a letter from President Smart

Elder McNew,

We had a wonderful week as a mission. Lots of good work and progress made. Congratulations on a job well done.

The more we work with you and get to know you the more we love and appreciate all that you do. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to doing the work the Lord has sent you here to do.

Just a quick thought this evening: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he will direct thy paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6) We demonstrate our trust in the Lord by obeying His commandments. As we do that we show Him that He can trust us. When we gain His trust great things happen in our lives. May we all be worthy of His trust and the promised blessing that follow.

I know that God lives. May you feel His Spirit in your life as you dedicate your time, talents and energy in helping Him fulfill His purpose for this world.

Sincerely,

President Smart

PS - Please remember to send us pictures from the baptisms that have taken place since our last Multi-Zone Conference. We will begin creating the Baptism DVD in the next few weeks. Thanks you!

Home-Share family dressed up as the Adams' Family for Halloween.

At the ward Trunk or Treat

Brother Cassel, the bread man.

10-31-11
Hey, Hows it going?

I'm doing pretty good! :) The work is getting better and better slowly but surely. We got a new investigator this past week! his name is alex! he is way cool! he is a mechanic for mercadies and we fonund him while he was working on his car. He seems to be interested, hopefully things work out and he keeps progressing.

I had an interesting chat with my mission president this week. We had interviews and I talked to him about some stuff that was on my mind. One thing that I talked to him about was my companion.  I told him that I felt like the work was being held back or that we aren't seeing much success as I'd like.  I felt like the first 6 months of my mission I had lots of learning opportunities, and now I feel that it's going a lot slower.

My mission president basically told me that I was here to help my companion learn and to grow.  I am here to be a good example and to show him how to work hard.. It's hard to be the one pulling the weight sometimes, but, after my meeting with President Smart, I was just super happy and ready to go out and work.  He just made my day a ton better. So, this week has been good! If anything, I know that I am learning and growing and going on from what it says in my blessing,  the Lord is preparing me now for things that I will accomplish in my future!

Love, Elder McNew

Street Preachers

10-17-11
We had a good week.  I had one cool experience that I will share.  We were leaving the house after a lunch break and we were heading to a members home to invite them to take the lessons.  We were riding on our bikes and we passed a dude working on his car. So I stopped to talk to him and invited him to hear more about Jesus Christ's gospel. He kindly replied and said, "Yeah, I always have time for Jesus."
So, I asked him when would be a good time.  He said, "right now is fine!"
"Do you have a place where we can sit or... ?"
He said, "Well,  this isn't my place so..."
"Okay, well we will just teach right here in the street then."
We ended up teaching him the entire first lesson disregarding all of the distractions all around us.  Another guy rolls up in his car bumping some music and start hollering at his other friend behind the guy we were teaching.  It was crazy. But, we had a great experience.  We ended up giving him a Book of Mormon. He commited to read and pray about it and then after he gave us his contact info he offered the closing prayer! It was so sweet! The Spirit was leading us and that has never happened before on my mission.
So anyway, it was a good week!
Love, Elder McNew

Transfer to Moreno Valley

10-04-11
Hello! I have some cool news :) My new companion Elder Park is a great kid! He has been on the mission for about 7 months.  He is still in his first area; this is his 5th transfer here so I'll probably lose him after this one. n I live in a pretty decent neighborhood for living in Moreno Valley.  We live in a home-share with some members of our ward.  They have a few sons and one of the boys is 18 and preparing for his mission.  Then his best friend just got baptized and they are together all of the time from what I can tell. So I live with a way cool family.  My companion is a great kid and the zone-leaders are cool too so this is going to be a great experience for me :) Alright well I think that's about all! I Love you! have a good week!

Love, Elder McNew

September in Corona

9/12/11

Hey, Everything is going well here! This week was really good! We had a sweet talk by this Returned Missionary. He spoke on testimony and he covered all the bases it was really good! I hope that my homecoming talk is that good! It got me dang close to tears. I like feeling the Spirit that strong when I can cry. I think it’s a healthy thing to cry, ya know?

But other than that I have just been working hard trying to not kill my companion and to keep my district working strong! This week I also had the opportunity to go on some exchanges with some other missionaries and it was good! I love helping and learning from others. It’s a great thing. I think that's what the mission is all about; helping others come closer to Christ and then, as you do so, you automatically grow closer as well! :) Such a wonderful plan that the Lord has for us, and such a great thing to have.

I love serving the mission and I love being able to help others. Lately I have noticed that I need to work on charity being more loving to others because sometimes I have short patience with others but at the same time I have found myself being more charitable helping out other missionaries. Elder Kozub needed some shoes. His old shoes were all torn up, like they probably cost like 20 bucks. They were some Sketchers or something. And I was like, "Bro, do you have any other shoes, or like some polish or something those shoes are jacked!" And he said he didn’t have anything else. So I just gave him mine. I had two pair and one pair I didn’t wear as often just on like Sundays and Tuesdays when we have meetings so I just gave them to him. He needs them and he does have a pretty rough story. He is a convert to the Church, his mom had her record removed. His brothers that converted with him are either anti or just don’t care anymore and the only support he has on a mission is the tiny little branch where he lives in Ohio. Sorry for the big long story.

Needless to say, I am doing well and I am super happy in the service of the
Lord!

I Love you! Have a good week thanks for all of your support and love and everything you do.

Love, Elder McNew

9/19/11

This week was good :) Pretty busy, we had a General Authority come and talk to us today.  We decided this Saturday to take out our bikes for once just to save some miles on the Corolla and it's good for contacting people on the streets. Man, I realized how much I miss bike when I actually got out and rode! It was fun.  I was riding wheelies and jumping around and stuff.  Elder Kozub has a hard time on the bike because remember that he came to a car area because he crashed and messed up his back.  Also, this Sunday after church from 4-9 we taught lesson after lesson totaling to 5 lessons in one day which is good especially since we started teaching at 4. All in all I'm doing great :)

Kyle gets baptized!

8/29/11

Hey! What's up?

So, this week went pretty well! We tracted for about 8 hours, taught a few lessons, and it got up to about 110 degrees! Dang! And, we had a baptism! Kyle is now a member of the Church as of Sunday! It's so awesome and such a blessing to people! Lives change right in front of you! It's amazing to see the Lord work through you!

So, as part if my responsibilities as District Leader is to give a training every week. This week I gave a pretty sweet training that I got from Elder Proffit (my trainer) It's all about making your mission an adventure, working hard, and having fun while you serve. So that was pretty sick! I wish I could have a copy of it or something but it's all good.
I'm doing pretty well! Just working hard and trying my best to serve the Lord with all my might. It does get hard sometimes but the Lord is always there to help us. He's like a light. I found this sweet scripture earlier this week about the Jaredites and how they used a stone that the Lord touched as a light to help them through the dark times, if applied.

I love you all!
Have a good week ttyl!
Love, Elder McNew!