The New Era

Everyone was surprised that I stayed in Selma. Elder Smith came in, and we kept going at full speed, except our finding dropped a little.

We are teaching two ladies named Irene and the older Irene's sister Diane. They are golden investigators that we found a while ago, but surrendered to the spanish Elders for a whilem but they never taught her. They gave them back to us and we started to teach them again. They are really awesome. Diane's husband had just barely died, and she was looking for a church where she could be with him again. She just kept asking us how she could know that this church is true. That whole family is doing really well.

Jen Prieto keeps trying to have her baby. She needs to get her act together. This isn't the time to have a baby.

Parnell is doing well as well. He really wants to change his life.

I learned a lot this week about using family history, and being grateful and patient with the Lord's timing. I know that this is the Lord's work, and that it will happen in his way. Missions are lot's of fun.

Elder Smith came from Merced. He was trained by my trainer's trainer. He also came from Missouri and Kentucky.

Elder Keeley

The Reign of the Old Shogunate is over

Elder Oliver is being transferred to Madera to be with Elder Call, my trainer's trainer. He is Elder Oliver's Trainer's trainer's trainer. It was a surprise that he is being transferred, and that I am staying in Selma. Elder Arebalo is leaving as well. He is going to be companions with Elder Agazzani again in the Echo ward. That makes me the missionary that has been in Selma the longest. I am the last remaining member of my original district. 

My new companion is Elder Smith. There are two Elder Smith's in the mission, so I don't really know who it will be. One of the Elder Smith's was in my MTC district.

Elder Oliver and I had a great week this week. We teamed up with different people almost every day. We usually will team up with Brother Smeaton in the morning, and then Brother Smeaton and we created a team up calendar that is gaining traction in the High priest's group. The Elder's quorum isn't quite there yet. We then team up with someone elde in the evening. BrotherSmeaton can't drive in the evening, so it works out wonderfully.

The baptism of Ava was moved because her mom Jenn decided that Sunday would be a good time to have her baby (or at least go to the hospital and check on him). I guess that's a good excuse. Ava will still be baptised shortly.

Our investigator Parnell is doing really well as well. He has been completely Sober for a whole week, and in that week read from 2nd Nephi to 4th Nephi. It helped that the WIFI at Kim's house wasn't working so that he had time to read. He is also looking for a job. 

A less active lady found us that is friends with several of our investigators, it was crazy.

We teach a man named Tony who is a barber. He gave Elder Oliver a haircut while we were teaching a lesson to a Buddhist man that had questions about if using medical marijuana was against the Word of Wisdom. It was a pretty exciting lesson as well.

Elder Keeley 

Temple Trip and Part Members

I had a great week this week.

 I loved going to the temple today, I learned more about feeling the Holy ghost, loving others, and about agency. 

We had two new families come to church for the first time on Sunday. The Miller-Prieto family of 5 and the Gayton family of 4. We have been having a lot of sucess with part member families recently. 13 different members have come to church in the past two weeks. I feel like working with part member families, harvesting the low hanging fruit, will be one of the things that I focus on for the rest of my mission. That field is ripe and ready to harvest. The members have been great at fellowship. They committed Robert Miller to do Scuba with the YM, which is awesome.

I really liked the last Zone Conference. The highlight of it for me was the Assistants training on being a Street Savage. Elder Oliver and I have been talking to all sorts of people, and have been having miracles as a result. We both want to be Street Savages. 

We are finding well, and having great success. 

We randomly ran into a crazy Person that the Spanish Elders had told us about named Donnie Davis. We tried to meet with him, but he wasn't at the place he told us to meet him at, a tire shop.

A lot has been happening, but I'm running out of time. 

The mission also changed all of our music rules, and now it's just classical and MOTAB, and we can't use pirated stuff. I guess that was already technically a rule though. I like classical and MOTAB.

Love,

Elder Keeley

Temple Picture

Raisin City

​​I have had a pretty fun week this week.

We went to the far away city of Raisin City to try and contact referrals. It was really hard to find addresses. I saw a really cool fence that I took pictures of, but I don't have my camera with me right now.

Another day we got stuck car hopping with Parlier. We don't have a car, and we need to travel to other cities that are far away. Sometimes we aren't able to find a team up, and we are forced to work with the Spanish Elders in their car. This use to not be a problem, but Elder Peterson is also injured so it lowers our effectiveness. 

I've been working this week on loving and honoring my leaders even when I don't agree with them. I have been working on humbling myself to learn from my leaders and not think negatively about them. I am doing a lot of praying to ask for god's help.

We were able to have a new family at church this week, the Allred Family. They are a PM family that we tried visiting as a last try of the city type thing while on a team up with Bert Engstrom. They had been talking about returning to church the day we saw them for the first time. They have an unbaptized 9 year old. They are awesome. They are working to have their baby blessed, their 9 year old baptized, and eventually being sealed in the Temple.

My email time is lower today because we went to the Sequoias again today, and then went to Hanford. The mountains got a lot of snow!

I'll make sure to send pictures next week, on Tuesday. We get to go to the Temple again.

I also got to go on exchanges with Elder Howard this week. He is a convert to the church, and really cool. We got to teach an awesome black guy.

love,

Elder Keeley