Perth Trip! NEW Companion!

Wowzers! This week has been awesome. We ended up leaving for Perth on Tuesday morning, so we didn't really get a whole lot of time to do much before we left. Luckily Elder Naruo said all of his goodbyes before then, so we just packed up on Monday night and shot off Tuesday morning. Monday night was fun though. We had dinner with Monique and her husband Peter. We had a really good time with them and we could really feel their love for us for everything that we've done for them. We did get a surprise. They told us of their desire to quit smoking. They said they feel like they would just be happier without that ball and chain in their life. We told them that we would love to help them do that and that we have a program that will help them. They were more than willing to accept that and to try out that program. Especially Peter, who I though would be the less receptive one, he was keen as. He just told us to bring it over and he'd love to do it. So maybe that will be happening this week as well. It's funny how when you do that program with one person (or plan on doing it), 3 or 4 more people come out and say they want to quit smoking as well. So we're happy to see progress there.

So now I need to tell you about my Perth trip and my new companion. Perth was the greatest. I love it there. I think something that I love is just the atmosphere of being around other missionaries that hold the same calling as I do. The Spirit is always so strong whilst in the midst of them. On Tuesday we got picked up by the Assistants and the Port Hedland Elders' flight had arrived at the same time as ours so we got to see them as well. The assistants (Elder Foster and Elder Semu) brought us back to the mission office where we got to see President and Sister Cahoon and all the office staff. There we waited for the Warwick zone leaders (Elder Metekingi and Elder Nahrwold) to come pick us up. I got to spend the evening on exchange with Elder Metekingi, and Elder Naruo went with Elder Nahrwold. We had a fun night, and did something that elder Metekingi and I always seem to do when we're on exchange together. Walk for ages and get lost. We did service for this elderly lady in their ward and then had to start walking to a dinner appointment to which he had no idea how to get there. So we tracted as we went and asked people if they knew where the street was that we were looking for. Nobody knew, of course, but we found a physio that was open and went in and asked the lady at reception if she could help us find where we were going. She was willing to get on to google and help us get to where we were trying to go. Elder Metekingi and I always just seem to rely on the Lord when we're together. No need to bring maps or anything haha. The funny thing was, we realised that we were going to be about 30 minutes late to our appointment by that time if we continued walking, so we called them up and they came and picked us up for dinner. I guess the lesson learned there was to do all you can do, rely on the Lord, and He'll provide for you in some way or another. But yeah, we had an amazing time.

Wednesday morning was the first of 3 mornings in a row or waking up at 5:30 to play touch rugby with some other elders, which I didn't mind because I wanted to get the maximum amount of time being with other missionaries as possible. But by Friday, I was really feeling it. Luckily I got to sleep on the plane ride back to Karratha. So Wednesday we had training of trainers meeting at which they introduced the new training program that the church has put out called "The First 12 Weeks". Kind of ironic since this is my last 12 weeks. But it looks like a great program. It lays out the first 12 weeks of companionship study with the new missionary and also gives us specific tasks to complete such as "let the new missionary take the lead in....". It also gives us 2 hours of comp study a day instead of just one. So that's 3 hours of studying a day that I get to do now rather than just 2. I'm really going to love that. I love my study time. I wish we could get 2 hours of personal study as well. That's where I do a bulk of the learning. Comp study is more of the applying part rather than the actual learning. Transfer meeting was great because I got to see heaps of missionaries that I missed. Elder Hodgkiss wasn't there, but I got to see most of the missionaries from my intake, Elder Shobbrook, Elder Ulas, just heaps of people. It was like a mini reunion, for me anyways. They see each other all the time, but when you're in a country area 1800 Ks from the city, you get kind of lonely sometimes haha. Wednesday after transfer meeting was pretty relax. I just spent the rest of the day with Elder Weber and Elder Harvey, who were also training. We were kind of all over the place for the rest of the day. We had to drop some missionaries off in Greenmount which was way out of the way from where we were going. We met up with Elder Abel and Elder Oswald (the Southern River ZLs) for lunch around 3:30, so we had a massive late lunch. Elder Oswald was feeling a bit sick so I volunteered to go spend some time with him in his flat so Elder Abel could go with Harvey and Weber to get some work done. So yeah, like I said, we were all over. It was good to catch up with Elder Oswald. We talked a lot about home since we're both going at the same time. I'm glad that I'm not serving with somebody that is going home at the same time as me, it's good not to think about it a lot, so that the time goes faster. But I still liked enjoyed talking about It with Oswald. But I digress.

So my new companion! His name is Elder Ford. He's from Sydney Australia. He has 3 brothers and one sister, he's been in the church his whole life, and he's way excited to be here. Most Aussies aren't always the most excited to be serving in Perth, but he said that he got what he wanted, so that's really good. I was excited that I got an Aussie as well. There were only 3 elders in this intake, and the other two were American. Elder Harvey, Elder Weber, and I were all talking about who would get the Aussie before we actually got our companions. I don't know why, but none of us really wanted the Americans. I was the one that scored! Elder Ford is a great guy. A lot of his mannerisms actually remind me of my trainer, Elder Glover, and Zach as well. He's a funny guy. He said that he was disappointed that I did have an Oklahoma accent. He said he and his brothers used to mock the Oklahoma accent all the time. I think the reason we didn't want the Americans is because it's much easier to train somebody when you don't have to teach them about the country itself as well. And trying to teach Americans how to play rugby, that's a fun one. Almost as hard as trying to teach Aussies how to play Gridiron. I'm sure I was just as bad though haha. But I'm glad to be serving with Elder Ford. I think he is just the man for the job when it comes to being my last companion and sending me out with a bang.

Speaking of a bang. Martin Kumar and his wife Jay are the best! We taught them again on Saturday and this was Elder Ford's 3rd teaching experience I think. He did really well, but what was even better was the fact that the lesson just went famously well. Martin has already read all the way up to Jacob (well he's probably in Mosiah by now), and Jay had already read half way through 2 Nephi. It's amazing the joy it brings when investigators keep commitments, especially to read. When we asked them if they had been reading, Martin said "yeah, I have a bad habit of reading". Haha, I wish all of my investigators would have that bad habit. More importantly, when we asked them how they felt as they were reading, they said they felt a feeling of sincerity. Like a calm peaceful feeling. Jay is on to it as well. She said that there was no way that Joseph Smith could have made it up. THANK YOU! That's what I've wanted every investigator ever to know. But all they need to do is read it, that's the only way they can know. We watched the Restoration DVD with them and they said that they felt that same feeling of sincerity as they watched it. We explained that that feeling comes from the spirit, and that the feeling is one that you can have with you always. We asked them that if they found out these things to be true if they'd be willing to act on the knowledge they have. They said yes, so that sets us up perfectly for a baptismal commitment down the road. Hopefully the short road at that. What an awesome lesson though! Elder Ford is getting right into the good stuff, which is great.

Well that's about it for this week. I hope that you all are having an amazing start to the school year. I pray for you all. I'll see you all in 10 weeks!

Much Love,

Elder Tanner

PS. The time for writing me a letter is growing small. GET ON IT! Thanks :D

Transfers!

This email won't be overly long, I just need to tell you all about the exciting news about this week. I get to train a missionary again! In Karratha this time! I have really grown to love Elder Naruo and we've had many many good times together. I'm going to miss that guy, and it's going to be hard to replace him in the town of Karratha, but I'm sure my new companion will be great if he's anything like the other missionary I trained, Elder Shobbrook. One thing that I'm really excited about is the fact that I get to go to Perth for the training of trainers and orientation meetings. I'll be there for probably 3 days, so I'm looking forward to that. It's like my home away from home. And I'll probably be seeing a lot of the missionaries at the transfer meeting on Wednesday for the last time ever since I'll be flying back up on Thursday or Friday to never return again until the end of my mission. I really love Karratha though. The members here are just awesome. I always feel their love whenever we enter into their homes. I just hope that they love me as much as I've seen them love Elder Naruo since he's been saying goodbye to them. Maybe by the time I've been here as long as he has. I've really learned a lot from him though. It's been really cool having a companion that was baptised himself only 3 years ago. He has a lot of cool and funny stories to tell. He's definitely a story teller too that one. It's just how his island tradition is. I feel like I could go to Chuuk Island and fit in pretty well because of all the things that he has taught me about it. He says that I've become a true islander too, haha.

It was kind of funny how I found out that I was going to be training. Usually we get a call from President Cahoon on Saturday night if we're going to be having any special assignments or anything like that, but I didn't get a call. So we went to church on Sunday and President Pilkington spoke in sacrament meeting and he said that he was speaking to President Cahoon on Wednesday and President Cahoon told him that he would be sending him the best of the new missionaries. So that's how I found out that I would be training. But President did finally call last night to make it official. So needless to say, I have an exciting week ahead of me. An exciting 12 weeks that is. President Cahoon told me that there is going to be a new program from training new missionaries that is just starting this transfer. Apparently it involves 2 hours of companionship study instead of just one with lots of role playing and watching training DVDs and things like that. But I don't know much else about it. I'm sure I'll be able to tell you more about it next week.

So the definite highlights of this week were getting to teach Monique finally and also our two lessons with Marion. We sat down with Monique on Wednesday or Thursday and just started talking about the world and how crazy it is today and we moved on to the topic of the afterlife and having hope that there is more than just this life and having a purpose to this life. She is really golden. We also found out that her mother was baptised a year before she died, which was at the age of 21. So Monique has so much more potential than what we were beginning to think. And her dogs are the best too haha. She and her husband are having us around for dinner tonight since Elder Naruo will be leaving, she wants to say goodbye and give us that Barbi she promised us. The lessons with Marion were good, but we're finally hitting some roadblocks. We taught about baptism and the holy ghost this week in our first lesson and the second lesson we taught about the apostasy and I think in our next lesson we're going to try to teach about the priesthood more in depth. He thinks a lot, but sometimes he just compares what we teach him to what the catholics teach rather than thinking about the relevance it has in his life. But one thing that we did say to him that might get him thinking about it a bit more is we told him the "WIIFM" (the "what's in it for me" - Bro Foott) is that his family can be together forever, and we told him that we can contact missionaries in the Philippines to go teach his wife and kids so that they can be learning about this at the same time, and then maybe the spirit might really move them. He said he's going to talk to his wife to see how she feels about that.

We also had another lesson with Dr. Martin Kumar on Saturday as well! We gave him, his wife, and his mum, a copy of the Book of Mormon each. They all wanted to read it, and they're all avid readers so they couldn't deal with only having one copy to share among the three of them. So that was really good. Hopefully they all read it and possibly even discuss what they read together. They'll have family home evening without even knowing it! The spirit was STRONG in the lesson we had with them though. We were definitely guided that whole night. Especially since that was an unplanned teaching appointment. We were praying for a street to go tract and the spirit whispered to me during the prayer to call Martin Kumar, so I did, and he said we could come over in an hour. I'm thankful that I've learned how to recognise the spirit in all aspects of my life. Martin Kumar is a gift from our Heavenly Father and we have to rely 100% on the spirit to teach him.

Well that's about it for this week! I'll talk to you all soon! And I'll be sure to tell you all about my trip to Perth, the greatest place on Earth!

Much Love,

Elder Tanner

P. S. I forgot to mention, our baptism with Carlo didn't happen this week. It's been pushed back until further notice. It was originally because of Word of Wisdom issues, but he went to the Baptist church this week and when asked why, he said it was just the same. Back to square one I guess with him..

Marion and Carlo

Telling you all about the happenings of this week begins about 30 minutes after I finished my email last week. I was sitting in the chapel library watching a church movie waiting for Elder Naruo to finish his email and we receive a phone call from the mission office. Sister Kruger, the office secretary called to tell us that she had a referral for us. I thought it was odd that she was calling with a referral because usually it's Sister Neilsen that calls with the referrals, but this referral wasn't received in the conventional way. This man, named Martin Kumar, phoned the office but had actually dialed a wrong number because he was looking for his friend. Sister Kruger told him that he had actually rung The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Martin replied with, "oh I guess I could use a little bit of Jesus in my life." So Sister Kruger jumped straight on to it and asked him if missionaries could come around a visit him. He said yes, and then Sister Kruger called us up straight away and told us about him. So immediately after we finished talking to Sister Kruger we gave him a call and he said that the only time during the week that he could see us was right then at that moment. So we dropped everything and went over to visit him. He's a very humble man, says he doesn't believe in coincidences and he was willing to listen to what we had to say. We talked to him about how he can find more and lasting happiness in his life through the gospel of Jesus Christ. He's going through a lot of stress right now with work, which is why I think he was so willing to listen. We had the opportunity to exercise our priesthood authority and give him a blessing of comfort and counsel. He seemed very grateful and when we left he was very willing to come to church this week. He didn't show up yesterday, but we still have hope for this man. We know that the Lord placed him in our way and we and he will be blessed because of it. Hopefully we're able to catch up with him before next week so I can have more to tell you about concerning him, but we weren't able to see him yesterday at all. He works 13 days a fortnight, so it's a very busy life for him, but that's normal in Karratha.

This past weekend we had our Progressive dinner that we had been planning for a couple of weeks and it was a great success. Marion came, which was the biggest success for us, and also a guy named Rob came who we havent' taught yet, we just met him on the street and invited him to come and he came and also one of the aboriginal families that we see all over the place came as well. So a very good turn out indeed. The message that we shared at the end of the progressive dinner was a simple one, but it was quite powerful. We watched 3 Mormon Messages - I am a Child of God, Choose This Day, and Testimony of the Book of Mormon. And after each video we had the branch missionaries bare their testimonies on the principles taught in the video that was just watched and at the end we got to bare our testimonies. So like I said, simple but powerful. Those Mormon Messages man, they're the best. I highly suggest that all of you watch a few of them and share them with your friends, (I'm sure there's a simple way to do that on facebook, but I'm not really sure). http://mormonchannel.org/video?lang=eng It was really good that Marion came because that meant that it was more comfortable for him to come to church on Sunday, which he did! It was really great because we didn't feel like we had to be with our investigators the whole time because the branch took them in with loving arms. Brother Otto is the man when it comes to fellowshipping people. He's probably the best branch (or ward) mission leader I've had my whole mission. He's very proactive in the missionary work. I'll tell you what though, the spirit is really starting to work on Marion. We've now taught him 6 times and we know he feels the spirit. We've taught about the restoration or the Book of Mormon in all but one of those 6 lessons, and that one that wasn't was about the Plan of Salvation, which we know because of the restoration. And with watching the Testimony of the Book of Mormon video on Mormon messages, it's really getting his mind turning. He asked some more questions about Joseph Smith after the Progressive dinner and we told him that next time we saw him we would watch Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration with him, which turned out to be Sunday. I feel it will be just a matter of time that we extend the baptismal commitment to him. He is a great man. I wish you could all meet him. I wish you could all meet all the great people that I've met on my mission. Maybe someday, aye?

Speaking of baptismal commitments, we finally committed Carlo to a date to be baptised. Once again, the importance of members in missionary work. I wasn't actually there when he committed to a date, which is the 20th of August by the way, it was Elder Naruo and Brother Otto on splits. I don't know what has changed for Carlo over the past month since last time we tried to commit him, but something must have changed because he is definitely committed. We taught him the commandments on Friday this week and found out that he still smokes, but he's been trying to quit it sounds for awhile now. We'll be running the stop smoking program with him this week, hopefully tomorrow, and hopefully the baptism will go ahead on Saturday. (Just a little side note, I recently got to talk to Elder Hodgkiss on the phone and he said that Geoff is still a nonsmoker. I shouted for joy when I heard that. Elder Hodgkiss is tearing it up in that area now, they have like 5 or 6 baptismal dates with people that he and I taught.) Carlo hasn't had his interview yet, but we should be hearing from Carlo or President Pilkington today or tomorrow on when it's going to happen and then we're just going to make the rest of everything else just happen! He's definitely been in our prays though for the help to stop smoking and to truly be ready for his baptism.

My 21st birthday was awesome. I absolutely love the members of this branch. Sister Weeks, Sister Garepo, Mick and Erana Halls, and Teancum took us out to eat on Wednesday at this nice Chinese restaurant and even went as far as to bring a cake and make a big deal out of it and everything. I felt from them the love that I know you all give me from home on my birthday. Definitely by far my favourite mission birthday ever. Also for my birthday that night we got to go around and deliver about 50-60 loaves of bread donated from the local bakery to people in need. We gave that bread out so quick that if I had blinked I would have missed it. It was touching to see some of the young children literally leaping for joy when we handed them a loaf of bread. That's definitely going to be something that we start doing more often. I thoroughly enjoyed that. It gave me a good excuse to go to the bakery as well, which is nothing in comparison to Panera. :)

I got to give a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday, but I didn't find out until Saturday night. It was a really good talk for what it was worth. I'm sure that with a week or two of preparation time could have made it much better. But luckily I said a prayer and the spirit guided me as I prepared it and as I gave it. It was about love. I quoted The Beatles by saying "All you need it love" and then cross referencing that to 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.

Things are really happening up here. I'm loving it. I love you all and am very grateful for your prayers. Don't forget to do your hometeaching this month! Someone needs you! I'll see you all soon!

Much Love,

Elder Tanner

Love Endureth by Diligence unto Prayer

Moroni 8:26. I love that verse. Four of my favourite principles of the gospel in six words. Love, enduring to the end, diligence, and prayer. There's so much power in each of those principles. Two things come to my mind when I read that verse. A story from the scriptures and my own life. When Nephi was tied up by his brothers on the ship and the storm came, the storm lasted for four days while Nephi was tied up, and in 1 Nephi 18:19, we learn that for that entire four days, his wife and children were praying for him. Now that is love. I suppose it's a lot like Emma Smith. Love is manifest by prayer. This week I reach 21 years of living and 21 months of serving a mission, and I know that I could not have come this far in life or in my mission if it were not for the prayers and faith of my family. I love you guys. Thanks mom and dad for all you have ever done for me. I know it must have taken a lot of prayers from you for me to be where I am today. I know and am thankful that God answers those prayers. I couldn't be happier in life than I am right now serving God and serving the people of Western Australia. I'm thankful for a loving family whose love is manifest by their prayers, and I hope you all know that I too pray for each and every one of you and hope you know that I love you as well.

Now about this week, we finally got to teach Marion again! We taught him on Tuesday night and this man never ceases to amaze me. After we taught him, he offered to share his food with us. What a humble man. The lesson that night went well. We watched the restoration DVD with him and tried to help him understand the importance of the restoration. He thought that we were teaching about a restoration that was still yet to come, so I guess that's when it's important to be on the same page as our investigators. We re-explained that it had already happened and that this is the restored church. Yesterday we brought Sister Weeks with us and taught him again, this time it was the plan of salvation that we taught and also this time the whole house was present. 5 Filipinos rambling away in Tagalog and we were just kind of sitting there. Every now and then Sister Weeks would tell us what they were talking about, but it was good nonetheless that they were able to build up that friendship with Sister Weeks so that they can feel more comfortable if they come to church. Marion hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon because he says he has a lack of time, which is actually believable in Karratha. There's no such thing as overtime here. He works 10 hour days from Monday to Friday and then I think a 5 hour day or something on Saturday. So it's just work, eat, sleep, call his family in the Philippines. But we encouraged him to try to read at least 15 minutes a day before he goes to sleep or something. 15 minutes is all it takes for the spirit to work on somebody. And we fasted for him to gain a spiritual witness that the Book of Mormon is true. We just have to keep working with him. But he says he's going to come to our progressive dinner this Saturday. That's one step closer to coming to church. The other thing that we fasted for was for Carlo to get closer to baptism. He's pretty much an eternal investigator now because he's impossible to catch at home when he's not asleep. Another case of work, eat, sleep. But yesterday at church I experienced a first. President Pilkington asked Carlo if he would say the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and he said yes. He did a really good job too. So I was trying to figure out if we could count an investigator as progressing if they say the closing prayer in Sacrament meeting. I never knew that nonmembers were allowed to participate in sacrament meeting like that, but I guess it's up to the branch presidents discretion.

I know this is a short email, but I have a lot to do today that I've been putting off for far to long, so I got to get going. I'll talk to you all soon! I love you all, I pray for you!

Much Love and prayers,

Elder Tanner

The FeNaCl Festival

So for those of you that don't know what the word FeNaCl means, just have a look at your periodic table. Iron and salt are the two big industries up here in the Pilbara and this weekend they had a massive festival with heaps of people there. It was like a fair. Usually we wouldn't go to something like that, but we decided that it would be the most effective use of our time. With it being a small town and everything, everybody was going to be there. So it was no use trying to set up appointments for that day, or just doing drop in visits. And we decided we would definitely get to talk to more people and be seen by more people if we went to the festival and just walked around rather than going and knocking on doors or something. And it was true. Yesterday we decided to go try to see a couple of people at their homes, but we were right, nobody was home, and the couple of people that were home we about to head out to the FeNaCl or just got back from the FeNaCl so they were too tired to let us in or anything. It was a great weekend though. We saw heaps of less actives and nonmembers that we knew as well as members. It was good to catch up with a lot of them. It was hard to contact people though, pretty much all we could do was just give them a pass along card in passing, as nobody really wanted to stop and chat except for those people that we already knew. We are pretty happy that it's all over now though. Now nobody can use that as their excuse for us to not come over. All week we've been hearing about how everybody is just going to be at the festival and nobody could really tell us a day or a time that we could come back, but now it's back to normal life. It's funny how an entire town can get so hyped up about something like that. Today is kind of like a public holiday but not really. A lot of people aren't working today, probably just recovering from the weekend. But it's still a normal day for us.

So other than the FeNaCl, this week has been another adventurous week. We went out to the Cheeditha community again on Wednesday and went out to Roebourne on Friday. It was kind of a bummer this time around out at the Cheeditha community. Last time it seemed like everybody wanted to talk and have us in and everything, but this time, it just seemed like everybody was drinking and didn't really want us around. However, we did get to talk to Jake Samson again. I'm pretty sure I talked about him last time we went out there. The old man with lots of hair and a massive beard. We actually got him to say more this time. And when we asked if we could come in, he just beckoned with his hand to come in. We met somebody in town that knows him and found out that he's just a naturally quiet person. But he just seems so wise. Like the wise old man that hides in the mountains. I hope he warms up to us someday, but because we go out there so rarely, it'd be hard. Our trip to Roebourne wasn't bad. We weren't able to see any of our investigators. Just two members, and one of them fed us so it was all good. The one that didn't feed us is an aboriginal lady that is related to just about everybody that we know, and she hasn't been to church since branch conference. She's a nice lady though.

Church yesterday was amazing. Talk about a full house. 6 nonmembers came, 4 of which we had never met, they were just looking for a church and found ours. One of them was this aboriginal guy named Chris who we met on the street and told him where and when our church was, which we tell a lot of people, but he actually showed up. We haven't taught him yet, but I guess he just felt inspired to come to church. So that was great. The 4 guys that showed up randomly were from South Korea and have only been in town for a week. Right now they're living in tents out at the country club, which isn't abnormal. Accommodations around here are so expensive, so when new people come to town, it's usually a struggle. But hopefully we can help them out if they come to church again, otherwise it will be hard to track them down.

We weren't able to catch up with Marion this week, probably because of the FeNaCl. We were supposed to see him yesterday, and we brought Sister Weeks with us, but he was probably off at the festival. So hopefully we'll be able to catch up with him this week and I'll have something exciting to tell you about next week.

But that's about it for me. Summer is here now. Well to me it is. But apparently it gets hotter. 45 degrees Celsius is an average summer day here, but lately it's been up in the 30's, which is hot enough. Definitely the shortest "winter" I've ever had haha.

Well I love you all. And always remember that God loves you!

Much Love,

Elder Tanner