Coming Unto Christ in Arkansas: 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