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
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