And thus begins weeks 13-18 in Girrawheen!

Transfers finally happened. And Glover left just like we both knew he would. But this day has been so different than a regular transfer. We got a call from the APs yesterday saying that they were going to pick us up at 6am and Glover needed to pack his bags and put all of his necessities in one bag and make sure it weighed less than 50 pounds. So this morning we woke up at 5 o clock, got ready, and then the APs rolled up at 6:05 and we drove to the airport. Glover got sent to Port Hedland. It's about a 2 hour flight from here if that gives you an idea of how far away it is. Look it up on a map. He was so excited to go though. It was just what he wanted. A fresh start, away from other missionaries, in a completely new place and with a companion he doesn't know. It was kinda hard to say goodbye just cause he was my first companion and he really was great. So after that the APs and I drove to the mission office and they went into meetings and I sat around for about 4 and a half hours. I was so bored, and too tired to do any studying or reading since I woke up so early. So that part of my day sucked.

Transfer meeting started at 1 and lasted til about 2:30. It was nice to have an extra meeting with President Maurer that we don't usually have. Got me excited for this transfer. I want to see some of our families get baptized so badly before I go. But that could be another 6-12 weeks, so hopefully it happens in that time. My new companions name is Elder Richards. He seems like a real nice guy, but I haven't really gotten to talk to him a whole lot yet. He's from New Zealand which is pretty cool. It will be weird to not have a companion from America I think, but fun at the same time. Maybe I'll pick up on more lingo being with him. He says he's ready to work and get someone baptized too, so that's way good. I'll try to include a picture of him in my email next week.

This past week was good. We actually went on exchanges with the APs on Saturday and they taught me quite a bit. Those guys are such great missionaries. I want that to be me some day. We set a baptismal date for the Sumo family (not Shumo like we previously thought), and hopefully we'll be able to get them baptized on the 6th of March. Wow, I can't believe it's almost March already. Nothing else really exciting happened this week though. Since Elder Glover pretty much already knew that he was going to be leaving we didn't do a whole lot for the last half of the week. But we still had a better week than last week, that's for sure.

Tonight I'm eating Kangaroo meat for the first time. That should be an exciting experience, especially since I'm making it myself. I saw it at the store and had to buy it. I'll probably make it into some spaghetti or something. Mmmmm, should be good.

Hope you all have a great week. Stay out of Satan's gravitational pull. The closer you come to it, the harder it is to get away from it. The closer you get to Christ's gravitational pull the harder it is for Satan to get a hold of you, (I used some Physics in a lesson I taught this week), THAT'S DOCTRINE!!!

Love you guys!

Elder Tanner

Week 6

So this is the beginning of the last week of my second transfer. I'm so excited for transfers. I'm most definitely getting a new companion or going to a new area. We think we might even get doubled out because there's a big "For Sale" sign in front of our flat and this week we noticed a big "SOLD" stick across it. So we'll see, but President told Elder Glover he was probably getting transferred for sure this week and he told him to have a great last week because we didn't do so well this past week.

Pretty much the most significant thing from this week was a lesson we had on Tuesday night at a member's house. He actually taught us more than we taught him but it was a great lesson. He taught us about coming unto Christ and that we have to come unto Christ ever single day before we can invite other people unto Him. Moroni 10:32-33 talks about how we come unto Christ and contrary to my prior belief it means more than just getting baptized. It means so much more. Giving up all ungodliness and loving God are the two most important things we can do that will bring us unto Christ. Nothing is hard in life if you just do those two things. And serving a mission is one of the easiest things ever because I'm constantly trying to do those two things.

Interviews with President Maurer were good this week too. I told him about that lesson we had and he pretty much just told me to keep up the good work and keep making my best better.

6 lessons taught in one week = bad. Next week will be way better. Yay transfers!

Stay Classy San Diego,

Elder Tanner

How to go from trainee to psuedo-trainer in 9 weeks.

I have now caught a glimpse of what it's like to train a new missionary.

So we got a call from the AP's last monday night and they told us that there was a new missionary coming into the mission Tuesday morning at 7:45 and that he would be staying with us. He only stayed with us for two days but it was a great two days. His name is Elder Ulas and he's from Vanuatu, which is in the Pacific islands, close to Fiji. His english isn't that spectacular so we pretty much spent the two days with him teaching him english and things about Australia. His country is pretty much a third world country. He's never used a computer, never used a debit card, never been to a restaurant, and the list goes on. So we've been teaching him pretty much how things work and we spent a lot of time teaching him things like the first lesson, his testimony, and how to pray in english, and he's already coming along really well. But anyways, he was with us til Thursday which was Zone Conference and his new companion flew down from Karratha (it's like a 90 minute flight from here) and now they are staying in the Marangaroo flat covering that area. Which is sweet in some ways but not others. It's sweet because Glover and I no longer have to cover Girrawheen and Marangaroo, just Girrawheen. But it's not sweet because our old district got split up 2 weeks before transfers and we had an amazing district. But hopefully this district will be equally as awesome. We'll see.

We're really going to have an awesome last two weeks together I think. This week and last week was just awesome. We may not get anybody baptised, but we're definitely going to get close. I've learned over the past two weeks how important it is to have faith in every aspect of missionary work. You even have to have faith to just stick to your plans each day. In my planner this week on the to-do list everyday I wrote "have faith to stick to plans" and just from that I saw a difference in our work ethic and just everything we did overall, even down to having faith that a certain person was going to be home when we knocked on their door, usually they were. It was fantastic.

Zone Conference this week was really good. Our mission president is such a smart guy. He gave us a list of ways we can increase our faith and one thing that he pointed out was the difference between increasing your faith and strengthening your faith. And he said that we need to learn to WAIT on the Lord to know that he will answer. Those two things just really stuck out to me. It was so cool that he talked about faith too since that's what I've been studying and working on for these past couple of weeks.

Not much else has happened this week. Getting to spend two days helping train Elder Ulas has pretty much been the highlight of the week. Lots of learning experiences. I decided I'm not ready to leave this area yet. I gotta see at least one person that I've found get baptized. But we'll see.

Love you all!

Elder Tanner