Happy New Year!

Hey Family and Friends, This was quite the week.

Christmas was great, we spent the day going to different families houses and sharing a Christmas message with them. Christmas as a missionary is awesome. Skyping the family was the best christmas gift of course. 

Wednesday was MLC down in Richmond, and whew what a day, as you may or may not know, sisters are now allowed to wear pants, so when all the STL's started showing up wearing pants I thought we had walked into some business meeting. They all look like their going to discuss their retirement/investment plans with their financial planners lololol. MLC was great we talked the entire time about goal setting, and as a mission what our goal for the new year should be.  We also learned that effective July 1st, the Chesapeake mission is being dissolved, and all the parts of the Chesapeake mission that are in VA will automatically become part of the Virginia Richmond Mission, and all the parts in NC will become part of the Raleigh mission, so on the same day we inherit a bunch of land mass, about 100 new missionaries and a new mission Pres. sadly I'll only stick around for about another 4 weeks or so to see it all go down haha. 

Thursday and friday we had exchanges with the YSA elders from Fredericksburg, they came up to the Boons with us, we tracted in the rain, twas a good time. 

Saturday was great we had a new years party for the ward, our Stake President also happens to be in the ward and him and a few other members from the ward have a band called the "cool peppers" turns out, the guy can shred on the guitar. So we invited basically everyone to the party, only a few came but it was great for them to meet the ward. 

Sunday we found a super awesome family, haven't had a return appointment yet but I'll let y'all know next week how it went. 

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a happy new year! Take some time to reflect on last year and set goals for the coming year. I would like to invite you all to read the conference talk, "Return and recieve" by Elder Ballard, I think its April 2016. and take the advice of my pal Hunter Holt and pick a word to define your new year. Love you all, Peace and blessing for 2019

Elder McArthur

-Charlie Brown Christmas tree

-(future) Doctor McArthur operating on Elder Lemmons ornament heart

best district pic yet 

-exchanges

-New years party (the black dude is Dera (Da'rae) recent convert)

-sunsets

Merry Christmas!

Hey Family and Friends, this week was nuts...... So they moved transfers to Tuesday instead of Wednesday  so we headed off to transfers with a van full of missionaries and luggage. Had to say goodbye to some of my good friends from the mission, sad day. I was transferred to the Culpeper Ward, it is the boons, the area is HUGE, and we have half of the actual town of Culpeper, literally the half of the town that has all the stuff in it, like food and shopping is out of the area....... smh....... the rest of the area is just the straight up boonies. Elder Hill is my new companion, he's from Boise, Idaho, he is a super awesome guy, really great at talking to people, he just finished training, so this is his 3rd transfer. 

So we got to the area and immediately the next morning we had to drive about an hour to Fredericksburg, which if you'll remember is right close to White Oak, my old area. anyway we drove down there to get our car fixed and spent the day with the Elders down there. That night we met Christina, a lady were trying to teach, her husband just recently died in his sleep, really sad situation, but we'll come back to her later. 
Friday was our Christmas conference! It was such an awesome day holy cow, I got to go back to Charlottesville for the conference! I was soooo stoked to be back!  First off the night before the sisters in my new district Voluntold us to be in their musical number, so we sang The First Noel during the Christmas conference, they made me sing tenor, and I am not a tenor....... Also the morning we showed up Elder Raty, one of the AP's, also my good buddy from back in white oak, asked if I would sing "In a Coming Day" again I sang it a while ago with 3 other Elders and  President loved it so much he wanted us to sing it again. So during lunch we found 3 other missionaries to sing with us and we threw together another musical number. Once again i sang tenor........ lol. But it turned out okay, During the conference we talked all about Christ, the Pre-mortal Christ, then his life on earth, and we spent a lot of time talking about the second coming. After christmas conference was over was the best part of the last 9 months of my mission. If you'll recall, Elder Uchtdorf thought it would be a good idea to give the North America Northeast missions a bunch of rules to follow, one of them being we were no longer allowed to meet as a zone twice a transfer and play sports, and basically not allowed to do anything with other missionaires on P day. BUT! after christmas conference for 2 hours as a Christmas present to the missionaries, President Smith let us play sports and board games and all other fun stuff I haven't done in forever. My team wrecked so hard at Oompa (the greatest sport ever, ultiimate frisbee\football\basketball) we went 7-0 after the conference we went and got Benny's Pizza from downtown C-Ville before we drove home. 
Saturday we had to go back down to FXBG for a meeting and were there most of the day, when we got back to Culpeper we helped Christina set up christmas lights for a party she was having on sunday. 
Sunday was great, sacrament meeting was really good. That night we went to Christinas Christmas party cause she invited us, and it was basically the most awkward experience of my life........... good times, 
Merry Christmas everyone! I can't wait to see the fam tomorrow, love you all and thanks for everything!

Maryann's Baptism!

Hey everyone, this week was pretty great, long days, but good times.
Tuesday was our "Work day" Basically everyone in the zone got together for a meeting and we had like a mini zone conference, afterwards came the "work" part, We all went with different missionaires than our usual companions and we went out and went to work. The great thing was everyone was in our area, we got a lot of refferals! President and sister Smith went out with different missionaries too. Halfway through the day we came back and switched companions and for the second half Elder Stark and I got to go with President Smith! We went out with him and were able to go and meet with Maryann. He talked with her for a while, he's such an awesome guy I love him. Anyway, Wednesday we had all to ourselves so we went downtown and handed out candy canes and tried to talk to people, interesting times. Wednesday-Thursday we had exchanges with the Spanish elders, I went with Elder Duffin, Spanish work is awesome, over the last 6 months I've been serving around only Spanish missionaries and one of the wards that meets in my building is the hispanic ward, I love those guys so much! Ive been on a ton of exchanges with the spanish guys and been to thier coorelation meetings, and played piano at their baptisms enough times that their ward mission leader every time he sees me says, "Hola! Como Esta Elder McArt-tur" hahah love that guy, we even went to their ward pary this week cause Hermana Leveron insisted that i come, we were supposed to do a musical number and I was gonna play the guitar but it didn't end up happening..... Saturday! Maryann's Baptism! It went super well, we started filling the font the same time we did for the baptism with her mom and siblings, but for some reason the water pressure was super low, so we only ended up with about a half full font, she asked me to be the one to baptize her, which was an honor, But it ended up working out hahha we just had to go wayyyyy low haha. So happy for that family I'm gonna miss them a ton. Sunday the ward learned that I was leaving and everyone was bummed, especially Sister Willis and Sister Seay, pictured below, they are the cutest little southern grandmas ever, they cook the best food for sure. A great week to end my 6 months in meadowbrook ward. A thought that really stood out to me this week was that God really truly loves all of his children, black, white, hispanic, asian, etc.... he loves us all so much we can't even comprehend it. 2 Nephi 29:7


Tom- Tom was baptized in June and has made a complete 180 with his life, he has taken hold of the Gospel of Christ and the change it has made is incredible

Spanish Correlation!
The baptism, (the baby is Maryann's)

Sister Willis and Seay

super Hipster donut shop (the donuts were really good)

 Charlie Henshaw! the man the myth the legend! he came out to more lessons with me than anyone (it may be because he's 88 and lives alone) but thats okay cause he saved the day more than once

Winter Wonderland!

Hey everyone, we had a pretty good week this week. Monday night we taught Maryann tithing and fast offerings, it went really well. Tuesday we tracted most of the day and only like 3 people answered the door. The highlight from wednesday was once again teaching Maryann, the whole day we tried contacting a bunch of referrals and then that night we taught Maryann the law of chastity and word of wisdom, which I'll admit, I was a little nervous for, (every missionary is) but it ended up being a super great lesson! Wednesday night we also started Exchanges with the Appomatox Elders, I was with my good buddy Elder Rustand. Thursday we had a couple lessons with some less active members, that evening we had a super productive time tracting and ended talking to some really cool people, no one was really interested, but we were able to pray with a couple people who really needed it at the time. Friday we had interviews with President Smith, which are always awesome. The rest of the day we tried contacing more of our refferals.
Saturday! wow what a day this was, one of our "eternigators", her name is Cynthia, her brother died and she invited us to the funeral, so we went. It was at "New Life Deliverance Tabernacle" baptist church, and let me tell you what, what an experience....... We had people praising God, we had people shouting "Hallelujah", we had people passing out because they were "feeling the spirit". All the stereotypical things we think of, well they're true haha. Favorite quote from the funeral. The pastor was talking (yelling) about how Christ has saved us all and made this comment, "I done snorted so much people thought I was a pig! I done drank so much cough syrup I won't have a cold untill 2090! I done smoked all of Jamaica! But its Okay, cause Jesus got me!" Amen pastor, preach it!
Sunday-Everything was cancelled and we got like a foot of snow, no joke. We did a lot of online proslyting and a little bit of sledding haha. and this morning we spent about 3 hours shoveling walkways and digging cars out of the snow so everyone could get to work, it was super fun.

-District council(s) the two hermanas wrapped up are going home, if you look closely you can see where they're supposed to be delivered. 

-exchange pics

-I got pulled over cause i allegedly "failed to maintain my lane" he let us off, didn't even give us a warning

-Snow

Service

Hey Everyone, this week was pretty good. 

Tuesday we taught Maryann the Plan of Salvation, it was a great lesson! We also taught her Friday the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that was a great lesson as well. Wednesday we had district council and that went pretty good we talked about resolving concerns with the people were teaching, after district council we started exchanges with the spanish elders, the first thing we did was go to this super old ladies apartment and help her organize her cupboards, she was really nice, interesting experience. Friday was return and report for Elder Stark. So basically 3 weeks into the transfer all the trainers and trainees go to downtown Richmond and have a meeting, we also split up with different companions and go street contacting for about 2 hours, it was awesome, the city is crazy! lots of drunks and people who are "feeling the spirit". Saturday we helped rake leaves all morning as part of the world wide day of service. That night was our ward Christmas party, Elder Stark and I got stuck serving food the whole time so by the time we got our food there was no where to sit so we were stuck awkwardly eating off the stage haha. Sunday the first Presidency Devotional was awesome, I would encourage you all to get into the spirit of Christmas and service, Love you all!