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!
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
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