Cookies and Carousel.

* note from Mom --- I just noticed the picures are transferring blurry.  It's a busy day so I'll have to replace them later, so check back.  :) 

We went to bring our investigator, Gabriella's husband cookies like President Hansen suggested to help soften his heart. He wouldn't come out to talk to us so we just wrote a note that said we hoped to meet him soon and left. But then the next night, Gabriella texted us at about 6:30 asking if we could come over right then because he was supposed to be getting home at 7. So we did. But he didn't get home at 7. So we continued waiting and read some of the Book of Mormon with Gabriella and her kids, drew some pictures with her daughter, helped her daughter with her homework, etc. But we really wanted to meet him and we didn't know when exactly he would get home so we just kept waiting. At about 9, we were thinking "well, I guess we'll just go home now" when he pulled up! He didn't come in for about another 5 minutes and we think it might be because he saw our bikes. But when he did come in, we said, "hello!" And he said, "hello". And we said, "how are you?" And he said, "good." And we said, "how was work?" And he said, "good." And then he left the room and wouldn't come out again. So we finally met him but it was pretty funny how we waited so long to say 3 words. :) But then on Sunday, Gabriella got a blessing from the elders and in it, Elder Sotomarino said that they would be sealed in the temple as an eternal family. So that was really awesome and I think that blessing will help her have more hope. This week, I studied about Personal Revelation in Preach My Gospel. I loved that it said that we (as missionaries) have been promised inspiration to know what to do and the power to do it. I love that since we have the calling of being missionaries, if we remain worthy, Heavenly Father will bless us with everything we need to be able to bring souls back to Him. I love my calling and am so grateful that I get to be a missionary in Memphis!

The district - Hermana Robles, yo, Elder Sotomarino, Elder Short,

Elder Merrill, Elder Smalley

There's an abandoned mall right by our apartment so we went inside this week and basically the only thing that's open is the carousel so we rode it for $1

The Batesville hermanas came to the Bartlett musical tribute so we got to have a family reunion!!!  I love them!

Hermana Robles (who i am training) aka mi hija, yo, Hermana Quigley (who i trained) aka mi hija, and Hermana Thornton (who trained me) aka mi mamá

Mis hijas

Love you all, 
Hermana Keller

Homies.

We went and saw Miguela, our recent convert, this week (because we see her every week jaja) and she is doing super awesome still.  It's been amazing to see the change in her.  When I first got to Memphis, she was really struggling to read in the Book of Mormon and even more to understand and remember it.  She was having a hard time understanding what we were saying when we were teaching and she was so scared to set a baptismal date and be baptized without her daughter.  But as we've worked with her and as she's increased her faith and trusted in Heavenly Father, she's been able to understand everything better and better.  I know it's because the influence of the Holy Ghost is stronger and stronger in her life!  We talked a about temples and I am pretty sure she is planning on going through to get her endowments as soon as she reaches that one year mark.  She also understood everything so well and I am so proud of her!

I was studying the Successful Missionary section in Preach My Gospel and there is an activity where you compare Abinidi and Ammon in their missionary work.  We all know now at they are two amazing missionaries and we all want to be like them, but the immediate results of their efforts to preach the gospel were very different.  While Ammon baptized TONS of people, Abinidi was killed by the people he was trying to teach repentance to.  The question in Preach My Gospel is were they both successful?  My answer is yes.  It made me think about how even though Abinidi didn't seem successful at first, his efforts resulted in the conversion of almost all of King Noah's people either through Alma or through King Limhi and his people.  I also thought about what were the common factors in Ammon and Abinidi if they were both successful, even though their stories are different.  They both were obedient to the commandments, they both testified with the spirit, they both did their best, they both diligently warned people of the consequences of sin, and they both desired the salvation of those they served. I know that if I do those things, I will be a successful missionary. The chances of my mission ending like Ammon's or Abinidi's are not too high, if I do those things, I will baptize all that the Lord has prepared for me. 

Being a missionary on fb is kind of hard but we're figuring it out. 

Some homies that showed us where hispanics live.

Lupita, Gabriella's daughter

Lupita, Gabriella's daughter

Akari Trejo

Missionary tribute: Come Unto Christ 

Love you all, 
Hermana Keller 

Temple Roof.

Our mission is doing series of musical tributes called "Come Unto Christ" where we sing and a couple of people bear sir testimonies and basically it is so members can come and bring their friends to introduce them to the church.  I am playing a solo so I get to go to all of them.  Yesterday was our first one in Conway (about a 3 hour drive from Memphis) and it was awesome!

We got to see the Russellville hermanas so that was a bonus.

Hermanas Petty, Wilson, Keller, Robles 

Hermanas Robles, Keller, Wilson, Petty, with Sister Johnson in front.

We went to our regular dinner appointment with the Garcias on Saturday and at the end, we shared our spiritual thought as usual.  The dad is usually pretty distracted by his phone so it just ends up being us talking to the mom and trying to redirect the conversation every time the dad interrupts with something that is irrelevant.  But we shared about M. Russell Ballard's talk from General Conference and talked about how we as missionaries need to be working with them as members to help other people be able to have the blessings of the gospel and then we invited them to the missionary tribute here this week.  We invited them to each invite someone else.  The dad payed attention to the whole time!  And committed to invite someone!  The mom said she already had someone in mind to invite!  It was so awesome!

This week, I did an activity in PMG where I read a couple of scriptures and looked for the qualifications for baptism in them.  I loved it and thought it was really cool that none of them say that a person has to have read the whole Book of Mormon or has done a anything super special.  But all they have to do is have a desire to be baptized, have repented, and have a "broken heart and a contrite spirit" and anyone can get to that point.  All of Heavenly Father's blessings aren't exclusive but are available to anyone who wants them. 

We also got to help clean out the temple on Wednesday.

We were on the roof so of course we had to take a selfie.

Love you all, 
Hermana Keller 

Throw down.

We had a couple of throw down lessons this week with some less actives as well as investigators who haven't been progressing.  One less active in particular, knows all the things she needs to do but always makes excuses as to why she can't do it.  We've seen a lot of progress in her Book of Mormon reading these last couple weeks because we've texted her a lot of reminders.  But she is still having trouble with the law of chastity, the word of wisdom, and keeping the sabbath day holy.  While we were with her this week, we read Heleman 4:24-25 and then we talked about how we need to keep the commandments in order to have Heavenly Father with us.  Then we said something like, "Hermana, we really don't know what to talk about when we visit you anymore.  We've talked about the law of chastity and nothing has changes here.  We've talked about the Word of Wisdom and you still drink coffee.  And we've talked about keeping the sabbath day holy and you still have trouble coming to church a lot of the time.  We've seen you progress in your daily scripture study, but we want to see the same progress in these other commandments too.  How can we help you?"  Boom.  Throw down.  We then had her pick one commandment to work on and she picked keeping the sabbath day holy.  She almost came to church yesterday, but unfortunately she texted us a half hour before it started and asked for a ride.  We didn't see the text until about a half hour after the conference started.  But I know that's progress for her and I'm really hoping that we'll be able to help her come to church every Sunday from now on. 

We finally were able to see Yoli this week.  She has been working a ton this past month.  We were able to talk more about where she is at with the gospel and what she wants to get out of the visits.  She said she liked it all and wants to get baptized.  But we also talked about how she can't get married to her boyfriend because she and her family are working on their papers and when they started she was not married.  It's a pretty difficult situation because she and her boyfriend have 3 kids together and she lives with him and his family.  He and his family are all members.  But as we were talking, I knew it would be better if we dropped her for now so that we could find the people who are ready to be baptized right now.  We told her that we want to help her prepare for baptism, but it's hard because she can't take that step right now.  So we encouraged her to keep reading and praying and coming to church every week so that they could progress on their own.  Then we told her that in a few months, we would come back and try to teach her again to help her get ready for baptism.  It was sad and hard to do because I don't want to stop visiting her, but I know it'll be better, especially because she's so busy with her new job all the time. 

This week, I studied the Baptism and Confirmation section in Chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel. I really like the quote by Dallin H Oaks that says, "We do not preach and teach in order to 'bring people into the Church' or to increase the membership of the Church. We do not preach and teach just to persuade people to live better lives. ... We invite all to come unto Christ by repentance and baptism and confirmation in order to open the doors of the celestial kingdom to the sons and daughters of God. No one else can do this."  I love that our purpose is to help people make the covenant of baptism with God so that they can receive eternal life.  Without that goal of baptism in mind, we're just sharing a nice message about Jesus Christ.  But because we have that goal in mind for everyone around us, we share a message of hope and change and we can help others be able to truly draw closer to our Heavenly Father. 

We took lots of pictures on Wednesday because we had to change our profile pictures on Facebook.

 

Wish us luck because our miles got cut again. We're supposed to be a "half bike area" which is basically where we bike all the time except when we really can't. *praying I don't get hit by some of these crazy Memphis drivers😂😂

 

We listened to the Sunday morning session of general conference in Spanish with all the members and our investigators. As the the Mormon messages and homefronts started playing, the tv started doing this: jaja

<spanish video>

 Love you all!

Hermana Keller

Facebook. WUT?!?!

This week in zone conference, we got Facebook! (Wut.)  So now all the missionaries in my mission can use Facebook as a way to try and share the gospel with more people. I t's kind of weird but it's good.  Yesterday, we were talking to Hermano Benitez about how we can use Facebook now and everything.  He said, "You can ask your friends if they know anyone you can teach on Facebook now!"  And I said: "Yeah! Hermano, do you know anyone I can teach on Facebook?"  And he said, "Yes! I have friends in my country and friends I know from my country that are in Spain right now.  I will be looking on my newsfeed and when I see the names of the people you should teach, I'll send them to you!"  He was so excited.  It was awesome! 

Also on Friday, we went to an appointment with a potential investigator and I didn't know if she would be there because she has a super busy work schedule.  But we went by and she was there so we taught her!  We had a really good lesson using the How to Begin teaching points and then showing her the Because of Him video.  (My favorite video. If you haven't seen it, go watch it!)  At then at the end of the lesson, I had the thought to ask her for her Facebook information because she's always busy.  I was really scared because I had never done that before and also I don't want to be weird and creepy.  But I said something along the lines of:  We know you're busy, but do you have Facebook?  Maybe we could add you as a friend and send you another video or something to watch this week.  And she said yes!  So now we're going to go add her and hopefully teach her on Facebook too.

So go add me on Facebook and let me know if you have any friends I can teach! :)

Also we went by Gabriella's this week to read in the Book of Mormon with her and her two kids, Ricardo and Lupita.  They are the cutest ever.  Gabriella mentioned that Lupita LOVES reading and wants to read every pamphlet.  She said that Lupita wants to read the Book of Mormon, but Gabriella suggested that she read the pamphlets instead because the Book of Mormon is hard to read and she's only 7.  But it's okay because we're going to bring her the Book of Mormon for children this week.  The funniest thing was that Gabriella said Lupita found the law of chastity pamphlet and wanted to read it because it was new.  Gabriella luckily stopped her and said maybe later and told her to read one of the word of wisdom pamphlet instead.  jajajajajajajajaja 

Hermana Robles, Keller, Elders Merrill, Sotomarino, Short, Smalley 

We got a ride with Hermana Dunn to the General Woman's Conference because we were taking a bike day.  When we got to the church about 5 minutes after the conference started (an English Ward and a Spanish branch go here for church), there was only one other car in the parking lot.  It was Hermana Tudon.  (Also we have soccer nights on Saturdays)  It was so weird that no one was there and the church was locked and all the lights were off.  We unlocked the church, the 4 of us went inside, and looked around.  There wasn't even a TV set up for us to watch the conference on.  (Hna Dunn had called some of the hermanos on Friday and they said everything would be set up)  Hna Dunn started calling the branch presidency and no one was available or close by.  Also the wifi was weirdly turned off so we couldn't just watch it on our iPad.  She called the Relief Society President who was almost at the church with her husband.  She got there at about 7:30.  And then the 6 of us sat in the relief society room, in the dark, watching the conference on the Relief Society President's phone.  It was the weirdest thing ever.

Us... watching the General Women's Conference... on a phone... in the dark.

Memphis Tennessee temple

Love you all!
Hermana Keller

Memphis doesn't have a Cold Stone.

Samantha left to the MTC this past Wednesday and I am so excited for her to be a missionary.  She already loves her investigators, even though they're just MTC investigators so I know she's going to be a really great missionary. 

On Monday and Tuesday I was with the Little Rock Hermanas in preparation for transfers and that was way fun. On Tuesday night, we had about 20 minutes left in the night and a plate of cookies that we didn't know who to give them to.  The hermanas decided to stop by the branch mission leader to fellowship them because they haven't been to church I think since I left Little Rock.  I was really happy about that because they are one of my favorite families!  So we went over and said hi and his wife gave us come soup that she had made for dinner.  It was really good because the Hermana's were able to fellowship the branch mission leader and get to know him better and we actually ended up talking a little bit about why they hadn't been going to church.  He even said they would come to church on Sunday.  I'm not sure if they actually did, but I know we brought the spirit to their house and it was so good!

I was surprised how much I missed Arkansas, Little Rock, and the members of the branch there.

Hermanas Petty, Thornton, Quigley, Olson, Hunt, Wilson
I was able to stay with the Little Rock sisters overnight and that was super fun.  All of the Hermanas were at transfers the next day.  I'll been a long time since we were all together.  We all get along great and look forward to seeing each other.  

I was sadly informed when I transferred to Memphis that there was no Cold Stone Ice Cream in Memphis.  So, back in Little Rock, her Hermanas went to Cold Stone...
just for me.  :)

At transfers, saying goodbye to Elders Jorgensen and Anaya,
and waiting to meet my new companion.

My new companion is Hermana Robles and she is doing so awesome!  I'm very happy.  :)  On Saturday during 12 Week, we were talking about Teach People, Not Lessons and the importance of asking inspired questions. Sometimes I think I accidentally focus too much on trying to translate what the investigator is saying in my head or I'll get distracted by something really great that I think of to say.  Hermana Robles was saying that she sometimes gets distracted trying  to think of what the best thing to say to that person is and how to say it.  So we were talking about how the must important thing is to not only be listening to the words are saying, but to be listening to their spirit.  I can't imagine how confusing and frustrating it must be to not have the gospel in their lives.  But it's important for me to listen for what part of the gospel they need that day.  And then right after, we went to a lesson with a less active who is frustrating because sometimes she'll like us but sometimes she tells us all the negative things other people tell her about the church.  On Saturday, she was telling us about how everyone tells her that she's making a mistake by bringing her kids to our church.  She's been having trouble reading in the Book of Mormon on her own, so we talked about why we ask her to read.  Then we read the last two paragraphs of the introduction with her and really focused on what she needs to do to gain a testimony and what that testimony will mean.  We had to explain it to her about 5 times because she kept getting distracted by telling us other negative things people tell her about the church.  But we focused on the fact that if she reads and prays every day, then she will know for sure that the church is true... and then it won't matter to her what other people think.  She said that she already thinks it's good because it talks about God, but we told her that if she read and prayed, she would know if the Book of Mormon is just a good thing, or if it actually is true.  She seemed to understand so much better than the other times we've gone over, which was awesome, and it was because we were really focusing on listening to her concerns and then discerning her need to have a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. 

Hermana Robles is a native Spanish speaker so I am learning so much from her.  She moved to Texas from Mexico when she was 11 so she speaks English too and understands how hard it is to learn a language!  

Back in Memphis, our top investigator's husband has not been very interested in having us over the whole time we've been teaching her, but this week she said that she thinks he might be ready to hear the lessons!  She is so excited for us to come over and teach him and now we are just working on figuring out a time when he will be home that we can come over because she says he usually gets home super late.  Also we did our one hour of finding by the spirit yesterday and we found 3 super awesome ladies!  They were sitting outside of their apartment and we showed them the Because of Him video and they LOVED it! One of them even had tears in her eyes.  I've showed that video a lot on my mission and everyone always likes it.  But no one has loved it as much as these ladies.  They were so happy to set up a return appointment and even asked if they could come visit us at church on Sunday before we even got the chance to invite them!  I know we were supposed to find them. 

I love 12 week so much.  Because I'm training again, I get to go though the basics again!  This week specifically, we talked about the baptismal invitation and why it's important to invite at the beginning.  Sometimes it's hard to extend the invitation during the first lesson because we're scared of what they'll say or we don't want them to think we're weird and not want to meet with us anymore.  But inviting others to baptism really is central to our purpose.  Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ and what better way to do that than inviting them to be baptized!

I love you all!
Hermana Keller

Goodbye Hermana Petty.

Samantha leaves to go the MTC on Wednesday so her farewell was yesterday.  My dad sent me a copy of her talk and I cried.  She's going to be a really good missionary but a little part of me is already a little trunky for her to come home because I miss her a lot.  She's my best friend. 

Transfers are coming up this week and Hermana Petty is leaving Memphis so we spent a lot of time visiting everyone, taking pictures, and Hermana Petty saying goodbye.  The members and I are sad to see her go, but since she's been here 6 months, I guess it's time for a change.  Memphis (and I) will be getting a brand new missionary!  I'll excited to meet her.  All I know so far is that she's native and coming from Texas.  

Hermana Petty and I have seen so many miracles in our 3 transfers together.  We've worked so hard with the members to help them trust that we're good missionaries and it's finally paying off.  On Thursday after our English class, a couple of the members came in and were talking to the people and fellowshipping them.  It was so awesome!  Afterwards, one member who has been struggling to stay strong in the church said, "Hermanas, I feel the spirit coming back to me because I was a missionary to them!"  Then after that, the branch president's wife asked us to help her fellowship a young woman in the branch because she's struggling and then she gave us a referral!  It was so awesome, especially because we don't get referrals that often.  I am so excited for the new Hermana to come and work here in Memphis and see even more miracles. 

Also, Elder Anaya is going home, so lots of changes for the Memphis Spanish District.

Elder Anaya's funeral.  Sorry, I don't look very sad.  Elder Smalley was making me laugh!

It's been a great 3 transfers with Hermana Petty.  She is so awesome.  She works very hard, loves the people here a ton, and is really focused on being the best missionary she can be.  We've really worked hard on being less casual, especially the past 2 transfers, so that's been really great.  I think Hermana Petty has done a really, really good job here in Memphis strengthening the branch.  They're sad to see her leave. 

Hermana Petty saying goodbye to Hermana Dunn... a branch member here.

This week we taught the grandkids of our recent convert, Miguela. When we texted their mom to ask if we could come over to teach them, she responded back saying, "Actually I would love that a lot."  Their names are Yari and Jr and they are 12 and 10 so we tried to make it fairly short and interesting so that they would like it.  They usually come to church every week with their family so we asked them what they thought about church and they said they like it and they feel good when they come.  They also said they are interested in learning more about the church.  Jr was participating a ton during the lesson, even when he didn't know the right answers.  When we were talking about prophets, we were naming some as examples like Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc. And Jr said, "Genesis?"  When we asked what they know about Jesus, he said, "he's the Father of God? .... wait I mean the Son of God!"  It was cute.  He was having a hard time sitting, especially at the end but he was still answering questions and trying to participate, which was awesome.  They recognize a change in their grandma since her baptism and know what it was a positive thing.  They seem to like us and so that was good.  At the end, we asked them to pray about our message.  They really understand the concept of getting an answer and looking for the Holy Ghost while praying.  Yari was a little hesitant to commit but we talked about it and told her that she doesn't have to pray in front of anyone and could even do it in her head if she wants.  After we talked about it for a while, she felt better and was able to commit.  The lesson was so awesome, I don't know why we didn't try harder to teach them before!

I've been reading the Book of Mormon again and it's so awesome. I'm not very far, only like 1 Nephi 12, I think.  But I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and that we have it.  I know with all my heart that it's true and I love sharing it with the people here in Memphis.  I know that we have so many blessings because of the Book of Mormon.  A lot of the time, I wish the people I talk to every day would take it a little more seriously, but I know they have their agency.  I am so grateful for my testimony of the Book of Mormon. 

We made cupcakes for both the branch president and the other family I told you about a couple of weeks ago.  When we stopped by the less active family, one of the kids came out and said no one else was home.  So we gave them to him and I felt good about it. Right before we gave the branch president's wife theirs, she invited us over for dinner!  Somehow we managed to fit it into our crazy schedule and it ended up being a really good thing to build our relationship with them.  And they said they loved the cupcakes, so that was really nice too.

Me teaching English class.

I love our English class.

Love you all!

Hermana Keller

Hurricane Harvey visits Arkansas.

One week until Samantha reports to the MTC and I am so excited for her!

I love this area.  Our new mission president has asked us to spend an hour "finding" every day.  We are finally having some success with the finding every day.  Since we started, it has seemed like we haven't found any Hispanics and everyone we talk to is very not interested and so that wasn't exciting. But on Thursday, we were out finding when it started raining but we kept going because our hour wasn't up yet and when has rain stopped us from sharing the gospel before?  In the rain, we successfully talked to more people than we have in the 2 weeks since we were asked to go finding every day! We found 2 new investigators and a potential and they were all Hispanic.  It was a pretty good day.  We're still working with the branch president as well as the branch mission leader to coordinate missionaries and members doing missionary work.  Even though there are definitely some challenges with this area, I love it and I am happy to work here so I really hope I don't have to leave this week during transfers.

I am so grateful to be able to say that after 3 transfers together, I still am happy to serve with Hermana Petty.  Haha  She's a really good companion.  This week, I hit 1 year and she made me waffles for breakfast and decorated the apartment to celebrate.  It was really fun.

Feliz un año!

We also celebrated by going over to the Benetiz's house for dinner and to burn a dress.  That was a lot of fun too!

 

 

One day this week went over to our investigator's house for our lesson. She asked if we had time after to stay and eat because she had just made tortillas and was making enchiladas for her kids.  We had just eaten, but we said yes because we could tell she really wanted us to.  So after our lesson, she starts preparing the enchiladas. She started with chopping lettuce for on top. After she had chopped the lettuce, she rinsed it.  And rinsed it.  And rinsed it.  For probably 10 minutes.  And the whole time, she was telling us that as soon as we tasted her enchiladas, we would know that everyone makes them differently.  As she was doing all this, I looked away for about 1 minute and in that 1 minute, Hermana Petty said that our investigator turned around so fast, grabbed a spray bottle, and squirted a little bit into the lettuce.   She then rinsed the lettuce for about 5 more minutes and said that she sprays it with "cloro" (aka bleach) to make sure it's clean.  I'd never heard of that... but they were actually really good enchiladas... so maybe we should all try that!

Barrio's girls.

This week, I was studying our purpose. While I was in Little Rock, Hermana Quigley had a picture of her brother, Kevin, by her desk and one time she mentioned that it was to remind her that everyone is someone's Kevin.  When she said that, I was really impressed with how well she understands that everyone here in the ALRM is a child of our Heavenly Father.  Even though they're strangers to us, they have family and friends who want them to be happy, and maybe even who are members and want them to have the gospel as well.  I know our purpose as missionaries is so important.  We need to use every minute that we can to help other people to come unto Christ.

I love you all!
Hermana Keller

You can't tell too much, but it's raining a LOT in the background.  This was our Hurricane Harvey.

The Lopez's driveway... Hurricane Harvey.

We decided to keep working during Hurricane Harvey, but it did get pretty cold... so we warmed up with hot chocolate.