Monday, July 20, 2015
Where do I even start!? This week truly has been a crazy
mess! It was sooo incredibly fast that on Sunday I felt as if it was only Thursday!
The week just flew by! I mean it’s not a bad thing because the reason it was
fast is because it was insanely busy!
We began our week just as every other week with P day and
that night I had 4 missionaries stay in my house with me. They stayed over so that
the next morning at 1:30 am, we could all wake up, get dressed to the nines and
make our way to the chapel so we could get picked up by a bus at 2:30 and make
our way to the beautiful Tegucigalpa temple! We and the entire southern area
made our way slowly but surely to the House of the Lord, the majority of us
sleeping on the bus because of the lack of sleep we had that night. At about
7:45 we got to the temple and from the bus came a huge wave of elders dressed
in their suits and ties with the occasional burst of color from the skirts and
dresses of the beloved sisters here in the number one mission of the world!
My
district and I were to enter the temple session at 8 so we all quickly separated
ourselves from the sea of missionaries to get ready for the session! The
session began on time and the time we had in the House of the Lord truly was a
blessing! I have not been able to feel that way since 8 months ago! There is
something soo amazing about the temple and I wish I could be there always! But,
as many of you know I can’t say any more than that. After the session we all
went to eat Burger King and waited as the other missionaries made their way
through the sacred temple. By the time we all made it out of the temple and
loaded back onto the bus, we set out for the 4 1/2 hour ride back home! I and
the other 4 missionaries, who were going to be sleeping with us again, got home
at about 8 giving us just enough time to call and order pizza which was a
perfect ending to a perfect day!
From that day, the week seemed to just disappear as we lost
ourselves in the work trying to make up for the time we had lost from that trip
to the temple! We did a great job recovering what we had lost but we also lost
one thing which sadly we will never be able to recover and that was a sister in
the ward. Her name was Sister Carolina. She is a girl who when she had 8 years
of age was diagnosed with a disease that attacks the nervous system and slowly
but surely paralyzes your body until one day your mind shuts off and stops
working. When she was diagnosed the doctors told her parents that if she was
lucky then she would live to be 20 but they were wrong and I know why they were
wrong.
Carolina was an angel sent to be in the earth but not of the
earth! She was not born into the church but God blessed her with the chance of
a lifetime to hear our message at the age of 14. By this time she had already
been fighting this chronic illness for 6 years and it was preparing and
humbling her to recognize the message of God when it knocked on her door.
Carolina was baptized within three weeks of receiving the first visit of those
missionaries. From that day forward she began her battle on a whole new level!
Carolina lost feeling in her legs the week after being baptized. Her mother was
furious! Her mom constantly blamed God for putting this sickness in her daughter’s
body and was even madder when she lost her legs just after following the council
of the Lord. Even though her mother was mad, Carolina knew that she was meant
to learn something and that God truly had a plan for her. Rather than mourning
and hating her decision, she decided to take her newly found faith and share it
with everybody she knew. Little by little, her family and friends began to join
the church and Carolina began to be one of the greatest missionaries I would
ever have the pleasure to know.
Carolina sadly ended her calling as a missionary this last Saturday
morning and all of the people here can feel her absence. But I know just as she
knew and still knows that God has a plan for her and that’s why He allowed her to
live to see 18 more years of life. And she was taken from us now because she is
being called to preach the gospel to everybody who hasn’t yet heard this lovely
message. Carolina was prepared and humbled to become a teacher in this life and
now she is using her newly developed talent to accelerate the work of the Lord!
I was truly blessed to know her and I can’t wait to see her again.
As you may be able to see or understand now, the week was
very different and full of surprises. This work never is the same and even
though it is full of happy and sad moments I have never been happier! I love
you all. Remember that always.
Sincerely,
Elder Jonah McKee
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