Davids party.

Only 2 more weeks until Samantha leaves on her mission and I am so excited for her!

Memphis is a great place to be.  We are working with so many less actives and inactives and I'm excited to see the progress that they have. We're going through another investigator drought right now where only a couple of them are solid but we set a goal during our interviews with President Hansen to spend at least one hour every day finding, so we're making sure we get that done.  The STLs came for studies on Saturday and we discussed how to love the branch members more in order to improve our relationship with them.  There are so many people in the branch that were baptized and immediately stopped attending.  So I understand that it would be hard to want to support the missionaries and want baptisms when all the ones that have already happened are so hard to get back. The East elders have an investigator that is going to get baptized next weekend but they need to get married first.  The branch president won't marry them because he's married so many people in the past for their baptisms and then they go inactive.  So the bishop of another ward is going to marry them.  It's all a little frustrating.  We are doing our best right now to help the branch feel our support and our love first so that they will have a desire to help us and it's working okay for now.  If any of you have any other suggestions, we'd love to hear them!

Miguela is doing great and fed us dinner this week.

We play soccer every Saturday with our investigators and some people from the branch and she is helping me get better because I am very much not good.  Haha  But I think I've improved in the past month thanks to Hermana Petty.  She is very good at talking to people.  We were at a birthday party this week and she helped not make it awkward by talking to everyone.  I really appreciated it and I think they did too.  We have been taking half bike days the past couple of days because at seems to work better for us than full bike days.  We have been biking to all the places close by and then driving to the far away places.  Or we have taken our bikes on our bike rack to a place that's further away and then biked in the area.  It's been good and we've saved a lot of miles so we're planning on doing that more.  President Hansen has asked that we give 10% of our miles "back to the church", so we're trying to think of new ways to save miles by using our bikes without getting too worn out.

Using the bike rack.

A miracle has happened this week with one of the hermanas' recent converts, the Ramos!  Three kids in a part member family got baptized in July of 2016 but they haven't been to church since February and they haven't let the Hermanas go in to teach them since about October.  We've heard it's because a missionary offended them.  :(   So it's been really hard for us to get back on their good side.  Also at the beginning of July, they moved a little further away.  Because of that, we haven't been able to stop by nearly as often.  Usually when we stop by, we say hi or leave a note if they don't answer. Sometimes it's just the 16 year old son, Jose, and we've read in the Book of Mormon with him.  But he never reads it on his own.  Last Sunday, we went over to say hi for probably the 100th time during my 3 transfers here.  Surprisingly, Hermana Ramos was home and she let us in!  And then they let us share a message!  It was my first time teaching them in their house. They participated and then Hermana Ramos told us she will be coming to church next Sunday.  She had to work and an appointment yesterday, but they are coming this week.  She told us that without us even asking about it!  Then we asked if we could maybe come by for dinner with them and she said yes!  We went over on Wednesday and we were so nervous that they wouldn't actually be there.  But it turned out to be a birthday party for her other son, David, who is 17 and has special needs.  It was so fun and it was so good to be with them and not be pressuring them about gospel things.  On Saturday, Jose came to our soccer night!  We've made so much progress with them in the past week, it's been a miracle.

David's party.

This week, I read Ether.  Every time I read it, I can't believe how wicked they were to have gone against the advice of the brother of Jared and how horrible the consequences are for them because they chose to have kings.  This time as I was reading, I had the thought that for them, kings are their idols.  Usually, the thing that is an idol isn't necessarily bad.  Like today, money, cars, etc. are usual types of idols.  Money isn't bad and cars aren't bad.  They can be very good when we are righteous.  The same goes for a king.  All of those things become bad, however, when we let the natural man take over.  When we follow the temptations of Satan, then he can change so many good things to being harmful to our spirits.  When Satan is in charge, cars, money, and kings are all bad things and that's why it's so important to follow the prophet.  Because he helps us to follow what Heavenly Father wants us to do, rather than fall into Satan's traps. 

Love you all! 

Hermana Keller

District Meeting.
Elders Smalley, Anaya, Merrill, Sotomarina, Hermanas Keller & Petty.

Happy ONE YEAR!  From Hermana Petty.

Pink Palace for P-day.

Inside the Pink Palace.
Elders Anaya & Merrill, Hermanas Petty, & Keller, Elders Sotomarino & Smalley.

Rocio.

Samantha went to the new Provo MTC open house with her friends and is so excited to leave on her mission in a month!  I'm so excited for her too!

The members in this area recently have been having a hard time helping us and giving support so this week Hermana Petty and I started heart-attacking them.  We've been writing things like "you're the best" and "we love you" and "thank you so much for everything you do for us" on pass along cards and sticky notes and leaving them on their door or car.  So far, we've done it to 4 families and they have loved it!  We are hoping that if we show our appreciation to them and make them feel good, they'll want to help support us and want to go teaching with us and be fellowshippers to our investigators.  We are doing our best to show the Branch President that we are working hard. 

Akari's birthday this week.

Love my companion!

We played soccer again this week and all the members love Hermana Petty so much.  They don't only love her because she's good at soccer, but it's definitely a bonus.  She is really good at helping other people feel loved and it was her idea to heart-attack people.  Like I said last week, Memphis will be really sad when she leaves. 

Heart-attacking the Garcia's

We have an investigator, Rocio, that we teach at the church because she doesn't have AC so she doesn't want us to come over to her house. For a while we were worried because we didn't have her address so we were hoping that she wouldn't ever drop us or just drop off the face of the earth.  We had asked for her address before, but she didn't want to tell us.  But then one day, she brought us a letter that she got in the mail about her citizenship test so that we could translate it for her.  While Hermana Petty was translating, I got out my iPad and wrote down her address just in case we would need it in the future.  Well, about a week and a half ago, she cancelled our appointment and didn't text us back about setting a new appointment.  So we had the brilliant idea of going and knocking her street this week.  That way we could come into contact with her again and maybe we could teach her at her house.  We did that on Thursday and it was so fun because she was so shocked that we knocked on her door.   We told her we were just knocking on doors on her street looking for people that would be interested in our message. (Which was true.)  She let us in and we talked and set an appointment for the next day.  She still wants to meet at the church, but it's okay because at least we didn't "lose" someone who was actually interested!

Teaching Rocio.

This week I was studying commitments and I really like Alma 5:26 when it says, "Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life."  All of the commitments that I extend should lead to an invitation to act.  And that invitation should lead my investigators, members, etc. to repentance and come unto Christ.  Our message is so important and the goal is to help other people partake of the fruit but they can't if we don't invite them.  Even though it's so hard, I need to be bold about it.  My boldness when extending invitations shows my faith and brings blessings.   And if I am bold with love when extending invitations, I will see miracles. 

Love you all!

Hermana Keller

At Zone Conference... with matching shoes.  :)  

Photo shoot with a stop sign that fell down.  jaja

Banged up.

I am so blessed to have such a supportive family and I love them a lot.




THIS HOME IS CATHOLIC

We don't accept Protestant propaganda or from any other sects.

Long live Christ King!

Long live the miraculous Saint Jude Tadeo!

jaja okay... #noidols #noothergodsbeforeme lol

I really love this area a lot.  However, the branch president struggles because of all the missionaries that have baptized people into inactivity by pressuring them to much.  I want him to feel like he can trust us and that we are working hard so we are doing our best to work with the branch list and find the inactives as well as trying to bring solid investigators to church.


I really appreciate the great companions I've had.  On Saturday night, we were having a soccer night because hispanics all love soccer.  We were playing and Hermana Petty is very good and they all loved it.  She even scored two goals.  The members and investigators all love Hermana Petty here and I think they'll be really sad when she eventually leaves.




We had exchanges this week.  The 3 appointments canceled so we just contacted potentials all day.  That wasn't my favorite because we didn't get to teach at all, but I ended up finding two hispanics to talk to!  One man was in a truck and I talked to him for a few minutes and gave him a card and invited him to church and our English class.  I also got his number so that the Spanish elders could call him.  Then about 2 minutes later I saw another lady sitting outside her house with her son so I went to talk to her.  She said she grew up Catholic but doesn't really go to church now.  She said she would like to come to church so her kids could learn about Jesus! (Her kids are 14, 11 and 9)   She was totally willing to have the missionaries come by again!  I am kind of sad that she lives more in the east Elder's area and that we never have enough miles to go over there so we had to refer her family. But it's ok because as long as she gets to hear the gospel, that's all that matters.

Exchanges wtih the English Sisters ? and ?.  

We were riding our bikes because it's bike week and we were coming up to an apartment complex on our left. Hermana Petty was in front of me and a red car was coming out of the apartments.  They stopped and I assume they looked both ways and I assumed that they had seen Hermana Petty... because how do you not see two girls in skirts biking on a Sunday evening??  Hermana Petty kept biking because the car had stopped and then the car started moving forward again.  Next thing I knew, my companion was kind of sprawled across the hood of this lady's red car!  She then rolled off and was a little tangled in her bike.  I panicked because this is not something normal and also it sounded like she hit the car hard.  I stopped my bike and ran over to see if she was ok when the car inched forward a little.  I thought the lady was just going to drive away!  But she didn't and she got out to see if Hermana Petty was okay.  I looked at Hermana Petty's leg and there was already a huge bruise from her knee almost all the way down to her ankle and it looked pretty bad.  But Hermana Petty handled it like a champ.  The police came and after everything was over, we came home so she could rest her leg because the bruise was pretty bad.  I hope she doesn't ever get hit by a car again because that was pretty dramatic.

Hermana Petty recuperating.

I got stung by a bee on Friday afternoon... so we're both kinda beat up right now.  jaja

I was studying Extend Commitment Invitations in Preach My Gospel.  I liked the parts where it was talking about how commitment is an essential part of repentance because it is the act of obliging oneself to a course of action and then diligently following through.  As a Spanish missionary, my investigators are a little different than an English missionary.  I've never been told by a Hispanic person that they've already been saved.  It's also very rare that they actually tell us that they're not interested.  Usually, they are very nice to our face and tell us that they agree and that they love our message and then they don't actually care or do anything about it.  Or they'll set a return appointment and when we come back they look at us through the window and don't answer.  So the commitments are very important.  When I ask any of my investigators to do something, they usually say they will.  But then a lot of times they don't actually do it.  That's because they don't "diligently follow through."  When someone is genuinely committed they have real intent and they fully intend to do the thing I ask them to do, whether it be reading, praying, etc.  But when they are not genuinely committed, they don't have real intent and therefore aren't fully ready to hear the gospel yet.  So even though my investigators won't tell me whether or not they are interested, I can know by whether or not they are keeping their commitments.




Love you all!

Hermana Keller

Water break at McDonald's.

Photoshoot @ Big Daddy Pawn Shop.