Things that people said to me on St. Patrick's day:
"Sister McIntosh, you're Irish, so you must love St. Patrick's day!!"
"Sister McIntosh, why aren't you wearing any green??"
My response:
"I'm Scottish, and I'm still a greenie, so everything about me is green!"
Vanessa is getting baptized on April 9th! I'm going to send some pictures of her, because she is awesome and loves learning about the gospel! Her family is Catholic, and they gave her permission to get baptized, but I hope that they truly support her in this decision.
The zone leaders in our area had a baptism this weekend and asked Sister Stein and I to do a musical number for it, and let me borrow their guitar! We sang "Nearer My God, to Thee" and it was fun to get to play guitar again. I was rusty and it hurt my fingers a lot, but it was a good hurt. There is a lot of "good" hurting while serving a mission. Many emotional/spiritual growing pains. I love it.
There was a man we had a lesson with who told me that humans evolved from dinosaurs. He said I came from the "long-neck" dinosaur. Aka the brontosaurus. That was an interesting lesson.
We've been working with this girl named Macie, who got baptized a few years ago when she was 11. Her learning capabilities and understanding of the gospel are limited, and her family used to never come to church. But we've been meeting with them every week and helping her understand a lot of her questions, and her whole family comes to church every week now! And she said she wants to go to the temple!! It's awesome. They're neat.
"Harvest" is coming up. Where I'm from, in Houston, a lot of people work in the oil industry, or with software/computers, at HP, for example. Where I'm serving, in Idaho, 95% of the people work as farmers (potatoes and beets, mainly) or work "driving truck". Because of that, the kids get 2 weeks off of school called "harvest" literally so that they can work harvesting potatoes. I thought it was all a stereotype. Then I learned that it was all real. The potato is real.
People have been busy, since the snow is ALMOST all melted. They're all working on their farms. It's quite a sight.
We had zone conference this past weekend and it was incredible. President Hancock and his wife are so inspired and loving. They talked about Matthew 4. It's when Christ called his apostles. His disciples. It says that when he called them, they "straightway left their nets". Straightway. Immediately. Without hesitation. Without looking back. They left their livelihood, their work, their friends, their families. Everything. That's something that's been on my mind lately. What are my nets? If I want to be a 100% committed, full-time, heart-might-mind-and-strength missionary, what are some nets that I need to leave behind in order to stay focused? It's a hard thing to think about. Because I like my nets. But I'm here to work. My hand is at the plough (Luke 9:57-62).
That's my challenge to you. What are some nets in your life that you need to forsake so that you can follow Christ more fully? It's different for me, as a full-time missionary, because I have more nets to give up. Some good nets I need to put down for awhile. But, we all have bad habits, jank priorities (pardon the slang), we all have SOMETHING that's keeping us from following Christ in the way that we know we should be.
Think about that this week. What are some things that we need to give up for something better, for something more Christlike?
Pictures to come. I love you all. I pray for you.
Faithfully,
Sister McIntosh
This is Vanessa, our investigator getting baptized next month! She's fun.
Paws for a moment and look at how happy these cats made me.
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