This week has been hectic! I loved it! So on Tuesday Elder Jorgensen and I went around and visited some people that he wanted to say goodbye to after being in this area for 6 weeks. There weren't many people. Mainly the Preedys and the Cook Islanders, but the said part was that we had 3 appointments set up for the evening and all three of them fell through. So Jorgy didn't get to say goodbye to everybody which he was kinda bummed about but not too bad, because he was only here for long enough to barely get to know everybody, so it wasn't too big of a deal. On Wednesday was when all the madness began. We had to leave Rockingham at 7:30 in order to be up in the city at 9 for a Training of trainers meeting. The training of trainers meeting was great though because it was just me, Elder Metekingi, and Elder Wright that were training, as well as three sisters. I like meetings with president where there's not as many people there, it's more personal it seems like. We learned a lot of good things about how to train and the things that we need to do in order to train our companions right. President Cahoon said that the example that we set for our new companions coming straight out of the MTC will become the normal for them. Personally, I don't want the normal to be anything less than 100% obedience. I loved that meeting though. I was just eating it up. We learned the best way to teach them how to do new things and to do it lovingly. I felt pretty prepared to get my new companion after that meeting. But I just had to wait about 24 hours to do so. So after that meeting we went straight into transfer meeting to find out where everybody was going. Turned out Elder Jorgensen was off to Noranda which was my previous area. So I was able to tell him all the good people to go see in the ward and where to get the massive feed hook ups. He's going to love it in that area because I know that he is going to work his tail off and see great things happen.
On Wednesday after transfer meeting instead of going all the way back down to Rockingham, Elder Metekingi and I stayed in Dianella (the area the mission office and temple are in) with Elder Wright since we were all companionless until Thursday. Wednesday afternoon/evening was awesome! We did some tracting because we had some appointments fall through and just from tracting we got to teach 2 lessons and get 3 new investigators. In one day, that's pretty amazing. I don't know what it is, but I haven't ever had that kind of success while tracting down here in Kwinana. I don't know if it's the people or if it's just me. I'm going to say that it is just me because that is something that I can improve. I can't make the people of Kwinana more humble, I can only increase my own faith that they will open their doors and let us in to teach them. We actually had a really awesome experience with that on Saturday, but I'll get to that.
Thursday was a great day. We got to the chapel at 11:00 after teaching a lady in Dianella that got baptised this past Saturday at 10:00. Then we got to meet our new companions at about 11:45. My new companion, Elder Shobbrook is from Melbourne. He already knows heaps about missionary work because he took mission prep class for two years before his mission. He has amazing faith and I've already learned so much from him. I hope that he has learned as much from me. I feel like now that I'm constantly striving to be 100% obedient that is the best way that I can teach him how to be a missionary. As long as you're obedient and do what you're supposed to, a mission is easy. Obedience is the first law in Heaven for a reason. Without obedience, faith, diligence, patience, all those Christlike attributes, a mission would be very hard. But yeah, Elder Shobbrook has one sister and she and his dad are both less active. So I really look up to him for coming out on a mission. I really hope that his family is blessed by his obedience and hard work and maybe starts coming back to church while he is on his mission. Obedience is key! Elder Shobbrook is great though. He helps me be a better missionary every day.
Speaking of Obedience, I had a great district meeting on Friday and I gave training on Obedience, diligence, and equality. I used 1 Corinthians 12:14-31. If you haven't read those verses, they are really great. They really help us as missionaries realise that we all have the same purpose; we all are part of the same body, of which Christ is the head. We can all help each other and when one person suffers, we all suffer, and when one person rejoices, we all rejoice. I'm really concerned about my district and their obedience so I'm really hoping that they took my training to heart and they apply it in their lives and in their missionary work. I feel like they did. At least I know that Elder Metekingi and his trainee (Elder Lammi, who is also the man) did. I look up to Elder Metekingi, aye. He has helped me a lot to become a better missionary/district leader.
On Friday the whole zone fasted so that we would all be able to have a miracle occur on Saturday. The miracle we were all aiming for is to set a baptismal date. We didn't quite all achieve it, but we got close. Our miracle was after we visited this less active lady, I got a flat tire. And while we were walking back to the flat to fix the tire I was talking about how great it would be to buy some ice cream from Mr. Whippy (the ice cream truck around here) but we didn't have any money. No longer than 5 minutes after we finished talking about that, Mr. Whippy drives up behind us and hands us a free ice cream. How could you not know the church is true after that?! Our other miracle was being able to find this guy named Keelan within 10 minutes of tracting. We only had time to tract for 15 minutes because we had to go to a Christmas activity for Rockingham. So we prayerfully selected a street, drove to it, and found Keelan who was keen on having us come back and teach him but he was just going out as we got there. He even gave us his phone number which was amazing. I haven't gotten that good of a potential investigator from tracting my whole time in Kwinana. So it was a great blessing and a miracle. Miracles happen every day. We just have to realise them. The Christmas party that night was cool too. They assigned the missionaries to act out a play of Jesus' birth as given in the Book of Mormon. I got to be Samuel the Lamanite. The Rockingham elders had a miracle of a couple that they met just not more than an hour earlier come to that activity and they were able to give them a chapel tour. The girl had lots and lots of questions. It was so good.
I love this mission. I love being obedient, it makes me much happier. Even obeying the small rules that don't seem that important, bring great happiness. And mission rules are commandments of the Lord so we can apply it to real life as well. OBEYING THE COMMANDMENTS BRINGS HAPPINESS! I love being a leader and being able to set that example for those around me.
I love you all! Have a merry Christmas! I know I will! Yay calling home! Sorry there's no pictures of my new companion, I forgot my camera cord today.
Much love,
Elder Tanner
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