Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Elder Jordan Keele- Oct. 25, 2010 Last email from Colorado!!!

Hello my wonderful familia,

That's some good insight about marriage. And I guess for relationships in general. I love to hear the words of the prophets. Speaking of Elder Nelson, he's coming here on November 7th to speak to the Fountain Stake (of which I am a part of at the moment) for a stake conference, and to all the missionaries in the Colorado Springs mission. That's one more thing to look forward to if I'm here. But if not, then I'm going to Mexico, so either way it'll be a good weekend! On the scripture you shared, I feel the same applies to missionary work. As far as investigators go, not all the people in the world are beautiful and rich. It's important for me to not look on the outside, but to see them as God sees them wth the potential they have and everything that goes along with that. It makes this work so much more enjoyable anyways.

33-0?! [Mt. View vs. Orem] That's awesome! Against our rival parents' high school! Or rather, our parents' high school rival... meaning the schools are rivals against the schools, not the parents rivals against the kids... you know what I mean. I can see Derek now running to you with a huge smile and trying to hide it ha ha That's a nice image :) There are no better friends than the ones you have at home. I am grateful for the relationship that Derek and I have developed over the past couple years or so. Minus the last few months that is. But I wish I would've been closer to the other ones. Fortunately there's still time for that.

Crazy story time: On Tuesday a member who had signed up to feed us for dinner that night wasn't able to be home. So instead, she gave us money to go out to eat. Well, we went to a local seafood restaurant called Captain D's. I was looking at the decorations on the walls as I walked toward the cash register. Then all I heard was, "Jordan? No way!". I looked up and saw a friend from high school, Gabriel Despain! He and I worked together with the girls basketball team, and he was in a few other classes with me. I knew him pretty well. But I had no idea that he was living here now. It was cool to see him. He was really close to Santino Johnson, the son of Mountain View Football Coach Tiko Johnson. He told me the news, of which I had no idea. I don't know if Coach Johnson was coaching at MV this year or if he had moved already, but I know Derek knows him. I was in his health class in high school with Santino. Gabe told me that Coach Johnson passed away. Have you heard of this?

I would love to go on a Book of Mormon tour someday. You're right, we can't base our testimony off of physical evidence. But it is really interesting and frankly awesome to learn about that kind of thing. It will be a great experience to live in the land of those people. I can't wait to see it for myself!

That sounds like a fun week. Lot's of things to do, that's the way it should be :) I'm sure the Japanese student will have fun and it'll be well worth the trip. An experience he'll remember for the rest of his life. Our ward has a trunk-or-treat thing on Saturday too. I doubt we'll go, but then again it would be a fun thing for some younger investigators :) On Sunday night we have to be in our apartments by 6:00, because it's too dangerous to be out in the dark on Halloween night. I'm sure we'll get some good extra studying, and maybe even hit the sack early!

That will be cool to see the primary program in espanol. In our ward here, the program is next week. I guess the church has everyone do it at about the same time. I can't wait to have everything in Spanish though. One of my new roommates is from la Republica Dominicana. We have language study together, and it's so cool to have a Latin (almost)-companion. I've learned a lot from him already. Enough of this bad gringo Spanish! Ha ha.

HAPPINESS! I like that word. I especially like to BE it. Only through living the gospel is how that is achieved.

I read an amazing talk by Elder David A. Bednar that he gave at the Marriott Center when he was President of BYU-Idaho. I forgot the title of the talk, and the year that it was given. But he talked about the enabling power of the atonement. It really opened my eyes, and the atonement just keeps getting more and more incredible. I don't know how you would find it, but if you could that's one of my favorite talks I've ever heard. I have the link on the paper at home, so I'll try and remember to bring it next time. But it goes right along with the word prayer in the bible dictionary. In it, it mentions that when we pray, we don't say "please change thy will to fit me" but rather "please change me to fit thy will". Essentially. When we use the enabling power of the atonement, it's asking the Lord to give you the strength needed to overcome a trial. Not asking the Lord to remove our trials, or make it so we don't have to do anything. I'm probably not making sense, but it's because I'm so excited to be talking about this. This talk alone has changed dramatically the way I pray, and the way I go throughout my day. It's amazing.

I love you all como siempre,

Elder Jordan F. Keele

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