Transfers Again???

I absolutely cannot believe that transfers are here again! This is the fastest transfer that I have ever had and I know it is only going to go faster. It is only a couple weeks until I hit my year mark. It's a lot more depressing than I thought it was going to be. I thought I wouldn't hit that point until about 18 months out or something like that, but it's starting to hit now. This next year is going to go way to fast, I already know it. Elder Laughlin feels 100% again and we are out teaching the world again. Cat is still on date for September 20th. She has to come to church this week though for that to happen, so we are praying hard for that. We know Heavenly Father will provide a way for her to keep this commandment. She is doing well though other than that. She starts school this week at the University of Utah. We are still trying to get a hold of Sam and his mother. He hasn't responded to our texts or calls and hasn't been home when we stopped by, so we will hopefully catch him this week. Malia is a young woman that has been out of town for a month but should have got back this weekend. She has said that she wants to get baptized and her parents are okay with it so we should be able to start teaching her this week as well. Things are starting to pick up and its going to be great! There is also another family that we recently met that have kids who are interested in learning more and coming to church. The mother is the hold up right now, she said she's felt pressured with so much going on and us trying to set up a lesson. So as of right now we haven't started teaching yet, but I think we will be able to within the next week or two. They came to a ward party this last week and met a lot of great people and the young boy who is 9 will be starting cub scouts with the ward. Their last name is Gutierrez. They moved in not too long ago right across the street from where we live. Things are going well and I'm really excited for the work in this area. I don't know what transfers hold, I assume Elder Laughlin and I will stay together since he is being trained, but then again that's what I thought when I was being trained and I only stayed with Elder Bennett for one transfer. So we will see what happens. We talked to the people at the mansion again and they are letting us come take pictures as a district today :) I will send those next week. It's going to be a good day haha. Thank you for all your prayers and support, I really do appreciate it. Have a great week! Love you all.

 -Elder McKinney

 Since Elder McKinney loves "Lord of the Rings," thought these were appropriate for him!

Mission Tour and a baptism...

Well Rachel B was baptized this Saturday. It was a really cool experience. She was baptized and confirmed by the husband of the family she lives with. She got up at the end and bore her testimony. It was really powerful! She didn't say much, but she said she knew that Heavenly Father loved her. The Spirit was really strong. There were a lot of people there to support her as well, it was great. This week was the mission tour as well. Elder Clarke came and spoke to us and helped us all realize how much we need to do better haha. He is a very energetic man that keeps us all paying attention. It was a great experience and I learned a lot. We were also able to go and teach a boy and his mother that Elder Williams and I had taught once before but they were going out of town for a month. So we stopped by one night and they were home! We taught them and the boy said he would get baptized if he knew it was true. Bingo :) He didn't come to church though and we haven't been able to get a hold of him since, so hopefully we can talk to him again soon. Elder Laughlin hasn't been feeling well the past day or two, so I've been out working with some of the people in the stake. He's doing a little better today, but still doesn't feel the best. Things are going well though and there is a lot of work to do. I am excited to keep finding people to teach :) Miracles are real. Have a great week everyone! Love you all

-Elder McKinney

An excerpt from his Mom letter:

I can't believe school is already starting again. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem real that transfers are next week either. That came out of nowhere. I feel like I just came to Kearns a week ago. I'm excited to fall weather/colors. Wish I could take pictures though. Not excited for snow, especially being so close to the mountains. I like mountains better without snow, they seem more adventurous. Whereas with snow on them they seem more majestic. Either way, not excited for snow. That's cool that you got to go to the Ogden open house! I wish we could go. Sounds like a fun ward party too. We have a stake fair coming up where there will be a lot of things going on. This one will include a car show because.. well people have enough money up here for that kind of stuff. Anyways things are going well. Love you!

Miracles! And 11 months!

This week has been great! Well really it has all come to a climax last night and this morning. We had a great lesson last night with Cat. We met at the relief society presidents house this time instead of her main fellowshipper and the relief society presidents husband is in the bishopric of a young single adult ward and so he invited three returned sister missionaries to meet with us as well. We didn't know that until we showed up. It was awkward because we had planned on teaching the law of chastity. It wasn't bad though, it was weird to start but once we got going it was all good. One of the women who were there possibly has a job that Cat can get so that was really great. Cat got a lot of good fellowship after that lesson. Cat right now is scheduled to be baptized on September 20th, hopefully she can make some changes in work and be baptized even sooner! We had a huge miracle last night as well though. After our lesson with Cat we got a call from on the the assistants to the president and he asked me if we had anyone on date to be baptized in August. I replied no wondering what was going on. Then he asked if we had been praying for miracles. Thinking I was about to get chastised for not having enough faith or something I replied that we had. He then went on to tell us that we were going to have a baptism this week and that he would text us the details because they had to go to a lesson. Basically, a girl in our area was being taught by us but then asked to stop but we could still stop by and answer questions and things like that. (This was before I got into the area, though I did meet here once after I got here) We talked to the people she lives with (active members, the wife is the young womens president in the ward) and they said she had met other missionaries that she seemed to like and so we thought okay we will let them do whatever they can because we weren't getting anywhere. It turns out she has been meeting with missionaries in the East mission and the East mission president lives in the ward that this young woman does and so he turned her back to us. All we have to do is make sure she is interviewed and then she can get baptized this week! So we called the lady she lives with and set up the interview for tomorrow. We set a goal every week for how many baptisms and how many confirmations we are going to have. Normally we set our goal for one baptism and one confirmation even though we might not have anyone on date for that week. We set that as our goal because we know that miracles happen and we plan to have as many miracles as possible. This is one of my favorite miracles though. I don't know all the details so I'll let you know more next week about what all went on and stuff. Anyways, the work is going great here and the work is picking up! I know the Lord is blessing us. Have a great week everyone! Love you!

-Elder McKinney

Oh yeah, 11 months. I'm afraid to start hitting the downslide. Going down a slide is always faster than climbing to the top. Mission tour is this week. I am super excited! I know we are going to learn a lot. The prison is in our boundaries yes. I'm pretty sure senior couples go there, I don't know though. I wish we could go to the Ogden temple open house and the dedication, but we can't. Things are going good. I've learned a lot of little things that make up who I am, to try to write them all down would take too long. I'm trying to work on being refined right now. Dignified in speech and action. Thank you for all you do! Love you!

Zone Conference...

Well, we had zone conference. It was great, got to see Elder Cleveland and Elder Knowlton, the only two of my companions left in the mission still. We talked a lot about the worth of a soul and how we can better invite the Spirit into our lessons. Not much else has happened since last week. I mean we have done a lot, but its all the same thing - missionary work. We are still working with Cat. We introduced her to family history the other day and she sounded really excited about it. She stops working Sundays at the end of this month and so she will for sure at least be able to be baptized in September. That will be good. Other than that we do not have any investigators that we are working with. We have a lot of potential though so we are excited for that. The work is about to pick up in this area, I can feel it. Mostly because people will be back in town haha. Anyways things are going great and I love being a missionary. Couldn't ask for anything better. Sorry this is short, but love you all! Have a great week!

(an excerpt from letter to Mom, answering her questions)... I definitely love the cooler weather. Not excited for winter though. I think Heavenly Father was just taking it easy on me last time, I feel like I'm going to get it this winter. We normally go to three wards each week. Fast Sunday we eat just like every other day with a family in one of the wards. Each ward takes a week to feed us. We do a variety of things to find people to teach, we tract, we talk to people on the street, we go by members and ask for referrals and things like that. I can't believe it is already time for school again. Summer goes fast even on the mission haha. Things are going well. Love you!