Thursday, August 27, 2015

Jonah's Semana 43 - I'm a Papa!


Monday, August 24, 2015

Hi everyone! How are you doing? I’m doing great, just so you know. I’m actually sick right now, I’ve got a cold. But I’m happy and that’s what’s important, right, that’s somebody is happy when they’re sick. I’m a sick, happy camper, lol. But yeah, I’m hoping I can get over this cold in the next couple of days, I’ve had it since Thursday.
I don’t have very many stories to tell you this week, so I’m just going to start out by telling you that my companion had changes! Elder Lopez, my Ecuadorian comp, had changes. So on Wednesday, we were in Tegucigalpa to find out where he would be going. He got sent to my old area, the first area that I ever served in, so I was telling him all about it. It’s going to be cool that he’s there! He will probably finish his mission where I started!

For a new comp, I received a kid named Elder Castillo; well, he’s not actually a kid, he’s 23. And I’m training him! I’m a Papa! It’s going to be pretty interesting! I never thought that I was going to train. I never thought that President was going to put me in that position, but then again, I never thought he was going to make me a district leader either.  So, I don’t know if he’s crazy or what, but I guess we’ll find out :P But for now, he’s put me in charge of training and I’m not going to lie, that makes me a little nervous. We’ll see how good I am at being a dad.
For now though, I’m still nervous. I’ve had three days of working with Elder Castillo, and they’ve been good days. I’m just nervous, I don’t really know why though because he is a good kid. He speaks great English and he’s from San Pedro Sula, Honduras and he’s here waiting on a visa. He could leave any minute. I think that’s why I’m more nervous than anything, it’s because I don’t know what’s going to happen. Like with a normal missionary, I know that I’m going to have at least 6 weeks with them. We could do this or that together. But with Elder Castillo, he’s just a visa waiter, sitting in this country, waiting for his visa to come through so he can go serve his mission in the West Isles. So, I guess that’s what makes me more nervous than anything; the unknown time factor. It’s a little hard not knowing how much time I’ll have with him, but God knows what He’s doing, I trust in Him. So if he goes, it’s because he’s going to teach someone that he promised from the preexistence to find. It will be a great adventure!

Dad, did you ever get to train? Maybe you could give me some advice to help me be the best trainer possible. Throw me a bone!
This week, we got to go to a conference with Elder Nelson from the Quorum of the Twelve for all of Central America. Two missions were invited to go, mine and the mission just north of this one Comiaguela mission. We all met in a chapel called the Pena, and just so you know mom, that chapel is where we had the clinic for the medical brigade. That building is in the other mission, so I never thought that I would be able to see that chapel during my mission.  But, I was there this Saturday for the conference, and it was kind of funny, because I was like “Whoa, hey, I’ve been here!” I’m starting to realize how funny it is to come back and visit all of the places we had been when we were here together.

Anyway, it was a great experience to be able to see a servant of the Lord! I realized as I listened to Elder Nelson speak that people in the church are allowed to have a personality. I hope other people noticed this as much as I did. He is a special witness of Jesus Christ; he is one of the twelve on the earth, he’s basically the Peter of today. When he spoke to us, he made a lot of jokes and a lot of funny comments. It was actually really entertaining to listen to him.  And just listening to him speak helped me to realize that just because someone is a representative of Christ, they don’t have to be a robot. Perfection doesn’t require us to be boring. We’re supposed to strive for perfection but we should not be afraid to be who we are. Like, if you’re super animated and have lots of energy, you should express that, those are gifts from God. And, if we’re perfect, we should be expressing all of the gifts that we have from God.
So that helped me to realize that we as missionaries should be happy; we should make jokes. We should be loving and kind and everything that we are. We should express who we are and what we are made of, whether that’s humor, a free spirit, a loving heart; we should express it all. I hope that other missionaries were able to get this out of the meeting too. We have a lot of missionaries here that are like robots. They think that they need to be less human so they can be more obedient. President Nelson is one of the most obedient people on the earth. He is one of 13 special witnesses of Christ and he showed us this week that as one of the twelve, he is still human. He is still loving and funny. It was so refreshing to see his sense of humor, to see him lively and active and with such a bubbly personality. I was grateful for the opportunity to learn from him!

Well, that pretty much sums up the week. I love you guys very much and hope all is well with you! Take care until next week.

Elder Jonah McKee

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