Going Out With a Bang

Blessings blessings blessings!!!

 

Well the last full week of my mission is upon me.  I can't believe it's gone so fast.  I'm really looking forward to going home and seeing everybody again, but we've had some amazing things happen this week, and it makes it sad to leave.  Transfers are always hard, it always seems like the best things happen right before you go.  I still don't know why that is.  But anyways, this week has been great.  The greatest news from this week is that we set a baptismal date with Norita for the 5th of November, 4 days before I leave Karratha!  My whole mission I have prayed that I would be able to baptise somebody that we found on our own efforts, (since all the best baptisms come from member referrals), but I really wanted to find somebody, bring them to church, fellowship them, and see them get baptised.  And we have done exactly that with Norita.  We taught her twice this week and the first time we taught her, we invited her to be baptised, but she told us that she wanted to take some time to think about it and she wanted to finish reading the Book of Mormon before she made any big decisions like that.  So we just encouraged her to pray and just ask God if this is what she needed to do.  She had already received one answer to her prayers though.  Last Sunday she was praying for direction in life and what path she should take, and within about 5 minutes, the branch sister missionaries knocked on her door.  She recognised that as an answer to her prayer right away.  She seems very in tune to the spirit.  Turns out that the reason she didn't come to church last week was because she was waiting for her ride to get there, but her ride was late, and since she wasn't there by 10:00, she figured she wasn't coming.  Then when her ride did get there, I guess she had turned on some music and didn't hear her knocking at the door.  But anyways, back to the story.  So the second time we taught her this week, she came out, sat down, and the first thing she said to us, was, "I thought about what you guys asked me, and I want to be baptised." Woo!  Thank goodness for answered prayers!  I'm glad that I'll be able to be "going out with a bang" as they say.  But I really love this branch, I'd be going out with a bang with or without a baptism.  And I better not jinx it, that baptismal interview hasn't quite happened yet, but we have faith.  Norita is potentially the most solid investigator I've ever had.  It's amazing.  I think the best part about all of this is that it lets me know that the Lord still has things planned for the last 2 weeks of my mission.  He still has experiences He wants me to have, people He wants me to meet, and lives He wants me to touch.  It's not over until it's over.  Also when I found out that I was going to be staying in Karratha for my last transfer, I was pretty gutted because I wanted to go to Perth and be around other missionaries and go to zone conferences and things like that.  However, that wasn't the Lord's will.  Within a month, we have found, taught, and baptised (assuming all goes well this week) Norita, who I would have never had the opportunity to teach had I gone to Perth.  It's true that the Lord knows us and our situation better than we do.  He knows what's best for us.  I've very grateful for this lesson and many more valuable lessons that I've learned on my mission. 

 

Another amazing thing that happened this week that makes it sad to leave is this referral that we received from the mission office.  All referrals come via text message nowadays so we had to call up the office and get the details on this referral.  Sister Nielsen in the office said that the referral was given from the Kwinana Elders who got the referral from an investigator family they were teaching.  Seeing as how there was a high possibility of me knowing the family that gave the referral, we went straight over to visit him.  His name is Anton Voosyen.  He wasn't home when we went around but his wife was and I asked her how she had met the missionaries or how she knew them and she said it was from her sister-in-law's house Adell Erwee!!  Turns out that Anton Voosyen is Adell's brother!  If you don't remember from my past emails, Elder Shobbrook and I tracted into the Erwee's about a year ago now.  Well apparently they're still be taught by the missionaries and now they have even referred their family to hear the missionary lessons.  When I told Anton's wife (Natania) that I knew the Erwees and that I was the first missionary to teach them, she invited us over for dinner on Tuesday!  I wish so bad that I could stay and teach them.  What a gold referral!  Isn't it amazing the way the Lord works!  There's no earthly way that any of that is a coincidence.  God gave us this referral just in time for me to make the connection with them, plant the seed, and then leave, but set it up for missionaries in the future.  Man, I'm so pumped right now.  I love missionary work.  

 

We had the funeral that I mentioned two weeks ago this past Saturday.  It was held in our chapel and we had about 150 people in our humble little chapel.  It was a very sad experience.  Very touching though.  I had the responsibility given to me of reading out the eulogies of the family.  when we went to the grave site there were probably about 350 people there.  This girl was very loved, and is going to be severely missed.   

 

Well, only one email remaining after this one.  Probably won't have much to say next week except to talk about how great the baptism was and how excited I am to see each of you again!

 

Love yas!

 

Elder Tanner

The General Epistle of Elder Tanner the Missionary to the FAMILY

Doing service brings joy to the heart.  Tagalog Book of

Mormon helps Marion further his understanding.

 

Elder Tanner, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ,

2. to his family and friends scattered throughout

    North America.

3. Love be unto you from our Heavenly Father and

    from His son Jesus Christ,

4. Who gave His life for each of us that we may live 

    again and be one eternal family, together forever.

5. I thank Heavenly Father for all of you in my

    prayers, continually without ceasing.

6. In so doing brings joy, peace, and comfort to

    my heart.

7. I have received many blessings this week,

    in all shapes, forms and sizes.

8. Wherefore, we did about ten hours of service this

    week.

9. Helping all who were in need, including our Relief

    Society President, Sister Weeks, who was moving

    to Roebourne,

    beyond Karratha.

10. For two times we drove to Roebourne and back,

    hauling a trailer along the way, and in our free time,

    taking some rubbish to the tip. 

11. With our friend Marion, we had a great lesson with. 

    In the which, we were finally able to give him his

    own copy of

12. The Book of Mormon, in Tagalog, which was

    ordered from the office about three score days ago,

    and had finally arrived.

13. We proceeded to re-teach the message of the

    restoration and then watch the restoration DVD

    with him in the Tagalog tongue, to better his

    knowledge and his understanding.

 

                            Chapter 2 

 

Elder Tanner and Elder Ford teach Norita -- She has

read almost the WHOLE Book of Mormon, however,

she fails to come to church again.

 

Norita, as we found out, has really been progressing

well.

2. We taught her again on Thursday, thus being the

    fourth day of the week.

3. Upon visiting her, and following up on the

    commitment which had been left, we discovered

    that she was up to 3 Nephi chapter 10 in her

    reading, and she has only had the book in her

    possession for the time of one week.

4. This was cause for much rejoicing in the Lord,

    and giving much thanks,

5. For rarely do we have investigators keep their

    reading commitments in this area.

6. So to have that happen was one of the most

    exciting things we experienced this week.

7. Upon the completion of our lesson with her,

    we proceeded to invite her to church the

    following Sabbath,

8. To which she said she would love to come

    again because of the great spirit she felt there. 

9. However, when the day came, and the

    member that was to give her a ride walked in

    without her in her presence, it was a

    disappointment to our souls.

10. But we do not become discouraged, because

    that is what Satan would have us to do so

    that he may grab hold of our hearts and drag

    us down to misery.

11. We continue in prayer for Norita, even until

    this day

12. with faith that all things are possible if we

    rely on the Lord

 

                       Chapter 3

 

Elder Tanner testifies of the things he knows to be true,

with the days of his mission drawing to an end that is

nigh.

 

Now I say unto you my beloved friends and

family,

2. I hope with faith that you are all staying

    close to our Father in Heaven and His gospel.

3. For I know without a doubt that it is true.

4. It will bless your lives if the principles of

    obedience, faith, virtue, patience, prayer,

    study, and charity are lived and followed.

5. For it is of these principles that I have gained

    a greater knowledge of while in the service

    of our Lord in the state of Western Australia

    (which I love with all my heart, might, mind

    and strength:)

6. I boldly testify of the truthfulness of the Book

    of Mormon,

7. for it can bless your lives, by bringing you

    nearer to God and Jesus Christ.

8. In that book is this scripture fulfilled, I am

    the same yesterday, today, and forever;

9. I pray that we may do as Peter directs and

    grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our

    Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

10. I testify that it is by reading the Book of

    Mormon that we may do this.

11. I love you all, until we meet again, Elder Tanner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ps. I've been reading the New Testament heaps lately.   

General Conference Weekend!

Yes, I know that I'm about 2 weeks late on general conference, but that's what happens when you live out bush.  We finally got to watch it this weekend and it was amazing.  It seemed like half of the speakers were speaking regarding return missionaries or just missionaries in general.  It was potentially one of the best conferences ever.  We had 3 investigators come along to it as well!  And Norita even came to both Sunday sessions!  I've never had an investigator come for two sessions of conference.  Usually they just find it too boring so they're not really interested in coming for more.  But Brother Otto asked her if she wanted to come back for the afternoon session and she was more than willing.  She just wanted to take her kids home first.  Sunday morning session of conference was the best possible one for investigators to be at.  Especially Elder Callister's talk on the Book of Mormon.  Speaking of Book of Mormon, we got our October Ensigns this week as well and how cool is that??  Special edition all on the Book of Mormon.  Love it!  I thought that it was really cool seeing someone speak in conference who I've had the chance to have a personal interview with.  I always remember that interview with a General Authority.  What a special opportunity that was.  It seems like it was only a couple of months ago but that was all the way back in January or February.  Time just goes too fast on the mission, I'll tell you that much.  It's still not possible that I'm going to be home in 26 days.  26 days...??  

Anyways, conference was definitely the highlight of this week.  We were looking forward to it all week,  so it was pretty much our topic of conversation and all that was on our minds.  It was good though, kept us busy.  Invited absolutely everybody that we possibly could.  We could've had probably 6 investigators come, but the other 3 used their agency to choose not to come.  Bummer when that happens.  The 3 that did come though, (Marion, Norita, and Carlo), were all uplifted and really enjoyed it... I hope.  They said they did anyways.  I reckon we're probably going to try to set a baptismal date with Norita this week!  She loves coming to church, she's really been getting into the Book of Mormon.  We just need to get her to pray so that the spirit can testify to her of the truth of everything that she's learned so far.  If it's not by the spirit, it's not God's way.  

On a slightly sadder note, and I don't usually like to talk about the sad news, but we're going to be attending a funeral on the 29th of October.  It's for this 15 year old girl who is the niece of one of our less active members, Revis.  Revis has been coming to church for awhile now and he brought his niece a couple of times.  I don't really want to get into the details of what happened, but we pretty much know the entire extended family by our close association with the aboriginals in town and they've asked us if they can have the funeral services at the chapel.  I never thought that the first funeral I would ever go to would be on my mission.  She was a nice girl too.  It's pretty sad.  So I've been keeping Revis and his family in my prayers.  I sometimes ask myself, what could I have done more, but I know that the Saviour has done it all for us so that we don't have to.

Well I hope you all enjoy these last few weeks before my homecoming.  I'll see you all soon!

Much Love,

Elder Tanner

The Final Countdown

Well the last few weeks of the mission is upon me.  What can I say other than the fact that I just keeping working hard and serving the Lord with all my heart, might, mind, and strength.  Just like always.  It is getting ridiculously near though.  Some days do seem to drag on though.  I think the fact that I didn't get transferred for my last transfer is making it go a bet longer.  Since I've already been here for 4 months and just keep working with the same people over and over, it does get a bit tedious at times.  So yeah, all the people we've been working with still are showing no signs of progression really.  The new ones are the exciting ones of late.  We did come close to making a big step with Marion yesterday, but it failed.  We had the Clarkes invite him over for dinner with us, which we go to every Sunday night, and we had a fantastic lesson planned and if he had been able to hear the testimonies of all the Clarke family, there would have been no denying the spirit.  that's where we're at with him.  We need him to feel the spirit on his own.  The only time he feels it is when we come over, but we need him to be feeling it more than that, ie. read the book of Mormon, come to church, or come to a member's house for dinner.  But he's not doing any of those at the moment.  The reason that he gave brother Clarke for not wanting to come to dinner was because he felt too ashamed to come to his house.  I don't know what he meant by that, but we were very disappointed.  We haven't had any progress with the Kumars or Carlo lately either.  The Kumars are just too busy, and Carlo is like he's taking steps backwards instead of forward.  It's OK to take an occasional step back, everybody does, but it's how many steps forward you take after that step back that matter, and he's not doing any. 

 

We did have a miracle happen this week.  I just love miracles.  So to kind of give you a background of what happened, we met this lady named Tammy whilst tracting about 3 or 4 weeks ago, maybe even 5.  We also met this lady named Norita whilst tracting about 6 weeks ago, on the opposite side of town.  We hadn't really seen either of them since we met them tracting because they were proving really hard to catch at home.  Well about 2 weeks ago we were teaching this investigator named Azizah (who we found as a referral from a less active member named Roberta) and she gave us the referral of Tammy.  Well we tried to keep seeing Tammy, but never anybody home.  But one day she called us up randomly and asked us if we could give her a hand with her yard.  We were more than happy to of course and when we went around on Tuesday to do that, lo and behold, we meet Norita there.  She was watching the kids while Tammy was at work.  We did the service, which really took it out of us that day as it was really hot, and they left while we were working, but we did text Tammy and find out if we could come again on Thursday so that we could try to sit down with her and teach her.  Well we went again on Thursday and taught her, but she wasn't really paying much attention, she was distracted by the kids most of the time and getting up and down doing stuff, however, Norita was there and she got right into the lesson.  She was telling us all about her childhood and how religion played a roll in her life.  She says that she was forced into religion, almost scared into religion when she was young, and she didn't feel she was right.  She's from Torres Strait Island and she's about 30 years old now.  We taught a bit of the restoration and left each of them with a book of Mormon with a return appointment to come back next week and teach them more.  We didn't really think heaps of it, but we were wrong to do so.  It's amazing the power the Book of Mormon has, (and I can't believe how true it is!! but I'll come back to that).  Well anyways, Norita came to church!  She walked in right as the final speaker was getting up to speak and one of the members had to come tell us that we had an investigator there because we were sitting near the front and she walked in the back.  She stayed for all of church though and I think she really enjoyed it.  She said that she read the first few chapters of the book of Mormon and so she wanted to come check us out.  How great is that!  Miracles baby!  "Has God ceased to be a God of miracles? I say unto you, NAY!"  So we'll see how far this one goes, but hopefully it goes very far.  This could be the baptismal date before I go home that I've been praying for!  We'll just wait and see. 

 

Well yeah, that's about it for this week.  Only 4 left!  Love you all! See you soon!

 

Much love,

Elder Tanner

District Conference Weekend!

What an amazing weekend it was.  Not a whole lot happened prior to driving up to Port Hedland on Thursday, because we were just getting excited to go up there.  We did get to teach a couple of really good lessons on Wednesday.  One was with Penny, the lady who came to church because a member invited her to come to our activity with us.  We just introduced who we were, a bit about our message and how it can bless her life.  She didn't come to church this Sunday again though which was a bummer since she said she would.  But we're just hoping that maybe something came up.  She did say that there was a possibility that something would come up.  Apparently her work is pretty unpredictable.  So we'll be following up with her on Wednesday again and find out what the low down is.  Also on Wednesday Brother Mattys, the Young Men's president invited us to teach the Young Men about missionary work for their Wednesday night activity.  I really enjoyed it, even though the 4 young men in the branch are little hooligans.  I got a couple opportunities this week to teach about missionary work and that was the first one.  And that was followed by Sister Mattys making us some amazing homemade pizza.  

So we drove up Thursday afternoon to get to Port Hedland around 3:00.  Before driving up, the APs called me and asked if I could give a 20 minute training on Friday on A Successful Missionary from pg. 10 of Preach My Gospel.  So that gave me less than 24 hours notice to prepare 20 minutes of training.  So I was pretty stressed about that, because Thursday night was definitely busy.  We went to go see Monique and her husband who have moved to Port Hedland.  It was good to see them, and it was probably the last time I'm ever going to see them.  They're a really great couple.  That was after we picked the APs up from the airport and dropped them off at Port Hedland's flat.  While we were there, Elder Keers, one of the Port Hedland elders called me up and asked if I could come do a baptismal interview for them at 7 for a 12 year old kid that they were going to be baptising on Saturday.  It was good getting to do a baptismal interview again, it's been awhile since I got to do one of those, being up here, usually the Branch President usually does it, but since I just happened to be there, they asked me to do it.  It was great.  But that made us not get back until 8pm, and that's when I started to prepare my training for out meeting that would be starting at 9:30 the next day.  

The meeting was potentially the best meeting I've been to in a long time.  Haha, it's the only meeting I've been to in a long time.  But it was definitely great.  President and Sister Cahoon arrived just before the meeting started and came straight to the chapel from the airport.  It's just so good to be in their presence.  Sad that that will be my last time to be in their presence until just before I go home.  39 days left and they're all going to be sent in Karratha.  I think I'm the only one out of our 13 person intake (very large) that is going to be finishing outside of the city.  Exiled!  Well anyways, the meeting was all about Teaching People, Not Lessons for the first half and the second half was all about the apostasy and also my training.  President Cahoon prepared an awesome PowerPoint all about the Apostasy with heaps of information in it.  He went through it so fast though that I'll definitely need to make sure I get a copy of it before I go home.  I was trying to write everything down, but there's just so much information.  Some of it was quite amazing.  There's heaps to learn about it.  Apparently Elder Callister has a really good book, another one that I need to read when I get home, called the Inevitable Apostasy.  And I think that is where President got all of his information.  The training that I gave actually ended up being pretty good.  I think the Lord helped me out since I only had hardly any time to prepare.  By the time I got up to give it though, it was already past the time we were meant to finish, so I thought that was good, I could just give a little 5 minute training and not have to feel guilty about it being too short.  However, when I got going, it was hard to keep it under 30 minutes.  It's amazing how the spirit works.  I don't even really remember half the things that I talked about or said, but I know that it was long enough and that it was definitely spiritually uplifting.  I think especially for the young missionaries that were there, they definitely got a lot about it.  I spoke about exact obedience and Christ like attributes and how having those two things will pretty much make us be successful.  Oh and one more thing from the meeting, we had to give a 3 minute talk.  That's the one where everybody has to prepare something and then president picks 3 people to give it at the end of the first half before lunch.  We've been doing them in meetings for nearly 10 months now, so I'm sure I've talked about it before.  Anyways, this month's topic was Jacob chapter 5, the allegory of the olive tree.  Lucky me, I got picked to give my 3 minute talk as well.  I spoke about the phrase that comes from verse 50, "spare it a little longer".  Elder Nichols spoke about all the references to the Atonement in the chapter, which I found to be amazing.  I never really noticed how it talks about the atonement, but in verse 31 it says how the Lord of the Vineyard has tasted every fruit.  And also in verse 41, he says "what could I have done more for my vineyard".  When you think about those in terms of the Atonement, it's really quite humbling.   I gained a lot of really good insight about that chapter though, it's become one of my favourites.

So Saturday morning President and Sister Cahoon took us out to breakfast before the Broome Elders had to catch their bus back to Broome, and then I said goodbye to them until I see them again down in Perth probably on November 10th or something like that.  We helped the Hedland elders out with a big service project, which we also got a feed out of, then we drove back to Karratha, but stopped in Roebourne for a dinner appointment first.  By the end of the day, I felt like if I blinked, I'd fall asleep.  We didn't get much sleep over the 2 nights because we hardly get to see other elders so we got to do a lot of catching up with them.  Then the service activity and the driving, and the waking up early to get 8 elders showered on time.  Man, it was a great weekend.

Well, just under 6 weeks left now.  I'm looking forward to seeing ALL of you!  I'll catch yous up, aye?

Love,

Elder Tanner