September 21, 2015 Letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 7:06 AM
Subject: Yes, this is the letter I send every week.

So, we made cookies and passed investigators and families in the ward
on Tuesday/Wednesday.

We talked to a "less active" widow who cant come to church due to her
spinal surgery. I was glad that we could visit her. She sounded like
she was getting lonely.

We made contact with Hortense. Very likely our next investigator here.
She had only been taught a couple times by the last elders but she was
on vacation or something the last couple weeks. So will see her
tomorrow!

Fabrice is doing well, he canceled on us since he went to a breeding
thing with a client so that his dogs could make babies. Not much needs
to be said about that.

We moved two more families out of the ward :( that makes a total of
four families in the past four weeks here. Thats like a family a week!
We really need to pick up our baptizing game in Nimes! haha

So the rest of the week is a title chaptered "the awkward third
wheeling elders". Ill explain, twice a year Nimes has a "Faria"
something to the effect of a party but it lasts from Thursday until
Sunday with Elephant sized amounts of drinking and partying. We left
around three on Thursday and they had closed all the roads off for
about three kilometers and set up white tents where beer and other
alcohol's were handed out. They had Spanish marching bands and a bull
fight in the colosseum. So we got to stay with the zone leaders in
Montpelier until Monday morning.  It was a pain not being in our
sector for half the week but we helped out the ward in Montpelier. We
helped two families move one in and one out of the city and go on
splits with the zone leaders.

Elder Connel was going through some things and I got to give him a
blessing. It was a very intimate moment. And I can testify of the
power of the priesthood.

Et voila, that was the week.

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

September 14th Letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2015 6:47 AM
Subject: I loves Nimes.

    Tuesday we contacted some and ran into a muslim guy who has changed
religions twice. He said he would be interested in learning more about
our religion and he took a book of mormon. We were on exchange Tuesday
so I got to hang out with Elder Duffy. He has been in France for
twelve days now! So he kinda couldn`t speak French haha. Our plan was
to run over to Brother Zogos house and give him a blessing for his
back and then real quickly go to Maria`s to be there for the interview
with the District Leader. While at Zogos however he wanted to sing "if
you could high to kolab" all the verses with a guitar interlude half
way through. It was a really pretty piece. We were just late to our
next Appointment haha, on the plus side it was Elder Duffys very first
blessing! So that was exciting for him.
    We had Zone Training this week! that was cool. The zone leaders
didn't talk about anything spiritual. President had them go over ALL
of the rules. We started by receiving a ton of new Ipad rules and then
they just kept coming. I got to see Elder Perry my trainer! That was
really exciting! He hurt his leg playing soccer however and now he
cant leave the apartment. That was sad, but he was keeping that super
positive attitude!
    All of Friday we prepared for Marias baptism! I got to write a talk,
try and find the button that makes hot water come out of the baptismal
font, fill out ridiculous amounts of paperwork, make a brochure, it
was just one big adventure!
    Saturday we had the baptism! She was so excited and then she got
baptized and then she was slightly upset because she was wet. Didn't
quiet know what to say about that but all is well now. The rest of
Saturday was weekly planning and time that I spent writing my talk for
Sunday! Yup, I got to write a fifteen minuet talk, I think it was the
First long talk that I have ever had to give! haha, I would happily
send it to all of you but I wrote it in French...I was asked to talk
on "Bringing the hearts unto Christ". I didn't know this at the time
but throughout my entire talk I kept saying "Khor" instead of "Kur"(I
spelled the phonetically for y'all)  and so, unbeknownst to me I
actually gave a talk on bring Bodies to Christ instead of Hearts. A
little more morbid but I think most everyone understood haha. I even
made a couple people laugh in my talk too! :) hehehe.
    Anyways, Maria is doing well, we are going to see her Wednesday and
read in the Book of Mormon with her.
    Fabrice is doing well too. We built Fence. Oh so much Fence. We
fenced off about half of his lot. He really likes talking while we
work. We fell on the subject of the Book of Mormon and I gave him a
pretty long summary of what happens inside. I really like him. His
family is crazy though! He has a Muslim Brother, a Buddhist sister,
his mom was atheist and his dad was Protestant! He told us that if he
ever choses a religion it will take him lots of thinking time! haha He
raises racing dogs for a living! Its honestly really cool, he has five
of these really tall but really skinny snouty looking dogs! Ill take
pictures this Wednesday to send to y'all.
    Anyways, that seems to cover our week. Today we are finally going to
go see the coliseum. :) and yeah. I hope Y'all has a good week! haha

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

Maria's baptism

Review of August

 Ana and I drove Tanya back down to snow after having her home for Labor day weekend.  It was fun to see her for the weekend.

 Nails getting done for Kathryn's upcoming wedding!
Baptisms for the dead with the ward on August 25th.

Morgan's first Madrigal's concert, friday, august 28th, school assembly : )  They did a wonderful job!

 We had all of the family over for dinner the night before Mike and Stacie's family headed back to PA.  We had some pie for my birthday too and called it good.  Kathryn brought her wedding dress so the PA cousins could see her in it, since they won't make it back for the wedding in Sept.  It was fun to get everyone together - Morgan did leave early to go on a date (#2) : )

 Mailing packages off and Ana and Ethan first day of school pictures... never got one of Morgan and Victor... hmm

 Morgan's first real, official date with Chris.  He was a sweet heart, they spoke in spanish and made some cookies to deliver.  The pic isn't the greatest, but had to send it to Grant ; )

 Girls sneaking a movie in before school starts and Morgan wearing her Tour de France shirt Grant send to her : )  Love, love love

Sept 7th, 2015 Letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, September 7, 2015 2:35 AM
Subject: Week one in Nimes

We helped move Three different people this week! We moved one member
just down the street, another person into an apartment, and we helped
a potential investigator move old furniture out of her house! We
really got good workouts this week!

We started working with a less active named brother Abdoun and we
talked about his life and what made him go inactive and how he got his
first testimony. It was really good. He came to church on Sunday :)

One of our investigators is named Maria! She is nine and her parents
are and only speak Armenian. She is scheduled to get baptized at the
end of this week! The ward didn't fix anything so that she could be
baptized when she was eight so we have to teach her all of the
lessons. Its been exciting. She makes fun of Elder Connel because he
doesn't understand anything that we say in French. Its great :) We saw
her multiple times this week just preparing her. It is great practice
for teaching simply too!

Our second main investigator is Fabrice. Fabrice is an older guy and
he doesn't see very well. We are currently helping him construct a
fence, thats how the elders first made contact with him, and Honestly
he is really cool! We work on the fence and then share the gospel. We
are going over again today sooooo yeah. Oh, he lives like fifty
minuets out of town so it takes up a huge chunk of our day sadly.

We have had a couple appointments fixed with an african named
Hortense, however she is kinda flakey(shes african). We hope to
finally see her :)

We ate dinner last night at the Bells house! They are a super cool
family. He baptized this hispanic lady while he was on his mission
here in France and then came back two year later and married her.
Their relationship is different but they are really sweet. She has
some older children who are not really interested in the church. It
was interesting. In any case we really connected with his youngest
son:) He likes basketball ;) I asked Brother Bell if we could come to
his house or go to the church once a week and have a French study to
help us speak better :) I remember all of the French classes with
French speaking people in Chalon and how that really helped me learn
the language. We are going to try to get Connel speaking more :)

The Branch is interesting. We had testimony meeting and that is always
a really spiritual experience. We got to see the awesome testimonies
of the ward. Then Priesthood meeting. ohhh, I am going to have
nightmares about Priesthood meeting. The guy leading us read a little
quote from this weeks talk and then asked the question "what is
Pride?" There was a quiet pause
until someone started saying something, a younger member of the
brethren, and before he finished his sentence an older, but not
necessarily wiser, Brother cut off the younger brother. Before this
older Brother finished his second sentence a wider Brother in his
thirties stood up and said "I DONT AGREE, I CAN NOT EXCEPT THAT
DEFINITION AT ALL"...It calmed down a little after that but not by
much. Lots of interrupting and disputing. We literally didn't read
anymore of the talk. The brethren argued  for forty minuets over the
definition of Pride. sigh.

We found about four potentials this week! That literally knocked my
socks off. In Rodez we would contact for hours and hours and wouldn't
find this many potentials in a month; so if it stays like this we
should have a nice teaching pool soon :)

What else would you want to know? Oh, we live right above a bar so
whenever we want to go home later in the evening we get to pass by the
happy crowd. It honestly isn't to bad. Tuesday night however we got
stopped by a drunk muslim literally five feet from our front door. He
got right up next to me. I could feel his colorful alcohol breath all
over my face and he asked "are you Muslim or Christian?" Of course I
said I was christian. He looked over at one of his muslim friends and
his friend started to say something in Arab to his drunk buddy.
I looked at Elder Connel and said "open the door". Before elder Connel
could move the drunk muslim lunged at me and yelled "GET OUT OF HERE!
LEAVE! LEAVE!" Before he actually touched me his muslim friend caught
him and pushed him back saying more things in Arab. Finally Elder
Connel starts unlocking the door and the bartender comes out and tells
the two Arabs that they cant have any more drinks if they are going to
try and start a fight. The drunk Muslim man pushed through his friend
and up towards the bar tender and started yelling about how Racist
French people were. When Elder Connel opened the door we scampered up
the stairs and poked our heads out the window to see what was
happening.
A crowd of eight or nine people had gathered together and sorta
separated the bartender from the drunk muslim guy. He kept yelling for
a good twenty minuets before he finally left. We were wide awake after
that! haha, fortunately we haven't had anymore exciting experiences
since.

VOila, If there is anything you want to know about Nimes don't
hesitate to ask :)

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

Aug 30 letter from Grant

Sent: Monday, August 31, 2015 2:26 PM
Subject: Nime

This week was Fantastic! We got to see David and Emily before I left.
They made us tacos :) well, kinda, they were still somehow very
french. So David really wants to live in america and he usually talks
about moving to Las Vegas, California, New York, or Texas. But he kept
throwing in Salt lake to his collection. I didn't realize the
significance of this until he asked when Noah, their 4 year old son
that loves spider man, could be baptized. A little surprised we asked
them what they were thinking about Noah being baptized. Davids
response was that four years before his dad passed away they stopped
talking for a silly reason. David in return wants to baptize his dad
since his dad was never baptized and because he still wants to have a
relationship with his father. And in turn they said they had thought
about it and they want to be baptized! OH, we were soooo pumped. So
proud of them :) David drove us home that night and I gave him one of
my ties :) he hates ties. hahaha but accepted the gift and said "see
you in america brother" Oh I love this family so much!

When we said good bye to Patrick he just cried and cried. Oh, between
him, sister Gil, and David this was a really emotional week.

Mathias. We were playing around at church and half way through uno he
ran into one of the other rooms. After a while he ran into his dads
office (his dad being the branch president) and a few minuets later
Fr.Bernardi called me into his office(this being the dad of Mathias).
When I walked in Mathias was balling in one of the chairs. His dad
explained that Mathias has grown really attached to me and doesn't
want me to leave Rodez. After all of the other emotional leaving
ceremonies this week it looked like I still had one more heart string
to stretch. We made Mathias an email account so that he could email
me. Love that family. That is a family I never want to forget.

I got transferred to Nime. Its a not far from the beach so its WAYYY
more humid here then in the hills of Rodez. I think its bigger. Not
sure yet. After about 10 minuets of being in our sector we got a call
from a less active who needs help moving. We hauled a fridge up 4
flights of stairs only to find out that it doesn't fit through the
door. Donk, we brought the fridge all the way back down....So, thats
why this letter is coming in late. I haven't eaten lunch or dinner yet
but I thought I would get my weekly off today. Tomorrow when we finish
unpacking and getting camp set up I will send personal letters to
Y'all! In any case, Nime is really pretty, I really like it! Oh, and
there is a TON of ancient roman structures that no one thought to
clean up. So, we have a plenty of naked statues of Gods and
gladiators; but what really takes the cheese is the Colosseum!
Apparently the have bull fights in it still!!!!!!! P-DAY BULL FIGHTS!
hahaha, we will see. 

My new comp is named Elder Connel! He is from
south Carolina and fits the part. He is kinda like a southern version
of Jack Black. Except instead of being in a metal band he free style
raps. Yeahh, there was a video the zone leaders were circulating of
ELder Connel when he first got in to the mish of him free style
rapping. He tells me that he can pick up investigators by rapping
but....we will see.
I am excited to have him though. He wants to work and that's all I can
really ask for. He is in his third transfer however. So I will be
doing a lot more talking since he doesn't really speak French yet.
Joy.

Sorry, its really jumpy.
Love you all.

Avec amour,
Elder Keller

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