Elder Keller & Elder Phillips in Sao Paulo

Elder Keller & Elder Phillips in Sao Paulo

Monday, September 28, 2015

#56 September 28, 2015

Alright this week went great! Last week I didnt talk a lot about the investigators cuz I needed to give my awesome mom the credit she deserves! So this week I will spend more time on them! 

So Sonia is totally fine and came to church this Sunday. She is awesome! It was pooring rain and she comes by bus every week because she didn't want a member to have to come get her. Until this week at least, cuz we kept insisting and it was raining cats and dogs! haha. But she is doing great, no coffee, reads the BOM every day and loves the church! And the members are doing good with her! 

Lucas and Eli had to go to Paraná this week, the state above us, to get their documents for marriage so they couldnt go to church but they are awesome! Eli had left her Book of Mormon at the church last sunday and we had a visit with them on monday night. When we got there she was freaking out because she told us she still hadnt read that day and her day was just going horrible and she needed to read. So we left her with another copy and went back to the church to get hers but i thought it was so interesting. Eli truly sees the importance that The Book of Mormon has in her life, so much that she was going crazy after just not being able to read it when she woke up one morning. If every member including me had that kind of attitude about the scriptures could you think about how different things would be? But it totally makes sense! Even on the mission I sometimes have a ton of things I have to worry about and I dont have that absolute number one priority of read the scriptures. But that has got to be at the top! 

But i am super excited for conference this weekend. I always thought my parents were weird for loving conference weekend so much but now I can't wait to see what they have to say to us this week. Conference always seems to answer my doubts and questions! Granted there have only been about two that I have really wanted to pay attention to but in these last two I felt that even though it was for a whole general audience, it was exactly for me! So go into conference with an attitude of learning and we will come out with the knowledge that we need to be able to perfect ourselves a little bit more in these next six months. 

But we found some pretty cool new people to teach! One guy was a cool little experience, his name is Ricardo. So one day we had to walk super far to get back home because we had to get home and then go to the church that night. Anyways halfway home we realize Elder Moore left his umbrella and we had to walk all the way back to go get it and we were in a hurry. But then we start walking home again and as soon as we get back to the point where we had previously gotten, we here someone yelling, "hey mormons!". We turn around and theres a tall skinny white guy yelling at us in english to go talk to him. Anyways, he was drunk becuase he just got a divorce and is super depressed and lost in life but we ended up marking with him and visited him the next day and he is a good guy. I dont know how far it will go but it shows how the Lord is in charge and knows what needs to happen in our lives. 

I am going over to Bucks house to make cinamon roles for p day! gonna be a blast! I am loving Joinville! 

But love you all and hope you have an awesome week! 

Elder Keller 

Monday, September 21, 2015

#55 September 21, 2105

Well I gotta be quick but this week was awesome! President came back this week for a zone conference so as usual it was spiritually great! The guy has such spiritual power! 

We talked about working with the members, something that Elder Moore is teaching me a lot out here. And we also talked about our heroes in our lives and president used some awesome stories! His point was what are we doing everything we could in our lives to be like our heroes? And more importantly who are our heroes? He then broke down examples of all the great men in the book of mormon and we talked about what they did to become the men they were and how we need to do the same things! It was an awesome meeting! 

President has worked in the church educational system his whole life so he has just worked with the scriptures! He is a genius with them! 

But one thing I am super thankful for is the amazing mom that i have! Special shout out and a happy birthday to the best mom ever, Aimee Keller! 

President always says behind every great man there is usually a better woman! And that is so true! Every talks about how awesome Dad is all the time but like he always says he wouldnt be that way if it werent for mom. And I dont know why I was blessed with such an awesome mom but I thank Heavenly Father for her every day! She never gives into the glory of man and she has always been humble and done her best in everything that has ever been handed to her. Even me the punk kid Elder Keller and I know that I would be totally lost today with my mom! 

I look at other parents out here on the mission and one thing i have found is that it is really hard to find a mom as good as mine! Unfortunately because I was so lazy before the mission she basically did everything for me and made me who I was and I will always be so grateful for that. She is such a hard worker and is a perfect example of dilligence and enduring to the end! The more time out here the more time I realize women are the experts and they are the ones that teach the men. We get the responsibilities and the Priesthood cuz we have so much to learn and that is why we need an awesome wife with an awesome foundation! Moms are so important! 

But mom thank you so much for everything you have done for me and our family! You are the best mom in the world! Hope you had a good Birthday! Oh and that mom and dad, you guys had a good aniversary!

Well everyone I hope you guys have an awesome week! Love and miss you all!  

Love, Elder Keller 

Monday, September 14, 2015

#54 September 14, 2015 Floripa

This week was sweet! Moore and I got to go into Florianópolis for the counsel this week with President and it was totally awesome as usual! 

Florianópolis is a gorgeous city! I hope I get more time there but at least now we will be able to go in more often for counsel meetings! Super excited for that! 

But President talked a lot about how we cant fear man before fearing God. Members here are great people but rules in Brasil arent on the top of the priority list. So a lot of the time that is how a missionary ends up breaking a rule, because they want the member to like them and so they just go along with it. He talked about how we need to realize that when we are on Gods side we dont need to worry about anything! Things will always work out for the better. 

He also talked a lot about our heros in life. How in our day to day decisions we have to think about those people and ask ourselves how would they act in the situations that we encounter every day. And I think that is just awesome advice. He talked about Helaman chapter 5 and the reasons that the word remember is in there so many times is becuase one of our biggest problems as the natural man is forgetting! And we cant forget! We have to always remember what the Lord has done for us and that he will continue to bless us if we keep the commandments! 

One of the coolest things I noticed at the Conference was that the spirit there was really powerful! And it was a little bit different than the other times we are with President but I think it was because all the missionaries there were the ones who are doing their best be obey, follow President, and just all in all be a good missionary. And it was super cool to be able to see that! President Silva talks about how a lot of the time, just a few disobedient missionaries are the cause of a mission not reaching its true potential. 

But people wise was great this week as well! Sonia stopped drinking coffee, awesome! Cevada here is a drink that is very similar to coffee but isnt against the word of wisdom. Thanks mom for the advice! Totally worked! But now the biggest problem is her family. All her kids are super against the church and so she is afraid to lose her kids if she gets baptized so we moved the baptismal date back to october. She already has one daughter that hasnt spoken to her in a few years becuase of a church she started following. Super sad! They are all older and have families but hopefully we can figure that out. Pray for the Lord to be able to soften her kids hearts! Oh and Sonia is in Helaman in the Book of Mormon already!

Lucas and Eli as usual are awesome! We had an awesome experience with Eli. It was just like how it should be with every investigator who is an elect. We talked about testimonies of the Book of Mormon and she has been reading it like crazy! And she started talking to us about how her life and her families life has changed one hundred percent because of the church and the scriptures and then she said, "And I can say that I know the Book is true for myself now. I know it's true, I know it's true and nothing that happens in my life will be able to make me deny that."

That is the phrase that every missionary wants to hear! haha. So they are doing great! We are going to visit them tonight with the stake seminary teacher and her husband so that should be awesome! Lucas is doing good and we challenged them to establish a date for their wedding in November and work to be able to have Lucas walking by then! 

So yeah the week was great! Thanks to Elder Moore who is a pro at working with members the ward is totally turning around! We talked to Bishop this week because he works by our house and the ward now is going to be doing a 40 day fast to help the missionary work and the unity in the ward get better. So one member or family will pick one of the forty days and fast on that day and then on the last day we will have a big activity to end the fast so that will be awesome! And the ward is fired up about it! 

But anyways things are going great here! We have a Zone Conference with President this week so that should be awesome! But I love and miss you all so much and hope everything is going great! Have an awesome week! 

Elder Keller 

Monday, September 7, 2015

#53 September 7, 2015 Member Missionary Work

This week was really great! We are starting to get our heads back on straight after getting the other area and finding all the other investigators. 

Sonia didnt come to church this week so we are going to try to run by there tomorrow really quickly to see what happened. 

But Lucas and Eli and their family are totally great! Hopefully he can get walking before november so that they can get married! But the family is totally integrated already. Their oldest daughter Barbara is 15 and already going to seminary and wants to serve a mission which is totally awesome! And the kids are totally catching onto the gospel super fast! It is great! Their six year old kid Brayan stole the gospels principles book and took it to school cuz he likes to practice reading with it. haha turns out his teacher was from a different ward in joinville and found him with it and then they started reading it to the class haha! Already a missionary! 

But to be honest Joinville is very different! I think it will probably be the hardest area people wise of my mission because no one lets us in here! So that brings me to the subject of member missionary work. I feel like everyone talks about it and says we need to do it but no one really does it! I totally love the ward here and all the people are super great if we get someone to church but everyone is afraid to share the gospel with others and we cant be like that! The best family here is the recent converts of two years who talk about it to everyone! But all the returned missionaries who went through the same process as us years ago come back and lose the fire and I am trying to figure out what happens. Elder Moore is an awesome comp and so that helps a ton and he has been really good at working with the members in his past areas so hopefully he will be able to show as how to light a spark in a ward! But really it is very difficult to get anywhere without members. We find new people and we knock tons of doors but it is a bunch of people who end up not having a ton of interest and we end up trying to find the next group of people. But Sonia and Lucas´s family who were references from members are doing great! 

I feel sometimes like we always try to look for ways to gain the glory of man. I still do that all the time and I have a lot to work on with that. But one big lesson I learned this week is that in the church we arent here to get the glory of man! Like Uchtorf teaches us we need to "lift where we stand"! The role of the members is to find and the missionaries is to teach. There shouldnt be this talk of "wow that missionary was so much better, he found everyone!" No one in the church should be getting the glory. Heavenly Father gets the glory, not us! We all just gotta work to play our part! 

I hope that I dont fall into the same thing that we all do after my mission! If I do you can all show me this email and tell me that I have got to step it up! 

But please try to share the gospel with others! 1 nephi 20:6, and 2 nephi 2:8I dont have my english scrips with me so i dont know the exact translation but How important is it that we make these things known amongst the habitants of the earth? You have seen and you have heard and you havent announced it? 

If we love the gospel we gotta share it! 

I love everyone and miss football and you guys! haha but really go dawgs! 

Elder Keller