Exchanges and Cupcakes

Buenos dias, y'all!

This week I went on three exchanges: Sister Woolley in Southaven, Sister Chappele from Oxford, and Sister Jones from Collierville.

As part of the Oxford exchange, several other missionaries and I set up an information booth on the campus at Ole Miss University. At first it was kind of hard to get people to stop and talk to us, but after a little while it wasn't so hard. I wound up loving it! It was really fun and a lot more successful than I imagined.

In Collierville, we stopped by a cupcake place called "Small Cakes." The owner is married to a friend of a member so we thought that would be a good contact to develop. :)  

This week I have been working on 10 questions of the soul that have answers found in the Book of Mormon. It's been really cool to look for those answers because I knew they were in there, but I didn't realize that there are so many scriptures that have the answers.

Some of the questions I've been answering are Does God answer prayers?, What does Jesus Christ expect of me?, and Why does God allow evil and suffering to occur? This activity has strengthened my testimony so much that the Book of Mormon really does answer questions of the soul and really is another testament of Jesus Christ. On my mission, I've learned that we really do draw closer to God when we read it and I've learned how important it is to read from the Book of Mormon every day. I will never stop reading it!

          Have a great week!
          Love, Hermana Keller

Exchanges in Southaven with Sister Woolley

Booth in Oxford at Ole Miss

Elder Morris, Sister Hansen, yo, Sister Guthrie, Sister Chapple, Sister Friend, President Hansen, Elder Gunnell at the booth

In the car with President Faulkner

In the car with President Faulkner

"Small Cakes"

Becoming a Preach My Gospel Missionary

Hi Everybody!

In district meeting this week, we were invited to read "Becoming A Preach My Gospel Missionary" so I did that during one of my studies. I really liked requirement #4: Preach My Gospel missionaries understand the Holy Ghost is the ultimate and true teacher.

I was thinking the other day about all the people I've seen change on my mission and what happened to make them change. And I realized that I haven't really done anything for these people, I've just been there as a witness of their change. I have a testimony that the Holy Ghost needs to be the senior companion. And we just need to be there to bring the spirit so it can teach and change them.

          Have a great week! 

Exchange in Southaven with Sister Ferguson

Tracting struggles, spiritual answers

While with Sister Brumett, we decided to go knock on a door after our appointment. A girl that looked about 17 answered the door and she was super nice. We talked for a bit and even shared a scripture with her from the Book of Mormon. It all went really well and we set up a return appointment for the next day to come and teach her whole family. 

Later that night, I saw we had a missed call so I called the number back and said we had a missed call from that number. A woman answered but gave the phone to a man. He proceeded to almost yell at us for stopping by and talking to his granddaughter. He said we shouldn't have made her read from our book and he knows what we believe and wants nothing to do with it. It wasn't very nice. But I apologized and told him it wasn't our intention to offend him so I think I handled it pretty ell.

This week, I did a scripture study in chapter 4 of Preach My Gospel. The questions, concerning missionary work, were: Where should I go? What should I do? What should I say? And then the scriptures had the answers! I figured that the scriptures would say something along the lines of: you should go where the Spirit directs you, you should do what the Spirit tells you to do, and you should say what the Spirit tells you to say. And I was right! :) 

The Spirit is so important in missionary work. The longer I am a missionary, the more I realize I have no idea what I'm doing and how much I need the Spirit. Only with the Spirit can I find all that the Lord has prepared to hear His gospel and if I follow the Spirit 100% of the time, I will see miracles.

          Have a great week! Love, Hermana Keller

Preach My Gospel

This week I did the activity on pg. 96 of Preach My Gospel where I read a lot of scriptures about the Holy Ghost. I studied them on my iPad so I was able to mark them and use tags to link them all together, which I thought was way awesome. I love how much missionary work is centered on having the Spirit with us. 

Preach My Gospel says, "Your task is to live worthily, pray fervently, and learn to recognize and follow courageously the Spirit's guidance." We missionaries can't really do much without the Spirit's guidance. But as long as we do those things and have the Spirit with us, there will be miracles and we will be able to do the Lord's work.

          Love, Hermana Keller

The district
Elder Peterson, Elder Pincock, Elder Garn, Sister McNall, Hermana Keller, Elder Miller, Elder Anderson, Elder Toomer 

Exchange with Sister Zollinger

The snow that kept us in the apartment for a day and a half😂😂

So we made bread for people 

.....the small one was for us to make sure it tasted good😂 

Tag picture for my Mama

Confirmations!

On Sunday morning, we got a call from Brother Von Gunten. He said that he had just picked Ava up from her cousins' house and she was still in her pajamas! It was about 5 minutes before the sacrament meeting where she and her brother Ethan were supposed to be confirmed! So he dropped off Ethan and took Ava to get ready for church, and made it back just before the meeting ended. 

I thought the Ethan's confirmation blessing was especially cool because a mission and going to the temple were mentioned several times. And then in Ava's blessing, it was mentioned that she would be an example for her family. What a great day!

As I was reading the Book of Mormon this week, I learned in Alma 59 that it's easier to maintain a city than to retake one. Because of this, Moroni put a lot of work and effort into fortifying the cities the Nephites already had. And then when the Lamenites came, they were surprised at how well prepared the Nephites were and they were afraid. 

Just like the Nephites, we need to be prepared and fortify our cities for when Satan comes. That's why it's so important to help members stay faithful and active always. Because it will be easier to strengthen them in the church than to help the, come back after they have fallen away.

          Have a great week! Love, Hermana Keller

Exchange with Sister Ferguson

Ava, Ethan, and Brother von Gunten

Us and Ava

Happy New Year!

"Bear Lake" Service. Merry Christmas!

We were going to Olive Branch to do service for toys for tots on Friday and it was raining so hard! It was really hard to see and there was a lot of flooding. 

The service project was in a warehouse and we were getting lost but as we got closer there was a BIG puddle, probably like a good sized pond. I called it Bear Lake, after the huge lake near where my family lives in Utah.  :) We started to drive though it, but it was SUPER deep and the water splashed a little onto the hood of our car. We quickly turned around and got out of there! 

But then we called the Collierville sisters and found out that the service project was on the other side of the pond. We thought they had driven through it so after we watched another small car successfully go through the puddle, we decided to go for it. It was pretty deep, but we made it across! And then it turned out that it wasn't near as deep when the Collierville sisters went through it and it drained by the time we left so no one else had to do that or even saw it. We took a video though, so we have proof that it happened.

*"Bear Lake" video will go here

This week as I was reading in the Book of Mormon, the last part of verse 30 in Alma 49 stuck out to me. "Being baptized unto repentance, and sent forth to preach among the people." Even in Book of Mormon times, preaching repentance and baptizing converts was the goal. When a person has truly learned repentance and been baptized because they are converted, they will never, ever fall away. This is what happened to Helaman, Shiblon, Corianton, and Ammon, and they never went less active. That's why it's so important for me to be continually repentant and teach my investigators how to repent, so that we never become less active.

Exchanges with Southaven- Hermana Keller with Sister Woolley, Sister Zollinger with Sister McNall

Caroling

Dropping off Christmas

Cavesha's baptism

More Cavesha's baptism

Trusting God

This week, as we were on our way to a meeting on Friday, we had just crossed the Mississippi and were in West Memphis, when we saw a car straddling the lane line. It was very odd but then it kind of drifted back over towards the far side of it's lane so President Faulkner sped up to pass it. Right as we were in the car's blind spot, it started drifting back towards us. The car got really close to our car. President Faulkner started honking the horn and Sister Johnston started yelling that the driver was asleep. It was so scary but right before he hit us, he started drifting the other way. We called 911 to let them know and said a prayer for him. I am so glad Heavenly Father watches out for his missionaries!

In my BoM reading this week, I read Alma 38 and I love verse 5:

And now my son, Shiblon, I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

I think trusting in God is one of the biggest lessons I've learned on my mission. It's not enough for me to trust him most of the time or even 99% of the time. But when I give him my all and fully submit my will to his, then that's when I'll be delivered from my trials. And with that, every burden can be made light, sadness can be made happy, and we will be lifted up at the last day. And all of that just because God is our loving Heavenly Father!

Exchanges with Oxford

Welcome to Memphis

Merry Christmas from Hermana Keller and Sister McNall

Being Better Leaders and Servants

This week, the zone leaders called and asked us to read Matt. 20:25-28. After we did, they asked us to think about what we can do to be better leaders and better servants. I studied that one day this week, and as I was clicking on the footnotes on my iPad, I saw something that talked about humility and then something else about repentance in relation to those verses. So the answer I came up with about how I can be a better leader is by being humble and continually repentant. I think that's important because those are the things I need to do to have the spirit with me.

On my mission, I've been so surprised at how I don't actually know what I'm doing. I'm still only 21 years old, but Heavenly Father trusts me to help him bring salvation to his children. I don't want to mess up. But what I'm learning is that as long as I have the spirit with me, then I won't mess up. The key to being a successful missionary is living worthy of the spirit always so that He can always tell us what to do. And I think the same thing applies with a leadership position. I need to be constantly worthy of the spirit so I can know what the best way to serve those around me is.

Exchanges: Sister Jones, Hermana Keller, Sister Smith

Paint Memphis! :)

  

Headed to West Memphis. Fun fact: West Memphis is a town in Arkansas! LOL. It's across the Mississippi River from Memphis, TN. We had to go across to West Memphis to get our TIWI fixed. 

Headed back to Memphis, TN. Fun fact #2: TIWI is a device that are in the missionaries' cars that monitors driving and reminds them not to speed, etc.

Exchange, Gabriella's baptism photos

I was on exchanges this week with the Russellville Hermanas, working with Hermana Colwell in the Russellville area. We had planned to go see some less active members. The first one wasn't home, so we went and talked to some kids that were playing by the apartment next door. We gave them some stickers and showed them the Light the world video, and then asked them where they lived so we could go talk to their mom. They showed us, so we went and knocked. She was on her way out the door, so we just set a return appointment but then I looked inside her house and saw a Finding Faith in Christ
pass along card taped to the cabinet in her kitchen! It was so cool!

None of the other less actives we had planned to see were there either but we were able to set up return appointments with two more women we saw outside. It  was so cool and I know Heavenly Father leads us to where we need to be.

Memphis: Sunset coming on

Little Rock Mission Hermanas Skype call

Gabriella

Hermana Keller, Gabriella in baptism whites, Hermana Petty

Hermana Keller, Gabriella in baptism whites, Hermana Robles

After the baptism: Hermana Keller, Hermana Petty, Gabriella, ward member

Las Hermanas at Gabriella's baptism: ?, Keller, Petty, Robles

Gabriella!

In May, on my first day here in Memphis, we found investigator, Gabriella. We happened to bring one of our branch members with us to visit Gabriealla, which was about 2 weeks after she began learning with us. That turned out to be our last visit with her. After the visit she dropped us because her husband didn't want us to come back. 

It was really sad to be dropped by her because we felt she was so ready to hear the gospel. She did say that she would keep reading in the Book of Mormon though, and I left with the feeling that she would join the church one day.

In August, Gabriella and her two kids walked into church with the same member that had gone to visit with her us back in May! We've been working with her ever since! She and
her kids love church, and she has become our top investigator!

Recently, she's really wanted to get baptized but has been really scared to ask her husband. After a lot of waiting and praying for a miracle, she did it! The first time she asked (about 3 weeks ago) he said he would think about it. She asked him again this
week and he said yes!! There have been so many miracles with Gabriella and she is getting baptized on Saturday!

Last Saturday,we were pretty far from our apartment and all of our plans fell through. We didn't want to go home because we had an appointment later that night in the area we were in. So we decided to go try looking up some less active members. We looked on our Area Book Map clicked on the person closest to us, then went to the house and knocked on the door.

Right after we knocked, someone pulled up in a car. We waved, and they dropped off a boy that looked our age. He walked over to us, and when he got to the door, another boy about our age opened it and they both tried to open the glass outer storm door but it wouldn't open. The boy inside said, "go around to the back door," so the boy outside left and the boy inside closed the door. All this happened in about 30 seconds with us standing right there. It was so weird and we didn't know what to do so we knocked again.

The boy that was outside before came and opened the door and said, "she'll be right out." We were a little confused because we were looking for a teenage girl and an adult man and we didn't know either of them. After a few minutes, they both came back and said, "do you want to leave something or...." And we said, "actually we're looking for Juliana or Iriel Velches." It turned out they don't live there anymore but we left them with a Light the World card.

Our trip to NYC lol

Our district in the parking lot at the church.

Elder Smalley, Elder Diaz, Elder Sotomarino, Elder Short, Hermana Keller, Hermana Robles

Lani Barrios

The Barrios girls