Short, but Skype

Me on the road. :)

Hey everybody!

Sorry that it's gonna be short this week, but I wanted to at least tell you the basics. We've been working our butts off here! It's been super stressful, but we have two investigators on date to get baptized, and we're super excited!

Our investigators at a ward dinner. :D

Everything has been improving, and I've really been learning a lot recently about the Atonement,
hard work, and how much God can help us in a time of need.

Patience, determination and charity have been the name of the game recently, and it's been SO good for me!

Missions really are the best place to learn, grow, and develop into the people we need to be.

So, on another note, I get to Skype home on Sunday! :D I'm super excited to see everybody! It's been a while.

Well, I sure do love you all!

Love ya bye love you bye!
-Keppy

♪"Take it all down, 'cause Christmas is over."♫

Teancum and Friends 1.5: Happy

Hey ya'll!

Christmas is come and gone folks! Goodbye to Christmas cheer and hello to winter colds and fevers. BLECH! Yeah, me and everyone in the apartment is now sick.

Oh well, God spared us until AFTER Christmas which I am SO grateful for, because Christmas was amazing!

Teancum and Friends 1.5: Serious

Christmas Eve was like most every other day, but that night we had a dinner/contest at a ward member's house. The dinner was roast beast, and the contest was to see who could find the almond in the rice pudding by eating one bowl full at a time. When you do find the almond, it's tradition to let everyone keep eating until the bowl is full without telling anyone that you found it. The winner gets what is known as the Almond Gift, which this year was a Christmas ornament. I didn't win. :(

But then.... CHRISTMAS!!! :D

Christmas Eve dinner with members (Elder S-- on the right)

We started off the day by opening Christmas presents one at a time, and MAN was it a Christmas. We all had a blast, and there were actually quite a few presents to open, which is evidenced by our trashed apartment after we opened all of them... Yeah, we should probably fix that, shouldn't we Elder S--?

*Cough*

Anyway, after that, we went to a member family in our ward (the G--'s) to Skype and have breakfast. It was good to see everyone again, and the Crepes for breakfast were amazing. 

Elder Keppner with his comp., Elder S--

After we finished breakfast, we went and hung out with the M-- family. They are one of the freaking best families ever! We had a BLAST! Everything from sweets, Ping-Pong, Nerf wars, sword fighting and good talk. They rock! We LOVE those guys!

Elder S-- with the M-- family: The Creators of our feast!

After all of the festivities, we wound down at our Ward Mission Leader's home and had a calm dinner, and lesson.

Ah! Christmas is so awesome here in the mission!

And now, it's over... Ew, EEEEEEW. I might continue to listen to the Christmas CD's I got though for a while... ;P

Anyway, aside from that, my week has just been me trying to get over my sickness. :P

Love and miss you all! Keep being awesome!

-Elder Brennan Keppner

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.

TOO BAD!

No snow. It sucks.

Oh well. Mission life is good. We just had transfers, and no one in my "group" of Elders is leaving (all of us who like to get together on P-Day and play board games, play guitar/ukulele, and swap mission stories). So I'm going another round here!

The most exciting part of this last week was the ward Christmas party. Me and my group of Elders got together and prepared a special musical number to perform, and got it set up with the Sister in charge of the whole thing. So, as the evening was winding down, we went up and performed "Let It Go" from Frozen. I played a Taylor guitar a member in the ward let me borrow for the occasion, and we all sang. We invited everyone to sing with us on the chorus, and it was a total success! Everyone still is telling us how awesome that was, and apparently it's all over youtube and Facebook now. :/

Oh well. Fun times!

Also, I should note that we worked our butts off, and now have our first real investigator in a while! His name is G--, and we've been doing a TON of service for him recently. Good times, good times. Anyway, I love and miss you all, and I couldn't find my camera, so no pictures today. Next week I'll send twice as many though.

Love ya!
-Elder Keppner

So this week we ha- CHRISTMAS!!! :D

Holy heck, Christmas is coming! Caroling, parties, gifts, Christmas lessons, I love it all!

*Pant* *Pant*

Mkay.

This week was AWESOME! My companion and I worked our BUTTS off, and we've really started to see the results! We've all been having a blast with six of us living in one apartment, but now the Dalten Gardens Elders have to go back to their old house. :( Oh well, it was super fun while it lasted.

Elder S likes it! 

Speaking of fun, we had an interesting experience with our phone this week. You see, the phone I had when I first got here had been broken for quite a while, and the mission office finally decided to send us a new phone. Problem is... Well, look at the picture if you have any questions. My new companion Elder S-- likes it a lot though.

Oh well, life goes on, even if it is with a phone pinker than even my moms phone... ;)

Elder Keppner's hand holding his new PINK phone

Life has been great here! Thanksgiving week was slow because if people are even home, they are in the middle of a family reunion, and don't want to talk to a couple of kids off the street about Jesus. Thanksgiving dinner was good though. We had a quiet short dinner at a members home, and then went back out. So, really, it was about the same as every other day.

But now, CHRISTMAS is coming! Christmas is a missionaries dream! Everyone wants to talk about Jesus! We have plans to go caroling every night in different parts of our area, and share short Christmas messages with them.

Well, not a lot left to report, but I wanted all of you to know that I love and miss ya, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Love,
-Elder Brennan Keppner