First transfer for Grant

Elder Keller had his first transfer Monday.  We were happy to hear from him yesterday, even though he does seem a bit tired in his letter and it gets worse in my letter!  But I wanted to add a little bit of my letter that he sent to me.  (it's at the end)  I thought I'd share it because I have loved seeing him grow, not only in the Gospel, but within himself.  Its been a  wonderful blessing to have him in our lives as a missionary.  : )

Subject: Rodez!!!!!!

So, yesterday I spent 12 hours on a train and two hours on a bus. wow. Hence the late email. I have been sent to the city of Rodez! Its presidents favorite city. Apparently, he baptized the very first person in this branch after having 20 investigators at church. I mean not at church, his appartment.

There isn't a branch here yet, we share with the branch in alby. but they are getting a building here this summer! Super sweet! I hope I can stay for a while. 

My new companion. Boy, when I found out he was German I immediately threw a happy fit! He KNOWS HOW TO COOK SAUSAGE!? wow! His name is elder Gossel! and do you know who is last companion was? Elder Smith from the MTC! so thats been fun! although, elder gossel does not eat lots of food. For dinner, a half a bowl of pasta; for breakfast, one packet of oatmeal; for lunch today, couscous. I might starve to death, or get that european bodAYY! hahaha He does make really good food though! 

So when getting off of the train here the first person I met was this man named Mark. Elder Gossel said "we have an ami here who wants to see you" and before I could brace myself this 5'8 big ol iraqian man came up and hugged the life out of me. Mark is literally the happiest person I have ever met! He just loves everyone! He wanted to see elder Smith off and greet the new missionary here so he spent 25 euros to take the train to Toulouse to come and pick me up.... 

Anyways, thats like all I can think of for now. I am a bit tired and the guy next to me at this internet cafe is blasting metal music out of his headphones and it makes it kinda hard to think. good thing that wasn't a run on.

Love you all! 

Elder Keller

Hunter wrote me, yey! I am super excited that hunter is going to Honduras! haha he is going to love it! I feel that for a mission to be successful, or, for you to stay out on a mission you really have to be 100 percent committed and he sounds excited and ready. I remember the first couple days, maybe even the first week thinking " what am I even doing here" and then I found something to fuel my desire, or I found my desire somewhere. I found love for that investigator at the mtc. I LOVED zach. More than elder Brill. and all the sudden it made sense. I am on a mission to give these people the gospel and since then I haven't doubted or asked "why am I here". 

You would love Rodez. Its the prettiest place in the WORLd! it reminds me of that house on the hill scripture! 

Prayer, it really works. It is like a sand timer thing. the ones that you turn upside down and the sand begins to fall. every time you pray about this thing it is like a grain or two of sand. It takes lots of prayers to build up a worthy little pile. Its easier when two or three people are praying for the same thing. Chose something specific. and Pray. :) I know this is true because everytime I have done this it has worked. 

24 weeks out, 18 weeks in France

Subject: I still can't believe it.

So since I have been companions with Elder Duckworth he has always said "work hard during the week and people just show up at church asking to be baptized". Obviously  I didn't believe him. Yet, clearly I am wrong. This week was a hard working week since we have had less lessons with our investigators; so that means more time out contacting and going door to door. We want to start this thing called "Getting Jerseys" basically its when you get someones name and number! We got six Jerseys this week! That is like six potential investigators! Anywho, we worked hard and got some Jerseys but didn't really commit anyone to coming to church. But, a young couple, in their twenties, just showed up to church yesterday with one of the less actives in the ward. The less active brought them because the young couple wanted to find a church in which they could raise their kids in. They want their children to have "faith" and hope in something. Well, I am no expert but boy do we have a message for you! So that was pretty sweet!

We are going to play basketball with Justinian today! This will be the first time in 5 weeks. Wow. We are really excited to see him though! and the less active who brought the young couple to church said he might come play some ball with us! 

Elder Duckworth was sick on Friday. That was my first experience taking care of a sick elder. We only got to go out side for an hour or two but when we did go outside it was like Heavenly father just put every single person we had ever talked to out with us! Okay, we hop on the bus at our stop. We went down one stop and an old potential investigator got on the bus! We ran up (okay not really ran up, I mean we are on a bus) and started asking how she was doing! Elder Duckworth doesn't know her since it was Elder Perry and I who contacted her, but we started talking to her and unfortunately she wasn't to interested in learning about church but she did say she would come to "Soir Famillial" or family night tonight! Go down another stop. Another old potential investigator got on the bus! Its like we are taking the magic school bus. We talked to him for a bit but until he, unfortunately, excused himself at the next stop. But the stop that he got off was the stop that a Less active got on! So we asked how she was doing and tried to fix a day that we could pass by her house.

I know the lord blesses those who work hard. I know the lord blesses us when we pray. I know that being a missionary is SUUUPER fun! I love you guys and hope that you all have wonderful weeks!

Elder Keller

Pictures! the pictures of the crown. There is this game where the baker of a cake puts a little baby jesus in side the cake. the cake cooks, you serve the cake. Whoever gets baby jesus is crowned "king" for the day. We played it at a members house. Joy.

Grant's letter March 2, 2015

I feel really fat. This week we ate dinner at members houses 4/7 nights and a really nice member dropped goose off for dinner on Sunday. This is like the best branch to have ever existed.

We spent a lot of time out contacting this week! We had Fifty seven conversations about the gospel. That is 8 more conversations than I have ever had! We fixed almost ten appointments with people but no one showed. Honestly it was kinda hard having so many meetings fall through and by the end of the week I felt like we had wasted a lot of time. But the lord blessed us! Our work did not go unnoticed.

 This entire transfer Elder Duckworth and I take two prayers aside just to ask Heavenly Father if he will give us people to teach to grow this branch. The branch hasn't seen any new members in over a year and you can feel the affects of that on the branch. But yesterday we had a super cool miracle happen! Half way through church an older couple, grand parent age, and their thirty five year old daughter walk into the building! They are moving here from another city in France! All three of them are investigators from a ward down in Axon-Provonce. The mother is scheduled to be baptized in our branch on the 7 of march! The Husband said he still has some things he wants to work on before he gets baptized and this was the daughters first experience with the church! HOLY GUACAMOLEY! If I have learned anything in this branch it is that the power of prayer is SOOO real and SOOO applicable in our lives! 

Jesus gave a parable about a man who goes to his neighbors house looking for bread in the middle of the night. The man continues to knock on his neighbors door until his neighbor opens and gives him bread. At the end of the parable Jesus explains that if we knock we will receive. Talmage clearly explains that if we continue in constant prayer eventually the lord will open his door and give us what we want. As long as it is good ;) This was made clear to me and Elder Duckworth as we asked the lord twice a day to give us people to grow this branch. And like the sleepy neighbor who eventually gives bread to the wanting man, the lord provided. I can not tell you how excited the entire branch was. One of the members, through tears, said (and this is directed at the new investigators) "After talking to you for five minuets I feel like I have known you forever". I am so grateful to be here in Chalon and to watch the lord unfold this miracle. I know that the lord has helped us every step of the way and we owe it all to him. He is blessing this young branch with wonderful new people who are already fostering strong testimonies. I know the power of prayer is real and that our God is a God of mercy; he loves his children and he loves us even more when we talk to him on our knees.  I love this Branch and I love the missionary work...oh, Missionary FUN! :D

So about the title... During our contacting this week we ran into Brandon Davies, his wife and her parents! WAHOO! we got to talk for a while and Brandon's mother in law offered to take pictures of us and send them to our parents! So hopefully mom has gotten that and can attach the photo to this email :) It was a fun little experience and really lightened our day! and even better, BRANDON DAVIES GAVE US CHURROS!!! yes, we got fed by a famous basketball player ;)

This week was hard, feet hurt, legs hurt, we were worn out, but it was sooooooo worth it! 

Elder Keller

Mission letter from Grant

Yes indeed Chalon is having a Carnival! I uploaded a picture of the confetti that the parade dumped ALL over the streets(yes, the names of the shops here are a bit odd). It has been a little rainy the past couple days so I hope to get some sweet pictures of the Carnival for you guys next week. 

This week we had a zone conference and President Roney let us watch Meet the Mormons! That wasn't missionary work, that was missionary FUN! That little quote has been what Elder Duckworth says when things are hard. For instance, we were contacting people the other day and we got a very good look at an old ladies middle finger and Elder Duckworth said "this isn't missionary work, its missionary FUN!" 

Beaune (pronounced "bone" like the white things inside your body), is a very pretty city just right outside of Chalon. It is in our sector so we figured it would be nice to go and contact some people up there. Well turns out Beaune is the Heart of the French wine industry and every other person that we contacted asked us if we had tasted the wine yet. It gave us many opportunities to Teach the Word of Wisdom; some people thought that that made us very interesting, others not so much. Our coolest contact in Beaune was this guy wearing all Lakers gear. Jersey, Hat, Shoes, the works! We have found that people wearing clothes that support sports teams are usually the easiest to start a conversation with because you just ask them how their team is doing and they just start talking for years! Anyways this guy we contacted his name Swan! And he said that he wanted to see us again, so that was really cool. He also said that he has looked into a lot of religions searching for the truth so we are hoping to set up a rondez-vous with him.

The work here is moving along. 

Service! We got to go help a member move a rock statue into his house yesterday! Its the first service we have really got to preform for someone in a while so it felt good to get out and assist him.

Super cool teaching moment! We teach an English class here every week and one of the people in the class, Fred, asked about our religion! Fred came to English class to learn English and nothing else and so when he started asking questions about the church and why we were called Mormons it was a great opportunity to share! It really makes me happy when someone has a genuine interest in our gospel! It didn't seem like Fred wanted to go to church the next day or anything but we hope that over time he will come around to asking more about us and maybe even taking the lessons!

We got a less active to church! HOLY GUAC_A_MOLEY that was exciting! He has been a less active for a little over ten years and do you know how we got him to church? We sent him a text the night before that said "hey, we hope to see you at church tomorrow". And he came! We have a rondez-vous with him on wednesday and we really just can't...well, I can't wait to see him. He runs marathons and is into running. 

Je vous aime tous! (pronounced" ju voo-zem too" translated "I love you all")

Gardez votre foi! (pronounced "gardey vow-tra fwah" translated "keep your faith")

Elder Keller

 all the confetti from the festival

Grant wishing he had watched more BYU Basket Ball

Subject: I wish I had watched more BYU basket ball before the Mission

*If you have not read the title I would recommend giving it another look. For all future missionaries reading this...this may or may not be good information.

Easily, the most exciting thing that happened this week was a text from President Roney (for those of you who don't know President Roney is my Mission president. He is also the owner of Newskin if any of you know what that is). Our text said "Go to this address and get Brandon Davies number for me" with an address at the bottom.

 Holy Cow we were excited!  

Immediately we took off towards the address. We were expecting to find an apartment complex or even some small houses. What we got was the Chalon Basketball stadium. We walked all around the stadium trying to find a way in. It was mid-day and literally no one was outside the stadium. 

After our first one and half trips around the stadium we saw a nice looking lady walk into a set of double doors. We followed her through and discovered a small looking front desk with a rather grumpy old women. We asked her if she knew who Brandon Davies was and her response was a mix between a MM-HMM and a UH-UHH. So Elder Duckworth pulled the "were american" card and she told us to go around the outside of the building to door 8.

So off we went! Half way around we noticed a skinny guy in gym shorts with a basket ball open a door and go into the building. He didn't go into door 8 but he looked like a basketball player! So when we got to the door we poked our heads in. It was a dark room and smelled like sweat. We took about two steps in before we heard a SLAM! Yes the door behind us shut. Yes the door behind us locked. So you have two american missionaries in what turned out to be the locker room for the basketball players. I wasn't scared, I felt completely fine until Elder Duckworth said "Crap, we are definitely going to go to jail if we get caught!" That sure didn't set off an alarm in my head! About ten seconds after he said that the locked door opened and guess who stepped through? A MASSIVE 7ft tall white guy! My first thought was "OH NO SECURITY FOUND US!" but then he walked right by us....

A little surprised; but I mustered all the strength and confidence that I had built from personal study this morning and asked him if he knew how to get to the front desk in French. He turned around, with took about Three and a half seconds because he was HUGE. He looked at us and said "look y'all, I don't speak french. Can you speak English?" OH if that wasn't a relief! after we explained who we were and how we got stuck here he gave us directions to the front desk! Turns out his name is Scott and he is super nice! :D

On our way to the front desk we heard some Basketballs bouncing. And we took a peak in through another set of doors only to find THE BASKETBALL COURT! We wandered through and saw a couple people shooting around getting warmed up. We asked someone in the stands what was going on and he said that practice was going to start. That was great news! We found the portal entrance thing where the basket ball players came through to get onto the court and picked the seats closest to it. After a few minuets some more basketball players wandered through. They all waved at the people sitting in the stands before stepping on to the court. We waited for a few minuets like that and Elder Duckworth pointed out that we only had a few minutes left until we had to leave to get to our next appointment. The thought running through my head was "darn, we wasted all this time trying to get to Brandon and we won't even be able to talk to him!" Well sometimes the lord works in mysterious ways. 

And sometimes he doesn't. Literally right after my companion pointed that out MR. Tall, Dark, and Ready to play Basketball walked through the player entrance! He gave the audience a good wave and then looked at us. And got a HUGE smile! After a few seconds of awkward silence he put his baskeball down and said "Are you going to say something? Or just let the tags do all the talking?"  That got us laughing! We hopped out of our chairs and went up to greet him. We introduced ourselves and explained what we were doing. We told him we missed him at church the other week and he said something about having an extra early morning practice for losing the last game. We told him we had to go and thanked him for his time. We also asked him for his phone number so that President Roney could get in contact with him. He asked for a pen and some paper and I handed him my planner and a pencil. Yes, I got an autograph(see attachment below). Before we left we thanked him and as I went to shake his hand I realized he had a hand the size of a Small Planet! His hand DEVOURED my hand. I think I lost contact with my hand for at least ten seconds after that! 

Walking out of the stadium me and Elder Duckworth were both just going crazy! We were so excited to have met Brandon Davies! 

The week was pretty good missionary wise! We got some sweet new investigators and I learned A Lot from my exchange with the zone leaders! I hope you all had a great week!

Love from Elder Keller

Grant's 14th week out in the mission field/first transfer

This week we only taught two lessons. It was really sad. Elder D got here and literally everyone we had ever taught just wasn't available. We spent almost all of our time out contacting and searching out less actives because we couldn't set appointments. Elder D is strange. He sleeps through exercises in the morning, although I did get him to go and run with me twice, and he doesn't have a lot of energy to go and do. 

When we first got back from the train station, after swapping companions, Elder D opened up his biggest suit case with all of his clothes and spread them out on the floor. For the rest of the week this became his clean clothes pile. He would wake up, walk over to the heap of clothes, and put it on his body. It's disgusting that he leaves his clothes there, it's even grosser when you think that the spot where he leaves his clothes was the spot that I used to do all of my exercises. 

Elder D's favorite food is chicken nuggets and potato balls. Yes they have chicken nuggets in France, Yes potato balls are deep fried mash-potato's rolled up into tiny balls. I am starting to imagine that this is how mom feels. So I made a goal to eat healthier this week. Although he doesn't eat healthy he does have a healthy sense of humor! He jokes often and makes light of most situations throughout the day.

But don't think that Elder D is a bad missionary. Once we get outside and start contacting people he fills with energy. He is a great contacter and is pretty funny! He gets along really well with Laruant and Anthony so that's awesome! and during the two lessons we had this week he was really sensitive to the spirit and honestly gave a lot of effort in teaching.

 I know that this next week is going to be good though! After a whole week of no responses our ami with the baptismal date(Thibaut) decided to see us today. I think that for a whole week of contacting we really didn't contact as many people as we could have. So I plan on bumping up effectiveness. This week will  be better; we will talk to more people, we will be even more delightful, and we will eat a more colorful array of foods!

Sorry for the short email, with lots of contacting there isn't much to write about. Heck, we still haven't even seen Brandon Davies yet.

But, I am happy! :D  and the weather is getting better, or so the church website says. I sure hope with prophets and evangelists we can make a good weather forecast.

Elder Keller

I found this picture on Laraunt's facebook page and copied it.  Laraunt, Elder Perry and Grant at Christmas time

Letter from Grant - out 4 months

Today has been exciting! I got to help elder Perry leave. It was sad. I really grow to love Elder Perry, even with his uniquenesses(dad, is this a word?). I believe that what I learned with Elder Perry will influence me the rest of my mission.

This week was special! First off Stevens family, the Garniea ( pronounced gar-knee-ay) family, let us come in and do a family home evening with them! That was SUPER  COOL! Elder Perry and I played some hymns on the guitars and we were all just talken and being friendly. Eventually we asked if they had read the book of Mormon at all and Madame Garniea said that she hadn't found time too;but wanted us to share a story from the book of Mormon. did prayers just get answered? I think so! We read them some stories from the Blue book and had a prayer, AS A WHOLE FAMILY. If that wasn't just the most exciting thing! Afterwords Steven was reading the book before we left so I hope, and pray, that he reads more of it!

We did in fact run in 0 degree weather this week! It was even snowing! woo

Another step back this week was with Katy Berry. She came to church today! woo! and while at church, during gospel principles class, she opened up her catholic prayer book instead of the hymn book. Yes that is right, our investigator thought she could find Mormon hymns in her Catholic Prayer book. Elder Perry explained to her that the book she was holding was only used by Catholics. Katy Berry's response was " you guys aren't catholic"? 

Elder Perry sighed and in English said "we spent our first 5 lessons explaining that, 5 lessons! how many times do I have to explain this!" (he may or may not have gotten enough sleep last night because of packing. We have been actively teaching Katy for 4 months...But looking up! Us and some of the ward fasted for her. We fasted hoping that her relationship with her kids gets better. I think she felt the power that came with that.

We got to visit Françis this week! That was nice! He wants to keep meeting with us! Apparently he has been stressed out with his book lately and trying to get it published and that has consumed most of his time.

Elder Duckworth. I have spent 3 hours with him, so far. He is pretty quiet, doesn't say a lot, hasn't laughed yet, hasn't cried yet either soo...

From what I have gotten to know he is a pretty down to earth kinda guy and likes football. He is excited to meet Brandon Davies and Fr. Dougy.

Elder Keller OUT