A week of laughter, burgers, and happily ever after

Fun fact of the week: even though most of the kiwis have never seen snow, they still consider a "white christmas" to be a traditional Christmas and hang up snowflake decorations Haha

Hello!!

So as the title stated, this week was great!

So on Tuesday through Thursday we had mission conference!! Basically our whole mission came together and we had devotionals, played games, ate delicious food, and laughed so so so much! I also played guitar (fancy smancy) and am actually significantly better than before the mission?? Watch out Grant I'm coming for you ;)

We also went on exchanges and I was with Sister Rome, this sweet sister from Papua new Guinea! For those of you who dont know, PNG is a very scary country with lots of violence and a corrupt government. Nonetheless she always had a big smile and a sweet spirit! I love her :)) we had  a member shout us burger fuel which is a super flash burger joint that has the MOST delicious burgers which make it so you cant eat for another 12 hours... so good!

And for the happily ever after... I had an online baptism!!! So I have been working with Aidan for about 8 months now, he came on as a book of Mormon request this March. When we called the number, his mom answered and said she wasnt interested, but then an hour later Aidan texted and asked if he could still have a copy. For the next six months me and three of my companions (Meto, Isabell, and Mariteragi) taught him online. We taught him all the discussions over messenger, and then in September he met with local missionaries. Earlier this week he just got baptized!! Hes so amazing I am so grateful for him and his testimony :))

I love love you all!! Have a splendid week ❤


Sk
Pictures:
Mission conference where I got hella sunburnt
Aidan's baptism!! I wasn't there but still got pictures from the cute sister missionaries in Connecticut(:

:)

Fun fact of the week:
In New Zealand many people consider Hawaii outside of the US. for example:
"are you going to school in the states?"
"No, I'm planning on going to Hawaii!"

This week I'm just going to send lots of pictures which will probably be very out of order but probably go along the lines of:

- Some crazy sisters in a car with me
- The kids we are working with! Two have been baptized (also fun fact a lot of people pronounce it "bapatized" here and it's funny haha), and the younger girl we are still working with :)
- Me and Sister M after Zone Conference!!
- Me proving to Sister Raymond that I do, in fact, know how to roll my tongue
- Sister Mariteragi made more flower crowns!! This time with roses so it's so beautiful
- the view of Hamilton from a bridge
- We have been working on a song that will be on our Christmas album called "I'll be home for Christmas 2019" (Since my companion is going home in two weeks :((( haha) and decided to dress accordingly!

Cool Beans

Fun fact of the week: If you ever go to Kiribati, don't say "komaremare Kiribati!" Apparently people will get mad...

So transfers happened... and I am staying in Rototuna for a fourth transfer with Sister Mariteragi! I am actually killing her, which is kind of sad, but I am so pumped to be with her another one! Shes very hard working and I know I'll continue to learn lots from her. A lot of sisters left to go home which was so hard for me but I know that they're in a better place now :,)

As a new transfer has come, we have made new transfer goals for baptism. One thing I love that our Zone leaders did was ask for a plan of how we are going to reach our goal! So we have a girl we've been working with for some time, and we usually teach a lesson to her each week with her siblings, who are recent concerts. Well recently weve started doing lessons with just her and we feel it will definitely help her faith progress!

Another highlight of my week was Sunday evening! Since the Tahitian sisters go on exchanges to work on the French queue, I go on exchanges with the other sisters to continue to get work done. Yesterday I went to a lesson in the Tuhikaramea ward with someone who speaks Spanish! So I was able to translate the whole lesson! It was exciting as I haven't been able to teach a Spanish lesson  yet. That was a miracle for me!

Hope yous all have a great week !!

Ofa atu!

Sister Keller

Hello From The Other Side... Of The Equator

Fun fact of the week: Tahitians eat banana with everything! Even chicken...

Heyyya toks!

So it's been two weeks! Noice. Sorry bout that haha.

So fun story from P day two weeks ago: We decided to go to a beach because that would be lots of fun right? Well half way up the steep hill to the beautiful beach (where they filmed parts of Narnia??? look up Coromandel), our car decided to stop working. It just gave up. So the Elders had to push our car until it had enough momentum to go down by itself (thx physics/gravity), and then we spent the rest of the day stranded. In a beautiful countryside with a fun park in New Zealand, so I wasn't too upset, but stranded no less.

The other main highlight was trunk or treat! Me and my companion dressed up as each other (I'm in Islander clothing with a flower in my hair and Sis Mariteragi is wearing my dress and illuminati earrings...), and for trunk or treat we had a booth for the first time! We had a "good better best" option where if you played a game you got some candy, if you gave our number to a friend you got a cookie, and if you gave away a Book of Mormon, gave us a referral, or invited a nonmember to church you could pie us in the face! You already know which one all the kids wanted to do... Needless to say many copies of the Book of Mormon (no one finna argue with me on whether its "Books of Mormon or Book of Mormons" today...) were given away, and I left with whipped cream in my hair :')

Another cool thing (this is kinda boring so you can skip it if you want haha) was we had someone from Salt Lake come down and give us a training on OTC stuff! She also came and watched us do weekly planning, and we gave her and her mom their first NZ ice cream which is a big deal... but we learned so much about how to improve our online teaching and individual areas. It was awesome because basically everything we learned was from the Book of Mormon. (now to turn this into my spiritual thought...) I just love that no matter what the topic, the Book of Mormon is always related. It truly can help fix all our problems if we turn to it :)

love yous all ! Have a semana superbien!

SK

October Happenings

Fun days with Remington.  Making snow and swimming.  Day with the family at General Conference in Salt Lake City.

I went up and spent some time with Grandma and Grandpa Keller and Ellie to help Grandma Keller after she broke her shoulder.

Troy and I went on a date night to the local theater in Centerville and saw a friend in The Hunch Back of Notre Dame.  It was great and Brother Hansen did an awesome job as the bad guy.

I got a yummy surprise from Amy and Mary.  On their drive home to Alaska they picked up different flavors of Kit Kats along the way and then mailed them to me :) So incredibly sweet!  They know my love of Kit Kats, especially dipped in a little peanut butter.

We took a weekend trip down to my parents new home in St. George, Ut.  Troy took my on my second big mountain biking adventure.  Parts were a little bit scary for me, but it was really beautiful.  I found I enjoyed climbing up the rocks and hills on my electric mountain bike, but I still need a bit more practice on the going down hill part!  Took a bit of a tumble down some rocks.  I knew the back of my bike was going over my head as soon as a slowed a bit to go over a big rock.  I had slowed down too much and I face planted it right on the trail and my bike went over me.  I was fine, cut my mouth open a bit, but survived.  

We took a tour of a couple museums in small towns outside of St. George, one was in Hurricane, UT.  And then we returned home to a second flooded basement!  We had let friends stay at our house while we were gone, but they left a day early due to the plumbing not working.  We had a guy come and turn the sprinklers off while we were gone, but he closed off the sewer line instead of the water to the sprinklers so we had a little back up into the house!  Yuck!  

Ethan got his braces off!  Just in time for him to get Senior pictures and his last dance pictures without braces on!

Kat and Kyle were going to London and France on a trip, so Tricia and I decided to join them on the London half.  Neither of us had been to London before.  In the process my friend Becky decided to join the trip, after a bit of convincing that international travel was totally safe!, and Tricia's friend Linda decided to come along too!  It was so much fun.  We all traveled well and were good roommates.  We found a really great flat in the theater district that was perfect for us.  Part of the reason we wanted to go to London was to see the new Harry Potter play, tickets were cheaper in London than in NYC!  And it was so fun to go to, we also saw Mouse Trap by Agatha Christy, which has been on my bucket list forever.  It wasn't as crowded as Harry Potter and the cursed child (or whatever the exact name is), because it's been running forever, but still a fun twist and cute play in a cool old theater.

We saw so many fun and awesome sites.  We stopped at a building where Linds's nephew works and so we were able to go up and see london from the gardens at the top and it was beautiful.  We went through the Churchill museum of his offices underground during WWII, which was really amazing and interesting.  They were boarded up after the war for many years so they rooms are like how they were in the 40's.  

We took a bus trip to Stonehenge, beautiful, where we ran into Missionaries and had to send their parents some pictures!  We also stopped at Windsor Castle and saw the crown jewels and ended in bath and had lunch in a cute old pub.  Fun day excursion.

It was so fun to just be in the city of London.  We did lots of wandering and shopping and went to a couple markets to try food and look around.  I would love to go back again.