Taco Crawl

Me being domestic.  Can you believe it?!?!

Yesterday, I felt like we should go visit an older lady that dropped us I think In July or August.  It ended up being a good visit.  Her family was really nice but then she started asking some really complicated questions that we couldn't really understand what she was asking.  Her family was having a hard time interpreting her questions too.  I really just felt like she was trying to trip us up, so that was uncomfortable.  I knew she was asking about temples, so and I bore testimony that families can be together forever.  I shared a couple of personal details like I have 3 sisters and we moved from California to Utah my senior year of high school.  I told how that helped us get closer because we didn't have any friends when we first moved.  And that I am so grateful that my family can be together forever because they are such a big part of who I am.  The spirit was so strong it was awesome!  And I had the impression as soon as I was done that that's why we needed to be there.  I'm not sure if it was for me or for them but it was really cool.  I'm so glad I followed the impression to go visit them! 

Also this week we did a taco crawl... There's 4 taco trucks on this street called Geyer Springs and we decided to go to all of them one day.  THE BEST TACO WAS NUMBER THREE.

Taco #1

Taco #2

Taco #3

Taco #4

Taco picnic

Cheers! - with Fanta

special picture just for Jaxon

Spanish district: Gonzales, Spencer, Jorgensen, Keller, Thornton, Clark, Cepeda

@ Wal-Mart this week with the English-speaking sisters in our zone (Little Rock)

Also, to do missionary work, we handed out pass along cards on the way.  We passed out 5 cards and ate 4 tacos.  Definitely a good thing.

Also we wanted to make cookies for the hermanas in the branch to thank them for the help they've been giving us.  We have a hard time getting hermanas to come teaching with us but we wanted to be thankful for what they do for us.  So we wrote about ten thank you notes and made about 50 cookies!  And then we went to go hand them out and we were so successful!  4 or 5 of the hermanas totally volunteered to come teaching with us this week and I am so excited about that!  Definitely a good use of our time that day. 

All the cookies we made!

I love you all and thanks for the birthday wishes. 

Love you!

Nan

 Another cookie picture...

"Have y'all checked out Fawn Tree??"

I'm really a missionary!

Well, I fell this week, not a surprise.  We were on bike week.  We have a car share but we're supposed to ride bikes one week out of every four.  So last night we were in a trailer park and Hermana Thornton was riding her bike with no hands and standing up on the pedals... like Titanic style.  Of course I tried to do the same thing and I was doing a really good job!  I tried to go around a speed bump and I almost made it... but then I just fell.  I scraped up my knee pretty bad and now it's swollen but it's all good.  It was also really embarrassing, but now it's kind of funny.  By the way, Hermana Thornton peed her pants because she was laughing so hard. :)

Ouch!
Monday night.  It's looking sore, but feeling much better.

After district meeting on Tuesday, Hermana Thornton were walking back to our apartment when we saw a guy walking in front of us with a huge dog.  The dog was probably the biggest dog I've ever seen.  We were walking along and we said hi to this guy.  And then a couple seconds later, he turns around and yells to us, "Have y'all checked out Fawn Tree??"  We were so confused about what he was talking about, so we caught up to him and talked to him.  He told us that there's lots of nice people who are really open to different ideas on Fawn Tree Lane and that we should go check it out and look for people to teach there.  Then he told us that he lives over by Fawn Tree.  We asked him if there are people that speak Spanish up on Fawn Tree and he said that there are and his wife speaks Spanish.  We asked if we could go teach his family some time and he said yes.  We went by twice this week, but his wife happened to not be there both times.  We couldn't stay because we have to have a female there, but we're planning on going back again this week when his wife will be there.  That's the really random story of the Fawn Tree guy.  We'll see what happens.

District Meeting - serious
Thornton, Keller, Spencer, Gonzalez, Cepeda, Jorgensen, front= Clark

District Meeting - happy
Thornton, Keller, Spencer, Gonzalez, Cepeda, Jorgensen, front= Clark

District Meeting - silly
Thornton, Keller, Spencer, Gonzalez, Cepeda, Jorgensen, front= Clark

District Meeting - This guy is... uh... remarkable?
Thornton, Keller, Cepeda, Jorgensen, Spencer, Gonzalez, front= Clark

District Meeting - ...or just funny!
Thornton, Keller, Cepeda, Jorgensen, Spencer, Gonzalez, front= Clark

One of the times we went up to visit the Fawn Tree guy, we were walking because my bike had a flat tire.  We ended up talking to this guy in his driveway that we wouldn't have talked to if we were riding our bikes or in a car.  He had all these perfect questions so we taught him all about the restoration.  He was telling us that Mormons have this glow and that all the stuff we were saying makes a lot of sense.  Unfortunately(?), he speaks English so we are going to give his name to the English speaking elders.

I forgot to say Happy Birthday to Adele last week!!  I thought about you and I hope you had a really good day! 

This week has gone by so slow and so fast at the same time.  We just teach and find and teach and find all day every day.  But I'm doing good and loving it.

We went and got lunch last week at a place right by our apartment called Las Palmas.

Hermana Thornton

Me - toasting with chips and salsa

I hope you have a good week and if you need something to do, write me a letter please!  Mail is my favorite and I promise I will write you back!

Love, Arianna

Hello from Arkansas!

I made it!  Arkansas is definitely different than the MTC, but I love it too.  It was really hard to say goodbye to my friends at the MTC.  Our last Saturday together, we had district Christmas where we sang Christmas songs.  One elder wore a Christmas tie, and we wrote letters to each other as Christmas presents.  It was fun and I loved it.  On Sunday, we had to say goodbye to 5 of our elders.  Out of the 12 of us, 5 left on Monday, 5 of us left Tuesday, and then 2 left Wednesday.  Monday was not fun because we weren't all there and we were just waiting for Tuesday so we could leave.  The day we left, we had to wake up at 2:00am to get the airport in time for our 7:00am flight.  It was a really long day and we got here to Arkansas at about 3:00 in the afternoon.  We went to a church building to have classes and training for a day and a half before we all left to our areas.

Hermana Art, Elder Baltic, Me
from CCM District 8

2 new Spanish-speaking hermanas, their trainers on the outside, and the Sister Leader in the middle.
Hermana's Thornton, Keller, Macfarlane, ?, ?

Silly Sisters

I'm serving in Little Rock with my companion, Hermana Thornton!  She's super nice and I love her a lot.  She's been here in AR for 12 weeks and so sometimes we just smile and nod at the Latinos together.  haha  But she helps me a ton with my Spanish.  I definitely have a ton of work to do as far as Spanish goes so I'm excited for that. 

Hermanas Thornton and Keller
I'm a real missionary!

Last week, we were knocking on a couple of doors and we talked to a guy named G.  We talked to him on his porch about faith and he seemed super humble and has a lot of faith in Jesus Christ.  Everyone here believes in Christ so that's super cool and a conversation starter because we have that in common!  So we gave him a BoM and invited him to church AND HE CAME!!  We were so excited and he said he liked it.  Only problem is...we will probably have to give him to the elders to work with because he doesn't live with any women.  So that's a little sad. 

Also yesterday, we went by a lady's house that Hna. Thornton talked to on the street before I got here.  She had some family there and we taught all of them the first lesson.  They were super open about what we were teaching and it was so awesome!  Hna. Thornton and I taught each like 50% of the time and I was doing such a good job with speaking Spanish.  It was just a really good lesson and I loved it.  I invited them to baptism as we came to that part of the lesson.  They said they want to know for sure if it's true first, which is totally awesome!  And they said that we should probably come back more and teach them more and so of course we were like, "Yes!!!"  I'm really excited about them. 

Last Wednesday, we went tracting as part of our training and we met a lady who gave us a poem about the cross and a cross to go with it.  One of the older sisters said that if a southerner gives you a cross, then you are accepted here.  SO GO ME!  EVERYONE GIVE ME A PAT ON THE BACK!  lol  But that made me really pumped on my second day here!

Church was hard yesterday because I could not understand pretty much anything that everyone was saying.  I was asked to give the opening prayer so that was scary to speak Spanish in front of everyone.  :)  Hopefully I'll be able to understand more next week and that'll be good. 

I think that's all I have to write about today.  I hope you have a good week!

(If you'd like to send a letter to her, text me and I'll send along her actual address.  Otherwise use the mission home address and it just takes a few extra days to get to her.)

Love you!

Hermana Keller

905 Pierre Drive

North Little Rock, AR 72116

at the river

Silly in the car...

 

 Getting ready for pictures...

Your missionary has arrived in Arkansas safely!

Sister Wakolo, Me, President Wakolo

Me and my trainer, Hermana Thornton
She's from Fresno, CA... so she's a homie.  :)

October New Missionaries

October Missionaries and Trainers

Random photos from the CCM...

Mexico CCM...

In Mexico City on the way to the temple on P-day...

Mexico City Temple on P-day...

(Is there a Visitor's Center on the temple grounds?)

Random people at the CCM...