Monday, October 6, 2014

10/6/14 - General Conference!

Another interesting week in Honduras. For a matter of fact, my companion just received his plane tickets for the 30th of October. So that is really exciting.

This past weekend, as all of you (mormones) know was General Conference. Luckily enough the Church building that I regularly attend is a stake center. And as far as I know only stake centers offer it in English as well. That was really cool, having 30 gringos all crammed into the high council room. But when there were speakers that spoke in their native tongue of Spanish, we would quickly change it to the Spanish channel and listen to the speaker without the translator. For the most part I understood the speakers. I mean I kind of knew the general idea, topic, of their talk. I would've thought that more people would show up at the church building to watch General Conference, but a lot of people here have computers and they would just watch/listen it on that.

I think that the new change in General Conference is one of the best decisions they have made. Now even more speakers can talk and not worry if they will be understood or worry about learning a ton of English. And even here it was awesome for the people to listen to speakers without translators. To actually here the person's actual voice is a whole lot better. I love how the Church is true. With every single decision, I know that it is from divine revelation, Revelation from God. He directs the Church through the prophet and apostles. 

Remember: Pray always, read the scriptures, and go to church!


-Elder Keller







Wednesday, October 1, 2014

9/29/14 - Real Popcorn and Super Contacting

This week was filled with a lot of activities. My ward (Miramar) put on some mission activities. One that we did was a movie night. I had no idea what movie it was before hand so when I talked to my investigators about it, I told them that it was going to be like Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks or something of that sort. When the movie night rolled around it turned out to be a movie called Courageous. I have seen it before, actually in Camp Helaman. It’s like a Christian neutral film with a great message. A good amount of investigators showed up for that, and also they provided a bag of popcorn and a glass of punch. The popcorn was freshly popped, so it was the real stuff. It was pretty good, but at the same time a portion of it was burnt and another portion of it half popped. But who am I to complain when I am having POPCORN in Honduras. Probably one of the only chances I will have.

The other activity was a cultural night. Imagine pioneer day in the church, but for Honduras. So a lot of people were dressed up in authentic dresses and brought all different kinds of food. They even had a real band playing authentic Honduran music. The entire stake participated and there was a lot, a lot, a lot of people there all stuffed in not such a big room. All in all, we had a blast.







Another activity we did, this time as an entire Zone, was a super contacting. The entire Zone focuses only on one district and we all go around contacting. We ran into quite a few people and taught some great lessons with people. You really have to trust the Spirit when you are contacting because the Spirit knows what we don't know. And after several hours of straight up contacting you definitely develop a stronger relationship and sensitivity to the Holy Ghost. Moroni 10:5.

I feel like my Spanish has been significantly improving. Considering that my investigators can actually, for the most part, understand me. And I can understand about 85% of their words. Lately we have been having a lot of progress with our investigators and Elder Itza and I have been pumped about that.


-Elder Keller

9/22/14 - Gathering the Sheep and Bee Stings!

Attention: as of today my streak of never being stung by a bee has ended.

Not this past Sunday, but two Sundays ago, Elder ITza and I did not bring any investigators to Church. It was really depressing and to add on top of it we were late to Sacrament service. It was a little miserable. Every new investigator that we contacted either had some excuse or did not answer. 

So this last Sunday, we started out the day with what I like to call "Gathering the sheep". We go all around and get as many investigators as we can. The same thing we did last week. The day started the same, door after door no one was coming with us. But this time I told myself that I needed to have more faith in the Lord. He knows His children perfectly and He helps prepare them. We need to trust His judgment and planning. The second to last house on our list we went to, she said that she would come! But now it was like 10 minutes until church started. So Elder Itza and I hurry off to our last investigator. We get there and guess what, she is all ready, walks out the door and comes with us. By the time we get to the church building it was already 10 minutes past 9. I am thinking to myself, great now we missed sacrament again...but I reminded myself that to have faith and not to worry.  Sure enough they just are in the middle of the sacrament hymn. So we made it and we had an investigator. And the icing on the cake is that another investigator of ours showed up out of the blue. We were really happy that day.

It goes to show that faith is important and that the Lord will not leave you hanging. As long as we always try our best and trust in Him, then He will pick up the rest and everything, everything, will work out in the end. It’s all according to His time, not ours.


Today for preparation day we went to Pico Bonito. Apparently it is a tourist attraction around here. Basically you literally hike up for about an hour and a half and you arrive at this waterfall. Unfortunately I was not able to see the waterfall...well that´s not true, I didn't get to go to the waterfall. You can see the water fall from a long distance away. Anyway, right at the end of the trail is this bend and we all stopped for a bit for a break and let the rest of the group catch up. So we are waiting and all of a sudden Hermana Bennet and Hermana Sherman start to scream and one by one everyone in the group starts screaming and hit everything. Apparently we stopped right next to a nest of hornets on steroids. And the group got split into two as we went two different directions. Our group went back because one of the other sisters with us is allergic to bees. But Hermana Sherman got stung 8 times and I am not sure about Hermana Bennet, but I got stung once in my leg. I guess that first-aid merit badge finally came in handy with bee stings. 

Here are some pictures from the hike:








That’s about all.
Elder Keller

9/15/14 - Life is Like ...Butterflies and Cocoons

I have been here officially one month! I have had wonderful experiences and other where I would probably not choose to experience again.

Surprisingly it has been pretty dry this week. That is nice because when it rains the bottom of my pants get covered in mud. But at the same time I enjoy it when it rains because it is a lot cooler and our shower will have water. Today my companion went to take a shower and a couple drips came out. SO we had to go to the District Leaders house and take a shower. While we were there we played Risk the board game. That was really fun. And yes I totally kicked everyone’s butts, and I did not throw the board over in slight frustration. No, I seriously didn't.




                                 Usually this river is crystal clear but it is brown after it is rains



 We ran into our first "bible bash" yesterday. It was really weird because she was standing on her balcony on the second floor and we on the street with a ton of cars and buses going by. We could barely hear her and she was also a Jehovah Witness. So basically all we could do was bear our testimony and go on our way.

We are contacting a lot of families that seem really interested, so that has been really awesome to experience. I can just imagine them dressed in all in white and taking upon them the name of Christ and be forever blessed. That is why I am here. To bring all other unto Christ so that they can be saved, receive eternal happiness, and live with God and their families after this life.

Elder Itza is a horse. Elder Itza said to say that, I don’t know why, but he can be really weird sometimes. Alright, a lot of the time.

It is really sad when we are teaching people and we feel the spirit and we know they feel the spirit. But they choose for some reason not to continue lessons with us. But everyone has agency, everyone has the right to choose.

I was reading in the Liahona the other day and I can’t remember which apostle said it, but he talked about how the action of a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon is necessary. Because without the action and experience then the butterfly could not fly and survive in the world. I thought that was a really good point and how we all need opposition in life. Because through those experiences we can grow, and be better people. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ we can stand back up when we have fallen and continue on the path.
Always Choose the Right!

-Elder Keller