What a great Christmas week! The highlight of this week was definitely getting to call home. It's good to hear everyones voices again. But I guess I'll give the rest of you the low down on what's been happening in my life, and what's happened since I called home.
The week leading up to Christmas was pretty tough. It was really hard to catch people at home and when we did catch them at home, it was "sorry guys, come see us again after new years." And it make it even more difficult we were biking around in 35-40 degree weather. So it was uber hot. (Don't worry, I wore sunscreen and drank heaps of water). But it still makes it hard to bike all over Kwinana on a hot day like that. We'd always be stopping for water and shade breaks. It's amazing how much cooler it is in the shade here. So yeah, I think we only got to see a total of 8 people this week, which is way low, but we still kept busy.
On Christmas eve we had a specialised training meeting. President Cahoon gave us some great training on the doctrine of Christ. It kind of reminded me of one of our old training meetings with President Maurer. We were just all over the scriptures for a constant hour. It was pretty fantastic. We would go through an entire chapter (2 Nephi 31 for example) and just write down a different point of doctrine from each verse. I never knew you could learn so much from just 21 verses of scripture. It was definitely the best way to study and learn though. At the end of each specialised training meeting president selects 3 people to give a 3 minute talk and I got chosen this time. They tell us the topic a month ahead of time but don't tell you who is going to be speaking until just before. this month's topic was "improve the shining moments". I focused my talk on verse 2 of the song, and obedience. It actually went pretty well.
After our meeting we came home and Elder Shobbrook called home and by 5 o clock we went Christmas carolling. It was a bit strange Christmas carolling in the heat, but it was still fun. Good way to end Christmas eve though.
Christmas day was epic. We went to the Preedy's for breakfast and had massive feed #1. Then we drove to Dianella for massive feed #2. We also got to play sports with all the other missionaries there. We were meant to do a lot more there, but it was 38 degrees so we just kept ourselves couped up inside the gym and played basketball and volleyball. We had some good fun there though. It's always great to see all the other missionaries too. So that lasted from 11-6ish and then we drove home and went to dinner with the Rockingham Elders to a family's house in their ward beccause nobody in our ward invited us. Then we came home and I called home!
So since then, well yesterday actually, we had our baptismal interview with Evelyn. It went so well and I was so happy. Elder Lowe did the interview and we had Caleb Simpkins as a translator. Caleb actually came and taught her with us about 3 months ago and after that he said that she was nowhere near ready and that we were going in the complete wrong direction with her. But after the interview he came up to me and gave me a really good compliment. He said that we had done a really good job with her and that she really is ready to be baptised. It was such a testimony builder for me because the only thing I had to judge if she was ready or not was the spirit, since I couldn't really have a conversation with her like he could. But then he told us that she was really ready, I knew that the spirit had told me she was ready. We're SO STOKED for her baptism. We just hope it all goes well and that heaps of people come. Arturo is going to be the one baptising her, so we're excited for that. I'll be sure to send pictures!
Yesterday we biked about 45 kms would be my guess. Gotta help Elder Shobbrook build up those bike muscles. Speaking of Elder Shobbrook, I should be getting off the computer now so he can do his emailing. We're emailing at the chapel today because the library was closed and it might be closed next week as well. And monday and Tuesday were public holidays so today is p-day. So I hope you all have a magnificent week! and a Happy new year! 2011 baby! Sorry this email is so short! Love you all!
Much love,
Elder Tanner
ps. I've seen a Dingo.
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