Ups and Downs

Wow. This week has been "chalk-o-blok" full of ups and downs. Not major ups or downs, just the normal ups and downs of missionary work. Nothing to literally get down about though. The ups always outweigh the downs anyways. Some of the best ups about this week would definitely have to be finding our new investigator Marion, getting in touch with Monique again (the lady that we did service for that one time a few weeks back), the barbi that we had on Saturday night, as well as the volleyball, that most of the active members in the branch attended, having one of our less actives that we have been working with keep his commitment to read the Book of Mormon, and dinner at the Clarke's, which is always a highlight of Sunday nights. So yeah, I won't really go into the downs of the week, because they're not as exciting. Really, now that I think of it, there weren't many downs this week. The only ones that I can remember were having appointments fall through. That's something that happens so regularly that it doesn't really affect me. I just write down the person's name to go try them again the next day or later in the week or something. So all in all, this week has been all ups for me.

So going back to some of the highlights of this week, where to begin. I'll begin with Marion. I found Marion 2 weeks ago while tracting with Teancum Clarke on splits. We weren't really able to set a return appointment with him or anything when we met him, but he said he would be interested in hearing anything that came from the word of God. So we felt impressed to see him on Wednesday this week and the lesson we had with him was spectacular. And we taught him again yesterday as well. Between Wednesday and Sunday he had already kept his commitment to read the Book of Mormon, but hasn't prayed about it yet. After teaching the first lesson he said that he recognised the feeling of the holy ghost and he really like it when we explained the apostasy especially when we used the analogy of a broken mirror. That analogy really stuck with him and he said it made him feel really good inside because it answered some questions for him. Marion is a really great man. He's a catholic and has been for his whole life. He has lots of humility, charity, and love. He is working over here while his family is back in the Philippines. Apparently in the Philippines the only jobs he can really get only pay about 30 dollars a day, whereas here in Karratha he can drive a forklift for 35 dollars an hour. And 2,000 Aussie dollars equals about 70,000 Filipino pesos. He pretty much just pays his rent and his bills for the place that he's staying here as well as buying food and then just sends the rest of his money home to his wife and 2 kids. And anytime anyone back home asks him for money, he's always willing to give it. He told us that he can't not give, because he just gets a feeling in his heart that tells him that he needs to be giving. Of course we know what that feeling is. We're looking forward to this week because we're setting up a lesson to have Sister Weeks come with us to a lesson since she is Filipino herself and has one of the strongest testimonies in the branch. I pray that good things lie ahead for us with Marion.

We finally got in touch with Monique again. If you don't remember we found her by walking past her house while she was weeding her yard and we offered to help and did her whole yard while still wearing our white shirts and ties. She was very grateful for that but then we kind of lost contact with her for about a month because she went out of town and when she got back we tried to go over and visit but her husband, Peter, came to the door and just said it wasn't a good time. We kind of took that as a rejection and thought we would kind of lay off for a couple of weeks. Well we decided it was time to go see her again this Tuesday and it was inspired. She asked us if we could help her move some furniture on Thursday because he husband was going to be at work and she wouldn't be able to do it on her own. So we organised for Mick Halls to come along and help us out and so we got another chance to serve her. Peter called us from work and asked what he could do to pay us and he just thanked us and all that. So that was cool, to know that he's not standoffish either. Apparently one of the members, Brother Van As, overheard him talking on the phone to us at work and told him that he knew us and that he went to church with us and told him a bit more about who we were. He said he described us as "disciples of Jesus". That was such a great experience. Even better than the last experience that we had with her. We invited them both to church again as well as to the barbi on Saturday, but they didn't come, but we're going to definitely stick with it now.

The barbi was great. All of the people that came were the Ottos, the Pilkingtons, Rachel and Sara Seuga, the Garepos, Sister Weeks, the Halls, Teancum and Ethan Clarke, Sister Alvarez (a less active member), and President and Sister Shepherd from the mission presidency were even in town and they came along. It was a super night. Lots of volleyball and lots of food. Our investigator Carlo came as well so we shared a message at the end of the night about gratitude and had everyone go around and say one thing that they are grateful for. So we left that spiritually and physically full, as well as physically ready to have a sleep.

At the Clarke's house last night we watched episode 1 of Preach My Gospel DVDs season 2 and then had a discussion about missionary work. I've watched these DVDs with people before but never have I seen people get so into it. Teancum is like a movie critic and he's sort of preparing for a mission, so he had lots of comments about the movie. It was fun to see them all getting into the DVD. We really felt the spirit and I think it really increased their desire to do missionary work, which is our goal for this branch. We've come up with a cool idea that we're going to start putting together today. We took a picture of our name badges and we're going to get it printed with the words "Will you pray for us by name?" on it and chuck a fridge magnet on it. Then we're going to share Alma's prayer in Alma 31:26-35 when he prays for his fellow servants by name and then prays that they may all have success in bringing people unto Christ. I'm pretty stoked about this idea, and I wish I would have thought of it sooner.

Well my time is far spent on the computer. We have a busy day today organising that lesson as well as getting our flat ready for a flat inspection, which is never fun.

I love you all, Talk to you soon!

Much love,

Elder Tanner
--

Send a letter to:

Elder Clark Tanner

4/170 Withnell Way

Bulgarra, WA 6714

Australia

Wundiwa! My name is Yumbalin Tanner!

Translation: Hello! My name is Elder Tanner! The spellings are probably way off, but that's from the local Aboriginal language. I think it's called Inja Bandi or something like that. But we've pretty much gotten to know almost all of the Inja Bandi people in Karratha so we've been picking up on some of their language. None of them know how to spell anything from their language though so I just have to give it my best guess. This week we had a dinner appointment out in Robourne, which is 40 kms away for those that don't remember, with Sister O'Conner which was good as it always is, but beforehand we were going to go out to Wickham again to see Sister Lim and do some tracting. But Sister Lim texted us and said she was too busy so we were just left with tracting. On the way out there, there's this small Aboriginal community that we always pass called the Cheeditha Community. It has a total of about 14 houses. Everybody in the community is related to each other. They can all just walk in and out of each others houses freely. The Aboriginal culture is really an interesting one, and kind of a sad one when you look at it from some points. Nobody ever cleans anything. When we went to each house we asked everybody to come outside so we could teach them rather than going inside. So with 14 houses, we spent about 2 and a half hours there. Everyone would have let us teach them, but we just had to use our best judgment on whether or not we taught them. Even though it's meant to be an alcohol free community, they still sneak it in. And their chairman or the head of the community wasn't there at the time we went so there was nobody to enforce the rules. We really did meet some great people there though. We met a lady that is related to some of the less active people that we're working with in town, (which I guess means they're all related the less active people we're working with), but she seemed to know them better. We met an old man named Jake Samson, who must be related to one of our investigators in town named Lovina, but this experience with Jake was an interesting one. We walked up to the house, after someone told us that nobody lives there, and it definitely looked like nobody lived there but we thought we would go check anyways. We knocked on the door, which was open, and looked inside and this old man was sitting there at a table just smoking. He looked like he hadn't had a haircut or a shave in years. We began to ask him questions but he didn't even look at us, let alone speak to us. We proceeded to teach him because we knew he could feel the spirit when we walked in. While we were teaching him, he shed a couple of tears. We mainly taught him about the love of God because that seemed like something that he needed to hear. The only thing that he told us was his name, which was a blessing. We think that every time we go out to Robourne from now on we might stop in at this community just to say hello. And possibly teach some of them again. It was such a great experience. I really love these people. And even if they're not ever going to progress in the gospel, it brings me joy when I can serve them and help them feel the love that God has for them.

The rest of this week has been pretty great. We had a dinner appointment every night this week except for Wednesday. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday's dinners were the best. Friday because it was with the Seugas and they cook up a mean islander feed with chop suey and all. I love that kind of food. We had a good time with them as well. We shared a message about the Liahona and how we all need to figure out what our Liahona is in our lives. Saturday and Sunday were both family home evenings. Saturday was at Sister Weeks' house and Sunday was at the Clarke's house. There was a lot of people at both of them. And fun was had by all. For some reason pictionary seemed to be the game to play this weekend because we played it at both of them. Brother Clarke shared a great lesson as well. He used an object lesson with two oranges and put one in the water and it floated and for the second one he had us all name a different sin and for each sin he tore off a piece of the skin from the orange and when all the skin was off he put it in the water and it no longer floated. It was a cool object lesson and definitely one that I'm going to have to use. I really love this branch, everyone in it. Now that Elder Naruo and I are no longer the Exec Sec and the Clerk, we've been teaching a lot. Taught Elder's Quorum last week, aaronic priesthood this week, it's been really good. We handballed teaching gospel principles over to one of our branch missionaries, and it's great to have that kind of support. I think this is the first branch/ward I've ever had with branch/ward missionaries. I never knew how great it was to have them. Going on splits each week is great.

I love this mission. THIS IS A GREAT MISSION! I can't believe how quickly my time here is winding down. I love the people here. LOVE them!

I love you all. Talk to you soon! Always seek to become an unprofitable servant. Mosiah 2:21-24

Much Love,

Elder Tanner

Karratha - Week 6

So what can I say about this week. It's actually been a pretty normal week. I guess it just depends on your definition of normal though. Nobody got sick this week, there were now special trips or special meetings or anything like that, just a normal week of biking around Karratha sharing the gospel. We did have a good experience this past Saturday with a barbi and volleyball at the chapel, but we didn't have any investigators come along to that unfortunately so it was just a fun night.

It seems like we're really getting to know the Aboriginal community here in Karratha since we've been using the bikes more. Aboriginal people like to go on a lot of walk-abouts so when you're out on the bikes you're bound to talk to a couple of them and they're always more than happy to have you come over and share "the good word" with them. And when we go over to their houses the next day or later that week, they always sit down and listen to us teach. They're a very friendly and very teachable people. When we ask if they know anyone we could go share this message with they usually give us about 3 or 4 referrals, all family members, and their family members are usually just as teachable. The only problem is though just trying to help them keep commitments. They're happy to learn, but not so much to act. A lot of the times they don't even keep their appointment, you just have to catch them when you catch them. It's amazing how easy it is becoming to love these people though. They live really rough lives some of them and most of the time it's just because that's how they're brought up and they don't really know any different. We're organising with the local bakery to start doing a bread run and delivering all of their left over bread to some of these less fortunate people that we've been meeting lately. One guy that we met this week was just the greatest. He started crying during our opening prayer. We've never taught this guy a single thing before but he just started crying and telling us about how he wanted to get his life back in order when his wife gets out of gaol (Aussie spelling for jail) this week. He was a really great man. And I really hope that we can help him. This past Saturday we did service for this Aboriginal lady from 10:30-11:30 and then from 2:30-4:30 helping clean up the yard, and from 11:30-2:30 we were helping this family move. I really learned a lot that day about what it really means to be an unprofitable servant. Our Branch Mission Leader who lent us the whipper snipper, or weed whacker if you want to call it that, asked us if the aboriginal lady helped us or not and we told him that she didn't and he really felt like she should have at least helped a little bit. But I really enjoyed doing that service for her, whether she helped us or not, because I know that I was in the service of God in doing that and to be an unprofitable servant means just that, to expect nothing in return except for the blessings of serving God.

Teaching heaps of Aboriginal people pretty much sums up my week this week. Yesterday we watched the new Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration movie online with some members at the chapel after church. If you haven't seen that movie yet, I recommend you watch it... tonight!

http://mormonchannel.org/joseph?lang=eng

I love that movie, and anything about church history really. I really like the new ending they added on to this new version of the movie. It's just great. Also on Sunday I got to teach Gospel Principles AND Elders Quorum. Only one of which I knew I would be teaching ahead of time, which was elders quorum. I taught a really great lesson on missionary work and people were actually involved in the lesson. It's hard to get people involved in Elders quorum I've discovered over time. I guess each one is different though. For gospel principles we actually had a less active member rock up and bring his nephews as well so we got to teach him in gospel principles but the only thing is that our branch mission leader wasn't able to teach it because he still hasn't been released from his calling in primary. Gotta love a small branch! That lesson was on Our Heavenly Family, but we basically just turned it into a Plan of Salvation lesson. So it went alright.

That's about me for this week, like I said, not a whole lot out of the ordinary this week. Transfer calls happened. Elder Naruo is staying in Karratha with me for another 6 weeks at least. We did find out that we are going to have to drive up to Port Hedland again this week because one of the missionaries is getting transferred up there so we have to go stay with the one that isn't getting transferred for a day or two until he gets his new companion who is going to be a brand new missionary which is why the day or two wait. But that missionary is getting born straight into the refiners fire, so he's probably going to be a great missionary some day. It's just too bad I won't be able to see that, seeing as how I only have 3 transfers left now. For those of you that don't know how long that is, it's about 18 weeks.

So I'll talk to you all soon! Love yas! Have a great week!

Elder Tanner

Road Trip!

This week has been amazing! We've done all sorts of things this week. It's actually been pretty different from a normal proselytizing week. We taught seminary, took a road trip to Port Hedland, and helped make a hangi, which is a traditional Maori meal which can feed heaps of people. I'll get back to that though.

Tuesday morning we had to teach seminary which was actually a pretty neat experience. The seminary class consists of 2 kids, and only one of them came. The one that came actually had no choice really because seminary is held at his house. Teaching seminary was a lot different from the kind of teaching that I'm used to. For one thing, it's very early, and not only do you have to teach while you're still trying to wake up, but you have to teach students who aren't awake themselves. I really feel for my seminary teachers I had growing up now. That's a tough job. Hopefully it wasn't practice for future callings haha. It was a good experience though, and I'm glad I got to do that. Not many missionaries can say that their first and last lessons of the day were 13 hours apart. There's a lot of small things like that that we get to do in a small branch when somebody has to go out of town. More blessings for us!

So that was on Tuesday and between that and Friday, the week seemed to go really slow, because we were really excited to go to Port Hedland on Friday. On Wednesday we did have a great experience that was a big testimony builder for me. We had planned to go visit this less active couple at 11 am, which was odd because we know that they both work 10-12 hour shifts 6-7 days a week. But we just felt inspired to plan for them at that time. So when we rocked up at about 11:30 (we were running a bit late), we knocked on the caravan door and Faith comes to the door. Ironic name, aye? She told us that she had just quit her job last night and she had just finished crying that morning because she didn't really want to quit, but she had to. She told us that every time things seem to be going wrong in their lives, the Elders rock up. She has a lot of respect for elders as well because she served a mission and she knows what it's like sometimes. We sat down outside and had a chat with her for about an hour and a half. She knows she needs to go to church, but her husband (also an RM) had a bad experience with the members up here, so that's what's holding them back. She even gave us her phone number and asked us not to give it to anybody in the branch, but we could call anytime and come over for a feed and also to bring the spirit into their caravan that they live in. It would be tough to be in their situation. I know she has a testimony, don't know about him since I haven't met him, but she does, and she wants to go to church, but she can't just go to a different ward up here, it's Karratha Branch or nothing. Hopefully we can work with them and help them see past whatever happened. They would be a great help to this branch.

Funny story from this week. We were teaching an investigator outside her house on Thursday and the cops rocked up and took her away, in the middle of the lesson. that was definitely a first on the mission, and quite unexpected. We saw her again yesterday though and she said that it was all good and they got everything sorted down at the station that day.

So our trip to Port Hedland. It was great. On friday before heading up, we stopped in Roebourne about 40 kms from Karratha to help set up for a Naidoc day celebration which is like an Aboriginal equality celebration thing. It was run by a bunch of Maoris so of course we got roped into it by Sister Clarke. We helped set up this fence around a field and also clean up the rubbish on the field and set up some tents and that. That's where the preparing a hangi comes in as well. They made something like 300-400 hangis, which is a heck of a lot of food. They're cooked in foil, but not by coals, but by steam in kegs. They're delicious. but we didn't get to stick around to eat one, because we had to shoot off to Hedland. Port Hedland is about 232 kms from Karratha. Because it was the beginning of the month we decided to use the kms on the car and then we can bike as much as we need to the rest of the month. It's one of the beauties of being a district leader up here. My district spans nearly 1000 kilometres. So we went up so that I could go on exchange with the elders up there and also so that we could have a district meeting. It was a great weekend. On Friday I spent a few hours with Elder Cummings, who was in my district down in Rockingham as well, so we had a good time together. And since we have a car and they don't, they wanted to go visit some of the people in their branch, less-actives and that, that lived 15-20 kms away in Port Hedland (they live in South Hedland). So that's what we spent most of the time doing with them. On Saturday we had district meeting and I gave training on receiving revelation through the Book of Mormon and how we should use it in our teaching more often. Then I went on exchange with Elder Robertson. He's been on his mission for 6 months and has never served down in Perth. He's from Meridian Idaho. I really enjoyed getting to know him and seeing how great a missionary he already is after only 6 months. It seems like this new generation of missionaries coming in nowadays are so much more prepared. I think they must be making changes in the MTC or maybe it's because the older missionaries are training them so well ;) haha. All in all though, the trip was great. We had to rush back for an FHE at our branch mission leaders house that we had an investigator at. We actually didn't end up leaving until about 3:45 because we got held up in a lesson. So we were a bit late for the FHE, but it was worth it for the trip. It was great just to see other missionaries again.

This branch is really great. We attended Branch council yesterday and everyone is really keen to help us grow the branch. President Pilkington is going to give our investigator, Carlo, a calling, because he's pretty much active. I didn't know that nonmembers could have callings until I came on my mission, but then I learned about how much it can help people feel important when they come to church. They'll probably call him as an usher. It's pretty exciting.

Well gotta run. Hope yous enjoy your week! Love you all!

Elder Tanner

ps. "BROTHER, I'M COMMITTED"