Umm... Gospel, Anyone?

The past few weeks have been rough, I'm not gonna lie. No one seems to realize how much the gospel will bless their lives if they just accept it! The trouble is, most of them think they've already accepted it. They just have no idea how much more truth the gospel of Jesus Christ contains.

So, I haven't taught any lessons in about a month. Not any full-length, sit-down ones, anyway. We don't have any investigators coming to church (or meeting with us, for that matter), and nothing seems to be working to get them there if we do meet with them.

Discouraging, to say the least.

But here's the amazing part:

People have agency, no?

Yes! They do. They have agency. Because God gave it to each and every person on this planet.

We all have the ability to choose.

That means we can all choose whether to follow the Savior and live His gospel or not.

That means I can't force anyone to make any decisions (which is probably a good thing, since I'm far from perfect).

It also means that I can choose whether to be positive or to give up.

Well, guess what!

I'm not giving up.

I will be positive.

You know where true positivity and optimism come from?

From joy.

And that joy comes from charity: the pure love of Christ.

As we love the Savior, we will have a desire to serve others. He'll send the Holy Ghost to help us feel His love for us and for those around us. And when we feel that love, that's what brings us ultimate joy.

Love someone near you.

I dare you.

(Did I just dare y'all to love someone? I guess I did.)

Love all y'all! ;)

Sister McKay

Pictures:

1 & 4. Southern snow!

2 & 3. I suppose I'm experiencing a selfie craze.

Positivity!

Transfers

Transfers are not fun.

Sister Lanigan and I are staying in Tifton, but one of the coolest elders ever, Elder McPherson, is leaving! We thought he would stay, but no.

I didn't realize that missionaries actually knew each other and hung out together. Turns out, some of your closest friends in the mission are other missionaries. Since elders and sisters can't email or write letters while we're in the same mission, we won't get to see the people that leave unless we happen to be transferred at the same time. So I'll miss him, and our district leader, Elder Anderson, who's also leaving. But it's alright. We'll be making more friends as the new elders and sisters in the district come into their areas.

Moral of the story: never pass up an opportunity to make a new friend! You'll thank yourself later.

The Work

You wanna know something interesting?

We didn't have any baptisms, anyone preparing for baptism, anyone at church, or any new investigators this week. It was zeroes all around.

But, surprisingly, I'm not discouraged this week, as I usually am when that happens.

We did our absolute best to find people to teach, and I feel successful. I'm doing what God asks of me, and I know something good will come of it, whether it's now or in the future. We have lots of people that have agreed to meet with us. It's just a matter of catching them at home.

If you've agreed to meet with the missionaries, whether you're a member or not, would you do me a favor and not forget the appointment? Put it on your calendar! Seriously, it helps missionaries not to be discouraged.

That said, I have high hopes for the next 6 weeks. We should have a lot of success, and people who are prepared for baptism are just going to come out of the woodwork! I know it. :)

Love all y'all!! Never forget your awesomeness.

Sister McKay

Pictures:

1. Sister Lanigan and I taking our companionship picture at the church. I never realized how much time missionaries spend at the church. It's like a second home to us.

2. A picture on the wall at the Macon sisters' apartment. This one's for you, Dad!

3. Mission office!

4. Mission office with my comp.

5. Me being goofy at Memory Ln.

6. Me being somewhat normal at Memory Ln.

7. My comp and I at Memory Ln.

8. Trying to use the camera timer to take a picture with all 4 of us Tifton Missionaries.

9. The 4 of us. Elder McPherson is the second from the left. We'll miss him!

If you can see the video, hurrah! Sending videos is rare because they take so long to load off my camera. Hope you can enjoy it!

Hurricane

From Sarah/mom: I am so late posting this. Sorry!

9-13-17

Well, I survived my first hurricane! That was a trip! And we're all alive.

Short on time since I had to catch up on 2 weeks of emails.

We stayed in the mission home for 3 days. Monday was lockdown. On Sunday I got to go out with one of the Macon sisters and a sister from Savannah who also got evacuated. My first trio! We got a new investigator and it was the BOMB. Wow. It was a super amazing experience. I cried. For the first time in a while. Let's just say prayer works. It does.

Listen, y'all. I want you to pray. Tell God everything. I'll do it too. I promise it helps.

Love y'all!

Sister McKay

Man plans, and the Lord laughs.

The quote is from Stake Conference. It's so true. Sometimes we make plans in our lives and then something happens and those plans go down the drain. God lovingly chuckles and says, "Oh, dear. I have something so much better for you. Now let me help. You'll see."

This happened to me when I was figuring out college and, you know, plans. For life.

I had just started my first semester of college at Utah Valley University last year (that was last year?!), and I thought I was going to apply to be a girls' camp counselor at an LDS girls' camp in Kamas, UT, that year. The application was due in January, and I was already writing out my application essay. Whenever people asked me if I was planning on serving a mission, I would sigh and say (perhaps somewhat exasperatedly), "I haven't decided yet." I think I knew all along that I was going to be serving a mission at some point. But my plan was to see if I got accepted as an Oakcrest counselor. If I did, I was going to decide whether I wanted to serve a mission after the next summer was over. If I didn't, I was going to decide once the school year ended. It was too much to decide right then, I told myself.

Well, God chuckled.

Long story short, I received more than one prompting from the Holy Ghost that I was going on a mission. In 6 weeks, I had gone through the temple and my papers were submitted. In 10 days, I got my mission call to the Georgia Macon Mission. In 2.5 months, I left. God chuckled and told me it would all be okay.

Guess what.

It's all better than okay.

I've experienced quite a few challenges: getting used to being away from home, talking to everyone (literally everyone), meeting new people, moving around, getting used to new companions, dealing with disappointments when things don't work out with people we're teaching, and learning to take the responsibility to fend for myself, among many others.

But I can honestly say there's no better way I could be spending these 18 months of my life. Sometimes I do wish I was home, I'm not gonna lie. I miss the people there. But doing the Lord's work is so rewarding. I've come to realize how important and how amazing it truly is and how important it is for everyone to have it.

Listen, y'all. Here's the most important part of the gospel.

GOD LOVES YOU.

You are His child.

He loves you more than you can even comprehend.

That's why He gives us the gospel of Jesus Christ: He wants us to live with Him again!

Is that not the most amazing promise?

I love y'all too. I know God wants us to live with Him again. So take the steps to get there, will you?

Sister McKay

I dropped my cream cheese toast. And not only did it fall face down, it fell face down AND STUCK TO THE WALL. So. That was my laugh of the week.

Missing Peacocks

Great Companions Are the Best

Well, Sister Lanigan is the legit. She's from Cali and likes the color pink. And cherries. And calling me a gorilla and a donkey.

Last night, we were talking before going to sleep, but Sister Lanigan started "drifting into dreamland" (as she put it). She randomly said, "You look like a gorilla and a donkey..."

Me: "Umm, what?"

S. Lanigan: "Oh, um, sorry. I was kinda seeing things in my head. I saw my cousin and he had on a gorilla/donkey mask, so I was talking to him, but I said it out loud and you heard me."

Both: *bursts out laughing*

Gators!

No, not alligators. (I still haven't seen one, by the way. Hopefully I'll be able to check that off the list soon.) A lot of times, we missionaries call investigators just "gators," because it's shorter and we have to say it so often.

So.

We've been getting some great new investigators! The two we got on Saturday are Moses and Hannah. Neither of them knew much about Christ, and we were totally shocked. That had never happened to either of us before. EVERYONE in the south knows about Jesus!! So S. Lanigan totally taught by the Spirit, and we were both blown away. The lesson went so well! We taught the plan of salvation because Moses said he'd lost his parents in a fire when he was 15 and wanted to be with them again. Hannah said she'd come to church if we got them both a ride. They both said they'd be baptized!

So now we have to get them a ride to church.

And they live in Fitzgerald.

That's an hour away.

And nobody from the ward who's active lives over there.

Prayers, please! Miracles can happen.

Next week, we'll be on exchange during the lesson we have set up with him. My STL (sister training leader), Sister Bradshaw, is coming over from Albany for the day. She'll probably help me teach the Restoration, depending on how the Spirit leads us when we plan for their lesson that morning. If all goes well, we'll invite them to church, and hopefully we can have a member in Fitzgerald bring the two of them. A member named Princess who lives in Fitzgerald is getting back into church, so maybe having an obligation like that will help her come!

Please pray for us. These people need the gospel. Moses and Hannah need the gospel. Princess needs the gospel. And they barely know it yet.

I can't believe how much I've come to realize that on my mission. Every moment of the day, we need Christ. Especially when it gets hard, but mostly when it's not. Think of Him every day. Think of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane when you're about to make a wrong choice. I promise He loves you, because I've felt His love. I wouldn't be able to love the people here without the feeling I get from the Holy Ghost that God loves His children. It's an incredible feeling.

Never forget that God loves you. It sounds cheesy, but it's more true than anything else I've ever said in my life.

God.

Loves.

You.

"Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never fails."

Love all y'all!!

Sister McKay

Pictures:

A great big... thing... (I don't know what) in Fitzgerald.

Bible Way.

A church sign. "Exercise daily. Run from the devil. Walk with the Lord."

A totally legit sunset.

Definition of a missionary.

Elvis. And a giant chicken. Next to a "Roach Killer" sign. Could it get any more southern?

My trainer's street! This is for you, Sister Hale!

A McKay-esque cake.

Nametags.

A road. We see dirt roads like this a lot on our Ocilla/Fitzgerald trips.

The kitty fell asleep on my lap!

Aaaaaand another totally random thing you would only see in the south. (Who loses a peacock, of all things?)

New Companion, and Yes, I Took Over the Area

We went 70-some-odd miles yesterday.

Usually we go 30-40.

#SisterMcKayTookOverTifton

Yes, this usually happens. While a missionary gets used to figuring out where things are, they often go way overboard on miles. Right now, we have a total of 1150 miles to use this month, and that's 50 down from last month. The good news is that we should be okay on miles as long as we get a ride to the two district meetings this transfer that will be outside of Tifton. The bad news is that, while Sister McKay figures out how to arrange visits so that miles will be used most efficiently, miles are... not being used very efficiently...

But it's okay! Missions are adventures! That's why we have prayer. And inspiration.

My new companion's name is Sister Lanigan. She's from the LA area in Cali, and she went to high school in Park City, UT. She's the oldest of 3 and likes the color pink, milk duds, and cherries. She's the bomb, and I love her to death already!!

Shout out to my 8-year-old brother, Mason, who got baptized on Saturday! I couldn't be more proud of him. I'm sad that I missed his baptism, but I'm so happy that he's making the best decision ever!

The gospel's true, the Book is blue, and Moroni's on the ball!

(That's a saying I've heard from missionaries around here.)

Love all y'all!!

Sister McKay

A note from Amory's mom:
We decided very unexpectedly to buy a house in Herriman. It's such a great opportunity that we couldn't pass it up. We were pretty worried about Amory's reaction so we sent her an email and told her she might want to have her companion make a video of her reaction. Here are some screenshots of that video. She was surprised! But ALL smiles!

Just come to church! Read! Pray! -And Updates About Transfers

By way of transfers: I'm still serving in Tifton, and I find out who my new companion is when I go to pick her up on Tuesday

 morning.

One of the hardest things to get people to do as you teach them is to keep commitments. Here's why:

You meet someone who wants to learn more about the gospel.

You start teaching them about the gospel.

They get excited and say they want to learn more, and you invite them to (fill in the blank: read the Book of Mormon, pray about Joseph Smith, come to church) and they say they will.

They don't (come to church, read, etc.).

You come back and ask them why they didn't, and they tell you they (fill in the blank: slept in, forgot).

You repeat the process with them, and they still don't keep their commitment.

Here's the hardest part: You continue to repeat the process with them until you get sad. Why do you get sad? Because they have NO IDEA what they're missing.

The gospel - the Book of Mormon, the bible, the priesthood/authority to baptize, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Plan of Salvation - is the purest truth we have in the whole world. The joy repentance brings, the knowledge that we can be with our families forever, the comfort that Christ is always with us, the knowledge that we can truly be saved by being baptized by God's proper authority that has been restored to the earth - who wouldn't want that?

The joy, love, comfort, and excitement I feel when I ask God for help through Christ's Atonement every day is so, so real. I want everyone to feel it. That's why I'm on a mission.

If you haven't felt that joy in your life, pray. Ask God to help you find the truth. "Ask the missionaries! They can help you!" ;) (Quote by President Nelson.) And when you find it - when the missionaries come by to talk to you, or when you pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true, or when you read the scriptures, or when you go to church - ACT ON IT. I promise it will be the best thing you will ever do.

God loves everyone. I feel it every day when I talk to people and invite them to learn about the gospel. He wants us all to have the knowledge of the gospel and the knowledge that He loves us. Did you know that that's the very first thing we teach people in our first lesson? In the missionary pamphlets we use, the very first section we teach from is, "God Is Our Loving Heavenly Father."

I love spreading the gospel. I love my Heavenly Father. I love y'all. So does God.

Sister McKay