Elder Derek Keele- Dec. 31, 2012

Dear Family, Happy Birthday yesterday Mom!!!

We reached our goals!!! The mission baptized and confirmed 1029 souls this year, and for the month of December, our Zone baptized and confirmed 18 out of our goal of 14! We were all so blessed this month. The missionaries just all did their best to follow the Spirit, and many people decided to come and follow Christ by the promptings of the Spirit. We are all so excited and feel so blessed that we could help so many people. It was a stressful week, full of fasting, running across town, and organizing baptisms, but the Lord helped everything to work out. We all just love the work and focus on our purpose as missionaries. 

Sadly I wasn't able to go down to Tocopilla, but I was able to talk to many of my friends over the phone on Saturday. They are all doing well in Tocopilla and the missionaries there are taking care of them. :D

Tonight as New Year's tradition, there will be fireworks here and the burning of giant piñatas :D The bishop invited us to watch them on the top of his roof, which is 4 stories high, so we will have an amazing view. We even get to stay out until 12:00 tonight rather than the usual 11:00. (It is neat how our schedule as missionaries in Chile Antofagasta is very different than the norm. It is because of the culture here. More effective ;) 

Well, we are excited for a new year and a new month. 2013!

I hope you all have a fun new year's party playing games :D

Say hi to everyone at grandma's house for me! 

Love,

Elder Keele

Elder Derek Keele- Dec. 24, 2012

Dear family

I am so excited for tomorrow! Okay. I think I will be skyping at 3 or 4 ish here, so 11 or 12ish there. I am excited to see you all again! 

Tell Grandma thank you so much! I hope you all enjoy Christmas Eve tonight! 

I still haven't got the package yet. We got a bunch of stuff last week from Antofagasta, but it wasn't  there :( I'm sure it'll turn up some time though haha. We are still fine money wise though. The only thing is I wasn't able to send a Christmas package. I have the things to send already, so I will just have to send them a little late. 

It has been such an exciting time! I failed to mention last week that I got transfered up here to Calama. So now I have been here for a week. It is really good then and I am excited to work with the Bishop and Ward Mission leader here to really help this ward. They are good guys, and the ward needs some strengthening. And I am so excited to work! The spirit does amazing things and I know the Lord just needs us to be his tools to build and strengthen His kingdom. 

We are looking good for the goal of 1000! There are 73 people that should be confirmed on the 30th and we are only 43 away from the goal. Hopefully we'll beat last year's too, which was 1,012 more or less. 

The amazing thing about being transfered here to Calama, is that Tocopilla is in our Zone. And because there is a boy and his mom that asked that I baptize them, I am going to travel to Tocopilla this Friday to do the baptism Saturday! I will get to see a lot of people again, and I get to baptize on my birthday! What an amazing birthday present that I will never forget! :D 

We did something very interesting yesterday. Last week we found a man and his family who are super faithful in their church. He used to be a drug addict, but then Christ came into his life and, for a year, he and his family have been completely dedicated to Him. The only problem is that when we explained the first lesson, he had many doubts about prophets, feeling like they make us unfocused on Christ. We tried our best to explain, but he just wouldn't accept that there is a living prophet today. And he even said that we need to repent and beware of the devils lies. So we did what we felt to do. We left him the pamphlet of the restauration and told him that all three of us (he, my companion Elder Villarroel, and I) would read it and ask God that night if it was true. Then we invited him to church. He agreed, but only if we went to his church where the real truth is and where we would feel the spirit like we had never felt it before. Well, we accepted. 

I read that night, and just felt so good the whole time. Then we went to church and he came. I felt the spirit so strongly yesterday in church! Then as promised, we accompanied him to his last night at 7. I must say I had the worst feeling I may have felt in the mission so far. I felt nothing good. They sang rock songs and shouted and he even spoke because he is preparing to be a pastor. He spoke many scriptures, but I just couldn t feel anything. The difference of the two church meetings I attended was amazing yesterday. My companion had the same experience. It strengthened both of our tesimonies so much that we ARE in the true church! Not becuase of words or scriptures even, just purely be the spirit we felt in Sacrament meeting.

We plan on having a little lesson on what the spirit is with him and how he needs to get past any strong doubts he has about prophets or more scripture like the Book of Mormom, and just ask God. 

Hopefully we can teach him in a way that he won't be offended and hopefully he will sincerely listen to us. I am 100% certain that he felt something different as well. We just hope he will continue investigating and get over the big doubts he has. 

More exciting news! I don't know if I had told you about Ana and Fernando and their family. Ana is 17 and Fernando is 14 and they also have a sister and brother of 15 and 9. We found them from the cemetary activity we did the Day of the Dead in Tocopilla! We had been working with them for a while, but the only problem is it was hard to find and teach the mom. She went in to work every night at 7pm and got home about 4am. And Saturday nights she worked til 8 in the morning. So we didn't think we would ever get her to church. But a couple weeks ago we helped them move for two days straight! They had a surprise move and had to be moved out in a week. So we helped a lot. Even though we could have been more concerned about the amount of lessons we could have been teaching or other things, we felt that they really needed our help. So the second day, the mom took 30 minutes to listen to us. We taught her the first message along with her husband, who hadn't shown much interest before. It was so great! We all felt the spirit so strong! And the mom at the end of the lesson told us that she realized the importance of the church and why we missionaries had been visiting her kids. She told us she needed to rest from her work and start going to church with her kids! It was amazing! Well now I'm in Calama, but the missionaries in Tocopilla (who are really good friends) have commited Fernando to be baptized this Saturday, and the rest of the family to be baptized on the 5th of January! I am so happy for them! And I will get to see them this weekend too! 

I got a letter from Rilee last week and she said she decided to serve a mission! That is so awesome Rilee! I am guessing she wrote the letter in October, so if Nathan knows any more info that would be awesome to hear. 

And Nathan would be putting in his papers in March right? 

Elder Hubler here is a stud. He is doing really well in the mission. He is the Zone Leader of a Zone that used to have 0 to 3 baptisms a month. And in the past few months they have had 5, then 7, now probably 9. 

Well sorry for writing a ton, but I had to make up for last week. It has been such an exciting few weeks and this weekend is going to be so great as well! 

I can't wait to talk to you all tomorrow! And to meet Alex a little bit haha. And Marianna too :D Our family is getting huge! 

We'll only have 45 minutes max to talk, but you'll probably have lots of new gifts to play with anyway :D

I love you all! 

And I am happy that the world didn't end yet! :) 

Love,

Elder Keele

Elder Derek Keele- Dec. 10, 2012

Dear Mom,

Um, no word on the package yet. Haha I guess I just have bad luck. I am sure it will make it though.

The shoes are amazing! It is so true about all of the other missionaries. My companion just passed 6 months in the mission and he really needs a new pair now. But both of my pairs look like when I started the mission. They are amazing! And they are comfortable too. Go missionaryshoe!

That is really cool about the TRC! That was always so much fun, and I was always humbled by the amazing people who would volunteer weekly. Doing it over skype will be very convenient! And even though it may not seem like the spirit could teach as well, the MTC is the Lord´s and so He knows what he is doing.

We are 78 people away from our goal, and have 71 right now that have a baptismal date. We are going to do it!

Last week I felt like I lacked teaching with power and the spirit well. So I studied on Saturday morning in chapter 10 of Preach my Gospel. It helped so much! I felt so much more excitement to teach and the lessons went twice as well. I love Preach My Gospel!

Elder Richards is a really good guy! He is always happy and has a good attitude. And he is 6 foot 7. It feels so different to walk next to sometime so much taller than me! Most people in Chile are pretty short haha.

Well, time to go :D  I am so excited to see you all in a couple weeks! I will schedule it so I call in the morning then if that is best for you. Thank you for everything! I hope the Christmas shopping is going well!

Love,

Elder Keele

Elder Derek Keele- Dec. 3, 2013

Dear Mom,

That is so cool that Dad was able to go to the meeting with Elder Oaks! If you could ask an apostle of the Lord any question, what would it be?... Haha that is so neat! And it sounds like you had an amazing weekend. That is so good for Sister McQuarrie! She deserves so much! She is such an amazing lady! 

I am staying in Tocopilla! Elder Garcia is off to his 3rd sector of the mission already, and he only has 5 months haha. I am about to hit a year and I am still in my 2nd sector only :D Elder Richards is my new companion. He is from Salt Lake. He is a big guy and is super friendly. I am really excited! :D 

Last week María Anch´s two granddaughters were baptized, Krissna and Estefani. They are both so awesome and love going to church with their grandma. They have three members of the church in their house now! Only two more to go! (The two daughters of María) It was really neat though, because on Thursday the Zone Leaders came down to do the interview with Krissna. Estefani we thought would be another couple of weeks. So Elder Garcia went with the Zone Leader to talk to Krissna, but Estefani was there too. Elder Garcia just straight up asked her if she would be baptized too and at first she was shy about it, but then she accepted! So they did both interviews, and they were set! 

I also had the privilege last week to do the interviews of 3 other sisters that got baptized last week. A mom, sister Ines, and her two teenage daughters Mersi and Brigitte. I talked to Brigitte, who is 12, first. She was so innocent and seemed so converted to living the gospel. Same with Mersi, who is really smart and realizes that ¨Ser Mormon es ser feliz¨ (To be Mormon is to be happy). They both wanted to follow Christ and help out their mom. And the mom was amazing. She is so sweet and wants the gospel so much for her two daughters. And all three of them told me of the special spirit that they have felt while attending church. It was such a neat experience. I really felt the spirit strongly with all three of them :D 

I just heard from Tyler, my old manager from Arby´s! I wrote him last week and told him thank you again so much for hiring me so fast when I needed it and for allowing me not to work on Sundays. Remember I tried 17 places during the summer before he hired me right when college started? This is what he wrote me:

I never told you this because it's inappropriate to talk about it in a business setting, but Derek I hired you so quickly during your interview because I felt inspired to. The spirit let me know I needed to hire you for whatever reason, and as usual, the spirit did not lead me astray.

He was such a good guy and I loved working there. 

Well, our mission has a goal of baptizing 1000 people this year, and we are only 86 away! We are going to do it! 

I can´t wait to skype home in a few weeks! Christmas is the best!

Go Nathan! He sounds busy this year. I bet ballroom is really fun! Is Erika in ballroom? :) 

Happy birthday Taylor Ball this week! He sounds like he is doing awesome in Argentina! 

Take care,

Love,

Elder Keele

Maria's baptism

Beautiful Chilean sunset

Elder Derek Keele- Nov. 26, 2012

Dear family,

It sounds like a lot of fun stuff is happening at home. Jessica is already buying things for her first Christmas with her husband, car breaking down, Jordan is already engaged, haha I love this hour of time where I get to pretend I am there with you all haha. :D I´m glad that everyone seems to be doing so well and that the Christmas joy seems to be getting into everyone :) Oh and the Thanksgiving leftovers... maybe you can throw some of that into the freezer and send it in a cooler. I miss one of my favorite holidays! We did have a good lunch that day with mashed potatoes though, and we played soccer on Friday, so I had a little celebrating here haha.

So more exciting news... María Anch got baptized last Saturday! She did it! We weren´t sure what was going to happen, and we were even thinking of dropping her for now because she seemed to stop progressing. But we went to her on Thursday, and after a little scripture sharing and talking, she said she was excited to go to church on Sunday. So I thought, okay, one more week and then she´ll be ready, and I was about to say the closing prayer. But Elder Garcia just went for it and reminded her that last time she was going to get baptized, she told us in 2 more weeks she would. And then she said, okay, I will. This Saturday then. Just like that! Elder Garcia had had a pretty bad day with back pains and being really tired, but he just perked up all of a sudden and asked, and she accepted! The service was very good. Her two granddaughters were able to come too. She is so great and strong! It is hard for her to get around, and it was pretty hard for her to quit smoking, but she has conquered, just like you said how the Christ helps us to where we need to be! One of her granddaughters is really excited now to be baptized this Saturday, and we´ll keep working with María's two daughters too. 

I´m not sure if I have already talked about this before, but I was thinking about it this week and wanted to share. It is a lesson from 1 Samuel 15:22. Saul offered sacrifices unto the Lord trying to make up for disobedience. But the Lord tells him "to obey is better than sacrifice". A lot of people here seem to struggle with the law of tithing and keeping the sabbath day holy. They seem to think that as long as they go to church, it is okay to work on Sundays. They say that they need to work, or have their home business open or go sell bread, to provide for their family. And for the same reason they can´t pay tithing. But with a little of faith, the answer is obvious. The Lord will help us when we obey him. Maybe they say they need to work on Sundays so that they can pay tithing. But like Saul, the Lord doesn´t need tithes or offerings, He needs our obedience. The Lord does not need money. He needs us to be obedient. Tithing is 10%, no more no less. His commandments are set and they apply to everyone so that we can learn to be like Him. That is one reason He gives us commandments, because to be a God like Him some day, we will have to do everything He does. He keeps all of His commandments, and we need to too. 

I hope it doesn´t sound harsh or ignorant. As a missionary I am here to testify to everyone that the gospel is true, and that we will be blessed when we live it. It is hard for many people to always keep these commitments, but if it were easy, it wouldn´t be a test of faith would it? 

Well this is week 18 in Tocopilla. It is so awesome here! The people and branch are amazing and there are cool places to go on P-days haha. We will see what happens this week in transfers. I think and hope I stay here though. There is so much to do! And we have heard that in the next few months because of all the new missionaries there will be 6 or 8 missionaries in Tocopilla rather than just the 4. 

How are sports going Nathan? Did you/are you playing football or rugby? 

Is there a lot of snow this year? I don´t even think I remember what cold feels like haha. I don´t even sleep with a sheet anymore here. It is too hot at night!

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Keele