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!