Letter to Mom and Dad from Morgan and Dads response

From: Morgan Keller
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2018 9:08 PM
To: Father; Mama
Subject: What a week!

I wrote down a bunch of things I wanted to share with you guys so sorry if it's a bit scattered! 

Okay so one thing I wanted to tell you guys but not necessarily my group email, is that I love the members but I'm pretty sure everyone is a little crazy. One sister drove us back to our flat 5 minutes before sacrament started because our window was left open and she thought we would get robbed, one shared a recent fight he and his wife got in in his talk in sacrament, and one of our investigators threw a full out birthday party for their dog. I mean I know you both are thinking this issomething I would do, but she invited 10 or so people, and baked a cake for her dog. MAde of chocolate. We wonder how the dog is alive. Then again we went out and she was smoking weed so you never know! Anyways that's been interesting but good! Another interesting thing is that acting educated (Talking with a larger vocabulary, not using slang) actually puts me at a disadvantage because it alienates me. It's difficult because when I think professional I think to act as formal as possible, but people act different as soon as I start using bigger words. It may just be an Opotoki thing though.

Have either of you read the fascmiles in Abraham? I was looking at the second one and the last few points caught my attention. They went through the effort to say that they don't have a translation for them, and that was kind of itneresting. Anyways wondering if either of you have any insight on that. 

We were helping a member move out of her house and she invited a friend and her daughter over to help. It was hilarious because I was talking to the daughter who was painting walls and asked her if she liked painting. SHe replied "I love anything that I can get messy with!" haha made me think of me. 

Dad did you ever have a difficult companion on the mission? What did you do to overcome challenges between you two? 

So I've kind of been called to be a pianist for the choir haha. Thanks for making me take piano for 2 years when I was 10! But it's not too difficult and as long as I practice an hour every day, I know I can get the music down. Also it's very relaxing to be able to practice piano for a bit. 

Also guitar is a huge cultural part of New Zealand so everyone has guitars! I almost played one in sacrament but there was someone better than me haha. Anyways so there are definitely ways for me to get my music in. The longer I'm here the more I realize how much a fit NZ is for me. 

In choir we sang The Lords Prayer in maori. You should look it up and listen to it! It is sooo beautiful. I love the culture!!

Here are some words I've picked up on that are NZ slang. (I can't think of examples in context so if they are confusing you could probably look it up and find out through the good ol internet) 
Sweet as (or really anythign as)

Far out

True (They say it after EVERYTHING)
crack up (hilarious)
yous (i've gotten into the habit of saying it already haha) 

Love and miss you guys so much! I had a sweet memory of sitting between you two during sacrament meeting and I know yous probably think I'm busy and don't think about family, but not a day goes by that you don't cross my mind. Keep up and at it!!

Sister Keller

troymkeller@yahoo.com 

To:Morgan Keller,Mama

Oct 3 at 7:55 AM

Morgan,

Sorry for the delayed response to your question on the facsimiles. Have read them and read about them many times.  I took a class on the PoGP from Hugh Nibley while in college, and he spent a lot of time on them.  Re the parts that weren’t translated, I’ve not seen anyone speculate too much on those, though I’m sure somebody has.  I suspect the meanings weren’t spiritual or significant.  Maybe they were crude fertility symbols.  Who knows. 

The Church put out an essay on the Book of Abraham a few years ago to respond to some criticism from people who argue that the facsimiles are common funeral documents for ancient Egypt and so can’t have the Abraham-specific meanings ascribed to them in the Book of Abraham.  This is silly.  They could have originated with Abraham or more likely been repurposed by him or by God to tell his story.  The Church’s essay is very well done and walks through the history and shows how the facsimiles have symbols that were used over millenia and meant different things at different times.  Here are some excerpts from the essay:

The book of Abraham clarifies several teachings that are obscure in the Bible. Life did not begin at birth, as is commonly believed. Prior to coming to earth, individuals existed as spirits. In a vision, Abraham saw that one of the spirits was “like unto God.”⁹ This divine being, Jesus Christ, led other spirits in organizing the earth out of “materials” or preexisting matter, not ex nihilo or out of nothing, as many Christians later came to believe.¹⁰ Abraham further learned that mortal life was crucial to the plan of happiness God would provide for His children: “We will prove them herewith,” God stated, “to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them,” adding a promise to add glory forever upon the faithful.¹¹Nowhere in the Bible is the purpose and potential of earth life stated so clearly as in the book of Abraham.

Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles of the book of Abraham contain additional earmarks of the ancient world. Facsimile 1 and Abraham 1:17 mention the idolatrous god Elkenah. This deity is not mentioned in the Bible, yet modern scholars have identified it as being among the gods worshipped by ancient Mesopotamians.³⁹Joseph Smith represented the four figures in figure 6 of facsimile 2 as “this earth in its four quarters.” A similar interpretation has been argued by scholars who study identical figures in other ancient Egyptian texts.⁴⁰ Facsimile 1 contains a crocodile deity swimming in what Joseph Smith called “the firmament over our heads.” This interpretation makes sense in light of scholarship that identifies Egyptian conceptions of heaven with “a heavenly ocean.”⁴¹

The book of Abraham is consistent with various details found in nonbiblical stories about Abraham that circulated in the ancient world around the time the papyri were likely created. In the book of Abraham, God teaches Abraham about the sun, the moon, and the stars. “I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt,” the Lord says, “that ye may declare all these words.”⁴² Ancient texts repeatedly refer to Abraham instructing the Egyptians in knowledge of the heavens. For example, Eupolemus, who lived under Egyptian rule in the second century B.C.E., wrote that Abraham taught astronomy and other sciences to the Egyptian priests.⁴³ A third-century papyrus from an Egyptian temple library connects Abraham with an illustration similar to facsimile 1 in the book of Abraham.⁴⁴ A later Egyptian text, discovered in the 20th century, tells how the Pharaoh tried to sacrifice Abraham, only to be foiled when Abraham was delivered by an angel. Later, according to this text, Abraham taught members of the Pharaoh’s court through astronomy.⁴⁵ All these details are found in the book of Abraham.

Other details in the book of Abraham are found in ancient traditions located across the Near East. These include Terah, Abraham’s father, being an idolator; a famine striking Abraham’s homeland; Abraham’s familiarity with Egyptian idols; and Abraham's being younger than 75 years old when he left Haran, as the biblical account states. Some of these extrabiblical elements were available in apocryphal books or biblical commentaries in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, but others were confined to nonbiblical traditions inaccessible or unknown to 19th-century Americans.⁴⁶

Letter From Sister Keller -It's Been One Month!

Things are going here in Opotiki!

Fun fact of the week! Kids in Opotiki still ride their horses to school haha so when we drive at night sometimes you see horses wandering haha 

To start out with I want to brag about the members. I LOVE THE MEMBERS. They are always so willing to feed missionaries, are always curious about our missionary work, and always telling us about their own work with their friends. They can each be strange at times but I have never met any people so excited about missionary work when they themselves aren't missionaries! And 80% are converts, so most of them have never served missions either. Awesome!

This week we did lots of service. One of the coolest service opportunities we did was helping investigators build a fairy garden! Dave and Claire are both retired, and own about 3 acres of land. Claire loves planting and gardening, and decided to make a fairy garden! There's a long path through an avocado orchard, then you see flowers and more flowers! They built and painted little doors and houses with fairies inside, and there's lots of activities for kids to do if they want. THey are such cool people! Also hope you love that mom it reminds me of when I used to make all the fairy houses when I was little haha. 

One of the most difficult things so far has been teaching lessons. We are super good at visiting all of our investigators, but we often forget the important part of teaching them an actual lesson instead of just sharing a scripture thought. It's so cool how many people are religious down here though, it makes our job a lot easier haha! 

So small tangent on food... 

Food here in NZ is a little different. For example, bacon is not real bacon, it's just ham. The milk and eggs look and taste different, not bad just different. One good thing is that everyone here likes this drink called milo, which is pretty much just hot chocolate. It's been awesome for us though because when we go over to investigators houses we can accept the drink and seem polite instead of turn down tea or coffee!! The last thing is penut butter. Peanut butter over here unfortunately does not taste as good as peanut butter in the states. But I can still make my delicious (and no one can convince me otherwise) concoction of peanut butter, oats and chocolate chips for breakfast so that's good!

Update on the bugs! Our amazing District Leader and his companion came and sprayed our flat for bugs so we have had significantly less cockroaches! Well live ones at least... Instead of killing lots of bugs each day we just walk into rooms full of dead ones haha. Trust me it's significantly better though. 

Super cool spiritual experience! So we were having a dinner at an investigators house, well really it was a birthday party for her dog, but she invited a bunch of her friends. Anyways I was having a deep religious discussion with one of her friends about religion and how joining a religion doesn't constrain your agency or change how you feel about Christ. She kept asking questions about the restoration and Book of Mormon, which was so cool. At the end of the night she asked if there were missionaries everywhere in the world, and we gladly responded yes and gave her a card with the mormon website on it and told her she could learn more. Her boyfriend wouldn't let her give us information, but I know she'll start talking to missionaries. We don't get to teach her because she lives in the Auckland mission, but it was so amazing because I never expected to have a religious discussion with stranger that night at dinner. The Lord is always looking out for us!

I know my emails are always so long, hopefully they'll get less scattered and shorter the more I'm on my mission. For those of you who saw the length of this email and skipped to the end, I'm doing really well and loving missionary work! New Zealand is gorgeous and Kiwis are crazy but awesome. 

Love yous!
Sister Keller 

The beach in Opotiki is gorgeous!!

Ana Homecoming Dance and Other September Pictures

Ana and Spencer attended Farmington High School's Homecoming Dance at the end of September.  Ana's third day of school she tripped on the stairs and Spencer asked her if she was alright.  The next day they attended a football game together and Ana came home to let us know that she had a boyfriend!  Things move fast in her life :)

She and Spencer had dated for a few weeks and he asked her to Homecoming dance and she said yes.  Four weeks is a long time to wait for a dance and in that time they sort of broke up, but wanted to still go to the dance together.  Ana was a little worried it would be awkward but Friday night they went with their group to play tag at IKEA and ended up roller skating and hanging out until 1:40 am.  So things were not awkward after all.  Until she got home and I was a little ticked because she ignored my texts asking her to check in because she had said they would be home by 11pm.  Sigh, teenagers and dating may equal more sleepless nights than new baby diaper changes and feedings every few hours.  

Saturday they had a great time at the dance, again home at 2am, but they had a great time!  Guess we have some communication to work on ;)

 My sisters and I have tried on a few Friday mornings to go on some different hikes.  It's been really good to just hang out and talk to one another.  This weekend we went up Farmington Canyon to the falls.  I saw more crashed cars than the last time I came up, it's a bit crazy to see all the random tires in the stream at the bottom of the ravine. Hopefully we'll have some more hikes before the snow begins to fall.  On a side note: Kat's face is white due to excess sun block, hahaha.

Ana's new glasses finally came in.  After loosing them three months after she got new glasses last year she is super excited to not have to put contacts in every morning at 6:45.  We are baffled that no one has come up with glasses with a locating chip in them!

Carlin's Trip to Lemonade Farm to Paint Flowers

So Lemonade Farm is a couple hours out of Atlanta, GA.  Stacey and I left early Friday morning and flew to Atlanta and then drove out to the farm.  Traffic was crazy and it took us over 3 hours to drive the hour and a half to get there!  Crazy, I guess there was a lot going on in the city.  The farm is awesome.  Cecel has turned an old horse barn into a bed and breakfast place and then she paints in the barn on the right.  The room/stall that I slept in had the cute, Spare the rod... spoil the child painting she had done in it.  We had pizza for dinner that was super yummy.  We chatted with Cecel and her mom for a while.  She told us that she had been an accountant before she had to have heart surgery for co-arctation of the aorta.  The same surgery Ana had after we adopted her!  What are the chances.  She was 26 when she had the surgery, she's just a couple years older than me.  We were told it's pretty rare to live to 30 with co-arctation of the aorta.  So crazy.  They cut a nerve to her vocal cords or something like that and she lost her voice for 2 years, she had just had a baby and had to find something else to do since she couldn't speak.  She started painting.  Such an amazing and inspiring story.  Then we hit the hay so she could get ready to the class on Saturday.

The next day we had egg casserole and apple fritters for breakfast and it was all very yummy!  Then we headed to the big barn with 4 other women who came to take the class too.  One woman was from South Carolina, we were right by the border, another from Athens, GA where Cecel lives and a mom and her daughter were also in the class.  Cecel was great.  She's really a great teacher and her style is so forgiving, in fact she would just say add more paint every time I questioned something I was doing!  In fact I thought we were pretty much done at our lunch break, but no...  we came back and sanded the paintings down and then added more paint.  It was good because I became braver with the colors as the day went on :)  We sanded again, stained and varnished our works of art and then everyone said good-bye and headed home.  Stacey and I stopped back over night in Atlanta and the next day, after sleeping in a little bit, we toured the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical properties.  Very interesting.  I'm still amazed that people who try to bring change for peace are so persecuted.  Like MLK Jr., Ghandi, Joseph Smith, etc.  We as a people will follow people/leaders into war, but we fight against peaceful changes and acceptance of others.

Anyway, we stopped at Walmart to buy bubble wrap and boxes to wrap up our beautiful paintings in and we loaded them on the plane and flew home.  They made it safe and sound and already look lovely hanging in our homes!  Fun little trip.  I would totally do it all again.  And who knew I could paint anything??  Amazing :)

Letter and Pictures From Sister Keller

If you would like to write to Sister Keller you can email her at morgan.keller@myldsmail.net



On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 12:00 PM Morgan Keller wrote:
I made it to my area, Alive!!
Sorry in advance if this email is long, it's been 10 days and there's so much to cover

This was the last of my MTC experience, which I will remember and love always! My companion left a day before me (jerk) so all of Tuesday was pretty rough haha. Everyone kept asking me if I missed my companion and where she was. Silly Sister Lee. Then I said goodbye to Joseph district and that was super hard honestly. I love them all so much and can't wait to hear about all their missions!
 Wednesday I drove out to Hamilton! We met my mission president and that was way cool! He and his wife are super nice. I also met Sister Barker, who went to high school with Sister Lee! That was awesome.
I made it to my area which is (drum roll please..) Opotiki!! I encourage each of you too look it up on google maps because it is SO GORGEOUS. To explain, it's like four different worlds combined into one. When we were driving down, when I looked out the window to the left I saw green pastures with sheep grazing like I was on the outskirts of England. But when I looked out the window to the right, there were pine trees scattered across the lawns. Then we drove around the corner and I saw the beach with palm trees and rocky shores (which i get to visit today!) and was astounded. But then I looked to the right and saw thick trees like the depths of a jungle in Peru, with pine trees and palm trees (!?!?!). It is incredible. And I'm going to stop describing it or you'll all love it so much you'll want to come visit, which is kind of against mission rules ;)

I met my super cute companion/trainer, sister Ieremia!! She's from American Samoa, and is super super cool! She teaches a Samoan class on Sundays which I understand none of, and is way kind and supportive.

I'm trying to keep this email pretty positive, but one thing I"ll kind of complain about is the bugs. Before I go to sleep, we have to kill 1-3 cockroaches, which is disgusting. Sister Ieremia is a little more bold than I, so pretty much she kills them and I take a tissue and put them in the trash haha. Then before I shower, I have to kill 30 little gnat bugs and wash them down the drain. At least by then the water is all warmed up!!

We had a lot of amazing spiritual experiences! on Saturday we had an open house. We opened the church so that anyone who wanted to could walk through and see what we do at church each Sunday. We spent the two days before knocking on doors and passing out fliers, and just kept getting rejected which was mentally exhausting. But we had three new people come to the open house, along with 2 of our current investigators so that was amazing!! The members are so cooperative and that was also awesome because they took the investigators in and just loved them. Such an awesome branch!!

I've already written so much, So I'll just add some pictures I couldn't send these past few weeks. Thanks for all your support and emails!! Keep emailing me I love it!!

Sister Keller

She made it to New Zealand :)

Dear Brother and Sister Keller,

Sister Keller arrived safely to the Hamilton Mission.  I had the opportunity to meet her at orientation.  She will shortly be meeting her companion and be traveling to her first area.

I look forward to seeing the growth that will come to Sister Keller as she serves the Lord as a missionary here in New Zealand.

Kind regards,

Sister Pierce

Secretary

New Zealand Hamilton Mission

Week Two Letter From Ethan, Morgan Reply

ethan keller <ethanmkeller@gmail.com>	Sep 10 (3 days ago)
to me

hey so im in seminary right now... well right before class seminary and my phone won't turn on soooo... fun stuff. just wondering if you are getting these hopefully you are and other then that how is new zealand... hopefully it looks nice because it is a great place.... idk. welp ttyl

Morgan Keller <morgan.keller@myldsmail.net>	8:02 PM (2 hours ago)
to ethan

Hey thanman!!
Sorry I didn't respond last week, it's been so crazy trying to write so much in one hour haha

I have some things I wrote down to ask you!!
Did TOP drop any new songs? are they  ay good?

I found another scripture for you to memorize that's short and simple ;)
D&C 6:36

ANyways next week I should have more time to respond but I love ya lots!! Keep telling me everything that happens!!

LOve

SIster Kelller