May 25, 2016 I Found a Chinese Dane!

So I'm going to jump right into a story this week. Two Saturday's ago our stake had a missionary activity for prospective missionaries. The activity was in the city by the temple. We had a few APF's (Area Proselyting Focus that are  basically little street events or activities that we put on to street contact people) that we were rotating through. The first one that we went to was at Columbus Circle by the massive statue on the south-west corner of Central Park. 

We had set up this massive plywood Book of Mormon and we're trying to talk to everyone. The wind kept blowing the Book of Mormon down so I had to hold onto it and just smile at people and try to talk to them as they walked by.  Nobody wanted to talk to me until this old but very excited Chinese woman walked up to me and asked me if she could have a Book of Mormon. She didn't exactly speak the best English but we fought the language barrier enough for her to tell me that she doesn't live in NY, had visited Salt Lake City and really wanted a Book of Mormon in Chinese, which we didn't have with us. She wrote her name, email address and phone number (that had too many numbers) in my notebook, and walked away with an English Book of Mormon and a promise that the Chinese missionaries would contact her to try to get her a copy in Chinese before she goes home. Fast forward to Thursday. We get a call from the Chinatown zone leaders.  They said that she responded to their email and gave them her address. They were asking for more information about her before they sent it to where she lives. And it turns out she lives in Copenhagen Denmark! What?! How crazy is that!? I found an investigator for Max's mission!

Also on Sunday the YSA Ward was meeting in Danbury and we had a less active member that wanted to go so we went with him.  After the meeting I ran into the Murphy's. We were in a pretty big rush to get to an appointment so we didn't chat for very long. It was cool to see more people that we know. Jared Murphy was able to give the member we brought a ride home, which was a little miracle because he didn't have a ride.

Thanks for being awesome family! I love you.

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

May 18, 2016 Zone Activity! Catered by Olive Garden

Elder McBride celebrated his 20th Birthday and his halfway mark in his mission this past week!  Woohoo!

We had an awesome weekend this last weekend. On Friday we had our zone conference, which we learned a ton at. Then on Saturday Elder Gallardo and I got invited to go to the city for an activity for prospective missionaries in the stake. It was super awesome, we got to go out into Central Park and street contact with a ton of the youth from the stake. After we went to the Potters house for dinner and a testimony meeting/devotional.  It was a great activity and the youth seemed to get pretty excited about going on a mission. It was at the devotional that Sister Potter took that video of me. On Sunday the sisters in our district had a baptism! It was the first one in our zone for a nice little bit. It's always super stressful to make a baptism happen but it's always worth it in the end. Thanks for your stories. I hope you love the Cure concert!

Year Mark Stats:
Areas: 2
Companions: 4 (+1 MTC)
Baptisms: 3* (-1 for apostasy)
Pairs of Glasses: 2
Roommates: 9
Zone conferences: 4
President Interviews: 4
MLC's Attended: 4
Times hearing Elder Holland speak in person: 2
Times hearing an apostle in person: 3
Missionaries Trained: 1
Shirts destroyed: 5

Yorktown Stake Prospective Missionary Activity

Zone Activity:  Sam may have received a gift card to Olive Garden for his Birthday.
He's a big fan of spaghetti and meatballs

May 11, 2016 Hey Family!

It was great talking to you this week! I love you! We have a pretty crazy weekend coming up. On Friday we have Zone Conference and on Saturday we have this stake Missionary Activity. The activity is on Manhattan and is an activity for all the seniors of the stake that are planning on going on missions, it should be so much fun!

Have a Great Week! I love you so much!

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

May 4, 2016 Sweet Week

We had a sweet week this week. We finally reset a baptismal date for the 15th with the investigator who was supposed to get baptized last month.  On Monday, we had MLC, which was super cool because President and Sister Smith had just gotten back from a conference in Washington DC with Elder Oaks. President and Sister Stauffer were there as well, during lunch he told me a bunch of stories about him and Dad going to Yankees games. Also a week ago Sunday, we had our stake correlation and President Potter says hi. I'm excited for Sunday! Love you!

Con Amor,
Elder McBride

Zone Picture

I also saw Elder Mackintosh for the first time since I got transferred because he got called as a zone leader.

April 27, 2016 So Sorry!

I tried to make videos and send them this week but they will not send.  So I'm super sorry that I didn't really write you anything. We had a great week though. I love you and am so sorry.

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

(Should I forgive him?  I don't know!)

I took a couple videos this week. Here's a selfie
 we took while I was recording it.

The videos came through the next week.  
It was so fun to hear his voice and see his face! 
Beware...he wanders so it makes you a bit dizzy!

April 20, 2016 Change Is Good!

Hi Family--

I haven't been able to talk to him for a bit, mostly because he's in the English Ward, but last I heard he's been going to church consistently ever since that first time he came back in February. I'll ask the missionaries that are working with them how he's doing.

The Baptism didn't happen on Saturday. It's kind of complicated, there was a death in the family of some close friends of his and there was a scheduling conflict in the chapel involving a different funeral. So it got postponed for a bit, it will happen either on April 30th or May 7th, he's still super ready.

It sounds like you had a pretty legendary trip. Those dives sound epic.  We'll have to go back someday. Visiting Latin American countries will be fun after, I'm going to try to keep my Spanish.

I like what you said about change. I've grown to love it as a missionary. Change is good and provides opportunities to restart and apply what you've learned from past experiences. I look forward to every new companion and every new area because I always learn something from my current one that I can do better the next time I get a chance to restart. Elder Faust said "Something should move and change" you know you're successful when things are moving forward and continually changing for the better. Otherwise you're stagnant which is against the great plan of God. God's plan is Eternal Progression, and progression can't happen without change. And we change ourselves by constantly changing our actions to be more inline with God's will. Also known as Repentance. Being inclined to reject change could cause you to reject Christ's atonement by choosing to miss an opportunity to repent. Embrace change, pray for change, and make change happen.

Speaking of change. We had transfers happen this last week. A lot changed in the zone but not much directly affected me. Our district got a new Sister and one of the Portuguese Elders went to the Bronx. We are still waiting on 2 new Brazilian Portuguese Elders that are supposed to be getting their visas cleared and will be coming in either during this transfer or at the beginning of the next one. Other than that a new District leader came in in one of the districts in our zone, he's a pretty new missionary, I love young leaders. Speaking of young leaders, Elder Mackintosh finished training this last transfer and got called as a zone leader in the Poughkeepsie Zone. My trainee's a stud.

I Love you family, I hope you have a great week.

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

April 13, 2016 Hey Family!

Hey Family! I'm doing great, we just played ultimate frisbee for 2 hours so we had a pretty good Pday in my opinion. It was a pretty standard week this week. Unfortunately, one of our investigators that was supposed to be getting baptized on Saturday's mom decided that it's too soon for her son to get baptized. So he's going to have to for a bit until she feels like he's ready.  But after she told us, we had an awesome restoration lesson with her and we think that she may has potential, so there's hope. 

Some super awesome good news, we have a different investigator that will be getting baptized on Saturday. There's a little scheduling conflict with a funeral... But it'll get figured out. He passed his baptismal interview yesterday and it's going to be awesome. I promise I'll get some pictures. 

We had a less active family come back to church this last weekend. It was super cool because we had an appointment fall through a couple of weeks ago and we had an impression to go visit that family and they came back. They have a 16 year old son that just turned 16 last week, so he came out with us on Monday and really enjoyed it. We're hoping that he starts seriously preparing for a mission. 

I Love you family, I'm excited for Mother's Day and the skype call.

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride