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.

Umbrella prompting.

Samantha leaves on her mission in one month.  I am so excited for her!

Memphis is the best area.  We started a miracle chain where we write down a miracle that has happened every day and make a chain out of it so that at the end of this transfer, we will have had 42 miracles.  We are also working on the branch list as missionaries and trying to find out if people live where they are on the roster or not and it has been really effective in looking for investigators!  There are so many people that we don't know where they went and it is so sad.  But we knock on a door and ask if someone lives there.  They usually don't so we introduce ourselves to the people that live there now.  Then we do the same thing with their neighbors around that house/apartment.  It's a really great way to start talking with someone!

Just a random photo op.  :)

Hermana Petty is so great!  She is really good at setting goals and following through with them.  When we went on exchanges with the Spanish STLs last transfer, they were doing something where at the end of the day, they complimented each other based on something that had happened that day.  For example if they had noticed that their companion had really good Spanish that day, they would tell her right before bed.  Hermana Petty decided she wants us to do it to and it's really fun.

We had 29 people come to our English class this week!!!
I think that's a record for our mission!

We had an investigator from our English class and the last time we taught her, it rained super hard when we were leaving so she gave us her umbrella to borrow.  We haven't seen her in about three weeks because she canceled 2 of our appointments and hasn't really come to English class.  The couple of times that she has come, she and her husband have been late and have left right after so we still had her umbrella in our car this week.  On Friday, we were coming in at about 8:30 to put in lessons because we were behind and I saw the umbrella and had the thought to go visit her.  We were tempted to not go see her because we had a lot of lessons to put in and we were already home but we decided to go and see how she was and return her umbrella.  We had bought that maybe she didn't like our message or something happened because that's what usually has happened when people stop talking to us, so we were really nervous to knock on the door.  But we did it and when she answered, she was so happy to see us!  It turns out that she and her family had just been sick and hadn't been able to come to English class.  We talked for a while and she ended up giving us plums and peaches that were really good and we have an appointment for Monday!




This week during my studies, I decided to study the Atonement for 3 days and it was awesome!  I also decided to not focus so much on the more negative part of the Atonement, like the suffering of Jesus Christ, but the positive part like Christ's grace and mercy.  There is a part in the Bible Dictionary that says that all are covered unconditionally from the fall of Adam because of the Atonement, but the Atonement is conditional in regards to each individual's sins.  I was able to realize a little more what it means to be free from the Fall and be accountable for my own sins.  I am so grateful for the Atonement and I really want to help the less actives in our branch, in particular, understand the Atonement as well.  It's so sad to me that there are so many people here that have been baptized but for some reason or another they have fallen away.  I really want to help them understand that because of the Atonement, we all still have a personal responsibility for our salvation.  But we can earn that salvation because of Jesus Christ.

Love you all!

Hermana Keller

Hermana McNall's birthday lunch and Pottery 2.0

Most shocking thing ever... I had NO IDEA traffic lights were this big!