SUPER BUSY

Dear Family,

The Lord must have really wanted to do everything in His power to make sure that I am super busy these last 6 weeks, and not give me any chance to think about going home. When I got to my new area, I was completely unaware of the circumstances we were going to be in. My new area is actually a brand new area that we opened up! Sister Yancey and I would have been the only missionaries serving in the Bennington, Vermont branch, but the area has now been split in half. The elders took over the bottom half of the branch starting in Bennington. Then we cover the top half starting with Manchester. We have a whole house all to ourselves. We have all new furniture, and have had to rearrange everything to a way that we like it best. Missionaries have never lived here before. In fact, missionaries haven't served in Manchester as an area in over 15 years. So we have basically started completely from scratch. There are no investigators in this area, and only a few former investigators from back in 2003. So even though we don't have any investigators to teach right now, we have still been pretty busy visiting the less active members that live up here. This branch has really struggled over the years. There used to be a branch for Manchester itself, but so many people moved or went inactive that it went down to just the one branch in Bennington. They've had branch presidents that have had their records removed. That's how bad it's gotten... But, things have been turning around! They have a fantastic branch president right now, and the missionaries have been working super hard at getting the members excited to come back to church. I know that I have definitely been sent to this area for a reason. There is so much work that needs to be done! 

So I had a STL training meeting on Saturday over skype with the AP's, President Rogers, and all of the other STL's in the mission. It was pretty cool. We basically talked about how important our calling is, and the influence we will have on our fellow sisters. Something that stuck out to me most was how it will be my responsibility as a sister training leader to be a model of excellence. Part of my calling is to uplift, inspire, and bless the sisters we are here for. As a sister training leader, we help these sisters in any way that we can. If they need to call someone to vent about a hard day that they've had, we are someone that they can call. If they are struggling in their companionships, we help them out. We also schedule exchanges with them. So there are 3 sets of sisters in my zone. There are the Saratoga Springs sisters, Sisters Maxwell and Seadar. The Hudson Falls sisters, Sisters Hansen, and Hamilton, and the Plattsburgh sisters, Sisters McCormmies and Tui. Sister Yancey and I have already prayed about when we will be doing exchanges with them for this transfer, but not yet who will be leaving and who will be staying. We will be doing 24 hour exchanges with them. So either I will go with one of them to their area and my comp will stay here with the other sister, vise versa. And only once per transfer with each set will we do an exchange. Planning for the Plattsburgh sisters exchange was a struggle. They live so far away, and we would have a problem with our miles. Sister Tui is actually a temple square sister and will be going home with me by the end of the transfer!! So for the exchange with them, we decided that since we are going to the temple together, that will be our exchange. Then sister Yancey and Sister McCormmies will just stay back in our area and work. It all worked out perfectly!  Sister Tui and I have to try to hand out copies of the Book of Mormon while we are out since it won't be a "normal" exchange. I am so excited though to have a sister going home with me! I thought I was going to be all alone. But nope! 

My area is totally cute! There are little shops that are very popular and people walk the streets a ton, which means lots of people for us to talk to :) We'll have new investigators before we know it! I hope so at least. We've been trying really hard to talk to lots of people. I gave out a Book of Mormon to a lady on a park bench yesterday. She was smoking and had a dog with her. I love to walk up to people and talk with them and cause them to forget that they have a cigarette in their hands. Then it smokes out and they have nothing left to use. It worked on her! It looked like she barely lit it, and by the time we were done talking to her, she had nothing left to smoke. More room in her hands to hold a little blue book now :)

I love you all so much!!!!!! The church is true!

Love, Sister Keller