President Cahoon's First Week

So this week wasn't necessarily as busy with meetings as I had predicted, only one, but it was still really good. We got to meet President and Sister Cahoon on Friday morning at 10 o clock. It was a really neat experience. When we all stood up as they entered the room, as you usually do with President and his wife, you could definitely feel the spirit that they carried with them. It was just like an instant testimony as soon as they walked in the room I know without a shadow of a doubt that they really were called of God to do this work. I love them already for the sacrifices they have made to come out here for 3 years to be with us. When President Cahoon started with his opening remarks at the beginning of the meeting there was just a familiarity to his voice, like I've met him before, it was such an amazing feeling. Sister Cahoon is just as nice as Sister Maurer. The transition between mission presidents was just so comfortable. I can't wait to see the changes that are going to be taking place in the mission over the next couple of months. They've already started to make changes to the mission but these changes mostly come from the First Presidency anyways. A lot of the changes have to do with our schedule. Not our daily schedule, still have to wake up at 6:30 lol, but changes to our monthly schedule. Instead of thinking of time in transfers we're starting to think of things in quarters. Interviews with President will be once a quarter instead of once a transfer. That will be different, only once every three months getting to talk to president, although, I can talk to him every week if I wanted to, being in his ward and all. Zone Conference is also going to be a quarterly thing, but be in a different month than Interviews. They told us that transfers are basically just going to be running in the background. Even though we'll still know when transfers are, we won't be planning or scheduling by the transfer anymore. He also said that the First Presidency wants missionaries to be transferred as infrequently as possible. For me, that's no really big change, but for people like Elder Hunt who has only had 3 companions for more than one transfer, me being one of them, that's going to be a pretty big change for him.

My companion and I have turned over a new leaf. Being in a new district I think has inspired us to work twice as hard this... transfer...(I don't know how to not think about transfers yet)... because we both know that last transfer we could've worked a lot harder. So this week we tracted for about 10 hours altogether which is a huge improvement for us. Our new district leader promised us that if we tract at least 3-4 hours a day, we will see a baptism within the next 2 months. And I really want that to be true.

We started teaching the Dashwood family this past Friday. That's the one that I think I mentioned in my last email with the single mom that is returning to church with the unbaptised kids. We taught them a really great lesson and all we really taught was what our purpose was as missionaries, and that is to invite them to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost. They had heaps of questions for us which is what i think made the lesson so good. Starting tonight we're going to be having a weekly Family home evening with them and we're going to teach them the lessons so hopefully we can get Trent, the 15 year old son, baptised. She has a 9 year old daughter but she just left for NZ to go live with her dad for 2 months I think. But teaching Trent and his mom is gong to be a really fun experience I think, as long as they keep up the questions like the other night. Not to mention to new weekly feed :)

I never thought I would miss hot dogs on the Fourth of July, but amazingly I do. I probably wouldn't miss it as much if I could buy hot dogs over here, but I can't! For my fourth of July celebration I got to eat a Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly sandwich, Lucky Charms, and Cheezeits, all things not found in Australia, courtesy of grandma, thanks grandma! Haha, God Bless America.

Oh yeah! One thing that President Cahoon said that really stuck out to me that I wanna share. He was talking to us about how he was sitting at the feet of the Apostles over the past couple of weeks receiving their training and such. He loved hearing their Apostolic witness that the work they were doing was true. But he said the one thing that amazed him was something the Jeffrey R. Holland told all the new mission presidents in one of their meetings, "Tens of millions will soon join the church". To hear that come from an apostle... wow. To think that ONLY 13 million have joined the church over the last 180 years, and that TENS OF MILLIONS will SOON be joining the church.... wow. And to be a part of that work, I feel like i have a huge responsibility on my shoulders to help that statement come to pass, and I'm going to be doing everything in my power to do so.

The Church is true! Hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Tanner