My name is McKenzie Wallace Stewart
and I was born on October 1, 1986 in Westwood, New Jersey. I have a twin brother named Graham Hart who
was born just seven minutes after me.
The way we got our names is because my mom, Denise Censier Stewart,
wrote a list of names and my dad, Gary Hulling Stewart, picked the top two
names because he thought they were my mom’s favorites. I was born into a family with 4 older
brothers and 2 older sisters. When I was
5, another addition came into my family.
I finally had another younger brother, Zachary Alden Stewart.
My siblings’ names from youngest to oldest are as follows:
Zachary Alden, Graham Hart, Tyler Durant, Whitney Leigh, Ryan Gibson, Lindsay
Heather, and Jason Crawford.
Growing up,
I lived in Demarest NJ in one house. I
lived there until I was 21 years old. I
graduated high school in 2005. I went
and worked for the next 3 years. Growing up, I was a member of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I
went to church, I fulfilled my callings, but I never really gained my own
testimony. When I was 18 years old, I
went to EFY and gained my testimony. I
remember reading the scriptures and feeling the spirit really strongly. The next day, we had a testimony meeting, and
again that feeling came back. I knew
right there that I had to change my life around and I also knew that I was
supposed to serve a mission.
I didn’t
always make the right choices, but I always tried to correct them. I tried my best to follow the strait and
narrow path. Something else that helped
me to go on my mission, although I had made the choice to serve before this
happened, was my twin brother died. He
was in a motorcycle accident and he passed away almost instantly when we were
19 years old. When I graduated high
school, I prayed to know if I should go to college, I had received a full ride
scholarship to Wesleyan University, or I should stay home and work. I received the guidance to stay home. At this point in my life, I was thinking if I
had made the right choice. I figured
that I would be on my mission and that is why I stayed home from college, but I
was still living at home and not on my mission.
When my brother passed away, I realized that was the reason why I was at
home was because I needed to spend the time with my brother. While I was at home working, I worked nearly
every day with Graham. I spent so much
time with him during that year and a half and that time was so amazing. I got so close to him and after he died, of
course I was upset for a long time, I looked back and couldn’t remember the
last time we fought. I cherish that time
that I had with him and it really helped me to cope with losing him.
I finally put
my mission papers in and received a call.
I was to serve in the Yekaterinburg, Russia mission starting on April 8,
2008. This was some of the greatest time
of my life. I loved serving for the
Lord. Don’t get me wrong, because it was
hard. There was a lot of overcoming
trials, and a lot of discouragement, but that just helped me to grow. I learned to the Spirit talks to me and I learned
how to rely on the Lord. I was able to
see my testimony grow so much on my mission as well as see other people gain a
testimony. Although it was a difficult
mission, I saw so much success. I was
able to baptize 8 people and bring them to learn the gospel. Each of those stories is in my missionary
journal, which can be read anytime.
Something
else that I am proud of is how much I followed the rules. I came off my mission with no regrets. I worked hard and I left nothing behind. Although it was it was sometimes difficult to
wake up every day on time, I feel that the Lord knew that I was trying and he
helped me have the energy to pull myself out of bed. I tried to be 100% obedient and I tried to
work as hard as I could. I know that the
Lord accepted my sacrifice of work, because he blessed me with success. He helped me over come my trials and
struggles, and he allowed me to be guided by the spirit. On my mission, I truly felt that I became an
instrument in the Lord’s hands.
Serving in
Russia, I obviously spoke Russian. I got
into the MTC and thought that I would never learn the language. Just a few weeks into the MTC I saw the Lord
helping me learn the language. I studied
Spanish in high school for 3.5 years and barely learned anything. Just a few weeks in the MTC I had already learned
as much Spanish as I did in 3.5 years. I
know that the Lord helped me in this difficult task. When I got to Russia, I struggled but I tried
as hard as I could. I started to be able
to teach the gospel with ease. Within
only a few months, I was able to have conversations outside of the gospel
topics and then a few months later I started to better understand what people
said to me. I remember the time that I
understood everything that was being said to me in a lesson. What a great experience I had with receiving
the gift of tongues. The only way that I
could have learned Russian was with the spirit and from the gift of tongues.
After I got
home from my mission, I adjusted pretty quickly to get back to “normal
life”. I went on a few dates and it
didn’t take me too long to meet the most wonderful woman in the world. I remember it so well; I went to a young
single adult conference and sat near Tanya.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened until about 5 minutes into the
talk. Since I hadn’t been to my home
ward in two years, I didn’t know a lot of people. I kept asking who people were and when this
girl walked in, I asked who she was. She
told me that her name was Lauren and she was a nanny from Utah. I spoke to her for a couple of minutes after
the talk but it wasn’t for a very long time.
I went home and thought a lot about her.
On Sunday I got called to be young single adult FHE coordinator. This allowed me to have access to all the
YSA’s phone numbers. I texted all the
people that might want to come to an FHE at my house. Unfortunately, it was mother’s day and I got no
responses except from Lauren. She came
over and she was the only one. Whitney
and her family were at my house and we all played apples to apples. That was when I got to know her a little and
starting thinking of her if she could be more than just a friend. Over the next week we started texting and
then we went out on a date. She was so
easy to talk to and she and I got along so well. For our first date, we went to dinner at
Bensi’s, which is an Italian restaurant.
We then tried to go miniature golfing, but it turned out to be
closed. We sat in the car for a few
minutes trying to decide what we should do.
Neither of us wanted the night to end.
We decided to go back to the Broadbent’s house (she worked and lived
there) and watch a movie. We watched
Valentine’s Day and we started to talk a lot more. We spent a lot of time together and finally
we started officially dating.
I remember
talking to her about our future and knowing that I could spend the rest of my
life with her. We talked about marriage
and both agreed that it was the right idea for both of us. She and I prayed together and we both felt
the spirit so strongly. Over the next
couple of weeks we made plans of what was going to happen. Before anything serious happened, I wanted to
meet her family. I kind of knew that I
would be living out west, and I would need a family where we lived. I needed to know that I would be able to rely
on her parents like I would my parents.
I went out to go meet them and I told her that it was a make it or break
it deal. Obviously, everything went well
and I asked her parents for their blessing to marry their daughter. We went to the Bountiful temple and she and
her sister did some baptisms while her parents and I did an endowment session. While in the Celestial room, I asked them if
it would be all right to marry Lauren and they agreed. They shared some wonderful stories about her
and the family and it was so nice that they treated me like family.
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