Chirstmas Dance or Winter Formal 2018

Ana and Ethan attended Farmington High School's Winter Formal this past weekend.  Saturday Ana's group, one of Ana's friends asked Ethan and so they were in the same group, came over at noon to make cookie trains.  I think they had a really good time.  Half of the group was an hour late, which was a bit strange, so they didn't get a chance to know all of the kids in the group.  But they chatted away for two hours while decorating their trains.  It's always a fun Christmas time activity.

Then they changed took pictures, had dinner at Julie's house (Ethan's date), attended the dance and then came back here for some games.  Quite the night and a good time had by all.  Ana's date was Jordan who just lives a couple houses down from us and Julie is in our church ward.  I think this was a great opportunity for the kids to get to know some of the kids in this area better and will hopefully lead to some good friendships.

It was a bit of a crazy day as Ethan had a swim team dinner on Friday night and got home pretty late.  Then he had to be at the rec center at 7 am to get ready for a district swim meet at 8 am.  So at 8 am Troy and I dropped off some centerpieces at the church for the ward breakfast and then went to see Ethan swim.  We watched him swim the 50 m freestyle and then we headed home to grab Ana and head to the ward dutch oven breakfast.  It was really yummy!  It was nice to visit with a couple of our neighbors and then we headed home a little after 11 am to finish setting up train stuff and filling the bags with frosting for the kids.  Great day, but never ending :)

Fun dance pictures!  Good looking kids.  Friday after school my nephew, Austin, came over and helped me organize all of the train candy and open all of the candy bags into bowls.  He did such a great job.  So we each made a train to test out the frosting and cookies.  Then Ethan joined in showing Austin how to make walrus teeth...  yep, that's how it goes around here.

Thanksgiving Letter From Morgan

Fun fact of the week: kiwis dont celebrate Thanksgiving, but they do celebrate Black Friday!

Chur bruhs!

This week has been more or less uneventful. Pretty much the highlight of the week was when we had district counsel and our awesome senior couple, Elder and Sister Stout, made us Thanksgiving dinner. It was super tastey with real pumpkin cheesecake and real sliced Turkey from a bag!! One of our newest missionaries, Elder Powell, is from Wales so this was his first Thanksgiving ever :,) also his first name is Ethan, so now I have two little brothers named Ethan! (Don't worry Thanman you're still my favorite)

Other than that it's been super rainy, and since neither Sister Ieremia or I really want to get sick again, we've been spending an extra hour or two in the flat so we can study and she can prepare for exchanges next week. The best thing that comes out of that is I have more time to bake! Those of you who know me, (which is everyone?) Know I have a huge sweet tooth. So I've been baking heaps! And since I don't want to gain weight (this is called the 20k mission for a reason) I give most of my sweets to the Elders. I'm not allowed to look up any recipes, so everything I make is from memory. Apparently its half decent because one companionship of Elders can wolf down a dozen cookies in under five minutes. They crazy

Speaking of sickness, I'm mostly recovered! Nice! The only thing left is I can't hear out of my right ear. Less nice! Apparently when you're sick and you sniff and blow your nose a lot, you can cause temporary deafness. So that's made for some interesting lessons... apparently one day Sister Ieremia was talking to me from the other room for five minutes and I didn't hear any of it haha. She can't wait for transfers

We had lots of appointments and pretty much all of them got cancelled Haha. Our progressing investigator has been out of town for two weeks now, so we probably won't be able to set her this transfer which is kind of sad. We have been visiting lots of less actives though which is way cool! Our branch could be a ward if half of our less actives came back. So we are doing work, just not a lot of numbers to show for it. But that's okay because missionary work is more about love than conversion :) which leads me to my spiritual thought...

For those of you who can, look up the Mormon message (Are they called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints messages now?) "you never know". This one makes me cry every single time and it has such a strong meaning  behind it. Even simple ministering such as babysitting the neighbors kids for an hour or listening to your sister vent lead to so much good you may never realize. I know all of yous are missionaries even without the tag, and I'm proud of your examples! This week I commit each of you to find a less active and visit them, even if it's just to check up on them. I promise that as you do you'll be able to feel Gods love for your individual selves throughout the week.

Ofa  Atu!

Sister Keller

1. My favorite Samoan hairstylists back at it!
2. The finished product
3. Thxgiving in New Zealand!
4. My new Maori grandma and her mokopono
5. Pretty Opotiki :)
6. Wimona is pretty too I guess
7. A member made a bag for me and told me to wear it in my hair...? Está bien

November, Thanksgiving and Tanya's 22nd Birthday!

Ok a few more things that happened in November...  The Tingey's did a bunch of sealings in the Bountiful Temple on Saurday the 17th.  It was great to be there all together and to do some long awaited temple sealings.  The names we did were names that my mom, Grayce and I had found. Very cool.

Some pictures of Ethan and Percy chilling... took these to send to Morgan and I don't think that we got them sent!  Better late than never.

Then, of course, there was Thanksgiving!  We had the family and my parents over to our new home in Farmington for Thanksgiving dinner.  Troy was awesome to make the turkey again this year!  I'm not so great with birds and would always talk someone else into cooking the bird, or coming over and helping me cook it.  So a few years back when I broke my wrist right before Thanksgiving, Troy stepped up and cooked the turkey!  Awesomeness! Thus it has been passed to him to be the baker of the bird at Thanksgiving.  I give thanks for this blessing :)

It was great to have most everyone there.  We were missing Morgan as she is serving the Lord in New Zealand and Victor said he slept though the holiday, so we missed him too.  The food was great and I
even baked a pie, it's been years!  Seriously, maybe like 15 years since I've baked a pie.  It was so so.  I cut out half of the sugar that the recipe called for and so the pie was ok, but definately needed a little whipped cream or better yet some ice cream.  Then it was tasty.

My parent's have been teaching a finance class in the evenings and so we had them come share some highlights for the family.  It was really good and I think most everyone got something useful out of it.  After the financial learning we pulled out the pies, cake and ice cream and celebrated Tanya's 22nd birthday.  She got all of the candles out with one little puff.  We may have to go back to trick candles for Tanya next year.

Mom's Letter

Hello dearest daughter,

I keep sitting down to write to you and other things pop up!  I saw an email from facebook saying a lot of people liked something on the Hamilton Mission page so I had to go and see :)  It was about really taping up the boxes we mail to NZ, sigh.  I already mailed yours this morning!! Hope it makes it safely to you. 
        side note:  there are two of a lot of things, one for you and one for your companion.  the things with tags without a name are for your companion, you may have a different one by Christmas, so I left them blank.  There are also a few things wrapped for you to open on christmas... not much, didn't know what you would want to haul around with you for another year!  And I didn't know if you needed dresses or clothes or things like that.  The stuff that isn't wrapped you can enjoy before christmas or for Christmas eve, whatever. 

Then I saw a post about the Opotiki fb page and found the right one!  Your cute face is right in the back middle of the home page for the Opotiki ward page.  It's private to I asked to join :)

Ethan has been home sick the past two days with a fever... yep some kind of flu.  It's not bad at all and he feels great while he is on advil and tylenol.  But as soon as they wear off he's got the chills or is cooking hot.   Hopefully it breaks by Sunday night so he doesn't miss anymore school.  Although he's a pretty easy patient!  Can't complain.  I've been making him help me when he feels good get somethings around the house done.  Thus I get distracted and forget to write to you.  I was going to write right after I read my scriptures to that I could send uplifting thoughts, but then I ran to the store and mailed your box :).  See what I mean.  It takes a lot to get me to sit and focus at the computer, hahahaha.

Well, is there anything you do need?  We are just plugging along.  We are going to go see the second Fantastic Beasts movie tonight at 10pm!  That should be fun and the Tingey's are going to do a bunch of sealings at Bountiful Temple at 4pm tomorrow (Saturday), it will be nice to get a lot of those done too.

Oh, I also saw on the Hamilton FB page that some people have done a couple different things to help avoid all the fees when you buy stuff on your bank card.  Everytime you make a purchase you are charged about 5$ in fees.  Two options people mentioned were:  One family got their son a amx card on their account because amx doesn't charge international fees.  We could do that.  Do most places take american express in NZ?  The other was their son opened a bank account in NZ and he just transfers $ from his other account and he avoids the extra fees...
Are either of those options you would be interested in?

So all the leaves are pretty much gone and we've had to rake up a ton of leaves and it is freezing cold here now.  I'm missing Texas just a little bit :(  and it's not even winter yet!!  I'm in trouble, haha.  Love the mountains, but I dont' know if the cold is a worthy trade off.

Love you Love you,
mom



Mom you  are the best!! You are so sweet to send me packages, especially stuff for my companion. I'm so grateful for you!!

There isnt anything I want, but if there's extra room could you maybe send some of my tee shirts or my BYU swest shirt? I really dont have anything from home and it would be nice to have.

I can't believe you're thinking of going to Australia! And I can't  believe dad is going to New Zealand??? Yous would be  so close to me it would be strange Haha.

I hope Ethan starts feeling better soon. Grant and kir told me he's been playing heaps of video games so hopefully that's not a problem...

Oh yeah sister Fermanis in our branch said  you should request to be on the FB page again, somehow your request got lost but she wants to accept you

Sorry these emails are a little shorter,  we've been emailing on our phones but it takes twice as long to type emails.

I love all the funny emails you and the rest of the family send throughout  the week. They always make me laugh!!

Love and miss yous!

Sister Keller

Sick Mission Letters Today

Fun fact of the week:
Kiwis are nocturnal! (This time I'm talking about the cute fluffy flightless birds, not the people. Although I'm pretty sure our neighbors are nocturnal...)

Kia Ora whanau!

As you could maybe tell from the title of my email, this week we were sick! Nice. One of my dear friends asked what missionaries do when they're sick a few weeks back (sorry for never responding Elise haha) so I will now tell you! The one who's sick sleeps all day, and the other one goes crazy (:  Sister Ieremia was sick from Monday to Friday, so we barely left the flat (except for Zone conf), and not gonna lie, I went a lil stir crazy. Talking to myself isnt an abnormal thing for me, but this was starting to get a little Kristoff and Sven like and I was getting worried.

To keep myself from going too much crazier than I already am, I washed and vacuumed the car, cleaned the flat (3 times), cooked all of Sister Ieremias meals, washed the dishes, messed around in the kitchen, and did heaps of personal study.  Pretty much became the perfect housewife :)

I then got sick on Saturday and we weren't allowed to leave then either. Honestly this has probably been the lowest point of my mission because we got literally no work done and that was pretty hard for me. Hoping for a better next week!

One fun thing we did get to do was go to Zone Conference! We probably shouldn't have because Sister Ieremia got someone super sick but it was worth it in my opinion! My favorite quote was from our mission presidents wife when she said "those who love you will tell you the truth and those who dont will tell you lies". I loved this because we have been promised blessings from Heavenly Father, and often we feel like we haven't received those blessings after doing what we are asked. But I know that because Heavenly Father loves us he will keep his promise and help us through everything we are struggling with. It really put things into perspective for me and helped me out this week.

For my spiritual thought this week, since I've been doing so much personal study, I want to share a parable from Luke 14:16-24. It's really easy for us to make excuses for our actions and to push off things we know we need to be doing, but the Lord knows our hearts and knows when we are just making excuses.

Love yous, have an awesome week!

1. Bird nest in our car ??
2. Bird eggs in our car !?!
3-4.  Sick comp=bored selfies
5. My awesome foot tan (notice the white where my strap is)

Percy's Letter To Sister Keller

So Percy, do you like the new neighborhood?

It’s pretty good. I like all the neighborhood kids. They think I’m so cool. 

What about the new house?

Walking up and down the stairs just to go to the bathroom is exciting.  I love getting dad up at 3 am to take me down. Ha!  

Sometimes people forget about me and so I scratch the door. My scratches look really great on the wood. 

Who is your favorite person these days?

That’s hard to say. Morgan used to be the one who spent the most time at my level. In other words, on the floor. But other people aren’t bad. Dad always drops food because he’s so clumsy and I eat it for him. Mom always pretends not to like taking me everywhere and cleaning up after me, but when it’s just us she tells me I’m actually her favorite. 

What do you want for Christmas?

Some more baby animals I can chew the heads off of. (It would be great if this year they were alive!)

Anything you want to ask Morgan?

Please pee on any spots there in New Zealand that I haven’t peed on before. I’m not sure if I’ve been there but if not, you know what to do. 

From: Morgan Keller
Date: November 18, 2018 at 2:42:16 PM MST
To: Father
Subject: Re: Interview with Percy

Haha this email made me so happy! I screenshotted it on my phone so I can read  it when I'm sad :) glad he's doing well!!

Morgan and Dad's Exchanges This Week

Hey, thanksgiving is just around the corner.  Looking forward to having the
family here, and we'll send you some real-time photos.  Do they have a fall
holiday in New Zealand?  A harvest day or something, or is the weather so
year-round balmy that that wouldn't make sense?  Maybe the missionaries will
get together this week for a thanksgiving-ish thing?  We did that one year,
but not the other when I was out.

Talking about New Zealand--it looks like I'll be heading there to fish in
March!  But on the south island.  Brett and Kim are also going.  Brett set
it up.  Should be a hoot.

Your last letter was very touching.  It made us happy to hear how much joy
you are experiencing just serving and being with the people.  I'm sure there
are hard moments, but I'm glad that it appears you are losing yourself in
the work.  Listen to the spirit, and it will guide you in next steps as you
grow and evolve in your service. 

Stake conference was really nice today.  Our stake president (Wilkes, the
eye doctor mom and kids go to) shared a talk that was very good.  He shared
an experience where he was bored at a convention and didn't want to be
there, but he had felt he should attend.  At it,  they showed an unusual
case, that caught his interest.  Then, two weeks later a young woman came
into his office with that same condition. She'd been all around the state
and had no luck finding a doctor who could help her.  Pres. Wilkes shared
how it was clear in this case how the spirit had guided the situation, but
there are many, many more times when we are guided but we may not see the
outcome.  I love this gospel we have with our faith that the world is filled
with purpose and God is our partner in making good lives and weaving the
tapestry of the human family and events.

I'm going driving with Ana in a few minutes.  Joy!  Mom has been doing most
of it with her, so I can't complain.  She's going to be 18 in a few months
and needs her drivers' license, but that opens a whole other can of worms.
We'll figure it out. She is going to be taking some technical training
classes at DTC and learn how to operate machinery.  She gets High School
credit for it as well as the training. 

Ethan got asked to the Christmas Dance here in a couple weeks.  Would be
great if he goes out a little more with girls and friends.  He still kind of
has the same small circle of friends he's always had. 

OK.  That's all I can think to tell you.  Have a great day.  Love you tons.
Dad




From: Morgan Keller
Date: November 18, 2018 at 3:45:48 PM MST
To: Father
Subject: Re: latest water-cooler news at the Keller house

I can't believe you are coming to New Zealand!!! I mean it's not my mission but that's so Insane you'll be so close!!

Thanks for the spiritual thought and the funny email about Percy. I love hearing from the family yous have no idea how much it brightens my week.

It's good to hear about Ana and Ethan, they haven't been emailing me. Oh yeah funny fact there's a new missionary named Elder Powell, but his first name is Ethan! Since he's in my district he's my "little  brother" (the missionaries here like to make a weird family tree. My mom is my trainer) so I have two little brothers names Ethan Haha!

We dont have a fall here as far as I can tell. We have a senior couple in our district who is making us Thanksgiving dinner, so I'm super lucky to be able to go to that! If yous are coming in March you'll be here at the end of Summer so I think it will be good weather. I've been asking people for fishing spots but that's all the north island so I doubt that will do you any good...

Thanks for everything!! Love and miss yous!!
Sister Keller