Picture from Elder James

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The Last Christmas in the mission

I had a good Christmas week. On Thursday we went to the Christmas conference in Visalia. We had a couple of trainings and then played minute to win it and bingo again. Elder Tongish and I won a challenge. On Christmas Church was only an hour long with no speakers, just music. We had the Martinez family attend as well. Elder Atkinson and I went to Porterville next and Skyped from the Richie family's home. We had a delicious meal there and almost all of the missionaries from our zone came and played a present game there called Yankee Swap. It was fun.

Then we came back to Tulare with the Zone leaders and watched the Incredibles. It was a weird but nice to watch a movie. We played some board games and stuff there as well. 

Probably my favorite part of the Christmas week was watching the Nativity Bible video with the Maciel family. It was really simple, but the spirit was very strong.

We have a few good investigators right now, and we have been finding a ton of new potential investigators. They should catch up soon and start turning into a ton of new investigators.

I keep losing my camera on Preparation days, but when I have it with me next time I'll send a lot of pictures.

We were able to do a lot of work this week with less active members. We ran into a whole bunch of Jewish people this week, which was interesting because we were so close to Christmas. We found one that was a messianic Jew as well. He believed in Christ, but was a Jew because Christ was a Jew.

Thank you all for all of the gifts and letters that you sent to me.

Love,

Elder Keeley 

Little Time

I had a good week this week. We got a special opps missionary named Elder Page. He was pretty cool. I went on a split with Brother Van Herk and had a good time. Today we went to Visalia and practiced singing in a choir. We taught a crazy person when we were with Elder Page. 

It rained a little this week.

It was good overall.

Elder Keeley

Staying in Tulare

I had a pretty good week this week. We have picked the Cervantes family back up and have been teaching them. They haven't quit decided to come back to church, but they have started to read again, and watched music and the spoken word. Hopefully they will be able to come back. They almost got baptized when Elder Atkinson was teaching them.

We area also still working with the Martinez family. They just need to quit smoking. 

This next transfer we will be having an Apostle come and tour our mission. I am excited.

I went on an exchange with Elder Derbidge, and it was pretty good. He is doing pretty well. 

Elder Rearte is coming down to the Porterville zone, and I am excited for that. He is one of my favorite Argentines.

All of the Tulare missionaries went to the 1st ward's Christmas party for a minute and we sang O come all ye faithful. It was fun as well. 

I forgot my camera at the apartment this week.

Love,

Elder Keeley

Surprise Baptism

I had a great week this week. Monday was preparation day like normal. On Tuesday we had Zone conference and it was very good. Wednesday we went on exchanges with the Zone leaders. On Thursday I went on an exchange with Elder James. On Friday I worked on Stewardship reports. On Saturday we had our ward Light the World Service party. On Sunday we had a baptism. 

The person who got baptized was Sister Carlson's son. He only with her every other weekend for about 26 hours. We had taught him a couple of times over here in Tulare, and he had come to church a few times over here. A while ago we referred him to my home boy Elder Mountford. Also Elder Davis. They had been teaching him for a while. Elder Mountford and Elder Morrison taught him on an exchange and Elder Morrison talked to President Clark about him.

President Clark said, "baptize him!"  

We did. It was crazy. 

We also had 7 investigators at church this week. There was also another non member that isn't an investigator yet. We were at church when we got texted by the Faucet family. They said they were coming to church. They also had their member fellowship from Fresno come down as well. They only stayed for sacrament. The other four people we had stayed the entire time. 

The most notable part of the baptism was the water temperature. Brother Carlson told us that he wanted it to be like a hot tub, and somehow we accidentally made the water really warm. Brother Carlson said that baptism is like being freed from a bunch of weights. The sacrament can be like that for us as we partake of it gratefully and intentionally in a spirit of repentance. 

Elder Keeley

Picture 12/5/16

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