Well transfer calls came this weekend, and I'm continuing my stint in Baldivis Ward. I told Bishop Chessel that Elder Lowe was getting transferred but I wasn't and he just laughed. I don't think he actually believed us at first. This will be my 7th consecutive transfer in this ward. By the end of it, I'll be 10 days short of spending 10 months in it. I love it though. There's probably not another ward out there in WA that I would love spending nearly half of my mission in. The people here are great. It's getting to that point where people really can't believe that I'm still here. Because last year, Elder Nymeyer spent 6 transfers in the ward, and they all say that was a long time. But I'm going on 7. NEW RECORD! But yeah, I love the people in this ward. If I ever do come back for a holiday or what have you, I know which ward I'll be visiting, that's for sure.
This week has been busy as! I forgot to bring my planner today for some reason, so I probably won't be able to remember all of the details from the week, but I'll be able to give you a pretty good idea of how hectic it has been. The first exciting thing that we did this week was go on an exchange with the APs. That was Tuesday night til Wednesday night. I got to go with Elder Semu, who is a great missionary. I've been on an exchange with him before, but a lot has changed since then, that was nearly a year ago, when I was in Noranda. We had a really good day together. Did lots of driving too. In the morning we went to Kwinana to do morning exercise with them. Then for companionship study at 9 we went down to Mandurah to do comp study with them. And then he had to go to the Halls Head flat to have a look at it and make sure that it was ready for some missionaries to move in. There hasn't been missionaries there since I was a district leader 3 months ago or so. So I'm assuming that with the upcoming transfer they're going to be putting some missionaries back in there. They also used it as a temporary home for some missionaries that came out of country areas for transfer meeting this week. So yeah, that took up most of our morning, except for this awesome lesson that we had with a new investigator named Tutu. He's from Africa, and he goes to church up in Balga, which is in my first area, which makes sense because of the large amount of Africans in that area. He told us that he had a basketball scholarship to play at a university in California, (he couldn't remember which one, probably just a small college), but he gave it up because he had a girlfriend at the time that make him choose her or the scholarship. He fully regrets it now and wishes he could be in America playing ball. He's only 20, so he says he's going to work really hard to get that scholarship back. I hope that goes well for him. What a great opportunity that would be for him. Coming out of Uganda to Australia, learning about the sport of basketball, and then becoming good enough to play in America. The lesson that we had with him was great too. We taught him the restoration in it's entirety. We asked him if he had a Bible around to read along with us, and he left the room for a good 5 minutes and you could tell he was looking for it. When he came back he was holding an old dusty Book of Mormon. Haha surprise! He didn't have any idea where it came from or what it even was. What a great teaching opportunity! At the end of the lesson we got him to offer a kneeling prayer which he did beautifully. He thanked God "for sending two men of God to teach me the truth", he prayed that he would be able to know the same things that Joseph Smith knew, and he said "I hope that I can know the truth". It was a terrific prayer from a new investigator. And he told us that he was going to start reading the Book of Mormon that night. We're seeing him again on Wednesday, with my new companion, whoever that may be. Pray that he kept his commitment to read and pray about the Book of Mormon!
The rest of the week has involved a lot of running around as well. On Thursday, we went to the Hamilton Hill area to go tracting with them and to give them some supplies that they needed. They were out of Book of Mormons. That took up a pretty big chunk of the day, but it was worth while. I love serving anyone I can, and that goes under serving the missionaries in the zone. We did the same thing on Friday with the Elders that were temporarily staying in Halls Head. Turned out that Elder Neibaur was actually one of the Elders temporarily staying down there, so I got to go tracting with him. He was my MTC companion for those who don't remember. It took us 17 months, but we finally got to work together, for about 2 hours haha. It was good though. He's become a great missionary. He has served the last nine months down in Albany, so he's been kind of exiled. I think he's happy to be back in the city.
Saturday was a busy-ish day. In the morning we went to go do some service with the Rockingham Elders helping out with tearing a rock wall down with sledgies! Good fun. Then we had lunch with one of my favourite families, the Thomas'. They're less active, which is sad, but they're awesome. Hopefully my new companion can motivate them enough to come back to church. They were coming when I first got in the ward 8 months ago, he even received the Melchizedek Priesthood in September, but since then became less active. We had a good time with them though. We shared the story with them about the gardener and the currant bush and how sometimes we go through trials so that we can realise our full potential. Saturday evening we had a ward activity, which wasn't too bad, it was in a park and there was food, but no investigators came. We weren't too bummed about that, because it was more for kids anyways. It was like an Easter activity. After the activity was pretty sad though because we went to go visit Angela. She lost her son this week to a biking accident. She's going through a really hard time, not only with the loss of her son, but her son's father won't put aside their differences for one day in memory of their son, so he's holding a separate funeral for him, and that's taken a pretty big hit on Angela. So we just went over to let her talk to us and took some time to read some comforting scriptures to her. Namely D&C 137. So we did all we could to help her out. She said she's just holding on at the moment. But she was definitely in a better mood when we left. So that was good.
Well that's about it for this week. I'll be sure to tell you all about my new companion next week. I'll be going to transfer meeting on Wednesday to find out who it is. I'm praying for Elder Tou! That would make my life.
Well talk to you all soon! Less than a month until Mother's Day!
Much love,
Elder Tanner
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