Letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, July 27, 2015 7:37 AM
Subject: I dont know what to put as a subject for this week

This week started out with me and elder Pittsenbarger trying to talk
about the gospel with 100 people this week. We only talked to
45...yeah, we were on track up until Thursday! We were contacting and
going door to door for maybe three to four hours each day. When
Thursday rolled around we had our first exchange with the zone leaders
for the transfer and as crazy as life works out we had a less active
call us and ask us to do service for him and Patrick was moving his
rabbits from one location to another. So we split into two teams of
elders and attacked the service!  Elder Canard de valeur, one of my
old companions, and I helped Patrick move his huge rabbits! Ill have
to send some pics of the rabbits! they are monster sized!
So very little finding was done on Thursday to Friday. And Saturday we
were actually invited to spend nearly the whole day at a ward
activity. We were told we were going to a park for a few hours to have
a picnick. Turns out the members drove us to a Lake....So all four of
us elders were stranded over an hour away by car from home forced to
watch all the members swim in the lake. So we felt kind of defeated
because we didn't get the 100 conversations. We plan on trying not
this week but the week after because this week we have another
exchange and zone training thats almost a days train ride away so much
for being in our sector. hahaha We may have been beaten in
conversations this week but we did however get introduced to 3 thats
right not one, not two, But THREE new investigators from our members!

1 Vivian; we think she has the most potential for excepting the gospel
as she is the little sister of patrick. She speaks sign langauge and
me and elder pittsy are learning quiet a bit! It is much easier to
speak french sign language the French itself! hahaha we can say things
like "why are you blushing" "where did you put all of your money" and
"he is very drunk". Sign language is easily one of the best skills I
have picked up on my mission besides blowing tongue bubbles, and doing
my own laundry.
2 Victor(and wife); no he is not from Ukraine. Victor is african and
loves god! We met him when we were moving patricks rabbits! We have
not had a lesson per se but we have fixed a lesson for this wednesday!
:)
3 David and Emily; We made contact with them while elder Pittsenbarger
was doing service for the less active! I dont know to much about them
other then David is opening his own car shop and Elder Pittsys dad
sells mustangs so they are perfect for each-other. Also, they have the
most adorable 5 year old boy! David is pretty interested in our
religion but we are not sure if it is because he wants to join or
because we used to have plural marriage instituted at one point. Its
more important that we reactivate the less active that introduced us
and then baptize her husband. :)

That about summs up our week! Me and elder Pittsy have been getting
along better and having more missionary fun since we tried to hit our
100 convos :)

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

July 20th letter from grant

Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 8:45 AM
Subject: Baptism of Patrick!!

Wahoo! He made it to the font! We had a whirl this week while we were working with Patrick! but by Saturday he was ready. He wanted brother Pascalin to baptize him and honestly that was the coolest thing ever! Two years ago Pascalin had a tumor in his back and couldn't walk. After two years of rehabilitation he has been able to walk slowly and with a limp. What was really cool to see was Pascaling lifting Patrick out of the water :) The members here are so awesome! I am so glad that we have such fantastic people to help us bring Patrick to the waters of baptism!

I wont go through in detail but we spent almost every day this week working with Patrick! Oh, transfer calls  came and I am doing a Forth in Rodez! Yes a forth transfer! By the end of this transfer I will have spent one quarter of my mission in Rodez.

oh, I also forgot to tell yall that each Sunday for the past twelve or thirteen weeks we have been teaching a boy from a part member family. Mathias! Mathias is going to be baptized on the first of august by his papa! We are really excited for Mathias, he has had a really hard life up to now. He was going to get baptized when he was eight but he got ran over by a tractor of some sorts and was hospitalized for almost half a year. By the time he got out he could barely walk. He started asking questions like "why did god do this to me" and " why do bad things happen". A little while later the family moved up to Rodez to try and make a fresh start. We started working with Mathias and because he is now almost ten we got to teach him! He still asked those hard questions and I am happy to say that he has grown up a lot! He has found answers to those questions. :) His parents obviously did most the work! I don't want to steel their thunder, but I did enjoy every second that we got to help Mathias and teach him!

I hope that you all have a great week! we are at a cyber café so when we get wifi I will send all of the photos of Patricks baptism and some of mathias!

I love you all and hope that everyone is doing just dandy!

love, elder Keller!

Grant's letter July 13, 2015

Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 9:26 AM
Subject: Voila, sa famille

So, we spent almost five days this week in Toulouse....not in our
sector. But don't go thinking that Elder Pitsy and I are apostate! Oh
contraire! We had our zone P-day in Toulouse so we spent all of Monday
bowling and hitting up all the big stores in Toulouse while checking
out some of the collage campus down there! They have an international
business school that teaches are their classes in english!

Tuesday we did our First exchange with the zone leaders. I came up to
Rodez with elder Sorenson, we taught Patrick and Madame Gil both in

the same day! haha, it was pretty fun.
Wednesday Sorenson and I did a little bit of proselyting before
heading back down to Toulouse to get ready for our First Zone
conference with President Brown which was held on Thursday!

We were all sitting in the chapel when President Brown walked in he
had his wife present first :P then they showed a slide show of their
family! When President Brown spoke he spoke on Genealogy and the new
temples being built in Europe! He told us about a really cool
experience that he had with his genealogy! I didn't think much of the
story, it was cute and was really cool that the spirit of Elijah had
worked through him before the he entered the mission field. But while
he was giving his testimony on Geneology, Missionary work, and
Temples, I had this distinct almost indescribable feeling that he was
my next mission president. It was strange. I didnt have this feeling
when I first met President Roney but after first meeting president
Roney I honestly would have done anything he had asked me to do. But
this feeling I had must have been the spirit.

During my interview with President Brown, Honestly, he felt like he
was a Blue(french version of greenie). I am not trying to be mean but
it was not even close to the interviews that I had had with President
Roney. But during the whole interview I kept thinking back to the
feeling that I had had when he was giving his testimony and it hit me.
I think the spirit knew that I was going to be too judging of
President Brown so the spirit gave me enough push to trust him, to put
my confidence that he will lead this mission in the direction it needs
to go. Something I learned during our conference was that President
Brown seeks the spirit often in his day to day work. I feel kinda bad
saying all this but its the truth of what I thought. However, after
all of it happened I have faith in President Brown leading this
mission in the right direction :)

We drove to Albi with the Albi elders Thursday night and spent the
night there. Friday morning rolled around and Elder Pittsy went to do
his legality at Albi. Friday night we were in Rodez and got to see
Patrick and OH BOY did things happen while we were gone. Patrick has
had his nephew and his nephews girl friend living with him in his
spare bedroom. Well, Patrick found out that his nephew was growing
drugs(it only has one leaf on it...we don't know what kind of plant it
is yet. His cousin kept saying it was a flower) in Patricks apartment.
Big NO NO. Patrick gave his nephew 10 minuets to pack and then he had
to leave! During one of their arguments however the nephew pushed
patrick. So patrick called his sister and his brother to his house.
They showed up and all three of them got the nephew out of the
apartment.

This mess has really put patrick on edge. Its been a hard week for
him. The nephew went and called all of the rest of the family and told
them that Patrick had lied about the whole thing and pushed the nephew
first. So now Patrick has everyone but his sister and brother against
him. When we were talking with Patrick about the whole thing he kept
telling us that he felt like his house was contaminated and that it
made him feel uncomfortable. We offered and then had a blessing on the
house! Patrick really felt the spirit there! that was a really special
experience.

We went over to Patricks again Sunday evening and his sister came by
to talk about what had happened between him and the nephew. They began
discussing what Patrick was going to do with the drug plants in his
apartment. Turn out Patrick had left the plants on his back patio and
was going to bring them to the police and have them analyze it then
bring the police to his apartment to look for more drugs. His sister
was really scared. (turns out like half of Patricks family lives in
the same building...) Patrick had, at this point, talked himself up
into a fit and started spouting off about how he doesn't care if the
rest of the family ever comes around to liking him again. He was done
with them telling him that he needed to house the nephew and then all
the other problems the nephew had caused Patrick.

In wanting to defuse the whole situation we shared a message about the
family and how it is the most important piece of our lives and that it
is a gift from god. That we want to live forever with our family and
that we should always try to fix our family relationships. At the end
of our message we challenged him to pray about if he needed to go to
the police and involve them in the whole dispute. The next morning we
got a text saying that he had decided to give the plants back to his
nephew and not go to the police. I am not saying we solved the problem
and I am not saying that Patrick would have been wrong to go to the
police. I just hope that we did the right thing and that he can still
have good relations with his family.

That was our week! We joked that we were on vacation in Toulouse haha.
Patrick still plans on being baptized on Saturday! :) Your prayers are
always welcome! Thank you all!

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

this is a timelaps that I took on my Ipad of Patrick teaching us how
to make Ratetoui!

July 6th letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, July 6, 2015 2:55 AM
Subject: Bonjour

Bonjour! Our week went well! We had an exchange with the district
leader and we spent some time less active hunting. The city itself it
being prepared for the greatest festival to have ever embraced the
tiny hills of Rodez. The Tour de France is coming. The city has
decided to hold some sort of party, festival, cheese tasting, free
band concert, or a cook off contest every single day of the week
leading up to the Race. The city has actually torn out chunks of
sidewalk and has put in large signs that show where the bikers will be
coming through. I haven't seen the city in such a buzz. All of the
park people have been putting in extra flowers and pruning all the
trees and bushes. They even have a little white train that takes tours
of the city! The Tour de France gets here on the 18. The day of the
baptism! So we may not see the bikers come into Rodez but we will see
them leave the next morning as the start the next leg.
It will be interesting trying to do missionary work around all of the
extra people. I think in some sense it will be good because just
having more people in the city makes it easy to contact and find
people. However, those people are not likely to become investigators
because they are tourists....

Patric Chambeau! He is still fixed for the 18! We actually saw him
every single day this week! We were able to teach a lot this week.
In fact, when we taught missionary work we asked him if he knew anyone
that he would want to talk to the gospel with. He told us he had a
work colleague that he could have over for dinner and we could talk
about the gospel after dinner! Then his sister came down from upstairs
and we taught her a lesson! We explained what the book of mormon was
and bore testimony about how it has changed our lives. Before we
finished the lesson Patrick bore testimony about how he always feels
the spirt when he is at church or around us! That was such a special
lesson for me. I cant explain how happy I was to see that Patrick
understood what we had been teaching him. He said the closing prayer
and thanked heavenly father for the missionaries and for Gods gospel
on the earth. I dont think I could have said a better prayer then he
did.

This sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting! We had already taught
Patrick about the fast and when we told him he could bear your
testimony Brother Pascalin(the member who has befriended Patric the
most) got up and bore his testimony on Jesus Christ and how Christ's

atonement had changed him. When Pascalin sat down Patric got up and
recounted his story of how he met the missonaries. How he was pressed
for time but when we contacted him he felt a "chaleur" in his heart
and he stopped. He said he felt something in him while he talked with
us. A week later Elder Gossel and I dropped off cookies at his house.
He said that he was intrigued by our kindness and thats why he fixed
the first meeting. I was most touched during his testimony when he
said that he felt the exact same chaleur in his heart. He said he
didnt know what it was but that he had never before experienced it. As
we answered his questions over the corse of the next couple meetings
he said he felt the chaleur grow stronger and stronger. He bore the
last couple lines of his testimony that he was so happy to be in the
church of the truth; with real friends and love. I will never forget
this man. He is always complimenting us on how nice we are and how we
are always helping others yet, I feel like its the other way around.
Patric brings food to almost all of his neighbors. He bottles Jams and
gives them away to all the members. He gave some spanish guy a 100
euros because the guy told Patric he couldnt get back home. Patric
goes and gardens his moms yard once a week on top of school and work
and meeting with the time munching missionaries in Rodez. I don't
think I could have a better example of Pure christ like love in my
mission. The man always looks to help others. I think I have written
down more about my experiences with Patric then anyone else. I thanked
heavenly father this week for letting me be the missionary to meet
this marvelous man. Because honestly, I feel like he was prepared.

Seour Gill is doing good too! we have been helping her prepare to
brake the news to her children that she got baptized. She has been a
little stressed about that talk but what seem to be the most
comforting supports to her are the members here in the branch here. I
have learned why it is so important to have members who are active in
the lives of your investigators and in the lives of recent converts.
If you lack members in the lives of either of them I don't know how a
new convert could have gotten to baptism or how they would make it
long afterwords.

I love this city! I love how dedicated the members here are to helping
others and being a blessing to others. I love my family back at home
that is supporting me. I love that so many of my friends are leaving
on missions and get to have such Wonder missionary experiences! It
really is like nothing I have ever done before in my life. A great
work and a wonder is coming about and to just be a part of that wonder
is such a blessing from god. I could not have asked for a better life
:) I love you all! have a great week!

Avec amour,
Elder Keller