Week #7: San Diego

Hello Family!

                Merry Christmas to you all tomorrow! It is looking like I will be calling around 3 or 4 pm. We will be at the temple tonight visiting with people and then tomorrow we are at the Battalion in the morning. It was such a great week! We have an investigator named Janey who is 50, but we get to teach her because we are the only sisters in the stake. Well it took us about 7 visits before she finally agreed to let us teach her, she calls it "Bible Study with my girls" it is so great. We love her. We finally taught the restoration and she loved all of it, we invited her to be baptized and she said she would think about it. We planned to teach her the Plan of Salvation last Thursday and on Wednesday morning we got a call from her in tears and she informed us that her 8 year old grandson had been stabbed to death the night before and she wanted us to come over right away. It was in Ohio, you should see if it was on the news! Pretty extreme. When we got there we asked her why she called us first and she said, "Right when I heard the news, I looked at my Book of Mormon and started to read it and your number was right there and something just told me to call you." It was pretty powerful. We taught her the plan of salvation and extended another invitation to be baptized. She accepted and is going to be baptizedJanuary 18th. It is amazing how the right timing affected everything. She called us Saturday and said, "So.. Who is gonna take me to church?" She is ready and prepared. Amazing how sometimes it takes hard things in our life to realize the truth. We also have been able to contact referrals like crazy this week. We have met with some so far and are hoping to meet all of them by this weekend. Miracles are happening! We had Zone Conference last Friday and it was great! It is so crazy to be the missionary in the Zone Conference, but I love it! We also had a Christmas party with the whole mission on Saturday. Every single missionary was in the gym at the church and it was a blast! Dad- I would recommend doing that next time you are a mission president:). It was an overwhelming feeling of happiness to all be there united in the same cause. I have met a lot of people this week. I gave a tour to a family that has a daughter who just got back from BYU-Idaho. Her name is Ali Larson and she knows Dallin Mower really well. She also is cousins with Jason Chris and Meghan Lyons and their family haha! Crazy! She is super sweet. She will be in my branch as well so I will be seeing her often! I also gave a tour to a girl named Meghan Rowley who is friends with Hayden McKee! He served in her ward in California. At the temple last week I was visiting with a family and they saw my name tag and asked me if I was related to any McKee's in Pocatello, Idaho. I said, yes I sure am! They are the May family from Boise, Idaho and they said that their parents know Dad really well and that they go to the Petting Zoo all of the time. Later at the temple I saw Elder Shatzer!! It was so funny I did not even recognize him. We talked for a little bit and I met his Wife! Crazy! It was so great to see him and he looks really good. It has been so fun to make connections. Oh and I also ran into a family, the Draughton family from Temecula. They were in the McDermott's ward there and they said they know Breanne and their parents really well. You will have to tell them for me! We have been trying to find people to teach like crazy. People are not super friendly here in California, but we are trying new ways to strike up conversations every day. We will get them! We are going to be meeting with a sweet family I met at the battalion this week. They are great. They will be baptized soon, no worries. I also had a really neat experience last week. A lady and her son walked into the Battalion and asked me what is was. I explained to her about the tour and she said ,"Oh okay well we have to leave soon and we are catholic so we will just go." I said, "That is great that you are catholic! We love people who are catholic! Why don't you just stay for the first few minutes of the tour and then you can leave!?" She agreed and we started the tour. Well I was expecting her to get up and leave after the first room and she stayed, she ended up staying the whole tour!! In the last room of the tour we have an opportunity to share our testimony and the Spirit spoke really strong through me and I talked about how we need to endure hard times just like these men in the battalion etc... As we were gold panning, she came up to me and started bawling. She said, "Sister McKee, I know that I was led here for a reason. I was just passing by and I felt like I should check this out and I now know why. Your message in the last room was so powerful. The reason I am in San Diego right now is because I was getting away from my life. Today is the anniversary of my husbands death and I was just about to give up on everything and took my son and went straight to San Diego and I know that I was led here so I could here that message in the last room. I have never felt such a peace and comfort." It was a powerful moment. It is very humbling to know that God trusted me to say what she needed. I love this work with all of my heart. I am grateful to be a little part of it. I am trying so hard to give my all every day. It is not always easy, but I will never stop trying. I know this gospel is true and I love it. I know that there are so many people prepared to here the truth. I know that as we are in tune with the Spirit the Lord will continue to guide our words and actions. This week in Zone Conference the 1st counselor in the Mission Presidency President Morgan spoke to us and he read form John ch. 17 as Jesus was praying for Us. In ch. 17 It talks about how He was not only praying for us, but for our investigators and the people we will be leading every day. He knew we would need the extra help and strength. He prayed for each one of us. I love him so much. I love this gospel. I know it to be true.  I know that "for this cause [he] was born" for us, to teach us how to live a perfect life and then atone for our sins. I am so happy to be a missionary!! I will talk to you all tomorrow! I have 40 minutes and that will be a great 40 minutes:) I love you all! Oh and Thank you to everyone who has sent me things!! I have been getting so many things from the ward still. Sister West sent me a great letter that I love. Dad and Mom thank you for your package!! I am going to gain weight!! haha. I also received a fun Christmas package from Kris and Shane Bell family which was so thoughtful. I feel so supported.  I pray for you all every day and I love you all so much. Merry Christmas!!

Love, 

Sister McKee

Week #6: San Diego

Hello Family!

 

                Happy Birthday to the most amazing mom in the world this week!!!! I am sad I will not be there this year, but know that I am thinking about you and that I am so lucky to have you as my mom! You all better spoil mom like crazy!!  It is amazing to think how far you have come from last year. A year ago we were all at the hospital in Nashville with you every day. I am so grateful for that time I had with you and thankful for what you went through to teach me so much. You are amazing. This week has been another great week! We had so many miracles happen. We contacted a referral names James this week from our Zone Leaders, come to find out James is Kawa's best friend and they were both looking for truth and so we were able to teach them both on Wednesday with a member names Brent Sadleir. It was so awesome. The Spirit was so strong. They committed to coming to church and were really excited about it. The adversary is working hard on both of them though, they decided not to come and James claims he knows the Book of Mormon is not true. Kawa however hasn't said much. We are hoping we can reach out to him this week and help him remember the feelings he felt and knows to be true. Last week I had shift at the Mormon Battalion. There was a lady wandering around and I went and talked to her. She said that she was just waiting for her family to take the tour because she had already taken it. She asked to see the tower so I took her out there. She thanked me and went up to it. I had this overwhelming impression to stay and talk to her when she came back down. I started a conversation with her and asked her about her religion. She just started crying and said that she has messed up so much in her life and that she knew the catholic faith wasn't true, but that she did not know where truth was and that she had messed up her family because she does not know what is true. I talked to her and told her that her feelings were normal and that she needs to feel that way so that she won't just accept anything as the truth. I told her how I came to know that my church was true and then taught her the restoration. She loved it and when her kids were done with the tour she told them to leave so she could keep talking to me. Her daughters are amazing and we have loved getting to know them. We are meeting with them tonight and we are so excited!! Miracles are happening all around us. Another miracle is that she is in our stake and even though she is not in our YSA branch we get to teach her because we are the only English sisters in our zone. Heavenly Father just puts us in the right place at the right time to find those who are prepared. Another miracle happened Sunday night. Sister Salinas and I went to a fireside that Laura and her daughter Angleina were attending to, well we talked to her and then had a couple people come up and give us referrals for YSA so it was great, but we realized we had to leave right away to get home on time. We left and when I got into the car our tire pressure was at 6. I was freaking out and my companion who has never driven before did not know what that meant so she said, "Sister McKee it is going to be okay, we will make it, we only have 25 miles."  I was laughing because I knew she didn't know what it meant but I had the impression to just drive and have the faith that we would make it by our faith. ( I kept saying, "Sister Salinas, my dad would kill me if he knew that I was driving with my tire pressure this low.") However I asked her to pray and we went on our way. I could feel the tire swaying and swerving, but we kept going. We made it and the tire pressure was at 2 when we pulled into our apartment. It was truly a miracle. We called the Elder in charge of cars right after and he was in awe that we had made it home. I know that the Lord was helping us so that we could be obedient and be safe. We arrived at exactly 9:29 pm. I am so thankful for the faith of my companion. I was thinking about this experience a lot and how my companion had no idea what it meant to have our tire pressure so low, and she had so much faith that we would make it even though her companion was freaking out haha. It taught me a lot, it is so important that we first and foremost follow God and follow His promptings. He will allow us to be obedient and to achieve our righteous desires if we just turn to him. He just asks us to knock and he will show us the way. I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn and to grow every day here. There are so many tender mercies all around us. I get to call you next week yey! We call from the Battalion and I think that we get to choose what time. I get 40 minutes to talk to you all! I am excited! I will let you know next Tuesday what time I will call you! Just remember to keep smiling. We are working hard here and in exact obedience. I know that Lord is blessing us every day. I know this is the true church and the fullness of the gospel. We can always progress and help others to progress. Dad and Mom thank you for your package! I missed the Walkers because I was in my area, but they left me a note and the box! I am excited to open it today. Patti came to the Battalion last week too, but I was also in my area at that time. Oh and Elder Horner signed up to take us to lunch last week. I met his sister and brother in law. I am happy Angelee is home! I am going to miss being with you all this Christmas. Keep being the most amazing family. I am seriously so blessed. Thanks for EVERYTHING!! and Merry Christmas!! Happy Birthday mom!! I love you all:) :)

 

Love,

 

          Sister McKee:)

                                          Sister mckee and sister salinas

Week #5: San Diego

Hello Family!!

               It has been a great week of learning and growing here. There is so much going on and we are so busy and we love it so much! My trainer is amazing and so humble. I love her so much she just boldly states truths to people in her cute mexican accent and she knows why she is here and loves the work. She knows who she is and she loves everybody!! We work well together and we bring different ideas so help our investigators specifically! This week we went and visited a referral, his names is Kowa. Kowa became Christian last year but grew up Muslim. He made it clear to us that " I am not going to be baptized so you might as well not waste your time here, but I will listen to you if you need someone to pass the time." We kindly said, "Kowa that is great! Thank you so much, you are so nice to let us use our time in your home." We taught him the restoration and realized that he knew a lot already, but he had a ton of misconceptions about the church. We answered a lot of his questions and he agreed to read the book of mormon in order to learn more about other sects of christianity. He is so smart and knows the bible well, really well and he backs up everything with the bible. We love it! We came back to his apt. yesterday and met with him. He had read 14 chapters and we only asked him to read one. He said it surprised him how similar it was to the bible, but that it did not make sense to him. We explained a lot and our whole lesson was answering his questions. He wants to believe everything but his biggest struggle is the modern day prophet. He feels that we all can be prophets. We explained the whole structure of the church and he had the moment that clicked in his mind and he said " Wow, that makes sense, and I want that to be true. I feel like I could be compared to someone who rejected Christ and his authority in the bible because they didn't know the truth either and kept on believing what they wanted. If this is all true that means everything is true, this book of mormon, the prophet, Joseph Smith.. Everything! But if it is not true than everything is not true, Wow!" Haha it was so awesome to watch him teach himself and that he figured so much of it out on his own. He is still very skeptical, but we challenged him to listen to the words of the prophets on lds.org and he is so excited! We teach him again tomorrow and I am so excited. He is amazing and I cannot wait to continue telling him about the amazing truths we have on the earth. The Spirit was so strong in our lesson. We also met a boy last week names Cody who just randomly wandered into the institute. We had an appointment with him and he was so excited about the Book of Mormon! We texted him every day, but a few days after he let us know that he didn't care about it anymore and was leaving town. We know that Satan is working so hard on him, but we are not giving up so please pray for Cody and Kowa! We have many others that we have been teaching, and are just praying for more solid investigators. I love this work with all of my heart. I know it is true and I know it is what I need to be doing at this exact time and place. Elder Horner is in my YSA Branch! It was so weird to see him, but awesome that I get to serve in his branch. He is so funny and helps me remember to work hard as did all of the Nashville missionaries! I am so thankful for all of those missionaries that have all helped me. I also gave a tour last week to a man named Darren Scott and he is from Australia. He had his whole family there. He was taught by BJ Farnes in Australia!! Small world! He was visiting San Diego for a wedding with his family. I met them all and they are great. Another man can who knew the Henderson's in Pocatello, he was also from Australia. I am loving meeting people everyday from all over the world. I worked on the temple grounds last night and Sister Marysa Barfuss and Sister  Marnie Strasser were there!! It was so awesome to see them! It is fun to all be serving in the same mission. I hope you all know how much I love you. I know this work is what I need to be doing right now. I love being a full-time missionary. I know that the lessons I am learning every day will be essential to my whole life and to my future family. I know this gospel is true and I know that my Savior loves me so much. He did die for each one of us and we are choosing to accept him every day by each action. Thank you for your support and love. I love and pray for you. I have the best family:) Keep doing missionary work in Idaho and Wyoming and wherever else you go! Also tell Kenzie Mabey I love her and I am so happy for her!!! She is amazing!! Are all of you going to her baptism?! How exciting!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!! Love, 

Sister McKee:) 

Week #4: San Diego - Mormon Batallion

Hello my amazing Family!!!!

                         Last Tuesday I got to San Diego and it was so warm! I love it here. The weather is amazing, just as everyone says and President and Sister Clayton are just remarkable people who I look up to a lot. It was so strange being on the opposite end of everything! It was a great experience though. We got fed a great lunch when we got there at the mission home. Mom would love the mission home here, the rooms are so big haha. We looked out the back yard and saw Mexico and the ocean behind the beautiful city of San Diego. It is truly amazing. The rest of the night was full of trainings and interviews and It was great to go through it all again, but this time as a missionary! That night we got sent with some of the sisters and elders as temporary companions to stay with. My temporary companion ended up being my trainer!! Her name is Sister Salinas from Oaxaca, Mexico. She is 26 and was sent to the San Diego Mission speaking spanish. She is on her last 2 transfers with me and is speaking english and not only that but training in english and she is doing just amazing. I have learned so much for her and we have such a great time together. She is going to teach me spanish so we can teach almost everyone here! :) She is one of the most humble people I know and she talks to everyone! She has so much courage and loves God with all of her heart. We have had much success because we are obedient. Tuesday night, my MTC companion Sister Larson came into my room, bawling. She said her brother had just taken his life. She is so strong. She decided to stay and she has put all of her energy focusing on God's will for her. She is such an amazing example. Please keep her in your prayers. I love her and she has an amazing trainer so I know she is doing just great. Sister Salinas and I are in the Santee YSA Branch. I love it so much!! It is a branch with about 50 members, so we have big plans to make it a ward! The branch is so strong and have just welcomed me in. I met two people that know my friend Kyle Howell ( Gloria and Evan) and I met one person that knows Blythe Bailey ( Ashley). It is fun to make connections! Thanksgiving was spent with our Branch President - President Little's family! They are amazing. We have been able to teach a lot, it is so different because we have half days at the battalion and in our area. Our area is about 30 minutes away so we work so hard when we get the opportunity to be in our area. We have 3 investigators right now. Ashley, Jesus and Eric. Ashley is amazing and comes to church every week, she is just trying to see the importance of baptism. I have not been able to be in a lesson with her yet, but hopefully I can help her when I am. Jesus We met on Friday and He is starting to read the book of mormon and is excited to come closer to God and Eric was a street contact. He was sitting outside one day when we were visiting a less active and We said hello and he kept talking to us and wanted to learn more and he is going to come to the YSA activities! We are meeting with him this week. We also met another amazing boy named Cody who is from Oklahoma. He was just in the institute building and wanted to come by more often. He said he loved the atmosphere of the building and that is why he kept coming. He is so funny and open to knowing more so we have an appointment with him tomorrow. The work is progressing. I am so excited to find those searching for the truth. Now at the Mormon Battalion there is so much going on to! Miracles! There are so many visitors there every day. We had about 800 last friday for the whole day. It is so busy. We get to wear great pioneer dresses and the tours are so awesome and entertaining. Everyone loves it no matter what! Every tour is different too because of the Spirit. We were given our Scripts on Wednesday nightand I was able to give a double tour on Thursday with Sister Salinas and guess who to?!? The Loveland family!! Susan had appointments in Tijuana so they stopped by on their way back and it was my first day at the battalion so it was so awesome to see them and it was so suprising. Susan, Mark, Lindsay and Gentry all came!! It was so fun giving them a tour. I will forward the picture of us together there. I gave my first tour by myself on Sunday! It went really well. The Spirit definitly led it. It was great to finally have the script memorized so I could focus on listening to the Spirit and not on getting the right words down. There are about 5 couples that work at the Battalion with us. Elder and Sister Miller served with the Andre's in Washington DC! Oh I also had someone come into the Battalion and when they saw my last name said, "I know that name! Are you from Idaho? We are from Utah but always go to Idaho to visit McKee's Petting Zoo our favorite place!"  I told them I know that place very well;) Our director Elder and Sister Seegmiller are amazing. They always make us feel important and give us the best tips ever. Since the Battalion is a historic site, we have to be careful with referrals and baring our testimony etc... but He talked to me about different ways that we can make them feel the importance of the message without saying it. How to draw the Spirit in specifically to them. I love it and it truly is different for every tour that I give. Last night we were able to take a Less Active - Kaydia to the temple and introduce her to members of the branch. It was amazing!! Everyone calls it the white castle. It is jaw dropping and the Spirit is so strong there. We have been street contacting a lot. That is harder for me, but I am getting better every day! I am making goals to stop focusing on myself and getting to work. I know it will come over time and with the help of the Spirit. Thank you all for your letters and cards. Please tell the ward thank you so much for the package!! It made me cry it was so thoughtful. I LOVE everything in it. The Rice's made me envelopes with my name and address printed on them, a cute notepad with my name and a pillowcase signed by the YW! There were also cards from lots of people in the ward and cute cards signed by the primary. I still haven't been able to look through it all yet, but it meant a lot when I looked at it this morning. Thank you so much to them. I also got a thanksgiving card from the YW that I love!!! Also Dad Thank you so much for the Candy and notes last Monday!! That made my whole day and the candy was delicious!:) I am so blessed to have so much support in my life. I truly feel such a deep gratitude to all of you. Please know that I love you all so much. I know that I am where I am right now for a reason. There are so many different reasons and I am learning so much. I know that the Lord is preparing the hearts of so many to listen to the truth of this message and I feel honored to be a full time missionary helping this work come along. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that he went through so much to bring this truth to the earth and I can follow his example and be willing to sacrifice anything to bring others to this truth. I know God lives and I know he loves each one of us. I know Jesus did die on the Cross for us. For our trials for our sins for our sorrows. He loves us and he wants us to follow him. I know that as we are obedient we will be blessed and he can work through us when we obey Him. I know that this is not going to be easy, I will be exhausted and tired but I do know that I can and will do hard things because the Lord is with me. There is no way I can do this without Him. I hope you all realize how amazing this work truly is. Will you think of someone who needs their testimony strengthened this week and help their testimony grow by serving, teaching or doing something specific for them? I know that as you do this the Lord will not only help their testimony grow, but yours as well. I love you all. I Really have the best family. I am so lucky I get to be with you all forever:) Keep being amazing and know I am praying for you!! I LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH:)

Love, 

Sister McKee:)