Rain!

WE GOT RAIN!! For the first time since I got here, which was December 2nd. It was the best storm ever too. Got some golf ball sized hail, lots and lots of rain, and so much wind. The only thing that was missing was tornado sirens haha. The best thing about it was that it was on a P-day and the zone leaders were at our flat hanging out with our district and when it started raining we went outside and started running around in it. Don't worry, we didn't get sick. But it was so much fun. Luckily some missionaries from up north called us and told us it was coming so we were able to get the cars in a safe place.

We had our interviews with President Maurer on Friday and they were like the shortest interviews ever. I think President is getting excited to go home. After Zone Stewardships he challenged a missionary to a basketball game (and lost) but it was just funny. He's getting more and more laid back I can tell.

This is most likely my last week in my first area, boo-yah! I wanna go country next transfer, I think that would be sweet. Maybe up to Broome. Or down to Albany or Kalgoorlie where it would be a bit colder this time of year. I can't wait to find out where I'm going, if I'm going. But the impression I got from President the other day was that I'm going to be moving, which is sweet.

Not a whole lot happening in the terms of missionary work in this area. We are still teaching the same people we've been teaching for the past few weeks or months and haven't made much progress. We did run into some new people this week and were able to teach them, but we'll see how they go.

We did have a great service opportunity this week. We were running to the butcher because we had no food and the butcher was about to close and we saw a lady putting some stuff in here car, it was a lot of stuff so we decided to help. She told us there was even more inside so we went in and helped her. When we finished helping her she told us what all the stuff was for, she said she was selling this stuff to try to raise money to buy her granddaughter and new walker or something and she started crying and asked us to pray for her and her granddaughter and her son and then she asked us if we have any reading material for her so we gave her a restoration pamphlet. She was so happy. We couldn't get her address from her but hopefully she runs into some missionaries down the road or something. It was just a really sweet experience. We weren't there to get meat, we were there to help her. But, we were still able to get our mince before the shop closed? So it was all good.

We're having a zone p-day today. Should be fun. We're going to give blood at noon and then going to the chapel and Sister Maurer is going to make us lunch and then we'll probably play some basketball or rugby. Hopefully basketball, I suck at rugby lol. Hope you all are having a good week. Hear from you soon!

Love,
Elder Tanner

1 Polynesian companion just wasn't enough for me...

What a great week, but I'll start off by exlaining the subject. So we had Zone Conference this week and we got to the chapel a bit early and we were waiting for the AP's to get there to unlock it. When they pulled up, a missionary that I've never met before jumped out of the back of their car. During Zone Conference President Maurer had him stand up to introduce himself and then he had Elder Richards and myself stand up and he told us that Elder Tou (toe-oo) would be our new companion. I guess his story is that he came into the mission in January 09 but had to go home for 6 months because of an injury and he just came back this past week. He's from NZ just like Elder Richards, but has lived in Brisbane the past 5 years. He's such an awesome missionary and brings so much to our companionship. He's just a good "people person", something that I'm still working on. Hopefully I'll learn a lot from him, even though I'll probably be getting transferred out of here in two weeks. Which is also something that makes me pretty happy. I can't wait to go see what the rest of the mission is like.

Yesterday was such an awesome day. Other than it being a church day, it was just a sweet missionary day. After church we drove down into the city to do some city contacting which is so much fun. There's so many people in the city, and even though most of them are in wayyy too big of a hurry to even stop walking while they talk to you, it's so much just to talk to so many different people and get so many different responses. I was able to have a couple of really good conversations with some people while we walked about the plan of salvation and the true church. I loved it. Something funny that happened was we were driving around looking for somewhere to park we turned the corner onto this street and there was a HUUUUGE line of people and when we got up to the front of the line I saw what it was and it was a line for the Cobra Starship/Owl City concert, haha, and the first thing that went through my head was, "we should go give a pass along card to ever single one of those people" haha. I did have the thought of "OH MAN!! I wanna go!!" for a split second, but then I remembered that I was a missionary lol. City contacting is the best though.

After city contacting we had to go to a Mission President's fireside that was so good. Our 5 man district sang a song (Whre can I turn for peace?) with our Zone Leaders and APs in front everyone that came (all four stakes were invited) and everyone said we sounded great. I wouldn't have been so nervous about it if I hadn't had to sing a solo haha. But it turned out all good. The fireside itself was so good because they showed this video that was put together by my Zone Leaders where they went around and interviewed a lot of recent converts to the church and put the video together a lot like the "From Small and Simple Things" video if you've ever seen that one. Such a spiritual evening last night though. One of the stake presidents talked after the video and it was so quiet while he was speaking you could've heard a pin drop.

I think it was between city contacting and the fireside that I realised how much I really love my mission. I love being out here. I love talking about the gospel. I love learning about the gospel. I love everything about it. I've started reading like 3 different books this week and I'm not even done reading a couple of the other books I've been reading. That's how exciting it is to learn about and live the gospel. I wish I could read faster because there's just so much to read and I want to know as much as I can. This really is the most important thing I could be doing with my life right now because this really is the most important work in the world, other than temple work that is, but I even get to do that out here!

I love you all so much!

Elder Tanner

p.s... I know March Madness is going on right now... and baylor is a 3 seed?? Go Baylor!!

So Much for Summer Being Over

So yeah, this week was so ridiculously hot. I heard that two weeks ago was supposed to be our last really hot week, but this past wednesday or thursday it got up to 109 degrees. It was so hot. It made getting any work done really hard because we didn't have the car for most of the time. But, I guess we still had a decent week. Getting to hear from Elder Nielson twice was so good, especially since the first time it was to just us missionaries. He taught us some really cool things about the organization of the church and about what's called the "revelatory process" as found in the Book of Mormon, I wish I could remember what chapter and verse, but it was really cool. He told us it was a "secret that only the prophets know", but really it's not, because all it takes is scripture study, prayer, and fasting. He said a lot of other stuff, but I don't have my notebook with me. Overall though, It was such a good conference.

The temple on Wednesday was amazing as usual. I love how I can learn something new everytime I go there, even if it's something small. It's such an amazing place. I wish there were more people there though. When we go, our Zone which is 14 guys, and then there's only like 3 other men there. So I can't imagine what they do when there aren't any missionaries there. So sad. Everyone should go to the temple.

It's kinda funny, ever since Elder Richards got into the ward, we've been finding all these less active Moari people and they're awesome. One family, The Hansens, we met this past Friday and now they're having us over for dinner on Wednesday. They're so awesome. We don't really know their whole story on why they're less active and all that, but that doesn't matter. We'll get them to chruch sooner or later. Also the McGaugheys, a family Elder Glover and I got in contact awhile ago are finally coming to church, and their 9 year old son Tayzah re-taught me how to do a Rubik's cube. So I went out and bought a new one. I might have said that in last weeks letter, I don't remember.

I have another physics analogy that I learned this week. This one comes from Elder Nielson, but I'm going to start using it as well. Everyone knows that the law of gravity exists. We can't see gravity, we don't know what it looks like, but we know it's there. So one day there was a guy that wanted to put the law of gravity to the test. He went to the top of a 40 story building and decided to step off. By the time he got to the 30th floor, he was thinking "this isn't so bad, maybe gravity doens't exist", by the time he got to the 20th floor he was thinking "maybe gravity does exist, that ground is getting closer. By the time he got to the 10th floor he starts to regret his decision and wonder why he decided to test the law of gravity. By the 5th floor he's thinking "oh dang. I shouldn't have done that". And then the ground came. The same thing can applied to the gospel. For example, we know that the law of chastity exists. We can't see the law of chastity, we don't know what it looks like, but we know it exists. If we decide to put that law to the test, the ground will always come. Even if at the 30th or even at the 20th floor, we don't think the ground will come, it will come. Always. In other words, there will always be consequences for disobeying a law of the gospel, just like there are consequences for disobeying the law of gravity.

I really love analogies like that. It just puts the gospel into such a good perspective. I bought a notebook just for writing analogies that I hear like that down. Hopefully it's full by the end of my mission.

I love you all, hope you're having a great spring break, while I'm burning up.

Love,

Elder Tanner

Labor Day Week

So yesterday was Labour day, that's why I'm emailing today. This week has been pretty great. Elder Richards, my new companion, is the man. He's Moari, but he's white. His mom is white and his dad is brown and he has 6 white brothers and sisters and 1 brown one lol. But he's such cool. Kinda laid back which isnt all that great for missionary work, but compared to other Moaris I've seen he's not as laid back as he could be. It's kinda weird having a Maori companion, because lemme tell you, he can eat. Hopefully being around him doesn't make me gain weight haha. we did all of our grocery shopping for the month and we bought 50 dollars of meat mince, 20 cans of baked beans, 40 litres of milk, what else.... some pasta packet thingys, seems like there's something else but I can't remember. He says that this will last us the entire month, and we'll save so much money, but we'll see.

Church this week was awesome. We had 3 Less active families come to church and one investigator family. Having those less active families there was almost as exciting as a baptism. Especially because one of them Elder Glover and I tried for 12 weeks to get them to church, and then as soon as he leaves, they show up haha. The investigator family that we had there is getting baptized this Saturday if everything goes right. I'm so pumped because we've been teaching them for sooo long. And I love it when success happens lol. We got an appointment with that less active famiy tonight and since they're from NZ and my companion is from NZ, it should be a fun night.

I talked to Elder Glover the other day and he said it was 50 degrees up in Port Hedland. That would be so bad, because the other day it was 41 here and we just about died. It was so hard to work that day because we were without a car. and just walking down the street made us sweaty, no, just walking outside made us sweaty. I'm SO READY for winter to get here. I want to spend the winter in Albany. So that way it will be a relatively normal winter. COLD.

Not much else to say this week. Zone planning on Friday was good. I can't believe President Maurer only has 3 months left until he goes home. Our new president is from Canada I hear. I hope he's as good as President Maurer.

Love you all,

Elder Tanner

And thus begins weeks 13-18 in Girrawheen!

Transfers finally happened. And Glover left just like we both knew he would. But this day has been so different than a regular transfer. We got a call from the APs yesterday saying that they were going to pick us up at 6am and Glover needed to pack his bags and put all of his necessities in one bag and make sure it weighed less than 50 pounds. So this morning we woke up at 5 o clock, got ready, and then the APs rolled up at 6:05 and we drove to the airport. Glover got sent to Port Hedland. It's about a 2 hour flight from here if that gives you an idea of how far away it is. Look it up on a map. He was so excited to go though. It was just what he wanted. A fresh start, away from other missionaries, in a completely new place and with a companion he doesn't know. It was kinda hard to say goodbye just cause he was my first companion and he really was great. So after that the APs and I drove to the mission office and they went into meetings and I sat around for about 4 and a half hours. I was so bored, and too tired to do any studying or reading since I woke up so early. So that part of my day sucked.

Transfer meeting started at 1 and lasted til about 2:30. It was nice to have an extra meeting with President Maurer that we don't usually have. Got me excited for this transfer. I want to see some of our families get baptized so badly before I go. But that could be another 6-12 weeks, so hopefully it happens in that time. My new companions name is Elder Richards. He seems like a real nice guy, but I haven't really gotten to talk to him a whole lot yet. He's from New Zealand which is pretty cool. It will be weird to not have a companion from America I think, but fun at the same time. Maybe I'll pick up on more lingo being with him. He says he's ready to work and get someone baptized too, so that's way good. I'll try to include a picture of him in my email next week.

This past week was good. We actually went on exchanges with the APs on Saturday and they taught me quite a bit. Those guys are such great missionaries. I want that to be me some day. We set a baptismal date for the Sumo family (not Shumo like we previously thought), and hopefully we'll be able to get them baptized on the 6th of March. Wow, I can't believe it's almost March already. Nothing else really exciting happened this week though. Since Elder Glover pretty much already knew that he was going to be leaving we didn't do a whole lot for the last half of the week. But we still had a better week than last week, that's for sure.

Tonight I'm eating Kangaroo meat for the first time. That should be an exciting experience, especially since I'm making it myself. I saw it at the store and had to buy it. I'll probably make it into some spaghetti or something. Mmmmm, should be good.

Hope you all have a great week. Stay out of Satan's gravitational pull. The closer you come to it, the harder it is to get away from it. The closer you get to Christ's gravitational pull the harder it is for Satan to get a hold of you, (I used some Physics in a lesson I taught this week), THAT'S DOCTRINE!!!

Love you guys!

Elder Tanner

Week 6

So this is the beginning of the last week of my second transfer. I'm so excited for transfers. I'm most definitely getting a new companion or going to a new area. We think we might even get doubled out because there's a big "For Sale" sign in front of our flat and this week we noticed a big "SOLD" stick across it. So we'll see, but President told Elder Glover he was probably getting transferred for sure this week and he told him to have a great last week because we didn't do so well this past week.

Pretty much the most significant thing from this week was a lesson we had on Tuesday night at a member's house. He actually taught us more than we taught him but it was a great lesson. He taught us about coming unto Christ and that we have to come unto Christ ever single day before we can invite other people unto Him. Moroni 10:32-33 talks about how we come unto Christ and contrary to my prior belief it means more than just getting baptized. It means so much more. Giving up all ungodliness and loving God are the two most important things we can do that will bring us unto Christ. Nothing is hard in life if you just do those two things. And serving a mission is one of the easiest things ever because I'm constantly trying to do those two things.

Interviews with President Maurer were good this week too. I told him about that lesson we had and he pretty much just told me to keep up the good work and keep making my best better.

6 lessons taught in one week = bad. Next week will be way better. Yay transfers!

Stay Classy San Diego,

Elder Tanner

How to go from trainee to psuedo-trainer in 9 weeks.

I have now caught a glimpse of what it's like to train a new missionary.

So we got a call from the AP's last monday night and they told us that there was a new missionary coming into the mission Tuesday morning at 7:45 and that he would be staying with us. He only stayed with us for two days but it was a great two days. His name is Elder Ulas and he's from Vanuatu, which is in the Pacific islands, close to Fiji. His english isn't that spectacular so we pretty much spent the two days with him teaching him english and things about Australia. His country is pretty much a third world country. He's never used a computer, never used a debit card, never been to a restaurant, and the list goes on. So we've been teaching him pretty much how things work and we spent a lot of time teaching him things like the first lesson, his testimony, and how to pray in english, and he's already coming along really well. But anyways, he was with us til Thursday which was Zone Conference and his new companion flew down from Karratha (it's like a 90 minute flight from here) and now they are staying in the Marangaroo flat covering that area. Which is sweet in some ways but not others. It's sweet because Glover and I no longer have to cover Girrawheen and Marangaroo, just Girrawheen. But it's not sweet because our old district got split up 2 weeks before transfers and we had an amazing district. But hopefully this district will be equally as awesome. We'll see.

We're really going to have an awesome last two weeks together I think. This week and last week was just awesome. We may not get anybody baptised, but we're definitely going to get close. I've learned over the past two weeks how important it is to have faith in every aspect of missionary work. You even have to have faith to just stick to your plans each day. In my planner this week on the to-do list everyday I wrote "have faith to stick to plans" and just from that I saw a difference in our work ethic and just everything we did overall, even down to having faith that a certain person was going to be home when we knocked on their door, usually they were. It was fantastic.

Zone Conference this week was really good. Our mission president is such a smart guy. He gave us a list of ways we can increase our faith and one thing that he pointed out was the difference between increasing your faith and strengthening your faith. And he said that we need to learn to WAIT on the Lord to know that he will answer. Those two things just really stuck out to me. It was so cool that he talked about faith too since that's what I've been studying and working on for these past couple of weeks.

Not much else has happened this week. Getting to spend two days helping train Elder Ulas has pretty much been the highlight of the week. Lots of learning experiences. I decided I'm not ready to leave this area yet. I gotta see at least one person that I've found get baptized. But we'll see.

Love you all!

Elder Tanner