Sister Malena McKee : I had my first missionary discussion!

Y'all, this week was quite the adventure in isolation.

So, I am on day 31 of self isolation. It's been a crazy month. And, we were told this will probably go until May or into the middle of May. So, that is really exciting. I love that.

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A member brought us Torchy's one night (Mexican restaurant),and we had a ton of gifts from members of the ward, and also decorated our door and it was so cute and wow, the Lantana ward is great.

We taught 16 lessons this week which was so cool! A lot of Bible studies on growing closer to God and we'd read John 14-17 and then say "hey have you heard of this book?? It can help you grow closer to God...! :)" Boom we found 4 new people this way!

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2 are from South Africa and they are so cute! We could not figure out how to pronounce one of their names (Ngyue) and we asked her when we called and she said "oh that's not my real name, I just made that up! My real name is Faith!" So funny! And the other lady accidentally turned her camera around so we were staring at the floor the whole time and called us back later saying "my children told me you cannot see me! I made a mistake! Can you see me now??" But both of them want to learn about the Book of Mormon! What a blessing technology is because there aren't a lot of missionaries in South Africa and they wouldn't have been reached if we hadn't reached them!

Another woman lives in St. Lucia in the Caribbean and she has been taught in the past! Actually all 4 people we are teaching and someone else we referred, had all had run ins with missionaries in the past! It's so awesome!

The fourth is a woman named Patricia from Missouri and she is so cute! But an awkward Malena moment for y'all, we were cooking dinner while on the phone with her and I went to pull it out of the oven and the fire alarm went off! So I'm waving a towel at the fire alarm as Sister Elkins is talking to her. Haha.

We also met Jade, who is a member in England, and really struggling right now. She happened to see our music Monday live (tune in btw, 7 o'clock pm Monday nights, Utah time) and reached out. We were able to talk to her and set up a time to call and read the Book of Mormon. She told us she's been going through a hard time and hasn't felt the spirit in 4 weeks. We decided to read Alma 32 about faith with her and it went okay, but then she went live on her Facebook about Alma 32 and another struggling friend saw it and because Jade had talked about faith, her friend told her she needs help and Jade helped her out. Jade then messaged us and told is she'd felt the spirit during her live stronger than ever and her faith is back! It was so exciting! I loved seeing how God works in small ways and was able to help both Jade and Jade's friend!!

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We tried to get out more and went on some fun nature walks this week. We found a cool trail to a cemetery and a cool trail to a baseball field and a cool trail to a lake (I think that one was just a park). But, it's a good way to start the day, and we aren't dying inside all day!

I had the best day of the month on Friday. We went to the chiropractor, and it felt so good and I loved it, and then we went to In and Out, because its not in our area so we had to while we were close, and then on the way home we went to Buckees (Big Texas Gas Station) and got t shirts as a 1 month boost! Woohoo!

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Ok, yall better be ready for the highlight of my week. Probably the funniest thing ever. Although I think my humor levels have deteriorated since self isolation:

So, Sister Elkins had put out an offer on a Christian page for a Bible study and we got over 300 responses! It's so wonderful, and we had to get help from other missionaries in teaching them and it's so cool!

But, one woman(Veronica) responded so we reached out and she said she’d like a Bible study, and her friend will join. Well, Sister Elkins was worried that she was establishing dominance because in the messages, Veronica was planning the time and topic and even messaged to confirm, so of course we had studied the topic and discussed how we were going to go about it and lead the conversation.

Well, we get on and her friend is named Danny, and she starts our Bible study by introducing herself, telling a bit about her and asking Veronica to do the same and each of us. Turns out, we had somehow gotten signed up to do the Bible discussions FOR ANOTHER CHURCH! and Danny was taking us through the Bible and asking questions and it was so funny! I don't think she liked us much though because we knew the answers to her questions and we interpreted them differently. She asked us how we would rate our relationships with God on 1-10 and we both said 9 or 10 (and explained how have literally devoted 18 months of our life to God) and she didn't know what to do, she just moved on. She also asked us if we read the Bible every day and when we said yes, she just committed us to do it anyways. It was so awesome. We even were fellowshipped with Veronica. I was cracking up, and at one point I just started asking my own questions and sharing my own Book of Mormon verses until Danny stopped us. It was really interesting though, and I think Veronica has serious potential and we could help her, so we are going to reach out. Haha! I was chatting with Veronica about humility at one point and shared some scriptures and it was really good! We are also going to steal some of her study tactics! I liked it, but we told them no when they asked if we'd like to continue. Basically, we are the worst investigators.

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Our new ward mission leader is a very interesting man and called us and said we don't need to do a correlation because there is no work, but he wants to train us on how to use body language to change our lives. He called us yesterday and drilled us on our personalities and said "he is going to tear us down to rebuild us" so we can get 27 baptisms in 6 months. Total clickbait. He said that what he is going to teach us will change how we do missionary work, future job interviews and will help us get more dates in the future. So basically, this man holds my whole life in his hands. Stay tuned.

We had this amazing devotional this week! The speaker said something very profound to me, (well he didnt say it just to me, I found it profound). He said "we are not based on the Bible, and we are not based on the Book of Mormon, we are based on what they are based on, which is revelation from prophets." Then he said "the true church can't be based on the Bible, because in the Bible the true church was based on revelation from prophets". And wow. I don't know if y'all have ever thought of that before, but it just hit me! We pray to know that the Book of Mormon is true so we know Joseph Smith is a prophet, so we know the true church is on the earth! That's why we have the Book of Mormon! I'm literally so in awe. I hope that made sense.

I love you all! Stay safe in quarantine!

-Sister McKee

Amber and Malena were able to do a zoom teaching with Maia.