So today is day one of week six of this transfer, which means we will be finding out about transfers this Saturday. I'm pretty excited either way. I have been in this area for almost 6 months now and I really wouldn't mind staying for another six weeks. I'm really starting to love it here. There are so many good things happening for us right now, it's amazing. I actually think I'll be pretty bummed if I get transferred because then I won't get to see the progress that some of the people we're working with right now are going to make. The way that this transfer has progressed has been really exciting. We started it off with a baptism, then we were left with practically nothing, so we then had to find find find find. And since we did so much finding we were able to start having some solid teaching happening, and then we've seen those that we are teaching start to progress. And that's why it will be a bummer to get transferred because those that we have found through tracting that are progressing haven't really made huge progression yet, but I know they will. Especially this one lady we found named Jenna. She was going to come to church yesterday, but she had other things come up. But I can tell that she really did have a desire to come. Because she made sure that we were still going to be coming around on Tuesday to teach her. I really hope to hear good things about her in the future, whether I get transferred soon or not. I'm really hoping that if I get transferred I don't go too far. I think there's gong to be lots of changes happening in the mission this transfer because of the large amount of people that are going home, it's like 9 or something. I think if I get transferred I could go anywhere from Karratha or Port Hedland down to Bunbury or Albany, so pretty much anywhere in the state. I really want to stay close by though. I love it here in the Rockingham zone. It's just far enough away from the city to be away from all the hustle and bustle that happens in the city, but still close enough to be considered a city zone so we still get to do all the things that only city zones get to do, such as go to the temple, (which we are doing this week! hooray!). But enough about transfers, I'm getting ahead of myself.
This week has been terrifical. We've taught more lessons overall this week than we have any other week this transfer. Probably any other week the whole time I've been in Kwinana to tell you the truth. We saw and taught 18 people/families. Suprisingly enough, only 5 of those were active families, the rest were investigators and less actives. If we had heaps of active families in our area, we would've been able to teach easily another 5 more lessons than what we did this week. It was so exciting to teach that many lessons. We didn't reach our goal though for the week which means we can still stretch ourselves further. Yesterday after we had our dinner appointment and taught a great family home evening lesson at the Cook Islander's house, we needed to teach two more lessons to reach our goal. We tried our best though and we felt happy with what we did achieve.
On Tuesday we had interviews with President Cahoon. My interview was a lot shorter than I thought it would be, but it was good. He told me that he really appreciated the experiences that I shared with him in my weekly emails to him. I told him all about our experience of finding the Erwees, which I will talk about more in just a minute. A lot of missionaries don't share experiences like that he said so he was pleased with that. I thought that since this was my first interview as a district leader he was going to ask me a lot of questions but all he asked was how my district was going, and that was about it. I think he must have been rushing though because he had only interviewed about 5 people and the meeting was almost over by that time. He probably already knows a lot of what's going on though, especially since I always write such detailed letters to him. He is a great mission president. It's becoming very natural for him now that he's been here for about 7 months. I think everybody loves him and the changes that he has made to this mission.
On Thursday I got the opportunity to go on exchange in the Zone Leaders' area for a day. That was way fun, for many reasons. We got to teach 6 lessons that day which is way good, especially since I'm used to getting only 3 or 4 in a day on average. I think a large contributor to that though was the size of their area as well as the fact that we were driving all day. After being on the bikes all day every day and then riding in the car for a whole day, it just didn't feel right. I wanted to be back on the bikes, but then we wouldn't have been able to see as many people as we did. I guess it was just weird to me that the only finding we did was the 90 minutes of tracting that we did before lunch. I'm used to finding everywhere I go. Just being out on the bikes and talking to everybody. It was really fun to get to be in their area though. We got to see some of the members in our ward that I usually don't get to see because they're not in my area, so that was good. And we got a MASSIVE feed from Brother Bates, who is also a Cook Islander. I could not believe the amount of food that was on the table and only two plates set out. This would've been enough food to feed a family of 6... or more. It was such a great feed. the only problem was the fact that we didn't get to bike it all off afterwards, just back in the car haha. But it was great. Elder Garrard was inspired to share a message with them about temples and then brother Bates told us that their goal for the year was to get to the temple. I don't know how long they've been members of the church, but they haven't been to the temple to get sealed, so it was really good that we taught them a bit about temples and the blessing therein.
Friday was the highlight of the week I think. That was the day that we saw the Erwees again. The kids weren't there but we stayed for about 2 hours just talking to Adell and Hennie. She made one of the best curries that I have had on my mission. It was divine. And we had some really god conversation with them. They told us a lot about South Africa and why they left it. They actually got their Australian citizenship last year, and they said that they were better off now without the South African citizenship. they didn't even get dual citizenship. They said that the government over there is just so messed up, they feel safer not having that citizenship anymore. We talked about so many things with them though. She told us that if we ever just felt like a nice home cooked meal to just give her a call, so I'll definitely be seeing them again this week. I've definitely found another home away from home, and I think this may be my favourite one so far.
That night I stacked it on my bike pretty good, aka crashed on my bike. But I was definitely protected, mostly by my name tag. If I had crashed like that and not been a missionary, I probably would've been a lot more hurt. But it was all good. It's just a shame that I have to get a new name tag, I was hoping to go all the way through my mission with my MTC one. Oh well.
Yesterday we had a mission fast for our baptismal goal for the year of 2011. They want us to feel more accountable for the goals that we set so this was a good way to do that. We each individually fasted for help in achieving our individual baptism goals for this year. And so that way we would be accountable for that number since we fasted about it. So looking forward to heaps of baptisms this year.
Well, I must away. Today is Elder Garrard's (our zone leader) last P-day so we're going to go throw a party for him, and he's shouting us lunch haha. Next week I'll have transfer info for you, if there is any, but until then, I love you all. Have a great week. Read the scriptures. Pray. Ask. 2 Nephi 32:4. That's my spiritual thought for the week. If you can't understand something in the scriptures, it's because you're not praying about it. SO TRUE!
Much love,
Elder Tanner
ps. hope you got the pictures that I sent, and enjoyed them!
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