Thailand Week 66, 16 Nov 2014

Hey, so this week we're rushing out to get some sightseeing done at this market at the Laotian border.  

We didn't have a baptism this week but next week we have a goal for 2 baptisms!!!  One lady has a friend who is the greatest help ever.  She just translates everything we say into the Lao/Thai mix they speak out here haha.  My favorite quote from our lessons.  "Get in the water first and then you'll know!  Just go in the water and then come and tell me how it is."  Missionary work at it's finest.

The other lady has been learning for a little bit now.  She's exactly like Joseph Smith.  She has parents who believe in God, her mom is active at a church in Bangkok and her dad "shows his faith differently than most people".  She wanted to find the church for herself, even though she's been attending somewhere for 3 years now, and the Spirit guided her to our church on Sunday night when there would usually be no one there.  But that day there were a couple members waiting for a meeting.  

Every time we teach her I feel the Spirit almost stronger than ever.  She hadn't come to church until last week because she was scared and nervous about the change.  We met with her and we told her "Today we are just going to talk about your concerns.  All your questions and all the things that scare you, just tell us."    All her questions were good but in the end superficial compared to the faith and desire she had to follow God.  I received a witness in teaching that listening is the most important, and that the quiet 2 second gap between speakers is also important.  The whisperings of the Holy Spirit are loudest in the silence.

This week we're excited to work with all these investigators and find even more!

We've been throwing these foam stress balls at each other for a while now and my shoulder is kinda sore sometimes.  The game is, you toss/throw it to each other until someone drops it.  Then that person goes and stands against the wall and is beamed by the other.  It's great.

I play the piano every other week or so in sacrament meeting.  Me and Elder Osborn switch off.  The hymns  have become my favorite songs.  We're starting to bust out Christmas now!  Not in sacrament meeting but just to play for fun. 

Love you all!

Elder Keller

Thailand Week 65, 9 Nov 2014

Hey Family!

So I feel like a true Thai person now.  I went out and harvested rice!  There's a partly active family we visited earlier in the week and we found out they were going to harvest on Saturday and we offered our help!  It was way fun!  I'll send you some pictures.  They also fed us some frog from their pond!  It might have been what gave me diarrhea that day but that's just a normal thing now so it's whateves.

Dad have you ever read the King Follet sermon?  I haven't read it all but it's from Joseph Smith on the nature of God and stuff like that.  There's one section that talks about the organization of intelligences and it talks about how God was amongst them, saw that he could help them become exalted as he was, and so he established order.  Gave them rules and a plan that would help them all progress and become as he is.  I'm thinking about this because the Zone Leaders came and trained us on consecration and obedience in preparation for our 2 baptisms per companionship per month goal.  No rule is without purpose, whether it protects us or simply is for our own growth and blessings.  When we are obedient we bind Heavenly Father with chords of righteousness for he is "bound when [we] do what [he] says."

That's definitely something I've learned as a missionary.  That obedience is for our own benefit.  I regret all the little things I neglected before I came on my mission and I definitely will do everything I can when I get home.  

This last week we've been working some more with the members and it's been a blessing to see the people more.  On one trip we went past an elementary school and stopped for a second.  This was in the middle of nowhere and all the kids were just playing with a beat up soccer ball or a volleyball or something like that.  But they were having so much fun!  They were so happy with the little things they had.  There's this sport called Tai graw which is a little bit like volleyball with your feet.  There were a couple kids playing it and I got to go and play with them too.  It taught me that it's important to immerse myself in the people as well as the work.  That's one of the greatest joys of a mission.

We have a goal for a baptism next week!  A member brought a friend to church yesterday.  They've been friends and sold stuff together at the market for like 10 years.  The member has for sure been inviting her friend to church for the 4 months or so since she's been baptized and she finally decided to not sell on Sunday so she could come to church.  Already a big step of faith!  The Lord is preparing people left and right!

Nate I have a request.  Because I won't get to eat a normal thanksgiving dinner, I need you to eat twice as much as you usually would. Can you handle that?  I'm sure you can, you could destroy me in an eating contest...and still stay in shape.  

Natalie would you ever eat a frog?  or chicken feet?  or a bug?  or sketchy soup with coagulated blood in it?  If we ever get to come to Thailand I'll have to take you to eat all the weirdest things there are.  But nothing is as gross as all the meat in the supermarket here.  Just out in the open (and some packaged up) they have fish, giant squid wings, giant squid fillets, pork, chicken carcasses, pig intestines, pig uterus's, and all kinds of other gross meat.  It smells awful...

Matt mom shared part of your talk with me!  It's really good!  I'll be all grown up and 20 years old when I get back so we'll have to go out and do some camping trips together.  Will you find some new places to hike and camp before next summer?  Hopefully I fit in all my old boots and stuff.

Love you all!  I'll send pictures too!
Elder Keller 

Harvesting rice

Dinner

Bring on the rain!

Thailand Week 64, 2 Nov 2014

Hey Family!

So I got my new companion!!!  Elder อามรเทบ!!  Let me think... Aahmontabe.  He's from Saphaan Sung and has been out on his mission about 3 months now.  He's such a punk.  He loves to play pranks and is a rebel at heart.  But he knows why he's here.  He has the same goals and the same purpose so we can get along just fine!  

And then we had a baptism yesterday!!!  So awesome!!!  Our mission is going for a Bovember 2.0!  Last November we had a goal for 1 baptism per companionship.  Since then we've grown and improved.  Now we're trying to revamp the excitement and the faith with 2 per companionship!! We got kinda lucky with the timing honestly and already have one baptism from yesterday.  There's no doubt in my mind that our mission can make it happen with Heavenly Father's help.  

I'm so excited to hear that they might make a new ward in Eagle River!!  I've thought before about how much is the church progressing in Alaska and what the vision is.  Here it's pretty simple, build stakes and build the temple.  What would you say it is in Alaska?  Do you think they would ever expand the temple?  The problem with that is that it is only used by the Alaskan saints really.  We just need to baptize more in Alaska!  ;)  

Mom I totally remember that trap object lesson with Bishop Fullmer.  Anything with an object lesson is way better.  Satan does some crazy things.  Elder Osborn said once that the "fiery darts of the adversary" are distractions.  That's really all he has to do.  If we're distracted enough that we don't do daily things it puts a huge gap in our armor. 

Nate that's awesome you're gonna do skiing! Do you remember the jump hill?  The coaches caught us there once and it wasn't good...the funnest days of skiing are when we just played in the snow or had snowball fights and stuff.  Do you like driving?  Has dad taken you drifting yet?  Don't go in any ditches...trust me...

Natalie that's a sick costume.  It looks like it took a solid 30 minutes or so.  It looks kinda like the thing dad would make for duct tape day. ;)  It's weird to see our house again haha.  How many pull ups can you do now?  I did eight the other day at the park with Elder Osborn.  Only because of skiing.

Matt way to go!  You're doing missionary work!!!!!  Keep it up!!  Your hobo costume is dece too.  Next step.  Get Alex to church on Sunday with his family. ;)  But for real though.  Do it.  Are you excited for winter? What's your favorite winter activity?  I'd have to pick between snowmobiling and skiing.  We'll have to mix the two some how. ;)  

For Christmas, don't worry too much about a ton of stuff haha.  I'm just thinking that I'll be home 5 months after Christmas so...Ugh I don't want to think about that quite yet. ;)  That time will come.  Oh and if you want to see a ton of good videos about Thailand look up Nathan Bartling on Youtube.  He's a returned missionary who came back here to work. He's the churches media manager for the area and also does a ton of free lance stuff.  He's super good!  I'm in a couple of the shots in one of the videos of the Tri-district meeting a bit ago.

Love you all!  I hope everything is going well and you are happy! 
Love Elder Keller

Thailand Week 63, 26 Oct 2014

Hey Family!!

Thanks for doing that family book thing!  I'd love to have one to show to investigators and recent converts as I commit them to do it themselves haha.  Oh and did Grandpa's history biography thingy ever get finished?  Could you send me that as well?  Thanks!  

It's snowing!!!  There's so much white there!  And so much white here too! Baptism!!!!  This was a great Sunday in Sakon Nakhon!  We had two baptisms and a confirmation!  And there were about 6 members who haven't been seen for too long at church that came back as well!  There were 75 people at church last Sunday!  :)  That's the most we've had in a long time! The most this whole transfer actually! The work is moving forward.  

Mom I don't know anything about the moves yet.  The Zone Leaders still haven't called.  There are 21 new missionaries coming in so there will probably be a lot of mixing things around.  We'll see how it all works out.  I'm for sure going to go down to Bangkok and renew my visa though.  That means we'll leave on Tuesday and be in Bangkok on Wednesday if the patterns of old continue.  Not looking forward to the 10+ hour bus ride, but there's not a whole lot of things that I would rather do than go to a transfers meeting.  It's such a good restart and I love seeing all the missionaries there.

Dad what's the Warren Miller ski film? Is it a big collection of cool skiing shots? I love those videos.  We should look into getting a Go Pro someday.  We do enough cool things to warrant the expense right?  Imagine...you've got a helmet cam view of a 1 banger snowmobile going on the bumpy trail through the swamp at Nancy Lake.  What more could you want?  Dad if you ever want to do a cool scripture study, read the scripture story of Jacob and the ladder to heaven while reading the lyrics of "Nearer My God to Thee."  It's way fun.

Nathan your shoulders look bigger!  Even through your dope hoody. Me and Elder Osborn have been working out every morning and I can tell that I'm getting a little bit stronger.  There's this book called convict conditioning and it has a bunch of work outs in steps.  I just passed off step 3 of the push ups.  Which is 3 sets of 30 kneeling push ups.  Before you laugh...each one has to be 2 seconds down, 1 second hold, and 2 seconds up!  It's way harder than you'd think! ;)

Natalie do you go all out for class color days at school?  Freshman are still red right?  I wear red ties sometimes for district meeting.  It make me more powerful and commanding.  For real.  If you look at the conference edition Ensign you'll see that almost all the general authorities in the spread page have red ties. ;)   

Matt that journal project mom was telling me about sounds really cool!  I wish I knew more about our ancestors.  It's worth learning!  I mean, we're going to be with Soren Ottesen for eternity so might as well study up!  I'm also glad you didn't break your arm again on the ice!  ;)  I haven't gotten too hurt on my mission.  I cut my leg destroying an old well with a sledge hammer because there was a metal ring on the inside of the concrete I demolished that hit my leg.  But it wasn't too bad.  I'll show you the video someday.  It's intense. 

I love you all so much!  Hope you have a great week!  

ด้วยความรัก

เอ็ลเดอร์เคลเลอร์

Thailand Week 62, 20 Oct 2014

Hey Family!!! 

This was one the most spiritually uplifting weekends of my entire life.  Saturday was just a big cultural event with a ton of members making food, putting on shows and just seeing tons of missionaries. Then Sunday we had the huge meeting with over 900 members from the whole Issan section of Thailand!!  President Gong, the Asia Area President, presided and we had Elder Khanakham, the first ever Thai member of the 70 there as well to conduct and lead the changes.  They dissolved the KonKhaen district and split it up between the Ubon and Udorn (me) districts to make them more strong. This will set everything up really nicely to prepare for new stakes to be made withing the next year or so.  Less according to the plans!  After that we ate lunch, (they made like 1500 brownies)  fellowshipped and caught up with members/missionaries and then headed to the church for a devotional/sacrament meeting.  It was a really special opportunity to hold a sacrament meeting.  It had to be authorized by Elder Holland even.  Elder Gong trained us on the importance of the sacrament and the importance of Christ as well.  It was the most spiritual sacrament and one of the most spiritual meetings in general that I have ever been a part of.  Elder Gong commented that this was the kind of meeting where Christ could come visit.  And he was looking at the door the entire time wondering if he would come in.  Then that Monday we had our office zone conference on the doctrine of stakes and really we just learned a ton of doctrine and principles.  One of my favorite parts was when he brought up Fire, Water, and Blood.  Which are all elements of eternity in some way or another.  Moses 6:60 and then I looked in 1 John today in studies and saw that chapter 5 has a huge section on it too.  I'm definitely going to study more into it!  These things are so exciting to me now haha. 

We have a goal of 2 baptisms this Sunday.  Transfers is in 10 days and I'm not sure what will happen.  For sure Elder Williams will leave.  That's the general consensus because he's been here 12 weeks by now.  I usually wouldn't think to move but there are 21 new missionaries coming in so they will definitely throw some crazy stuff around haha.  More than half the mission will be on the training schedule for the next bit!  That's crazy!!  I'm super excited.  Elder Hunsaker is now teaching at the MTC and I know he'll prep these new missionaries to come out and do the Lord's work!  

So some random things.  Do you know what a My Family Book is?  Probably.  It's that little Family history booklet with like 4-5 generations.  Could you fill one out for me?  Or even type up the sections and send them to me so I can put it together?  I would love to have one to show people so I can help them be motivated. 

Also during conference I felt impressed that I should continue on and go to BYU when I get back.  

Love Elder Keller

Missionaries from the Issan area

Thailand Week 61, 12 Oct 2014

Hey Family!!!

This week was super good!  Conference, new investigators, baptism, happy members, zone conference coming up, there are a lot of reasons to rejoice.

We had a good amount of investigators at church this week!  :)  A few have dates for the 26th!  We'll be in Khon Kaen for a combined tri-district conference headed by the Asia area president followed by mission tour/zone conference on Monday!!  So much Spiritual uplifting!  We're going to be floating around Khon Kaen with 3 zones worth of missionaries there.  

Dad we had an awesome finding story this week!  We were just calling the phone numbers of the people we contacted on the street to follow up and set appointments, when this lady picked up and as I talked to her and invited her to church she asked "Right now?"  I was kinda caught off guard and asked when she could come.  30 minutes later we started teaching her and she accepted a date to be baptized on the 26th of this month!  She came to conference on Sunday and loved it.  She made friends with so many people in the ward and got to watch a great baptismal ceremony for the 3 people who entered the waters of baptism yesterday here in Sagon Nakon.  The Lord is preparing people left and right!  

Mom is it true if you add an egg to a cake batter you can get brownies?  I remember hearing something like that but I was too afraid to try the other day, so we just made a flattish cake.  ;)  We bought a Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix and some chocolate frosting this last week.  I'm so excited to make it.

Nathan how is junior year going? I'm trying to remember that year...there was a lot of stupid stuff that happened haha.   So much dumb drama and stuff like that.  I'm gonna guess you just ignore it all haha.  That's the best way for sure!  I've been doing a bunch of push ups and I'm getting so yoked dude.  But too bad I eat ice cream like 4 times a week...this one member was making fun of me cause I'm fat the other day haha.  It's pretty typical here.  

Natalie there's this one member your age here and she just sits around playing on her iPhone all day.  When people were taking pictures at the baptism she was on the side taking selfies of nothing....  please tell me you aren't like that....  Just kidding I know you aren't.  How was the tri-stake dance?  Did all the Tongans make the floor shake like usual?  Just kidding.  But really.  

Matt would you dare eat bugs?  There's this one kind of curry called Little Crap Curry.  It's awful.  But they made me try it.  I immediately regretted my decision.  That happens a lot.  In order to make sure people aren't offended you have to eat sketchy food that might give you diarrhea or food poisoning.  I've had both...the horror...

Love you all!  :)  

Thailand Week 60, 5 Oct 2014

So this week was pretty good, but it wasn't really what we wanted.  We worked, taught new investigators, received some referrals, and some other good things.  But It was still disappointing to get only 3 investigators at church.  None of the people we contacted came to church and so we don't have very many new people to work with.  That's going to be one of the focuses this week.  Especially because the 18-19th we will be in Khon Gaen for a tri-district conference of the whole Issan area of Thailand!  Then that Monday is our mission tour! President Gong the area president will be here!  And we're thinking...this is a big meeting. They don't usually combine the districts like this.  And the last time President Gong came he created a new stake in Bangkok!!! :)  That's what we're hoping for!!!  

Mom I'm sorry I've been so bad at it...and still am...but here's a couple pictures!  There was a frog in a basket outside and there are a few cows that like to graze across the street.  Elder Evans likes to step outside and moo at the cows until they look at him.  Then the staring contest is on. ;)

Matt I bet you would like the frog, it wasn't like a little toad, it was a frog frog!  One day me and Elder Osborn came home and there was one stuck to our front door!

Natalie I don't know if you would like the Issan very much.  There's a ton of bugs and spiders.  There's snakes and geckos too.  I've only seen one snake so far but I've seen a ton of geckos.  

Nate we played soccer the other day for sports day and there were a bunch of Thai guys that came and played with us.  They wrecked me...they were so good.  I was so sore after that day haha.  Like my entire body hurt.  

Dad I just found out Elder Osborn loves snow machining!  Have you heard of a place called Tower Mountain?  You should look it up!

Mom our house is super nice here.  It's perfect too because all the walls are concrete and you can throw all the balls you want without a problem!!  ;)  We actually cleaned today too!  My desk looks so organized it's a miracle.  We made this kind of pork called waterfall pork the other day with the branch president here and it was pretty easy!  I'll have to figure out how to make it work at home.  

Love you all!

Love Josh

sunburn/tan line

Water buffalo crossing the street