August 13, 2012
Dear Family
and Friends,
Happy August
13th everyone! We hope you are all
healthy, well, and finding much in life to be happy about! It has been a great week here in the
mission. We have had good weather, even
a little rain, warm, but not too extremely hot temperatures, and overall it has
been great! The bright hot pink and red
Crepe Myrtle Trees are in full bloom now and it is a gorgeous time of year here
in Brentwood.
We started
the week out with transfers!! Just that
word alone makes me tired!!! We received
8 new missionaries, 3 new elders and 5 sisters.
We usually only get a few sisters with a lot more elders. We normally put the sisters upstairs in our
guest room with the elders downstairs in the missionary rooms, but because we
had so many sisters, they got the beds downstairs and the elders had to sleep
on the floor in the front room.
It
is always
amazing to me how young these new missionaries seem. They all arrive
after leaving the MTC at
about 3:00 am that morning, so we know they are not only dead tired, but
starving as well. And they all seem to have that “deer in the
headlights” look
as they wonder what is going to be happening to them! They are so easy
to love though. We tell them we first start loving them the
minute we get their pictures from the website in Salt Lake….and it’s
true.
We do.
We picked them up from the airport, took them
to the mission office to meet our “office angels” and brought them home and fed
them right away before we did any training. Our two new assistants, Elder Payne,
from Centerville UT, who has been an
assistant a whole transfer (6 weeks) , and Elder Adams from Sacramento CA who
just barely came in as an AP one day ago
were awesome as they organized the whole week and made sure everything ran
smoothly.. Elder Hill, a great
missionary who has been an AP since May,
was sent out to be a trainer for his last two transfers here in the mission. Time goes by so very quickly in the
mission.
It was,
again, a very emotional week, as we sent home 11 of some of our most outstanding
missionaries. It us SO hard to see them
leave! Every transfer it seems like it
just gets a little bit harder---maybe because we have known and worked with
them a little bit longer. Five of our
missionaries had their parents come out to pick them up, with some with
siblings as well. We ended up having 40
that evening for dinner and also for the testimony meeting afterwards. We may have to change what we have been doing
as we don’t have near enough room to do that at the mission home. And, we found out that the lady who usually
does my transfer dinner for me , lost her 96 year old mother on Monday, so
fortunately her sweet daughter came through and prepared it with only a day’s
notice.
It was a fun
and very short night as the girls
instigated some games and we all sang Broadway songs around the piano until the
early hours of the morning. We had to
leave to be out to the airport by 6:00 am so it was, indeed a very short
night. (It was more like a nap!)
There are so many changes that happen during transfers. The whole system has to be updated by
President McKee, changing companions, addresses, phones, etc. as he enters all
of that into the computer so that not
only this mission has the information, but Salt Lake as well. That takes quite a while and has to be done
immediately after we get back from the airport.
President also had to take a trip to Paducah on
Thursday. Because school started on
Friday, he took Kiara, Angie, and Destini with him, while I took the other girls shopping for school
clothes and supplies on Thursday.
Friday marked the 1st day of school for our girls. It just seems strange to have them get on the
school bus while it is still the middle of summer. Angie is still doing her school on line,
while Aubrey started her sophomore year at Brentwood High, Kiara is in the 8th
grade at Brentwood Middle School and Destini is in the 5th grade at Scales
Elementary. So …..we start our first day
of seminary at 6:00 tomorrow morning!
Hmmmmm……….Yes we love it!! We
still love having Kylie here!
We were very excited to find out that Jan and Cliff Rhoades
from Pocatello, now Elder and Sister
Rhoades would be here on Friday afternoon.
We arranged to take them out to dinner and do an orientation with them
that evening and then they came over to the mission home to spend the
night. We were grateful they made it
when they did, because we had a Couples Conference scheduled for Saturday. They are an amazing couple and will be
working in Murfreesboro organizing the YSA program over there. They already have a ton of ideas and are
excited to get to work. We couldn’t be
MORE thrilled to have them here! What a
blessing they will be!!!
 |
| Our Senior Couples Conference, at the oldest chapel in Tenn. |
So
bright and early on Saturday morning, we filled the big
mission van along with three other cars with 12 of our senior couples
and drove
2 ½ hours away to Altamont to have a conference at Northcutts Cove, the
oldest
LDS Chapel in the South, built in 1909.
We invited President Crawford, Stake President of the McMinnville Stake
to come and talk to all of us about the history of the church. It was
such a spiritual experience. We also drove about 5 miles from that
church to
the 2nd oldest LDS church which was built in 1944. It is an old rock
structure which was used
until 1981 where a large new church was build.
We had a luncheon at the new church and then had a nice meeting that
afternoon with all of the couples.
Kylie, Angie, and Aubrey came along to the conference and sang for them
that afternoon. It was a WONDERFUL day. We have some outstanding
senior couples out
here in this mission. Unfortunately we
have many who will be leaving in a few months….so, any of you seniors
out there who wants to
come to the greatest mission in the world , get your papers filled out
NOW!!!!
We need you!!!
We are excited to know that Elder Kopischke of the 1st Quorum
of the Seventy will be here this Thursday to speak to the entire mission on
Friday. Great experiences!
 | ||
| Pres. and Sis. McKee, Kylie, Angie, and Aubrey at the second | oldest chapel in Tenn. |
MIRACLES:
1) WE HAD THE MOST WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE LAST
THURSDAY!!!! We needed some groceries from the store, so we went to Wal-Mart,
but as we pulled in, my companion stopped the car and asked if I felt we should
be there at that time and if we should go to the library instead. I said that
we could go to the library and come back later. We drove over to the library,
to find that it was jam packed, so we made a reservation and just headed back
over to Wal-Mart. As we went in, we stopped in the fruit/vegetable section. This
wonderful woman that was in a scooter cart paused as she got near us, and said,
"Can I just tell you that you two are a couple of the most beautiful girls
I have ever seen? You two have the brightest lights in your eyes! I have never
seen light like that!" She glanced at our name tags and the first thing
she noticed was JESUS CHRIST. She then said,"Oh that explains it, you have
Jesus Christ. What church do you all belong to?" We told her, The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She replied, "That must be the place
to be, because the light in your eyes is just unreal!" We asked her what
church she attended, and she said, "I have been going to the... uh..the
uh....you know it's the...oh wow, I can't even remember it, haha must not have been
that important! I can't get over the light that you two have, it shows, you're
just glowing! If I could only have that light!" We told her that she could
indeed have it! She said, "Oh good, because I want it!" We asked if
she liked to read, and she said yes, so we gave her a copy of The Book of
Mormon, and she committed to read it with incredible enthusiasm! We asked her
if she would come to church and she said that she would, if she felt she was in
good condition. We got her information and put our number inside The Book of
Mormon, she responded with, "Thank you so much, this means so much to
me." After this encounter, we proceeded to go get our groceries, both of
us were completely stunned. Nothing like that had ever happened to either one
of us before. We didn't realize that our light was so physically visible! On
Saturday morning, she called to tell us that she wouldn't be able to come to
church due to not feeling well. My companion was the one speaking to her over
the phone and asked her if she had been reading The Book of Mormon, she said
that she had AND that she knew it was true! My companion then asked her if she
would prepare to be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of
God, she sweetly replied that she wanted to learn more first. This wonderful
woman is well on her way to obtaining the light that she saw ever so present in
our eyes in a few seconds in the grocery st
2) Things are
going great here in Shelbyville. We definitely witnessed a miracle this week as
we had 16 nonmembers at church yesterday! It was amazing! This week we
witnessed a miracle as we were able to help Sherri return home to her mother,
Sue, we had dropped them the previous week because
Sue started being very contentious and trying to bah with us, However we kept
them in our prayer and prayed for the Lord to soften her heart. The Lord
answered our prayers in giving us the opportunity to help the reunite and they
ended up coming to church yesterday. What a blessing it was to be able to sit
with them during sacrament. I love the work and am having a blast. I love you.
As
you can tell, this work we are engaged in is a wonderful work. We have never been busier, nor happier.
We come every day to appreciate the gospel of Jesus Christ and
especially the Book of Mormon for we know they are true and are the tools that
will bring happiness to this world. We
have seen lives change right before our eyes.
As we hear of the miracles .EVERY DAY from the missionaries , we can truly
testify of the way the Spirit works in guiding us and helping us become more of
what our Heavenly Father wants each of us to become!
We
are grateful for good family and friends back at home who support and love
us. Thank you for your emails and kind
words of support. We love you!!! Have a great week and share the Book of
Mormon with someone you have never thought of giving it to before!
All
our love,
President
& Sister McKee, Dad & Mom,
Grandpa & Grandma, Bill and RaNae……
Kylie,
Angie, Aubrey, Kiara and Destini
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