Just pictures of Morgan in her ward in NZ! Took them off of Facebook

Morgan is serving in the Opotiki Branch in New Zealand and they accepted me to join the branch web page.  I downloaded pictures of Morgan that they had posted since October when she transferred there!  They are mostly Christmas pictures, but still fun to see her :)

Christmas Day

The kids came down and opened Christmas.  I guess Tanya and Ana had been up for awhile chatting.  But Troy went up around 8:30 to get everyone going so we could then clean up for Christmas breakfast.  My parents started Christmas breakfast a long time ago and friends, family, neighbors would come over and have omelettes and sit around and visit Christmas day.  This year we hosted it and I cooked the omelettes.  Learning tips and tricks from my dad and Troy's dad, we've often made omelettes for friends or guests who are staying with us.  They are yummy and it's fun to see what people like to eat in their omelette.  This year my whole family came over through out the day and Janet and Gary Flake who are good friends of my parents came over.  Tricia as usual had made some orange rolls, very yummy.  We used up our last jar of Great Grandma's chili sauce that I had bottled before we moved to Texas.  I'm going to have to dig out that recipe and make some this year!

Our prophet, President Nelson, in the October General Women's Conference, challenged all of the women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year.  And while doing that mark all of the scripture verses that talk, teach or mention our Savior Jesus Christ.  I finished the day after Christmas.  Usually I spend the entire year reading through the Book of Mormon and just studying sections as I go.  It was really insightful to read it from front to back in such a short period of time.  So much to be gained by reading it as a whole.  I was surprised to find that only a few chapters didn't mention God or Jesus Christ.  We often think of the Book of Mormon as a history of the Nephite and Lamanites who left Jerusalem and came to the Americas.  It is really a testiment of our Savior Jesus Christ and his teachings.  I'm grateful for this opportunity to strengthen my testimony of my friend and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I know we are here to be tested and that through the Attonement of Christ our sins can be washed away if we repent and come unto Him.  I couldn't be where I am today or who I am today without the repentance process, without scriptures to learn from and to gain knowledge of our Heavenly Father and His son, without the gift of the Holy Ghost and the light of Christ that helps us know good from evil and guides us to do right.  I'm far from perfect, but so grateful for a Savior who can lift us up, when we remember to let Him, when we fall down.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve day.  Morgan had sent us some shells, to wear, tim tam cookies and some other candies, which were eaten by the time I thought to take a picture of the fun things she sent us.  We ate the Tim Tam's she sent and then I found some at world market so we could try the Tim Tam slam hot chocolate drinking game, which we never got around to and we just ate the cookies again!

That afternoon Tanya came up to spend the night and have Christmas morning with us.  She got here just as MJ and Laila came over to open Christmas.  Laila was super excited to eat candies off of the gingerbread house.  So it was fun to see her open and play with the Moana doll and boat. It did take a little coaching on my part to get her to unwrap the gifts :)  Laila will be 2 in January so it's really the first Christmas and Birthday she's been old enough to start to figure out what is going on and what gifts are!   Laila is Victor's daughter, but he doesn't really have anything to do with her which is really sad because she is an adorable little girl.  It's fun to be with her and MJ, but it would be nice if Victor actually brought her over for these types of family things.  He's missing out on a cute, yet fleeting part of her life.

Of course the highlight of Christmas Eve was Morgan's skype call!!  Oh, it was so good to hear her laughter.  Grant and Kirsten also Skyped in from Texas and it was so nice to chat and visit with her for that hour of the day.  What a blessing to see her so happy and to hear about all of the good things that she is doing in New Zealand.  She loves the people and she loves sharing the gospel.  She just got a new mission companion the week before Christmas and they get a long wonderfully.  And we chatted for a minute with the sweet woman who let them use her home and computer to call home.  So many good people in the world and so grateful that Morgan can serve the people of New Zealand.

Holiday's are always a bit more stressful since the adoption.  This year seemed to be going well, until the morning of the 24th I was changing laundry and Ana had some clothes that weren't hers in there.  We have had a lot of trouble with Ana getting into Tatiana's things.  So then I went in her room and her phone and laptop were in her room, which they are not allowed to be.  Due to past experiences the kids can't have electronics in their bed rooms.  So I took her things away and Ana refused to come out of her room for the rest of the day.  She missed Laila opening presents, Morgan's skype call (she said, "I will see her on Mother's day"), Tanya being home with us just for Christmas Eve Day and Christmas eve opening grandparent's gifts, jammies and reading the birth of Christ in Luke.  So then I was a bit disenchanted with even wanting to put Christmas out that night.  And as per adopted child, the next day she came down to Christmas as if nothing had ever happened.  Seriously, worst with relationships and communication.  I then struggle the rest of the season trying to over come December winter blues due to awful inversion, which I didn't remember closing in on the valley until January, and loving ungrateful, traumatized children who deserve our pity, but make it soooooo hard.  Thus I'm done with holidays and just want to skip them by going on vacation...  Why doesn't anyone else in my family want to go on vacation instead of enduring the stress and waiting game of what crap will happen this holiday season.  I'm definately heading out of town for Mother's Day, it's the 2nd worst holiday of the year.

Dad and Morgan's letters this week

Hey!  Those are great questions.  I have answers (ok, opinions) on all of them, and will send you notes as time permits.

I’ll look for something from Nibley to send you.  Most of them are pretty big books, but he has some well known essays.  I’ve attached one of my favorites:

 My skype address is troy.keller30  We’ll be looking out for you to call!

 Quick answer to a couple of your questions, those about dinosaurs and cavemen.  Not sure if Talmage was less certain 110 years ago, but there’s zero doubt today that there were dinosaurs.  The fossil record is a pretty incredible map God has left for us so that we can understand his creations.  Remember, there’s also no real debate anymore about the age of the earth being very, very old.  Many things, creatures and peoples have lived here.  So there’s more that we don’t know than what we do know, which is kind of cool, because it means we can just keep exploring and learning.   For example, what exactly it means to say Adam was the first man is not fixed doctrine.  Could be he was the founder of the first civilization, roughly the time when history started being recorded roughly 10,000 years ago.  Or maybe he’s a metaphor for everyman.  (Nibley even taught once that the original word for Adam wasn’t necessarily singular.  That it could be plural.  Not sure what to do with that!).  Certainly, the first prophet in the priesthood line is going to be Adam, whenever that might have been.  So who were the cavemen and where do they fit?  Unclear, but I suspect they were mostly pre-establishment of priesthood on earth and likely closer to the animal kingdom, but either way the atonement will be large enough to have a place for them.


From: Morgan Keller  
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2018 3:54 PM
To: Father
Subject: Hugh nibley



I completely forgot to ask on Monday, but could you send me some of Hugh Nibleys writings? Our branch president was talking to me about the symbolism behind numbers (3,8,12 being holy numbers with different individual meanings) and said he read about it from Professor Nibley. I know you took a class by him so I would absolutely love if there was anything that stood out to you I could read!

I just finished Jesus the Christ and it was so amazing!!! I wrote down all my questions from it and I have heaps Haha. I'll send you a picture of them in case you're bored over the holiday season and would like to do some spiritual searching.

 Thanks for always encouraging me to increase my spiritual and temporal knowledge! You're a great example to me. Sorry my emails have been short these past few weeks, I get kind of distracted on P days Haha 

 I can't wait to Skype yous tomorrow!!!! Did you get to call home when you were on a mission? Anyways it will be so good to see all of your beautiful faces and hear your lovely voices!


Oh yeah can I have your Skype number or name?

 Much love!

Sister Keller

Mom and Morgan Letters...

Hello Sister Keller

Are you getting excited for Christmas or does it sort of feel like another day over there? 

We are getting ready, well I guess I hope we are ready at this point, for Christmas.  The tree is up and stockings are hung.  We had Christmas with Grant and Kirsten on Thursday night before they left for Texas.  That was fun to see them open their gifts and got dad a stress burro and burro t-shirt totally awesome :)  We are waiting for a credit card for you and then I'll mail you one last box!  So it will be sometime in January.  Hopefully you have a nice little Christmas with your companion.

So Kate Keller may be getting engaged this Christmas!  We'll fill you in after we go up for New Years!  We finally met the family in our ward who's son is serving in the same mission.  It sounds like he's serving in an area by the temple.  And it sounds like their are lots of members in that area.  And he loves it in New Zealand too!  Must be a great mission ;)

I'm enjoying Pilates.  I'll drop Percy off in the morning for a hair cut and then pick him up after pilates.  Then....  we will hang out and probably watch a Christmas movie while we wait for you to call!!  Speaking of which do you call us or do we call you?  I guess we need to exchange some skype numbers.  I'll get dad on that, haha, since I don't even know mine.  So excited to see your face!  A couple women played a Christmas song on the violin today at church and I thought how much I miss hearing your viola!  But all in good time.

Ok, I'm just finishing updating Christmas card address.  Then off to find a christmas scripture for the chalk board :)  Hmm and to finish reading the book of mormon, 35 more pages!! Almost done.

Love love love you
mom



First off, I got your Christmas card!!! Yay thank you!!! I like the picture you chose for me ;) next year I'll send one with a badge on me haha

I've been reading the teachings of Gordon B Hinkley and came across this cool passage so I screenshotted it and am sending it!

Also I found some scriptures in the Book of Mormon that made me think of you! 1 Nephi 8:37-38 reads

37 And he did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent, that they would hearken to his words, that perhaps the Lord would be merciful to them, and not cast them off; yea, my father did preach unto them.
38 And after he had preached unto them, and also prophesied unto them of many things, he bade them to keep the commandments of the Lord; and he did cease speaking unto them.

I really like when it says with the feeling of a tender parent. It makes me think of the struggle you are going through with Ethan right now. I know he is a good kid and going to make good decisions, even if right now he's being a little dumb. But your influence as a mother is great, even if its just inviting him to read the scriptures and go to church and then cease speaking to him like in vs 38. I know I didnt always appreciate your influence until I was in college, and then your words and advice played repeatedly in my mind.

Anyways thanks for everything you do! I'm pretty sure i can only call family on Christmas, and even if I could call them they wouldn't be open because of the holidays Haha. Keep me updated, I will talk to the office missionaries about it :)

Also I've been invited to a few events so I wanted to see what day would work best for yous. I can either skupe you on Christmad day NZ or America so it could be tomorrow or the day after! I dont know what my companions doing so I dont know what time will be best. Most likely it will be 3 tomorrow, but I might email you and tell you that its Christmas day in America. Tell me what's best for yous. I really hope to see everyone! I'm surprised you haven't been emailing me these past few weeks asking about Skype date and times Haha!!

Can't wait to talk to you tomorrow!!!!!
Much love
Sister Keller

What, no.  I want to Skype with you tomorrow 😊😊😊. Or both days 😉 hahaha.  We are planning on tomorrow.  We were saying 3:30, but 3pm is great too!!  The sooner the better!  I would hound Grant and it never helped, one year we didn't even hear from him till the night before when he was going to call us.  You didn't tell us if you need a number 😬... 

Well, let us know if it's not tomorrow.

mom

Haha okay chances are I'm skyping you tomorrow!! Talk to you around 3! Much love

Christmas Letter from Sister Keller

Fun fact of the week: about 70% of Opotiki is whanau (family), so to get married you have to travel to other parts of NZ. Or marry your cousin...

For my district council (pretty much a missionary meeting we have weekly) we do something called sweet and sour so imma try that out this email and see how it goes.

It has been HOT here in KiwiLand! It's been 27-28° (already adjusted to the Celcius vs Farenheit change 😎), so this will be my first Christmas without snow in a long time! The sour to the warm weather is the roaches are coming back... too many times have I woken up with a cockroach on me that I have to smack off. I am very much not a fan. And sister Perry isnt scared of cockroaches so she just laughs at me as I scream and grab the bug spray... Rude. But the sweet of the warm weather is everyone is out and about which allows us to contact heaps of people !

Since Christmas is upon us (tomorrow but who's counting ?!?!?!?!) It is Holiday season here in Opotiki. The sour to that is that lots of people go out of town so many of our investigators who seemed to be progressing will now be gone for 2-5 weeks... sigh. But the sweet is that the Christmas spirit really brings everyone together! We had a special Christmas sacrament we told everyone about, and heaps of less actives and investigators came!! Now we can continue to invite them to church now that they've felt the spirit in sacrament meeting.

Sister Perry hurt her foot on Tuesday, so Wednesday and Thursday we stayed at the flat so she could heal. Double sigh. So the sour was kind of that we couldn't go out and visit as many people as we would have liked to this week. But the sweet is we were able to do much personal study and make little chocolate Christmas trees for investigators and members!

This week has been lots and lots of music. Yesterday (Sunday for me) I played guitar for a member at church, and then tomorrow for our Christmas activity Sister Perry and I are singing 2 different numbers with a member. The sour is that once again time was taken away from visits to practice guitar or singing. The first sweet is that I really missed playing guitar (still haven't found a violin or viola... RIP) and it was so nice to play again. The main sweet is that the spirit was definitely brought into the sacrament meeting through the beautiful words of Oh Holy Night which a member was asked to sing.

For my spiritual thought this week I was reading in Luke 2 and I love vs 19: "but Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart." The reason I love this verse so much is not only because it's about the mother of Christ who holds my upmost respect and awe from her actions throughout all of Christs life, but also because this verse shows the love Christ had for his mother. Luke wrote these chapters through divine inspiration, and also through conversing with Jesus. There was no way Luke could have known that Mary pondered the words of the Shepard, exclaiming awe that the Saviour was born, in her heart except through her description to him from Jesus.  Christ is the ultimate example as a prophet, king, and son. I hope that throughout my mission I can develop his attributes and show gratitude and kindness towards everyone I meet. With the amazing opportunity I have to be on a mission during Christmas this year, I will strive to remember why we celebrate this beautiful holiday and ponder in my heart, as Mary did, the unparalleled birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas! Don't forget to send pictures of all of yous with your families! ;)

Much love,
Sister Keller


Sister Perry loves to take selfies so I have begun to follow in her suit :)

Pre Christmas 2018

Thanks to Black Friday shopping I purchased a little kitchen for our granddaughter Laila to play with when she is at our home.  Ana put it together and Laila has loved cooking and playing with it when we have babysat her.  I also got a car seat!  So now she can run errands with me when she is over here also. 

Troy and I attended the Farmington High School production of Xanadu.  Much more humorous than I remembered it being.  Not sure if that is in the script or if it was just watching a HS cast ham it up.  I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  Ethan has a stage crew class and we got to watch him move some screens around.  

We attended the Tingey Family Christmas Party at Grandma and Papa's home.  The Pennsylvania Tingey's who will now be the Cedar Creek, Utah Valley Tingeys, did a little magic act of Austin sawing Aiden in half.  Very entertaining.  As usual we had lots of yummy treats, opened gifts, enjoyed Kathryn's Christmas songs and some piano, guitar and solo numbers from the Grandkids.  Grayce even got Ana to play a Christmas song on the guitar while she sang.  It's probably the first real song we've ever heard Ana play, she did a nice job.

 District swim meet and a small meet up at Layton surf and swim before Christmas.  Ethan shaved a little time off of his 50 and 100 meter freestyle swims.

We doggy sat Muttsie, Aly and Jake Haywoods dog.  She is so sweet and beautiful and full of energy!  I took her on a walk around the Lagoon trail and she pulled me along from beginning to end, haha.  Good exercise for me!

We also spent Thurday evening before Christmas with Grant and Kirsten.  They were heading to Texas on Friday for Christmas.  It was so great to have them.  We ate ham and treats and played some really fun card games with them.  Kirsten also graduated the Friday before from the University of Utah.  She graduated in Math and will be starting work as an actuary in January.  So proud of her and her accomplishments!