Week 7 in France

 The no bake cookie pictures were just for me.  We sent him the oats and cocoa to make them for the holidays.  So glad he remembered how to mix them together.  Below is his package of treats from grandma and grandpa k.  Quite the package they sent with lots of goodies.

 For ethan...

So our second lesson with Thibaut(T-bow, don't think to hard on this one)  this week was super exciting! He didn't understand why he needed to go to church! So we, as simply as teenagers could, explained that Sunday was special because we take the sacrament on Sunday. We explained that sacrament was a renewal of one of our covenants with god! After explaining what a covenant was we explained that our first covenant is. Baptism! And after explaining what and how a baptism worked we asked Thibaut why he would want to be baptized. He said "to make promises with God".

 After giving the classic " will you follow Jesus and be baptized...." line we spent some time setting a date and explaining minor details! The only thing that I can ask all of my wonderful friends back home is to Pray that Thibaut can feel the spirit when he reads the Book Of Mormon and kick his cigarette smoking. I think dropping the cigarettes will be the hardest for him. He was up to a pack a day at one point, but since he has been cutting down on them his whole body shakes pretty bad.

That was a super high point of the week! It kinda makes everything else kinda dull. I have been using most of my spare time to read Articles of Faith by Talmage. I thought Jesus the Christ talked about deep topics but Articles of Faith is ridiculous! I finished one of the chapters and was just completely stunned. I had to Reread the Entire chapter to understand everything Talmage talked about. I just can't help but be blown away by the fact that Talmage wrote these books 100 years ago. He proves the authenticity of the Book of Mormon using central American Archaeological findings! My confidence that the blue book is 100Percent(sorry I couldn't find the percent sign on these french keybaords) authentic couldn't be stronger.

So Christmas eve we got invited to the D's. We ate So. Much. Food. Not to mention the variety of food here! The French like to eat Seafood for Chirstmas? Who could have guessed! I ate three different types of caviar, four different ways to cook salmon, and two different types of muscles.  I am a missionary, and missionaries eat Everything on their plates. It probably would have been fine if Seour D would have asked if we wanted more food before she dumped heaping piles of fish on our plates. I say all of this in good light! We love the D's, they are the only family in our branch that does member missionary work! 

I love you all, we got our first snow the day after Christmas, Je vous aime! Joyous Noel.

Elder Keller

After skyping with Grant on Christmas day we learned that they did have a couple investigators and so Troy wrote and asked if he could tell us their names so we could also pray for them.  This was the letter he wrote to Troy in reply.

The one constant is change! I love it! Our investigators are Thibaut(pronounced T-bow) and Charlotte, they are living together. We just committed Thibaut to baptism, not sure if Charlotte needs to be baptized. Katy B is a black lady in her 20s and comes to church and reads the blue book but really just needs that final push to get baptized and make the steps. Françis is a black French lawyer who helps immigrants get into the country and makes sure that they can stay in the country by lining up their law papers. He does all of that for free. Françis just needs to read the Book of Mormon; he is a smart man who needs to just read the book and discover how true it is. Those are our consistent investigators.  

Last week we ran into Cyril, a punk teenager who we gave a Book of Mormon too and set up an appointment for the following day. The next day he brought two more friends Benjamin, and Flaurant to the lesson. All three teenagers had scary black shirts with inappropriate logos and such but they all showed a sincere desire to listen to our message. They all took Book of Mormons home and wanted to share it with their families. The real selling point for them was that you found out if the church was true by praying on your own! That was something that all three of them loved about the church. I have been fasting for these kids. I felt a strong connection with them. Pray that we can meet with them again after the holidays and that they will feel the holy ghost when they read the Book of Mormon. 

If you want to pray for Philip-Jacquelyn that would be wonderful. We were just calling people who's numbers the Elders from a few transfers ago had gotten and when passing over Jacquelyn's number Elder Perry told me not to bother calling her. He said last time she got super mad and accused us of being a cult and performing magic on people. But by the time he told me all of that I already had the phone ringing. We waited for the answering machine but then Jacquelyn picked up and, long story short, we gave them the church web address to clear up misconceptions and were having a lesson on Friday! With her Whole Family! 

I am curious dad, so Françis discovered that at one point our church wouldn't let black have the priesthood and the REALLY offended him. He accused our church of being racist and being affiliated with other racist organizations. I was hoping you could explain to me about the whole blacks and the priesthood, the history to that and what cleared that up. I know thats a big topic to cover! 

I love you Father, your voice often echos in my head to stay on task; or fills my head with the words that I should say when speaking to members. 
Your son, Elder Keller

Week 6 in France

 We make cookie trains at Christmas every year and Ethan suggested we send Grant the stuff to make trains.  Sweet, but not going to happen (it would weigh too much!).  So we sent him oats and cocoa to make no bake cookies, a Keller favorite.  Looks like he made them : )

He said this is a cat that like to sit on Elder P's back.

The bag of almonds Grandma and Grandpa Keller sent.  He was pretty excited about the almonds.

 Meeting Elder H and David Archuleta.

 Running into Elder C, from our stake.  Again with the blue guitar.

 We sent light up noses in the Christmas package...  and Grant sitting with a cute little santa.

Yah, so for the past few weeks President has been saying that David [Archuleta] would come and Thursday was the day! He sang a bunch of Christmas songs and a song that he wrote for the Meet the Mormons video. He has a really great voice and we all got to shake his hand! I told him about that one time when Momma Keller, Momma Jenson, Hunter Jenson, and I walked in a corn maze of his face. He Laughed pretty hard and just kept saying "Im so sorry! Im SO sorry!" His manager was next to him and laughed a bit too and asked "the corn maze in American Fork?" I said yes and they both laughed a little harder. I think there must have been an inside joke because there is no way it was that funny.

At the David Archeartbreak-uleta concert I GOT TO SEE ELDER C!!!! Yes! I finally got to see my older Trek brother! He gave me a huge hug! It was SO good to finally see him! We exchanged some stories and talked for a while before the concert started! And, dad will be proud of me, I found Elder H! We didn't have a whole lot in common but I told him that our dads know each other! I also asked him if he ever got to ride in the private jet with President Monson. Apparently, thats just something his dad gets to do.

Sorry I wont write much this week, I am saving all the stories and stuff for Skype :) cant wait to see you in a few days!! :D

Love you all! 

Elder Keller

PS I finished Jesus the Christ and President Roney said that if you send me a copy of Articles of Faith by Talmage I can read that too! 

***Grant did send pictures this week, I'll send them out in a separate letter and post on the blog.  Not everyone can get the emails with pictures.  regardingkellers.blogspot.com.  

I had asked him some questions a couple weeks ago & here are his answers:  

I asked how the language was coming along:

Doing Great! Yesterday a lady asked us,P and I, if we would help her carry something somewhere and right before elder P could translate for me I told him I understood everything that she said. We spen ALOT of time with the two future missionaries in the ward and Elder P forces me to talk to them. I have learned a lot about French by doing that. Also by reading EVERY sign and billboard that we pass.I have a little notebook that I collect new french words and then during Language study time P Quizzes me. Often during lunch and dinner Elder P turns on a gospel movie in French and I try to pick up as much Language as I can from that. I asked Elder P how good my French was in comparison to the other three Elders he has trained. He said he trained an Elder who had 4 years of French before the mission and he said that at about week 4 that we were about the same when it came to comprehension and speaking. I would say that I can say a lot, but there is a lot I can not say. During lessons I add 3-4 comments at random points in the lesson, each one being 3-4 sentences(not counting bearing testimony but actual parts of the lesson).

I had heard David Archuleta was going to visit their mission.

Yes I met archuleta

I asked if he received mail or packages.

I received 3 Christmas packages! Two from you and one from Grandma and Grandpa Keller! (and the guitar book! [I sent it through Amazon.fr, happy it made it to him] very helpful! all the missionaries and part of the ward are going to play at an old folks home and thanks to that book! The sister who plays the flute can play some songs and we can play some songs on the guitar for them!)

oh, package wise! I LOOOVE your freeze dried potatos! we eat them two to three times a week with a huge stir fry pot of veggies!  Letters are the most valued objects I think. I take the best care of them and they have the most sentimental value to me. We use the Freher fox for role plays! The silly putty was exciting but we play with it to much. The lights and christmas tree were SOOOO COOOOOL! haven't pulled out the little vibrating bugs... those might be really distracting... I use the jump rope 10-20 minuets a day depending on the workouts! I also use Elder P's resistance band A LOT. when he leaves if I could get one of those that would be nice but only if you want! Thankyou for all of the wonderful gifts! I havent opened up the wrapped packages, Ill open those up with the family over skype! Oh and I only opened up one of your brown packages. the one with the Christmas tree, the other is for Christmas day!

do you think you can send Articles of Faith by Amazon?

I love you and all your beautiful motherlyness! sorry if there R Tons of type Os ;)

I love you! 

Elder KEller 

Letter From Grant

So, this Noel season is wonderful! More and More people are willing to talk to us and President Roney thinks that that is because people are looking for presents to give. And when you think of others you feel Christs love, and when that happens you are more open to talk to Boys in Suits. YAY

We made more cakes this week. Small bannana bread cakes in old cans (yes mom we wash them with soap, and our hands). After we bake the bread we give it to others! Tuesday we decided to give one to Steven. Steven is a guy we met riding his no handed segway and we know he lives two floors above us...And we know he has a ring on his finger. (insert evil cackle here)

Not knowing where Stevens door is on the fourth floor we grabbed the cake and hopped in the elevator, said a quick prayer that we will be able to find him. Elevator doors open and guess who is on the otherside of the doors? Steven AND his wife! 

We gave them the cake talked for a few minuets and then she invited us into her apartment! We go in to discover that THEY HAVE THREE KIDS. It is perfect! They are married, they have kids, they do happen to be catholic but that's nothing we can't fix. 

We talked to them for about 40 minuets! We plan on inviting them to Family Night and trying to have a family night at their house! We hope that they become receptive and want to hear more about the gospel! we have been praying all week that they will want to have these family nights! Your prayers are greatly appreciated!

Love you all! Share the gift! 

Be happy! A smile looks better then the nicest suit!

Elder Keller

A sweet mom posted this on the Lyon France Facebook page.  It was Elder Keller's Thanksgiving dinner.  

Grant sent Morgan this picture of him playing a blue guitar.

Grant's letter - Week 4

This week was a testimony builder. We read in Jesus the Christ the in depth analysis of the parable, given by our savior, of the "different types of soils". Talmage explains that each soil type has different factors that make it so that the seed can't grow(well, other then in the perfect soil in which it is the optimal place for planting a seed). The most interesting soil type seemed to be the soil that had thorns and bushes growing in it. The earth there was good, it has the proper amount of nutrient to yield forth strong plants. But it has weeds and aggressive plants deeply rooted in the soil. The weeds choke out the seeds soon after they have sprouted. 

We work hard in sharing the gospel with as many people as we come in contact with in hopes that eventually we can reap the wonderful fruit of missionary work. What occurred to me this week was that we might not get to be the reapers. I brought it up with Elder Perry and a few times during the week we would remind ourselves that often our job is not the job of the reaper, in reaping great rewards and bountiful harvests; but the job of the sower, to sow many seeds by touching the lives of many people and praying that a few seeds land in good soil and grow up to be strong active members! 

Because we do not know who has good soil and who does not we try to plant as many seeds as we can. And as a result, we know that many of the seeds will fall into the soil filled with weeds, where the aggressive bigger plants will try to choke out the young gospel seeds. And for those people we pray that somehow something can come into their lives and clear the soil of weeds; and we pray that those people might ask us for help in clearing the soil of their addictions and sins and then, after the weeding is done, we can help them nourish their faith that they might grow and become wonderful fruitful members in clean, weed free soil.

Something I liked and felt like applied to the mission work here in Chalon. 

HE IS THE GIFT! In French it is "Il est le don" (phonetically: Ill A lu don, or you could replace don with cadeau : cad-oo meaning present) We have discovered many people who have received our message and shared the video with their friend through social media! After you could probably check out the rest of the website and maybe take the questionnaire or watch the fun videos that explain our purpose here on earth and all about God and Jesus! 

If yall want chocolate or something shoot me an email and maybe in a week you can pick it up from mom and dad :D

I love you all!

Elder Keller

They got a tree to decorate.  I feel bad we sent one, but it may be a while before they get it.

Grant said someone gave them these le petite cookies for christmas.  We had a work colleague of Troy's over for dinner last night.  She is from Belgium and she was telling us that Saint Nicholas comes on Dec 6th.  So I will have to ask Grant if that is when he received his cookies..  

He said he is wearing his French scarf he bought in the cookie picture.  The last picture is just showing that they have made some parking spaces between the trees.  That made me laugh and reminded me of being in Kiev, Ukraine.  The city streets are so narrow that in a lot of places the parking was on the sidewalks.

December 1 - Letter from Grant

So President Roney wanted us to reach 20 lessons a week twice this transfer. Thats a lot! Our mission has some 130 companionships and only 24 met the standard last week of teaching 20 lessons. But we thought that with the turkey bowl coming up that we could teach 25 lessons this week. Also note that we have two progressing investigators, and one of them got hospitalized earlier this week. So not a whole lot of teaching has been going on. We worked hard all week and spent probably more time then we should have doing service and helping out members. 

Wednesday we had our first of two district meetings, this weeks district meeting was in Chalon and we got to prepare a two hour activity! So, obviously, our activity was a turkey bowl! We made a point system and some simple rules and loosed the Entire District on the city of chalon!  We prayed throughout the week that when the turkey bowl happened the district would find people to teach and potential new investigators.We had seven different companionships contacting in the streets of Chalon and they got us four new phone numbers, two new investigators and they taught 9 lessons on the street! How exciting!

Saturday came quicker then we thought and we still needed to teach  11 lessons to reach our goal of teaching 25 lessons this week. Elder Perry brought up the idea of praying every 15 minuets, brilliant idea. We spent all of our time on Saturday roaming the streets trying to find anyone to teach! Unfortunately it was cold Saturday, It hit -1°C. (thank you mom for the hand warmers :) But we taught anyone that would listen! We talked to angry old short French ladies, Collage kids, we even got a drunk guys number, not sure if we should call him though. Some punk teenagers got us a lesson, a store clerk, a high school couple took book of mormons along with some homeless people(we didn't count teaching the homeless people) lots of people! All in All our hard day of work and lots of prayers we ended up with 13 lessons that day. We have two more investigators who we are meeting with next week! I thought three lessons was a miracle and I see now that with faith and prayers in good things the lord gives unrestrained. We  can do SO much with hard work and faith. Heavenly father prepared us last week to teach the people this week. Our 27 lessons came through from his hand and I hope that the investigators we received this week will find joy in our message next week.

Elder Keller

Week two in France

So this week I got to go on exchanges and we did all sorts of fun stuffs! One of the highlights was Friday! We just got off exchanges and hopped in the millers car (the millers are the lucky adult missionaries that are stuck in our zone :) we drove for 2.5 hours to visit this country side Irish couple that only speak English(thank goodness). They live on the outskirts of French civilization kinda close to the border of Switzerland. We visit this couple once a month and give them a quick little check up! The wife is a member but he is not. He Only reads philosophy and economics books and is just one of the smartest people ever. Note: he ONLY watches rugby. For some reason that's popular here?

The first hour that we spent with them we just listened to the husband talk about different philosophers. It was great! every time he would talk about a new philosopher he would tell us "have you hear of so and so? he really is one of the more popular philosophers on such and such subject". when we finally dove into talking about the gospel we asked some questions like "what do you think the purpose of religion is?" or "where do you think we will go after this life?" and each time he would respond with something like "oh, well so and so philosopher said about this..." and just go off on a crazy, almost too deep philosophical question. After what seemed to be 5 or so of these questions the millers and us sort of gave up. We left him with a short thought about christ and his love for us all and ended with a quick prayer. 

I realized that this poor man was so deeply rooted in the philosophies of men that he couldn't see the joy that came from our message. It honestly broke my heart. 

Saturday. The zone started this thing where once a week a companionship can ask for the whole zone to pray for them about ANYTHING! So we asked the zone, for this last Saturday, to pray that we will have 3 Miracle lessons. A Miracle lesson is a lesson taught on the street to someone or someone's that you just stopped on the street. Up until Saturday I had only been apart of 2 such lessons.

We had a rendez vous with some guy named dave on a street corner at 9:30 in the morning. (usually with me being a new missionary I have extra language study and this thing called 12 weeks, its just extra study for the first 12 weeks of your mission) so we usually can't get out of the apartment until like 1 in the afternoon. But Dave wanted to see us at 9:30. So we wait at this street corner until 10. No dave. So we thought we would talk to people on our way back. The second couple we talked to on our way back just loved hearing us! Infact we gave them the restoration lesson and a BOOK OF MORMON!  That is the best way to start your day! 

Later that day we had an appointment with Deacons, this crazy member in the ward. (he blasted a hole in his Apartment into his storage space to make a "new room". He lives in an apartment complex, He was about 3 inches away from making a new door into his neighbors apartment) Anyways, we got to his place and knocked, nothing. Called him, his phone didn't ring. Sunday we found out he took a surprise trip to the south of Lyon without telling anyone. So we hopped on the bus and headed back to our apartment as I still had Language study to do that day. We got off a stop early however in hopes of talking to a couple people before we got home. 

We were walking through this local park when we hear yelling. We looked over and about 4 skinny French men without shirts were throwing beer at each other. They were pretty far away so we didn't pay them any mind. Until we heard them yelling "MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH! THE CHURCH THE CHURCH THE CHURCH! IT IS THE MORMONS!" I remember looking over Elder Perry's shoulder and seeing this white, drunk out of his mind, Frenchie with a foehawk sprinting at us with his beer bottle. "not again" Elder Perry says we sort of kinda really started running after Elder Perry said that. Off to the side of the park is a garden. It has little hills of flower beds and big trees that make it feel like you are in a movie. It has statues and a cute pond in the middle of it. We ran into the garden and briskly walked over to the far side of it. While catching our breath we see someone summit the top of a small hill. Our drunk friend found us. He stands up and yells "mumble mumble drunk person talk MORMON CHURCH" he leans forward and starts running down this hill towards us. On his third or forth step trips on his own foot and goes face first into a bunch of flowers. He doesn't get up after that! "well, we don't want to go back through the garden, even if our Frenchie Friends are there" Elder Perry says. So we go out the back side of this garden and sitting on the back side of a wood bench are these two Ladies. Probably 20-22 and Elder Perry says "OH! I bet they want to hear about the gospel!"

Elder Perry complimented them on their scarfs and we started talking. long lesson short we gave them the first lesson and they took a book of Mormon! Unfortunately they lived in a different city but hopefully the missionaries in the other city call them and get lessons going! The best part was in the middle of the prayer (yes, we prayed with them) I heard this paper crunching and kinda opened an eye and looked up to see one of the girls rolling a Joint. In my head I heard Ben Clifford saying "really? Really? You chose to do that Now!?" anyways, one more reason to love French people.

After we finished our lesson with the two ladies we took a little back alleyway(it wasn't dark yet, just a path through some apartments that wasnt taken very much) that Perry said he had never been on, about halfway down these two HUGE black guys turn the corner (there aren't alot of black people here but the ones that are here usually play on the city rugby teams). Dripping in gold, piercings, and walking with black man swagger down this path, we get about ten feet away and one of them says "AY its the mormons! Elder Perry, remember me? Its Elvis!" Turns out one of them was an investigator about 2 months ago and Perry taught him and everything, we have no idea what happened to him, he got lost during two transfers ago! We set up a date and plan on meeting him next week!

So we get about ten steps out of the alley way and run into this Islamic fellow and he just LOVED the church! we gave him a lesson and a book of mormon and now we are going to give him another lesson this week! Three Miracle lessons in a day. The power of prayer is SOO COOL! I love the miracles that happen when we all pray together! 

I pray for all of you that are back at home! 

Love Elder Keller

A woman, I think from Church, gave them all of this food.  Grant seemed pretty excited about it.  I had put a package of instant potatoes in the box Troy mailed from Brussels last week.  Grant said he got it and they already ate the potatoes and all the candy with peanut butter in it.

They all think this shirt is funny because biche is deer in French. Below is Grant with Elder Schettler, they went on splits last week together.  Elder Schettler went out 6 weeks before Grant.  Too bad it's so blurry.

This is a Catholic Cathedral in Chalon.  Grant said that there are about 30,000 Catholics in Chalon.  And he sent this picture of Elder Perry with the guitar he bought in France for Morgan.

I'm guessing that this is how missionaries send emoticons...

First letter from Grant in the mission field

So we get off the plane in Lyon, we all have been awake for 36 hours depending on how much sleep you could get on the plane, and we throw our suit casses in a van that hauled them off to the mission office. We start walking towards the train station and there is this incredibly tall man, probably 6,7 and just big. He has two beer bottles in his hand and starts waving one of them at us and yelling, in French, and the only word that I understand is "mormon" and "hell". I later learned that he was damning us all to hell and explaining to us how we get to burn in satan's layer or something. Great first impression of France :D

Fast Forward past a lot of sleeping and a little sight seeing and I got to meet my trainer elder P! He is pretty much the coolest guy ever. We connect really well! He plays guitar(he has one in our apartment) likes to work out, speaks French, he is pretty good looking, you know all the important stuff ;) ! 

I am currently serving in a city called chalon! it is a fairly nice city I think! It has been overcast every single day and that makes the city nice and cool! The people are great! They all keep to themselves but after about two or three questions or a compliment they open right up and just start talking! once you break the ice you can ask them most anything! What we do most of the time for tracting is we carry around a little questionnaire and ask people if they want to participate. Surprisingly, if you compliment someone on their clothes or a scarf they almost always say yes. So it looks like I am going to have to improve my fashion game and learn my expensive clothing brands. If anyone wants to send me a list or some pictures of highend fashion items it would be greatly appreciated! Its also good that I watched that runway show with my mom! That will definately come in handy!

Day three in France, first miracle. We were jumping cities to renew elder perrys visa( he just hit his year mark) when we had a train layover. Our layover was about 24 minutes. We decided to try and talk to people and get some numbers! The first guy we asked was sitting on the edge of a fountain and was just the coolest guy ever! We ended up teaching a quick lesson on the restoration and got his number! we checked our watched and realized that we had 3 minutes to get to our train! We thanked him and ran off! We hustled up to the platform and....no train. We asked a conductor looking guy with a wicked mustache where the train was and he said it had left. 

We ran down to check train times for the next train headed to gernoble. We had 4 hours and elder Perry would miss his appointment. While we walked over to the ticket line we bumped into mustache conductor man and he said that the train came in onto the wrong platform due to delays! It was still in the station!!!! We made the train! we both felt like God had blessed us with making the train because we went out and tried to find people! wonderful experience!

I love France, the food is great! the people are interesting! and I am in LOVE with missionary work! The language is coming, I usually understand what people are talking about and I understand more when they speak slower then normal! We ran into an old fisher french man and his accent was different. Elder P said that he had to strain to understand what he was saying because he was from the deep south of france and their accent changes! 

Love you all! excuse my spelling. These French keyboards have extra letters and crap on them and spell check doesnt work. 

:D

Elder Keller

More of Grant

 Pictures that were posted on the Mission Blog today.  They are of Grant's arrival in France and meeting his companion and mission assignment.  Fun to see him, even though he is making goofy faces in some of the pictures - (like the last one...  hmmm, not paying attention?)

Grant Arrived in France yesterday

Sister Keller,

We just got back from the training session where they were assigned their companions.  

Elder Keller will be serving with Elder Perry in Chalon.  

Their address is 21 rue au Change  

71100 Chalon-sur-Saône.

I am attaching a picture below.

Sister Clark

France Lyon Mission Secretary

Dear Family of Elder Keller,

This is just a quick note and photo to inform you that YOUR MISSIONARY HAS ARRIVED IN LYON FRANCE! We are so excited to have them in this mission. We love them and we view them with the same care and concern as we would our own children.  They looked pretty good even though they were surely very tired. They will be doing some legal work for their visa and some training and interviewing. By their preparation day (Monday) they will be able to tell you their companion’s name and where they live. Thank you so much for sharing your missionary with The Lord and with this mission. In many ways, this is truly the most wonderful mission in the world and they will make it even better.

Thank you,

President and Sister Roney

France Lyon Mission

Letter and phone call from Grant

Just thought I'd give a little update on Grant.  He did get a calling card, but couldn't get it to work.  So he borrowed some guys in the airport.  Thank you to that very nice guy!  It made my day to hear from Elder Keller.  He sounds great.  We chatted about our family visit to Victor and I think that made him feel a lot better about leaving.  He's been worried about how things were going, so it was good to have a minute to talk about it.  Grant was the lucky one who went with Troy when they took Victor to Wilderness this summer and he came with us when we picked V up and took him to Vista.  So he's been a part of some of the crazy.  We were just able to chat for a bit about the MTC and heading off to France.  I said, " You don't even sound homesick, you sound so excited." He confirmed that : )  After that first week, he settled in and he is ready to get to work.  I thought I'd be teary-eyed talking to him, but he was my happy, ready for an adventure, Grant.  I couldn't help but smile right along with him.   Love that kid.  His Mission Presidents wife emailed to say that they'll send us pictures tomorrow after they pick him up, so I'll post tomorrow or wednesday, some pictures of Grant/Elder Keller.  And hopefully his new address.

So Saturday we got this letter from Grant and were able to write back and forth for about 30 minutes.  We'll Troy wrote back and forth.  Nothing earth shattering.  More like information about calling cards, that he got the last package, the pants fit, etc.  For future missionary moms: nerf toys are banned at the MTC.  I had a mom tell me she would send nerf guns to her boys so I sent a set and they were confiscated.  Lesson learned.  Everything else in the packages was eaten and appreciated!

So we have some time to do laundry before we leave on the air plane tomorrow! Fun right!?! 

I have sort of been recapping this MTC experience! I would say it was good! Probably could have studied more and eaten fewer doughnuts but hey! Say la vie, this is life. I hope everyone is doing well! 

Everyone at the MTC has been passing out journals and asking us if we would write something and sign it. Well eventually the French elders brought theirs around and I figured "they really don't know who I am and after two years who is going to remember an Elder Keller?" So in each of the 4 French elders "good bye journals" I wrote nursery rhymes, In Mary had a little lamb I added some of my own versus, and signed my name as cursivey and loopy as I could! I heard them reading it out in the hall later that night! Way too funny! They read the cow jumped over the moon and one of the elders said "What is this? There is not a cow that could jump over the moon!?" and we just wouldn't;'t contain ourselves! The French Elders in their French accents are just so FUNNY! 

Yesterday in class was incredibly spiritual! All of the missionaries bore their testimony about Jesus Christ in French and it really hit home! I didn't realize how deep everyone's testimony went!  So in class today Frere Pistourius showed us all of his mission photos! He told us that yesterday was spiritual and today was going to get us excited for the mission! So he told wonderful stories about the people he met and the many miracles he saw just in his first month! 

I got this wonderful quote from Frere Pistorious when he was explaining a French grammar concept!

"French express feelings more in the way that they say things, rather then by the feeling of which they are said in." This was interesting because it explains that the French express the way they feel by the words they use and in the way they conjugate a verb. In English this concept is similar, where you can tell by the tone of voice the meaning be hind a phrase the french change the meaning by the way that they conjugate something. Sorry, that was a very poor way of explaining it.

I can not wait to get to the field! Two days!!!! I love you all and wish you a happy holidays! :D

Elder Keller

For entertainment we give Elder D weird challenges. Usually with ingesting large quantities of citrus. He was challenged to eat two oranges in seven bites WITHOUT peeling off the skin. He made it.

below: Elder S effectively using his pillow tie.

Grant and Elder B at the doctors office

below: is Grant's district and teachers.

Looks like the weeks of salads and soup has paid off.  Whew, I don't have to find him bigger pants!  I was getting worried.

So I am SUPER excited to leave for France! We have travel plans and everything! 11:35 We board the flight from Salt lake to Georgia. (I'll probably call home when we land in Georgia) We spend an hour and a half layover in Atlanta and then fly to Paris. We have a two hour layover in Paris then fly to Lyon!

This being our last week we get another P-day of sorts. We can send out Emails one more time and then do laundry and stuffs. 

Elder B and I have now taught Z three lessons! (Dad, he said he would try to email you last night or later today!) Z has lots of interesting questions about being a missionary. Like, why all the missionaries are here. What we do here. He was shocked to learn that B and I had never learned French before getting to the MTC. He doesn't know much about any religion really so we get to explain lots of the bible and other basic "christian concepts" like Baptism, Sacrament, and even who Jesus was! I think my favorite experience with Z was probably having him pray for the first time! It kinda went like this "God, hi this is Z, thanks for school and my family, and these missionaries, ill talk to you later. Amen, I mean Jesus Christ Amen". We explained why we close our eyes during prayers but he continues to watch us during prayers! It's kinda silly but I love him all the more for it!

Our last meeting with Z was even better! Earlier that day we learned about soft and hard invites during zone conference. A soft invite is a commitment that isn't so straight forward like "if you come to know these things are true will you..." So we used that with Z! We were having a conversation about praying and feeling the holy ghost when we asked him if after he read the Book of Mormon he prayed. He told us about how he felt more comfortable praying alone and he said that after his prayer he felt kind of comforted and that he felt peaceful! Six months of Mission Prep prepared me for that exact moment! I bore testimony to him about how, even though he might not know it yet, that what he felt was the spirit comforting him and that as he continues to pray he will be able to feel like that more often and recognize those feelings! He sat back in his chair and cocked his head and said "okay...." after a little silence Elder B read a scripture that talked about how the spirit works! It was amazing! I hope he could feel what Elder B and I felt at that exact moment! Later that lesson we used the "soft invite" to ask Z that "if he came to know these things if he would be baptized!" Again he sat back in his chair and said "yeah, I think that would be nice. I really like what you guys believe! It seems like a nice way to live!" My smile was just huge! I felt SOOOOOO happy that he wanted that! Elder B bore his testimony on revelation by the spirit and I used the classic "I know what my companion said is true" line and bore testimony of the same thing. That was an awesome lesson! It just felt great to help Z learn about the gospel and even better that he accepted it!

Sunday was EXCELLENT! Our MTC mission president, President Merril, was a lawyer his whole life! About ten years ago he was asked to teach institute at BYU and let me tell you, He is the COOOLEST~! Last Sunday he gave us a portion of his institute lesson on the godhead. Mind blown, God isn't who I thought he was, the church is true, and my concept of the godhead is totally different! I have two and a half pages of Awesome notes! He speaks hebrew and so he reads the Bible completely differently! I won't try and cram everything I learned into this email but ill put in some things that were WAYY cool were 

1: In Hebrew Elo means god and IM is how to make something plural. so Elohim, in hebrew, means Gods. And evidence in the hebrew bible suggests that God's real name is closer to Ahman. like ahman and diamoand(sorry spell check didn't help with that one)? but we won't for sure know that for a while. 

2: In MSH 15 in the first five or so verses it talks about dual aspects of Jesus. Man, and god; Flesh, and spirit; Son and Father. Then President Merrill asked us "what would Jesus be the father of" and no one really had a good answer. After a minute or so of more bad answers he pointed out that Jesus is the Father of our world, and our Spiritual lives! When we are baptized we "take upon us the name of christ" which I thought I understood but President Merrill explained that Baptism is like a form of adoption and that we literally get adopted into Christ's spiritual family. Therefore making him our Father.

3: Often the scriptures sound like god is speaking and then we have a jump and then Christ is speaking. President Merril explained that Christ is a "Divine Investigator of Authority" which states Christ can say something and it has just as much power as if God himself said it. That is why the scriptures sometimes sound like Jesus or God is talking and then they switch.

So elder B got an ear infection around Thursday. Infact, Elder B has been more silly than usual but you know what I have not been even the littlest bit annoyed or angry or felt any negative feelings for him. I have felt only love for Elder B. When he said that we needed to walk a half mile to get him medicine I was almost happy to go! Something changed this week. I love Elder B with all of his quirks and silly pieces. And it feels wonderful! I don't know what changed but something did! And it feels great! :)

Elder Keller

As of this week Troy hasn't received an email from Z, but we are hopeful.  So exciting to see these young men have missionary experiences before they are in France trying to share the gospel in another language.  What great preparation.  Love to see their perspectives change and the growth in their testimonies.