Week #25: End of April...What?!

HEY HEY!!!!!!

             Wow I cannot believe how fast the time goes by. It is May this week!! May!! I just barely got here so I do not know how that happened. Wow! There are amazing things happening. I love my sweet companion. She is a massage therapist so she keeps me unstressed haha I know I over think everything! I think I am known for that, but I am trying so hard to humble myself before the Lord and just let the Spirit guide me! I would love to hear from some of the Nashville missionaries about their favorite ways to street contact! I want to get creative because we have so many people that do not love it when people say hi here hahaha.. I love it though it is stretching me and molding me every day! I always think of dad's quote from Elder Packer now, " If you do not have any enemies then you are not working hard enough." It is so true. There will always be opposition, sometimes I just feel like it is more so in California haha! Which is great, it really is because there is a miracle in everything:) This week has been quite the week. Remember our vietnamese investigator Chelsey?? Well she texted us this week and she said, "Sisters I am so lost and I am getting kicked out of my home because my aunt does not care about me anymore. Could you help me??" Wow It was crazy and we have been trying so hard to help her. We have asked almost the whole stake, and nothing has come up, so we know it is the Lord's will that is does not happen yet, but when it does happen and she moves somewhere there will be so many miracles because she is so excited to be baptized! She is the sweetest person you will ever meet. We set another date for our investigator Victoria! She is so excited for everything and she is praying to know the truth. She is on such a great track! We are working with a ton of YSAs that live at the same apartment complex. There are so many drugs and crazy things going on there, but so many people ready to learn. We have been adding investigators often and 2 of those YSA's came to church on Sunday, Michael and Paul and they loved it. They are great guys! Satan is getting into so many peoples minds though, Katie is getting unsure, we know she will realize this is what she needs, but sadly we have to pass her off to the elders in Chula Vista. They will love her though. Keep all of these people in your prayers and so many more we are working with. The Battalion is still amazing. We see so many people every day and love it! I met a family of a guy who is a physical therapist and lived in Pocatello and worked at the same place Jared does but before he worked there. I forgot his name but it was awesome. We went on splits last week. Remember the amazing girl Abby that we started teaching forever ago who had not gone to church since primary?? Well she is at church every week and she comes out with us so often!!! I love that girl and she went with me on splits Thursday and we had an amazing lesson with a less active and afterward Abby goes, "Wow! Sister McKee this work is amazing and I love it so much!!" She just started dating an amazing member of our branch that just got home from his mission in Armenia. So funny! We have had some amazing street contacts this week too, miracles. One lady walked by us and was carrying a ton of stuff so we asked to help and took her stuff home for her. She said, " Are you mormon?? Mormon?? Oh my goodness this is a miracle!! I was born Mormon and I grew up Baptist, but I literally just prayed that I would be able to see some mormon missionaries walk by and I even asked for girls and well here you are!!!!! Girl mormon missionaries, I never thought I would see the day and here you are right on my street! Wow God loves me!!!" She was just crying and crying, it was so great to pray with her and get her information. We hope she will start coming back to church soon. Well The work is amazing. I get way too prideful and I have really been trying to humble myself more and more. I love this work and I love what is is doing to me. I know it is all true. MY testimony is strengthened more and more every day. Sounds like there are crazy weddings going on! That is exciting! Keep me updated! Tell everyone congrats from me! I LOVE MY AMAZING FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sister McKee

Week #24: Happy Easter!! (again!)

HELLO!!!! HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                           

                                         Easter is such an amazing time to reflect on everything that Christ has accomplished just for each one of us. It is amazing to know that we all have a chance even in our many imperfections. I love this gospel so much and I am so thankful for Easter and the reminder of the great atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This week has been amazing. We are extremely busy. We love being busy. We do not have full proselyting days any longer because of schedule things and that has been a weird adjustment. However, we are always booked with lessons which is great , however I wish we had more finding time too!! Just to give you a little bit of an idea of how busy we are, the normal goal for full proselyting missionaries is about 20 lessons a week. Well we have been averaging about 21 and we are rarely under 18 with less than half the time. We love being busy though it is amazing to watch lives just change so quickly. We started teaching a new investigator Victoria last week and wow she is amazing! She is 20 years old and she loved asking questions. She is ready to get baptized except she lives with her boyfriend. She knows what she needs to do though and we kept having faith and she said, "Sisters I know that I need to do something except I really love my boyfriend. I have been thinking about it though and if he is not ready to commit spiritually than that is not the type of person I want to be with forever anyway. I will keep praying and it will all work out, Don't worry." It was amazing. She is so committed to the truth and ready to learn more. She is willing to make a sacrifice because she understands the important blessings that come as we are willing to sacrifice. Katie our investigator is doing amazing. She is set to be baptized May 3rd and it is looking super great! She was crying to us in the last lesson and she knows this is where she needs to go in her life. Chelsey is super excited to be baptized as well, however she is scared to death to tell her Aunt. We are going to have fast for her date. We know she will be baptized. Mark is doing great too! He lives in another ward so he will be baptized there and Kim as well. Hailey and David are also striving towards baptism. It is amazing to see the many miracles! I wish we had more time though!! I feel like I just barely got to Santee and now I have been here almost 1/3 of my mission. It is insane. The time we have is so precious. We had over 4 less actives come to church on Sunday and they are doing awesome. The changes in hearts is the best feeling in the world. We had a quintet sing in our ward on Sunday. Collin - who was recently baptized sang with 4 other guys including our assistant ward mission leader Brent. It  was an incredible song and it made me miss when my brothers sang together!! Elder Ballard is coming to May and the CES broadcast will be here in SAn Diego and shown to the rest of the world. Our branch is going to be conducting the meeting and doing the music! So look for Brent Sadlier conducting and Dallin Abernathy on the piano! They are awesome. That will be such an exciting meeting. Especially because he is Sister Clayton's father. I was told that Dallin Fisher came to the Battalion on Sunday! Also Elder Allen from NAshville and Bill from my YSA ward in NAshville came this week. I also met Elder Dempsey's bishop! At the temple this week we met so many amazing people and gave a lot of people the book of mormon.So many are prepared for truth. We were walking down the street to our car one night and there was literally no one on the street except one girl on the side walk who had just came out and sat on the stairs. We started talking to her and she was very unresponsive. We then asked about her trials and she started sobbing and really opened up to us. She said she had just been praying for help and decided to come outside literally 1 minute before and here we were, exactly what she needed. It was an amazing miracle. We sent the elders over the next day. Sounds like Aubrey's JR. Miss went well. I would love to see pictures!!! :) We are doing great here though. WE come home super exhausted and love that! I know that this church is so true. I love the work. I am striving to be better every day and I cannot even describe how inadequate I feel to be the one teaching these amazing people, however I know the Lord is assisting us in this work. He is in everything that we do, if we allow him to be there. I love you all so much. This gospel will change lives. All it takes is one invitation. Invite someone even to a church activity! They will feel the Spirit there. I know that to be true and with faith all things are possible. Faith requires action. Keep being awesome and know that I love you. If there is anything that I can ever do for any of you please let me know. I will try to send some pictures!!

I love you!!!

Love, 

Sister McKee

Week #23: Happy Easter!!

Hello family and happy Easter!!!!!

                         I hope all of the birthday people had a great birthday haha! The mission goes by so fast. We are having interviews this week and President Clayton reminded us that we now have less than a year on our missions. Ya that is weird. I just barely got here!! I was so so sad when he said that. It is unfair how fast serving goes!! Wow and Santee is going and going!! We are so busy! I am so blessed to have served 1/3 of my mission here in Santee. If I stay here my whole mission I would be so happy!!! Which probably means I will leave soon haha but I am just loving every second of it! The good and the hard! This week we passed off some more investigators Kim and Hailey. We got a new investigator named Mark and he is on fire. He loves to learn and he really connected in the lesson. However, we are about to pass him off this week too. It is so interesting how the Lord works haha. Katie is doing great! She has a date for May 3rd and she is solid. She is so ready to be baptized and commit. However, she also lives outside of our boundary, but she is house sistting until May so who knows how that will end up working, but whatever our leaders tell us to do we will do! She is amazing. Chelsey Krystal and Justin are all doing great. Krystal is still skeptical about a lot because of what her Baptist friends have been telling her, but she wants to keep meeting, so we know she is at least feeling some what of a good feeling with us. Chelsey is out of town this week, but we will be seeing her soon. And we are adding a couple new investigators this week Victoria and Nora! They are awesome and we cannot wait to continue this build up! Miracles are so prevalent here! Our time was cut again last week so we hardly have any time in our area!! We usually try to teach about 20 lessons and we only were able to teach 10 last week. It will be different to adjust to more hours at the Mormon Battalion, but we know the Lord will allow miracles to happen as we do so. It really is a blessing and a sacrifice to be at a historic site! My dream is to take Santee full Proselyting! Wow that would be awesome. We set a vision for the area. Even with our short time, we know we can do this and we need your prayers and faith! We set a goal for 3 baptisms this transfer in Santee. We know it will happen! Please pray for us to have the faith and to be fully humble before the Lord so we can find those 3 that are waiting. We feel so good about this goal. We were asked to set greater visions and goals for our areas and we know that all things can be done with faith, because this is His work. Our director, Elder Barnes, asked if I would take his friends on a tour last week and I did and soon found out that I was taking the director of the Hawaii Temple Visitor Center who had just been released! It was a great tour and it was so much fun to get to know them! I wondered if Angie had met them before. Today as I was doing laundry we started talking to this guy and he loved everything that we were saying about the restored gospel. He said he wanted to learn more and that he wanted to discuss each page of the book of Mormon with the missionaries as he read it. He also is coming to the Mormon Battalion tomorrow! We had about 10 people from BYU-Idaho in our branch on Sunday because of Spring Break! It was fun to see everyone back that I had met in December! The senior couple in our branch are great! Elder and Sister Dalebout. They fed us on Sunday and we discussed the branch. They are such an asset and everyone loves them. Sister Owen's is doing awesome. I love her so much! She has caught on to a lot! I love that we get to learn from different personalities to help our own growth. Sounds like these babies are getting more and more ready to come. So exciting! That is crazy about Susan's daughterr. I hope their family Is doing alright. Amazing how prevalent tragedies have been lately. Thankful for the truths we have. This is an amazing cite to go to for easter. What a sacrifice our brother Jesus Christ made just for you and me. Just for each specific sin we make every day. He Loves and Knows us so much. HE is aware of our trials and wants to be there for us but we have to reach for him. "Faith without works is dead..." mormon.org/becauseofhim

       Please pray for Santee!!! We need the prayers especially because of our lack of time. we know the Lord with make up for the rest with all of these Prayers!! Miracles every day!!! When We doubt we cannot progress and I know that is true!!!!!! I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!!! EACH one of you!!!! Hey and Tell everyone that hasn't written me to write me. Seriously! I miss you! Muah!!

Love,

Sister McKee:)

Week #22

HEY HEY!!

               What a birthday week!!!!!    Happy birthday to Scott, Angelee, Brittany, Destini, Dallon and it is also Koltin's birthday!! Who sounds awesome by the way! Oh and happy anniversary to Rachel and Steven! It still feels like only 1 year to me, so I am not even going to guess, Life just flies!! This week has been so great and busy busy! We made it through transfers and we are both staying! It is such a miracle! There have been so many changes at the battalion this week it is crazy! President Clayton really switches us to where the Lord wants us to be. We added 2 new investigators last week and they are awesome. Justin and Katie! Katie is a friend of our Branch Presidents wife and she just loves the gospel! Her dad has been inactive her whole life and they all switched to be catholic. Well she came to conference on Sunday and she loved it so much!! We are going to be teaching her tomorrow again and cannot wait! Wasn't conference amazing?! We were pretty happy they talked about the Mormon Battalion here haha! The Mormon Battalion has been super busy!On Sunday night Sister Recinos and I took a tour with a man named Bob and he asked to learn more. He has been on vacation here, but yesterday he showed up again and said he just really loved the feeling here and wanted to go on the tour again! He is awesome and he will be baptized soon! Yesterday we had an amazing zone meeting and we were able to talk about visions and set new visions for our areas. We were so happy because we knew it was exactly what we needed to hear. We have been setting new goals and we have already seen so many miracles. We went to the temple today and our Pday is short so we have to go but I love you all so so much!!! We know this gospel is true, there is such a power is visions and goals and knowing where we want to head in our life and what is our ultimate destination! Dad and mom thank you for the package!! I have received so many things and I am so thankful for that. There is so many great supporters and we love this gospel so much. I know this church is so true and I am thankful for each one of you! Oh and I also got a sweet note from the Mcdermotts who came this week! Tell them thank you!

Well I love you all!!

Keep praying for us! We are praying for you! Talk to you next week! Sorry so short!!!!!!!!!! I love you!!

Sister McKee:)

Week #21

HELLO!!!

               Happy Birthday today to Scott and to Angie this week and also to Brittany!!!! Birthday week!!! Also Happy April Fool's day! It has been such a great week!!! So so many miracles and we are just busy busy!! Sister Owens is incredible and I am so blessed to have her as my companion. She seriously works so hard and she loves the work and we just got transfer calls and guess what?! We are both staying in Santee YSA!!! I am so happy!!!! I could stay here my whole mission it is just the most amazing area and I love the work here. The branch has really united this week with the passing of our dear friend Sean. He is so missed, but we know the plan is real and that God gets to judge. We lost 6 sisters at the Mormon Battalion today! Weird!! Watch out for them there in Idaho and Utah they are great! We have dropped every single one of our investigators and it has just felt right! We have already added 3 this week with plans to add a lot more! We know this is needed and that those we dropped will come back at some point, but we have faith this is what is right. There has been so many people from Idaho because of Spring Break so I am not even going to begin to name them but it was so much fun to make connections. I took quite a few pictures I will try to send them. There was a cool miracle on the street this week. We had an appointment scheduled and it got cancelled so we tried to contact a potential investigator and on the street we started talking to a guy named David. He asked where we were from and Sister Owens said Alaska and I said Idaho. He said "Oh cool I want to move to Idaho and get away from California people, I love it there, I am hoping to be moving to Pocatello soon!" Haha so crazy! I told him I was from there and we stared talking about everything and he was so thankful I was "from the country" haha! He said that he had been hoping for something like this because he said the only thing holding him back from moving is not knowing anyone there. The missionaries are going to start teaching him too!! He agreed to meet and this man will be baptized I know it!! On Sunday we had 6 non members show up! 3 of our investigators and 3 that people had brought, we like to call them future members :) It was just so great!! They stayed for all three meetings and it was a miracle. We have 3 baptisms planned for April from our new investigators last week. Haily,another  David and Kim oh and Chelsey so I guess 4!! Miracles!! Seriously, I still feel so inadequate to be a missionary, but I know that we are receiving so many people to teach because of our obedience. Also we had a mission president's fireside on Sunday night. Sister sanchez and I sang together at it! It was so great to sing again, I have missed that. People kept telling me that I sing with a southern twang hahaha!!! I was not ashamed of that haha! Yesterday after our street contact we went to the institute and right when we walked in a guy walked in names Justin. He was a guy we had planned to teach last week, but he cancelled. It was a miracle because we had that exact time open for him. Even President Morgan in our mission presidency came with us to our lesson, we get to work with president morgan all of the time because he is the institute director! The lesson was amazing and we are planning to meet with him too. We had another investigator come in for her lesson and she walked in and said " Sisters I am done with this so here is your book of mormon and I have to go now." We tried to follow the Spirit and calm her down and she was just furious because " How dare [we] give her a book that was written by a man in this day to learn from and ask her to pray about it ..." We kindly asked if we could have a prayer with her and answer some of her questions. She relunctently agreed and the spirit came into the room. We talked about her questions and helped her to see some of the misconceptions she had been told. It was a miracle and we are seeing her again tomorrow! Satan is smart, but the Lord is wiser and will help us to guide these people to Him. I truly love my mission. I wake up every day so excited and Sister Owens does too! It is so great to be working together in unity. She teaches me a lot and we get to continue to teach each other while we teach others. Wow we are so lucky! Keep me  updated and know I love you all!!! Keep the work progressing in Idaho and Wyoming and Mexico!! You are the best family ever!!!

Love, 

Sister McKee:)

Week #20

Hello My amazing Family!!

                  This week has been great of course, but definitely the hardest week of my mission so far. Thursday morning we got a call from our Branch mission leader, Buddy, and he informed us that a member of our branch took his life the night before. His name is Sean Birch and I was very close to him. This guy is absolutely one of the sweetest guys in the whole world. I always told him he reminded me of home because he would wear his cowboy boots to church every Sunday. He would randomly just say, "Hey Sister McKee... You are Great!" And always made you feel like you were the most important person in the world. He would bring his future member friends to church all of the time. A counselor in our Mission Presidency President Morgan, who is the Institute Director at Grossmont where we serve, came and spoke to our branch on Sunday. There were over 60 YSA's in attendance and each one had loved Sean so much. There was not one dry eye in the audience. He spoke to us about faith and hope and the knowledge that we will see Sean again and that only God is the judge. Sean could not have been in his right mind and God knows him. It was beautiful. Afterward we had a luncheon to remember him and passed around a notebook. It was a sacred, solemn day and we are so grateful to have the Plan of Salvation and the knowledge that it will all be made right. And now we get to choose from this to act for good and help others and be that positive influence in their lives. Miracles are happening from that already. Sunday Sean's friend Hailey who had been coming to activities with Sean, came to church and sat with us. We are meeting with her tonight and she expressed her desire to join the church. Amazing. We have also seen so many other miracles. Last week we went out to eat with some sisters and our waitress got so excited when she saw us and kept saying "Hi! I am Christian too!!"  And got her whole staff to come and say hi to us because we were Christian. Anyway she came back at the end and we asked for the check and she started crying and said "Ladies, I have got it covered, I need these blessings and my only hope is that my daughters will grow up to have the light that you 4 have. So all you can do for me is pray for that and keep bringing your light to others." We gave her a Book of Mormon and talked to her about that light she saw. It was amazing. So many miracles. A crazy thing this week is that we have 7 investigators and we are passing off 6 this week to other areas!! They are all a street out of our boundaries in different areas and I am not exaggerating! It was so funny, but we love that we get to hasten the work in that way. However miracles come when we are obedient! We have already added 3 new investigators this week and they are solid!! We love them all and are excited to teach about this amazing gospel. Sister Owens and I are doing great. She is a funny girl and loves the work. She laughs all the time, but is willing to work! We are praying we stay together because transfers are already next week! Can you believe that?! I have a feeling that I will have many connections this week where it is spring break. It is still weird to me! The Cotants and Durrants from Chubbuck came this week and it was great to chat with them. Also the Wrestling coach at highland who knows the Bells very well ask you can imagine came through too! The Waddells from Corona are in the McDermotts ward and they came through twice. Very nice families! I am loving the work. Hard weeks teach us a lot because we get to learn from trials and with our eternal perspective keep pressing forward. You would all be happy to know that Sister Owens and I won the prize for Car inspections this transfer! All those car inspections with Elder Packer really paid off:) I knew exactly what they were looking for:) Thank you Elder Packer! I miss them! I often see Tennessee license plates and just smile! I am so thankful for my whole experience in Tennessee that has shaped me to be the missionary I am now. I am excited to meet the sisters that knew Angelee at the MTC! They will have amazing trainers! There are so many miracles and amazing things happening here in California. I never want to leave Santee! I now know what Elder Adams was talking about when he said Paducah is the promised land, except I am sorry to say that he has never served in the Santee YSA Branch and That is truly the promised land:) haha! Tell all those elders hi from me! I sure miss all of them! Oh and I am supposed to tell you to add yourselfs on the Santee YSA facebook page and Mormon Battalion FB Page because there are some pictures. I love you all! Keep being the best family in the world. I look up to you a lot! Brayden, don't drive into your mom haha! JK:) I know you are a great driver!!!  I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!! Keep the Birch family in your prayers and the Santee YSA Branch!

LOVE,

      sister mckee