This Is It.

Well the time is nigh that I must depart from serving Heavenly Father and representing the Lord Jesus Christ. Yesterday I was blessed to bear my testimony in front of the Dunwoody Ward. It was touching. I didn’t think I was going cry or get emotional but it hit me like a wave. The really hard part was when Bishop Abamonte got up after I was done and just thanked me and he was crying as well and I just felt his love for me and for the Savior. None the less it was humbling. I never thought this day would come that I would actually not serve any more... Full time that is. We are forever missionaries. Not just after the mission but our sacred calling starts as soon as the words come "...I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost." We all become missionaries that special day for some that happened years, or for dad (light years) or for other just a few days or weeks ago. We are forever missionaries.  Alma teaches us this in the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 18:8-9) "To stand as a witness of Him at all times, in all things, in all places…" how awesome is that! We all are called to represent him!

For those who are sure about your testimony of the Savior or unsure of yourself. This is the greatest work that we could ever be a part of. Your testimony, your self-confidence will grow as your help heal others and as you serve others selflessly.  Get out there and do as the Savior has done. Call upon His name. Don’t doubt your testimony or yourself. You have been born of goodly parents and have chosen to come to earth. If you feel as though you are lacking just call upon God and ask Him what you need to do. Whether it be to serve a full time mission or to go do something you never have done before but that you know it will help just go out and do it. "Doubt not fear not" the scriptures say. It’s a promise! D&C 6:36 "look unto me in every thought."

I have a lot of thoughts that I would love to convey but I do not have the time or the skills to write all of them down.  But as mentioned above this is the greatest work we could ever do and be doing. Be involved! Advice I have for those who want to do the work start with prayer first. Pray for missionary work. Pray that you will see missionary opportunities all around you and that you’ll have the courage to act on those promptings. Listen to this past general conference especially Elder Gifford S. Nielson’s talk. There are a couple others that I don’t know off the top of my head but listen study!

Mathew 7:7-8 paraphrased says ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. I studied that this week and it was really cool to learn what the core words mean.

Ask: prayer

Seek: meditate

Knock: action or revelation

Basically if you ask God and want to know how to do anything or what to do He will give it to us. We just have to follow the promptings to do it!

Having served during this amazing time I have come to know of the truthfulness of the gospel. It’s amazing to see how the Lord works and how He just confirms truth. I know without a doubt in my mind that this is the true church. That it is led by a prophet of God and that he is truly called of God. He has all the authority to act by the authority of the priesthood. I know that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that through trials and tribulation we will be a stronger people. It’s amazing to see the hand of the Lord in our lives and how revelation comes. I love this church and I love the Lord! I am eternally grateful for this experience and I am forever indebted to the Lord!

Love,

Elder William L. Macoubrie

TEN DAYS!!!

HELLO!

It’s been raining all day and boy has that been nice. The weather has been completely ridiculous. Friday it was topping 70 I think and Saturday was the same. Sunday was ugly raining and today is the same. It’s been cool to watch. I mean it always just testifies to me anyways that there has to be a God. There has to be someone who created all of this. There has to be someone in control. No one could control the weather unless you created it right? Well that’s what I think anyways :)

It’s been a decent week. We had some really amazing things happen that I still can’t believe actually happened. So one story was we just got out of an appointment from a referral from some other missionaries somewhere in the mission. That appointment was whatever. The family wanted help, with food and money but anywho both Elder Woodward and I had to use the restroom and we found a place where we have been many times before just looking and shopping around...Marshalls. As we exit the restroom we bother were looking at ties because that’s missionary’s style is to get the "coolest" tie right?! But there was this man who just turned and said hi and then just kept looking at us. And he just asked if I was holding a bible (we carry Books of Mormon around everywhere everyday) and I politely said no but that it’s the Book of Mormon and the things it teaches will really help with anything he is going though. And boy that just opened the channel for the spirit. He just opens up and tells us his life story and how he lost everything, his business, wife, got hurt in a car wreck and can’t work because his back in jacked. And his name is Rafael and he just talked and told us here’s my address my # and when can you come. I need help to find God again and to secure my soul for him.... Got his info and parted ways and sat in the car for the other elders because we car share and they needed a ride back. As we were sitting there something didn’t feel right and then it hit us both. We forgot to invite him to baptism! We left the car went back inside to find Rafael and invited him. He gladly and excitedly said yes and then we left. It was amazing the Lord needs Rafael and he needs the Lord. It was really amazing!

We also did some service the other day with bishop. They fell a tree and cut it up into logs and he asked that we bust them up and stack the wood. Everything seemed all good and dandy until the maul broke. Lame. But we bought a new one and busted that wood up. I was soooo sore the next day. I have little chicken hands from not doing any work like that in so long. I know some of you out there..mhmm dad and Dan mhmm.. Will tell me that I was always a chicken and so forth but that was tough work cuz... :)

I was trying to think what to write all week and I couldn’t really think of anything. It’s crazy and sad to watch the days dwindle down that I’ll be serving as a full-time missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s been by far the best journey I could have ever taken and that I will ever take. I’m sad to leave and to end the mission for the Lord but I am so thankful for this experience. There are so many things that I have learned that I will be able to take into the real world and be able to use. My testimony has grown immensely. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this church is true that the gospel is true that that Jesus lives. The Book of Mormon no matter how daunting it can be to read will always help with anything you go through. Christ will help you and the best and most amazing thing I have learned over the past 2 years is that He and Heavenly Father loves us so much that He was willing to lay his life down for us to enable us to come back home :)

Love,

Elder William L. Macoubrie

Zoinks!

What a spirit filled week! How amazing is it that we are the only church in the whole wide world that has 12 living apostles and a prophet that faithfully leads us forth into battle against the adversary. Elder Cook this week was freaking bomb! It’s amazing how simple they speak but how much power they actually have when they speak so simply. He spoke mostly on faith and how to increase it and he told us very simply that if we (as missionaries and presumably members) increase our faith we will be more successful, with talking with everybody, inviting more and more people to something (dinner, church, to look at a mormon.org) we will have more success in the work of salvation. It was amazing!

Cool experience happened this week as well. So we have been trying to meet with John this week. The man who lost his wife to a bout with cancer but we went over there and I feel we are finally making head way with him. He is finally starting to open up and share more of his life with us. We went over and shared a scripture with him and we didn’t let him talk about some of his crazy thoughts but I told him that he would make my day if he came to church. I just knew and had so much confidence in the Savior that if he came he would know that it’s true. That he would feel his love and his wife’s love for him, and he came! It was the best. I know he felt the spirit. Something touched his heart.  It was awesome. It literally made my day.

The temple was awesome. I loved the new temple video - it was amazing! I loved the perspective of Adam and of Eve. You could just feel the emotion radiating from the video. It was awesome!

Well I have to go. I’ll probably get kicked off so I love you!

Love,

EMAC

Hello Everybody!

What’s going on everybody!

Hello William’s mom!!!!!!! Is Sister Vasquez. So that is a sister missionary that is in the other district but I’ve served alongside of her for some time now. And she wanted to say hi.

That’s so crazy about the storms out west, the civil unrest in Europe and the crazy stuff that’s happening around the world. It’s so sad to watch the destruction and the wickedness. But it’s been prophesied by prophets of old but we know that everything will be ok. Christ will come and things will be a-ok!

It’s been a rough week. I can’t lie but I have gotten frustrated with a lot of people. Everything that could have gone wrong absolutely did. Every single appointment we had fell through, not a lot of people were found and things just didn’t go right. But that’s the great things about this week as it can get better and it will. Really nothing is as bad as it really sounds it’s just me being a baby :p

It can always get better zone training meeting is on Wednesday therefore we get to go to the temple and that will definitely be a big relief. Get to have a transfusion of the spirit. Get to seek that revelation that I have been wondering about and get to hear the new tools and tactics from the Mission President Harding :)

We found out this week that Andrew might be moving to midtown Atlanta therefore we might have to hand him off to the elders over there and so we will have to work harder to find new people to invite and put on track to baptism. So it’s going to be a process.

Funny news we were walking down the street the other night after honestly like a 20 mile hike and walked past the Maserati dealer that’s in town. And in the parking lot were a ton on Maseratis and a Bentley and an Aston Martin. All 125-175k cars just sitting outside like no one’s business. I wish President would allow us to go test drive them. That would be an experience. :)

Well that’s really all I have to say.

Love,

EMAC

Amazing!

Well well well another week has come and gone!

Where did this week go? It’s been amazing! I can’t lie. Out numbers didn’t show it exactly but it was a really fun week.

For the most part the week went well. Exciting news Andrew came to church finally! We had an appointment with a member (but he fell asleep because he stayed up all night) so he didn’t come with us but we had a super good appointment with him. And half way through the lesson and he just said that it just makes sense with Joseph Smith and the apostasy of the early Christian church and everything. It was just amazing to see how the spirit worked with him and how it just clicked with him. It’s true to say that you will find those who are prepared. So I’m really excited.

We just found out some really cool news! That Elder Cook of the 12 apostles is coming down to Atlanta March 8th. So I’m super excited for that. It’s a special day. He’s coming for a priesthood leadership conference and he asked to see the missionaries. So it is awesome I am so pumped.

Another really special miracle we had last night. I went on exchanges with the zone leaders a couple weeks back when the first big snow storm happened and we contacted a girl named Aya. But she lived outside of our area…sadly. But the elders who were trying to work with her told us she moved back to Chamblee and that she was back in our area! So we called her a couple times but nothing happened and she told us she would call us back. Normally when that happens I know they won’t call back. No one ever does... But she did and we set up an appointment for last night. And we got a member to go with us and the such. Taught a good lesson. Her friend Demarcus was there as well and he said to us as we were leaving that he was praying that something like that would happen. That Aya would find something like this out and that his prayers were answered. He told us that he would definitely read the Book of Mormon and pray! It was just awesome! It’s been a good week. And it only gets better from here!

Love,

EMAC