5-03

"If you were arrested for being a desciple of Jesus Christ, would there be enough evidence to convict you? ~unknown

Hello Family & Friends!
Hope you are all having a GREAT week! It seems like everyone has been really busy: finishing up school, having fun on fieldtrips, meeting apostles, working, dieting, etc. Well I can gladly say that I have been keeping busy right here too in Indio California!
K, did it not just seem like we just had April start?! Really.. didn't we just have Easter and watch General Conference! And now it's MAY! wow- it's crazy how time is just flying by! I was talking to Elder Veater on Saturday and he only has like 4 months left on his mission 4 MONTHS!! I celebrated his birthday and year mark with him! crazy how time is FLYING! On Saturday the California Riverside Mission had a couple of special guests come and speak to us up in Moreno Valley. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the quorum of the twelve apostles, Paul V. Johnson of the seventy, & William Reynolds an area authority. It was quite the fun experience! Never has the whole entire mission been able to meet together as a whole! It was so fun to get to see everybody! Everybody that I have been working with and had been transferred away from! Sister Reeves said for her it was like she had "died and gone to heaven", she is such a sweet heart!
Elder Reynolds and Johnson spoke about witnesses of the Book of Mormon and of Truth. "We are in the midst of the force of witnessing of the living Christ. It ultimately will light all the world!" ~ Reynolds. In the Book of Mormon the prophets speak of the people speaking "from the dust" and the words shall "hiss forth". Paul V. Johnson said that "we are hissers, YOU are the hissers" haha, I thought that was funny - may we all be "hissers" of the word and bring our brothers and sisters the truth!
Elder Ballard was soo ... incredible. I really could just have starred at him for the whol hour and a half and I could have been fine - It's crazy to think that these people are REAL! Well, a little Jealous of Nicole and Shaun - I didn't get to get a picture with Elder Ballard, but still all in all, it was a great day. He spoke and gave an inspirational talk on missionary work and what we need to do as teachers. He said that the #1 thing that he would want us to take from that meeting if we only took one thing was when we teach we HAVE TO be able to teach with understanding! "you have to become master teachers". He spoke about Confidence and how when we don't have confidence in our message - we don't speak by the spirit - we hold back. But when we know and are master teachers we will be confident, follow the spirit and not hold back. Isn't that true -for anyone too, not just missionaries, everyone! When we know and treasure up the word of God, we will be ready at any time and any moment and that's when our "tongues will be loosed" to speak by the spirit. A missionary asked him a question "When did you feel you had the testimony of an apostle?" E. Ballard thought for a split second and shared a story of him when he was walking home with his companion to his appartment and the spirit had testified to him that we did have a Savior and that what he was doing was true. That it wasn't an angel coming a vission - just a comirmation of truth. wow isn't that cool that we can have the testimony of an apostle anytime!
Well I got to go. I love you sooooo much and am so excited to talk to most of you on MOTHERS DAY!! think of some good questions Love you all stay safe and have a good week!
-- Love, ELDER PATRICK McBRIDE

4-26

"We are free to obey or not to obey the commandments, but we are not free to alter the content of those commandments, neither can we avoid the consequences of breaking these commandments. Choosing should always include wanting the consequences of what we want." ~Neil A. Maxwell

Hello Family & Friends!
This week was great and full of opportunities! On Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elder Holmes. The day started out with a district meeting in the morning (where me and him both trained). I trained on the importance of prayer. If there is one thing that I feel is important is prayer and the power of it! I think I take it for granted a lot ... and need to get a stronger testimony of it - So that's what I hoped for, as I trained on prayer my personal testimony grew. As we talk to others about struggles and as we live & teach our family and friends principles our testimonies for those principles will grow. The day went pretty well. Elder Holmes has been out in the mission field for about a year and still struggles with his spanish. Goll, I look up to people that have to learn another language! - talk about HARD!
This week Elder Palmer and I have been trying to talk with everyone that we saw (because that's what an obedient missionary does... even if the situation is a tad awkward). Well one of our recent converts in the ward lives in the ABC program... (an AA Program) and when we went there and was walking to his appartment everyone started making fun of us and pointing to each other saying "come to him, he needs the message". Well.. that's what we did we went "to them". Everyone was covered with extreme and explicit tatoo's and were smoking bad drugs but as we taught and prayed the spirit was there with us and we were able to find these two men who listened and wanted us to come back. Our return appointment was for yesterday and we came and taught them about the restoration and temptation. It's so funny how satan blinds people to think evil is good and good is evil (prophecy in Moroni 7 fulfilled I guess!) With the spirits help we were able to promise some way awesome blessings to each of them if they took these things seriously and they excepted!!
My love for my mission is growning emensly! To be truthful my reasons for coming on a mission were completely selfish and all for myself... you could say because of duty and fear. but I have gained a love for serving my Heavenly Father so much. I was teaching this less active girl Aida Doria and telling her of my inadequacies and homesickness at the first of my mission. She told me that from her 14 years of not going to church that I was the one to bring her back. It is so crazy the little dissions that we make like going on a mission can bring about such important dissions to partaking of eternal life!
I love you all so much! Remember your commandments and covenants that you have made with our Father in Heaven. Stay safe and have a good week. May the spirit always be with you and may we always strive to be with the spirit.
PS. Happy one year aniversary Brett Moore for being a member of the church!!!-- Love, ELDER PATRICK McBRIDE

4-19

Hey Guys!
Hope all is going good wherever you are in the world! All is going great here. The heat is coming on again... haha the temp. hit 97 degrees this week! I am safe and my testimony keeps getting stronger.
We had a Multizone meeting this week up in Yucca Valley (about an hour and a half away from Palm Desert). It was really really good. An hour before the meeting started we had a Leadership meeting with President, the assistants, zone leaders and district leaders and talked about how we could help our missionaries out and what they need to progress. A huge thing that hit me that President Reeves talked about is the principle of prayer. It seems a lot of missionaries arn't praying - or when they pray they don't take the time EVERY DAY to pray for each investigator by name. President Reeves said, and I quote, "It's not optional to not pray daily for your investigators, we are on a mission, it's critical! Don't miss opportunities to plead with God - you're not alone! Praying should be like breathing -make it that way. We can't be successful without God - It's a Team, every companionship is a three-some if done right!" I admit that I have not prayed daily for each investigator ... and sadly I have not felt the real need to - until now. If we don't have that contact and prayer time with our Heavenly Father, Satan get his rotten little snake head in there and just bites away at these people. 2 Nephi 32: 8-9 PRAY!!!!
Sister Reeves gave a training about how important we are and a testimony is. Pretty much the whole Multizone meeting was focused on 'Covenants we made in the Premortal existance'. A covenant is a special promise to our Heavenly Father like when we get baptized or married/sealed in the temple we make sacred covenants/promises with God. Well knowing Gods plan - that some of His children would not have the gospel in their lives here on earth - the ones who did would need to find those who didn't. It is a real thing that we made convenants with our brothers and sisters up there to find them, to teach them, & to bring them back to the fold of God. Sister Reeves asked if anyone had any investigators/converts that we had worked with from our missions that we KNEW/ God confirmed it that we had made specific convenants to talk and teach them here on earth. I raised my hand and shared my testimony about Brenda Franklin. Haha, it's kind of funny - I didn't feel it at first - but the more I got to know her and the more our friendship grew I KNOW we knew eachother in the pre-earth life and that I had made covenants to teach. I found my friend and my sister that I had promised God that I would find & oh that happiness that comes from it! Sister Reeves actually surprized me when she took out a card that she had received from Brenda Franklin. She read the card replacing Elder McBride with "Elder Brown". The card said such wonderful thought about our friendship and her finding the gospel. It's crazy - before I came on the mission I was just thinking about myself - I really didn't care or know that I was going to have the chance to find friends out here. But I DID! Those who are thinking about serving our Heavenly Father on a mission - know that it is not about you. That the choice to not serve on a mission just doesn't effect you- but it effects others. Now I am not saying that if I didn't go out that people like Brenda Franklin, Jan Judd, Rubi Bonilla, Colley McAvoy & any of the others that I have gotten so close to out here would have never been brought back to our Heavenly Father. I made specific promises and covenants with these people, my brothers and sisters & I hope to God that I will never miss the many opportunities that I will have in my mission and life to fulfil my promises.
Heavenly Father loves us all. I know that because I know that He loves me. I have so many faults about me that daily I try to correct... but still I fall short. I know my Savior & Redeemer lives though, and that as I strive to do what is right constantly feasting on God's word we can have the promised blessings of our Heavenly Father & our elder brother Jesus Christs grace, mercy and justice.. and the biggest blessing of not only immortality -but eternal life with them and my family!
I love you all so much! Always remember our covenants! They are so important! Like our prophet Thomas S. Monson said to his daughter when she told him 'the blessings that come from keeping the commandments and covenants are so good' he told her, "Ann, they are everything." May the gospel of Jesus Christ literally be everything! Stay safe!-- Love, ELDER PATRICK McBRIDE

4-12

Hey Everyone!
How are you - hope all is doing good!
So guess what- I got to do some service the other day and mow someones lawn in the ward! Their back was hurting them so I got to do it. I know sometimes I moaned and growned about getting out and mowing the lawn at home - but sometimes it's just fun to get out and smell the fresh cut grass and do some yard work! --- I bet I am gonna regret that when I get home... haha
Last Monday night we went to one of our part-member families that we usually hit up on Monday nights [Michael & Sandra Barton]. When we got to their house Sandra (who is not a member) had told us that Michael was not there so we had a little talk with her. Now we have been meeting with them for quite a while and well... let's just say it is a rough family to feel the spirit there and get them to DO something. We have been working with them and trying to get them to stop drinking + me and Elder Palmer got to dump the beers down the drain -totally fun! Both just really arn't progressing. So I talked to Sandra and pretty much the spirit took my tongue over and I started like promising so many blessings to her if she would acually DO something - like help out around the house, read scriptures, etc. I talked to her about discipline and to be completely honest - I had no idea what I said but she just shook her head up and down and said ok. Later on in the week she called us over to give a blessing to her neighbor and when we got there she was like bearing testimony of the priesthood and what we do. After the blessing we asked her how her discipline was doing and she said that what I had told her- (what the spirit told her) had helped out soo much! Having the Spirit with you is so important! He is your guide and blessing from our Father.
Each transfer the zone leaders pray and pick a zone-trasfer-focus from the key indicator list. This trasfer they have picked to focus on "Investigators with a Baptism date". We received some awesome trainings this week from the zone leaders and our praying for both investigators to put on date.... and ..well, INVESTIGATORS!!! haha -I guess that would be important for that focus, don't ya think?! Friday night we commited a couple to get baptized... sadly they rejected - But hey that's our purpose "to INVITE others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel by faith in Jesus Christ & His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end!"
As for the food update... I don't know if it's going to compare with Ryan's .. or now Koltens exotic food... but - I ate tripe for the first time in my life... and I think next week the same family is going to feed us cow tongue! Ya I know - who would have thought that I would be going foreign in California! So AWESOME exciting news.... ready for it.... we are going to be having someone from the first quorum of the Seventy come to our mission and speak to us on May 1st!!! Oh ya.... I think someone else is coming too... who was it??? Oh ya..... duh duh duh duh... An APOSTLE!!!!! That's right - One of the twelve apostles are going to come to our mission and speak to us May 1st!! The whole mission is going to get together and we are going to listen to him!!!! I am so excited! All my life I have never got to meet an apostle, let alone even be in the same room as one! They won't tell us who (for security reasons) - but if I find out I'll let ya know!!!
Well all is good here. As I told mom - no volcano ruptures, earthquakes, tornado's, monsoons or tsunami's --- so as for geology - pretty lame week! lol, jk.
The week has been good and I am excited to get out and find people to fulfil my purpose as a representive of the Lord. Thank you for your love and prayers I need them everyday! Stay safe & always remember how important our Savior Jesus Christ is- That He did suffer, that He did Atone, that He was perfect, that He did lay up His life for us, He did simply because of His love for us and His Father in Heaven. Really how true the sentance of comfort is from our hymn books "I know that my Redeemer lives." This is where true comfort is & where I have found mine!
-- Love, ELDER PATRICK McBRIDE

PS. Just a reminder for the mission office address change --- send mail to 5900 Grand Ave Riverside California on April 14th & on!!

4-05

Dear Family & Friends,

Hope that you are having a good post Easter day!
Well many of you might have heard that southern California experienced a little roll-ige yesterday... EARTHQUAKE! Dude, it was awesome!!! Elder Palmer and I were in our car just going to our dinner appointment at like 3:40pm when it happened. We stopped at a stop-light and the ground just started rolling back and forth for like 40 seconds. Haha, my first thoughts were that something was wrong with the car - but gladly Elder Palmer was on the phone with our dinner and he assured us it was an earthquake! There was another last night also - like at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning that was pretty big and a tiny one at like 5:00am. Nothing was shook up at all in the appartments and in Palm Desert where I live all I saw that a sprinkler head had popped off. We actually are near a fault line and they are supposed to get a pretty big earthquake down here in Coachella soon - hopefully I'm around...wouldn't that be awesome! - I mean- maybe it would open some peoples eyes and humble them... or at least we would be getting to do some service for people and get our P.R. (public relations) up!
Transfers came up this weekend and I am still staying in the Palm Desert zone in Indio & La Quinta with Elder Palmer. Elder Ngawaka and Elder Whimpey (my MTC companion) are our AP's (assistants to the president) and Elder Jorgenson & Elder Burton are the OA's (office elders). As for the Elders in my zone there is: Elder Powell & Elder Anderson (as our ZL'z or zone leaders), Fife and Holmes, Hulet & Salinas, Fairbanks & Adamson, Dexter & Payne (Elder Payne is actually a kid from my high school), Elder Martin and Butillos.
As for Conference, didn't you love it! I taught the gospel principles class last week in the La Quinta ward and asked everyone to raise their hands if they have never taken conference for granted.... no one raised their hands. Isn't that funny - We get the opportunity to listen to Gods messengers here on Earth and we don't. I don't put myself up on a peddlestool at all (remember there was not one who raised their hands in the class - including me) I took conference for granted for the first 19 years of my life! I guess what it meant to me was a day to get time off of work at Discovery. But now as I listen to it with the real intent and faith I love it and hope that I will never take it for granted again!
Well as for my personal favorites from Conference were:
-D. Todd Christofferson speaking on the importance of scriptures. I think something largely talked about at conference was Personal revelation. Most of us have heard the quote "If you want to talk to God - Pray. If you want God to talk to you - read the scriptures." I loved what he said about, "Scriptures are revelation & they will bring added revelation." Who doesn't want the person revelations; the personal truths and answers from God testified through the holy spirit?! READ THE SCRIPTURES!
-Jeffrey R. Holland put it down on Pornography! Mosiah 3:19 I think discribes his talk wholey. We all have a "natural man" about us - we must not give in to it!! Lust is easy! Love - True Love may not be easy, but worth it! It has permanence - and we know our Heavenly Fathers Plan is an eternal plan - "permanence" plan you could say. 'let will be your reason, you dictate your thoughts, don't invite them in for tea and crumpets & show them where teh silverwear are - cast them out! We shouldn't be drinking tea anyway!! haha CAST IT OUT!
-Quentin L. Cook & Neil L. Anderson I have not have not ever felt anything from them that really touched my spirit and affirmed their apostle status - I knew they were apostles of God, but I had just not gained a witness and testimony of it till yesterday. I loved both of their talks. Cooks "bitter-cup" reference it applying our Saviors Atonement was great and Andersons talk on "not being casual in raising the rising generation" was true! Haha - I'm sure it's diffent for everyone -but Family seemed to be (what I thought) the main focus of conference was. A family is everything - not just our earthly families but our Heavenly Family is everything!! THE SAVIOR LIVES, DO OUR CHILDREN KNOW?
-Bradley D. Foster & James B. Martino from the seventy were also great talks on the distractions of life and God helping us through trials.
Well hope you all had a Happy Easter! I love you all so much! Stay warm down in the cool weather! Tell me your favorites from conference and hopefully we can all remember the testimonies we have in our Savior Jesus Christ!
-- Love, ELDER PATRICK McBRIDE