Brad's Mission

Oct 24th

Family!!! Hey!!!
What's up!?
Your e-mails inspire me!! I'm very grateful for all of your love and support!
I apologize for not getting an e-mail out until today. This week was
temple week! Elder Hartt and I attended the temple yesterday! It was
my last endowment session on my mission. We will be going to a sealing
in November for Elder Hartt's converts, but it was the last endowment
for me. It was very special! I gained an even greater testimony of the
fruits of the spirit during this session. It was an awesome lesson
about peace that the spirit brings. I've never been, and probably
never will be busier in my life as I have been these past days and
this past week. There are a lot of things happening and I love every
minute of it. At the temple, it was a very special time, it being my
last endowment on my mission, so it really meant a lot. It was an
incredible experience and I hope to go through the Newport temple with
you all when we come out. It has kind of become my home in a sense. No
matter where I've been transferred to or who I'm companions with, I've
always gone to the same place to go to the house of the Lord. And that
is the Newport Beach Temple. It's become even more holy and sacred
ground for me and this Temple will always hold a special place in my
heart.

Okay I'll start with the big news. This is something that we have to
keep super confidential out here. Only President, Elder Hartt and I,
and our housing coordinator know about this. Here's the story in a nut
shell. Monday night we got a call from President Bowen at about 8
saying, "I need you to come over to the mission home, we have some
work to do and I need your help." We had no clue what was going on.
Let me briefly explain something first. Our mission has a compliment
of missionaries. The compliment is 180, meaning there are always
supposed to be 180 missionaries at a time in this mission. Within the
180 are divided among all the 8 languages our mission speaks, 7
Korean, 7 Mandarin, 7 Vietnamese, 4 Asl, 4 Samoan, 5 Tongan, and the
rest are divided among all the Spanish and English. (by the way, our
mission, though it be the 2nd smallest in the world, speaks more
languages than any other mission in the world. The next highest is
Hawii). So right now in the mission we are at 165 total missionaries,
so we are a little low for our compliment of 180. SO! Now that that's
established, here's what happened. We get to the mission home and
President explains to us that he got an e-mail from the general
authorities that our mission is going to be growing. That by that
night we needed to find room to fit 70 more missionaries by the next
few transfers! Our compliment was raised to 250! With no negotiation!
And we had to find out what the individual compliment was going to be
for each language and find areas that all these new missionaries would
serve in and do it all between the hours of 8 to 11 that night!! In
Salt Lake they get about 700 missionary applications (papers) a week.
Since the Prophets call to drop the age for men and women, They now
receive 4,000 a week!!! The young men and women are responding to the
Prophet's call! It is an awesome testimony, they also said that half
of those applications are from sisters!! Crazy stuff! So every mission
compliment in the whole western United states was doing what Elder
Hartt, President Bowen and I were doing on Monday night! haha We were
at President's house til about 10:50 when we finally got our
compliment recommendation sent off to Salt Lake. It was nuts, but it
was the funnest thing!! We busted out our mission maps and went to
town on splitting areas, and creating new areas to accomidate all
these news missionaries that will be coming in! That's soo huge!!! In
the coming months, our mission will grow by nearly 100 more
missoinaries!! That's such a big step!!! We got to help make some
history! It was awesome you guys! haha I love it!

We had a big night!, the next morning(yesterday) we woke up at 5:30 to
arrange for a new korean missionary coming in. He's actually from No
Town as well! He knew Brooks and has seen the show play at assemblies.
His name is Elder Hogge! He's our newest missionary! We picked him up
at the airport with President, and brought him home and trained him
for a little bit, then took off to the temple! haha it's been a very
busy past couple days. I love doing all of this with President and
Sister Bowen though. I've become pretty close with both of them, they
are like family to me out here. I can't wait for you to meet them!
They are incredible and I love them both dearly!

Ok! So now I'd like to report on Elder Hartt and I's missionary work
this past week!
We currently have a total of 7 invesigators with a baptismal date!
That's the most I've ever had on my mission. We found 4 new
investigators! Things are definitely happening here! Our mission is
still on fire too! The mission has over 100 people with baptismal
dates, found 150 new investigators, and taught over 700+ lessons to
investigators this last week! The mission is on absolute fire! The
missionaries are obedient, they are fulfilling their purpose and it's
such an exciting time to be here in the Anaheim California Mission! We
are breaking records and the baptisms are starting to come in! It's
been such a cool thing to be apart of, President told us,"I'm so
grateful to be with you both at this time, when things are happening
like they are. I've never seen the mission with so much energy. The
Lord has really poured out His Spirit on Anaheim and this is
incredible to be apart of. I've never seen the mission perform as well
as it is now."
On Sunday, we taught a lady named Marisella. Remember Edward? We
baptized him in September with his mom? Marisella is Edwards aunt!
She's been taught before by missionaries, but she's been busier than
ever this past year, they opened up a zumba studio that keeps them
busy all the time. But we finally got in contact with her, and we're
going to start teaching her now. She's awesome because after Edward's
baptism she told Elder Sumsion and I,"I'm next! I want to be baptized
next!". We taught her the Restoration. She already knew most of it,
and had really awesome questions! The Spirit was way strong and the
lesson just flowed so smoothly. At the end we invited her to be
baptized. She said,"Yes I want to be baptized..." then began to cry as
she told us "I've known this is true for along time, and for some
reason I have let myself put off getting baptized, but I know that I
need to and this is the time. So, whether my husband wants to or not,
I am going to get baptized and start going to church."
...yeah...solid. She's getting baptized November 11th. We're exctied
for her. She really is such and awesome lady.

We also saw our other golden investigator, Chiante. The samoan one. We
talked to her briefly the other night and she said such an awesome
prayer at the end of talking with her. She asked us if she could pray,
then said that she didn't really know how and asked if we'd teach her
how. After we taught her, she said such a beautiful prayer. She told
us,"I'm sorry I've been so busy. I know I need to make time for you to
teach me. I promise that I will be more commited. I want to get
baptized and I want to do that while you are both here, so before you
leave Elder Keyes, I'm going to be baptized!" She's like the only
person that I've had to tell her how to pronounce Keyes only once!
ahah. With some people I have to explain every time, take of the K and
you get -eyes, so now just throw K in front of it. Keyes. it's not
rocket science!

OH YEAH!!! MORE BIG AWESOME NEWS!!!
I got a call last week from Brother Postil!! From La Habra!! He called
and informed me that he hasn't smoked in over a month since his
surgery and he's going to be baptized on November the 10th!! And the
sweet part is he asked me to baptize him!! I'm so stoked for him!!
He's wanted to get baptized for almost 2 years now!! I'm so grateful
to be apart of it!!

Also we are teaching two little twin girls who are getting baptized
November 4th! Their names are Jaquline and Jerissa! Next to Tessa,
they are the cutest little girls I've ever seen! They are excited to
be baptized too! With them, we are also teaching another little girl
named Safara. She's black! She's getting baptized on the same day as
them!!
BAPTISMS ARE AWESOME!!!

Ok I'm sure you're eyes are tired from looking at the computer screen
so long! haha sorry this is kind of a longer e-mail.
Dad had a good questions I wanted to answer!

Do you think the curiosity/interest in the Presidential race (Mitt
Romney) is sparing interest in the church or is it something entirely
different? I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts on “why” you are
seeing such a huge movement forward.
- I know for some baptism in the mission that has been the case!
Actually one of Mitt's closeset counselors got baptized in Irvine 2
weeks ago!! Mitt was actually plainning on going to that baptism, but
couldn't make it.
As for what I've seen come of that, people will ask us all the time
what our thoughts are on him, but we're not allowed to talk about it
too much. It has definitely softened the hearts of some people. We'll
be tracting and they'll say,"you know boys, I'm not interested in what
you have to say, but I'm voting for Romney!! He's the best guy for the
job right now!!" haha so that's nice. But we definitely have had some
stories in this mission of some doors being opened because of Romney.
So yes! I think it does.
I think the biggest reason we are seeing the movement and growth in
the mission is because of the missionaries. They are taking all the
training and stuff to heart and have internalized their purose as
missionaries. They are obedient and doing their best to follow the
spirit, and when that happens, the Lord can use us. We are just the
vessels. We have great leaders in the mission who are setting an
awesome example and other missionaries look up to that and pattern
their work after that. So now because of all this things are
happening. The train is on the move!!

THANK YOU FOR THE PICTURES YOU SENT JAMIE AND MOM!!!! I LOVE THEM!!!!!!!!!
You look good dad!! You really do!!! Even if you don't get to come to
the airport, you best believe our first stop will be at huntsman. I
don't want you to risk anything by coming to a filthy airport. I want
you there and I know how badly you want to be there, but if it's going
to put you at a big risk and it wouldn't be good for you. I am more
than willing to work with whatever the situation presents. I don't
want you to be anymore hurt, or go through any more than you're going
through. With that, I'll be home Decmeber 18th, most likely will be
between 9-12 in the morning. and I'm excited to see the family that
day, Airport or not. Hang in there dad. The mission is still praying
for you.

I love you guys so much! I miss you! I'm still sprinting to the
finish, but at the same time I'm excited to see you! I can't believe
how short time is. It's crazy!!
GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST!!!
Love
Elder Keyes