august 24th letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 10:40 AM
Subject: voila; voilà?

Well, I would say that this week was boring in comparison to other
weeks. We contacted a lot. Hung out with members. Just, missionary
work all week. Oh, Monday of last week we decided to go visit a
neighboring city with our recent convert Patrick. Patrick was going to
drive us the hour there; what a nice guy! Props to whoever baptized
him. While Elder Pittsy and I were waiting for Patrick we ran into
August, our super member, and he said he was on his way to get his
phone fixed. I asked him what was wrong with it. He said that he
couldnt receive messages  from someone... I asked him if I could look
at it and after inspecting the phone for a little bit I figured out
what was stopping the messages from coming through. When I Unblocked
his phone the phone received a Title Wave of Messages from someone
named Carol. I shouldn't have looked at his messages I know. But I am
still a 19 year old boy and so I read the first couple. Turns out
August is in a pretty serious relationship with a member in one of the
neighboring branches named Carol :)  He hasn't told anyone about it
but we know now :) He said that he was going to pay like 50 bucks to
have his phone looked at but since we saved him 50 bucks he would just
come along with us! So we drove to Millau with Patrick and August! It
was a blast! We talked about Augusts love life for like ever! Millau
is pretty cool. It has the biggest bridge in Europe! The city itself
is tiny, smaller then Rodez. Still super sweet to see tho!

This week with David and Emily we brought August. August also wants to
learn English so we talked in English for a while. We then started to
read in the Liahona in English and David just went off asking
Questions. It was great! We eventually started talking about the
temple and all of the Amazing stuff that goes on there! Emily seemed
to really like it! She thought it was cool that we had ordinances
after baptism! David, like usual, was in business man mode and kept
his poker face on while he tried to ask really difficult questions.
One of which was why women cant baptize. We gave him the whole sshpeal
but Im not quiet sure he understands. August really was a huge help!
Having someone who can respond perfectly in French and just be soooo
Funnnny all at the same time is great.

Augustina is doing good. We got to see one of her grand children this
week! Man she spoils that little kid. He ate some High Class baby
food. And had Pudding for dessert! Im sure Grandma never fed me like
that ;) If I remember right Aung Peggy just gave me Orange Soda right?
haha Anywasy, Augustina is continuing to prepare for the temple. We
have her, Patrick, and one other lady in the Branch all planning on
going to the temple when the Paris Temple opens! Super Exciting! They
can all hold each other accountable. Its cool to see the branch grow
so much in the few months that I have been here. The branch really has
a Backbone now. They have plenty of support and can really just grow
now!

Joy was being super elusive this week. We tried to stop by after
calling but we just got her strange neighbors to come out.

We helped Kharim move out. Kharim is this super dope Muslim guy that
lives down the street from us. He has really high standards. LIke, he
keeps all of our commandments and then some. So he really likes to
have the missionaries come over for dinner. We would teach him but he
always made it clear that he could never convert. On tout cas, we
helped him move out. Forever....Tear.

We tried to get Marité to accept going with everyone to the temple in
a year and she said she would try! So she just needs to stop smoking
and all will work out. We worry about her though. She goes out to
clubs with some of her work friends every other Friday night.... not
the best way to use your free agency. She says she feels really judged
by the other members at church because she has to take smoke breaks.
We will keep working with her.

Anyways, I love you all, and remembre. Vous avez bien traduis cette phrase

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

August 17th letter from Grant

Subject: aucune objet

The week started out with us visiting David and Emily on Tuesday and
teaching David english. They are doing well. They said they probably
wont go to church until the baby comes but it is something that they
want to do. They asked some interesting questions this week. They
asked about american religions and if the Mormons are respected in
America. Of course we told them yes, it just makes me curious as to if
they are searching for a religion. Often they tell us that they are
just fine and aren't looking for a religion but as we got talking with
them we found at that both of their parents were religious and with a
young family and all. On plus they have already investigated the
jewish religion and one or two other christian religions.
We hope to bring our super member August Pascalin over tomorrow so
that they can see that we have normal members! haha they live right
next to one of our less actives and she just talks deep doctrine
around everyone. It really is not good for the work.

Patrick. For Patrick we spent a good chunk of wednesday with him. The
oppression for him just doesn't seem to stop. We read about iniquities
and thats been his favorite word to use to describe his latest
challenges! hahaha. We went to a little waterfall thing maybe 15
minuets outside of Rodez and just visited the little city. We hiked up
the mountain and just talked with him. Answered questions. Basically
just got him out of the house. He lightened up after about 30 minuets.
:) I am glad we spent some time with him.

To round our week off we had a conference in Bordeaux from Thursday to
Saturday. Honestly, when conferences last this long I almost feel like
we waste a lot of time. But being able to listen to president was
really cool. It always is I guess. He talked even more about the
temples and we read some scriptures in DandC that talk about how
temple work is literally the Most important thing that we are doing in
this life! And then President Brown challenged us to talk about
baptisms for the dead in our daily contacting! Whoo, thats exciting.
So Sunday evening me and pittsy tested out our new Questionaire. It
included some simple questions about the persons family and then ends
with a picture of the temple. I think I may have already talked about
it..
After an hour and a half of contacting we only talked to two people!
AND they were soooo cool; they were a french couple! When they saw the
picture of the temple at the end of the Questionaire they got really
interested and asked questions as to what it was and what we do
inside. So, following President Browns instruction we told them that
that was were we do baptisms for the dead and that our entire religion
is based(of course around jesus but after that) around fortifying the
family! They excepted to learn more about the restored gospel too! The
only down part is they asked for our number. :( so we don't have their
number to call them back. So we just get to work until they decide to
call us back.

c'est déjà sa la mail

I hope you all are having a good week! :)

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

tour de france package from grant, cousins, lunch

 Package from Grant - t-shirts he picked up at the tour de france stopped over in Rodez.

Troy and aiden eating ice cream and Austin dressed up like Elder Keller : ) Cute boy

 Saturday we took Tanya down to Snow College, she is off on her college life :)  We moved her entire bedroom into her dorm room... amazing all those shoes fit!  We stopped for breakfast at the main street diner.  It was good, a lot of food and in a lot of butter...  Troy and I stopped by the Manti Temple before we headed home.  Such a beautiful temple.  So cool that is where my parents were married.

 during the week the girls went and got our nails done before we took Tanya to college and Friday night we did baptisms at the bountiful temple and then went to eat at Red Robin.  Those were some big hamburgers, oh my.

 swimming with all of our cute cousins...

 I had lunch with with Heather, Stacey and Darcy at a fun Mediterranean restaurant in SLC while Heather was in town for a couple of weeks.  My French crepe was ok, worth taking a picture and sending it to grant : )

These are pictures of a storm rolling in, the house we are buying in Texas and our house with a for sale sign in front of it : (

August 10th letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, August 10, 2015 10:06 AM
Subject: Less actives and recent converts.

Patricks family has been getting more and more aggressive towards him
and his decision to join the church. It doesn't help that he has a
pinched nerve in his spinal column. He has always had a strange spinal
column he told us but he was lifting something for his rabbits and it
tweaked his back  and so he has been using his back support all week.
We taught him about the priesthood and how he can receive it soon. It
was a great Segway after we gave him a blessing of healing. We had our
really awesome member Fr. Pascalin there who explained how the oil was
used in ancient Israel.

Sister Gil is doing Awesome! We had a Rondez-vous with her Tuesday and
we got talking about testimonies and stuff and she, for the first time
I have ever heard her, gave a really heartfelt testimony. She talked
about how true the church was due to her reading in the book of
mormon. I think this is the most confident I have ever seen in her in
regards to her testimony. And to top her week of she finally told her
family that she was baptized a few months ago! Well, and by family I
mean her youngest son. He didn't take the news to well. He is SOO sure
that she joined a cult! It really blows my mind how many people here
just think that we are some crazy cult! The worst is that once we talk
to them about it they don't even seem to know what a cult is! Sigh,
first world problems.

I haven't written much about seour Marité but she is one of the less
active we see about once to twice a week. She has a testimony and a
strong conviction of the Book of Mormon but her smoking addiction
makes her feel embarrassed to go to church. Our lesson this week was
on the temple. She hasnt been yet and we thought it would be a good
goal for her to set. We talked about how France is going to get her
first temple next year! She was excited to hear that and happily fixed
a date for when she wants to go to the temple! She knows that she has
to quit smoking to go and we touched on that. We are excited that she
fixed such a high goal! It will definitely change her life.

I think I have mentioned David and Emily a few times. We had our first
official appointment with them this week! OH BOY, We answered all of
Davids questions on Polygamy. I think that is the first (and hopefully
the last time) that I have a first lesson be on the controversial
topic of Plural marriage. We saw them again a few days later and
talked on Joseph Smith and the Retab(definitely a more comfortable
topic). And fixed another appointment on Tuesday where we will review
the Retab and teach David some english :)

That covers the basics for the week! I felt my testimony of the
Restoration of the gospel grow this week. We have been reading Joseph
smith history with Brother Biargue and it is soo cool to feel the
power that come from the prophets own proper words of the
establishment of Christ's church in the latter days.

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

picture is grant and his companion and the Albi missionaries at the ward activity at the beach two weeks ago... grant was pretty red by the end of the day : )

August 3rd letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, August 3, 2015 5:10 AM
Subject: Re: I dont know what to put as a subject for this week

I forgot to write in my journal all week until Sunday night so that
either means we have been working super hard and have gotten lost i
the work, or that the ping pong set that Elder Pittsenbarger bought is
absorbing all of our evenings. I wont say much on the subject other
then VICTOR BETTER WATCH OUT FOR WHEN I GET BACK BECAUSE I AM GETTING
REALLY GOOD AT PING PONG!!!

Worldly things aside, Mathias got Baptized! Wahoo! It was really cool

to see him get baptized by his Grandfather. We have been working with
Mathias for almost 14 weeks. He has made lots of progress since then.
He is definitely someone I want to keep in touch with.

We had a zone training in toulouse on Wednesday so that was really
fun. Instead of being edified by the zone leaders like normal
President wants all of the missionaries to brainstorm ideas for
implementing temples into our work. He wants us to talk about them
more while contacting, with less actives, members Everyone! We tried
out contacting and bringing up the temples. It went pretty well except
for when  people ask the question "temples? isn't that where they used
to kill lambs?" Those conversations usually stay interesting :)

We have been working more and more with Patricks sister Vivian! and so
that means we have been learning more sign language! and while we were
on exchange in albi we contacted into a deaf guy and I totally signed
to him and he got super happy!! He told us he wasnt religious but was
happy that we were outside walking around talking with people. Then he
made a bunch of hand gestures that I really didnt know! haha, I felt
like I was learning French all over again! I was pretty happy to
employ my newly developed skills though.

Our week was good. Drinking plenty of water, its cooled off but not by
much. I hope everyone is doing well! I pray for you, not during every
prayer but a fair enough amount! ;)

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

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!