"BACK" TO THE MTC

Dear Friends and Family,

I had a really good week this week. I was inspired to work harder than I ever have before, and we did some fun things this week as well. On Tuesday as you know, we had our Zone Conference. That was better than I ever expected!! Our meetings are so incredibly inspired by the Lord and are carefully planned to meet everyone's needs in the zone. I can testify of that! 

It started great from the moment we walked in the church. We were greeted by our Zone leaders, Assistants to the President, and Sister training leaders as we walked in the door. They were all saying "Welcome to the MTC!" and they gave us the little orange dot sticker to put on our name tags. (Just like all of the new kids got right when they got to the MTC to indicate they are new) We were then placed in rooms through out the church and pretty much got to experience the MTC all over again. I remember when I first got there last year, I had so much excitement to get to my mission!! I couldn't wait to get out there in the mission field and start my 18 month journey of bringing souls unto Christ. The whole purpose of this experience was to remind us how exciting it is to be here in the NYUM. I got to remember all over again what it was like to be in the MTC and have that excited feeling of being a missionary. Sometimes, we forget how great our calling is. Sometimes, we lose focus of our purpose. And sometimes, we forget how fun missionary work can be. I truly needed this experience. I have a whole new burst of energy to get out there and WORK WORK WORK! 

We also learned how to use Family History more effectively in our proselyting. If you were told that families are forever and we can be together with them for eternity, even after we die, wouldn't you want to hear what I had to say? I sure would! I love my family! I would want to do what ever it takes to make sure we could be together forever! So we introduce little booklets that help people get involved with learning who their ancestors are, and showing Familysearch.org. Then we get to talk about the restored gospel and how all of this is possible because of Jesus Christ. We were introduced to a really cool website that we can look up people we are related to. The URL is: roots-fb.cs.byu.edu. I found out some pretty cool stuff! Like, I am related to Walter Elias Disney, Elvis Aaron Presley, Benjaman Franklin, Jeffrey Roy Holland, and Thomas Spencer Monson!!! Those are just a few of the people I found. There are many more! Family History is so cool!

One of the members in the ward invited us over for dinner on Saturday and also invited one of our investigators. We watched Meet The Mormons over there as well. That was a pretty fun evening. There is another woman, whom we are not teaching... yet, that we have been doing service for. She basically says that she wants to be baptized, but there is a lot she needs to do before that happens. The member who told us to go help her told her that she will invite the "sisters" to come help. She has a very Catholic background and thought she meant "nuns". She was so relieved to see some cute young sister missionaries at her door! I thought that was funny.

Everything is going great here! We have a pretty fun day planned today. We are going to play Volley ball in the gym around 2 and then go to a members house to watch The Best Two Years. This weekend is Stake Conference, so we will be traveling to Owego and Ithaca for those. That should be fun! We will also be having 3 day exchanges. 3 of us in Vestal this time. Sister Bladh and I are pretty good friends! I really like serving with her! We have done a lot of really great things in this area.  I hope you all have a fabulous week! I love you! The church is true!

Love, Sister Keller

HEAT WAVE?

Dear Family,

I don't know if either Mom or Hannah got the letter that I sent last week, so if you didn't,HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope it was fun! I'm sorry that I couldn't be there for it, but I will for your next birthday! :)

How about that heat wave of 40?! I've been driving around with my windows down and I literally have sunshine in my soul today! It is just beautiful. 

So the name of the town I live in now is Vestal. The elders live in the actual town of Binghamton. There are 6 of us in the ward. 4 elders and then us. My apartment  is cute on the inside. It looks pretty much the same as Horseheads, but a little bit roomier and fancier. I didn't need to take pictures because it looks that similar. The area is cute. It has pretty much everything that I need, and fun places to shop at. 

Right now we currently have 9 investigators. They are pretty awesome! One of them got involved with the church by randomly walking in the church while missionaries were having a district meeting. What better time to walk in the church, right? There are quite a few recent converts we are visiting as well. The work here is pretty great. Get excited, because we have baptisms coming up!

It's great not training right now. It is different because training is all I knew. But now that I'm serving with Sister Bladh, who knows just as much as I do, it's pretty cool. So I only have about 6 1/2 months left. That is about 5 transfers, including the one I'm in now. I could possibly stay in this area for the rest of my mission, and possibly train again. I'm thinking I will have at least one more area though :)

I am so glad to hear that Hannah did some genealogy! You should keep doing it! Fast too! Get those names in the Temple before anyone else does the work for you. They are waiting!! Speaking of temple work, when I go this September, I would love to take a name with me. Could you find one for me when the time comes so that I can have a family name to do? Thanks!! Tomorrow we have Zone Conference. It is going to be awesome because the whole thing is going to be about teaching family history. I am excited to learn how to use it more. 

The church is true! love you guys <3

Love, Sister Keller

          

FAREWELL HORSEHEADS

Hello Family!

I got my transfer call to Binghamton New York! I will be serving with Sister Bladh. For once, I will not be training!!! I will get to see what serving as a normal missionary will be like. I will only be little over an hour away from where I am now, so I am staying in the Owego Zone. I am super happy about that. Sister Frisby is going back to Ithaca and Sister Howard is staying and taking over Horseheads. I won't get to be the driver anymore :( That's ok though. I don't know the area anyway. But I hear it is a pretty big and it will be a ward. They are in the same stake as Elmira, so I will get to see some of the families that I knew here. 

I am a little bit nervous to leave and be with a new companion. I'm sure things will be fine, because I have been praying that it will. I have also had more medical problems than spiritual problems on my mission. It seems like with every new area, something wrong has to happen. It is really stressful, and I don't want to have something happen to me again. I'm thinking maybe I should get a priesthood blessing. I haven't had one in a year, and I think that it will be nice to get one. 

I stood up in Sacrament meeting to bare my testimony. I read in my scriptures that morning in Alma about boasting, and how excited Ammon was to share his experiences with testifying to the Lamanites. He was so full of joy and he gave the glory all to God. That is how I felt with this area, and I wanted to share that with the ward. I was so happy that I did what I came here to do. I strengthened so many of the members and brought a family into the church.  So I can understand how Ammon felt. If seeing such great things happen and bringing souls unto Christ and being excited knowing it is all the work of the Lord, is boasting, then I will boast!  That was a pretty sad day for the Elmira ward though. They are having 5 of their missionaries leave!! 3 of the elders are finished and also bore their testimonies, and then there is Sister Frisby and I leaving. They were coming up to us and giving us hugs and telling us how much they will miss us. I feel so loved here! I will miss this area like crazy! On Tuesday night, one of the families will be throwing a Going Away party for all of us. 

We had another pretty cool miracle! There is a story in the bible about Jesus feeding 1000's of people with only a couple fish and bread. We had a similar story happen to us, but with less people :) We were going to a dinner apt. and they didn't know that there were 3 of us. They seemed so worried about not having enough food, and were about to not eat what they prepared. But the food was blessed, and as it turned out, there was plenty to go around and there were lots left over! The Lord does bring miracles! I love the little things that bring us so much joy. The church is true!

Love, Sister Keller 

FINDING MIRACLES

Dearest Family,

We had a pretty busy day! A really fun day too! This morning we had a district activity and then district lunch right afterwards. We had a nerf war! It was a lot of fun. We set up tables and moved furniture and had chalk boards all as places to duck 'n cover. We played in our church gym. I also cut my companions hair! Not very much, just trimmed her ends, but still! That is scary!!! I would never trust someone untrained to cut my hair! But, it still looks cute :) I did a good job. I colored my hair again. My hair was 3 different colors! Dark on top, lighter in the middle, and really light on the bottom. Well, it is pretty much all one color now :) I'm not really a blonde anymore :) It is a really pretty light brown. 

So we have been having lots of fun finding miracles throughout each day. We were invited by our district leader to look for miracles everyday. So every night before my companions and I go to sleep we pillow talk about one miracle that each of us had. I've had some pretty fun ones! My first miracle happened at a dinner appointment. We always share a message or spiritual thought with those we have dinner with, and at that house, we decided to talk about the Book of Mormon. Normally what we do is discuss favorite stories, and share how the Book of Mormon helped us gain a testimony of the Savior. This time I felt the impression to share my favorite scripture. It is Mosiah 24:14 " And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions". As we read this, I saw the mother's jaw drop wide open. She said that she had been looking for this scripture for years because it was the one that led her to know that the church was true!! Can you believe that!?! It was so cool!!! So after all of that we invited them to write down their testimony inside of a copy of a pass along book and pray to know who to give it to. Then we discussed Family Mission Plans, and how they could be missionaries in their own way. hint hint :)

My next miracle was when we were able to get back in contact with a referral from the church headquarters we received back in November. We taught her the restoration and got invited to come back! When we got there, I noticed that she had a little picture of Jesus Christ hanging up on her wall that we gave to her. She kept it all this time!  The church is true!

I love you all! 

Love, Sister Keller

BAPTISM #4

Dear Family!

Hip Hip Hurray!!!! Melissa Houston got baptized!!!! Her dad got to baptize her because he was just ordained a priest of the Aaronic priesthood a week earlier. He was going to have struggles pulling her back up in the water, so Elder Oloapu was there as well and helped lift her up. But it was so sweet to see him baptize her. Everything worked out the way it was supposed to. The original plan was to have them baptized the same day, but doing it this way was a much better plan. The Lord knows best! Sister Houston was so happy! She never thought the day would come that her family would join the church. But now look at them! They can now work on getting sealed to each other for time and all eternity next year!

So we had a pretty awesome lesson with a man the other day. It was a little disobedient for us to see him though the way we did. Normally, if there is a man home and there isn't a woman present, we should come back when there is or come back and bring a woman with us. But it was just him and his young son there. We thought that his wife was in a back room or something, but she wasn't even home. All three of us felt the spirit very strong that we were okay and that he was a good person. We know better now to ask if a woman is present at the beginning of a lesson rather than at the end... He felt the spirit though and would love to learn more about the church. We asked him if he would be baptized, and he didn't say no! He didn't exactly say yes either, but he did say that he would like to investigate more. I repented!

So the past 3 days have been brutal! It has been so cold!!!! I have never seen weather as cold as it has been. We were instructed by President Wirthlin to stay indoors. If we had a teaching apt set up, then that was okay to go outside. But if we didn't have something, then we were told to stay inside and study, watch the church movies we have, and prepare for future lessons. We are so sick of our apartment! We did have lots of fun keeping ourselves active though. We made sure to make our week busy busy busy so just in case it gets too cold to go outside again, we could still work.

We found a new opportunity to do service here! We go to a warehouse where they pack food to deliver to food pantries through out the area. We make packages full of food to give to kids who don't have meals over the weekend. We get to go every Tuesday. It has been fun!

I love you guys! I hope you have a warm week! The church is true!

Love Sister Keller

3 AMIGOS

Dear family,

I had the craziest, most awesome, and long week yet! I had more prayers answered faster in a week than I have ever received them! I will just start with last Monday. So I got the news that my best friend had to go home from his mission. I was so happy for him that he got to be back with his family again and still return as an honorable missionary who served a faithful mission. When I saw pictures of his homecoming I was struck with another case of homesickness... It was really hard on me. I have wanted to give my mom a hug for so long!! Being homesick has been an on and off struggle for me throughout my whole mission. But I learned my lesson the first time that working harder will numb the pain a little bit. It gets my mind refocused, back on the work and I can get back into the happy missionary spirit. I didn't want to go through what happened last time so I didn't waste any time in doing something about it. So Monday night I prayed really hard for the work to pick up in some way, or for a new person to come along that we could get excited about teaching. Knowing that something like this took faith, I closed my prayer and listened to the spirit. I just felt very peaceful and felt as though things were going to be fine. Well, the very next day I got a phone call from both President Wirthlin and my Zone Leaders saying that one of the Ithaca sisters just got their visa to Portugal and was leaving the next day. Her companion was going to need a new companion... So with a lot of shifting and cleaning and reorganizing, Sister Howard and I made room for a third bed! We are in a trio now with Sister Frisby for the rest of the transfer!! We have double the witnesses and triple the testimony now! Nothing can stop us!

This wasn't the only part of my prayer that was answered. I had also asked for a new person to come along that we could get excited about. On Thursday we had just finished planning out our week and setting new goals for ourselves. One of my goals was to "fear no man". Fear has been stopping missionaries from finding the most prepared families and slowing down the work of the Lord. I was noticing that I wasn't as fearless as I know I can be and I wasn't remembering that I have a calling to proclaim this gospel to ALL who will hear it. So I figured this was a good goal. Later that day we went out to look for some people that were written down in our area book in one of our far areas. We came up to a house and we saw the family outside sledding. All three of us started to feel nervous and a little bit scared about going up to them. There were all kinds of scenarios going through our minds of the outcomes and none of them sounded good. We couldn't even find a place to park and figured maybe we shouldn't go see them. Trying to be in tune with the spirit and learn what the Lord would want us to do about this situation I remembered learning about how Heavenly Father works. He doesn't give us thoughts to be afraid. Satan does. Heavenly Father doesn't make us feel uneasy about a bad situation, He makes it a sure fact in our minds that we shouldn't go there. So I asked my companions what is stopping us from going to see this family? They all said fear. We instantly made the decision to park half a mile away at a gas station and walk to this family's house, up their long driveway in the snow. The mother answered the door and told us that she hasn't seen missionaries in over a year and was hoping they would come back!!! We taught her the first lesson and she told us that she knew it was true and wanted to come to church the next Sunday she had off from work. I know that Satan was trying to prevent us from seeing this VERY prepared family by making all 3 of us feel uneasy about teaching her. I know the difference between the spirit telling me not to go somewhere and the devil telling me not to go.

In other news, I found out we will not be getting our ipads because there have been missions taking them away from missionaries because of disobedience. Maybe I'll just get one when I go home :) I also got to confirm with Melissa that she will be getting baptized this Saturday!!! YAY! a Valentines day baptism and the first woman I taught to get baptized! I am so excited for her! I have really come to love that family!!

I love you all so much! I am so thankful for the lessons I learn as I have been serving. They have helped me grow and I will never forget them. I know that God answers prayers and has a plan for each of us already as hard things come our way. He is always preparing us to learn something new that will further prepare us to meet Him again someday. The church is true!

Love, Sister Keller

P.S. Happy Valentines day!

BUSY

Dear Family,

My week has been so busy!!!!!! I can't tell you how tired I have been. The beginning of the week was normal. Preparation day, and then another casual day harvesting in the Lord's vineyard of Horseheads. Then on Wednesday we started our exchange. We have district meetings in Corning every Wednesday so we just hitched a ride with the elders over there and then did our swap after the meeting. I was pretty bummed to leave Sister Howard. We have become such great friends and we had also done an extremely good job of planning that week to be jam packed full of teaching apts. I was going to miss out on so much in my area, but I knew that Sister Howard and Sister Williams were going to do great! Sister Yancee and I had a lot of fun in Corning. Although a lot of stressful things happened. First of all, my zipper broke on one of my skirts... During a teaching apt!!! It was so bad! I had to hold up my skirt the whole time. Second, one of their investigators dropped them. She was pretty sad about that, but we found 2 new great people at the end of our exchange for them. On Wednesday night, we went to the branch's mutual activity and taught the girls how to play volleyball. They have a tournament with the Elmira ward coming up. I got to coach them with my mad skills. Thursday and Friday went pretty well too. We were pretty busy and got to see lot's of the members over there. I never feel fully welcomed in that branch. They are always so terrified that there was an emergency transfer or something when they see me and not the other sister. It's happened twice now. But then they realized we are just on an exchange and feel fine knowing I'll be back in my own area soon. Friday night they have "game night" which was a lot of fun. They bring investigators to the church and they do all kinds of fun things in the gym. We were playing dodge ball once and I was trying to refrain from falling on a kid and ended up hurting my knee again. It's all good now. I haven't needed to wear the brace today which is good! Saturday we exchanged back. I was so glad to be back in my own area!!!! I came back to a whole new missionary! Sister Howard learned so much about teaching and she is stellar at planning! Her weaknesses have become strengths!

There was another baptism in the Elmira ward on Saturday :) 2 great young men taught by the elders now making an entire family members of the church. I am so happy for them!! President and Sister Wirthlin surprised us by showing up to their confirmation and bore their testimonies during the Sacrament meeting. It was pretty great. 

Today at Wal-mart, we had a really cool experience! We were walking around and this man came up walking behind us. He said something like "we walk too fast" and he was trying to catch up! But as it turned out, he is a member of the church! He is a truck driver who passes by here all the time and asked us if there was a ward near by. We told him it was less than a mile away from here! His name was Brother Brown. He was pretty cool! I hope we see him at church on Sunday :) The church is true.

I love you all so much!!!! Pray that I don't get stuck in the snow somewhere! :) 

Love,  Sister Keller