She is so excited. Her boyfriend is the was that is going to baptize her. He keeps telling her that he is going to hold her under for a while to make sure that she gets all the sins off. She is so scared of drowning which makes it all the more funny. She is also terrified of public speaking so we keep telling her that she is going to have to get up and bear her testimony at the baptism. She is hilarious. She is so ready to be baptized. I have never seen someone so giddy.
I don't really have much to report on this week...oh...I...uhh...broke the car...BUT! Other than that, everything is all good. "What?! I didn't brake it...I was just testing it's durability." But really...I broke like the smallest piece of the car. It was like a side taillight and just the plastic covering broke. They're trying to tell me that it'll cost $76.00to fix!!! I was like WHAT!!! No way. I'll figure it out. Don't worry.
Okay, so after the baptism and such I will send home a memory card so that you will have some beautiful pictures of your wonderful son. Other than that nothing much to say. The church is still true no matter how many crazy people I meet that set out to prove the church wrong. No matter how many people try to bash with us, it's still true. "I love my mamma very much, now you know that!"- Waterboy

Love,

Elder McNinch