Pictures

In case anyone was wondering, I just send random pictures with random emails. They don't always make sense.

Meetings and Miracles

We had a lot of meetings this week. First we had Zone meeting. I gave a training on being a master planner. The next day we had the Worldwide Missioanry Broadcast, and our ward MCM. The next day we had President Interviews and then the Stake MCM. Sister Clark asked all the missionaries on Thursday if we were going to go back and teach lessons, and everyone said yes, except us. We didn't teach any lessons that day. We also had ward council with the whole stake on Sunday. 

The meetings were really good, and I learned a lot, but there were a lot of them.

Even with all of the meetings, we were able to have lots of miracles in finding new investigators. I have found that whenever we drop investigators, we are able to find new ones to replace them really fast. This week we found some people that seem to really desire baptism. Here are a few of them.

We found a Part member family with an unbaptized 9 year old, and an unbaptized boyfriend figure named Robert Miller. this family requested us through mormon.org. We will have to help them get married, but that is about the only thing keeping them from the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

We also found the Part-member Allred family with an unbaptized nine-year old named Easton. They were planning to return to church the day we showed up. They want to be sealed in the temple, and bless their two year old. We have tried to visit them often in the past, but they had never been home.

We also found a lady named Maria Vargas who lives in Parlier (french for:Mexico (not really)). She was a media referral that we forwarded to the Spanish Elders (Because no one really speaks English in Parlier), that they returned back to us. She is even married, which is great.

My testimony of the power of faith and sincere prayer has grown as a missionary. It is hard to stay awake during the morning and nightly prayers, but praying sincerely and with faith really helps throughout the day. I know that God wants to bless us, and he wants to show us that he is ready to bless us as soon as we do what he asks of us.

Love, 

Elder Keeley

The Promised Land of Parlier

Hello, Parlier is Mexico. Rhyme time.

We had a neat experience with inspired planning. Elder Arebalo and Elder Peterson told Elder Oliver and I about a slightly crazy person  named Tony who lived in Parlier that had met with a lot of missionaries in the past. They met with Tony and decided that he was more English than Spanish, and that he was also to crazy to be worth teaching. Elder Oliver and I felt inspired to go to Parlier to try and visit this man, and to also visit all of the Less active members that live over there. We don't go to Parlier very much because almost everyone speaks Spanish. We planned to go in the afternoon with Brother Smeaton. 

We went and visited Tony. He was slightly crazy, but not as crazy as advertised. We were able to have a good lesson with him, and then better, we were able to receive his sister as a referral from him. We went around the corner and visited his sister Yared or Yari. We had a fantastic lesson with her, and were able to receive another referral from her. She was very prepared, and felt the spirit strongly. 

The miracles in Parlier didn't end there though, we visited the first L.A member that we had planned to see, Veronica Bell. We found her at an apartment that didn't match the number one on the ward directory, the first apartment that we tried. Miraculously, her visiting teacher was there for the first time in two months. She had just had a change in her life, and she was planning to come to church. 

Finally, we tried one more LA. They didn't live at the house anymore, but we got a potential investigator.

This week Elder Oliver also got the opportunity to go out on a team up with the one and only President Clark. He came in his really fancy BMW and we took him to some of the more Ghetto parts of Selma to visit our investigators. It was an Awesome experience. We were able to find a family of new investigators, and teaching them with President Clark is a good start.

Elder Oliver and I were able to find 8 new investigators this week. Whenever we have to drop some investigators we are able to find even more prepared ones.

 We had Kim and her daughter Marissa come to church on Sunday. It's lots of fun to have investigators come to church. 

We are giving updates to the president every night in preperation for a big MCM meeting on Thursday. it's pretty fun.

We also met with the Zamoras this week and they committed to be baptized! The day they chose was in June, when Max moves in with his dad full time. It's still great news for the future.

Everything is goinmg pretty well. I'm always happy and tired as a missionary.

Love,

Elder Keeley

I messed with more affects. 
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Mail Monday Madness

Once we drank Milkshakes. 

Anyways, I had a good week this week. It rained a lot on us on Tuesday, we only biked for an hour, but we got pretty soaked. It was fun. The funny thing was that everyone we talked to on their doorstep that day told us to go home out of the rain. We were like we can't go home, let us in so we can be dry! 

Then we went on a team up. We get about a 3rd of the total member present lessons in our zone, which is pretty fun. It is good to teach with a member. 

This week I was feeling kind of down, because we were going to go on a trip to Caruthers, but our appointment over there canceled on us. I was also kind of really tired, and wasn't feeling that motivated. I prayed that I would be more motivated, and be able to better feel the Holy Ghost. A few minutes later our President called. It was pretty cool.

 I cut Elder Oliver's hair.

Elder Oliver and I have been very busy recently, which is a good thing. 

I learned this week about the light of Christ making the message of the restored gospel familiar to anyone that is willing to listen.

We learned that we won't be able to baptize Brandon because his mom wants him to stay Catholic. That's pretty sad. 

We were finally able to teach Able again, and we set a Baptismal date for him in February.

We are working with a PM family with a man named Ranae that we are having lots of good progress with. 

I am doing well.

Elder Keeley

New Years and lessons

Elder Oliver and I had a great week this week. New years was almost like a normal day for us, except we went back to our apartment an hour early. I didn't even get to hear any fireworks or gunshots, because we went to bed too early. 

Elder Oliver and I were finally able to reach the Standard of excellence for Member present lessons, and total Quality lessons. That means that we went on a member team up almost every day but Monday and one other, and sometimes we teamed up with two people in one day. We taught at least seven more lessons this week, then I ever have before. A teaching missionary is a happy missionary. We still wasted a little time this week, and we had a funeral one day, but It feels good to have the spirit so powerfully so much. 

The Young man named Brandon that we are teaching didn't make it to church on Sunday because his alarm didn't work, but he is still solid for baptism this month. He has started to read the doctrine and covenants, and helped us teach a lesson.

Today I got to go to the Sequoias today, and it was pretty fun. A lot of the snow has already melted, which is no good. 

This week I learned more about the joy that comes from choosing the right and being obedient, and the lack of joy that comes from wasting time, even if it's still being used to do good things.

I love being a missionary. I know this church is true. We are having many miracles, but I am running out of my email time this week. 

Elder Keeley

Pictures

I got a new camera, here are my pictures this week.

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I played with some of the filters and things.