Sister Rachel McIntosh: 5 June 2017

I have many things to tell you all about! First of all, I'm sorry that I didn't email everyone last week. Things are so crazy lately and I completely lost track of time. There are very cool things happening now, so I'm just going to tell you about them as they come into my brain:

I have discovered the absolute BEST way to eat pancakes. This fun family made pancakes for us and they told us about toppings they put on them that they learned from their grandparents who came to the US from Germany... apparently it's a thing over there - SO, you start with a regular, warm pancake. Load it up with butter (obvi). THEN, put a layer of brown sugar on, sufficiently covering the top of the pancake. Lastly, drizzle it with some heavy whipping cream. It's seriously the most delicious thing. I thought it would be weird and soggy, but it's actually wonderful and heavenly. Try it.

So there's this guy.... named Thomas. Thomas is married to this cool Russian lady who came to the states in her early 20s. SHE is a member of the church, but Thomas is not. He went to the LDS church with his mom regularly as a kid, but his dad wasn't LDS and it caused some contention in their home. Thomas's neighbor (also the Elders Quorum president in the ward) invited him to come to church one day. Thomas had JUST been praying to God the NIGHT BEFORE about his "spiritual well-being"... Amazing. Thomas came to church on his own and while there decided to meet with us missionaries. Our first visit with him was awesome. He was SO happy and on board with everything. He already seemed to know a lot about the LDS church, but it was good to talk about it and refresh so many things. He was SO EXCITED YOU GUYS. Kinda like I am now. We gave him a book of Mormon, read some of the Introduction of it with him and committed him to start reading it from the very beginning. 4 days later, we had our 2nd appointment with him, and he had read through 2 Nephi 8!!! For those who know the BofM well, you'll know that that's kind of a huge deal to read that much in 4 days, regardless if you're a member of the church or not! We were so pumped. He showed us all of his notes, summarized his favorite parts, etc. It was so great. He agreed to be baptized and his wife/kids are on board to support him. He knows his dad/siblings aren't super happy about it, but he said "it may be a sacrifice, but it's worth it if it's what God is telling me to do." SO AWESOME. Thomas is cool.

We also got to go to the Idaho Falls Idaho Youth Cultral Celebration Broadcast, in preparation for the re-dedication of the IF temple. We watched the broadcast from our stake center with this cute family that we're teaching. There were about 15,000 youth involved total and it took place in the Holt Arena in Pocatello. It was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, and it brought several smiles and laughs to my face. My favorite number was called "Potatoes Forever and Always" which was sung while the youth tossed burlap sacks of potatoes around and sung about "funeral potatoes" and other such Idaho-y things.

Attending the re-dedication of the temple itself was very cool - hadn't been to one before. Elder Rasband and several others gave talks. General authority seventies and a member of the temple presidency and his wife. It was very cool to watch. It all took place in the celestial room of the Idaho Falls Temple.

See more about the above 2 paragraphs at this website.

Also, there's this cool event happening in Idaho Falls soon, and Brad Wilcox, renowned author/BYU professor is coming to speak at in Idaho and I was asked to play some prelude music for it! I'm way pumped about going. He's also going to be giving a mini zone conference thing to us missionaries here about teaching of Christ and his Atonement. I'm super pumped.

Ok, so those are most of the cool things. I love you all and I'm so happy to be here.

Loves y besos,

Sister McIntosh

Photoshoot / lesson with Heather by the river, also a pretty one of the temple <3