Shredding the Nar (Or My Fingers)

Buenos dias amigos 

So, my Spanish is coming along. We were standing in a parking lot waiting for a man to come (not just any man, it was for a lesson) and many people walked past who only spoke Spanish! And we got to use our super limited Spanish to get a referral for the elders! That was so awesome! 

We were standing in this parking lot waiting for Blaze (the French man) for maybe 30 minutes and kept calling him and finally he called and said "I am not coming, and please tell your father not to pick me up for church tomorrow" meaning a man in the ward who gives him a ride. It was so funny.

We helped a lady move. And her 7 year old grandson was there and I was helping her shred documents and it got jammed. So I turned it off and stuck my hand in the shredder to clean it out. We were talking and I was pulling paper out of the shredder when this kid started reaching over!!! He was about to press the button when Sister Wind and I yelled at him and he almost cried. I felt bad, but I had all 10 fingers to apologize. 

We went on exchanges and I got to go back to the Tongan wards! Its was super fun! I really love the people, I am praying I get to go back there someday! 

We have this cute woman we are teaching named Wilma who proceeded to tell me this week I have the voice of a baby and also the face of a baby. I think it's because of the younger missionary age. 

Another cute woman is Sister Durham, who took us to lunch and the Christmas store this week. She was so excited to take us out and just loves the missionaries so much! She really wanted to go to lunch at this popular restaurant and was so worried it would be full so we went right when it opened. We were the only 3 there in this huge empty restaurant Haha. The food was good though and the hospitality was awesome. 

This week I had a lot of interaction with Anti-Morman material. Someone we are working with told us a lot of stuff trying to help us understand their issues. We did our best, but anti is very intricate stuff. They knew what to say and what affect it has. We ended up leaving and recieving help from a ward member because it made us sick. Honestly i was very sick.

It made me think a lot about the church. There is so much against the church. People can take classes against our church and beliefs. But it all comes down to our core beliefs. In a talk by Lawrence E.Corbridge called Stand Forever, he speaks of the four key questions: 

1. Is there a God who is our Father?

2. Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?

3. Was Joseph Smith a prophet?

4. Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?

Everything else is secondary questions, and can pale in importance compared to these. We don't have to know everything because if we knew all the answers we wouldn't need faith. There's my thoughts on that. 

Now it's time for just pretty natural Malena Moments: 

•so, we were on our way home for the night, and stopping by members houses on our way home. We got to the door and a guy answered, turned to his mom and said “Mom, it's the church! It's the church!" And I started dancing on the porch and said “Yeah, it's the church!!! Yay!!" And Sister Wind joined in and said “Yay! The church is here!” Then, we had a nice conversation. I didn't think anything of it, but as we walked away Sister Wind says “That was definently an awkward Malena moment! I just joined in so you wouldn't look weird!" 

• We went to a store today and there was a door that said exit but it also had a sign that said "on 24 hour video surveillance" so I opened it slowly, the alarm went off and our hands went up and the entire store started at us. 

• there is a new project called the chalkboard project. Missionaries run them, but we wear normal clothes, no tags, and go by our first names. It's super awkward. We did a practice one and I freaked out, forgot my first name and just made one up. 

Love y'all! Have a good week! 

Sister McKee 

 Cute skirt found at the thrift store.

 Cute note from cousin Kayden in a package from Aunt Fran.

What An Awesome Week!

Hey everyone. I missed last week so I am going to combine weeks and pretend all these steller stories happened in the last week.

This week was pretty good! Yesterday we had 4 people come to church!!! It's so awesome! Mike, Janet, and their 3 kids came!! They really liked it last week and came back again this week! Only problem is... I think they might think we are Jehovah Witness. We've explained that we aren't but I don't know if they believe us. Their kids are super fun. They are 3 year old twin boys and a 5 year old girl. I'm grateful for the 2 years of preschool classes because I've been distracting these kids for the past two Sundays!! At one point during the closing prayer I opened my eyes to see Sister Wind booking it down the aisle to catch one of the twins before they got to the front!! It was awesome 

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Last Saturday we needed to find 3 people, and God gave us three people! We were on our way to a lesson with Tywu, and we saw a girl fall out of a car (it was parked of course) so we went over and her brother had pushed her and we started talking to them and it was her birthday so we sang to her and she said we could come back!! We've had 3 lessons with her and she came to church and really really liked it!! 

Then, we kept walking to the lesson and a man was driving down the road very slowly with a HUGE COUCH balanced on top of his car. hahaha. So, we were laughing and giving him thumbs up and telling him not to turn and he drove up to us, jumped out and told us to come talk to him the next day! And as he was talking to us his neighbor said he wanted us to come over too!! So Blaze, (the couch man)  speaks mostly French and little English, and Vincent speaks English and no French. It was a fun lesson, and Blaze came to church yesterday! We don't think he understood a ton but he said he liked it! 

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We met the Mayor of Arlington. We kept asking “Are you really the mayo?" and he kept saying he was so we took a picture with him. That night, we told some members we met the Mayor and they said “Yeah, that's not the Mayor" so we don't know. He was a nice guy, he said he'd give us college recommendations. Although it won't do much good if he's not the real Mayor.

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 We had dinner with drug dealers. No joke 

So, it was this weird situation how a woman signed up for dinner but she was sick so she took us to her ministering sister house. Well, the sister wasn't there (it was just her son, and her husband) so we had to sit outside and wait for another woman. As we were waiting, her son was standing guard and people kept coming to the door with huge wads of cash and leaving with NOTHING!! It was weird. Then, we go inside. To set the scene:

2 sister missionaries 

1 son who apparently loves spaghetti 

1 husband who isn't a fan and didn't know we were coming and also had many locked drawers and cupboards (probably full of chips or candy or something) 

1 3rd female who was dropped off and doesn't know any of us 

1 huge (HUGE) pot of spaghetti 

20 random people coming to the door with cash.

It was so sketch and funny at the same time. 

We later told the Spanish Elders about it and they said “You never go in William's house! That house is sketchy!!" 

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So, this is the coolest story so I really hope y'all are still reading: 

Around 4 months ago Sister Swenson and I were walking out of an old folks home and ran into 2 men, named José and Inez. José talked to us for about 45 minutes about repentance, prayer, the bible ect. We taught him how to pray, how to repent and gave him a Spanish Book of Mormon. We met a few times but they told us they were gonna go live under a bridge and so we dropped them. 

Then, Spanish Elders started telling us about a man who they found and he is gonna be baptized! As he told us the story I got so excited because it was José! We had taught him! And the Elders said he was so ready and already had a Libro and I got to go to his baptism! He was awesome!! It made me feel so happy watching José be baptized! 

The old folks home was only a few blocks from the church. When we went to visit Katherine I had the idea to bring Inez to the church for the baptism! So we invited him and Katherine wanted to come. I wish y'all could've seen it. It was like a little gang with me, Sister Wind, Inez and Katherine all going to the church. And Katherine didn't want to miss dinner so she got her burger and was riding down the road in her electric wheelchair and stopping every  few feet to take a bite. It was so great! I got a big kick out if it and Inez really liked the baptism!

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Now is time for: Awkward Malena Moments. I haven't had any noteworthy awkward moments lately but I had one this week.

So, we were at a members house and teaching a lesson. I had made plan of salvation charades and accidentally made it really hard. Everyone was struggling to act out the premortal life or three kingdoms, but it was really funny. At one point we were laughing really hard and Sister Wind says "I love this game!!" And I thought she'd said something else so I turned to her and said "awww, I love you too!" And it was so awkward and the members could not stop laughing at me. So funny. So awkward.

I love you all!! I'm so excited for Light The World!! Its gonna be great!! 

Don't forget to pray.

Sister McKee 

Dinner with Bobbie

 Elder Whipple, who is the grandson of Dad's mission president in Poland.  We aren't allowed to take pictures with the elders, so she improvised.  

 They found a house all lit up.  

New dress

 Turtles in the background...mating.

 Cute girl in a new dress

 Pictures with the Family Flag before she sends it on to the next missionary.

No Time

November 11, 2019
Sorry everyone I have no time today!! Heres some pictures! 

We sticky noted the elders bikes and sisters cars and then blamed another set of sisters and no one knows it was us. 

We went out to breakfast for Sister Wind's one year! 

I Just Got Called Spanish Speaking!

So, this week was super eventful! 

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On Wednesday we went and visited a man who was a Bible request. His name is Paul. He just moved here and the sisters previous had had trouble meeting with him but he wanted to meet with us. We went over and as we pulled up three police officers walked out of his house and so I jumped out and here us how the conversation went:

Them to Paul: Stay inside Paul!

Me: Hey, we are supposed to have a lesson with him right now, is now a bad time? 

Them: Well he is very intoxicated and has been talking about how he hates white people. 

Me: Oh, okay. Well maybe we will try again another time and bring someone with us! We are missionaries for our church

Them: Well if anyone needs you, it's him. 

And Paul was just staring at us from his front door the whole time. It was funny. 

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We went to The Borst's on Thursday night and we were gonna pass out Halloween candy for them. So, we came at 5 and they forgot to turn on their porch light all night so they only got 8 trick or treaters. But it was fun! They enjoyed the company and I sliced my leg open on an iron rod and Sister Wind signed my cast. It was really gross but I love scars so it's okay. 

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On Friday we had a mission conference where all the missionaries got called Spanish! President asked all the missionaries to learn some Spanish. So, Sister Wind has downloaded Duolingo and trust me, it has been really fun listening to her yell "el nino!" at her phone. But to help me learn, if yall want to start emailing me in Spanish, that'd be great. Jk not really. 

But I am so excited for this because I wanted to learn Spanish and now I get to! Woohoo. Please pray for me and my tongue. We need all the gifts we can get. 

(Gift of tongues, if y'all didn't get that) 

And at the conference I met back up with my cousin, Sis.Wilson, and the sisters from my MTC group.  

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On Saturday we went caroling all day!! It was so much fun! We sang the Nativity Song to a ton of people! We wrote down everyone on our area book, around 50 people, and wanted to visit all of them. We got to about 20 but it was so much fun and everyone loved it!! I am so excited for Christmas! 

 

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We had a lesson with Lilly this week and she wants to be baptized!!! Its so awesome! She is so sweet! But she doesn't have a lot of support and is struggling to get to church and stuff so pray for her.

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This week we made a goal to be exactly obedient in all things. Fully consecrated. Because we need miracles. And it's been crazy. It led to calling 2 other groups of missionaries to discuss if she can sleep while I write in my journal at night and stating every single reason for getting on our phones. But it's been awesome! We've already seen miracles! 

I love you all so much! I am so grateful for this gospel! It's a beacon of light in a dark room. I'm so happy I can be a missionary for the true church of Jesus Christ! 

I love you all! 

Sister McKee