#77 February 27, 2016 The Drunk Physics Professor

This week was really awesome and filled with great experiences! 

We have had no time lately because we have to plan for Elder Zwick coming into the mission but the Lord has been blessing us a ton to always have people to teach! And it is interesting because we have beeing really trying hard to work right in the area by the church because that is what Elder Costa and Presidente Silva want us to by doing. 

Originally with the 3 Km rule we tried always working right on the border because we knew right by the chapel had been all tracted out. But in these last couple months we have literally beeing working in 1 or 2 bairros right by the church and the Lord is just giving us tons of people, but not only people but families to teach! And our group has grown! Are investigaors right now are: 

Rubens and Flavia, Family Odair and Denise, Family, Maria and Angela, Couple, Rodolfo and Suelen, Family (we started teaching Suelen!), Luciana and her RM fiancé ( soon to be Couple!) ,Léci, Vitório and Fernando (Mom and two sons) 

The best ones for sure are Rubens and Flavia! All of those investigors have gone to church but for now that only ones that are really progressing towards baptism are Rubens and Flavia. 

But they are doing good! Satan is working hard to break them up as a family but please keep praying for them to get better! 

But a cool thing happened this week! An appointment fell through so we decided to go to a different place on the other side of the neighborhood and we passed by a bar and an old investigator comes out of the bar totally drunk and had beeing taking some drugs and pulled us off to the side of the road asking for our help. 

This guy is super intelligent, very wealthy and successful as well. He is studying to be a physics professor here in one of the universities and an all around good guy. I had never seen him like this before but the guy was just trashed! 

He was supposed to be baptized a year ago but right before the baptism decided that he didnt want to pay ten percent tithing to the church because he is a Mason and has to pay five to them. So he wanted to pay 5 to the mason and 10 to our church. But clearly the missionaries said no so he wasnt baptized. 

So we end up taking this guy home and on the walk home it was just like the films! As we are walking home and he was drunk and miserable it was like there was an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Some of the things he said were, "if i had been baptized i wouldnt have gone back to my addictions" and then he said "but joseph smith cant be a prophet, it doesnt make sense," then, "i should have just decided to pay tithing, i was just prideful and selfish but 10 percent is nothing" and then "there cant be only one true church!" 

We brought the guy home and now he is doing better and we are going to start visiting him again but it was funny to see how he said that he knew that what he did was wrong! But he chose to not keep the commandment! And we all have to choose! 

But i am running out of time! But this week was awesome and everything is going great! I lvoe you all so much, have a great week! 

Elder Keller 

#76 February 13, 2016 The 1st Great Commandment

Alright this week went great! It was the week of the transfer and everyone got to their areas safe and sound so that is always a big relief! 

The first week is also up with Salomão and things are going awesome! He served there for 6 months in the beginning of his mission so he knows the area and the members better than i do haha! It is like a huge homecoming for him coming back now so it is really awesome! And the nice thing is that the members loved him a lot so i think it will help a lot here! 

Elder Hull and Nascimento who were living with us were both transferred as well and we got Elder W. Silva and Elder Larsen. W. Silva is from São Paulo and Larsen is from texas but his family just moved to Mesa right when he left on his mission. Pretty cool! He was part of the first group of new missionaries that I got to go pick up at the airport and it is cool to see his progress! W. Silva came from serving in Pato Branco and so it was nice to get updates on everyone! Gabriel and Candida are still active and they were even able to baptize Candida neice Jessica as well! Super happy about that! 

W. Silva has a year out and Larsen has about 4 months in the field. 

But this week I really got into this months ensign and it is so awesome! It has some great key advice for our lives! There were 3 specific articles that i really loved! 

Pg. 7 Marriage Is Ordained of God - No im not getting trunky haha but what was super interesting was the story about Larry M. Gibson that his wife said "i love you because i know you love God more than you love me." That came from the Visiting Teaching Message of the month.

That really hit me. It is the first and greatest commandment as Elder Hollands amazing talk talks about (The First Great Commandment) we must love God above all other things, even our own wife! At first I thought that is a little strange but its true! We gotta love God more than anything else in this world! And I really dont think I have hit that point in my life yet. That is something I am gonna have to work on in these last few months and probably when i get home as well. 

But we have to put God before EVERYTHING. Before school, before football, before our families, before freinds, before work, all of it! If he comes before the wife than he comes before everything else. 

But one interesting thing is that if we put him first than all the other things are going to come together and work out for the best! 

We went and taught Rubens and Flavia this week and really had just an AWESOME lesson. Flavia had been really quiet in the lessons and so our goal was to really see how she was feeling about all of this and what her needs would be, and it was a little hard but the Spirit helped it all to work out. 

We found out she stil didnt want to come back from Fortaleza but she feels like God made her come back. She misses her family there a lot cuz she has a family of like 9 siblings and all live up there. And so she had made up her mind to stay! But then God brought her back! Thanks for all the prayers! (: So the Spirit helped her recognize inthat lesson that God loves her and has a purpose in her being there, in us being there, and in her meeting the church in  this crucial time in her life. So i pray that she can find the great beauty of the gospel as rubens has and apply it in her life! 

Rubens is just a champion and studying the scriptures and everything he can get his hands on and when we teach he opens the book of mormon and goes and finds a scripture he likes to share with his wife! So cool! 

But keep praying for them! 

Maria and Angelo are so so. Their biggest problem is the Sabbath Day. And I know a lot of people back home are trying to follow the advice from this last conference and do better with the sabbath day so if you could send me advice on what you guys did to make the sabbath day a delight and how you made that change that would be awesome! 

Maria and Angelo come from a family who Sunday is party day. Everyone gets together and its just festa, festa and more festa. And so they dont go to church! So if you guys got any ideas send em out here! 

Odair and Denise are also in a rough situation with the marriage but said are coming to church again tomorrow! So we will see what happens. 

I am out of time but things are going great! I love you all so much and hope you have an awesome week! 

Love, Elder Keller

#75 February 6, 2016 Transfers! Elder Salomão

This week was pretty weird without Élder Fernandez. We had to get the whole transfer set up without Fernandez so that was pretty stressfull but so far so good! 

This transfer was interesting! President "transfered" us over to the ward in the center on this one. he explained to us that he wants us to find a mission home that we can have in case of emergencies, transfers, people going home, leadership councils etc,... so we are going to change wards. We are going to stay in our area until we get the house so who knows how long that will take. 

I felt bitter sweet about it because if it happens fast then I wont be able to teach these great families we have! 

But the cool thing is I am gonna be back living with Élder Moore and the rest of the secretaries! We were pretty psyched about that! The mission is just getting so fun! We are out here serving the Lord, learning from an amazing and very wise Mission President every single day, and getting to know and teach awesome people! I love teaching! There are very few other feelings that give as much satisfaction as the feelings you get from teaching a great lesson! 

So my new companion is going to be Elder Salomão from Cape Verde! The Elder is a stud! And I love the people from Africa because they just have powerful spirits! Super excited to serve with him and it looks like we could be together for a long time because he only has 11 months out on the mission. So he came over here super early! 

Our investigators are doing awesome! 

I dont know if I have already talked about Odair and Denises family. But they are an awesome family that we actually found about 3 months back. 

We taught them about 3 or 4 lessons and then we went back and found out that they decided to seperate because there were tons of marital problems and some pretty serious situations that made it so that we couldnt go back to teach them. 

They live way up on a huge hill with very few people living on it so after we stopped teaching them we never really went by the house. One day we were walking by the hill and Elder Fernandez out of the blue was like lets go by. We were super worried about going by and finding them still in this bad situation but we went back and found them back together! And they invited us back in and were totally more open to the lessons! 

This week they came to church with us. Them and there 8 year old kid Mateus. They have two more (Sabrina 16, and Bruno 11). But they loved church. And the members totally dominated this sunday!!!!! Every single member was going by and talking to them saying hi! Members went and sat with them and showed them how to sing the hymns. Then it turned out that Denise was great friends with a member of the ward and so that all worked out great! 

They said they wanted to come back this sunday and we visited them on tuesday and Moore Cardenas and I are in three and gonna visit them tonight! And they were excited to go to church tomorrow! Super happy about that!!!! 

They are a very simple family but I think they are starting to understand how the Gospel will bless their families! 

FLAVIA CAME BACK!!!! (: She got here on Wednesday. And Rubens is pretty fired up about getting baptized and getting married. To the point where I think he kind of surprised her haha! But now the key to getting Flavia interested is the members. So we are just going to use the members as much as possible to get her integrated into the ward! 

Maria and Angelo are great! They are coming to church tomorrow. But all these people need to get married! It is not so much a question of money but of time because it takes a month here! 

Rodolfo went to church as well so things are really awesome! 

I love the mission and I love you all so much! Hope you have an awesome week! 

Elder Keller 

#74 January 30, 2016 Fernandez is back in Chile!

Well the biggest event this week is that Fernandez is back in Chile now! As I had explained before he had a visa problem and had to go home a week and a half early. But I feel super weird because he was the comp that i had for the longest time! Plus he taught me how to do everything here in the office and now that he is gone i feel super lost! haha 

But this next week is going to be really interesting because it will be transfer week so pray for me that I don't mess anything up! 

So for this next week I am sticking with a kid named Elder Delaney from Utah. He is going to stay with me until President finishes up with the transfer. He has been out for a year and 3 months and is a good kid! 

Alright well considering that I didnt send a General last week I will update on all the investigators! 

Dad you had asked about Yuri that smart guy we were teaching, He was about 100 pages through  the Book of Mormon and loving it but didnt want to accept our visits for a while because he had people staying at his house for a while during the party time of brasil so we took the book of mormon back and explained that the moment he wanted to start receiving the visits again we would be back in a flash! So now we are waiting on his call. He said February he would start to have time to accept us again. But he was so bummed when we took the Book of Mormon away! And i was super happy about that because he was seeing the importance that it has! Not that he was sad of course but that he acquired a little bit of hunger for the scriptures! This happened about three weeks ago so after carnaval we are going to try to get back into contact with him. 

Rubens is on fire! He is almost done with 2 Nephi and loving everything about the gospel! He gets 18 days off work in February so he will be at church every sunday possible! And he is super excited because Flávia and Letícia get back on Wednesday so that will be great! I dont know if i said anything but they changed the tickets to Feb. 3rd! So pray that Flavia will have an open heart when she gets here! 

Maria and Angelo are also awesome! They were the ones we cut a while back and then wanted us to come back. The ones that went to church because she got her answer that the church was true when she only get two and a half hours of sleep the night before sunday but was able to wake up to go to church! They have come back from Xanxerê now and went to church last week! They are finishing up the principles of the Gospel book and are totally loving it because it is really simplified and easy to understand! Angelo just finished up 9th grade (they are going back to finish up school) and is totally dominating in the reading part. He just learned how to read a little bit ago but he loved the Principles of the Gospel because for the first time in his life he is able to understand the doctrine for himself! 

They asked us in this last visit how everything needs to work for them to be baptized and what has to happen and how they have to get married and stuff so that is great! 

These two couples just have to get married and Rubens just has to get his day off as sunday and then they are good to go! We are also gonna gave to teach Flavia everything that she missed but things are going really good! 

Rodolfo got a job this week which is awesome but that means less visits. We are going to visit him tonight. Its been about a week and a half since he got the job and we havent gotten to visit him. So we will see what happens tonight. 

But anyways not this past week but the week before ANOTHER missionary had to go home early because of problems out here on the mission. And this time was different because i was super close to this guy! And the worst part about it was that when we lived together he was a super obedient and powerful missionary! I was absolutely shocked when President told us that he would have to be going home. 

And i share this because it goes to show that none of us are invulnerable to satans temptations. No matter who we are or at what stage of life we are in! But we start going down when we forget about the little things. I cant remember the story but its in one of the standard works book about the prophet that was praying for strength to endure to the end on his death bed. That sounds pretty crazy if you think about it. On his death bed just a few moments away from dying what can the guy do? But he gotten to a level so advanced in his life that he wanted to stay completely worthy until the very end! 

And we gotta be like that! It is hard for me to always keep my guard up but it is just something that we gotta do! 

But anyways I am out of time now but i love you all so much! We also had a sweet missionary transmisson and it was great! We learned a lot of great things about teaching so I am really going to focus and teaching and following the spirit in the lessons (and in all other aspects) in these last six months. 

Also President told us this week that Elder Zwick of the seventy is coming to our mission in March! That is going to be sweet! He gave an awesome talk a few years ago in conference called, "What Are You Thinking?" Super excited! 

Love you all! Hope you have an awesome week! 

Elder Keller 

#73 January 23, 2016 No General, Trip Plans

Alright I read the trip deets and i am gonna try to respond to the questions!

You guys are nuts coming down here! It is gonna be so expensive! haha but if  you wanna sounds good! 

The trip you plans sounds awesome! I would just change one thing. 

Joinville and guaratuba i think we can get it all done saturday and sunday morning for church. The people are what are important to me there! So that will be quick. Guaratuba doesnt have a lot to do and neither does joinville. I would hit guaratuba on saturday really quickly, take you guys on a hike and show you the people i love and then go back to joinville to go to church on sunday! i would go to church in joinville. maybe stay in a hotel in guaratuba? i dont know if they have nice ones though... depends if you could get one on the beach. if not we can sleep in  joinville! 

But then after church maybe already come back to florianópolis. get here sunday afternoon? i think that would be cool! 

but mom i know a ton of awesome members here that know amazing hikes that take you to private beaches that i think you would love! floripa has so many things to do! And there are tons of hikes! So i dont know how long you are gonna wanna stay in joinville. I think i will definitely love that ward the most but i think we will be able to see everyone there pretty quickly. And guaratuba as well. 

Florianópolis is really really pretty so its up to you guys! Mom i know there is a ton of things you would like to do here.

I loved the call on the falls though! it is gorgeous there! i just didnt want to go cuz i thought it would be too expensive but it is actually ridiculous there and when i was in pato branco everyone would show us all the pics and stuff! 

but yeah i dont need to visit pato branco! totally fine with that! 

I would try to stay in the south east part of the island if you want the prettiest part! the bairros rio tavares and campeche. The north i here is very pretty as well but the people that live here say the south is very pretty. Ingleses which is in the north as well as canasvieras is where all tourists go but it is all dirty water and just not as natural i here. 

but i have never been so you guys may bwant to do some searches on the internet! 

Rio is gonna be awesome! super excited for that! 

as it goes with cars yeah you gotta rent a car here! that would be the best idea. rent the car until monday in florianópolis and then we go to rio and foz and get the car again when we come back to joinville. 

But sorry i was on and off email today so i wont have time to do a general and we are trying to get fernandez ready to go! 

but i love you guys so much and everything is going awesome here! have a great week! 

#72 January 16, 2016 What Not To Do...

Alright so this week I had some great learning lessons! 

So on Tuesday and Wednesday we had a Mission Leadership Council so Fernandez and I have been preparing for a while for it to be able to give good trainings along with the other assistants. But because we are here in Florianópolis we have to direct the whole thing. 

So this past week President and Sister came to our ward and there was a big show down between our Gospel Principles teacher President. President is a ridiculously good teacher! He has been in the CES for the past 20 years and just awesome! And our Gospel Principles teacher is alright. He tries really hard but sometimes forgets that the whole reason that class exists is to help the investigators and the recent converts. 

So an investigator asked a question about the Ressurection on Sunday and it was a really good question! The teacher blew it over and you could see that the investigator was kind of embarassed and felt like he did something wrong because the teacher said that that class was at the end of the year. 

So the teacher asks if anyone would like to say anything like 3 minutes after this happens and President raised his hand and then started talking to this investigator and answering his questions and totally helped the guy out and made him feel good and he said he is coming back tomorrow! The teacher was a little ticked because President kind of took over the class but it was to help the investigator! 

So President this week in the office has been teaching us a bunch of things about the importance of being a great teacher. He loves the manual, (dont know if this is the name in english) "Teaching, There is no Greater Calling." And President dominates at teaching! And he tries to do his best to pass everything to us. 

He showed us three awesome videos this week about the power of teaching and how be gotta do it. They are all videos that only these CES guys get for trainings so it is way cool! 

The first one is of President Howard W. Hunter. He was in a conference (priesthood or general i dont remember) and someone has stolen his time and he was the last speaker. He only had about 3-4 minutes left to give his talk and then the meeting would be over. And being the Prophet, he respects the time. So he gets up, and watching this video knowing the backstory is awesome because he is totally calm. Then he tells a simple story about when he was a kid and it ends up being an amazing parable about the importance of teaching. 

My email isnt going to make a whole lot of sense cuz its hard to explain it all in an email. But President Hunter realized he didnt have a lot of time. So he calmed down, and taugh just one principle simply and to the best of his ability following the spirit! And it was one principle that hits home and really helps the student/listener. 

One thing we gotta do is calm down and not worry so much about the time. It is better to teach 1 principle well done, helping the person you are teaching to understand, than 20 principles all as quick as possible and the person not learing anything! 

The other 2 videos were of Elder Holland and Elder Christofferson, and Elder Bednar all explaining the exact same thing! 

So President is showing us a bunch of awesome stuff about the importance of teaching the whole week and what do we do? We get into the council on wednesday and do the exact opposite! hahah We were running out of time and so we tried rushing things and jamming a pack full of principles together and throwing it at all the missionaries and it just doesnt work out like that! 

I am so thankful for the atonement because without it I would be so done for! haha. So it was a good experience learned! Know I have a goal to be a better teacher with missonaries and investigators and members! 

But i love you all so much and hope you have an awesome week! 

Elder Keller 

#71 January 9, 2016 The Celestial Kingdom is Going to Be Awesome!

Alright so this week was interesting. We found out Elder Fernandez has to go home two weeks early! Total Surprise! He was supposed to go home February 9th. Now he goes home like the 28th of January. 

Elder Moore received a new secretary training the other day and found out that most of the hispanics have to go home early. So it threw a ton of things off in the mission! So President said I am probably going to have to stay with two other elders or just stay at the secretaries house for that time. We will have to see what happens because transfers alone are gonna be interesting! haha I think I am gonna be totally lost without Fernadez in the office! 

But he was actually super bummed about having to go home early! Earlier on he tried extending another transfer but it didnt get approved because he isnt brasilian. 

It is interesting because we talk a lot about how it is gonna be really weird everyone going their seperate ways, the mission ending and then starting up your life again. Fernandez decided he wants to try to study in the U.S. because we talk about all the friends we gain on the mission and the possibility of never really seeing them again. So he wants to go there because most of the people try to go. 

But it got me thinking, and I have thought about this quite a few times there are so many people that we really grow to love in this life but they dont stay around for ever. Even your family doesnt stay the same forever and that stinks! My parents sent me a bunch of pictures of North Bend Washington and all the cousins and famliy up there and its weird cuz things are changing. And i was just thinking, man that is so lame! I want these things to stay the same and i was to always be able to be with these people for ever. Freinds from the mission, members from here, investigators, family members, friends in life, etc...

But that is why we all gotta get to the Celestial Kingdom! It is going to be sweet there! When I think about the happiness that comes from all the people that play a big part in your life, i realize that the Celestial Kingdom is going to be like that and we are going to have all the time in the world to spend with those people! And thats why we cant quit! I love Muhammad Ali's quote, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life a champion!" 

And with the gospel we don't even have to suffer! That is the best part! Men are that they might have joy! 

But with the area everything is going great! Flavia gets here February tenth. Rubens is going firm and doing awesome! We are really trying to focus on helping him understand how to study the scriptures and learn the doctrine for himself now. And he is doing awesome! Starting to connect principles and doctrines in the book of mormon with what he is learning in the pamphlets so that is really great! 

We have an ex investigator that has started coming to church again! Rodolpho. He is a good guy but super poor so we couldnt visist him because he was working so much because he wasnt able to pay anything for his family. He has a wife and a new born kid. But we found out the other day that he is in Alma and never stopped reading the Book of Mormon because he knew it would bless him! 

His biggest obstacle is his wife, she hates the church! She wont listen to any lessons, avoids us at all costs, and really doesnt want to hear anything. Her name is Suelen so please pray for the Lord to soften her heart so we can start to teach her as well! 

But that is pretty much it for this week! Love you all so much and hope everything is going great! Have an awesome week! 

Elder Keller