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View from area we tracted.
Biggest house we tracted.
Sideways trees
P-day
So funny story. Yesterday, while we were standing out in front of the chapel greeting people as they came into church and waiting for our investigators to show up, Sister Trego, our ward chorister comes out and asks if any of us Elders can play the piano. I told her that I can read music, but that's about it. She said that that will do, even if it was just the right hand alone. So just as church was starting, I found out that I was going to be playing the piano for sacrament meeting. The first two songs were terrible, I couldn't even get the right hand chords down so I just did the one finger with the melody. I think a lot of it was because I was nervous because it was just kind of thrown on me at the last minute and I can't say that I've ever played the piano in sacrament meeting before. The 3rd song (Do What Is Right) I was able to do the right hand chords on, so that sounded a bit better, and the last song I got lucky because it was "We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet" and that's one that I've been practicing heaps and can actually play it really well out of the simplified hymn book. So I was glad that I got to play that one last because then people actually thought I was somewhat decent at piano. It made me really want to pick piano back up though. I've kinda been thinking that my whole mission. I want to get a hold of a simplified hymn book of my own so I can just practice when I get free time on p-days or something like that. What was funny was that last night we went over to the Warner's house for dinner and Sister Warner was telling me about all these people in the ward that CAN play piano really well, but just choose not too for whatever reason. So I guess from now on when the 2 ward pianists aren't there, I'll probably get called on to play. Or maybe I did bad enough that they'll never ask me again haha, we'll see. So I just thought I'd share that experience with you, because I thought it was pretty funny.
This week has been quite eventful. This week was Elder Lowe's 21st birthday, my 16 month mark, and Elder Lowe's 20 month mark. But those aren't the only things that made it eventful. With transfers being this week, we found out who the new people in our zone were on Wednesday. Since Elder Ariki moved from Jandakot to Rockinghim, he stayed in the zone, so it was nice that we didn't lose him. Elder Narhwold is training a new missionary from Wellington, NZ named Elder Kinich, don't quote me on that spelling of his name though, I haven't met him yet, just heard about him. He does a good Arnold Schwarzenegger impression though. And there's a new sister in Hamilton Hill named Sister Jelley, not new to the mission, just to the area. But she's not even that new to the area, she just left that area 3 transfers ago but President decided she needed to come back. So not many changes in the zone at all. I reckon next transfer though will be pretty big.
On Wednesday we decided to do some tracting in the richest part of our area. We actually came away from it with two potential investigators so that was pretty cool. The houses in this area were massive though. And some of them, well most of them, involved a pretty big hike up the driveway. But that also meant that they had a magnificent view of the ocean. People were actually quite nice in that area, just not interested in the gospel. In the 3 or 4 hours we spent tracting in that area, we probably knocked on the amount of doors that we could do in 7 or 8 hours in a normal area. But it was worth it. Those people need the gospel too, whether they're humble yet or not, we decided we would give them the chance. The Lord is more interested in Salvation than efficiency. On Friday we decided to a tractathalon and tract from after district meeting and lunch until dark. We had a cool realisation during that time of tracting. We tracted Bishop's street and when we asked people if they knew anybody else that would be interested in hearing our message there were probably 3 or 4 people that pointed to Bishop's house and said that they were quite the religious family so they would probably listen to us. That just goes to show us how much people around us are watching us as members of the church. They watch every move we make and if they know that we're religious and see us do something that would go against being religious, then that instantly turns them off to religion. That's when you get the people that say churches are just full of hypocrites. I'm glad that I learned this lesson the way that I did. It taught me to always be aware of the things I do, because even when I think someone isn't watching, there very well could be, and that's not including the Lord. He's always watching.
We had a lot of really good experiences with our investigators this week. The appointment with the Coromandels yesterday fell through though, so that was kind of a bummer. But throughout the week we got 3 new investigators, and one of them said she would come to church. She didn't make it, but we still have hope for her. Another one of our investigators actually read the chapter in the Book of Mormon that we left for her to read! She came out with all these questions and everything. It was really cool. Even though we had such a great week with all of them though, I know that we can do better. There's ALWAYS room for improvement. Always. That's another thing I've learned, is that it's never enough. There's always more that can be done.
This being my second transfer with Elder Lowe, I know it's going to go slower than the previous transfer. That's always been the case when I've been with a companion for more than one transfer. I don't know why it is, but it is. But we're still working hard. We're starting to see the fruit of our labours. I came to a realisation the other day and that is that you can't baptise people if you don't invite people to be baptised. I haven't invited anyone over the past 2 months and haven't baptised anyone over the past two months, so I'm going to get on that. We taught twice as many lessons this week as we did last week, but last week was our 25 hour tracting week, so that's understandable. Although, I'd reckon we did about 10 hours this week and only 18.5 last week. So major improvements and major blessings.
Well that's about it for this week. I hope you all are enjoying life and enjoying the gospel. I love you all! You're in my prayers! Stay safe!
Much love,
Elder Tanner
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