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
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