Wow, have I got a lot to talk about this week. As I said last week, my time in Baldivis ward came to an end. Saying goodbyes on Monday and Tuesday made for a busy day, I don't think I even got to see everyone that I wanted to, but it was good. I got pictures with most of the families that I went to see one last time. I think I took about 50 pictures just in those two days. Tuesday night was a late night because of packing. I hadn't started until then because we were simply just too busy. But we headed up to transfer meeting first thing Wednesday morning after having our photos professionally taken for the newspaper article that Elder Hodgkiss and I are going to be in. I'm hopefully going to get those photos emailed to me, and Elder Hodgkiss is going to mail me some copies of the newspaper when they come out, so don't worry, you'll get to see it.
Transfer meeting was great. My name was the first one to get read off for where I was going because they always start with the northern-most district leader when reading out the transfers. I'm no longer a zone leader, which is sad because I really loved it, but I'm OK with that because I'm now in KARRATHA! You may need to get on to Google Earth to learn about where it is. Let's just say... the airplane food tasted great! It was about a 2 hour flight north with my new companion Elder Naruo. He's already been in Karratha for 3 months, but his companion has just gone home so he came down to Perth to get me. We didn't leave until Thursday so we spent Wednesday night with the Warwick Zone Leaders Elder Ziesel and Elder Metekingi. That was a good night. I had to re-pack my bags though because your bag is only allowed to weigh 23 kgs. So I had to leave a lot of stuff down in Perth, but it will be kept at the APs flat so I can grab it when I come back down, or at the end of my mission. It wasn't too big of a deal though because most of the stuff that I left behind was my warm clothes that I won't really need up here, like long shirts, sweaters, jackets, jeans, and rain coats. I had to leave all my pictures and letters that I've saved up over my mission as well, because the stuff that I did need to bring up here just barely made weight, about 22.8 kgs I think. The bag that I left at the APs flat was about 40 kgs haha.
Elder Naruo is a great guy from what I know of him so far from our past 5 days together. He has the most humility and love I've ever seen from a missionary. He's from Guam and he's the only member in his family. He's been a member since 2008. He lived a rough life growing up, grew up on the streets basically, but the church was able to change that all for him. He has a strong, yet simple testimony. His testimony is purely that he knows the Book of Mormon is true and that that means that the church is true. He loves learning. We're going to have a great transfer together. He has a strong desire to be obedient and consecrated. We have a vision to baptise, which hasn't been done in Karratha in over a year and a half I believe.
Anyways, Karratha is great. It is a lot warmer up here. I remember getting off the plane and feeling like I had just stepped back into summer. I don't think I was quite prepared for that. Especially with how cold and rainy it had been getting in Perth, coming up here was a big difference. Overall, it's all a big difference in general. It's a lot different serving in a branch rather than a ward. We had about 35 people at church on Sunday and I had already met them between Thursday and Sunday anyways. The chapel itself is pretty small, but the people here are quite blessed to even have a chapel. Our branch boundaries technically go all the way out to a town called Tom Price and then way over to Exmouth, because we have the records of the members that live in those areas, but the people that come to church are mostly all local. I believe that there is a family in Tom Price though that has their own sacrament meeting get together with just the four of them. That's what I've been told anyways. I'd imagine it would be pretty hard not being able to attend church each week. Or the temple for that matter. I was reminded of President Monson's conference talk where he said that 85% of the church membership lives within 200 miles of a temple, well I am now included in that 15% of church membership that doesn't live within 200 miles of a temple. It must be tough for the active strong members up here to only be able to attend the temple once a year if they're lucky. Most people that live in this town though only live here because of the work. There's lots of money to be made here in Karratha, thus making everything more expensive. Most people either work for one of two companies, Woodside or Rio Tinto. So a lot of them do have the money to go to the temple probably annually or semi-annually, I just don't know if they do. A lot of people even have to fly down to Perth pretty regularly for work and that.
That's going to be one thing that I miss about the city, is all the meetings that we got to go to, especially as zone leaders. It was weird flying up here, I had the same kind of feeling that I had leaving home. Kind of like a homesick feeling, but it was Perth, especially Baldivis ward, that I was missing. That ward became a part of me. It has made it a bit difficult to adjust to everything up here, missing Perth, but I know that I'll grow to love Karratha as well. If this is what it feels like when I leave the mission field, which I imagine it is, then I'm really going to miss my mission when it comes to getting on that plane in 5 months, but until then, I'm going to serve the Lord with all my heart, might, mind, and strength. The one meeting that I will have regularly up here, being church, was really good on Sunday. It looks like I might be the backup branch pianist, because the only person that plays is only semi active, but when she does come, I'm going to make sure she plays the piano so she can feel like she has a purpose in being there. But I'm also the Branch Executive Secretary for the time being. It's hard to not confuse my responsibilities of missionary work and exec. sec. work, but I'm learning. We have a branch conference in two weeks where President Cahoon will be coming up and there will hopefully be somebody to actually be exec sec, but just about everybody that is active right now already has a calling, so it will be interesting to see what happens. We had Family Home Evening with an investigator last night at the Relief Societies President's house and also present were the Branch President, Primary President, and Elder's Quorum President, it was basically like a branch activity! It's going to be really easy to love this branch because of how close everybody is and how often we're going to get to work with them. President Pilkington, the Branch President is a really good guy. He's young, and has a strong testimony and determination to lead this branch. It seems like he and I have a lot in common as well, which is good because he hasn't had a good history of liking the missionaries up here until as of late, so I have to build on that relationship.
Country life is a lot slower than city life, so it takes some getting used to, but I'm going to like it I can tell. We get a lot of service opportunities as there's a lot of people in need as well as lots of community service opportunites. That's going to be our best way to try to find people to teach, through our service.
I've met a lot of really good, humble people out here so far. There's this part member family that lives between Karratha and Roebourne, aka the middle of nowhere outback, that has the most humble living arrangements ever. They live on a generator for electricity and their own dam for water. They live in two shipping containers, one with the kitchen and bathroom, the other with the bedroom. Yet they're content. Another man that I've grown to love already is Brother Alverez. He's going through a really hard divorce right now, uses the chapel bathroom and toilet for showering and stuff when he's not at work, sleeps in his car, but he's got one of the strongest testimonies of anyone I've met on my mission. His family has been in the church for 5 or 6 generations and he's from Tahiti. When he's not working or sleeping, he usually does his home teaching with President Pilkington or goes teaching with us. My heart is filled with compassion towards that man.
I'm loving life right now. For those that want to write to me (which I hope is all of you), notice my new postal address. You could still write to the old PO box, but then the mission office has to forward it through to me up here, so it would probably be quicker to just send it straight to me. And I'll probably be here for the rest of my mission, so no need to worry about me getting transferred and then not getting the mail. And if you've sent anything to the PO Box within the past couple of weeks, I'll still get it, but from now on, just use the new address if you want stuff to get to me quicker.
I love you all! Stay strong! Go to the temple!
Much love,
Elder Tanner
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Send a letter to:
Elder Clark Tanner
4/170 Withnell Way
Bulgarra, WA 6714
Australia
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