Sister McKenzie Tate

Hey y'all!  This week actually went by pretty fast, which is good. I cannot believe it is almost July!! On Wednesday I hit my HALFWAY MARK of being a missionary!! 9 MONTHS! I remember at the beginning of my mission when I thought this day would never come! Time is a weird thing in general and even crazier on the mission. I am so grateful I have 9 more months though to continue to do this sacred work:)  This week Hna Ayala & I got asked to be the Facebook coordinators for the Spanish Facebook page of our half of the mission! Turns out the worldwide experiment with missionaries using Facebook didn't give the church exactly the results they expected, but we are going to continue to try new things with Facebook. We have seen some success from when we put our ads out on Facebook and then in turn people can refer themselves so I think our mission is going to focus more on that side of outreach!  We actually saw a miracle with that this week in finding Gerardo!!...

Hey guys!  Sooo not gonna lie, this week was a little slower than most. Haha before when I was in Argentina a slow week would be if we only found like 20 new people to teach... but now here in quarantine we are lucky if we find maybe 1 new person to teach. Oh how the tables have turned... But this week we actually found 2 NEW FRIENDS!! We were searching through our area book for new people to call and found this one man named Atencion who had been taught almost all the lessons and been to church multiple times. We called and he answered and we ended up dropping a Book of Mormon off at his house!  Also, we were FINALLY able to get a hold of a referral from a member. Her name is Cindy and she is normally super busy with work so she has never answered her phone.  However, on Saturday she finally answered! During our phone lesson she actually got pretty choked up and I could feel the spirit so strong. It was awesome. At first I was pretty sad when a lot of our le...

Hey y'all!  This week was pretty good! We actually set baptismal dates with 3 people which was a milagro!! It's crazy how no matter what's going on in the world today, the Lord's work continues!  We started teaching the Rosas family this week & WOW they are AMAZING!! They had actually been going to church and been taught by the missionaries before, but we lost contact with them since the quarantine. We have probably sent them like a billion test messages & calls (jk probably only 10) since, but on Friday by some miracle Aime (the mom) was actually on Facebook at the same time and responded!! She said she felt like our message was a sign to her from God.  We had a lesson with them at the church! Luis & Aimee are the parents and they have an 8 year old daughter named Krystal & an 11 month old & they're just the sweetest!! They have been saying prayers as a family and were so excited to show us that even their little baby knows how to fold ...

Hey guys! I had a pretty good week and I hope y'all did too!  I learned this week that Facebook actually works -WHAT (for missionary work I mean)!! We got a self referral on Tuesday, meaning someone saw an ad we put on FB to contact the missionaries & they requested us!! I had no idea people like that existed lol. It was honestly pretty awesome. His name is Rafael & he's golden, but sadly I think we're going to give him to the English elders to teach because he prefers English or Portuguese (he's Brazilian). Haha our area has also had a lot of people message our Spanish Facebook page for the mission. It's still a work in progress but it's been kinda cool & fun to see it all come together.  Also breaking news - we can now GO INTO HOMES of anyone not sick & under 60 years old, if they invite us over!! We had a lesson with Nancy & Tito, a mother and son we've been teaching, in their apartment & it was AMAZING! We've really b...

Hey guys!! Things finally seem to be letting up (a little) here in California! We were able to have a district meeting IN PERSON!! Whaaa - haha idk if it's just been forever since I've been able to see other missionaries or have any social interaction but it was one of the best district councils I've ever had. We actually got to meet all of our zone in person and we are a mix of old/new & reassigned missionaries speaking Spanish, English, and Chinese which is pretty cool.  This week we also had our FIRST ZOOM BAPTISM of Erick!! It was definitely different than anything I've ever experienced before!! I am SO HAPPY for Erick! And he also received the priesthood which I know will be a HUGE blessing for his family. Both his parents were able to come and some members of the ward. Who knew that we would be having baptism social distancing in 2020 with less than 10 people and masks? But one blessing of having it on zoom is that my family was actually able to watch it ...