1 Year As A Missionary!

Hi everyone!! 

 

 

I hit my year this week which is crazy!! Time is going by so fast! This year has been hard but has been so worth it! I have been able to meet the most amazing people and have been able to find so much joy doing the Lord's work!

 

 

It was so fun to celebrate with Sister Miner since it was her 1 year too! We went to this really cute bakery called the gingerbread house! It had the cutest decorations and a red barn in the back!

 

 

Steven is being baptized on September 3rd! This week was really hard because we thought we would have to stop teaching him because we couldn't get his wife's permission for him to be baptized. After a lot of prayer we decided to take a break for a while to help his wife not hate us. We had a lesson with him Saturday and told him what we thought about taking a break from taking the lessons and he proceeded to bare his testimony about the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and practically begged us to be baptized. It was heartbreaking how much he wanted it but couldn't be without her permission. After all this he told us that she had actually given permission the day before it just didn't come up in the conversation. We are so excited that he will be able to be baptized!! Please keep him and his wife in your prayers that it will work out! It is inspiring how bad he wants to do God's will. 

 

 

We've been teaching Joe the commandments to prepare him for baptism and he always has the best questions! I've been able to do a lot of studying about the commandments to help answer his questions and I've been able to learn so much! He is so excited to go to the temple after his baptism! He said he had a surprise for us at church this week and he showed up in a suit! He said he's been looking for places to get a dress shirt for weeks now and he finally found one. It was so sweet how excited he was to be all dressed up for church! 

 

 

Sister Miner and I were doing companionship study and we started talking about what we studied in person and it turns out we both ended up studying the same topic and the exact same talk! It was such a weird coincidence but it was so cool to be able to talk about what we both got from it.

 

 

The lady we met in the parking lot with the dog a couple weeks ago invited us to her brother's birthday party. She said he has down syndrome and how it would mean a lot for us to come! We decided to go and it was a little better than we thought it would go! We thought it would be really awkward but it was a couple of her neighbors and she was really happy to have us there. We even were able to answer some of the neighbors questions about missionary work and they were all so nice! When else in my life am I ever going to go to a birthday party that a stranger in a parking lot invited us to.

 

 

Something we have been trying to help the missionaries in our zone to do is to find and recognize joy they have felt throughout the week. During our calls with them we would ask how we're able to find joy this week. They would always sit there and think for a little bit and then would usually tell us something small that week that brought them joy! It was really amazing to be able to hear what brought everyone joy!

 

 

I am going to extend the same question to you because I would love for you to think about it and I would love to hear about what has brought joy into your life this week!

 

 

I love and miss you all! I hope you have an amazing week!

♡Sister McGary 

 

 

 Pictures: 

1. We tried to get a picture with the pretty sunset

2. Cake from the Gingerbread House to celebrate our 1 year as missionaries!!

3 +4. The big red barn! 

5. Kopps!