Easter Week!

Hey everyone!!
Sooo this week freally flew by! hahha it really pretty crazy! I can't believe that its already been a month since I've been out on my mission! haha wierd huh? Thanks for the Emails they are so awesome! This week was pretty dang good! haha it wasn't super full of lessons like normal but it was full of some good missionary work I though!

First off we had a zone conference that was way cool! I learned abunch about new teaching skills and how I can improve myself as a teacher! haha I thought I was a good teacher but then I realized I need a ton of work lol.. Thats actually been something that has been kinda hard for me this first month.. I used to be such a confident teacher and I felt like my teaching was way more effective! but recently Its been hard to get my confidence back and get back into the rythm of teaching again. We are now supposed to have only 10-15 minute lessons because we are focusing on shorter and more powerful messages.. haha and teaching the entire plan of salvation and restoration in 15mins is way hard if you try to be an effective teacher by using scriptures and asking inspired questions and all that! haha pretty much your lesson has to be perfectly planned out! which is something that really hit me because back home if I had to give a talk or teach a lesson I would spend a few hours getting it ready and preparing it. That is how our missionary lessons should be with the same amount of preparation and all that stuff! haha because I have gotten into a bad habbit of thinking I already know the lesson and how to teach it so I really don't need to put a whole ton of prep work into it. So thats something I've been trying to work on! and my companion is working really hard too! We teach way different and we've kinda clashed with our teaching styles so we've been working hard to get unified so we can teach powerfully.

Ummm We found a new family this week!!! the Chockers!! they are a young couple with 2 way cute kids and a little blonde 2 year old named Miranda haha which actually kinda looks like the wittle version of you dear sister ;) haha but anyways josh is a convert of 10 years and sarah has taken missionary lessons in the past but just never had a desire to find out if it was true or not.. anyways they have been going to a bunch of different churches the past little while and each one has fallen apart by some kind of disagreement or scandal.. They were talking about it the night before we came over and they decided that they wanted to raise their family in our church because its the only one that has always remained constant! hahaha sooo we had a bomb lesson and we are going to set a baptismal date with Sarah this week!!! I'm so stoked because they are definitely really prepared and they want to raise their family in the gospel and support eachother and its way cool!! We had a bomb Mexican breakfast and lesson with Silvia this week! haha she like's to cook for us before lessons so we don't complain ;) she's the same way and she wants to raise her family in the church and she says that she has just felt more at peace the past few weeks since she has been coming to church! We had a super powerful lesson with Rick and Ranae last night where we watched the restoration video with them and then we testified about the prophet Joeseph Smith. I really realized how much I loved him this past week. I've always felt close to Joesph Smith and I've never really doubted that he was a prophet but we had a lesson in church about him and it seems like we've been listening to a bunch of music about him and what he did and I just felt in my heart that I knew him before this life and that he is my close friend and that I know he was a good and rightous man who really did see God and our savior and was actually called to be a latter day prophet. It just felt cool :) haha because I get to tell people about what he did and I get to defend who he was! Anyways Rick really sarted to feel the spirit and the Elder manygoats asked his wife ranae what the Prophet Joesph Smith meant to her and as she bore her testimony I could definitely tell Rick was touched! He's coming along ;) haha those were the highlights!

This week we are teaching a special easter message that me and manygoats prepared to a bunch of Ward members and we are super excited about that! I love Easter! I've been reading the gospels and a bunch of talks on the Atonement and I have just felt so grateful and so happy that Jesus Christ is a real and actual person and everything that is written about him in the scriptures is true :) anyways its been a good week and I know this next one will be a good one too!! Remeber Jesus this week ok? remeber that he died for us but more especially remember that he lives for us still! I love the scriptural account in Luke 24 "why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen!" That is so true and I love it! I love you guys!! have a super dope week and get work done! Mic and Joe you need to get some school work done from all this crazy break you have been haveing ;) haha I'm gunna miss you guys on Easter but just know that I am haveing a blast and I'm with people I really love and care about<3 haha But since your my fam and all that I guess I love you more ;) anyways I love you guys! Happy Easter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love Elder Macfarlane!

P.S.
so we ran into a few families with the cutest little kittens and the we went to this fam who seriously has a doc dewlittle type thing going on with like every kind of animal possible but the baby rabbits where the cutest :) haha they have this giant rabbit that is house trained and you can take for walks on a leash and stuf!! so dope! haha and then I ran into Rockhard is my little brother from the last family I lived with before I left! It was so awesome to see him again!!! soo yup! lol fun times :)

Bomb Week Fo Sho!

Que pasa calihasa?
haha thats not even close to correct spelling but one of my zone leaders is a Spanish missionary that came out at the same time with my so he's been teaching me up en some espanol slang haha. Its suppose to mean whats up pumkin? haha anyways.. This week was so awesome!!! man I can't even believe its Monday again because this one seemed to fly by! Conference was awesome as always and man! It was just way good!

We got to go on a temple trip as a district on Tuesday!! that was so incredible! The spirit was so strong and it was just nice to feel confidence and recharge to do the Lords work! I was thinking about and praying alot for added strength to become the absolute best missionary the Lord can make me and the opportunity to have the holy ghost with me all the time to guide me in my work this time around. I felt like I definitely got some specific answers in the temple that helped prepare me to receive even more during conference! After our Temple trip on Tuesday I went on exchanges with elder Spencer in his area! man that was so fun! Him and his comp E Teione the big poly guy are so awesome! They both want to work hard and be the best missionaries they can be which to me means everything in the world. That's something I felt alot this week was just overwhelming gratitude for the missionaries I get to serve and work with. Anyways Friday we did exchanges again but with our Zone leaders this time. I got to go with E Eisenhower which was sooo awesome because he was in my mtc district and we have always been good friends! It was awesome to catch up with him and learn from him. He's a little older then the rest of us(24) but even if he's older I've always admired how humble and Christlike he is. He is always willing to learn and listen and for the most part be obedient ;) haha I love him!
 then of course this weekend was conference!!! I loved all the talks! it just really hit me again that these men truly are prophets and they receive direct revelation and authority from God. It made me want to strengthen my testimony in a living prophet so that I can always have the faith and humility to boldly follow anything the prophet tells us. I was just super grateful that we have direction from Jesus Christ even while he isn't currently on the earth. I definitely felt the spirit confirm that it really is Christ who is at the head of our church. I loved E Uchtdorf's talk it was super bomb! I've needed to hear it because we really can be grateful in any circumstance! like Richard the dude I told you about last week he has just about nothing in the world as far as possessions but he can still tear up praying to God and praising him for is continual goodness and mercy towards all of us. I know that's true and that's a lesson I need to keep learning. Hahaha probably more know then ever because things have been going so awesome! I do love being a missionary! I love being able to make a difference in someone's life by showing them a way and a person who makes all of the difference. Something else in conference that hit me was just the need to always be willing to do what is right and let everything else follow how it will. I want to live the gospel always and put it first because really what else matters in the end? The Gospel covers like everything that is of real importance in this life especially our families! I love you guys! I love your examples to me and the people around you! have a good week! and live what we learned in conference! I know that its by living true principles we receive the full blessings!

Love E Aaron Mac!

It a beautiful day in the Neighbor hood!

Hhahaha actualy it was way cold wet and rainy this week ;) hahaha but thats fine! It was actually kinda soothing because it reminded me of home seeing as it NEVER RAINS here haha. It was all and all a very good week!! We really have been super blessed! We have a bunch of awesome people to teach that I didn't get to tell y'all about last week so I'll give ya a run down of whats been going on!

Well I'm stationed in the Twin Falls South 10th ward. Which really is a pretty sweet ward! Our ward boudaries are super big fo an Idaho ward which is a huge blessing seeing as we only cover one ward now and we need a bunch of people to teach! And thats another thing I feel that we have been blessed with is People to teach!!!! Its not quite like before when we would have like 40 investigators but its still pretty dang solid. We taoght a Part member family, Rick and Renae fischer, They are super awesome! they feed us dinner ever Wednesday eveing and we do lessons after :) its fun<3 Rick says he's a Lutheran and Renae hasn't been to church in 7 years but before that she was super active and sent one of her sons on a mission and everything. She still knows the church is true she's just having a hard time coming back. Buttt they both came to church last week!!! haha unfortunately Rick wasn't overwhelmed so we'll see what it takes ti get him back! He's a busy guy and he likes to work on projects all day and hates wasteing time and he just feels like 3 hours at church will take all his time to do work around the house and yard and stuff. Little does he know that he'll be giving all of that stuff up to rest on sunday here pretty soon ;) hahaha but ya they are both making be strides and we're so happy for em! We teach this young Mexican mother of 2 named Silvia Chaves and her kids as well. She had us over for dinner on friday!! haha we got there at 5 like she said and she was just then really starting to cook but she was super relaxed and just enjoyed visiting for awhile and all that hahaha she is super Mexican in that way :) also a bomb cook! haha we had a super awesome lesson after dinner though about how we can build and develop our faith in Jesus Christ and the spirit was super strong! We invited her to be baptized but she said she wanted to learn a little more before she does it! But after we really challenged her to read Moroni 10 and kneel down and pray that night if it was true and she said that she felt very peaceful when she prayed :) she's been coming to church with her kids for the past 2 weeks and the ward has been so awesome and welcoming. She is one of the elect that have been prepared to receive the fullness of the gospel that the scriptures talk about! We teahc this guy named Richard Millhouse who lives in this home for guys who need a cheap place to stay while they get back on there feet. He's a carpenter and he recently had rotator cuff surgery on his shoulder and he's in the same sling thing I was in soo I thought that was really neat because I know about how much he's hurting and what his limits are. We were just walking by on Saturday night and we saw him out side smoking and called over and went up to say hi for a sec(it was getting kinda late) He was not in the best mood and told us that he had a really hard day and he was just feeling overwhelmed with everything. He said that then said not tonight boys and started to walk away but a got a very clear impression that we needed to say a prayer with him so I called after him and asked and he said it was fine and came back over but only if I said it lol.. haha I felt the spirit so strong while we were praying kinda huddled in a circle in the dark and after I said amen he said "just hold on there Lord we're not done yet" and he said one of the sweetest prayer about how grateful he was for us and he asked the lord to watch over his "little brothers" while we were walking around in the dark :) He invited us to dinner with him on Tuesday and yaa :) its just cool! I had a clear vision of him dressed in white getting baptized and I wan that so bad for him! We have a bunch of other people and family's we are working with including a young ingle mom and her 2 kids that we just started teaching yesterday!!! that was another huge blessing! 

All and al I'm loving the work :) Its been hard for sure. And I still feel pretty rusty but when I need it most I have felt strength to be bold and words come into my mouth. I know that God is really there and that he loves us because he's been letting me see a small portion of his love for all these people I've just met! I love you all so much!! I couldn't do this without my incredible family! Remember how much He loves us this week and get ready for some serious revelation at general Conf!!! Have an awesome week!!!!

 

Love Elder Macfarlane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1whahahaha or Just Aaron ;) love ya! 

I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy cow I miss you guys! But I'm having a blast! I don't have a ton of time to email today so this might be short.. Its been a little weird being a missionary but its been super natural at the same time if that makes sens haha. Like it amazed me how many of the rules and lessons and all of that that i have forgot but I'm getting it back pretty quick! Hahaha I guess right now I have an excuse to go do something crazy lol ;) But anyways its just been so good to be back! I started to tear up when I got on the plane to twin because it really hit me that I'm actually here and I'm actually going to be a missionary again! My comps name is E Manygoats and He's way cool! He's a Navaho Indian so thats been super fun! He is super hard working and very obedient so we have gotten along awesomely! :) We have kinda a slow ward right now.. But we are working hard to pick the work back up! and we are already starting to see blessings!!! and yaaa we only cover one ward!!!! its crazy! I have no idea how to work with just 1 but I'm learning ;)

The mission has grown a ton!!! I'm like some kind of urban legend because almost all the missionaries here now came out since I've been home.. Hahahaha President Curtis was excited to have some experience but he's in for a  bit of a surprise.. haha I'll get it back though!!! Something I have been studying along with freaking everything I need to get caught up on is the power of giving ourselves completely over to the Lord. Like I'm going to try as hard as I can to do his will but also I earnestly want to do his will and only his will. I studied a talk called the fourth missionary that can apply to all of us about learning to consecrate our lives to the Lord. I feel so blessed to be here :) Thank you for getting me back out here and all of the love and support I've felt. I love you all so much but I feel grateful to be apart for a bit and give myself to this work.. not that I'm glad to be gone ;) but I'm grateful that you all are willing to help me spend this time serving!! it means the world! I have more specific next week! I got to go!
Pray and love and be happy!!!
Love you all!