How to Recognize When the Lord is Speaking to US
Hi you guys!!!
I'm still disappointed in the last group email I sent out so I'm going to try and make up for it with this one haha
This is my last week in the Centro de Capacitación Misional México! I received my flight plans to Argentina on Tuesday and am "flipping a bean" over here (to quote Elder Lewis from my district) hahaha. I cannot believe this is real. Most of me is mad hyped for the field. Just get me out there and let to talk to everyone in the gnarliest castellano ever haha. But there is also this tiny (and I mean tiny) part of me that is super terrified. Only because the CCM is sort of like Heaven. Everything is mapped out for you. Meal times, classes, devotionals, etc. So we'll see how this goes haha. Next email from Hermana McKin will be coming from Argentina! Not going to lie, still in shock I'm on a mission. Full send baby! My flight leaves from Mexico City at 1pm and I have a layover in Panama City, which is freaking DOPE. Then off to Buenos Aires where I'm pretty sure I'll hop on a 20 hour bus ride to Salta.
The weather here is fun....not really. You get about 3 hours of every season daily. It rains every night and the
thunderstorms are SO crazy. Lightning flashes about every 15 seconds and the thunder makes your brain rattle. Loud doesn't even do it justice. So much for trying to get tan...*eye roll*
I think I mentioned this in a previous email but every week I have to prepare a 5 minute church talk in Spanish. All of my talks have the same basic intro: "Hola, mi nombre es Hermana McKinlay. Soy de Fresno California. Voy a servir en Salta, Argentina...blah blah blah." Anyways, right after I say all that stuff, I talk about my feelings about serving. I explain how I'm excited, nervous, but also ready to serve. WELL, turns out there's a couple different ways to say excited and it just so happens that the "excited" I used in my talk translates into "aroused" in Spanish. None of the missionaries really pay attention to the talks during sacrament meeting because no one knows Spanish, minus the branch president and his counselors. However, I would have killed to see the branch president's reaction had I said I was aroused to serve the people of Argentina over the pulpit. The Spirit must have really conveyed to the president that he should not pick me these past 5 weeks. Tender mercies.
The MTC Worldwide director, President Lane Steinagel, came and taught my district Tuesday afternoon. A film crew came and filmed us learning Spanish (or trying to at least...) so MTC teachers around the world could learn how to teach missionaries effectively. Cue the "hey....I want to be famous" vine. A couple days before President Lane came to teach us, our teacher was telling us about how we need to behave ourselves and all that fun stuff. Well right after that, we started a lesson on the Law of Chastity. All the elders started harassing our teacher about defining "passionate kissing" and it was the funniest thing ever. Our afternoon teacher has a girlfriend and I think everyone is trying to live through him a little bit hahaha. She's the cutest little Latina chick ever and she teaches at the CCM too. Before we met her (they came and ate dinner with us!) we asked Vincente where Claudia worked and he said, "She's closer than you can possibly imagine" in his hilarious accent. Turns out her classroom is on the other side of the wall. Heart eyes for Hermano Vincente and Claudia.
Hermano Vincente kills me. He takes up more than half the quotes in my notebook. He ALWAYS leaves little marker marks on the board after erasing and it drives me insane. Like to the point I can't concentrate. Anyways, a week ago the straw broke the camel's back and I told him he needed to erase all 100 marks left on the board before we began our next lesson. He straight up turned around and said in perfect english, "Hermana, this is how you know you have OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER." I was in shock but also hunched over laughing. Hermano Vincente has the funniest accent when he speaks english. I was like "where in the LITERAL heck did you learn that?!" Later during class he started erasing the board and said, "Hermana McKinlay, I'm only going to erase half so I can kill you slowly." So that was nice.
At the CCM, we practice teaching lessons on our teachers who take on this fake persona. Our morning teacher is great at it. Asks lots of questions and keeps his commitments. Vincente, however, stinks. He sits there SO bored and is lousy at keeping commitments. It's probably great practice for the field but like c'mon man. So during our last lesson I blurted out in Spanish "if you're not willing to keep the commitments we ask or invitations we extend, we're going to have to stop meeting with you." Hermana Steed just about crawled under the table. Worked though because he started being "interested."
Watched a devotional broadcasted from the Provo MTC last night. Saw like 3 of my friends in the MTC choir haha. Elder Uchtdorf and his cute wife, Harriet, addressed the missionaries of the church. I love what he said: "Here's how to be a successful missionary: Do the things you have control of well. Those are your thoughts, feelings, and actions." Easier said than done but I've got 17 months (a lifetime actually, my mission doesn't ever end) to work on it.
I watched a video this week in one of my classes that really touched my heart. I think I've watched it...probably like 30 times haha. So I want to encourage everyone reading this to watch the video and ponder its message. I've linked it below. BUT before you watch it, I want to bear my testimony on a few things. I know, without a doubt in my body, that God is our loving Heavenly Father. Everyone that has lived, is currently living, or will live on this earth, is a child of God. I know that because He loves us infinitely, He listens and answers our prayers. Always. Not always on our own time table, but despite where we are in life or what we've done. I cannot imagine believing in a God who would send His children to earth only to abandon them. It is not possible. Our Heavenly Father's love is shown in many ways, but you will only see it if you choose to. Choosing to not believe in a God does not in any way diminish His infinite power or love for you. He is the Father of your spirit. He knows you individually. He wants you to feel joy during this life. He loves you. If you do not know this, pray to Him. In the Bible we read, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him" (James 1:5). I encourage everyone to focus on their relationship with God this week. Learn of Him and His love for you. Exercise faith in Him and act. We know that "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead" (James 2:17). I cannot testify my knowledge of this truth enough. I would not say goodbye to just about every person and thing I love, to turn around and preach about truths I don't know for a fact. One of the first things I learned as a missionary here in the training center, is that my sole purpose is to invite others to come unto Jesus Christ. Key word is invite. Obviously I'm not going to force my message upon anyone. That's not what the Savior, His apostles, or His prophets did. But, if I can share the first principle I came to understand while here, it's that God is our loving Heavenly Father. I cannot wait to share this truth with the people of Argentina. It changes lives. I know because it changed mine.
So the video. It's part of a series called "His Grace" in which people share personal experiences about when they have witnessed God's grace and love for them. In the video, Michael McLean talks about a trial he endured for nine years. The purpose of this video is to teach that God loves us so individually and perfectly, that He answers our prayers in ways we could only understand. Sometimes the answers are so individual we overlook them. I've lived an experience similar and because of that experience, I can testify of this truth. I couldn't find the transcript to the video so I paused it every 5 seconds to write down a quote from Michael McLean haha. It takes up two pages in my notebook but I absolutely love it and read it maybe 10 times a day...Read the quote and watch the video!
"The Lord loved me so personally and so individually and so completely that He would send an answer that I would recognize could have only come from Him. From His heart to mine. I don't know how else to describe it, I was overwhelmed with grace. And then I thought 'Why did this take nine years?'...Were there times that Jesus was there and I didn't see Him, because I had decided in advance, 'oh oh oh! I know how to get answers to my prayers, and they come in this box. This is how God answers prayers, like this. Every prayer he's every answered for me came this way.' Well what if He was answering me outside the box? What if there were ways he was trying to give me hope and reassure me and talk to me and it just went over my head because I couldn't see it. You know, you talk about being humbled. And I listed 25 things that had happened where the Lord was reaching out to me. It was, a discovery of the fact that for nine years, the Lord had not been punishing me by not talking to me. He was trying to teach me that even when I couldn't see it, His grace was trying to save me." -Michael McLean
Chills. Every time haha. Well I love you all! I hope everything is good wherever you are! Thank you for all the support....and treat packages :)
Love love loveeeee,
Hermana McKinlay
Faith Crisis: What Do We Do When We Feel Nothing (His Grace)
Here's a picture of Salta that put me in tears. Oh my heck just get me there already.
Gracias for the skirt Papa and Gigi!
My Halloween courtesy of Hermana Steed's aunt
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