After Robert F. McKee graduated from an Indiana high school in 1967, he entered a monastery to study to become a priest. But he had always felt there was a higher belief.
After two years, he left the monastery. Shortly afterward, he visited the grounds of the Church's Mesa Temple in Arizona."I knew just by that visit that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that higher Church I was seeking," McKee recalled.
A further contact with the Church came in August 1973, when he was working at a concessions booth at the Indiana State Fair. During break times, he would visit the air-conditioned manufacturers building to escape the heat of the day. One day, he found the Mormon Church booth in that building.
"I remember watching the slide presentation and talking with the missionaries," McKee said. "I received a Book of Mormon, and by the end of the fair I had read it through. I knew it was true. I could feel it."
In 1978, McKee moved to New Port Richey, Fla. In early 1985, he moved to an apartment complex and, after living there for eight months, met the LDS missionaries who lived in the apartment above him.
Just as he got to know them, they were transferred. But he met the elders who came after them, and he treated them to dinner one night.
He told them he wanted to know more about the LDS beliefs, and on Oct. 24, 1985, he began to be taught by the missionaries.
"I learned a lot from the discussions," McKee said, "but I was a tough person to teach and had a hundred questions. Some nights, the missionaries would spend hours in my apartment and not make it through one discussion."
The missionaries asked McKee to attend Church with them. He agreed. His decision was made on Sunday, Jan. 5, 1986. A missionary sitting in front of him in sacrament meeting, turned around and asked, "Brother McKee, do you want to be baptized?" He replied, "Yes, I do."
Since then he has received the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, and has been called as a stake missionary in the St. Petersburg Florida Stake.
"I feel, I believe and I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true Church of God on earth," he testified.