Kent

Hello Family! This week has been a great week! I love Kent! And Sister Judd is awesome! She was born in Detroit but grew up in England....and when she goes home, she'll be going home to Tokyo as her family is moving in 2 weeks! She is a sister training leader right now and is a wonderful missionary! We get along great! Kent is a very interesting place. There are people here from all walks of life and from all around the world! I met someone from Koren the other day. Apparently it's some place near China. I've never heard of it before! I've also met people from Iraq, Somalia, Kenya, Afghanistan, pretty much everywhere! It is such a cool experience to hear so many different languages and experience so many different cultures!

I know that our Heavenly Father loves each and every one of us! He wants us to be happy! If we follow His commandments and do the things He wants us to do, we will be eternally happy! This gospel isn't just about this life; it is about our eternal welfare. It is an urgent matter and when we treat it as such, we understand how important it truly is! I invite you all to read the Book of Mormon each day this week and pray to know if it is true. This is the only way we can find out if this church is true. There is no other way! I know that as you do so, you will receive an answer and you will be able to come closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ! 

Have a great week! 

Sister Keele

Monday, June 9, 2014

Hello Family!

This week has been so crazy! It started with a great exchange in Ridgecrest with Sister Sharpe and is ending with a transfer. I have mixed emotions about this week, but I know that everything that has happened is in Heavenly Father's plan for me! 

It was hard to say "goodbye" to the people here in Sunrise. It's funny how you come to love people so much in such a little amount of time. I have only been here for 10 weeks and I feel like I have known these people for years! I will definitely miss them, but I know that I will love the people in Clarke Lake as well! I am excited for what the Lord has in store for me these next couple of weeks! 

As I was in the hospital this week, Sister Cox said something to me that really hit me. I was struggling with pain and anxiety and she said, "The Atonement works for everything. Even this. Just remember that Christ felt what you are feeling now and that He can help you through it." I had never really thought about the Atonement working in situations like that. But as I thought more about it, I realized how silly I had been to not recognize Christ in that part of my life. He should be in every thing, big or small. And being in the hospital is definitely a big thing! I was able to feel the power of the Atonement and Priesthood blessings that day. Before I left for the hospital, my district leader and his companion came and gave me a blessing. The first thing that the blessing said strengthened my testimony of the Priesthood even more. I was so worried that the doctors would find something that I would have to be sent home for and that scared me so much. I don't want to go home early...or even at all sometimes. I could be a missionary forever and be just fine! Anyway, the first thing the blessing said was, "You will stay on your mission for the whole time period." I was so thankful that Heavenly Father was so aware of me. I NEEDED to hear that and I needed to hear it from a trusted source. You can't have a more trusted source than Heavenly Father and I am so glad that He knows me and knows what I need! I invite you all to pray to our Heavenly Father this week and ask Him to help you feel of His love more fully. I promise you that as you do so, He will answer your prayers! I know that, because I have felt it and I have seen it in the lives of those around me. Heavenly Father is waiting to bless us, we just need to ask! 

I love you all!

Love, 

Sister Keele

Hey Family!! How's it going? Life in Graham is pretty good. We've had a much better week this week. We even had a baptism! It was exciting for several reasons. One, it was my first baptism of someone that I have taught. Two, it was the first baptism this ward has had in over a year. Three, he was SO ready! I'm bummed because I forgot my camera cord today, so I can't send you all the pictures! I'll send them next week. :) Anyway, when I first met Ben he was so ready to be baptized. He said to us, "I want to have everlasting life. The Bible says in order to have everlasting life, you have to follow Jesus Christ's example. He was baptized. I want to be baptized. When can I do that?" I almost fell over. He just needed to be taught the lessons and make some small changes in his life. His baptism was an amazing experience. There is a song we listen to a lot that says, "The sweetest sound I've ever loved to hear, is the sound of water running in the church. as someone I've come to love gets dressed in white I see their first glimpse of Heaven's light." It really is the sweetest sound, and it is the most amazing feeling to see someone you love so much get dressed in white and make that covenant with the Lord! 

So as I was praying the other day, I felt very strongly that someone reading my email needed to read something very specific this week. So here goes. Please pay attention to how you feel as you watch this video and read the rest of the email. Have the courage to act on what you feel. :)

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=911129092001

I would like to echo President Eyring in that I know that "someday" is too late. It will be hard to change things in your life, but when we stop saying "someday" and start following Christ TODAY, it will be worth it! You WILL feel of God's love. 

But how do we start following Christ? We need to start with creating righteous habits in our lives. Habits will shape who you are. If we pray right when we wake up every morning, we are more likely to seek Heavenly Father's help throughout the day. If we study our scriptures in the morning, we will remember God's words in our struggles. Something that President Eaton always tells us is, "In order to help other people progress in the gospel, you have to be a progressing missionary." We should ALL be spiritually progressing. Complacency truly is of the devil. I have seen it ruin people on my mission. Please, DON'T BE COMPLACENT! Heavenly Father wants us to progress! That is the whole purpose of this life! 

We learn in Alma 23 that some of the Lamanites are converted. In verse 7 they "did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more..." We all have weapons of rebellion. They may not be weapons of war like the Lamanites, but they are just as destructive! For me, these past few weeks I have had contention in my companionship as my main weapon. I have found myself saying, "Someday, I can love her." "When she's not my companion, I'll be able to love her." How rude and selfish of me! Someday is TOO LATE to make a change. We are not guaranteed tomorrow, or even the next hour. Resolve to change! 

President Eaton has said, "There is happiness in spiritual progress." I invite you all to find that happiness that comes from being spiritually progressing by eliminating "someday" from your thinking. If you are "someday" going to pick up your scriptures and read, today is the day! If you are "someday" going to seek Heavenly Father in your life, today is that day! "Someday" is dangerous and destructive to our eternal progression! Don't put it off any longer! I promise that as you seek our Father in Heaven and choose to serve Him, you will become the person you are meant to become! You will find happiness and strength. You will become the child of God you are meant to be! I testify of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Sister Keele 

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! :)