Share Your News and Photos with Elder McBride at: Samuel.McBride@myldsmail.net

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

November 30, 2016 I Love to See the Temple

We had a great week this week. One of our investigators is progressing super crazy fast, it's so exciting. He's overcoming addictions, reading the Book of Mormon pretty quickly, and coming to church. He's awesome. 

We had Thanksgiving dinner at a family in our ward's house.  After eating way to much food, we went to go visit a less active man in our Ward, our hearts dropped when we saw his table set. We ended up having another Thanksgiving dinner and both feeling really really sick by the end. 

This week is bound to be special. The Christmas initiative starts tomorrow. I invite you to go to Mormon.org, participate and invite everyone you know to participate as well. It's such an easy invitation. "Come serve with me" it's so much different than all the other ways you can introduce someone to the church, it's awesome.  

Today we got to go to the temple. The spirit was so strong. It was such a great experience. President and Sister Bench were there, so was Sister Murphy. I love the Bench family, they're so great. 

I didn't really take any pictures with the missionaries we were with or anything because it was crazy rainy. We got soaked on our walk back to Grand Central. So much fun. 

I love you family. Thanks for raising me in the Gospel. I have no clue what would have happened to me without you.

Con Amor.
Elder Sam McBride

The Hudson is really pretty at sun set.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

November 23, 2016 C--- Got Baptized!

We had a great week this week. We had a baptism on Sunday! He's an 8 year old boy that gets brought to church by his aunt. We thought he was a member until he came up to us at a baptism some other missionaries were having and said "I want to get baptized." The rest is history. His mom was able to come and she brought a bunch of friends, we're working on her still. 

We started zone conferences this week. Which means that we're super busy as usual. The training that Elder Mackintosh & I are giving this time around is on the new Christmas initiative. Get excited it's going to be awesome. 

We had some amazing experiences this week. About a month ago we received a referral from some sisters that we're giving art tours down at the Lincoln Center Chapel (Aka the chapel Side of the temple). They had given a tour to this man that lives in our area. We contacted him and he asked us if we could call him back in a few weeks. Fast forward to last week. We contact him again and he is one of the most prepared people I have ever met in my life. It's awesome to see that the Lord is preparing people all the time to receive the Gospel. We are going to try to commit him to be baptized on a specific date this Friday. We are also have another investigator that we think could get baptized by the end of December. High hopes for our area. 

In other news, it's starting to get cold here which is making me really happy. I still really like the cold... my companion thinks I'm weird. I hope you have a great week!

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride


C--- is the 8 year old. Isn't he beaming!?  The teenager is the Bishop's son T---. He performed the baptism.

C--- and his family

Selfie with C--- in his velvet blue blazer





Wednesday, November 16, 2016

November 16, 2016 Transfers!

I'm sorry for this ridiculously short letter. Transfers are super crazy for us. Elder Mackintosh and I are staying for an unprecedented 4th transfer together. That makes 7 total! Crazy, right?! Our other companion Elder Stokes got transferred to West Point and became a Zone Leader. So, back to regular companionship life. 

Our recent convert that we're working with, J---, got the Melchezidek Priesthood this weekend. We invited him to give his wife a blessing later in the week and we got one of the coolest texts I've ever gotten in my life.  It was along the lines of "I gave Gwen a blessing. It was an amazing experience. Thank you so much." It's great to see people change and come closer to Christ. The Gospel really does change lives and bring families closer together. These last 3 days have been crazy. 15 new missionaries and 16 going home. Lots and lots of logistics to take care of. I'll attach some pictures to make up for the short email.

Love you,

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride


Me and Brother S---. He's the coolest.

The trio, William & Lauren at this Peruvian restaurant in White Plains that I'll take you to some day.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

November 9, 2016 Oh! That's why they call it a leaf blower!

Hey Family,

Things are going great out here in the Big Apple. We've had a couple great experiences lately with finding new people. People just seem to be coming out of the woodwork lately. We went to go find this Member family the other night and the father of the family opens the door and is super friendly. After talking to him for a bit he asks us when we can come back by and teach his daughter who had just turned 8 because he wants her to get baptized. He said it's about time they found their way back. It was such a miracle. This man hasn't been to church in years and now he just feels like it's time. 


The Lord is really hastening his work out here. Last month the mission hit its monthly baptismal goal for the first time. This goal had been set in July and we've been so close, but weren't able to get it until October. Now November it's looking like we'll be able to do it again!

We had a crazy week this week. I'm not sure I mentioned this, but 4 weeks ago one of the missionaries serving as an office elder had to go home for medical reasons, so we got a new companion and double office duties. This week has been really busy with running mail and doing other random things. But with a lot of traveling we took some good videos, hopefully they make up for this short letter.

This next week is transfers. Who knows what is going to happen, but it's sure to be a surprise. Elder Mackintosh and I think we're going to go 7 together.

Les Amo,
Elder Sam McBride

P.S. The subject line is because I had a moment of realization as to what the true purpose of leaf blowers is this week. #whoknew?


1. This is a picture of all the mail we took down to the city yesterday. Way too much mail. The funny story about this picture is that a super nice Hungarian woman took it for us. Of course she wanted to know what the heck we were doing and why so we were able to talk to her about the church and give her a Hungarian Book of Mormon. She was super impressed.

2. The second picture is just a pretty picture we took in south Manhattan yesterday. The ad on the taxi was a little inappropriate so we edited in a little sneak peak at this years Christmas initiative.  Shhhhh don't tell anyone. It's going to be sweet.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

November 2, 2016 Halloween

Hey family! It was great to hear from you this week. That's super cool that Joseph Leung got back! We have a Portuguese missionary named Elder Castro who is from Portugal that says he knew Elder Leung. He always talked about how well he played the violin and how he had his trainee convinced that he only spoke Chinese and Portuguese until he had to give a talk in Zone conference in English. I don't think I'll have as crazy of an adjustment as he did, we are treated well here in New York. I have seen some poverty though, it has really grown my testimony of the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity. If everybody in the world were to live those two commandments the world would be such a good place! 

We had a super cool experience this week. On Halloween we were able to contact someone who requested a Bible online. As we left the building which was full of a bunch of crazy people dressed up in Halloween costumes, we talked to the one guy who didn't have a Halloween costume on. He wasn't interested, but he gave us an apartment number for one of his friends. Yesterday we went looking for his friend, who wasn't there, but we knocked on his neighbor's door and got let in by this super awesome family. You never know how the Lord will put people into your path. 

I love you family! I hope you had a great week!

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride