Tennessee, Temple, and Transfer.

Hermana Olsen had an appointment in Memphis this week , so we drove by the temple for a picture.
We get to go inside during our birthday month, but it's getting closed in the fall,
 so I may not be able to go again during my mission.  :(

And then we drove by my Uncle Lawrence's house.  He's my Grandma Sylvia's little brother.  It was pretty disappointmenting that they weren't home - so I left a note.  But, I mean, that happens to us a lot.  He's kind of in the far northwest part of Memphis so I don't know if I'll be able to go back.  But that was fun.

So, yeah... I'm going to Memphis to be with Hermana Petty!  I've spent all of my mission so far (except for 10 days in Batesville) in Little Rock, so I'm excited about a change!.  I'm sad to be leaving Little Rock (again) because I love it here, but I know Hermana Quigley will take care of it.  I think Hermana Quigley will do an amazing job of taking over Little Rock.  She works hard, her Spanish is great, she wants the best for our investigators, and she loves the people in Little Rock.  I love Hermana Olson and I am excited for her to do great things in Lakeland. 

Samantha is working on her mission papers had her medical appointments this week! And she was supposed to have her last bishop's interview yesterday. I am so excited for her!! Finals were this past week for my mom and my sister and I'm happy for them that they've started their summer break and will have more time to do fun family things. My sister is putting her availability date as her birthday in August and I'm just so excited for her to be a missionary too!

In the transfer van on Thursday, the ZLs and STLs talked a little about the zone and about how the Hermanas all teach the same because we're just companions with each other. And they talked about how baptism isn't the focus enough in the zone. And I'm excited to take what I learned from them and change and do better! This transfer, I really want to have baptism as a focus all the time and I want to be really in tune with the spirit so that I can always be asking inspired questions. 

On Friday (still in Little Rock), we were biking for a while and we were getting really hot so we decided to take a short break and go inside. So we went to a Hispanic ice cream shop nearby. And not very long after we got there, 5 Jehovah's Witness missionaries came in. And they sat down by us and started talking to us. They were nice and we talked about what we do and they asked why we decided to dedicate our time even though we are young, etc. And they told us a little about what they do. It was a nice chat and they were friendly. And then all of a sudden, after we had been talking to them for a while, they started giving us cards and telling us to check out the website, etc. It was a little unexpected but then we traded and gave them cards too.
             

Jehovah's Witnesses need a break too.  :)  

During zone meeting, I realized how robotic my contacts are because I say the same thing in every one. I ask questions that I don't care about the answer to and I'm not really invested in each potential because each one is the same to me. And that was pretty frustrating to realize. So during one of my studies, I studied the asking questions part of PMG and started a list of questions that I always use. (The list was an invitation from Elder Jorgensen after we talked about how all the contacts are the same) And then I've been working and role playing my contacts and I realized how hard it is to change! It's harder to listen to the spirit and try to ask inspired questions than it is to just ask the same questions all the time. It's definitely still a work in progress, but it's going to get tons better!

Love you all!
Hermana Keller

Good bye, Little Rock, Arkansas!

Rivera's.  Some of my very favorite people.

Lori Lane...on the way to the Barrientos.  Always makes me think of you, Mom!

Relief Society activity right after I found out I was leaving.

We went to the Capital for my last P-day in Little Rock...

Hello Memphis, Tennessee!!!

Thie Mississippi river separates the Little Rock side from the Memphis side.

Petty, Wilson, Hunt, Thornton

Dropping.

This week was a little harder because we had to go to West Memphis for doctor appointments for part of the week.  We've been pretty lacking with New Investigators this transfer, which has been pretty disappointing.  We tried to visit and ended up dropping about 7 potentials this week.  Dropping people is always hard for me.  I just want to keep trying because what if next time they'll be home!  Or what if next time they'll open their door!  But I know that that's not the most effective way to bring people unto Christ.  I know that I need to be spending my time finding the elect and bringing them the message of the restoration.  And I know that when we drop people, we are able to receive the blessings of more new people!  So I'm really looking forward to seeing the blessings that come this week because we dropped those people this last week who weren't ready to hear our message.

Mississippi River...

We also got to see the Memphis Hermanas for a little while on Thursday afternoon and that was fun to be with other Hermanas.  Hermana Quigley's glasses broke on Friday and that was really frustrating for her, so we went to the eye doctor and she ordered new ones.  I hope they come soon!

     

                           

I was studying for Ignacio and Pola, our 2 most progressing investigators. We were finishing the lessons with them so I was studying the families and temples pamphlet for them.  I was just so wowed at how amazing the temple is!  We are so blessed to have so many on the earth right now!  And I am so, so, so blessed to live 15 minutes away at home.  I was just in awe at how much love Heavenly Father has for us that he has given us a place where we can be sealed to our families and the authority to do it.  I want Ignacio and Pola and their son, Angel, to be sealed as a family so much!  During our families and temples lesson, I really just wanted to see their family in white at the temple together.  I feel like I finally really am keeping the end in mind for them!  They still say they want more time before they are baptized because they want to keep learning.  Ignacio says he doesn't want to go less active after a couple of weeks or a couple of months.  I love that he has that desire.

I was reading in Heleman 3 and I really liked in verse 25 where is says, "and so many the blessings which were poured out upon the people, that even the high priests and the teachers were themselves astonished beyond measure." As we've been reading the Book of Mormon as a mission, I've noticed that the phrase, if he keep the commandments of God, ye shall prosper, is found so many times. The Lord promises over and over that when we are righteous, we will be blessed.  Our Heavenly Father loves us so much and everything he does is to help us make right choices so that we can return to live with him one day.  I am so grateful for all the blessings I receive and for the knowledge I have that God is loving.  And I know that when we keep the commandments, even we will be amazed at the blessings that we receive.

Love you all!

Hermana Keller

We always have Friday night dinners at Hermano Benitez's sister's house.  (She makes pupusas, isn't a member of the church, and her husband is he preacher at the evangelical church.)  But we're in with them because of the Benitez's.  LOL!  We eat outside on their patio because that's where she makes them. 
            

Zoo

 

      

Change.

Today was the first real day of the schedule change.  It was so weird.  So p-day was 2 hours longer.  Like from 8-6.  We were done with everything we needed to do so early!  And I was even able to write 3 letters today: to Adele, Janica, and Garrett.  They wrote me in November/December and I felt sooo bad for not having written them back.  And I had like, 10 letters that I had to respond to.  So it felt so good to get those written.  The whole day I felt like i should be stressed and worried about getting everything done.  But at the same time it was so relaxing. 

This transfer, Hermana Macfarlane and I are really working hard to build a better relationship with the members here and earn their trust more.  We found a couple of new ways to serve them this week!  Our Relief Society president, Hermana Roper, works so hard full time as well as goes to school and trying to do her calling.  So this week we brought her some pizza to where she works for lunch to surprise her and that was so good!!

I think I have the best companion there is.  I don't know why I was ever nervous to be her companion.  She really has shown me how to work harder and be better at everything we do.  Something I've really admired about her is her desire to give out copies of the Book of Mormon.  One of her goals is to give out a copy every day before she goes home.  I noticed that maybe I talk about the restoration pamphlet too much and focus on that when we first meet someone, and not the Book of Mormon.  Because she has had that goal, we have been able to tell people about the Book of Mormon more and testify more.
We invited one of our neighbors to church yesterday and she came!  She just came to sacrament meeting, but I think she really felt the spirit.  After, she told us that she had wanted to bear her testimony, but was too nervous, or maybe she wasn't sure if she was allowed to... I can't remember for sure.  But she and the Relief Society president have gotten to be friends a little bit and our neighbor asked if she could tell her testimony to the Relief Society president.  I love them so much and I am so grateful that the Relief Society president is a great friend to our neighbor!   I am 1000% grateful to Hermana Roper for the awesome fellowshipping job she does. 

This week, I had a study that was focused on two less active young women, who we are trying to work on personal progress with.  I was studying about integrity and reading the story of Queen Esther.  I was reminded of how much I love her story.  I especially like in chapter 4, verse 14 when it says, "and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"  And I think I want to help these two girls realize that they too have something that they are meant to do, just like Queen Esther.  And that with God, they can be prepared to do that.  

President Wakolo suggested I read Alma 34, Alma 36, and Psalms 38 to learn more about the Atonement.  I thought I learned a lot preparing for Elder Andersen to come, but I'm realizing more and more how much I don't know, and how much I have to learn about the Atonement.  I have a long way to go.  I liked in Alma 34 how prayer was mentioned a couple of times.  And in verse 17 how we need to exercise faith and repentance and call on His name for help.  I think I am realizing how much help I need in this life.  I am so far from perfect and I make a lot of mistakes.  But thanks to Jesus Christ, it will all be okay.  I like that it says every jot and tittle in verse 13.  I love how he Savior's sacrifice covers everything.  Every stupid little mistake I make and the big ones too.  All of them are covered... every jot and tittle.  I also liked in verse 32 that this life is the time to prepare to meet God.  I think that implies that we have work to do to get to the point where we will meet God, but that we get the opportunity to prepare and be better every day.  When I read verse 38, I felt like I need to be better at humbling myself and accepting the atonement of Jesus Christ.  I want to be better!  The "do not procrastinate" in verse 33 stood out to me too.  In Alma 36, I liked in verse 21 when Alma talks about the feelings of exquisiteness, sweet, joy, and praising God.  I love that when we repent, we feel so great after.  And I want that for myself.  I like in verse 28 when Alma says, he will raise me up in the last day.  I love that Alma's testimony of repentance is so strong.  And that he knows that because of Christ's atonement, he can be raised up in the last day, even though he has made some mistakes.  It makes me feel better to know that I have that potential as well.  And that I am covered by Christ's atonement too.  I am so grateful for that.  In Psalms 38, I liked verse 17.  David says, "I am ready to halt, I will declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin."  I think sometimes the hardest part of repentance is the decision to change... making the choice that I want to be different and be better and align my will with God's.  That's what I want right now.  I really just want to do what God wants me to do.  I want to be better and change.  I also like verses 20 and 21 when David says, "Forsake me not, O Lord: O my God, be not far from me.  Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation."  I love that David is wanting to be helped and seeking for it, and that he's calling on the Lord for that.  I really liked reading these 3 chapters, I learned a lot.  I really want to be a better person and change to always have my will aligned with God's.

We also taught the Guerreros this week.  I really want them to be able to go to the temple soon and get sealed  I was a little straight up savage with them.  I was like:  "Hermana, there are 3 things you need to do to be blessed 1) study the scriptures every day (personally and as a family) 2) pray (personally and as a family) and 3) go to church every week.  How can we help you?  So now we're texting them reminders to read every day.  :)  It's going to be great!

Hermana Guerrero and Ayari
I love them so much!

Spanish Zone Skype Zone Conference!

 

I got this message from President Wakolo today...

Love you!

Hermana Keller

Neil A. Anderson came to visit.

I got letters from the Christensens today and Adele! And Hermana Macfarlane got a letter too.  Today was record breaking!  LOL  Lorna wrote notes on balloons for me to blow up and read, which was fun.  One said: "Wherefore be not weary in well-doing for ye are the foundation of a great work, and out of small things proceedeth that which is great" on one side.  The other side says: "Hermana Keller, remember EVERY effort no matter how small, no matter if we think it's successful or not, is noticed by our Father and will bless us and those we serve.  Keep at it!  <3 U!"  The second balloon says: "Hermana Keller!  Ere you left your room this morning, did you think to pray?  PRAY PRAY PRAY.  And then the third balloon has a face drawn on it.  It was fun to get and really nice to open.  Lorna's things in the mail have been really good: enough to make me happy, but not too much so that I'm trunky.  I thought when I left that I would just not talk to anyone except for Mom for a year and a half, so it's been nice to realize that people miss me!  ha ha

This area is doing good, we're trying to work better with the members this transfer and I think it's really beneficial.  Yesterday, Hermana Macfarlane and I felt like we should go to the temple prep class for Sunday School, and that was really good.  There are actually quite a few Hermanas in the branch preparing to go to the temple soon and I am wanting to start working with one in particular to help her be ready... and help her family to be ready to get sealed as soon as she goes to the temple.

Hermana Macfarlane is working so hard to finish her mission strong.  I hope that one day I can be more like her.  She asked me to trim her hair... scary!!!  

  
Because Hermana Macfarlane is a Sister Training Leader (STL), I frequently go on splits with Hermana Thornton, so I just call her my other companion.  LOL!  My companions and I set some good goals together during weekly planning so that we can be better companions to our companions and be better missionaries too.  Yep, it's confusing to know who is with who for me too!  LOL!

Hermanas MacFarlane, Brown, Keller, Thornton

Our companionship goals are:

1)  Write down a positive thing that our companions do every day.  President Wakolo said to notice all the details, so we are going to write down something we like that our companions do every day that we want to start doing/continue doing/be more like them in that way. 

2)  Question everything they do.  Not in the bad way, but in the way that we want to understand why they do things that they do.  So that we can be better and learn form their experiences too. 

3)  Make sure we share our experiences and knowledge to make sure we are equal parts of our companionships. 

4)  Follow President Wakolo's counsel to have high love with high expectations.  We decided that maybe we are using the unusual situation or our quadpanionship as an excuse to be a little more casual when we are not with our real companions.  That maybe we have been having a high love, medium expectations for each other.  So we want to improve on that. 

5)  Pray for charity and understanding of our companions every morning and every night.  we want to make sure we are helping them feel okay with going home and making that change, so we want to pray for them, and pray to know how we can help them.

6)  Start being happier about the weird situation with our companions.  I think we've not had the best attitude about the interesting situation and I feel badly that we've been not the best about it.  But we are going to be a lot better at that.

I am so excited for these goals.  I think this was the best comp inventory that we have ever had.

While I was in Batesville this week (on splits again), we decided to go up to the college and try to find some youth investigators up there.  TBH... It was so scary to talk to white people. White people are so much meaner.  At least Hispanics pretend to be interested!  We were walking around and were not having any success, so we started to walk home.

Not finding people to teach...

But then we decided that we felt like we hadn't gotten anything from spending our time up at the college so we decided to turn around and try for a little longer.  So we walked back up the hill and saw three people standing kind of behind a tree.  We were like, okay, this is them!  Turns out they are band kids so I was cool with them.  :)  They were nice and kind of nerdy, which was great.  One of them seemed fairly interested in letting "us" (cause I was on splits so it won't really be me) come back.  Her mom is even a less active member!  I am so glad we decided to turn around and try a little bit longer because I really think we found who we needed to find.  She said she has friends that live in Utah and that they have gone on missions.  I think her missionary friends would be happy that we found her and got her info.  I think I would like it if the missionaries in California found Michael, Katie and Alexa, and all of my other friends.

Band geeks are everywhere!

...finding people to teach!

The Relief Society sisters met Zobe this week and they wanted to throw her a baby shower because all her family is in Mexico.  But I think she's due at the end of this week so they wanted to do it tonight.  She wasn't feeling to well though, so she couldn't come and they just made it a branch FHE instead.  I am so impressed at how they were wanting to do that for one non-member neighbor.  I really appreciate the branch Relief Society a lot.  They're awesome!

President Wakolo announced last week during zone conferences that we are now authorized to use Skype and Facetime! The Spanish Zone had a Skype conference call and it was really cool to see everyone. (Well, about half of everyone). Some people's video wasn't working. 

  

Elder Neil A. Anderson came this week and spoke to the whole mission!!!!!  That pretty much never happens because the mission is kinda split into the Little Rock side and the Memphis side.  It was so great to have the entire mission together!!!  

This was quite a big deal.  Elder Anderson was concerned about how much time it would take to gather everyone together and get a decent picture.  President Wakolo assured him that we could do it.  We had strict instructions to get in our places and be picture-ready from the minute we arrived until the picture was taken.  NO GOOFING AROUND!  All the missionaries gathered for the picture, then the mission leadership, then President and Sister Wakolo walked in with Elder and Sister Anderson.  It was super cool to have everyone there together!
Can you find me???

This is where I'm standing.  Now go back to the big picture and you'll find me!  :)  

I was pretty nervous for Elder Anderson to come because I thought I would feel super guilty and like I'm doing a crappy job as a missionary, but I actually felt pretty good.  My main take-away from him was that we need to be more patient with ourselves.  Something he said was along the lines of: I've lived 2 more of your lifetimes and I'm still not perfect.  I liked the emphasis on the fact that we have some much potential.  I have so much potential to be a better person, have more gospel knowledge, etc. and I can't expect to get to my full potential all right now.  I'm only 20 years old, but I do need to make sure that I'm trying as hard as I can to be the best I can be right now.  It was so good!

He said is that we need to be studying the life of Christ (because we're in the South especially) and we can do that by reading the New Testament.  That stuck out to me because at the beginning of my 2nd transfer when I wasn't sleeping well, I got a blessing from Elder Clark.  He said that I would start to sleep better if I studied the life of Christ.  So I decided to start reading the New Testament every day to do that.  So cool to hear that said to me again! 

This week, I studied the Atonement.  I really like in 2 Nephi 9:26 when it says, "and they are restored to that God who gave them breath", because of the word restored.  I think a lot of the time when I think about the Atonement, I just feel a little bad about how imperfect I am and how far I need to go before I can be like our Heavenly Father.  But I like the word restored because it implies our potential.  It reminds me that our Heavenly Father doesn't see the imperfectness in me he sees my potential and all that I can become.  And I really like that!  

Love you all!
Hermana Keller

P.S.  Since we'd never met a couple of the other Hermanas before the big Mission Conference with Elder Anderson, Hermana Thornton and I decided to text the them to let them know how excited we were to meet them.  You know... #hermanasrock...

As soon as we hit send, we realized that we weren't positive if the number we had used was for the Elders or the Hermanas...  

 

LOL!!!!  #mostawkwardmissionexperienceever

Seems like a good place to put this picture!  LOL!

Have a great week!