WE LOVE YOU ALL AND WE ARE VERY MUCH ALIVE.

WE LOVE YOU ALL AND WE ARE VERY MUCH ALIVE.

WHEN WE GET A FEW MINUTES AND GRAB OUR BREATH WE WILL ANSWER ALL YOUR EMAILS.

WE INTEND TO SEND IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS A LONG EMAIL WHICH HOPEFULLY WILL BECOME OUR WEEKLY JOURNAL.

MITZI, AS YOU ARE VERY TALENTED AT WRITING EMAILS, BLOGS, PICS, ETC --- COULD WE ASK YOU TO BE THE OFFICIAL RECORDER AND KEEP OUR EMAILS IN A BINDER AS OUR LIVING JOURNAL. PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD BE PREPAIRED TO DO THIS /

tHANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR FATHERS DAY THOUGHTS. I REALLY REALLY LOVED THEM ALL -- YOUR KIND THOUGHTS AND THE WAY YOU WORD THINGS TOUCHED MY HEART.

WE ARE DEALING WITH LOTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE CHALLENGES AND ARE TRYING HARD TO GET RESOLVE. WE HAVE A REVELATORY SET OF PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES FROM ELDER PERRY FOR THE YSA IN EUROPE AND THE LOCAL LEADERS NEED TO FOLLOW A LOT MORE CLOSELY. THAT IS PART OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO SEE THAT THAT HAPPENS AND WE ARE WORKING DIRECTLY WITH THE MISSION PRESIDENT AND THE AREA AUTHORITY SEVENTY --- JUST PART OF OUR UNIQUE ASSIGNMENT. WE HOPE THEY LIKE US AS WE MOVE FORWARD --- OH, THE JOYS OF THE MISSION FIELD. THE YSA ARE FANTASTIC, WE LOVE THEM DEARLY.

WE PRAY FOR YOU DAILY,

LOVE, MOM AND DAD.

Father's Day

To all the great fathers in the family,

May you have a lovely day and may the skin o' a gooseberry cover all yer troubles --- by the way the gooseberries are delicious here and the skin is very very thin, which means that you will have few difficulties in life -- that is yer wee bit o Irish wisdom fer today.

We want you to know that we are thinking of you and recogize the great blessings in our lives to sons and a son in law who are great fathers -- you love, cherish and provide for your children. We also admire and respect the love you give them and the time you give to communicating very effectively to them. They are all good children and that is directly attributed to the good parents that you are. Thanks to each of you for being patient and taking time to always listen to their needs and in being prepared to act and apply after listening.

We love each of you and thanks also for being kind husbands in being compassionate, courteous, and in setting a great example to your children of how really important their mothers are to you.

Have a fantastic day and may the sun shine warm upon your face.

All our love,

Mom and Dad

ps -- we hear it has rained a lot in Utah -- just thought you would like to know that the weather here has been fabulous -- it has only rained ONCE since we arrived and that was only the famous Irish mist -- a few days ago it was 26 degrees. Tis the luck o' the Oirish. Oh and by the way Molly is here, we will see her tomorrow.

Re: Happy Anniversary from Stephen

Thank you Stephen,

We had a great day Wednesday -this was an historic conference as it will be the very last of the IDM -- IRELAND DUBLIN MISSION and they all sang to us to celebrate our anniversary, had us stand up front and gave us a bar of Galaxy which Sister McBride devoured before I even knew it was in her hand !!

They also had us introduce ourselves and bear our testmonies. I got mom some flowers and a box of good chocolates, the day after, as we just got back to Belfast in time to make a 9.30 meeting with the YSA council. We are kept hopping.

We will write a longer email on Pday. Please send this to the family and get everyone on SKYPE as we want to try it out -- also send this to Kelly as we have not heard from her and want to make sure she is alive and kicking !!

Possibly next email we can fill you in on our special YSA role --- IT IS NO ORDINARY MISSION and has it's very large challenges --- for example one of the adult leaders said the other day to us ( after the block meeting ) -- " Was'nt it nice of the Bishops to release their YSA for the day to come to this special meeting " ---- we responded very quickly, " Was'nt it a privilege for the Bishops to release their YSA to attend these special meetings with their peers.' You can see we do have our work cut out alone, changing attitudes and behaviours that are deep set, however knowing the Irish does give us an advantage.

The last missionary couple fulfilling this role were from BYU Provo and gave up essentially because they wanted it run like a large YSA ward at BYU --- that is not going to happen here in Belfast, this is very much the mission field. There has been no senior missionary couple in this position for over 7 months.

We will fill you in as we go -- there is much that we want to see happen. Meanwhile we love you all and miss you. May God bless Tonya as she is expecting the little one soon - we look forward to the news.

All our love,

Mom and Dad.

Re: A Letter from Stephen

Stephen,

How are you doing. Just a brief note. We got our big block meeting taken care of, we had a number of assignments and it seemed to go well.

We get a special Pday tomorrow for the entire zone -- all of Northern Ireland and I will be the tour guide for the Antrim coast ---- just a natural extension of our responsibilities!!!!!

Then we are off to an all mission conference on Wednesday in Dublin's fair city -- the last with our mission President and his wife -- they are taking it hard.

There is a young lady we work with in the YSA Presidency --- Robin Beatty --- she is wonderful and she is visiting Utah next week. We have given her you cell # and she will call -- you will love her accent.

Non of your siblings have answered our email except you --- wonder if they received the email -- please check and send them your copy in case.

We are going out to Auntie Zetta tonight to say hello -- we do not see her very much as we are on the other side of Belfast.

Love to all,

Mom and Dad

we love each of you

Hello our dear family and what's about ye !!

It seems like an eternity since we communicated with you and when we explain just a portion of the last month you may understand why. First and most important we trust and pray that you are all well -- we are also and very very happy immersed in the most important in the world. We moved into our new flat only on Saturday and we feel just like newly weds ( when in fact it is our 41st wedding anniversary on the 9th June - next week ) -- trying to stock up the kitchen, bedclothes, groceries, etc. The digs are very nice - brand new - 2 bedroom, 2 bath, luxury appliances, etc -- I think we may be the envy of the mission and we try hard not to be, but this kind of just fell in our lap -- or maybe it was just one of those mini miracles where God wishes to remain anonymous. Zetta took fantastic care of us for 2 weeks but it was challenging with study time, etc -- but that is now over and we are now getting everything well under way. It is also nice to get our computer up and working, it was much more challenging that we imagined and stting up a bank account has indeed been an ordeal -- the red tape is hardly believeable but we think that may be complete by tomorrow. Yes, the bank manager has to interview you before they will consider opening an account for you !!!!

Now let us start with the wonderful journey we have been on. The MTC was an incredible experience from beginning to end. we will not detail a lot but to suffice it to say -- the only experience to surpass the time spent at the Preston MTC was the birth of our children and our own temple sealing. It was the ultimate spiritual experience or our lives to be deeply immersed in the life and work of the Saviour of the world, each day. We can now fully understand the intense feeling Kelly expressed as she was one of the first groups of missionaries to be taught from PMG. Please use this invaluable resource in your family home evenings -- this coupled with the scriptures will bring a great unifying spirit into your homes.We had only 2 other couples with us and that the the first senior couples they had seen in 9 months. We don't think they quite knew what to do with us. But we did have a fabulous instructor and we were involved and taught each other many times.Before we went into the MTC we had a very surprize visit from Zetta which was great -- little did she know what would transpire in a few days !!! Kelly sent an absolutely beautiful array of flowers to Mom for Mothers day which made her cry and shey adorned our MTC room for the duration of our stay -- thank you so much Kelly -- what a kind thought.

So that you might understand how busy we have been -- here is our first day in the mission field. Left the MTC on the 14th May at 4.30AM went to Manchester Airport. It was pure bedlam there as many flights were cancelled because of volcanic ash -- it had created major havoc, especially between the mainland and Ireland. It was indeed a miracle that ours was one of the very few flights allowed out. Arrived Dublin about 9.30 am -- greeted by Pres. Greer and his wife -- what a lovely gentle meek man and a wife who was equally nice and absolutely hilarious. We went to the office where we met the entire staff and then sat down to receive our assignment -- IT WAS A SHOCK !!! We were going to Belfast to co- ordinate the YSA for the Belfast Stake. There are approx. 500 of them all over Northern Ireland. We have no area or restrictions on our travel and we have the responsibilty for the YSA centre in the inner core of Belfast close to Queens University and several other colleges -- It is the only church owned centre of it's kind in all of Europe. We have a set of guidelines for the Europe area and our major objective is search and rescue of the many inactives and in encouaging and teaching the active in how to bring in investigators. We will share more experiences with you in another email. So you can see we have a massive assignment and in addition we have a heavy reponsability this coming Sunday in a special block meeting this Sunday with the YSA that is only held twice a year.

We had lunch with the Pres. and his wife at the mission home and then drove toward Belfast. While still driving in Dublin the president said we have one little snag --- they had nowhere for us to live !!!!!!!! Oh, the joys of the mission field -- that is what prompted a quick emergency call to Zetta and of course the welcome roof over our heads. We drove to the YSA Centre where we met a number of missionaries, got a car, the keys to the centre and there it is he said -- it's all your and ------ God Bless you both. !!!!! Finally and eventually we got to bed about 2.00am the next day. ----- so that was our first day and everyday since has been very busy with meetings, teaching experiences, mentoring, activities, etc. even now we are breaching mission rules by doing this email at midnight --- but Heavenly Father will understand that we love you.

Please have the grandchildren write us -- we miss them very much and we also look forward to hearing from each of you, our lovely children and daughters and son in law. We pray fervently for you each day.' Our new address is 219 Saintfield Road, #6 ,, Belfast BT8 7HQ, Northern Ireland. However you can still mail to the Mission Address as you never know when we would be moved again, but we do not think this will be for at least 6 months.

That is all for now, take care and may God bless each of you abundantly,

All our love,

Elder and Sister McBride,

Mom and Dad.

From The MTC

Our dear family.

Just a quick note in the few spare moments we have. First and most important -- we love you all very much. Please ensure that each member of the family receives this, we are emailing from the mtc computer.

The mtc experience in our lives is only surpassed by the birth of each of our children and our sealing for time and all eternity. It has been the ultimate spiritual experience being immersed in the work of the Saviour of the world. We now fully understand the intense feelings Kelly had as she was one of the first to be trained with PMG. -- also she always commented on teaching with it at the mtc in Provo.

We also got a big surprize when your Auntie Zetta met us as we were on our way to the mtc -- that was fabulous and she brought us Chocs, etc. We leave at 5.00am Friday morning for Dublin and one of the most exciting experiences of our lives. We are sure our lives will never be the same. We will let you know a little more when we get assigned and settled in our new area. I love the Lord, this is his church, the Book of Mormon is indeed the word of God --- all of it is true and I love it. Thank you for your support and love -- we pray for you each day. Please ensure all our grandchildren see this email and feel our testimonies -- also please use PMG in all your family home evenings. I LOVE YOU. Dad.

Hello everyone ,tis me your wee Irish missionary mother, it is 8.30 in the evening and I am a little tired,we have classes all day long and most times into the evening until 9.30. We have been on the run since we arrived but we are having a lot of fun as well. I love being around these missionarys, they are good young men and women. President and Sister Clegg run the mtc so well, he is a gentle quiet spiritual man and she is a little ball of fire, she keeps everyone laughing and moving. We have wonderful acommodations here, it is such a beautiful place, they received an award for the landscaping around the mtc and the Temple. There is a beautiful pond with ducks and geese on it and large floor to ceiling windows in the lower floor where the cafeteria and some classrooms are located.As dad mentioned Zetta arrived to surprise us and we went through the Temple with her and Emma. She gave me over 40 names for endowments, so I have permission from Sister Clegg to have the missionarys do the work tomorrow when we go to the Temple. Thank you my Kelly for the beautiful flowers for mothers day, you made me cry, thank you Michael and Stephen for your emails I had forgotten it was mothers day. I want you all to know that my testimony is stronger than ever before, I know it has a lot to do with being in this spiritual environment I love my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I know that he lives and loves me, I am so grateful for his atoning sacrifice, I will try my very best to bring others unto him. I love you all very much. mom ps please ensure this is forwarded to Chris,Karen and Glen.

Safe

Our dear family,

We have arrived safely here in jolly old England and are at the centre of the famous Manchester Utd. in Manchester, England. We had a fabulous nights sleep and a hearty breakfast. I t is noon time and we are at Emmas and Lukes home not far from Old Trafford. Emma was in Belfast over the weekend and is stranded in Belfast with more volcanic ash problems, she hopes to get in tonight.

Sunday was indeed an emotional day and our setting apart and blessings were incredible -- we only wish you had been there. This has given us a lot of courage and strength to go forward. We go into the MTC Friday and will write again.

We love you all,

Elder and Sister McBride ( may as well get used to it )