Truckin...

This week was pretty fun. We went on two exchanges. One with a district leader in our zone, and the other with the assistants. I guess I'll try to get everything in order. Tuesday, we had a meeting with all the zone leaders, district leaders, and sister training leaders where we learned how to use the new area book planner application. It's pretty awesome! We put everything in there. All of our plans each day, all of our lesson reports. All of our goals and key indicators. It is pretty amazing. On Wednesday we got together as a zone and we taught the rest of them how to use the application. It was a fun meeting. Some people are really good with technology, some people aren't haha. Then right after that meeting we went on an exchange with our district leader. I went with his companion to their area. Another Spanish area. That was fun. It was cool to be with him though. His name is Elder Gee. We are actually a lot a like so it was a great exchange. Then on Friday we went on an exchange with the assistants, Elder Wise and Elder Flack. I went with Elder Flack to their area in Sandy. Elder Wise (my old zone leader) came here with Elder Covington. It was a really good exchange and we both learned a lot. I can't believe it's almost May! It's going to take awhile to get used to the application. There's a lot to learn. I most likely won't use Facebook on my mission. I might use it for the last month or so, but that's it. I'm glad and sad about that. We had one of our investigators come to church on Sunday. That was nice. It's been awhile since someone's come to church. Things should hopefully pick up a bit more. We are struggling to meet with everyone and get them to church. Well, I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!

-Elder McKinney

When I went with the assistants I got to ride in the truck :) ours is the one with the number on the bumper.

Dust, Snow!?

It has been an interesting week to say the least. I'm exhausted right now. So if my thoughts are disconnected and don't make sense, I apologize. Tuesday we had a bunch of crazy wind! Our area is next to a bunch of huge fields that are just filled with dirt and so all we could see was dust. I think the entire valley was filled with dust, it was disgusting. We could hardly see a few hundred yards in front of us. You could taste it whenever you were outside. It was also raining a little so it was nasty muddy rain. It was a nice 70-75 degrees though so that was nice. Until it dropped to about 30 degrees and started snowing after dinner. That was not too fun. It snowed and then the next day kept going. We probably got about 6 inches of snow. It was terrible (for me, the moisture was definitely needed). We went on exchanges Wednesday to Thursday, so I went with one of our district leaders to his area. Walking in the snow, no Bueno. He covers a Spanish assignment so it was kind of weird to just sit and listen and wonder what they were saying. I don't know a lick of Spanish. It was cool though and I could definitely feel the spirit during lessons. We also picked up a family of new investigators this week. There are seven kids in the home and so it's absolutely crazy and I have no idea how to teach them. It's fun though. We still struggle helping people come to church. A lot of people we've been teaching are moving, and the ones that aren't are super hard to get a hold of. So it's interesting, but things are still going well. The zone is starting to improve so I'm glad that is happening. We have a meeting tomorrow with the mission leadership to learn about the application for our area books and planners. Then on Wednesday we will meet as a zone and teach everyone else how to use it and such. I'm glad to finally be getting it. It will be really nice and will help to hold us accountable for a lot of stuff. This will definitely help a lot. Things keep moving forward. Hope you all have a great week. Love you!

-Elder McKinney

Father-Son reunion...

This week flew by like nothing. I don't know where it went. We went on an exchange with one of our district leaders. We are going on another one this week. It will be interesting though because they are on Spanish speaking assignment. That will be fun. Only one person out of everyone we are teaching came to church yesterday. We are teaching close to 20 people at least. Our zone isn't doing too good either. We've had the lowest key indicators as a zone as I've seen since I've been here. Definitely doesn't make me feel good since I'm responsible for the zone, but we will keep working on it. We had our zone conference this week, that was good! Got to see Elder Laughlin again, that was nice. He's a great Elder. He used to be in this zone, but left when I came in. I wish he was still here so I could have both of my sons with me. It could be one big family reunion haha. Elder Koo is doing awesome. He's serving just down the street from me basically. So that's kind of a brief summary of what's going on. Hope you all have a great week! Love you!

-Elder McKinney

Elder McKinney and Elder Laughlin

General Conference!

Hello Everyone! General conference! That was the last general conference I will watch as a missionary. I can't believe it. I loved every minute of it though. There were great talks and I was definitely uplifted and edified by it all. The Saturday afternoonsession I didn't see all of because the home we were watching it at had some technical difficulties, so I will be excited to read the talks when they come out. I also missed theSunday morning session because we were traveling to the conference center to watch the afternoon session live. Both my companion and I received tickets from the mission to attend. It was amazing and I was glad I got to go for my last time. Of all the talks I heard I loved them all. I learned a lot and understood the things I need to do better on. I know I will be a better person as I apply the counsel from the Lord's servants. There was a lot about family and marriage in there, not sure if it was a coincidence with it being my last conference before going home, but I definitely took notes :) I am excited to one day have my own family, but I'm still focused on the work I am currently engaged in and will give all I have, and some. It's hard to contemplate that time has gone so fast. In a short few months I will be away from what I have loved for the past two years. It will be hard, but the work will still continue, just in different ways. I know that God lives. I know that His son is Jesus Christ who sacrificed Himself for us. His atonement is not only infinite, but intimate. It applies to each of us on an individual level as we apply His redeeming blood in our lives. If we but turn to Him we will find peace and happiness, strength and healing, as well as hope and love. He is our Savior, Redeemer, and Advocate with the Father. His love for us is more than we can comprehend. I know that He is there. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Keep being awesome! Love you all, have a great week!

-Elder McKinney

Transfers...

Hey! So this week has been crazy to say the least. Remember how I said that I thought things would stay the same? Well I was completely wrong. It has been a great week though. Elder Hauata and I were both transferred. Our area was whitewashed meaning two new Elders came in. Elder Hauata is now serving in the Draper Young Single Adult stake. It's his first time being out of West Jordan his whole mission, and he came out with me! He is still a zone leader. I didn't get transferred as far. Actually, I stayed as close as possible and went to the stake across the street from where I was before. I am now in the West Jordan Cobble Creek stake. I am now the senior zone leader and my new companion Elder Covington is a new zone leader. He has been in the area for two transfers, now to be three, and was a district leader until now. I am training him as a new zone leader, which is crazy because I've only been one for a transfer myself. There are also two new district leaders in our zone who have never been district leaders before so we have to train them as well. There are two other companionships who are whitewashing in the zone. The Prairie stake where I was before isn't even in our zone anymore.

I felt a little overwhelmed on Wednesday when transfers came because I was now responsible for leading the zone and making sure everything happened that needed to. Then I got a little sick on Thursday, it wasn't too bad though. Just kind of a sore throat. But Friday got a lot better and we taught a lot of lessons and found a couple new investigators. Saturday was just as good. We taught more lessons and picked up even more new investigators. There's one woman who I think is probably the closest to baptism. She's a little bit older and has a lot of health problems. She's living with her daughter and her daughter has a couple young kids. None of them are baptized. The older woman, named Velanie stopped the Elders a few weeks ago from the second story apartment balcony and told them she wanted to meet with them. We finally met with her the other day and she said she would get baptized. She's the only investigator that I'm really familiar with. There's a lot of good potential here though. It's funny, well maybe not really funny, but cool.

A few weeks ago I came to this stake on exchanges. The whole time I was here I kept telling the Elder I was on an exchange with that his area felt really good. So when I got the news that this is where I was being transferred to I knew why I felt that way ha. We are going to see a lot of success here in this area. I'm excited. I'm not sure how long I'll be here for, but I look forward to the next six weeks. I'm finally working with an MLS couple again! It's been so long! It's been over 9 months I think since I've had a senior couple in my stake. It's nice :) there's also a set of Spanish Elders in our stake. One is actually our district leader. A lot of Spanish areas are being combined with English areas so I'm glad ours hasn't yet. Things are going well. Elder Covington has been out for about 14 months. We cover six wards. We have the white 2015 Corolla still which I'm happy about. There's a new video out, you should all watch it! helives.mormon.org
I'm excited for general conference this weekend! I'll most likely go to a session, but I'm not sure which one yet. We shall see. Come with questions, there will be answers. Thank you for all that you do! Love you all! Have a great week :)
-Elder McKinney

Transfer week...

Transfers are soon here. It's going to be crazy I'm sure. I don't know what will happen for our companionship. Guess I'll let you know next week :) I'll probably stay though. That much I can give you. This week I can't remember all that happened so I don't know what all to write you. I'll just write kind of my testimony and feelings then. I've learned a lot recently about aligning my will with Heavenly Fathers will. All acts of disobedience are because of wanting to do my own thing rather than follow Him. Sometimes out of laziness, sometimes out of anger, sometimes out of ignorance we make mistakes. We must strive to learn for ourselves however what God's will is. When we then figure that out, we must courageously follow it. It won't always be easy, in fact it might often be very hard. That is the process though by which we are sanctified and become like our Heavenly Father. I am far from perfect. I often want my own things instead of what God wants. I am trying to do things that are right though, even if I don't want to. Christ had to when He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane. Shouldn't I be required to offer some sacrifice of myself if I want to become like Him? It won't be easy. I have to let go of Pride however and submit myself to His will. I know we all face challenges. I know we all experience doubt or questions or concerns. We must willingly follow His will for us however. By so doing we not only allow the blessings of our Heavenly Father to reach us, but we allow them to change us. We are not only forgiven of our sins, but are sanctified to where we have no more desire to do evil. We are not only healed, but have strength to do more than we could before. There are many blessings that come from aligning our wills to His. It may not be easy, but we are not alone. The blessings of sacrifice will bring eternal consequences that will never be regretted. I may not be perfect, but I am trying. I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all! -Elder McKinney

I am still alive...

I apologize for forgetting to tell you that we were going to the temple today. Hence the preparation day on Tuesday instead of Monday. I'm glad that we get to go. It's been over six months since we've been! I think that might be how it is from now on, but I'll get to go at the end of my mission either way. iPads are still crazy. It's actually pretty tough to try to adjust our teaching to use them. It's a completely new concept and I wish I had more than six months to master it. They are really nice to have though. They help in a lot of ways. Sometime in the future we will use an app that will allow us to have our area book and planner on here in digital form instead of having huge paper binders. That will be so nice! I'm excited for that. We went on two exchanges this week. One of them I stayed in the area, the other I went to their area and worked with one of them. It was really fun and I learned a lot. We have a lot of things that we have to deal with as a zone leader, it's a little more than I was expecting. It takes up a lot of time and there are days that we don't work our own area until the evening. It's all pretty crazy and I'm still trying to get the hang of it. When I got into the area we were teaching a woman who lived out of the mission. She wanted to get baptized and has been coming to our stake, so we transitioned her to the missionaries where she lives ( in Murray) and actually got permission from our mission president to leave our mission to have a transition lesson in Murray. We also got to go to her baptism this last Saturday in Murray and it was really weird to be out of the mission but it was a great baptism and I'm glad she made that choice. We had a really cool miracles this last week. Elder Hauata and I have tried to be specific in our prayers and so we prayed that we would receive a phone call with someone to be baptized. Last Wednesday we got a phone call from one of our bishops early in the morning saying he wanted to meet with us that day. He was just put in as the bishop about a week early and a woman scheduled to meet with him. She told him that she wanted to join the church. So, he talked about meeting with us and now we have a lesson set up with them fortomorrow night:) she also has a son who is old enough to be baptized. The power of specific prayers are real. Transfers are in a week. Crazy stuff. I think I'll probably stay here. We both think that Elder Hauata will be transferred though. We will see. No one knows for certain. This transfer has gone by quicker than any other so far. I feel like it's only been a week or two. I'm excited to see what happens though. I feel like there will be a lot of changes in the mission. Things are going well, I'm happy. Thank you for all that you do. Hope you have a great week! Love you all! -Elder McKinney P.s. I'm still trying to figure out how to email on the iPad. So I might send a few more emails with pictures and stuff if I can figure it out.