35 Degree Heat!

Well this week has been the best.  We've been working hard, that's for sure.  I'm even getting a major collar tan line to show for it.  It's pretty bad, but pretty good at the same time.  Spending all day out on the bikes regardless of the temperature, it feels good.  Don't worry, I apply sun block.  The heat isn't bad to bike in, what kills us is the wind.  What that's what kills me anyways.  Biking into the wind is no fun.  I tell you what is fun though, something that we did last p-day, we pushed our bikes up to the top of the highest hill in Karratha and then biked down.  There's no paved roads or anything up there, it's only meant to be accessible by foot, so that's what made it fun.  It was like real mountain biking.  We loved it so much that we decided to go back up the hill by the time we got to the bottom because it was totally worth it.  We might do it again today if we have time, but I don't know if we will, we have a lot to do today.  

On to the more important matters of this week, the REAL exciting stuff.  We got 6 new investigators this week which was the best I've ever done in Karratha.  They all just kind of fell into our lap though which was the best way to find them.  Two of them came from one of our less active members, Moon, who's still making a come back, and she acts as a translator for us in teaching these two new investigators we got.  Our best new investigator though was definitely a miracle.  We had this activity on Saturday, it was like a Branch Mini-Olympics and we just had it at one of the local parks.  It was heaps of fun and most people from the branch came along.  Before we really got started and we were just waiting for everybody to show up we were setting some stuff up and Brother Otto (our branch mission leader) noticed a lady walking past and felt prompted to go talk to her.  We just assumed he already knew her because he knows pretty much everybody in town, having lived here for 24 years.  Anyways, turns out he didn't already know her, but he invited her to come join us in our activity.  So she came over and mingled with all the members and played sports with us and everything, it was great.  Her name is Penny.  After the activity though, I felt pretty guilty because we didn't get a chance to talk to her and find out where she lived and see if we could come around and teach her.  However, the Lord will always provide a more excellent way, and He did.  I guess someone invited her to church on Sunday, because as I was playing prelude music, she walked in and my heart was filled with joy because now I had another chance in talking to her and inviting her to allow to come teach her.  I'm still not sure who invited her to church, but the fact that she came was just amazing.  We can't get any of our investigators to come to church, but then a member just invites someone to come hit a volleyball around with us and to come to church and she comes!  How cool is that.  She stayed for all of church and she seemed to really enjoy it.  Especially Relief Society.  She really participated in our Gospel Principles lesson which was great.  Usually when we do get an investigator to church here, they usually just sit there and observe, but she was right into it.  We talked to her after church and she said she would love to have us come around and teach her.  So of all the miracles we've had up here in Karratha, this one is looking promising.  As far as our other miracles go, the Kumars and Marion,  still no progress, although yesterday was a good day for both of them.  We brought Brother Otto around to the Kumars with us and were able to give Martin a blessing because he just had his surgery.  Brother Otto invited them to church and they seemed to be a lot more responsive to that invitation than they did when we invited them.  Isn't there just so much power in member missionary work?  I'll tell you what, I love it.  When we went around to the Clarkes for dinner, Brother Clarke asked us if we wanted to go around and see Marion with him right then.  He wanted to invite him over for dinner which would have been amazing, but it was too late notice and Marion couldn't come, but he invited him for next week so we should start to see some good things happen with him.  He has a lot of respect for Brother Clarke, he just really looks up to him for some reason, so it was really good that we were able to go around with him.  Although he still seemed apprehensive about coming to church, we'll definitely be able to have a great lesson with him next Sunday at the Clarke's.  He's also still committed to coming to General Conference, so we still got that going for us.  I can't wait for General Conference.  I LOVE it.  

This coming week we're going up to Port Hedland for 3 days, well probably closer to 2 and a half days, but I'm really looking forward to that as well.  We're going up for a district conference (basically a zone conference) on Friday, but we're going to spend Thursday night and Saturday morning/afternoon with the Elders up there, as well as the Broome Elders as long as they're there.  I'm really looking forward to the district conference because I haven't been to a meeting like that in AGES since I've been up here for so long.  I absolutely love receiving training from President Cahoon, and you have to miss out on that when you're in the city.  I'll probably be asked to give some kind of training as well in the meeting seeing as how I'm the district leader and everything.  It will be just like city life again, just for a day though lol.  But I'm sure I'll have heaps to talk about in my letter next week with this meeting/trip happening this week.

So until then, you stay classy San Diego.  I love you all!  Keep up all the amazing work that you all do, and don't forget to read the Book of Mormon!

Much Love,

Elder Tanner