Week Two Letter from Ana

Hey !!! Morgan how are you doing sorry i didn't send you an email yesterday. so i said yes to homecoming, i sticky noted Spencer's car lol so i did it at lunch time with a friend as we where finishing Spencer and his friends pulled up so he cough't me red handed lol  it was  fun sticky noting his car 

Auckland MTC Week Two - I gained six brothers and one annoying sister!!

From Morgan's mom:  Sister Keller hasn't been able to get all of her contacts moved to her mission email.  So I'm just forwarding her letter to contacts from her gmail account.  If you don't want to receive her mission letter just hit reply to this and let me know and I'll remove you, she won't even know.  For those who already received this email, sorry for the duplicate.  Hopefully she can get it all straightened out in the next couple weeks.  

If you would like to write to her use this email: morgan.keller@myldsmission.net

Love y'all and thanks for loving and supporting Sister Keller as she serves the Lord for the next 18 months,

Carlin

Just for the record I LOVE sister Lee she isn't annoying at all she's just super sassy so I love to sass her back, haha. We've already decided on making a Brandon Sanderson Book club when we get back soooo we tight. lol

It's my last P day at the MTC!! How crazy is that? I made a list throughout the week of things I wanted to put in this email so sorry if it's scattered.

I LOVE MY DISTRICT 

I don't think I emphasized this enough last week, haha. They are all so fantastic and spiritual! Also little boys when they feel like it so it's super funny to spend so much time with them, ha. There's Elder Fotu, who is from Tonga and still trying to learn English. He knows a lot but he also gets distracted very easily and is sometimes disruptive. Elder Allred (he's ginger) is super nerdy but also super good at art and always takes care of Elder Fotu, haha. Elder Bywater is our DL, and he is super nice! He is way into Marvel and brings it up at every spare chance, lolol. His comp, Elder Bradfield is hilarious. For example he was telling us that Elder Bywater had to bribe him to get out of bed with chocolate hahah they're such boys I love it. Elder Yardley is super spiritual but also very strict when it comes to rules. and I don't have favorites, but if I did it would be Elder Barnes hahaa. He loves musicals, Dr Who, and has the absolute best sense of humor. He's so goofy and I just love them all!!

Sister Lee is probably the best companion I've had so far. haha. She is sooo sassy so it's super fun to be sassy back to her cus she can take it. She's also been a great emotional support which I've really needed. I'm actaully pretty sad we won't get to ever be companions again because she's going to Wellington :( But we'll be at BYU at the same time so it's gucci!!

P days are awesome!! Pretty much we go to the mall and then have an hour to email. Sorry If you haven't gotten an email yet, There's been lots of complications. But apparently my mission president said we can email for about two hours in the field so that will be nice if needed. NZ MONEY IS SO WEIRD the coins are magnetic, hahaa. Also I'm like 90% sure Kiwis really like to Party because every single store we go to has tons and tons of party stuff haha!! I love it, it's super gorgeous here. 

On Wednesday, we went Proselyting with "real" Missionaries!! IT was super scary haha. My companion, sister Ufi, felt sick and was really unenthusiastic. We spent about 30 minutes calling members to come to an appointment with an investigator last minute, which took up a lot of time. I had to kind of prod her along to go door knocking even though I was super scared. But Kiwis are really nice and no one was mean to us! I have a lot more confidence for when I go into the field by myself. Sister Lee and I were singing "into the fire" from the Scarlet Pimpernel (thought you'd like that mom;)) when we walked out! So awesome. 

Two fun facts! Churches in NZ don't have hymn books, you bring your own! So when yous come to visit me, yous should bring your own hymn books ;) JK don't visit me I don't want to get in trouble. But it's fun to say yous because that's a weird slang term here. Other fun fact, the skies here in NZ are suuuper blue!! when It's not cloudy that is... which is almost always haha. I love the rain though!!

Yesterday I had a super awesome spirtiual experience! We were working on discerning the spirit, so what happened was the investigator thought of a word in their head but weren't allowed to say anything. When the missionary got close to guessing what the word is, the investigator could nod their head but that was it. The first time as a missionary, I was going in the wrong direction and did pretty horribly. Then our teacher told us to pray and listen before saying anything. The next time as a missionary, I got the word within 20 seconds and the investigator got super excited. IT was such a neat experience and I know that as we listen to the spirit, we will always be guided. 

It got a little irreverent at the end, because after discerning the spirit we taught the law of chastity to each other. Our teacher took half of us out into the hall to come up with a scenario, and the rest were missionaries. When I was the missionary, Elder Fotu came in and we started the lesson. I asked how he had been since our lesson on the law of chastity, and he told me he had something he had to tell me. He said "I'm pregnant" with a really straight face and it took everything in me to not laugh. Afterwards I learned that the Elders were supposed to say their girlfriends were pregnant, not them, and I laughed so hard I started crying, hahha. 

Being an STL has been such an amazing experience!! I love waking the sisters up in the morning, and talking to them all about their days. Our mission presidents wife is awesome and I feel so blessed for the opportunity.

Overall I love love love the MTC!! I'm sad to be leaving my annoyingly awesome companion, my strange strange district, and the good food and ice cream. Well I'll talk to you all when I'm in Hamilton!!

much love!!

Sister Keller 

P.S hopefully next week there will be pictures ;)

First Weeks of September

We finally got Percy in to see Becky, our favorite groomer.  He's so nice and clean now.  We are also going to grow his skirt back.  We cut it off in Texas because it was always getting dirty and made him smelly.  So he'll start to look like a Westie again.

First Friday in September I went up to Swiss Days with Stacey Wesmann and her daughter-in-law and grandbaby to shop.  Then I wen't back up Saturday to help Tiffany and Jason at their booth.  It was fun to see people look at her stuff.  The younger girls really loved the bags, but they were a bit expensive for them.  I think she did well, she had lots of cute fabrics.

Just a good 'ol Sunday game night and Troy in his new office.  We went to a concert earlier that night and then went up to try and figure out what kind of furniture he should fill the space with.

Ana was asked by Spencer to Homecoming Dance, super exciting.  She answered him by sticky noting his car with the yes in a separate color. 
I watched Laila a couple times this week.  She is adorable, just walked right in a started talking (babbling) to me and the dog.  She likes Percy and his crate and his food and his water, hahaha.  Having not seen her since Christmas I thought she might be scared to come to a new place, but we wandered around and opened doors and cabinets checking everything out.  Then we got the cars and play food out and ate a lot of grapes.  The next day she came to lunch with me, my mom and sisters/sister-in-laws.  She was great and everyone loved seeing her. 

Auckland MTC - Morgan Keller's first letter from her mission

So I stopped blogging when I found out that Blurb no longer slurped up blogs so I could print my blog book every year!  Kind of our family journal.  I can't believe that it has been over 18 months since I last posted anything.  For some reason getting Morgan's letter today made me feel like I should post it here.  She sounds like she is doing great and since it took longer than a week for us to receive a letter we were super excited to hear from her and know that she is doing well and loving the MTC.  Enjoy.

The top photo is their district I believe and the second photo is Morgan and the missionaries arriving at the Auckland MTC last week.

  Hello Everyone, Sister Keller here!!

I LOVE THE MTC AND I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!

Okay so the plane ride was super long and a little terrible because I couldn't sleep and everyone was watching Rated R movies around me so that was awkward, but I made it alive and I love it!!

My companion is Sister Lee and I love her!!! She is super social and bold and feminist and a Poli Sci major so pretty much the best hahaha. What's crazy is we were freshman at the same time, crazier is that we lived in Helaman together, and craziest that we were both in the same building just different floors! Triple crazy is that she loves Brandon Sanderson almost as much as I do, so you guessed it we spend time talking about new books and characters and theories and cos mere and other nerdy stuff, it's the bestttt!  And we work really well together. :)

Another crazy thing is we got called to be Sister Training Leaders!! Yep that's right folks I walked into the MTC and two hours later I am an STL haha. It's so awesome honestly the best part of our day is talking to and waking up all the beautiful sisters. Such an awesome experience!

Some random things about New Zealand

1. They drive on the other side of the road which messes me up haha

2. IT's suuuper cold inside so I always wear a coat (Everyone in my district teases me because I always ask to turn the heat on hahah) 

3. It rains every day and is so beautiful!!!

I want to talk about everything but realy don't have time haha. I love my district so much!! THey are all so amazing and all the Elders are hilarious and fantastic. We have an hour for exercise, and sister Lee and I run the whole hour. All the Elders are apparently impressed we can jog for an hour so they always call us super fit. I've never been known to be the athletic one before so this is new ;) 

We have had two investigators now, and they have both been super awesome!! At the MTC Investigators are just teachers acting but it's been an eye opening experience. I had so much anxiety about knocking on doors, but as soon as someone opens the class door I feel confidence and the spirit envelops me. It's crazy, I love it. Being a missionary is so amazing and I love studying and reading the scriptures every day!! 

IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED FEED MY SHEEP BY ELDER HOLLAND (pretty much all missionaries have haa) THEN GO DO IT RIGHT NOW IT"S THE BEST THING EVER 

Sorry this email has been a little frazzled I can't tell how much time it will take so next week will probably be more steady.
I love you all so much!!!!!

Sister Keller 

Sorry there are no pictures they said we can't upload any from our camera :(

February Pictures of Baby Laila

 Here are all the pictures we received of baby Laila in Febraury.  Enjoy, she's a doll!

Newest Family Member Stormfly

 Some may say that a dog, two turtle and multiple fish and tanks should be enough for one family, but they don't seem to know Ethan in our family.  He is continually bringing stray animals and reptiles and fish home (the fish aren't lost, he catches those).  What did he bring home in February you ask?  A hurt little duckling.  I saw him coming, I knew he had something in his hands so I ran and locked the back door.  I told him that there was no way on earth he was going to bring another creature into the house, we already had two fish tanks taking up space on the counter.  Then he showed me this hurt little duckling that could hardly hold it's head up.  I'm such a sucker, I continually get taken in with this kid.  I figured the duckling wouldn't even make it a day so I unlocked the door and got a towel and the electric warming rock (from previous reptiles that we no longer with us) and wrapped up this little baby.  We all held it and cuddled it and it was then named Stormfly.  Yes, officially another family member all within an hour!  Sigh.  We got some water for her and wrapped her up and placed her on the heated rock and went to bed.  When we awoke to check on her the next morning she was holding her head up and sqwaking at us.  We got her out and she began following us around the kitchen.  If we put her back in the box and she couldn't see us she would get all stressed out and make noise until we paid attention to her.  I think we are in love with her.  We have tried to get her to go with different Mama ducks at the different ponds.  The mama's would try to gather her under their wings, but as soon as she saw us walking away she would begin to follow us quacking as loud and hysterically as she could.  So we are making a home for her and we take her out to the pond a couple times a day to get her in the water and help her forage around in the plants.  We'll see how long we can take care of her.  I've read that around 9 weeks you can release ducks back into the wild even if they have imprinted on humans if you keep them outside and help them swim and forage for food.  We'll see what happens.