Anyone wanna Kwinana Banana?

Woohoo! I'm in a new area now, and it's a lot farther than a 5 minute bike ride down the road. My area is called Kwinana and it's about a 35 minute drive south of the city, so about 50 minutes away from my old area. I'm really loving it so far. My companion is Elder Jack and he's been out for about 3 months. He says that this area is pretty rough... but I guess he hasn't ever seen Girrawheen. He's a pretty good guy, bit on the nerdy side, but that's ok. He can do this dance called shuffling, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's pretty cool to watch. He tried to teach me the other day, but I'm pretty hopeless.

It's a new experience for me being the senior companion. There's some parts of it that I don't really like, but then some parts that I do. The part that I do like is that since Elder Jack has only been out for 3 months he still really wants to work hard and so we do. The part that I'm still getting used to is the upped amount of responsibility I have. I have to make sure that we remember to do everything that we're supposed to, and on top of that I have to remember my new responsiblities like correlating with the district leader two nights a week. I almost forgot what it was like to work so hard. But it's good. The people that I've met in this area so far are really nice. In fact, I think I found a rival for my favorite family in the mission. Their names are Shay and Ruth Preedy. They're a couple years older than myself, with 2 young kids. We ate dinner at their house last night and had an awesome time. She was baptised 3 months ago and he has been less active for some time, but he's been coming back since she was baptised and he's getting the Melchezidek priesthood in 2 weeks at Stake Conference. So it's pretty exciting. We stayed at their house last night from 6:30 til about 8:45. After dinner we read a chapter from the Book of Mormon and discussed it and then we played some Phase 10. I don't think I've been able to talk to a family as well as we talked last night. We just talked about anything and everything. It was pretty cool. I'm excited to get to know them better and to be here for his priesthood ordination.

It's amazing how many less actives there are in this area. We don't have many investigators because the majority of the people that we work with are less active and part member families. But that's one thing that I hope to change in the time that I'm in this area. To have a lot of investigators as well as member families that we work with. I'm just happy to be working with anybody though. It's definitely a step up from my previous companion and area.

I have some amazing leaders in the area as well. My district leader is Elder Hampson, who was my Zone Leader in Girrawheen and an AP for the past 3 transfers. He goes home in September but he shows no signs of trunkyness. My other awesome leader is Elder Happel from Germany. He's one of my Zone Leaders. He's just the man, that's all there is to it. The zone leaders are in our ward which is something I'm used to by now, so I'll get to know him pretty well. But yesterday in our Missionary correlation meeting with our ward mission leader he was just so funny. It's nice to have a zone leader with a bit of a sense of humour. I hate those uptight ones that rarely joke around. I can tell I'm going to have some fun in this area. And I'm going to get some work done too. Double Whammy!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. My birthday wasn't anything spectacular, just spent the day packing and cleaning the flat getting ready to move. But I'm having my party today with Elder Jacobs and Elder Hampson who also have August birthdays so it should be a good one.

"And we give unto you the parable of the self-addressed envelopes. When the missionary departed into the far off land he gave a certain number of self-addressed stamped envelopes to his friends. Unto one he gave five, unto another he gave two, and unto the third he gave one. And while he was gone, he that was given the five envelopes wrote five letters, then in his zeal wrote five letters more. The same with him that had two envelopes; He wrote two letters and then two letters more. But he that was given the one self-addressed envelope became slothful and careless. And he lost the envelope, even that which he was given. And when the missionary came home he went unto his friends. And he that had written ten letters was warmly greeted. The same with him that had written four letters. But he that had written none at all was given nothing more than a fishy, wimp-like handshake"

Well I love you all. Hope you all have an amazing week.

Much love,
Elder Tanner