October 14, 2015 Lots of Learning for Just a Week

This week was pretty awesome. On Thursday the Bench's took us out to dinner, they were super sweet. I told Sister Bench that Dominicans make great chicken parmesan, and I was right, but, when they brought out her plate it had 3 full breasts and there was no way she was going to be able to eat it all. So she made us eat the rest of what she didn't eat, which was most of the plate. 

Friday was that special zone conference with Elder Arnold of the 70. It was great, we learned a ton and he just kind of refocused the entire mission on some teaching and planning principles that we've been trying to apply and have had some really good success with so far. On Saturday, Elder Mackintosh's best friend's parents took us out to lunch and were really nice.  They had been planning it for more than a week. The rest of the weekend was good, nothing too exciting happened. Then on Monday, we found out that the old paper Area Book had never been transferred into the iPads, even though we've been using them for more than 2 years. So we're hoping to capitalize on some seeds planted by some other missionaries in the next few weeks. And Yesterday we had 2 fantastic lessons with some in/less active members and it's looking like we're going to be rounding in some lost sheep, which, in my opinion, is just as good as baptisms, especially in a ward like ours which is like 20% active. So yeah, that's my missionary report of the week. 

We're heading down to the temple to play some basketball and to pick up the box that dad left for me at the Bench's apartment. We were going to go to the Met but, we ran out of time to go all the way to the East side today, maybe next week.

It was great to hear from you. Mom those decorations looked great, that's such a perfect job for you. How often are you working? Is it mostly just shopping? Or do you mostly just rearrange the decorations that you already have? Cole! Keep it up you stud! I wish I had had the drive to get straight A's. I'm jealous of Ike's music stuff too, it would be so helpful to be able to play the piano.   Nobody in our entire zone can play well enough to play more than a couple hymns. Dad, why were you in NY? It's a bummer that it was such a surprise, otherwise we would've been able to meet up.

It's getting to that time, I'm going to need to start buying winter clothes. Elder Mackintosh and I, since we're both new, are going to go winter shopping next week. I'm kind of worried because other than that coat, I've got nothing haha. Have a great week. I love you. Happy Birthday Mom!

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

I'm going to include a couple pictures, they're not super exciting.  Just a selfie that Elder Mackintosh took with just a little warning and a couple pictures we took around the GW bridge the other day while we were looking for a member who lived super out of the way. They didn't turn out too great, but, maybe you'll like to see the area a bit.