Great Week!

This week has been great! The highlight of the week was meeting with President Ronald A. Rasband of the seventy and Elder Evans also a seventy. We met with them as well as with President and Sister Chambers on Saturday to discuss how the focus on sabbath day observance is affecting missionary work. Elder Rasband was asked to give a training on this in their meetings before general conference in October and so he asked Elder Evans to find a mission who would let them meet with the MLC(mission leadership council) and discuss the topic. It was a really neat and personal experience with them. There were only 15 of us and we met in the relief society room of the mission office. Elder Evans started with a training on the organization of the seventy which was really neat. I learned some new things I hadn't known before. I still don't understand why there are seven presidents of the seventy, but I'm sure I'll figure that out over time. Elder Rasband is the senior president of the seventy. After the first presidency and the quorum of the twelve he's the next man in the line. He then started the discussion on the topic. We talked about how the focus on the sabbath day helps us as missionaries, but mainly we focused on how we can use the sabbath day to reach outward. It was neat and we could all feel the importance of the sabbath day and I think we all realized we have room for improvement, both in how we observe it and how we use it to reach outwards.

One of the things that we talked about, which stood out to me, is that we tend to make a lot of effort to invite friends and neighbors to Ward activities and such, but we don't make that same effort to invite them to church. The sabbath day is one of the strongest things that will bring them to Christ, yet we focus more on activities that do nothing to strengthen our faith in Christ. Not to say that we shouldn't have activities or invite people to them, but our first and strongest effort should be to help others to come to church. When you see the leftover bread and water at the sacrament table after the meeting, think about who could have taken it but didn't. So that was a really neat experience. One that I may never have again in my life.

After the meeting we had lunch. Elder Aquino and I were privileged to sit at the same table as the two visiting authorities as well as our mission president and wife. Elder Evans is the brother of the other Elder Evans that lived in one of my old areas in Sandy.

Other than that, we weren't able to meet with any of our investigators this week so it was a little bit slower. We talked to Lacies grandparents and they said she told them she doesn't want to be baptized right now. So it looks like it probably won't happen for another couple years. After talking about it however Elder Aquino and I feel it will be for the best. We prefer she stay active after she is baptized and we think if she was baptized now that probably wouldn't happen. The zone is doing pretty well. We have had consistent key indicators this transfer and we have had six baptisms so far this month. There are three more lined up for this weekend. With only two weeks left I'm praying that we can find someone here before I leave.

Both my companion and I gave talks yesterday in one of the wards. We were the only speakers and so we both had 20 minutes. That's the longest I've spoken yet. Hopefully they didn't struggle to stay awake ha. It is an older Ward. We had a missionary in our zone go home this week for medical. It was quite a bummer, I've worked with him closely throughout my mission and I thought I would beat him home. His companion joined another companionship to be a trio and cover two stakes.

Well, I hope that all is going well for each of you. I love you all and I am grateful for all that you do. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. If I've learned one thing this week, it's the importance of the sabbath. I believe there is an untapped power and potential in keeping the sabbath day holy that most of us have yet to experience. Have a wonderful week!

- Elder McKinney

I forgot a few things. Last Sunday we met the family from meet the Mormons. The one with the missionary. They used to live in this stake. He got his call here. They were here for a homecoming of someone. We only met them briefly, but it was cool! We also got to meet sister chambers sister at the mission office. It was really funny, sister chambers was so excited and was introducing her to everyone there. I can't remember if I mentioned it before or not, but Elder Allen lives in this stake. He's an area authority I believe but he also works for the mission department and does a lot there. We also saw sister Williams this week. She is a sister who used to serve in this mission, she went home a month or two ago. When I first became a zone leader she was a sister training leader in the zone. She served here in the Westland stake towards the beginning of her mission and got close to a family. We were having dinner with that family and they invited her to come as well. She was in the valley applying for a job. So she was there and it was weird to see her without a nametag and all. So those are some other interesting things I forgot to tell. Have a great week!

Pictures from a P-day Outing...