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

April 6, 2016 Conference Was Awesome!

General conference was so good this year! I totally didn't appreciate it enough when I was home but the guidance that we receive from our church leaders every 6 months is so helpful. The two session ending talks on Sunday were fantastic and the priesthood session was fantastic this conference. Everybody here seemed to be disappointed with President Monson's short talks but I really liked them. Even though they were only a few minutes long they were powerful. We watched conference on a Roku at the branch building in Downtown Danbury. Nobody really showed up to watch it in the chapel so we (our District) watched it in English.

Other than Conference, we had president interviews on Thursday.  Interviews are great because it's so rare to get personal advice and help from President because he's so busy. The very next day we went down to Scarsdale for MLC. It was a pretty intense meeting, but it was really helpful and we learned a lot about what President expects from the mission. Since MLC was Friday we had zone meeting on Monday, which is like having MLC but condensed from a 5 hour meeting to a 1 and a half hour meeting. It's always a stressful weekend but since it was conference it was a little less. Once it was over it was such a relief, especially since it turned out pretty well.

We had a pretty cool Miracle on Wednesday. We were searching for a less active member and found the nonmember son of a stake president in Honduras. It was so cool the son pointed out how it was such a miracle. He seems pretty interested, we're excited for him.

Thanks so much for the emails. I love you and pray for you every day.

Have an awesome week!

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

March 30, 2016 Weekly Email! Yay!

We had a pretty regular week this week apart from setting another baptismal date! We set a date for April 16th with this awesome investigator named I.... He's super cool, he's in the army and had investigated the church at two different times earlier in his life, but after joining the army he realized that he needs to find the truth. He's so sincere and he keeps every commitment and then some. So Gold.

Other than that we didn't have a ton of crazy stuff happen this week.  All of those things are happening this week. President interviews on Thursday, MLC on Friday, and Conference over the weekend makes this week a really crazy one. Thanks for being awesome! I pray for you every day.

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

Here's a picture of our zone minus Elder Dutson and Elder Matson because they had to go to a doctor's appointment.

March 23, 2016 Yay! Bap Dates!

Solid week, we've been seeing some cool progression with some of our investigators, and we had a former come out of the blue that is super excited and ready to go. We had a pretty cool thing happen to us on Friday. We teach this kid who's been getting taught since October that has a bunch of family that are members of the church but neither of his parents are. His parents are separated and his dad, even though not interested himself, has always supported his son meeting with the missionaries and joining the church. His mom however, has not been down and we have been told that she is opposed to the church. On Friday, for what we're pretty sure is the first time since he started getting taught, we got to meet with his mom. It was pretty cool, at first she seemed a little closed and cold, but then we showed her and her son "Hallelujah", the church's new Easter Initiative video. After the video she seemed visibly touched and really warmed up to us, and after a short discussion about the church she consented to her son getting baptized, we set a date in mid April. It was a cool experience to see somebody's heart soften to us on the spot like that. Of course it took a lot of time seeing her son change, learn and grow, but the switch happened during the video because of the Spirit.

On Sunday we had a pretty cool meeting with the Stake Presidency and President Smith in New Canaan. I'm not really sure what to call it but it was like "Stake Correlation". I was surprised at how productive it was because my last companion told me that at the last one that the zone leaders were able to go to they didn't even need to be there. But at this one they asked us questions, asked for feedback, gave us suggestions, some of which are really bold and I would be afraid of offending members had President Checketts not told us to do it, and President Stauffer even had a referral for the Norwalk Spanish Sisters. All in all, a really productive meeting. A kind of funny thing happened, President Potter had walked in a little late so we hadn't had the chance to say hi, so after President Checketts asked me to say the closing prayer President Potter realized that he knows me.  So right after the kind of uncomfortable prayer (I don't feel comfortable praying out loud in English anymore) he got up and said across the table something like "Hey, I know you!" came over, and gave me a hug. It was pretty good timing I'm not going to lie. I also met another person that said he knows me but that I don't know him, I think his name is Brother Ward but I'm not 100% sure, we didn't get a chance talk for very long, does that sound familiar?

Thanks for the Package! The candy is tasty, and the decorations are cute. We already put up the pictures of Christ banner. Thanks for everything, and have an Awesome Easter! I Love You!

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

March 16, 2016 The Temple is Great!

Hey Family! 

This is going to be a little bit short today because we spent our Pday going down to the temple. The temple is fantastic, I've really come to love it even though at first I thought it was a little weird.

A quick update on everything. I'm doing really well. The work's going well. The branch is doing well. The zone's doing well. Elder Gallardo is awesome. Time is flying by.

Sunday we had branch conference, which meant that the President Checketts and President Stauffer came to speak to the Branch. I was really busy before sacrament meeting so I couldn't go meet President Stauffer before, but during his talk he became the third person this year to mention me by name over the pulpit #beatthatmax. People in our branch keep coming up and asking me why people know me and then I have to explain to them the whole story, good Spanish practice. After the meeting we got the chance to talk for a bit and  when I told him about Seth being in his mission he took a super awkward video of me that he could show to him when he gets there in June.

Sorry for the short one today. I'll attach a selfie that I took at the Stamford train station. (Dad, is that the one you took all the time?)

Con Amor,
Elder Sam McBride

Sam with our good friend, Colin Stauffer