Safe Arrival

Dear McFarland Family,

I am writing to inform you of the safe arrival of your son in the Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission. Attached here you will find a photograph of Elder McFarland with President and Sister Thurgood.

His trainer will be Elder Durham and they are going to serve in the area of Quilmes in the town of Avellaneda.

Their preparation day will be every Monday and you (Mom & Dad) can expect an email letter on that day. I am also including important information about mailing packages to you missionary.  Please be sure to read and remember. Please advise friends and family:  Due to restrictions imposed by the Argentine government, we're having trouble receiving packages from other countries.  Because of this, the South America South Area Presidency recommends that no packages are sent to their missionaries while they serve in Argentina. If packages are sent they will likely remain in the Customs Capital and never reach your destination.  We want to clarify that there's no malice in it, but to remove these packages from customs is an expensive and time consuming process for the Church, missionaries and families. Argentina has most the needed items for your missionary.

Thank you for sharing Elder McFarland with our Mission.  We appreciate your support and also the fact that you have a son who wants to serve.  We will take good care of him!  God bless you.

Sincerely,

Hermana Dance

Secretaria

Mision Argentina Buenos Aires Sur

Week 6 - Last Email From the MTC

Hola! 

How's everyone doing? I can't believe I'm about to leave for Argentina! In a way it seems like it's flown by, but it also feels like it's been forever. The MTC has been a great experience, but after 6 weeks I'm definitely ready to leave. Not sure I'm quite ready for Argentina, but I don't think I'd ever feel ready. I'm excited, but a little nervous. I'm nervous for the language because I know I won't be able to understand anything, but I know it'll come with time. I'm excited to meet the people, to see what the culture is like and to meet my Mission President! Our teacher let us email him yesterday in Spanish so that was cool. 

Sunday the devotional was by T.C. Christensen who is the director/cinematographer for quite a few of the Church movies like 17 Miracles. Oh, also me, Elder Bradham, Elder Johnstun, and Elder Sandberg got front row seats!! It was in the Marriott Center again and originally we were in the first row of the stands but then there were empty seats down below so we got to be in the very front.  We were literally like 10 feet from the speaker.  It was so cool!

 

Tuesday night we sang Lead Kindly Light at the devotional and Stanley G. Ellis from the Seventy spoke. Actually most of the time he had his 8 children come up and bear their testimonies about their missions, but it was really, really good.

 

Yesterday we had in-field orientation at main campus all day. It was long, but it was great and it got me excited to get into the field! All the missionaries would be together and we'd talk for a little bit, then break out into smaller classrooms and do some activities and we did that a couple times. We learned a lot about the key indicators and why they're so important. And to set goals THEN plan. They also emphasized the importance of working with the members. It was really good and we got to eat at the cafeteria on main campus and it's WAY better than the west campus cafeteria. I haven't changed weight at all but if I'd been eating at main campus I definitely would've gained like 10 or 15 pounds haha. They have so much more food and options and it's way better. They have the cafeteria but I still like west campus better.

 

Today we went to the temple and then we're just going to pack. I did get all the packages, thank you!! The brownies were delicious and of course everyone loves them and says they're delicious. Thank you for buying the sleeping bag and sending the ipod! I'll probably buy a calling card and we're going to call at Atlanta so it'll probably be between 3-5 pm California time. I gotta go but I'll probably be back on later if I missed anything. Love you guys!

Elder McFarland 

Week 5 - One Month and Travel Plans.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

 

Hola! 

It's crazy, I've been out a month! It's really amazing how time is speeding up. I can tell how time will fly by once I get in the field and adjusted to the mission. I was so sad when Argentina lost :( We were having a District conversation with our Branch President and we asked him if he could update us (yeah probably not the most appropriate thing to do) and he broke the news :( Luckily though we have another week before we get there so hopefully by then it calms down a bit. 

Not too much happened this week. The devotionals this last week were good, like always! They were about charity and taking upon you the name of Christ.

 

We committed Misael to live the law of chastity (he was sleeping with his girlfriend) and Daniela accepted our invitation to be baptized! We also taught Jose 4 more times this week for TRC. TRC has probably been one of my favorite parts of the MTC. I seriously love it and its a lot of fun. It's a lot more realistic than teaching our teachers. Even though we know he's a member, it just feels a lot more real. He asks really good questions and a couple times we've had to tell him we'll look for an answer and come back. Part of it is we're not 100% sure and the other part is we have no idea how to explain it in Spanish hahah. Not really much else to report. Spanish is coming along although I know I'm going to know absolutely nothing when I get out there haha. 

We got our travel plans yesterday!! We fly out of SLC Monday at 11:00 am to Atlanta GA. Then we have like a three hour layover and fly to Argentina at 9:08 pm and arrive in Buenos Aires Tuesday morning at 8:20! The Atlanta flight is flight 1912 and Buenos Aires is 101 just in case you wanted to know haha. There's going to be a ton of missionaries on the Atlanta flight and still quite a bit on the Buenos Aires one because all the Argentina missionaries are going to be on that flight. Elder Hair is in my travel group too so that's neat. I'm not sure how many of us are Buenos Aires South. I think there will be a couple more besides my district so I think 12.

 

 My journal writing is going pretty well. I've written pretty much everyday, but I've missed a few. 

 

Love you!

Elder McFarland

Week 4 - Solid Week

Saturday, July 12, 2014

The weeks are continuing to go by faster here at the MTC. The days are long but this last week went by fast. It was a good week.

 

Sunday we had a devotional by Josh Wright who's a really talented pianist so he just played a couple numbers and then talked to us. Oh, and my District sang A Child's Prayer in Spanish as a musical number so that was really cool. 

Last week it was TRC with members as themselves and that's every Tuesday.

 

This last Monday we got an investigator named Jose and we teach him Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Monday he wasn't there so we just sent an email to him. Tuesday we spent most of the time just getting to know him. He's from Ecuador, has a wife and three kids, and his wife is looking for a church with good thoughts and teachings. He has a belief in Christ and God and attends Catholic church sometimes but isn't hardcore. We taught him that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that the Gospel blesses families. Since then, we finished teaching the lesson about the restoration and answered some of his questions. He's been reading the Book of Mormon with his wife and praying. He says he believes the Book of Mormon is the word of God and really likes it. We got him to commit to come to church Sunday and next week we'll probably invite him to be baptized! Even more awesome than that is something that happened last Monday!

 

We taught Misael (Hermano Vargas) and I think it was our third lesson with him. The first two weren't that great and he wasn't reading the Book of Mormon or anything, so beforehand we decided we wouldn't teach him anything new but we'd just talk to him and find out what's going on with his life and get him to read the Book of Mormon. We go in and start talking to him, find out his wife left him a while ago and then he asked how can we be sure God loves him. Elder Bradham and I testified that we know Heavenly Father loves him and we bore our testimonies and talked to him and the Spirit was so strong it was nuts. We asked him to pray with us right there and he said a beautiful prayer and at the end he was crying. He said he felt incredible so we asked him if he'd be baptized and he said yes! After that Hermano Vargas called timeout and gave us hugs and told us never to forget this experience. He invited us to teach at the MTC when we got back. It was incredible. Definitely 100% by the spirit! 

Tuesday we had a devotional by Elder Neil L. Anderson and it was amazing! He talked about things not seen and the Holy Ghost. Our next three devotionals are at the Marriott Center because they're redoing the floors at main campus or something. The temple is still closed so this morning we did some service. 

I probably won't get my travel plans until the Monday before I leave, so probably the 21st. I think that's pretty much it. The MTC is great. The people here are great. The new Districts are super cool. My Spanish is still improving and I'm getting better and more comfortable teaching.  I heard about Argentina.  We're all super excited! Hopefully they win Sunday! Also, tell Brother Cate thank you for the postcard! Tell everyone I say hello and I love them! I'll talk to you next week, love you!!

Elder McFarland

Week 3 - Happy 5th of July

Hola! This week was good! The days are long but the week goes by fast, or faster than the first week at least haha.

 

Sunday night we had a devotional by Stephen B. Allen. He was one of the guys in charge of the Church's old "Homefront" videos. He showed a bunch of those clips and then added some to it. It was very uplifting and encouraging. He told us when "everything says you can't, believe in the part that says you can." "Its not who you aren't, it's who you are and being yourself is great" I'm a missionary but it's important to remember to be myself and have a personality out in the field. "Don't focus so much on tomorrow that you miss what's going on today". This one was really good for me because sometimes I get caught up thinking about the future, whether that's next p-day, being in Argentina, or even coming home and it's important to think about what I have to do at the moment and focus on that.

 

After the devotional we watched a MTC devotional talk that was given some time ago by Elder Bednar called "Character of Christ". Unfortunately from what I've heard I don't know if you guys will be able to find it and watch it anywhere, I don't think its on lds.org or anything like that. You should try to find it because it was honestly life changing. There was so much in that talk that I might not be able to include it all. In short, he talked about learning of Christ, not about him. The character of Christ is turning outward in love, compassion, service, while the natural man in us would turn inward. The natural man turns inward and we NEVER find the Savior doing that. He gave several examples of this such as after His confrontation with the adversary and in the midst of affliction Christ turned outward and sent angels to support John in love and compassion (Matthew 4:2-11).  He gave a couple more examples, but then challenged us to go search the scriptures and find our own and learn of Him. He related to missionaries by saying, "What does this mean to me?" The mission isn't about me.  He told us to just get over ourselves.  Turn outward in love, compassion, and service, and journey from testimony to conversion is turning outward. A testimony will never be enough.  If you are converted unto the Lord you will NEVER fall away. He said the greatest convert on your mission ought to be you, but it won't happen if that's what you're trying to do. Through grace and the atonement we can put off the natural man and become like Christ. If you lose yourself in others and obtain the character of Christ, you will find yourself. (I couldn't find a video of the MTC devotional, but here is the link to the text of a BYU-Idaho devotional with the same name - http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/ReligionSymposium/2003_01_25_Bednar.htm.)

 

Tuesday night's devotional was by Lowell M. Snow and his main focus was we need to make a choice to choose Him and to make that an effort once and for all.  If we decide once and for all, we will always follow and trust the will of the Lord, and we won't have to make the decision if we will choose Him every time. Devotionals here are pretty much the greatest thing. They bring the spirit so strong and it's a moral and spiritual boost. 

Tuesday we had our first TRC. TRC is going to meet and teach members that are themselves. It's not like before where our teachers pretended to be investigators and we taught them. Instead they were members being themselves, but our purpose is the same. Our purpose, as missionaries, is to invite others to come unto Christ and that includes everyone: members, investigators, less active, other missionaries, etc. We met with two different people for 20 minutes each. The first one we didn't even really talk about the gospel but just talked about our lives. The second one we talked more about the gospel and Elder Bradham and I bore our testimonies and it's the strongest I have felt the Spirit while I've been teaching. It was awesome. I'm excited for the next TRC on Tuesday.  The first two TRCs are in person and then the last two weeks they are over Skype. We continue to teach our teachers as investigators. We started over with Hermana Johnson and now she's Daniela. We had our second lesson a couple days ago and it went really well.  We finished the first lesson covering the Restoration and afterwards she gave us feedback and said we did really well so that was encouraging.

So one of the Districts in our Zone left last Monday so there was just two Districts with 14 people today. Wednesday we got two more Districts with 15 Elders and 3 Hermanas. One of the Districts is an intermediate class but they are still here for the full 6 weeks I guess they just move faster. I've only gotten to talk to some of the Elders in one of the Districts but so far they seem pretty cool. They are all 18 and just graduated high school though haha.

 

The 4th of July was a pretty good day. In the morning we had classes up until 7:30, when we had a program. There were some musical numbers and then a speaker. Afterwards we watched 17 Miracles, which is a movie about the hand cart companies. That was intense, it was really good and it gave me a greater appreciate and love for them and the sacrifices they made. Then we went outside to eat ice cream and we watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks from Wyview.  I did get the package, thank you soo much!! It really helped. We put up the American flags in our classrooms haha. And the patriarchal blessing and priesthood line of authority were really nice. I think they fit in my scriptures and I'll have to check on the Spanish.

 

The temple is closed for the next two weeks so today we slept in until like 9 haha oops... It sucks we miss out on going to the temple for two weeks though, especially since I don't know how often I'll get to go while I'm in Argentina. 

The first day we got here we got a card that says we are missionaries just in case the police ask or something and on it it said when I was leaving for Argentina and then my release date, so I got like 23 months to go! haha.

 

The Book of Mormon studying is going well, I actually can't remember where I am off the top of my head, but I'm somewhere in Mosiah.  

 

The MTC is getting a lot better. To be honest, sometimes it's really repetitive because everyday is the same.  I'll definitely be ready to leave in 3 weeks but I won't be ready to be thrown into Argentina haha. But it's been great.  I know I'll look back and cherish the time here and the people I've met. I've been blessed with a great District and great teachers.

 

Tell everyone back home I love them.

Elder McFarland

Week 2

Hola! It was good to hear from everyone. Sorry I didn't mean to make you guys feel bad. haha I knew you had no idea my P-day would be Saturday, but I greatly appreciate the letters from you and Dad and Erika. 

 

My Branch President told us that we aren't allowed to listen to music in the CCM so unfortunately I can't use the Ipod while I'm here, but it will be great to have once I'm in the field. Dad I saw you put some Janice Kapp Perry on my Ipod.  Did you know she was speaking at last Sunday's devotional?! Her and her husband spoke, although she spoke for the majority of the time. It was pretty funny and spiritually uplifting. So during her talk she was telling the story of how she met her husband for the first time. They were in some music class and she was sucking on her clarinet reed to soften it up before she was about to play and he walks over and says "you know I've been thinking those lips were made for greater things than just sucking on that reed". HAHAHAH  Everyone went nuts when she said that and right after her husband stood up and we all thought he was going to come correct the story or something but instead he just comes up and kisses her and then raised his fist in the air! lolz I laughed so hard and everyone in the stands was going crazy.  It was super funny. Anyways, the devotional was really great. We sung Come Thou Fount and a medley of some of her songs and finished with We'll Bring the World His Truth and the Spirit was so strong when we sang those.

 

Tuesday night we had another devotional and because of the new Mission President seminar Elder D. Todd Christofferson spoke!!! And believe it or not I sang in the choir! haha Our service time (which is just cleaning toilets) is the same time as choir practice so our Branch President gave us the option of choir or service so I chose choir. We sang Praise to the Man at the devotional Tuesday night. It was actually a lot of fun and really cool to be able to sing in front of some of the Apostles. I think Elder Bednar, Elder Oaks, Elder Anderson, Elder Ballard, and of course Elder Christofferson were there. I loved Elder Christofferson's talk! He talked a lot about the worth of souls. Some of the things he mentioned was how as missionaries we must appreciate the divine potential in everyone. Here are some of quotes from his talk I really loved. - "Motives must be pure and out of love" - "Charity comes from God through prayer, its a gift from God, we don't create it." He said "you need to help these investigators have a new vision of who they are and a feeling that they can obtain it." - "Sins have no effect on individual worth" - "Worth of a soul is the capacity to become like God" - "True conversion starts when we really know who we are and our worth".  He also talked about that on our mission while we serve others and realize their divine potential we will have a heightened awareness of our own potential, and that realization will be exciting and humbling. We will see the expectations God has of us and our potential and that truth will bring some discouragement but in it you will learn you are never alone and through Christ we can obtain that potential and fulfill those expectations.

Anyways life in the MTC or CCM is getting better. Days are going by faster as I get into the rhythm of things. Dad, we do not have culture class or at least haven't had any yet. Our schedule is pretty much wake up at 6:30, eat breakfast at 7:00, personal study/comp. study/language study from 7:30-10:30, gym from 10:30-11:30, lunch, class from 1-4:30, dinner, class from 5:45-8:45, planning, back at apartment by 9:30, lights out by 10:30. haha Sorry I didn't write that very well. Anyways so it's pretty much same thing everyday.

Lessons with Luz continued.  We taught her for the fourth time on Thursday and we committed her to baptism! It was super cool. But then we got a video from her saying how she (or her character) was moving back to Argentina but she was thankful for what we taught her and she knew it was true. Hermano Vargas said that in the field sometimes those things would happen. So we were kinda bummed we wouldn't be teaching her anymore. Then Friday morning we got another teacher, and guess who it was?! Luz!! Well actually her name is Hermana Johnson but she's going to be our second teacher. It makes sense now because the other District teaches their teacher but at the moment it was a curve ball and everyone in my district was so suprised and confused haha. It's actually pretty funny because as an investigator she always seemed kinda bored and tired but as our teacher she's full of energy and we were like whoa where did this come from haha. But I'm excited to have her as a teacher as well.   I think she's going to be awesome. Hermano Vargas continues to be a great teacher and friend. The love he has for us is obvious and he always bears his testimony at the end and it's really strong. He's also ridiculously smart. So everything's going well here.

I went to the temple again this morning and we did initiatories. And then we're about to go to Brigham's Landing to get lunch and then do some laundry and play some volleyball. I'm kinda sad because a District in our Zone leaves Monday and everyone in that District is super cool. The Zone Leaders are in that District and they're super cool guys I'm sad to see them go but I know they'll be great missionaries. They're all going to Argentina but a different Mission although I can't remember which. Everyone in our Zone is going to Argentina but only my District is going to Buenos Aires South. Oh Mom I also met Elder Hair last week. He's not in my Zone but it was nice to meet him and I'm sure I'll get to know him in the field. I've been busier than I've ever been and its exhausting but it feels great. So there's four of us in an apartment: me and Elder Bradham and then the other two Elders from my District Elder Sandberg and Elder Johnstun.

So I leave for Argentina July 28 but I'll get my travel plans in a couple weeks. Also I know its a long time away haha but just so you know I will be coming home May 30, 2016.

 

Please thank everyone for their emails.  I got some from a lot of people but I only have an hour to email so unfortunately I can't respond to all of them, but I really do appreciate the emails and I read them all. Thank you again for the letters. I think that's it for now. Sorry the email is unorganized and not written well I'm just trying to type fast. Haha anyways I love you guys and I'll talk to you next week.

 

-Elder McFarland

Hey! so I have some more time and I forgot some things I wanted to say. So today at the temple as I was leaving I ran into the Dellonas! They were out front taking pictures and Brother Dellona was like hey that's Kevin and I turned and saw it was them! So crazy. I guess Keanu was at BYU during SOAR I think so they were here to pick him up.

 

Reading the entire Book of Mormon is one of my goals  before I leave the MTC. One of the members of the Branch Presidency said if you read 5 chapters a day you should finish before I leave, so I´m on 2 Nephi 30 right now I think. So that´s what I´ve been focusing on in my study time. My companion and I started going through PMG (Preach My Gospel) reading it together from the very beginning a couple days ago. The language is still coming along, it seems like it might have slowed down a little bit, but I know its still improving and I don´t think the improvement from now on will be quite as noticeable as it first was. Umm I think thats it. Hopefuly I didn't forget anything else haha. Love you! 

-Elder McFarland

 

 

First Letter From the MTC

June 21, 2014

Hola mama y papa! Where are you guys, I don't have any emails from anyone :( I figured I might not get any emails yet because you probably figured it'd just be Monday or at least I hope that's the reason haha. So Saturdays are my P day! If you don't mind mom if you could log on to my facebook and post that my P Day for the CCM (MTC) will be on Saturdays so people know that.

So the past three days have been pretty crazy. It's been tough but also very fun and rewarding. Oh so I got to my room Wednesday and learned that my companion is Elder Bradham! He's the one that was in my hall at BYU! He's been super awesome and I love him. We get along really well and I'm glad we're companions.

The past couple days have been suuuper looong! Wednesday felt like forever. So all the Spanish missionaries live in MTC West Campus which includes Wyview and Raintree. So our housing is at Wyview and then we cross the street to Raintree for class. West campus is it's own mini MTC so it has everything: cafeteria, bookstore, gym, barbershop, classes residence halls. So I literally never go to the main campus.

So when I first got here Wednesday I dropped my bags off in my room and then went to find my class. I walked in the door and the teachers were immediately talking to me in all Spanish and I felt so lost and confused, it was very overwhelming. So classrooms are at Raintree so my classroom is in an apartment. My class just consists of my district, which is four elders and four sisters so eight of us (Elder Sandberg and Elder Johnstun, me and Elder Bradham, Hermana Whitney and Hermana Flake, Hermana Rundolfsen and Hermana Alldrege). My teacher is Hermano Vargas and I've come to really love him the past three days, he's an awesome teacher.

So my alarm clock was still in Pacific time and Elder Bradham's was in PM so we woke up late Thursday morning and had to skip breakfast haha. We had class a lot of the day and we were told that the next morning we'd be giving our first lesson, all in Spanish! So me and Elder Bradham had time to prepare a lesson. We felt good about our lesson plan but we were worried about our Spanish. In the afternoon we went to go meet our Branch Presidency. We were told before by others in our zone that we have an awesome Branch Presidency and we definitely do, I'm excited. I was named junior companion and Elder Bradham senior companion and then Elder Sandberg is our district leader. Our Branch President told us, however, that we'd take turns so in three weeks I'll be senior companion and then we'll get a new district leader. That night we also met our Zone leaders, Elder Giliam and Elder Evans. They're studs and fun guys. They will be leaving in 9 days.

Yesterday, Friday, was a long day as well. Our morning started out by teaching our lesson. We were told our investigator, Luz, was actually a member but the character she was playing was a real person and actually her friend, so Hermano Vargas encouraged us to take it seriously and pray to know what to teach. Our lesson ended up being 40 minutes! Although most of that time we weren't actually talking haha. It was very hard because our vocab isn't very good and we couldn't say some of the things we wanted to. In the end it went better than I thought it would and good for a first lesson in Spanish, but there was definitely room for improvement. We then had time for some personal study, had lunch, and then came back to class for three hours. I'm amazed at how fast my Spanish is progressing. It's only been three days but I feel that I've learned a lot.

This morning we woke up and went to the temple with our zone. Afterwards we went to brighams landing. Brighams landing is what they call that little shopping plaza with Jamba Juice and Sub Zero and we're allowed to go there on P day. So we got lunch at a burger place there and the Argentina game was actually on so we got to watch the end of that which was fun because Messi scored the only goal at the very end. After that we put our laundry in and now I'm here. Anyways it's been a crazy couple days. To be honest its been a little tough, the days are going by so slow. But I heard I just need to get through Sunday and then it gets a lot better. It's been amazing though as I already feel my testimony being strengthened and my spanish improving. I know this is where I need to be and this is the greatest work on Earth. I know that the next two years aren't about me at all and that if I humble myself before the Lord and become an instrument in his hand I will be a blessing to the people of Argentina. I'm not going to lie it was kind of a bummer that I didn't get any emails my first P day but I kinda figured I might not because its on a Saturday and you guys didn't know that. I hope all is going well back at home, don't worry about me I'm doing great it's getting better and better each day. These two years won't be easy and they won't be the best two years of my life but I know that they will be the best two years FOR my life. I'm excited to lose myself in the work especially once I get down to Argentina, although that's still six weeks away!.

Tell everyone I say hello and I love them. Also to write me! haha. I'm thankful for everyone especially you and dad for being an example to me and helping me become the man I am.  I love you and I'll talk to you guys next week. (I only remembered your email so if you could forward this to dad and everyone else) Also did you make my blog yet?? haha. Hasta Luego!

Elder McFarland