Sister Malena McKee : "49 days!? That is almost 50!"

Hello everyone!

Fun fact: I got one of those bluetooth keyboards at Walmart last week, so either my weekly is gonna be a lot longer, or have many more spelling errrors :).

This week was good! On Tuesday all the missionaries in the zone were gonna get takeout and go eat together somewhere, but we learned that the place we were going to was open for dine in, so we all got to dine in, for Cinco de Mayo!

It was way fun!

Also, on Tuesday we had a lesson with a woman named Jennifer. Jennifer lives in Oklahoma and she had posted on a woman page that she doesn't know her purpose in life and is lost. So, Sister Elkins offered to do a lesson with her. When we called she told us how she had packed up all her things in her car and drives around everyday looking for an apartment because she doesnt want to live in her home anymore. But, she can't find one and is just major depressed. As we talked to her and shared scriptures the spirit was so strong and she started to cry as we talked about God's purpose and love for her! We mentioned the Book of Mormon and she said she doesn't want to get into any "Jehovah Witness stuff" ??? but loved the verses we shared and agreed to meet with us again! Then, she blew us off for our second lesson on Thursday, but its okay, I know God has a plan for her!

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening we had a Book of Mormon read with Steffi, who's SO AWESOME! She was coming from work, so she downloaded a pdf of the book of mormon and printed out the part we are gonna read so that she could read with us! We just finished the testimonies and she really liked them! Pray for her.

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On Thursday we went and did service with our whole zone and it was soooo fun! We were helping distribute food and so one of my jobs was waving at people (I was so good at this one, let me tell you), but then they took me off this job and I had to put papers on clipboards for 2 hours, and that was also good. Sister Wind and I were working on our people skills with the elders, and lets say, we are both a little rusty from not talking to people in 2 months. hahah. BUT, It felt so good to be outside (the Latex gloves we had to wear were NASTY) but, I got this great sunburn on half of my neck and my earlobe. It was so fun!

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We made sign ups for 2 of our wards to do spiritual thoughts in the evenings, and one of them hasn't signed up at all, but the other one signed up so fast and it's been awesome! One family though, their kid was being rowdy and peed in his closet in the middle of our lesson, and climbed on the dryer, and shot us through the camera with his nerf gun, it was so funny. I'm so excited for that stage in my life....

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We had interviews with President this week and he told me I'll be leaving this area but doesn't know which of the three missions I'll be going to. The area I'm in now is going to the Dallas West, I'm serving in the Fort Worth mission, and they are also taking the south of my mission to be the Austin mission, so there are many possibilities.

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On Saturday evening we met with all the sisters in the zone at the church and ate dinner together! It was so fun. Here's a cool part though: I had accidentally told them the wrong church, so we only had to drive like 5 miles, but the other sisters had to drive like 15. But, as we were eating a man pulled up to empty his truck in the dumpster and as he got out of his truck he yelled "Hurrah for Israel!' and we all yelled back, and then he came and told us his super cool conversion story and was so happy to tell us, and I think that is why we went to that church, because it all worked out so perfectly.

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We shared a spiritual thought with a family and they had 2 little boys (6 and 4) and they had just watched Star Wars for the first time, so I thought I was prepared and related the gospel to Star Wars. It was going great, and I talked all about how the force is like the priesthood and Darth Vader is Satan (even though he gets redeemed in the 6th one) and it was like 10 minutes and going good. BUT, then the boys were starting to get ansty and their dad said "we signed up for a 30 minute lesson, they have a lot more prepared" (WE DID NOT HAVE A LOT MORE PREPARED.) I know kids, and I know their attention span and I had just made that all up off the top of my head so if they listened for 10-15 minutes that was pretty good! And, Sister Elkins doesn't know much about Star Wars. So, the rest of the lesson was kind of a wreck because I was just taking about whatever came into my head, and it wasn't related to Star Wars at all. One of the little boys did teach me that there are two Ammons in the Book of Mormon. Who knew?

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This weekly is quite boring, if you made it to the end hoping to get an Awkward Malena Moment or anything, I hate to break it to you, I am no longer awkward. I'm all cool.

Ok, so I listened to the coolest devotional ever. A missionary on facebook had shared it with me, it is about the dead sea scrolls and wow. It was sooo cool. It talked all about how they were found and how they are being translated and how much they actually relate to the gospel and I was literally blown away while listening to it. It really strengthened my testimony on the gospel and so if any of you would like to listen to it, I'll share it with you so we can talk about it. Or if you don't believe in it, we can just talk about other stuff.

In Isaiah 41:10 it says "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness," and I have loved this verse a lot of my life because of how much God is willing to help us! He's with us, he will strengthen us, he will up hold us! He is there to help us through hard times!

Love Y'all!

-Sister McKee.

Birthday Poster from the other sisters for my birthday.