Two.

yup.

Being a missionary is fun.

Being a missionary is hard work.

Being a missionary is the best thing in the world.

I like being a missionary

I can't believe I'm already halfway through the transfer. My first transfer. But I don't think anything eventful happened this week so....

Psyche!

Ana Julia was baptized this week!  It has been amazing to see the change in her life. When the other missionaries found her, she was sick, she had no family that would come and visit her, and she didn't have any money or job. When we started teaching her it wasn't much better. The first Sunday she showed up to church for the ward after us. We didn't know about her, so we were suprised. It was her first
time coming to church, and she loved it. As we kept teaching her, you could tell that she believed, and even bore her testimony to a few friends that were there with her during a couple of her lessons. There is a new light in her life. Saturday was her baptism, and I got to baptize her! well, my companion helped too because she is old, sick, and a little bigger so she couldn't bend her legs or back really, so I
said the baptismal prayer and the two of us helped her be immersed in the water.

This week I've worked a lot on having charity.

It says in 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3 that no matter how great you are: if you have prophecies, faith to move mountains, give all you have to the poor, and are pretty much perfect, if you don't have charity you are nothing. So... Its pretty important to have charity. you have to love people. Love them enough to give all that you are, just as Christ gave even his life, to serving others and helping them be happy. Just think about it. There are 7 billion people on the earth. Only about 15
million have the fullness of the Gospel, even less are active members of the church, and I don't know of a single person on the earth that doesn't have hard days, weeks, months, or years. People need help. People need to know God loves them. We need to go out and help people receive the fullness of Joy that Jesus Christ offers. I'm trying to do all I can out here every day to make people a little bit happier.

And in the process I am made happy.

Everyone, I don't care who we are talking about, has a really hard time sometimes. As a human family, we live in a broken world. We have broken bones, hearts, homes, marriages, spirits, jobs, testimonies. We have addictions and sin, we have to endure the consequences of the actions of ourselves and others.

But.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ conquered all of the hardships we will ever encounter. All of them. he suffered so that we don't have to if we turn to him. and he asks US, to be his hands and help people come unto him.

Thinking about that helps me to love other people. It's still hard to love everyone, but I'm getting better. I have faith that through Christ I can make it to that goal.

I hope you have a good week this week. I hope you are happy. I hope that if you're not, you try to make someone else happy this week. I promise you'll be happy too if you do.

I love you all

Elder David McFarland

pics 1: Me after landing in Guatemala with (left to right) Elders Ostler, Harris, Anderson, and Kreutzer. You all at the airport, and the CCM when we were leaving.

Pics 2. Guatemala from bus, El sal temple, and the AP's house after waking up first morning in El Sal

Pics 3 More from AP's house, with elders (l to r) Hallman, Garfield, Harris, Cope, and me. And Sabrina Savage.

Pics 4 me and my MTC companion after getting our trainers. a house of our investigator and this chair I took a picture of, and our backyardcourtyard thing.

Pics 5 our street and my comp

Pics 6 more of our street and me up by where Elder Rojas told me the story I shared last week.

 

Pics 7 Greenie package, cool tree at a church building in our zone we went to last p day, and a cool area that I know will be filled with houses and members someday (maybe not till during the millenium)

 Pics 8 my broken watch and the baptsim of Ana Julia