Captain's Log, May 27, 2014

Hello familia! How are things in Sunny Southern California?! Hopefully you are all doing great! Things here this week have been hard, but they are getting better! We had some really awesome training on Family History this past Thursday and then on Friday we had a GREAT Zone Conference! I learned so much this week during those meetings, and even more outside of our meetings. I have been learning about truly relying on our Savior and having patience and charity. These are HARD things to learn, but they are so worth it. There is a song by Nashville Tribute called, "The Hardest Thing I Ever Loved." It is so how I feel! There's another one called "Stronger" that fits perfectly as well. If you haven't heard them, you should definitely look them up! It's on their CD "The Work" and it's a tribute to missionary work. So many of those songs fit perfectly with how most missionaries feel. This work is the hardest thing I've ever loved to do. It truly makes me stronger and I am so grateful to be here! 

I wanted to share some of the things I learned this week from our trainings. In our family history meeting we were talking about receiving the full blessings of family history. When we ONLY do genealogy work or ONLY do temple work, we are receiving half of the blessings. We need to do BOTH genealogy and temple work to receive the full blessings! We have the obligation to do the work for our ancestors! The Brother that was teaching the class said something that really struck me.  He said something like, "Some of our ancestors have already received the witness that what the missionaries teach is true. If we don't do their work, they cannot have eternal life." I thought about people that I love that have passed away without the knowledge of the gospel. When they come to know that this gospel is true, they need to have the opportunity to accept baptism. That is OUR job to help them with! What a great blessing that is! 

He also showed us a website Puzilla.org. It's a super cool website on Family History that connects your line with all of your cousins! It's a really neat tool! 

We talked a lot about the Atonement at Zone Conference. President Eaton said several things that I loved. He said that succor means to run to someone's relief. The Savior went through the Atonement so that He could succor us. How cool is that?! He runs to our relief as soon as we ask for His help!! He also said, "The Atonement is the wind at our backs and our faith is the sail that catches the winds." The Atonement gives us what we need to go throughout this life. It is the wind that carries us and gives us the push we need! I am so grateful for my Savior and all that He has done for me! I invite you all to seek our the Savior this week in all that you do. I promise you that you will find that He is in every aspect of your life. You will literally FEEL His presence in your life! As you pray and ask for His guidance, He will pour out His blessings upon you! 

I love you all and hope that you all have a GREAT week!!!

Love, 

Sister Keele

P.S.....We have a baptism on Thursday!!!!! :D

Missions are Not for Wimps

Hello Family! 

I hope you are all well. Things here have been interesting this week. It has been the hardest week of my mission, thus far. But I know that all that has happened, has been in my Heavenly Father's plan. I have already learned to lean more on Him and on my Savior. I have learned that missions are NOT for wimps. They are not for people who will give up at the first sign of hardship. Yesterday in Sacrament meeting, one of the speakers said, "Your struggles will make you strong, IF YOU LET THEM." I know that is true. Your struggles are to help you grow and come closer to our Savior. They are not there to hurt us or bring us down. Even when we feel like nothing is going right and that this hardship is never going to end, it will. It is ALL in our Heavenly Father's plan for us! Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's love is referred to over and over again in the scriptures. We can feel it in our lives. There is no denying that They love us. We just have to pray to feel and recognize that love. I invite you all to do just that; to pray to feel and recognize our Savior and Heavenly Father's love more each day this week. I know that you will all be blessed by doing so. And I know that you WILL feel that love! 

I love you all, and hope that you all have a FANTASTIC week! Work hard and pray harder!

Love, 

Sister Keele

Transfers

Hello family! I hope you all are well! I can't believe how fast this transfer has gone by! It seems like I was just meeting Sister Hopkins yesterday! And now she is getting transferred up to Renton! These six weeks have been WAY fun, but the Lord needs her somewhere else! And I'm excited to learn from Sister Cox! She used to be a sister training leader, so I'm sure she is a great missionary! 

This week was so great! I loved getting to see everyone's faces and talk with you all! It went by way too fast! We went to the Group Home yesterday and one of the residents there played some songs on his banjo for us. He first played "How Great Thou Art." It was so sweet! He shakes so badly that he can't stand still most of the time, but he still manages to read his Bible every day and play hymns on his guitar and banjo. The Spirit was definitely there! He then played a Johnny Cash song, "Nearest thing to Heaven." It was so cute! He said that when he was in the military every one called him Carry Cash. He does sound like him! :) It was really cool! 

President Eaton invited us all to keep track of how many conversations we are having each day. We are supposed to be having 10 conversations per day, per companion. That is really hard now that we aren't tracting. We have had to figure out new ways to be out in the streets or talking to people. It seems like every time we walk, no one is out and every time we drive, there are tons of people out! So we tried our very best to talk with everyone that we saw, and we managed to reach our goal a couple of times this week! Setting goals in our lives helps keep us going. It helps us to have the motivation to take the extra steps in our lives. It also says to Heavenly Father that we are going to do our very best to meet that goal. He can then place people in our path to help us reach that goal! I invite you all to make goals this week and pray for the help to reach those goals! If we are doing all we can to reach them, Heavenly Father WILL give us the help we need! 

I love you all! Have a great week! 

Sister Keele

P.S...sorry for the short email and no pictures! I will make up for it next week! :)

Captain's Log/May 5, 2014

Hey Family! I hope your week has been great! It has been absolutely beautiful here in Washington! It got up to 88 this week and it was so hot! But the sky was clear and everything was so green! I loved it! 

This week was rough in regards to teaching people, but it was great anyway! Sister Hopkins and I were able to learn so much! We have decided to work even harder than we have been so that the work here will move forward. We have the faith that there are people here that are prepared and ready for the gospel...we just need to find them! 

This week we had an interesting experience on keeping the rules in the white handbook, NO MATTER WHAT. We had a ward activity on Saturday, that 2 of our investigators went to! Woohoo!!! It got over WAY later than we had expected and we realized on the way home that we needed to get cash for our fast offering. It was about 8:55 and curfew is at 9. We decided that since it was for a good reason, we would stop at Walmart and get cash. By the time we got there, it was 9. We walked in and as soon as we walked in, we saw some men picking up.....um...a "lady friend" that looked like Cruella DeVil. It was not a place that we wanted to be in. As we grabbed a candy bar so that we could get cash, we started to feel very uneasy and uncomfortable. We hurried and got the cash and ran to our car. We felt so badly for breaking curfew and promised that we would NEVER do it again! There is a reason, a very good reason, why Heavenly Father has given us these rules. They are for our protection and safety. It is the same with the Commandments and every other rule we have been given. If we abide by His rules, we will be protected! 

We also had a lice scare this week. We went to do some service at an investigators home and she was putting stuff in her daughters hair to get the lice out. The bugs were so big that we could see the legs on them and everything. It was nasty. Since we had been there several times this week, we went over to Sister Bernfeld's house and had her check us as soon as we were done! Thankfully, neither of us had lice! We were both itchy for the rest of the day just thinking about it! 

We have been teaching 2 gentlemen that live in a group home in our area. One of them is almost 83 years old and looks like Mr. Fredrickson from UP! His goal is to be the first centurion in the house! He's really funny! Anyway, he has told us several times that he was born Catholic, and he'll die Catholic. We read from the Bible and Book of Mormon with him every week. This week, we read like we normally do and sang one of his favorite songs, as per usual. His two favorite songs are "How Great Thou Art" and "Nearer My God to Thee." We sang "How Great Thou Art" and for the first time, he sang along. It was so sweet. At the end of the song he said, "Thank you, ladies. This is a first, but I'd like to say the closing prayer today." It was so sweet! It was one of those moments that you live for as a missionary! The Spirit was so strong and everyone in the room felt it! 

As we have been counseled to share what we have learned from Preach my Gospel, I want to share with you all something that I learned this week. On page 11 of PMG, it says, "When you have done your very best, you may still experience disappointments, but you will not be disappointed in yourself. You can feel certain that the Lord is pleased when you feel the Spirit working through you." It is so easy to feel inadequate or that you have not done everything you can to help people come closer to Christ. It is easy to be disappointed in yourself. However, when we have done absolutely everything we can, we can be sure that the Lord is pleased with us. This applies to every aspect of our lives. Not just in missionary work. I know that this is true and that Preach my Gospel is an inspired book. As we study from it, we will grow closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I invite you all to read from it every day this week and learn from the Spirit! 

I love you all and I know that this church hold the truthfulness of the restored gospel! I love it so much and love sharing it with everyone I come in contact with! 

Love, 

Sister Keele

P.S....Shout out to Ellen Michael! Congratulations on turning in your mission papers! You'll love it! :)