Easter

We have two new emails posted from Elder McKeon. We can't wait to talk to him on Mother's Day!

April 21, 2014

Hey everybody!

This week was filled with up's and down's. 

For the past few weeks I have had a problem with my feet. Every time that I took my socks off at night, a layer of skin would come off with my socks. I thought it was just athletes foot, so I would wash my feet 3 times a day and use a cream. They kept getting worse, so Sister Ferrin told me I had to go to the doctor. She was actually a little upset that I had not taken care of it earlier. We went to a skin doctor and he told me that I got some sort of virus in my shoe (my brand new shoes). The doctor told me I had to boil all of my socks and throw away my shoes. I now have to wear these ugly leather sandals. People stare at me as I walk around, dressed in a white shirt and tie, with ugly leather sandals. Hopefully my feet will get better soon.

I also had the chance to talk in sacrament meeting yesterday. I knew that it was Easter weekend, but they wanted me to talk about missionary work. I told the story of the good Samaritan and how we all need to be like him and find the people that are wounded spiritually (aka less active members and people who haven't heard of the Gospel). I thought it was an ok talk, but then a lot of the members and the stake president came up to me afterward thanking me for my talk. I hope it was fitting for the day, but it seemed to have an impact. Hopefully the ward members will continue to help us in our missionary efforts.

I still don't understand what is happening in our zone. This week, no one in our zone was baptized. We had 3 people commit to baptism, but they all fell through because of Word of Wisdom problems or work. My companion and I are working really hard to figure out what is going on. Please pray for all of the missionaries in our zone to have success this week. We are going to have a fast tomorrow, and I am asking if you would please join us to help our zone improve. We are really needing your help.

I know you are praying for me, as I am for all of you. But please just add the rest of our missionaries in your prayers.

Love,

Elder McKeon

(Priesthood BBQ)

April 28, 2014

Hey everybody!!!

This week was better. We are still not where we should be, but its getting better! In my zone we baptized 3 people. It should have been 6, but they didn't pass the Baptismal Interviews, so that made me really sad. Fortunately, they are preparing for next week to be baptized! 

(Elder McKeon with Elder Rees on his last day on the mission.)

Something really cool happened this week. We always teach José and his family on Saturday nights because that's when all of them are home and we teach the whole family. Well, we went over on Saturday night and we were going to teach José the Word of Wisdom...again. We always try to have the Spirit with us even in these "not-so-spiritual-lessons," but it's not so easy when you are talking to people about alcohol, drugs and smoking. But, José is a great man and he doesn't do any of that stuff. However, there is one thing he does have a problem with, like ALL Brasilians, and that is coffee! Everybody here drinks it. We tried to explain why we don't drink it and the blessings that come from living the Word of Wisdom. When we got to the part to invite him to live this commandment and stop drinking coffee, he responded with,"Yeah, it was about time for me to stop anyway!" Obviously it will be difficult, but this is an improvement! As we finished the lesson, we asked him to pray and he did such an awesome job. You would think he was already a member of the Church. Afterwards, we asked him about his thoughts on baptism and he smiled and told us that he is very close to that committing. We are hoping that by the end of the month he will be baptized and join his family. It is incredible to see someone develop their own testimony. It is one of the reasons I love being a missionary.

(P-Day activity)

My feet are getting better everyday, but the doctor still said that I have to walk for another 2 weeks with my leather sandals. Everybody makes fun of me and calls me "Apostle McKeon" because they look like super old sandals from the time Christ was here.

Well I love you all and have a great week!

Love,

Elder McKeon

Hard Week

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty hard.

To start, it was so hot this week. I don't know why since we should be enjoying the winter season down here, but it seems like it's just getting hotter and hotter. I have my scriptures in my backpack and every time we stop and teach somebody, I pull out my scriptures and they are all wet from my sweat...

This week was kind of hard because the zone had 5 baptisms scheduled that we felt were FIRM! They were going to happen no matter what, and we felt like nothing could stop these people from getting baptized. Then when I called all of the areas to get the numbers for the week, only 1 person was baptized. My companion and I were a little discouraged, especially since we had to cut a family from our list of investigators because they weren't progressing. It was just a bad thing on top of another bad thing. During church I was praying hard to know what I need to do as a leader to help my zone have success. I haven't received an answer, but I am praying, studying, and fasting to find out what more I can do.

We also have transfers tomorrow, which is really sad because I feel like I will be transferred but I want to finish my mission here in Taubaté. We will receive a phone call tonight to find out what is going to happen and then we leave tomorrow morning for São Paulo.

I love you all and hope that you are doing great. I pray for you always. I love you and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder McKeon

Last General Conference

March 21, 2013

Hey everybody,

We have found a great new family to teach!

We were given this list of members that are less active and we have been going around to see if they still live in our area. We were looking for this one family with 7 members, and we were really excited because we wanted to bring this family back to church. The Area 70, Elder Costa, made a promise to us that, "Every person that you bring back to the Church, you will convert another." So, we really wanted to help this family! We get to the house and we ask if the family is there. Unfortunately, they had moved away a couple of months ago, but we made a contact with this other family. We went back to visit them (there are 4 people in their family) and we taught them about the Restoration and challenged them to read the Book of Mormon. They came to Church with us that week and then watched a baptism we had in the ward as well. The next day, we went to teach them and they had already read the Book of Mormon and have accepted our Baptismal challenge. They will be getting baptized in two weeks...it was a true miracle!

We also had the baptism of Gabriel and Geovanna, but we were still working on their dad Jose. We asked Jose if he wanted to go to church with us this Sunday, but he said he couldn't because he was running in a race that everyone here competes in. When we got to the church, we see Jose pull up in his car. We were so surprised to see him! He told us that he had "slept in" so he decided to come to church to see his sons be confirmed. He came to Elder's Quorum with us and the lesson was on the importance of making righteous changes in our lives. Jose was paying attention and then he eventually raised his hand. He explained to us that moving here from São Paulo to Taubaté was hard at the beginning, but it turned out to be worth it because his family had found the true Gospel. We were so excited to hear him say this! He is joining us for General Conference next weekend, and I am continuing to pray for him that he may know of the Gospel's truth.

Well, we are working hard and I am so tired, which i guess is a good sign. I am so happy to be here doing the Lord´s work for my brothers and sisters here in Brasil!

I love you all and hope you have a great week and I will talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder McKeon

April 7, 2013

Hey Everybody!

We have been working like crazy! We have been so excited to for General Conference and it was so weird that this was my LAST General Conference on my mission. It made me really sad though because it hit me how close I am to finishing my mission...

We had the Conselho de Líderança this past Friday and it was really good! We had a meeting with Presidente and the other Zone Leaders, I learned so much and we are going to teach what we learned to our zone tomorrow in the zone meeting.

We then had General Conference! On Saturday night, we had a meeting with the Guaretinguetá Stake President, so we missed the first and second sessions of conference on Saturday because of the long bus rides we had to take to get to the meeting. Fortunately it was a great meeting where we dicussed how to unite the Stake and do the Lord's work. This Stake is awesome because they are excited to work with the missionaries. We came back home after the meeting and went to Taubaté to teach José and his family. Then we went to the Priesthood session which is from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. here, so we got home pretty late. We learned so much! Then on Sunday, we woke up and had to run to our appointments before heading to the church to watch conference with our investigators, which was such a blessing. They were so excited to hear and learn from a Prophet of God! Then we got to talk to them between the sessions and teach them about the things that they had learned. We then watched the second session and it was so great! 

I am so lucky and blessed to be a servant of the Lord and to have this small time to be his full-time servant! I love it so much! I am going to make every minute count! 

I love you all and have a great week!

Love,

Elder McKeon