Hey Mom! 

I can't believe they (Brother and Sister Fletcher) came! Looks like it was a ton of fun! I hope to see them soon again!  I'm so glad they got to meet everyone! I enjoyed all the pictures! 

Wow, what a week. So! We had a great week because it was Thanksgiving of course! We had 5 dinners. By the end I could not force anything else down. We also had the baptism of course so that went great. It was such a great experience and he was confirmed on Sunday. We are now working on getting him the Priesthood. I'm glad she sent those. So those were the highlights of the work for sure! We had a bit of American food, African food, and also Hispanic of course.  They were good! 

 We just had a great week. No one new this week but hopefully this upcoming week. We are working on finding some new people again. I love this area a lot so I was so happy when I found out I was staying. Elder Hillstead went back to Spring Garden in Philly where I started! He was there for 6 months before! We also had MLC again so I saw him and Elder Weisler. It was good to see them. It was a long day but we sat with President and Sister Anderson at lunch again so it was good just to talk with them. They are just such a wonderful couple. It will be so great to see his homecoming talk. 

 

We went to Philly today! He was the second member we ran in to lol. He said he had heard parents love when they get random pictures like that so he just pulled someone off the street to take it. He served his mission in Mississippi right after Katrina so he said lots of his mission was service. He is from Utah. Small world honestly! I have lots of pictures I still need to send. We took some great ones today so I'll send those next week. Lots of great Christmas decorations in Philly.

T is great! We are seeing him towards the end of the week. He will probably be the next baptism! We have to talk to him about his sister so we will see. I think just the most spiritual experience from this week was baptizing T (the other T). It's always a privilege to do so. We actually had a Thanksgiving dinner with them. Some interesting food! 

So since I got a new iPad I have to redownload everything so I'll have more stuff to you next week. I accidentally left it on top of the car. It was bad!

It has been kinda cold here but not too bad honestly. When we played football on Thanksgiving it was not nearly as cold as last year. 

I'll be looking forward to it (his goody box) for sure! Haven't had them (peanut butter balls) for a whole year! 

The tree looks awesome! 

 

I enjoy them (quotes I send him every week) and definitely have shared them. We use that video (new Christmas video). They give us special pass along cards for it actually so we have to track on how many we give out and how many people we show the video to. 

I'm so excited for SKYPE! It's coming up real quick. It'll be good to see everyone's faces. I won't be so heavy honestly! Well I'll send more pictures and everything next week but I love ya momma and hope you enjoy all the random pictures! 

Love, 

Elder McArthur 

                                      Pictures from the baptism.

           This is the random picture I received from the guy on the left.  He had someone do it for him when he was on his mission and had heard how much we moms enjoy getting random pictures of our missionaries!

Hey Mom!

So I will be staying another transfer! I am very happy about that because I did not want to leave before the holidays. So I will be staying Zone leader here.

So E did get baptized! I will have to get you some pictures. Hermano Salas who is one of the members baptized him. It was really good and I also gave another talk in the Spanish sacrament today. That went well I feel. I will be baptizing T though and that will be this Saturday. We are super excited! Things have been going super well here. T is doing awesome though! He is talking about how cool it would be to serve a mission like us. We will see him and hopefully his sister too this week. Elder Bowman in an English elder.  I use my spanish a lot actually. Even more so recently. So I do not feel like I have lost any really, but it could be much better so I am really trying to work hard. It was a great week for us though. Lots did cancel at the end of the week but that is ok because we had a baptism. Last night was good too because we went to Bishop from the Camden ward's home to have some food and a testimony meeting for one of the elders who is getting transferred. Only 2 out of our zone got transferred. I also have a really funny video to send you too if you have not already seen it from this past Wed. It is too funny. So I ended up getting a new ipad because the other one cracked really bad but it ended up not costing me anything thank goodness because there was a warranty. So that is some stuff that went on this week. 

 

It is starting to get even colder and I have seen there is already snow in some places.

I love going to Philly during the holidays because it is all decorated up. I cannot believe Christmas is so soon! I thought of a couple things. I do need a scarf, gloves, sweater, watch, maybe even some cleets. Just in case of football like on Thursday. Money and food. Maybe throw in some other things that I might like. Just things like that though. Oh! And a beanie. I think I should be good. 

That is crazy about Cody. I hope that everything will be ok and he does not have to leave there or something! Definitely praying for him.

That is so crazy about Abby! Wow. That will be an interesting mission for sure.

Well they are calling me to come play ball (some things never change), but I am very excited to SKYPE! Cannot believe it is here again. I love ya momma and talk to you again next week!

love, 

Elder McArthur

Yeah President Ramos who is the Pennsauken branch President and where we have dinners on Wed. told me (about the Paris attacks). I thought about Cody when he was saying that. That is super crazy! Well I hope they will not have to send them anywhere else for their missions. Definitely let me know what is going on with that. 

 

She (Kayla) sent me the talk so I'll have to read it. Haha she will be awesome. I did not know Abby put in hers. Wow! So crazy how many of us are gone now. But I know it is great for all the families! 

 

Well I'll tell you about my week first. It was super awesome! Things are going really well over here. So E is getting baptized on Sunday. T will be baptized the next! Exciting stuff. But I'll tell you about the best part about this week was definitely the lesson we had with 2 brand new investigators yesterday.  So Brother Hansen has a guy from work who was interested. It was that same guy that came last week and his sister is also interested so she came with him. Anyways, we taught them after and wow the spirit was there. He had claimed to be atheist and lived a pretty rough life and then he met Bro. Hansen and Bro. Wright who are members here because in that company there are tons. He just loved how kind they were and something about them that he wanted. So we started teaching him and he started to feel a lot of things he had never experienced before. We read the story of Alma the younger and he said that is literally like how he felt. The Spirit was so strong and at the end we invited both of them to be baptized and they said yes. So! We will see what comes from there. They will both be coming next week also. It was one of the most spiritual lessons in my mission for sure. But everyone is doing great! T is really progressing well and was at church again that was good. E is all ready to go so we just have to plan out the program and figure out who is baptizing him. I really love this area and would hate to leave for the holidays! We also did an exchange but I just stayed here with Elder Cornelius who is in our zone. We also had a fun ward party but on the Spanish side. That was on Friday so we drove out there with some members actually. I love the holidays out here. So me and a Elder Bowman are doing great! He is a great elder and we get along well.

Aw dang (Upon hearing that Brother Fletcher didn't make it to Texas to see us)! That's stinks! That would have been so awesome. I really do miss the Fletcher's a ton. They were so good to us there. Well hopefully he can make it back out there! 

Yeah I understand some Portuguese but I'd love to learn it. Yeah so the mini mission was for 4 days and with missionaries just in the mission. They had to live exactly as we do which means no phone or anything. They all did an awesome job. 

Yeah! I say lets do it (go to President Anderson's homecoming).  I think that would definitely be a great trip so I would say lets do it. There will probably be soooo many people there I'm sure. 

Well I'm a little low on time. I love you mom and talk to ya again soon! 

Love, 

Elder McArthur

I saw all the zone leaders again yesterday cause we had a meeting in Philly with a seventy and President Faust's son which was super cool. 

I'm so excited (about Sister Drinkwater making his favorite meal)! That was really nice of her. We will be over there tonight actually to eat and help put their pool cover on. They are one of my favorite families here for sure. Bro. Drinkwater was actually the previous bishop of the ward. But yeah Teddy plays all the same positions (baseball positions, same as Adam played) and everything so it is so funny. He is a real athletic kid. 

I'm doing great! This was probably one of our best weeks! T finally came to church! E was not able to make it but we found a new Hispanic couple who we set with a date and they came to church also! Very good Sunday. We have not been in contact with D for a little while but we will be soon. We are seeing S and G this week actually. She is excited cause she has been reading a lot so we will see what happens, but things are going great because also Bro. Hansen in our ward brought this new guy to church who we are going to start teaching on Sunday. He says he really just sees something special in him and a couple other guys who are members that he just thinks is amazing.  So we will see what happens there. 

 

We went on a couple exchanges this week and I finally went over to Moorestown. I have not been there yet, but there are a ton of Brazilians, and they only speak Portuguese. I wanted to speak to them so bad but there was that barrier. I want to learn it too! They also did mini missions here so we went to that meeting to give a little bit of training. That was fun and fun to see all the people going and where they went because they gave them a call and everything. 

 

He (President Anderson) is a great man. It has been nice being able to work around him more as a leader in the mission. It would be cool to go to his home coming talk cause he goes home two weeks after I do. 

 

I just don't want a ton (for Christmas) since I'll be home in the summer which is weird to say. 

I have enjoyed just listening to all of the conference talks again and excited for the Christmas devotional. We just gotta stay firm in these days! Well I love you mom and I will try to send some pictures today for sure! 

Love, 

Elder McArthur 

A couple pics from his trip to Philly last week with his companion Elder Bowman and Elder Hillstead and his companion and the former Elder Kilpack in the bottom picture. 

 These are all pictures from the priesthood restoration site in Susquehanna.  Their mission president arranged for all the missionaries to get to go up and visit the site.  The picture above his Elder Hillstead on the left who was Adam's CCM companion and Elder Hopkin on the right. 

Well our trunk or treat on Wednesday was great. We had to be in early on Halloween which was nice though because we just went to bed super early plus got an extra hour of sleep because of the time change. We did not dress up though. We did not have any time at all ha.  We were actually running a little later to ours. 

 

MLC was great! Got to see everyone again and it was nice cause president sat with us at lunch so I got to talk to him. Everyone is doing good though. T still did not come to church, but we do not know why. He has to come to get baptized. He is doing everything else except that. We are going to probably stop by D tonight, but we will see. We are seeing S and G this week. We thought they were going to come to the trunk or treat, but they did not.  We set a baptismal date for E! In about 3 weeks. We have an appointment with him tonight actually. I'll keep you updated on him. We also have found a couple other people, but we will see how they go this week. We had a great week though! Just been struggling with getting people to church honestly. But trying! 

 

We already have a ton of invites to Thanksgiving so we will be eating good. I would be so upset if I got transferred! So hopefully I stay. Just the people here are great and lots is going on. There is a lot of potential in this area. I do miss the Fletcher's though! We will definitely have to visit them. I also went on an exchange the other day in Camden so that was fun. Ran into some interesting people. So I was there on Halloween and wow some creepy things! The fire department scared us bad haha because there was one of them who had on the creepiest wolf mask and hands. He started just coming after us! So that was funny. They were handing out candy. So it was an interesting week! 

Yeah there has been lots of blessing for him there. I saw him Friday and he is already talking about the game haha. So we will see who wins! 

 

(Upon asking him what did he learn at the Restoration site that he did not know before) Just certain things about Joseph and Emma and also during the translation how the words came in gold and below them was the translation in English which is crazy. So certain things like that. How Emma's dad was before. Just pretty hard hearted. But what softened him up was when he found her in the woods when she was very little praying for her dad. Yeah I loved going there for sure.  We just got back from Philly with Elder Hillstead and his comp. Also another elder who has finished his mission was with us. Elder Killpack. He is in Utah now at Utah State so he hung out with us. Elder Hillstead served around him for a while. 

Yeah me and Elder Hillstead are just shocked cause it feels like just yesterday we were in the CCM. So it is funny to see Kendall there cause I get her emails. Sounds like she is loving it. 

 

Well gotta run.  Love you mom!

Love, 

Elder McArthur