Hey Family,
Well first of all, thank you for getting me Kyle's address. I am sorry to hear about all of the trouble you have had with the cars. I can't believe it has been that much of a problem. Hopefully this will be the end of it.
To answer your question about transfers the next transfer is August 4th, a Wednesday. We will know who will be transferred on the Sunday before. I will let you know if I will be transferred on Monday the 2nd. I am pretty sure that I will be transferred.
The English Elders have a baptism coming up on Friday. It is an investigator named Khiel that I worked with when I was covering English and Spanish. We also have a family that we are teaching that I am sure will be baptized. I am sure that Elder Hardman and I covered English and Spanish to help prepare us to teach this family. She speaks mostly English and He speaks mostly Spanish. So I have felt prepared to be able to teach her the gospel in the language that is best for her. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to preach the gospel in English and Spanish. Some missionaries are telling me that I will end up switching to Portuguese next and learn another language. Who knows if that will happen, it is all in the hands of the Lord. If he asked me to learn Russian and start speaking the gospel, I would do it. It would be hard but I know it would be what the Lord wanted me to do. Fortunately we don't have too many Russians here so I won't have to worry about that.
I can't believe all of the people that are now returning from their missions. I can't believe that Jordan Woodruff, Blake Wasden, and Kurt have all returned now. It seemed like when they left it would be forever before they returned. It just goes to show that time is all relative. I have heard that as soon as you start to feel like you have missionary work figured out it just flies by and it's over. I am afraid I am starting to get to that stage. This transfer will half over on Wednesday. I can't believe it! I hope that I will be able to do all the Lord has in store for me in this area before I get transferred.
I have a crazy story to tell you all. The other day one the English Elders, Elder Olsen randomly asked me if I knew someone named DJ Savage from Boise. I was really surprised and asked him if his name was Donald, and he said yes. I don't know if you remember Donald Savage, but he was in my third and fourth grade classes in grade school, but his family moved to Boise and I hadn't seen him since. Elder Olsen was in his MTC District and he showed me some pictures. It is amazing how small of a world we live in.
Yesterday at church a lady came up to us and told us that they had some food for us in their car. I was imagining a few boxes of cereal or something but instead she had an entire trunk full of food in her car. I was completely blown away. Our cupboards are now completely full of food. We were also very excited to find an entire box of skittles in there too. It is amazing how kind the members are to us here. Someday when I get back to college I am going to wonder what happened to the people who feed us dinner almost every night and bring food by for us. The life of a missionary is hard but full of tender mercies of our father in heaven.
I testify that miracles are happening all around us and I encourage you to pray and ask our Heavenly Father to remove your fear and open your mouth. I know that it will be filled with the words that need to be said to bless the lives of those around you.
I love you all and hope that you have the best week possible.
Love, Elder Banner (Keith)
Monday, August 9, 2010
July 5th 2010
Hey Family!!!
We have had a great week here!
On Saturday we went to an event they were having for the fourth of July in Duluth. There were a ton of people there. We were trying to contact people to share the gospel. It was pretty cool. We also got to watch fireworks from outside of our apartment.
We have really been enjoying this transfer. I have felt so relieved not to have to worry about so many English Investigators. One of my old English investigators named Khiel is getting baptized next Friday. We are really excited.
We are having success here. We have been so blessed to find many amazing people. We have had a very busy week. It was really great to hear from you all and I hope that you all had an amazing fourth of July. God bless the USA!!!
Love,
Keith (Elder Banner)
We have had a great week here!
On Saturday we went to an event they were having for the fourth of July in Duluth. There were a ton of people there. We were trying to contact people to share the gospel. It was pretty cool. We also got to watch fireworks from outside of our apartment.
We have really been enjoying this transfer. I have felt so relieved not to have to worry about so many English Investigators. One of my old English investigators named Khiel is getting baptized next Friday. We are really excited.
We are having success here. We have been so blessed to find many amazing people. We have had a very busy week. It was really great to hear from you all and I hope that you all had an amazing fourth of July. God bless the USA!!!
Love,
Keith (Elder Banner)
Monday, June 28, 2010
June 28, 2010
Hey Family
Thanks for all of your emails!!! I hope that dad got my father's day card in time. I thought it was pretty funny. Angie sent me an email partly in Spanish. I thought that was pretty cool too. New rule all of the emails sent to must be in Spanish, Just kidding! I got my new companion on Wednesday. We also got English Elders again which has been a huge relief. It was very difficult to be doing English and Spanish. My new companion is named Elder Johnson. He is from Rock Springs Wyoming. He has been out about 8 months, but like many of my companions he started out as an English Elder. He has only been Spanish for six weeks, so it is up to me to teach him some more Spanish. I really like him. The new English Elders names are: Elder Olsen and and Elder Oxley. They are both from Utah. We had a really good time at church on Sunday. We had an investigator come to church for the first time, and she really needs it.
We have had a ton of success these last couple of days. We have found some really cool people.I am very pleased with all of the blessings we have recieved and are still recieving. We can never catch up with him. Whenever we do more, he does double of that.
I can't believe that Kurt is going home tomorrow. He was only out about a year when I left on my mission. If I were him I would be really scared. I am already scared and I still have about a year left. It's wierd to think that one year ago today I gave my talk in church. People always say it goes really fast, but you never really understand until you actually experience it.
I love the Lord and I love this work. It brings great joy into my life. I hope you all have the best week ever!!!
Love, Elder Banner (Keith)
Thanks for all of your emails!!! I hope that dad got my father's day card in time. I thought it was pretty funny. Angie sent me an email partly in Spanish. I thought that was pretty cool too. New rule all of the emails sent to must be in Spanish, Just kidding! I got my new companion on Wednesday. We also got English Elders again which has been a huge relief. It was very difficult to be doing English and Spanish. My new companion is named Elder Johnson. He is from Rock Springs Wyoming. He has been out about 8 months, but like many of my companions he started out as an English Elder. He has only been Spanish for six weeks, so it is up to me to teach him some more Spanish. I really like him. The new English Elders names are: Elder Olsen and and Elder Oxley. They are both from Utah. We had a really good time at church on Sunday. We had an investigator come to church for the first time, and she really needs it.
We have had a ton of success these last couple of days. We have found some really cool people.I am very pleased with all of the blessings we have recieved and are still recieving. We can never catch up with him. Whenever we do more, he does double of that.
I can't believe that Kurt is going home tomorrow. He was only out about a year when I left on my mission. If I were him I would be really scared. I am already scared and I still have about a year left. It's wierd to think that one year ago today I gave my talk in church. People always say it goes really fast, but you never really understand until you actually experience it.
I love the Lord and I love this work. It brings great joy into my life. I hope you all have the best week ever!!!
Love, Elder Banner (Keith)
Monday, June 21, 2010
June 21, 2010
Hey Family,
Sorry about not getting to email last week. The guy we usually email with was out of town.
Also sorry for the confusion, transfers are this week, we got the call on Sunday. I am staying in my area. My companion is getting transfered. I will be getting a new Spanish companion and we will also be getting English Elders in our area again. I will have to teach three missionaries about the area and about the investigators. It will be a little crazy. Only my district leader and I will be staying here they will also be getting English Elders in their ward again. So we will have six new Elders in our district. I will miss teaching a few of our English investigators. I can't believe that I am still in the same area. I have been serving in this area since October, I could almost be considered a resident of Duluth!
I hope that you all (I still don't say y'all) had a really good time at all of your class reunions.
Sorry I couldn't finish my email before my computer was having problems.
Love, Elder Banner ( Keith
Sorry about not getting to email last week. The guy we usually email with was out of town.
Also sorry for the confusion, transfers are this week, we got the call on Sunday. I am staying in my area. My companion is getting transfered. I will be getting a new Spanish companion and we will also be getting English Elders in our area again. I will have to teach three missionaries about the area and about the investigators. It will be a little crazy. Only my district leader and I will be staying here they will also be getting English Elders in their ward again. So we will have six new Elders in our district. I will miss teaching a few of our English investigators. I can't believe that I am still in the same area. I have been serving in this area since October, I could almost be considered a resident of Duluth!
I hope that you all (I still don't say y'all) had a really good time at all of your class reunions.
Sorry I couldn't finish my email before my computer was having problems.
Love, Elder Banner ( Keith
Monday, April 12, 2010
April 12, 2010
Hey Everybody!!!
This has been another great week. We have been so blessed here in this area! This week we found nine new investigators. Eight of them were Spanish. The best thing was that in the past we have had a problem of teaching a bunch of guys who rented apartments together. They could not progress very easily because of bad influences around them. These Eight new investigators were all part of families! They are great people. One of our new investigators called us at 11:30 on Saturday night and left us a message saying she wanted to go to church on Sunday! I really feel so blessed. We have had days before where you sometimes knock doors for hours and you don't find anybody. With this transfer I was really stressed because I didn't think we would be able to find as many people because we are so busy with English and Spanish, but we have found way more since then, without knocking any doors! It is amazing how when you are given a greater burden, if you respond in a good way, you receive more blessings! I know the Lord is watching over us here and that he is leading us to find those who will receive our message!
Last Monday we went to a member's house for our preparation day. They live right by the banks of a river. Their daughter took us all on a tour of "The bamboo forest" It was really cool. There is just a random group of bamboo growing by the river. That is not really normal in Georgia. It was not quite like Hawaii but it was still really cool. Some of the other Elders climbed way up the bamboo to get into a high tree. We weren't really sure they would be able to get back down, but they were able to slide back down the bamboo.
Love, Elder Banner
Hey Everybody!!!
This has been another great week. We have been so blessed here in this area! This week we found nine new investigators. Eight of them were Spanish. The best thing was that in the past we have had a problem of teaching a bunch of guys who rented apartments together. They could not progress very easily because of bad influences around them. These Eight new investigators were all part of families! They are great people. One of our new investigators called us at 11:30 on Saturday night and left us a message saying she wanted to go to church on Sunday! I really feel so blessed. We have had days before where you sometimes knock doors for hours and you don't find anybody. With this transfer I was really stressed because I didn't think we would be able to find as many people because we are so busy with English and Spanish, but we have found way more since then, without knocking any doors! It is amazing how when you are given a greater burden, if you respond in a good way, you receive more blessings! I know the Lord is watching over us here and that he is leading us to find those who will receive our message!
Last Monday we went to a member's house for our preparation day. They live right by the banks of a river. Their daughter took us all on a tour of "The bamboo forest" It was really cool. There is just a random group of bamboo growing by the river. That is not really normal in Georgia. It was not quite like Hawaii but it was still really cool. Some of the other Elders climbed way up the bamboo to get into a high tree. We weren't really sure they would be able to get back down, but they were able to slide back down the bamboo.
Love, Elder Banner
Hey Everybody!!!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
April 5, 2010
Hey Family,
Sorry I didn't get to write an email to you guys last week. It was a very busy day and I did not end up being able to send an email. I did however put a short letter in the mail so I hope you get that soon.
I hope that you all enjoyed General Conference as much as I did. I found it very uplifting and inspiring!
I have some interesting news. I did not get transferred. I am still serving in the John's Creek ward. Elder Nataren got transferred to a different part of the mission. We usually have two English and two Spanish Elders in the John's Creek ward, but as of Wednesday, Elder Hardman who was an English Elder in John's Creek before is now a Spanish Elder with me. We are temporarily covering Spanish and English until the mission gets more Elders. I am teaching Elder Hardman Spanish now. He was very surprised and had no notice until the transfer meeting. He didn't know until it popped up on the screen. We also had a Spanish Elder that has been out about 18 months go Portuguese speaking. It should be very interesting to see how he does. We now have about 150 missionaries in our mission. About 16 are Spanish (it should be 20) and we also have 2 Portuguese Elders and 2 Portuguese sisters. It also sounds like we might be getting 2 Korean sisters from temple square to serve in the same basic area as where I am. We have a lot of Koreans here in John's Creek.
We have been doing English classes on Wednesday nights at the church and they really have been a great success. We have distributed many flyers and other things trying to get the word out. Somehow the news has spread pretty far. We had another missionary from another area that somehow heard about it and is sending one of his investigators to our class. I also have gotten at least three phone calls from people I don't know calling for more information about our classes. It is amazing how much we have been blessed by these classes. Who would have thought that I would end up teaching English to Spanish and Korean speakers, and teaching Spanish to English Speakers. I really feel blessed to have these opportunities.
Love,
Keith (Elder Banner)
Sorry I didn't get to write an email to you guys last week. It was a very busy day and I did not end up being able to send an email. I did however put a short letter in the mail so I hope you get that soon.
I hope that you all enjoyed General Conference as much as I did. I found it very uplifting and inspiring!
I have some interesting news. I did not get transferred. I am still serving in the John's Creek ward. Elder Nataren got transferred to a different part of the mission. We usually have two English and two Spanish Elders in the John's Creek ward, but as of Wednesday, Elder Hardman who was an English Elder in John's Creek before is now a Spanish Elder with me. We are temporarily covering Spanish and English until the mission gets more Elders. I am teaching Elder Hardman Spanish now. He was very surprised and had no notice until the transfer meeting. He didn't know until it popped up on the screen. We also had a Spanish Elder that has been out about 18 months go Portuguese speaking. It should be very interesting to see how he does. We now have about 150 missionaries in our mission. About 16 are Spanish (it should be 20) and we also have 2 Portuguese Elders and 2 Portuguese sisters. It also sounds like we might be getting 2 Korean sisters from temple square to serve in the same basic area as where I am. We have a lot of Koreans here in John's Creek.
We have been doing English classes on Wednesday nights at the church and they really have been a great success. We have distributed many flyers and other things trying to get the word out. Somehow the news has spread pretty far. We had another missionary from another area that somehow heard about it and is sending one of his investigators to our class. I also have gotten at least three phone calls from people I don't know calling for more information about our classes. It is amazing how much we have been blessed by these classes. Who would have thought that I would end up teaching English to Spanish and Korean speakers, and teaching Spanish to English Speakers. I really feel blessed to have these opportunities.
Love,
Keith (Elder Banner)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Hey Family!
This has been another great week for me. I wanted to tell you guys about an experience we had yesterday.
In our last zone conference we watched some videos from the new Preach My Gospel DVDs (not yet finished) about prayer. We had one investigator that we could never get to pray while we were there. We decided to apply what we learned from those videos. We knelt down with him and Elder Nataren and I each said a prayer and then he prayed. We asked him to specificaly ask if our message is true. I could tell that he was feeling the spirit. I asked him how he felt. He said he felt a peace within him that he hadn't really felt before. He now has a much greater resolve to change and do the things we ask him to do. He has committed to read the Book of Mormon every day from now on.
Yesterday was ward conference in our ward. President Jensen (Our stake president gave a great talk, but to my surprise he mentioned my name. He told our ward that my dad was his trainer on his mission in Korea. He said that dad "Elder Banner" was a great missionary and that he really loved "Elder Banner" I am very greatful that I have a father that was a faithful missionary and a loving companion so that even now so many years later I can meet one of his companions and see the respect and love he has for my dad.
Love, Keith (Elder Banner)
This has been another great week for me. I wanted to tell you guys about an experience we had yesterday.
In our last zone conference we watched some videos from the new Preach My Gospel DVDs (not yet finished) about prayer. We had one investigator that we could never get to pray while we were there. We decided to apply what we learned from those videos. We knelt down with him and Elder Nataren and I each said a prayer and then he prayed. We asked him to specificaly ask if our message is true. I could tell that he was feeling the spirit. I asked him how he felt. He said he felt a peace within him that he hadn't really felt before. He now has a much greater resolve to change and do the things we ask him to do. He has committed to read the Book of Mormon every day from now on.
Yesterday was ward conference in our ward. President Jensen (Our stake president gave a great talk, but to my surprise he mentioned my name. He told our ward that my dad was his trainer on his mission in Korea. He said that dad "Elder Banner" was a great missionary and that he really loved "Elder Banner" I am very greatful that I have a father that was a faithful missionary and a loving companion so that even now so many years later I can meet one of his companions and see the respect and love he has for my dad.
Love, Keith (Elder Banner)
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