I can't even begin to say how hot these past few days have been. Ah well, it's only going to get hotter, that's what I have to look forward to. This week it got up to about 38 degrees and we didn't have the car for most of the week. So we're out biking around (mind you we probably did about 20-30 kms/day on the bikes this week) and when we get back to the flat there is no air conditioning or anything to help cool us down, so we just have to sit there and sweat, and drink lots of water of course. Hopefully when we get to the middle of the summer I'll be able to have a car or an air conditioning or something. Because this is just hectic right now. I guess it does have one good advantage, I am getting a mean tan, on my arms and face that is haha, gotta love the missionary tan lines, especially the collar. It's pretty ridiculous. But I love it. Helps me get into shape as well.
This week as been way good as far as teaching goes. We got a new investigator this week named Tina and she lives with a less active guy named John. She had a lot of questions about the church and John wasn't able to answer them so they invited us over. Her questions were kinda not what we were expecting at first, they were mostly just about the Book of Mormon because she's been reading that, but we taught a really good lesson on the restoration and how we got the book and how she can find out if it is true. At the end of the lesson we watched the Restoration DVD and the spirit was really strong in the room. We asked her how she felt after the DVD and she said that she had a really good feeling. So then we invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon and if she gets that good feeling again after praying about it then she'll know that it is true. We're seeing them again this Tuesday so I'm pretty excited to see how she went with that. It's pretty sad that John couldn't answer her questions for her though. He served a mission about 10 years ago and he's just strayed way off the path ever since. So along with teaching and hopefully baptising Tina, we're hoping to get John active in the gospel again and help him to find or re-find his testimony. It's just so unfortunate when people go astray after serving a mission. It just shows you how powerful Satan can be. Because right now I feel more solid in my testimony than I ever have felt in my life and I'm sure that will be doubled in another year from now. I can never see myself falling away because of the strength and power of my testimony. I guess it also shows you how important it is to constantly be nourishing that testimony. I guess some people just come home from a mission and go right back into the life they left behind rather than living the things that they preached on their mission and keeping their study and prayer habits up. Study and prayer is so important, and some people just overlook that I guess. But I have faith that John will come back, he's already starting back on the path, we just have to help him the rest of the way until he reaches that Iron Rod and is continually holding fast to it.
This Wednesday we had another Specialised training meeting and we learned all about "how to begin teaching" in Preach My Gospel. There's 10 points in there that if we use them people will really see us as representatives of Jesus Christ and help them realise what we are there to do, to teach them and to eventually help them come to the waters of baptism. I think that's really something that we have to do with Tina next time we go over there as well. We didn't really establish that on our first visit, so next time we're going to do that and see if she is really wanting to make changes in her life or if she just wants to have her questions answered. But the meeting was really good. President Cahoon is the most inspired person ever for this mission. I realised that with the new schedule and way of doing things we only have 4 interviews with him a year. That's like hardly anything. But that's just planned interviews, we could really have one a month if we really wanted to, but that could start rumours. It's just way different, I didn't realise that it was that infrequent until just this week cause I was thinking it should be time for interviews again, but nope, not until January. Oh well.
Christmas coming up in less that a month!!!! That means phone calls! boo yah! I'm so pumped. Speaking of Christmas, my Australia Thanksgiving wasn't too bad. I think I ate more here than I've eaten any other Thanksgiving in my life. But I also think that's because of the black tag, people just love shoving food down your throat (not literally, of course). But we had a Cook Island Thanksgiving. All the Chop Suey and Rice you could ever dream of. I think when I get home I'm going to make up some Chop Suey and Rice everything Thanksgiving from now on, just in remembrance of this Thanksgiving. It was fantastic. The only bad part of it was the biking home afterward with about 5 extra kgs of food on me haha. I guess I've kinda become accustomed to that by now though. The only thing that was missing from my Thanksgiving was a game of football. It was saweet.
On Saturday we were going to do some Christmas caroling at the Rockingham Foreshore, but before we could even start singing a guy came up to us and wanted to talk so the 6 of us sat around and talked to him and we actually set a baptismal date with him. He lives in the Rockingham area, so I don't really know much more about him, if he came to church or anything like that. But it was still a pretty cool experience. We may try the "musical contacting" again this week, but we'll see what happens.
On Friday night we biked to the chapel (20 km round trip) for a "Kapa Haka" practice. It's the coolest thing ever. I can't really describe it, but if you YouTube it, you might get an idea of what we were learning. It's like Maori songs mixed with the Haka and dancing. It was so cool. If I could speak one other language fluently (other than Spanish) it would definitely be Maori. It's the best. LOVE their culture. I can't even imagine going to New Zealand to experience it. I bet it's like 20 times better over there. But there's enough Maoris her to experience it enough. Love it.
Well anyways, that's about it for this week. I love you all HEAPS! Hope you all have a great week!
much love,
Elder Tanner
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