Coming Unto Christ in Arkansas: Aborto.

She's going on a mission! :)

Samantha has 11 weeks before she leaves on her mission and I am so excited for her!!

This area is great. They stopped doing English classes here a couple of transfers ago because no one was coming but Hermana Petty and I decided to follow the lead of the Little Rock Hermanas and put up posters in all the Hispanic stores and get English class going again. That idea was from Hermana Quigley and it's working! We have put up a bunch of posters and this week we had 9 people to our English class! It's so awesome! We will see if they are interested in learned about the gospel as we teach them English.

I really admire Hermana Petty's desire to always be better and improve our relationship, our Spanish, our teaching skills, etc. Her Spanish is really great. She really loves the people here in Memphis and wants to help them hear the gospel. Something really great about her is her desire to have "celestial fatigue" every night. She wants to work so hard every day and it's awesome!

Love my companion, Hermana Petty!

We had the most awesome lesson with our investigator Miguela this week! We were nervous when we went over because of all the stuff she was saying last week about not wanting to get baptized right now because of her daughter and not wanting to get baptized without her and their situation. So we went in ready to do everything we possibly could to help her understand that nothing matters except her own testimony that the church is true. We did the baptismal interview with her and she did so good. She's really impressed me lately with how much she understands. We asked if she's had an abortion and she said yes and started talking about it and we were panicking and not understanding what she was telling us about it. But it turns out the word aborto in Spanish means both abortion and miscarriage in English but we didn't know that and felt bad because we accidentally asked her if she's had a miscarriage instead of asking her if she's had an abortion. Now its kind of funny because we didn't know what to do and we were panicking for a minute. But its all ok now. At the end, we started talking about baptism and she was saying some of the same stuff as last week. We were pretty sad because we thought we were going to have to totally drop her date for July 15 and reset a new one that's even further away. Then out of nowhere she said that her daughter and her husband (who is not a member and living in Mexico) and their fellowshippers, the Benitez, were all saying that she should be baptized now. They were saying why wait if she knows it's true and she wants to be baptized and she's ready and they need the blessings now. So we are for sure having a baptism on July 15!!! I am so excited for her! She is so ready!

Just a beautiful sunset one night.

This week I studied Teaching by the Spirit and the Power and Authority of your Calling in the first chapter of Preach My Gospel. I really liked the list it gave for how to have the spirit with me:

pray for the Spirit
purify my heart
keep the commandments
diligently treasure up God's word
teach for understanding
exercise faith.

I noticed that the second and third things have to do with exact obedience. I also found a scripture that I really love, Heleman 3:35.

Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.

I really love the last part of this scripture. I know that when I am exactly obedient and doing my very best to be the 4th missionary, I am yielding my heart to God. I know the blessings that come from that are joy and consolation as well as the spirit with me when I teach. And when I have the spirit, I will have a spiritual power that is evidence that the authority I have as a missionary is real.

Love you all!

Hermana Keller