Thailand Week 19, 20 Dec 2013

So today is Saturday I know, but seeing as I just moved to the office to work as an office elder along with my two new companions, Elder Smith and Elder Cosper, Saturday is my new P-day!  

So that's my big news for the week!  This transfers meeting was seriously crazy!!!  Especially because it makes a lot of important work for us here in the office to do.  But I love it all.  We have a great area to work in with the Assistants to the President, President and Sister Senior, and tons of other great people I'm going to learn a lot from.  I'm in Asoke right here in Bangkok.  It's so busy and hectic but I love it here already!  It's a little overwhelming coming from P-lok where it's kind of quiet but the change is good and the experiences are completely different.  The first night we had to go help take all the missionaries who are going home to the airport at like 3 in the morning.  We do a lot of stuff that's kinda behind the scenes.  We're in charge of the mail and distributing it to all the missionaries across the country, it's pretty hectic with all the Christmas packages and stuff that are here right now.  I can get packages and stuff anytime now because it comes straight here! Not that you have to send another one anytime soon, haha. 

This is so weird, I'm still getting used to it.  We share a house with the assistants to the President which is way cool.  It's fun to be in a house with more than just your companionship!  And this house is way nice.  There's not a ping pong table which is kinda sad...but there are other perks!  It's actually an apartment and we have a little weight room with a ton of dumbbells and a couple weight machines!  And then really close by is this big field with a fut sol soccer court and tennis courts and stuff.  We're pretty dang spoiled here! We even get to drive!  We have a big creeper style van.  It's like an '08 Toyota journeyer or something.  I'm going to get my license on Monday I think. It's kinda scary driving around in Bangkok and stuff but we pray every time we drive somewhere.

I'm in a ward now!  We have a way nice church building and the few members I've already met are so awesome.  There's a lot that happens here in Asoke.  We get to meet with President Senior all the time and his office is right across the hall!  I'm actually sitting in our office right now using our computers.  I'm going to have to learn to type in Thai. It's hard because there are like 40 different characters all over the key board.  We inputted baptismal records the other day though and I was picking it up pretty well I thought, haha.  

I'm so excited to get this going and start really getting used to the work here!  It's way fun and this area is so cool!

I'm excited for Christmas!  Thanks to everyone that sent their support!  I love you all!

Love Elder Keller

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Thailand Week 18, 15 Dec 2013

Hello everyone!  

Only 9 days until Christmas!!  At least for me.  You all have 10 more days. >:)

This week the most memorable thing was the branch Christmas party on Saturday!  It was so good!  There were a ton of people there, including a ton of investigators!  They did a Nativity scene, a gift exchange, had some really good food (include chocolate fondue) and a couple other activities.  It was really fun.

This week we also got really good at asking everyone for referrals.  Especially the people who reject us haha.  They want us to ask every single person we talk to for the name of a friend who might be interested.  It's hard to remember and sometimes people don't even stop to let you get a word out. (It's kind of funny sometimes actually) But we've seen the blessings!  There's been an influx of people referred to the missionaries for us to teach!  It's awesome to see the church growing to strongly!

So as of right now I don't know where I'll be for Christmas...We're anxiously awaiting the call from the zone leaders to let us know who's going to be moving on this coming Wednesday.  Wherever I go, the church will still be true and Christmas will be awesome!  

Love Elder Keller

Thailand Week 17, 8 Dec 2013

Hey everyone!  

This week was good but pretty normal too.  It's weird, as a missionary things all kind of blend together.  It's exactly six months since I entered the Missionary Training Center!  That was so long ago! But at the same time it's hard to believe that so much has happened in between. Especially because I didn't quite understand everything that was going on for a chunk of that time, haha.  But Thai is getting easier and easier every day.

One thing out of the ordinary that happened this week was that I did a front flip off my bike.  It actually turned out better than it sounds like it would.  I came out of it with just a few bruises.  It's because I was wearing my neon yellow safety vest I'm sure of it.  We were biking and waved to some investigators we saw, and while we were distracted Elder Lucas started turning before I did and hit my front tire, which turned sideways and so my bike stopped dead.  I flipped over the handle bars and apparently rolled into it pretty well.  Honestly I don't remember anything besides laying there on my back.  But it was all okay in the end!

I read in Alma chapter 26 today about Ammon's joy in the Lord. It was really good to read about how no matter that they were depressed and wanted to turn back, the Lord comforted them and when they relied on his mercies it was all okay.  That's how I felt on Sunday.  We didn't get any of our investigators at church even though we expected quite a few.  I was kinda depressed and wanted to turn away but we still did our work and had a really good 2 hours of contacting.  We have a lot of good lessons set up this week because of it!  No matter if we feel weak and sad, we can rely on the Lord and all things are possible.

Love Elder Josh Keller

Elder Lucas at a place we found out biking

Big beetle I saw

Gecko that died stuck to the wall

My giant bowl of pasta

Thailand Week 16, 1 Dec 2013

This was a crazy week!  Oh and Happy Thanksgiving!  

Thanksgiving wasn't quite like it is at home, but some of the members who have lived in America made a turkey and a bunch of other good food for the branch activity on Wednesday so that was good!  

This week we saw miracles for sure!  We worked really hard to make our goals. It was harder this week because we had one less day with the meeting on Monday.  But we did it!  With the help of Heavenly Father we did it!

We ended up teaching 8 lessons yesterday!  It was a pretty full day. And we split up to teach more people.  I still don't like teaching people on my own.  I get tense and teach a little to fast.  And I still don't understand 100% of everything, but soon!  They were good lessons in the end though and we got enough lessons and everything to have balanced key indicators this week!  

So November we had a mission wide goal to get a baptism for every companionship in the mission.  It was such a good month!  We had tons of success the whole mission wide and ended up with a total of 109 baptisms!!!  That's so good! That's a whole new ward in Thailand!  The work of salvation is going so fast!    

Anything is possible with Faith and Hope!  

My culinary skills are getting better and better!  We made no-bake cookies twice this week!  They were our contribution to the ward Thanksgiving party and then we made them again just for us.  The most expensive part of the whole thing is the butter.  But it's worth it.  And then for Sunday dinner we made garlic bread and spaghetti with meat and onions cooked in too.  But it's not quite as good as mom cooking! 

I hope you all have an awesome week!

Love Elder Keller