So my companion's first name is Lewis and I just made the connection this week that we are Lewis and Clark. Maybe that means we'll get to discover a new land together, or we'll meet some Indian lady that will be an interpreter for us and help us on our way to baptise thousands! Haha, I just thought that was funny.
We had an abolutely amazing week in Kwinarnia this week. We even got to meet Aslan (I think that's his name, right?). Haha, well enough of the Narnia analogy, but we did have a super amazing week. We got 5 new investigators this week which is just totally awesome. I've never gotten that many in one week in this area. And all 5 of them came from getting out and knocking on those doors. The first two came on Monday, the next two came on Wednesday, and the last one on Friday. The two on Wednesday were my absolute favourite. We decided that we needed to go do heaps of tracting out in Bertram because we had 0 investigators and 0 potential investigators out there. Bertram is the furthest suburb that we cover from where we live to get to on bikes, about 6 or 7 kms. So we don't do much finding out there. But on Wednesday we resolved that we would go out there after lunch and spend the whole time until we went to the Preedy's for dinner just finding people. So we biked out there, parked up the bikes, and just started walking and knocking on every single door that we walked past, just like Elder Metekingi and I had done the week before. We had about 3 hours to tract before we were going to head over to the Preedy's and in the first two hours we got nothing but one person that said she would like to have us back for a chat, but she also said that her husband wasn't going to be very keen on the idea, so we'll see how that goes. But after two hours of tracting is when the miracle happened. We had about 3 houses left on this one street and then we were going to start making our way back towards the bikes to leave for the Preedy's. So it wasn't looking too good really. So we went to knock on this house and we got let it! It was absolutely amazing. We went in, had a chat with this awesome South African family named the Erwees, stayed there for about 45 minutes just talking about our different beliefs and that, and when we had to go they invited over for dinner next week. It's not very often that you get a dinner appointment that comes from knocking on doors. They were the nicest family that I've met in ages. Probably has something to do with the fact that they're South African. South Africans are always the nicest people. It turns out that before they moved over from South Africa, they were having missionaries over and all that and got really close to them and even came to church with them a couple of times. But ever since they moved over here 5 years ago, they haven't really gotten in contact with any missionaries or anything like that. I'm so excited to go back there this Friday. I think if they have potential to become my favourite family in Western Australia, even though they're not even members..... yet! I would love to see them get baptised, but if it does happen, it's probably not going to be in my time in Kwinana. We'll see what happens with them though. They have 2 children, and their son is the same age as me, I can't remember his first name though.
So finding the Erwees was by far the highlight of the week. We've just had such great success in finding lately, it's been amazing. When we did our weekly planning this week, we had like 10 investigators to plan for which is about 9 more than we had when Elder Shobbrook got into the area. I don't know what we're doing differently, but whatever it's doing, it's defiinitely working. Maybe it's just Elder Shobbrook's Edward-Cullen-like charm. haha who knows.
Thursday was definitely the longest day of the week. We had to drive down to Halls Head so that I could do another baptismal interview for them for a 15 year old kid named Jamie. When we got to his house though, he wasn't there. So we decided to go out to lunch and check if he was home after we ate, so we did that and he still wasn't home. At this point it was about 1:00 pm and so we decided we needed to head back to Kwinana and try again the next day. While we were driving back, the Mandurah elders called and asked us if we could come pick them up because they got a flat tire on their bikes and they knew that we were in the area. Luckily Mandurah was on the way home and we were pretty close by when they called. So we went and helped them and while we were helping them the Halls Head elders called again and told us that Jamie was home now so we should turn around and come back to do the interview. Lucky then that we did stop to help Mandurah, otherwise we would've already been home by the time they called us, or close to it at least. So we headed back to Halls Head and got there about 2:15, and finally got to go do the interview. This 15 year old kid was so on to it. He definitely knew his stuff. And I could tell that in 4 years, he's going to be an amazing missionary.
We've had lots of opportunities to do service this week which has been great. We got to help our neighbour Joe with building a fence, doing some brick laying, and digging a giant hole in his backyard for him to bury some dog poo and weeds and stuff. Luckily since there is only sand over here, we dug a massive hole in like 15 minutes. And then he even cooked us up a barbecue which was great. And he's heading off to work tomorrow back to Marble Bar. Apparently "MARBLE BAR IS THE PLACE TO BE!!!" according to Joe, but it's also apparently the hottest town in Australia, with an average of 50 degrees Celsius. Yikes. To each his own I guess.
We had a zone meeting on Friday which was nice because that gave me a break from planning a district meeting. It just meant that the zone leaders led the meeting instead of me. They did really well too. They gave us some good training on planning and tracting. It was funny because it seemed like Elder Shobbrook and I were the only ones that had any input on the stuff that they were training us on. And we were the only ones that were answering questions. At some points it seemed like we were talking more than the zone leaders were. But it was a great meeting. We had the chance to do a small testimony meeting at the end. I bore my testimony on Alma 5:40. We talk to so many people that say they don't believe in God because of all the bad things that have happened to them in their lives. If that is the case, who do they give credit to when good things happen to them? ALL good things come from God. Whether they be big or small. If it's good, it comes from God. That's why so many things that have happened to me in my life and on my mission have come from God, because I know why good things happen. It just helps me to know that there IS a God. If there was no God, there would be no good things in our lives. There's so many things to help us know that God lives and loves us, that's just one of them though.
Got a great week ahead of us. We have interviews with President tomorrow, woo! This will only be my third one with him since he got here in July. So I'm looking forward to it. Lots of good stuff happening for us here. It's a shame that it has taken me nearly 5 months in this area to see this much happening, although I guess I have had 2 baptisms in this area. I feel a transfer in my near future, but I'll know that for sure by next Saturday.
I hope that you all are staying safe and loving life... and winter. We're burning up down here, however, we DID get some rain this week. Rain in January is very uncommon down here, so it was great. Keep me updated on everything that is going on in life. I love you all!
much love,
Elder Clark Tanner
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