Transfer day - March 28, 2016

Grant Pictures Paris

 They had to run up to Paris one day to fix Grant's companions visa papers or something and these were pics they took.  March 25, 2016

Letter from Grant - March 21, 2016

The week was great, we started this week off by having Elder Christofferson come and speak to our mission. Holy cats that man is amazing. We have been reading Christofferson talks all month in preparation for him. We also were given the goal to have one hundred and eighty seven engages(people with baptismal dates) before he comes. To accomplish our goal Every team of missionaries needed to have two engages. Basically an engage per missionary in our mission. Which is a remarkable thinking that we, as a mission, only baptized one hundred and fifty last year and we had  extra missionaries then. Anywho, we all worked crazy hard and ended up getting two hundred and twenty three! Just incredible, we even found an engage before Christofferson came. His name is Thomas. We found him in the area book. Haven't gotten to know him super well yet but we plan on getting to know eachother better :)

Wednesday we went to Clerment-ferrand to fix some drawers and give the sisters a new chair. After we ran down to Toulouse with the other office elders to take down an old Elders apartment. We moved the Elders down there into an old sisters apartment that was fully furnished. Which means we had to take everything from the old Elders apartment either home, or to the dump. Fortunately, we found enough space in storage for most of it. While we were down in Toulouse we had what is known among missionaries as the "Toulouse K-bob" It was probably the best K-bob I have had on my mission. :) We made it home late Thursday night. Friday we ran some errands for the Mission office and Friday night we taught the Chinese investigators how to make cheese cake! :) It was pretty exciting. 

Saturday, I know I haven't said much yet but I was asked to baptize a Chinese investigator named Tian. That was really cool, she wanted me to baptize her in Chinese so I had one of the Chinese Elders record the Chinese baptismal words on my IPad and during our long drives I would play it back over and over until I had it memorized! Anywho, got it on the first time :) didn't have to baptize her more than once and another one of the Chinese investigators said that I was "quiet understandable" so I guess I can't really ask for much more on that topic :) Anywho, here are pics...

The elders that taught Tian(Zhu an Jensen(Jensen is from Oregon)) and Me

Tian, Me :D, and Lucas

Elder Christoffersons car...no We just found it in the parking garage after the Christofferson conference :P

We played Jenga Friday night and Tian took this picture and she thought it was like the funniest thing ever. And no I didn't lose.

Avec amour,

Elder Keller

Xie Tian Baptism

Letter from Grant - March 14 2016

This week almost sounds like a normal missionary week.

So, we had interviews with President Tuesday, always good to have some one on one time with the big man. He promised us that we would find one person to engage to baptism before the mission conference.

The next day we ran errands up in Lausanne. Some elders got a fridge from some nice members. The fridge was infested with cockroaches. So they were happy for a clean fridge. We also installed a washer, dryer, and an oven up in one of the newer Geneva apartments. We came down from Swiss to Lyon Thursday for district meeting. District meeting was really solid. Probably one of the best ones I have had. It was on repentance. Which I thought was odd at first since all President has been talking about lately has been engaging people to baptism to reach our goal of two new people with a baptismal dates per missionary team before March fifteenth. March fifteenth is our mission conference! And Elder Christofferson is coming! We are all super excited. Anywho, we talked about repentance and just did lots with repentance. I don't know how to explain it, it was spiritual.

We spent the next two days on exchange with our district leader Elder Lindsey and his companion Elder Blake Wilson! We did good work, we were trying to find people to engage to baptism. So we went through the entire area book and tried to recontact everyone who used to have a baptismal date. We fixed some appointments, and that's what we spent most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday doing. 

Today, the office dropped a lot of random stuff on us. They need all sorts of random things done before the Christofferson conference tomorrow. Basically we have had no time today, However, litter-ally less then an hour ago we had a Rondez-vous with one of the people we called from the area book and we engaged him to baptism and he accepted! His name is Thomas, he is a very humble old French man in his fifties. Really kind guy :) Anyways, it was a super cool little miracle.

Avec amour,

Elder Keller

Letter from Grant - March 7th Happy 20th!

Monday morning we got up and drove cross mission all the way to Bordeaux. We ate breakfast in Brive and got the biggest Eclairs I have ever seen. We even ate them in the back of the van.

When we got to Bordeaux we checked out two empty closing apartments. The first we couldn't get into, grabbed the wrong set of keys. The second, when we did get in, was completely trashed. Someone(either the Elders or some strangers) broke ALL of the furniture into pieces and then piled it up next to the heaters. Crazy stuff. Fortunate the place didn't burn down. Someone had also fried a couple plastic plates and bowls in the microwave. Floor was super ripped up too. The whole thing was just crazy, unreal, a little scary to be honest. So we got to be the cleanup crew. 

We spent the night in Agens, where elder Wilson spent his last four transfers, and gave them some chairs that they were missing. Elder Steinbock is in Agnes, he came in with me so it was good to see him and talk. I didn't realize he was raised Jewish or that he spoke fluent Hebrew! Pretty funny the people you come in contact with.

We took down the entire Pau apartment in one day. Man, we were tired. The proprietor decided that she wanted to sell the four man apartment that the elders in. So, just moved everything out. Kinda crazy. 

I'm finally like half way through doing legality. Oh, pain in the neck. 

Anywho, we made it back home to Lyon Thursday night. The rest of the week we ran errands in Lyon. The mission nurse needed some furniture and one of the mission couples needed stuff. 

Well that was the week. Loves, see ya soon.

Avec amour,

Elder Keller

Letter from Grant -- March 2, 2016

Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2016 12:48 AM
Subject: Nimes again!

    So, This week was filled with moving the Nimes elders. It was
enjoyable to visit my last ville and see how much the work has
progressed! Unfortunately the only lady we ever engaged to baptism
didn't got through. The missionaries are still in contact with her and
she says she wants to get baptized but doesn't ever show to
Rondez-vous. Anywho, Nimes was great fun and all, except for the fact
that the new apartment was only a couple streets down on the other
side of ville. And due to the construction we had no access to the
roads to either apartments. So, we had to carry ovens, fridges,
washer/dryers, couches, and beds through the middle of the city.
Humorous enough to say, a pain in the back to do. We got some pretty
funny looks. We had a load where we were all carrying mattress,
blankets, and pillows through ville and that load got us the funniest
looks for sure! Haha

When we got back from the Nimes move it was Friday night.

    Saturday was pretty cool though. We took part in helping a member in
our ward move apartments. His name is Wesley. He is pretty sweet, he
served a mission a few years ago so apparently he helps the
missionaries go finding and teaching. We had almost the entire Elder
force of Lyon helping him move, we totaled some twelve missionaries.
The move was probably the fastest I have ever seen! Haha. We got
invited to help the Chinese elders out since they couldn't find any
guys to help them out. We played some Chinese card game called Sang Wo
Sha. I'm sure Josh can translate. It's really fun...if you speak
Chinese. Elder Carlson and I just sort of "watched" and did whatever
the person next to us was doing. Anyways, it was a really cool night,
they engaged tsen to baptism and got two new investigators! Super
awesome elders!

    We gave talks Sunday, they went well, we even got invited over to eat
at a members house after. Weather giving talks is in anyway related to
the members feeding us or not I don't know, but I am glad that they
both happened. We ate at the Bonamy family's. They are the coolest! We
hopefully will play basketball with their two boys this Saturday with
one of our new investigators. The bonamys LOVE to talk so we got a lot
more than a mouthful. But I love them! They are good people all
around. Even better, Mr.Bonamy served a mission in Italy and had the
Exact same job as we do in moving elders! Haha, that was funny, he
told us that driving in Spain was ten times harder then in France.
Apperently there are road where he was about five centimeter from each
wall and when they would get to staircases he would have to go super
slowly and drive up a step or two. Sounds like fun :)

Anywho, I love you all, I hope you stay safe and have a good week!

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

The sister on the far right sent this picture out, so sweet of her!  Grant is standing next to Louis who was baptized last month.