Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!

How has this wonderful time been treat'n yalls?? haha its been a pretty good week! Christmas was awesome! I had 3 Christmas dinner that yall already know about and about the time we were talking it stated snowing pretty hard and we ended up with about 2 inches by the end of the night! On Wednesday because of the snow we got to help a ton of people! we went out around 10 and shoveled driveways till 3ish! it was awesome! there was one street where we shoveled almost everyone's (who would let us  haha) driveways! we also went to about all of our older and single investigators and less actives and gave them a quick shovel! It was pretty awesome! we didn't find anyone to teach out of it but it felt good to just help with some good old physical service and a bunch of people opened up and talked to us because of it! anyways the rest of the week was pretty good! haha it was flippin cold! The snow quickly turned into ice and we both had a few solid skids across the ice( don't worry I am fine! it was actually pretty fun) anyways I'm going to try and send some good pictures! It is the coldest day of the year so far! it was 6 degrees this morning! haha that was crazy! my fingers felt frozen trying to jump rope out there! haha. Anyways highlight of the week came on Friday teaching Anna like many of my highlight are. We asked questions and had a good discussion going back over the restoration, especially making sure she understood priesthood authority. She really started to get it and she bore her testimony to us that she knows that God can talk to his children if they need guidance and that she knows that Joesph Smith did receive and answer to his prayer. She's been reading the Book of Mormon and this week we are planning on inviting her to be baptized! I am so excited! it is nice to see someone with such awesome faith come to a knowledge of greater truth. I love being able to teach people, it really is one of the most incredible things in the world! I Love you all! Happy New Year! Its going to be an amazing 2013!!!!!!!!! ( haha if world does not end or something like that

P.S if you guys send anything this week send it to the mission office or make sure it will get here by Saturday, I might be getting moved on Monday the 6th.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

how is your weeks been?? are yall getting excited for Christmas? I am! what time on Christmas would be best for me to skype?? I'll get to call you to get it all set up on Christmas! 

haha anyways this week has been pretty hard. We had a lot of people go out of town and its been a little harder to get along with my new companion. I'm trying though! We got to do a Temple session on Friday! which was super cool! I've been wanting to go for awhile! We also got to do some family history work on Tuesday and that was awesome! I found a name on Dads side that I could do Temple work for which would be sweet! 

Hhaha its actually getting really cold now! It snowed again yesterday and the wind is blowing like crazy today! I hope its still warm and Sunny In the VA! my coat has kept me warm though! 

We had a missionary youth fireside yesterday with one of our wards! It was awesome! we had a RM who got back like 2 weeks ago talk and then one of our recent converts named Bro Cook who is super awesome!!(he invited us over for some Christmas dinner!) and a member of our mission presidency talk! It was pretty awesome! That was the first time bro cook has bore his testimony in public and we are going with him to do Baptisms for the dead on Dec 26! that will be super cool! I'm going to work pretty hard to make this week a better week but some prayers would help! I've been missing you guys the past week! but I'm staying focused! We have some member lessons this week and a whole mission gathering on Thursday which will be fun!! we are going to have a mission talent show and fireside! 

I love you guys and miss ya! have an awesome week! Merry Christmas! Love Elder Aaron Macfarlane!

Awesome time to be a missionary!

Merry Christmas alls yalls!!!!!!!!

Its a pretty awesome time to be a missionary! haha first off thank you so much for the care package the drugs were pretty needed.. I'm feelin a ton better now though! I also have a coat that I bought last Monday so yes I am plenty warm! as far as my bike goes i am still borrowing one but I might be leaving this area on Jan 6 so I'm going to hold off on making decisions on a bike or not until then. We are staying very busy!! me and E Palmer came up with a CHRISTMAS lesson plan that we are going around and sharing with a bunch of members and their friends/fams! It is really cool!! I love teaching it because we talk about the prophecies of Christs birth and then we read the account of his birth and then we talk about his life and teachings!!! its awesome to teach and even better to study about! I have learned a ton the past few weeks!! I've finally been able to start reading Jesus the Christ and it is a amazing book!!! haha Im not very far because I have been cross referencing everything with my scrips! speaking of which a new quad and scripture case would be an awesome Christmas present!! my old one is getting pretty worn out and I don't want to destroy them... Also many many scripture highlighters with tons of colors! haha you know your a missionary when all you want is stuff to help ya learn and study better! but I've really been getting into my studies lately! I've been trying to memorize a scrip every day and I'm almost done with my BOM scripture masteries!! what book are you(mics and mnm) reading for seminary?? anyways we have been doing well and people have been taking really good care of us. We started teaching a new Investigator this past week named Cindy and she is way cool!!! she has a ton of Q's so it keeps us busy! haha we also have 2 new investigators Delilah & Rob who are both really cool and very interested! hopefully we will be able to start working toward a baptismal date with both of them!! Any ways my Grandma Anna had a hard week this week. Her Ex-husband that she had been taking care of passed away on Friday.. We went and just talked to her for awhile on Saturday and she was super cute and told us how they met and everything. She hated the guy but its still hard to lose someone who has been such a big part in your life. But she has faith enough to know that God loves all his children and will do whats best for everyone. She has really helped me and my testimony because how strong her faith is. Anyways it was a good week and I'm excited for this week. We get to got to the Temple on Fri!!!! I'm pretty happy about that! I love all of you and hope its been a good week! Enjoy the Christmas season ok!!!!! and I don't know yet when we can Skype on Christmas but I do know that I can call you to help us get all set up so that will be great! Remeber who we are celebrating and Merry Christmas all! I love you guys so much! Love E Macfarlane!

Bicycles & the Christmas Season

Hey guys!!!

Hope you all are having an amazing week! how were Joe and Micky's bdays?? haha Happy late Birthday again yalls twos!! Wellll its been sort of a hard week. My new companion Elder Palmer is a cool guy, a little quite though. He's willing to work hard though so that's the important thing! haha so my Bike actually got stolen out of our Garage last Monday... so we went and picked up a bike for Elder Palmer to come back and find mine gone... Its ok though I got it from another missionary and it was kind of a piece of junk haha. Anyways we had to walk for a couple of days because of that.. I am currently borrowing a bike from one of the Less actives we teach so I am doing great now! haha as soon as we got the bike I'm riding now Elder Palmers bike broke down and we had to get it fixed... We both have bikes now though and they are both working great! haha you don't realize how wonderful it is to have a bike until you spend a few days walking! So it was good for me. I will never complain about being on a bike again! We didn't get as much teaching done this week because of our transportation issues but what we did get done was pretty good! Its a little bit different/more stressful to lead an area but I know its good for me. We are working a lot with the youth now because of the age being lowered. We taught the Priests and Laurels in one of our wards yesterday and we are teaching the youth of one of our other wards at a fireside in a couple of weeks! Its pretty cool! a bunch of them are getting ready to go and are super willing to do some missionary work. We did a little tracking this week I found my first Investigator from a cold door approach! They are a super cool family and right now we are just teaching them about Jesus Christ and the Christmas season!! It will be pretty cool to see how the Christmas spirit effects people and hopefully it will open some doors! I hope you all are having a wonderful week! I miss reading our Christmas stories in Dec.. That is a super cool tradition! anyways that's about it for this time! this coming week should be pretty dang good! Love and miss you all a ton! Love Elder Aaron Steele Macfarlane! aka the bomb diggity  (haha) Merry Early Christmas! what can I get yall or send or anything for Christmas??

Send him letters! Especially during this Christmas season, he would love to hear from you all!

Elder Aaron Macfarlane

520 Railroad Court

Nampa, ID 83687

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Family!

How are yall?? I hope you had an awesome Thanksgiving! It sounds like it was really good from what I hear! I'm so happy you all got to have it together and relax! hopefully that's true haha. My Thanksgiving was really good! haha we did eat 3 Thanksgiving dinners though... That was painful. But we spent most of the day with a really awesome family named the Hemmings! Bro &Sis Hemming are from England and was thus hilarious haha and their little kids were crazy and a ton of fun!

our President encouraged us to spend the Holiday with families and share uplifting messages and yeah.. have some fun! So we played some games before dinner and talked with awhile after dinner! I got to play cars and guns and all that stuff with Zach and Emily for awhile so I was happy! After them we ate 2nd Dinner with a new member who was just baptized which was awesome because the he and his family were all talking about how thankful they were for the Gospel and how much its helped them! haha our 3rd dinner was painful... but yet I loved it! we had it with our little old German investigator Anna which was awesome!

we talked for awhile about the old country and she taught us some German! She is really progressing and she will be working toward Baptism soon. She calls us her sons/grandsons! she's so sweet. Anyways the rest of the week was good yet long. We had a huge zone conference on Tuesday and yeah that took all day... We got to teach a new family on Friday! The Labattos, Delialah's Husband who past away was a member and he took her to Salt Lake and a bunch of stuff like that but it sounds like he was never really active or forced it on her. When he died he left her his Book of Mormon and said that it would help after he was gone. She just started reading it a year ago. She remarried and moved to Idaho in time for the Temple Open house and she said it was one of the most powerful experiences of her life. She's been reading and praying and before we even taught her she said she knew it had to be true. Her new husband is interested but not as sure. I'm super excited to work with them and hopefully we'll have some baptisms in our future. Its the start of My 3rd Transfer today and Elder Nicholls got shipped of to Boise. My new companion's name is Elder Palmer and seems like a really cool guy. He's been out for 19 months so I'm glad I get to learn from some experience. I'm the area leader now and I hope that I'll be able to keep the area moving along and improve it in some way. I love you all and miss ya a ton! Happy Birthday Micaela and Joe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll get a letter in the mail for you guys but it might not be there right on time..I love you and hope your Birthdays are amazing!!!

Love Elder Macfarlane yo bro/son/friend