Finally!

I knew that this week would be the week that we finally set that baptismal date with Angela. It's going to be on October 28 and one of her favourite missionaries is going on home the 29th and he'll be doing the baptism. That would be a perfect way to end the mission I reckon. He's been really close with Angela ever since he served in this area a year ago, and now he gets to baptise her so he's way excited about that. She wants to be baptised in the ocean, so we're still seeing if we can get permission to do that. It's looking like it's not going to happen though. We don't know if she's opposed to getting baptised in a font or not, but we'll hopefully resolve that concern this week. The bishop said he thinks that if there is a font available you have to use it, but he wasn't sure about special requests or anything like that, so the Zone Leaders were going to ask President Cahoon for us. But anyways, we're really excited for the baptism, we just hope we can keep preparing her and make sure she doesn't fall away at the last minute or anything silly like that.

We weren't able to set the baptismal date with Evelyn this week. We were supposed to see her on Saturday. We even arranged for one of the members that could speak Tagalog from the other ward to come along and when we got there we found out that he was in Melbourne for the weekend. That would've been nice to know haha. We felt pretty bad about making Adam (the member that came with us) come with us just to have the appointment get cancelled. We didn't even have any other appointments or anything that he could come with us to. He did shout us some Maccas though which was cool. Maccas is Aussie for McDonald's for those that don't know. He actually had a really interesting story. He served in the Philippines 20 years ago then fell away from the church for awhile, he even got excommunicated at one time. Just recently he got re baptised and now he's like one of the strongest members in Rockingham ward. He was so keen to come teach with us even though he couldn't remember the language that well. We rescheduled the appointment for tonight though and he said he's still keen to come along. Hopefully now he's had time to study the language just a little bit so he can feel a bit more confident tonight when we go teach and get that baptismal date set! Then we'll have two baptisms scheduled for October. That would be mean!

We had a challenge this week that the zone that found the most new investigators would get to have an approved zone p-day. Apparently zone p-days aren't allowed anymore. But we could've gotten to have one. Unfortunately, even with our extra efforts, Elder Jack and I weren't able to find a single one. But we weren't the only ones in the zone that struggled with it. Even the zone leaders only found one I think. I think some of the other zones did really well. Warwick found like 25-30 or something like that. For some reason the people of Rockingham/Kwinana just have absolutely no interest in religion right now. Or maybe they never have. They just have really hard hearts and we're having a hard time finding those that have soft hearts. We know they're out there, we just haven't been able to find them. Even some of the people on our ward list have no interest in the gospel. We were on exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Saturday and I got to go with Elder Happel in my area and by 2pm we had run out of people to see and our set appointment wasn't until 6. We decided to visit some people on the ward list that we didn't know and nearly every door we knocked on we got a "sorry boys, I'm just not interested anymore". Or some doors we knocked on we actually got to go inside and have a chat with the person but it usually ended with "you're just not going to get me to come back to church anytime soon, sorry guys". It was pretty disappointing. I guess those are the people that get to taste the fruit of the tree but then they become ashamed because of what other people say and do and they fall away. And as missionaries there's not a whole lot we can do to help them come back. The last lady that we saw on Saturday was baptised 40 years ago or something. She was saying she doesn't know if there's a God and so we taught her that she can find out through prayer. She said she would give it a try and then we asked if we could say a prayer before leaving and she totally shut us down. Told us "what's the point of praying if I don't even believe?" So yeah, we don't think she's going to pray on her own, and if she does, I think she already has an answer in her head so she won't listen to the real answer. We'll still follow up with her sometime next week or something and see how it goes, if we're lucky, she'll have some amazing change of heart. But we'll see.

Sounds like conference was really good, as always. We're looking forward to watching it down here this coming weekend. Conference weekend on the mission is always one of the best weekends from what I remember from last time. I'm so excited. Hopefully something really good is said that will really help us in this mission to be able to find those that are searching for truth. I talked to Shay yesterday and he said he's already been watching some clips from conference on the Internet because he thought he missed it. He's the man. But I told him we watch them this weekend and he was relieved lol.

We'll pray for a great week this week. We even fasted to help us find those people, so it should be a superbulous week. Obedience is the key though!

Have a super week, love you all!

Elder Tanner

Springtime = Service, Service, and MORE Service

What a busy week. It seems like all this week we've been helping people with service that they needed done more than we've actually been teaching. Lots of people doing stuff like spring cleaning, spring lawn mowing and other yard work, still getting junk out to the verge for bulk rubbish collection, we even helped our neighbour Joe paint a room yesterday. He said he would pay us back by mowing our lawn for us today while we were out. He's a really nice guy, a good guy to have as a neighbour. Even though he's not interested in coming to church with us or anything he helps us out a ton.

The teaching that we did do this week went really well. We taught Arturo and Evelyn on Sunday and we had one of the best lessons ever with them. We taught the Plan of Salvation and used the little Plan of Salvation puzzle that grandma sent me a while back. It was good to have a visual display while we were teaching to help Evelyn understand a bit more. The way cool thing about this lesson was that after we would teach a bit, Arturo would translate everything that we had taught for his wife. He was basically doing the teaching. It was really cool because you could pick out bits and pieces of what he was saying and he would say some things that were important that Elder Jack and I just hadn't mentioned yet or we had forgotten to mention. He was such an excellent teacher. He would use hand motions while we taught (for example touch his body when talking about how our body would be perfect after the resurrection) and then I would try to use those same hand motions when I started teaching again and I could see the understanding in Evelyn's eyes. We found out that there is a member who is a recent return missionary in the other ward that meets at our building who served in the Philippines and speaks Tagalog. The other Elders say that he would love to come teaching with us. So hopefully when we go to their house again on Saturday he can come along and find out how her understanding is going and maybe hopefully extend the baptismal commitment to her if he feels that she is ready.

Still working out things with Angela. Still haven't set an exact baptismal date yet, but she's still keen as. She still hasn't been able to stay for 3 hours at church but she did come to Sacrament meeting this week with her sister. We're seeing her tonight and we're not going to let her go on tangents like she does. We have to focus on setting that date. I also don't think she realises the importance of setting a date. So we kinda have to drill that into her head I think. I'm not 100% sure how we're going to do that, but we're going to do our best.

This past weekend has been one of the best. We had a ward activity on Saturday night and on Monday. Saturday was a pot luck dinner with a couple of performances by the youth and they had an ironing competition (which I won.) The dinner was alright, but I think the activity as a whole wasn't planned as well as it could have been. Mainly because it was supposed to start at 6 and people didn't start showing up until 6:15. We finally started at 6:45 and by then the food was cold, we didn't have as much time for all the games and stuff that were planned. But it was still fun overall. Angela wasn't able to come though, and neither was Arturo and Evelyn. The activity yesterday was much better I thought. There were lots more people. We met at a park close to the beach and played some softball, rugby, and I even got them to play a game of gridiron with me! Note to self though: never try to play a game of gridiron with a bunch of rugby players. I was the only American so it was tough. I was playing QB, Strong Safety, Referee/Umpire haha it was good fun though. Then we had a sausage sizzle and got to just have a nice chat with everybody. I got a nice little sunburn too. Arturo and Evelyn did come to this activity so that was way good. Arturo even played softball with us.

Not much else of real major importance happened this week. We did have a really good Ward Council meeting on Sunday. Bishop Chessel is so on to it. He was talking about the 4 types of people in Lehi's dream (there's the tree of life again), and how those 4 types of people are still in the world today. He talked about how we need to get our members from "clinging" to the iron rod to "continually holding fast" to the iron rod. Man, I just love Lehi's dream. This is one of the first ward council meetings I've been to (it's only my 3rd or 4th) that we actually got something accomplished at as well. So that was way good.

Sorry I don't have too much to say this week. Hope you have a fantastic week. I'll do my best to do the same!

Love you!

Elder Tanner

We Are Not the Ordinary...

.... Fearlessly extraordinary, working right just harry carry, in our humble way!

What a great week! So many good things happened this week. Well, I don't wanna over exaggerate, but lots of good things happened this week. We're so close to setting a baptismal date with Angela. We taught her on Tuesday and committed her to be baptised. She told us she would, she just has to talk to a few people and figure out which day is best. So we're trying to keep in real close contact with her until that happens because we know that now that she's told us that she'll be baptised, the adversary is going to start working really hard on her. So that was on Tuesday and we also saw her on Saturday, and she and her husband cooked up a barbecue for us. We almost had to call the fire department though, it was crazy. But we also got to help them with some service which was nice. "Big Trash" week is coming up and they only have it twice a year so we've been helping a lot of people clean up and get some stuff out to the verge. We're helping at least 2 or 3 people with that this week as well. Mostly less actives and investigators too which is way good.

We had a lesson with Arturo's wife who I'm pretty sure I told you all about last week. We found out her name is Evelyn. She's slowly but surely warming up to us as well. The lesson was pretty tough because Arturo has been a member for 30 years but we basically have to teach him and hope he will tell his wife what we are saying. We wanted to watch the restoration DVD in Tagalog with them, but the DVD remote didn't have batteries so we couldn't change the language. But our next appointment with them is on Friday and we are going to be bringing batteries so we can watch it this time and we're also going to be bringing all the pamphlets in Tagalog as well. So hopefully she'll have a read of those and ask her husband some questions while we're not there. She doesn't really ask him anything while we're there. But we know that he wants her to get baptised, we just don't know if she wants to get baptised, and it will be hard to tell. I think I'm going to learn to listen to the spirit really well while teaching her. I mean, I've taught people that don't speak much English before, but this is different. Mostly because she doesn't speak ANY English and we know that Arturo wants her to get baptised but we want to make sure we do it right, and that she understands what she's doing. We did leave a Tagalog Book of Mormon and committed both of them to read 2 Nephi 31. So hopefully they do that as well. We'll just have to pray extra hard for them.

The temple this week was really good. There were lots of people there, well actually, mostly just missionaries. But you could tell that the temple workers were thrilled to have a full session, they must not get that very often. We were talking to one of the workers from one of my old wards and she said "she wishes the missionaries could come to the temple every day, then they would have Salt Lake calling them and ask them what's going on in the Perth Temple? Why's there so much work getting done?" Well that would be easy enough to figure out, because there would be no missionary work getting done haha. But I really enjoyed the temple. I try to learn something new every time I go. Oh yeah! Shay and Ruth got to go to the temple on Wednesday to do baptisms for the dead. That was both of their first times going and doing that. They said they loved it. It was so pretty inside and they want to go back. They said they're going to try and do baptisms as often as they can before they get endowed so that they can just go back. We were so happy for them. They were able to find a babysitter last minute in order to be able to go. They were really happy too. When we saw them on Saturday we had a good discussion about temples and read about temples from the True to the Faith book. So we taught them about temples and then Shay taught me about AFL. Their team (St. Kilda) is in the Grand Finals this week. They gave me a St. Kilda scarf as a gift so I could let people know who I'm cheering for this Saturday, haha. that is going to be one of my favourite scarves for the rest of my life, because it's from one of my favourite families in WA. I'll attach a picture of me wearing the scarf, just so you can see what it looks like.

I had an interesting experience this week that I wanted to share. Earlier this week Elder Jack and I were studying from Jesus the Christ and it made reference to Mosiah chapter 15. I read Mosiah 15 and it really confused me. So I wanted to ask someone that was smarter than me to explain it to me, so I just left that question on my mind all day. With that question on my mind, the adversary started to attack me. It's not that I was doubting my testimony, just had a really major question about a gospel topic. That was a really tough day for me. We had people yelling profanities out the window at us (more than the usual), people telling us they didn't want us to come around anymore because they were going through a really hard time and didn't want any religion right now, it was just a really tough day. It was after someone yelled at us right in front of an investigator around 4pm that I decided to go home and answer that question myself. I figured the best person to ask would be the Lord. I almost immediately found D&C 93:3-4 and it was like I could see clearly again. From then on the week was just amazing. Not a single person yelled at us, and we had two amazing lessons with 2 people that want to get baptised and it was just so good. So lesson learned, if you have a question about anything, don't just let it sit in your mind for ages. Ask about it in prayer. "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto." duh!

I hope to be able to tell you next week that we have a baptismal date set with Angela, that's our goal for this week. But until then, I hope you all have an amazing week as well. The church is true, the book is blue! Never forget that.

Much love,

Elder Tanner

P.S. 6 More weeks in Kwinana with Elder Jack starts today. woo!

Slowish week

Maybe this week was actually a bit slower than slowish. It was slow. I knew I spoke too soon last week when I said I hadn't gotten sick yet. I got sick on Tuesday but was better by Wednesday evening. But that was a little more than 24 hours that I couldn't do anything. I literally had no energy on Tuesday, but on Wednesday I woke up feeling much better, thanks to the Zone Leaders coming over on Tuesday night and giving me a blessing. It was amazing the 180 degree turn my health took. On Tuesday night it took all of my energy to go from my bed to the kitchen and on Wednesday I felt good enough to actually go out and do stuff. I felt kinda bad actually because we were supposed to go on exchanges on Tuesday night so we had to reschedule them for this week. I'm pretty excited for exchanges though. I get to go with Elder Hampson and see what his area is like. See if it's just my area that's struggling or if it's just me. We just haven't seen a whole lot happen since I've been in this area. I think we could have been doing better if the past two weeks weren't plagued with sicknesses. Elder Jack actually got sick again on Saturday with just a stomach bug. We went to the Preedy's for their daughters 3rd birthday party and had to leave early because he felt like he was going to pass out, (which he did when we got out to the car.) And then we were in for the rest of the day. The party was good though. There were heaps of nonmembers there since Ruth is the only member in her family. It was sweet to have a good chat with some of them, and for them to see that missionaries aren't robots. One of the guys I was talking to was actually teaching me about Australian rules football, and it's quite interesting actually. I could never play it, but it's pretty fun to watch. The field is 180 metres long, and it's nonstop running. That alone means I will never play it haha.

I had one of the best conversations with a temple worker on Thursday night when we went to go eat at their house. Brother Couchman was his name. I don't know why, but family history has become very intriguing to me the past few weeks. He was showing me all about FamilySearch and how that website works and everything. I thought it was so cool. He showed me how he submitted a name to be done in the temple and all of the work for that name was done within 1 and a half months. It was cool though because the baptism was done in Nauvoo, the confirmation was done in Nashville, the initiatory was done in Rexburg and the Endowment was done in Boise. I had no idea that once you submit a name it could travel around like that. He explained to me that the way it works is the temple just prints out a list of names that need a certain ordinance done and those names come from that site. I've always wondered how temples seem to have a never ending supply of names to do work for. Well now I know. It just makes me sad to think that the Perth temple has actually had to cancel endowment session because there weren't enough people there. Some people must not understand the importance. Brother Couchman was telling me how he got to do the work for his older brother a few years back. I think that must be one of the coolest feelings, doing temple work for someone you love that has passed on. Even doing the work for someone you don't even know that's related to you, that would just be the coolest thing ever. That's just as exciting as getting a baptism on the mission I think. That's why I really want to get into genealogy when I get home. I've really grown to love it and I've never even done it for myself. If I have time today, I might go make an account on familysearch myself.

Not too much else happened this week. Father's Day was yesterday, so happy father's day dad! The area is still slowly but surely progressing. We actually had an investigator call us before church yesterday morning to say that she couldn't make it. That has never happened to me. Usually I just get to church and have to wait and see if they'll show up or not. So that at least shows some hope there. You could tell that she really wanted to come, but she was just too sick. So hopefully next week she can make it. We're teaching her a lesson on Thursday and it will probably be the first proper lesson that we've taught her since I got here. Usually we just go over and check on things, see how she's doing, see if she needs anything, answer any questions she might have from her reading. But this week we're getting into the meaty stuff. hooray!

For those that haven't studied the Tree of Life in awhile, it seems like we should all do that again. Within the past two weeks I've had a general authority talk to me about it, listened to two talks by apostles about it, and read the ensign article about it. It seems to be having a lot of importance at this point and time for some reason. There's just such a great importance for us to hold even tighter to the Iron Rod than we've ever held before. And also to hold the hands of those people whose hands might be just off of the rod. Even those that have already tasted the fruit are falling away. There's so many people on the other side that don't want us to reach that tree, but we have to. And make sure the rest of those we love get there as well.

Well that's about it for today. Hope you all have an amazing week. I'm praying for you, and holding your hand if you need me to.

Much love,

Elder Tanner

Elder Hamula's Visit

This was amazing! Well I guess I should say it had it's ups and downs. One major up was that Elder Hamula from the Area Presidency came and toured our mission this week and he spoke to us in our Zone Conference on Friday. He taught us so many amazing things. The main thing he spoke about was the Tree of Life and the law of obedience. He said that some people think this mission has a bad reputation among apostles but the only reason that people think that is because a lot of the apostles and general authorities served in Australia so they hold it to a higher standard so they hold us to a higher standard. And I guess it can be hard for some people being held at even a higher standard than regular mission standards, but I think it helps us a lot. It shows that they have a lot of trust in us because I doing think we would have been sent to this mission if they didn't think that we would be able to live up to the standards that have been set for us. You could definitely feel the spirit within the room while Elder Hamula was addressing us. Towards the end he opened it up for questions and a lot of really good questions were asked, both about doctrine and how to become a more consecrated missionary. And you could tell the spirit was in there because as soon as Elder Hamula began speaking to answer a question it was like the spirit would teach us right away what the answer was before he even finished. It was amazing because you just knew that everybody was on the same page and understood the answers and everything. It was so good. One question that somebody asked was why is it neccessary for us to have a wife to reach exaltation, which I thought was kind of a silly question because who wouldn't want a wife, but he answered it in a very simple way and then started talking about how important it is to have a companion in our lives. He told this story from when he was young, I think, and I'll try to explain it as well as he did. An old man once asked him, "you know how we used to train horses? We would teather a wild and crazy horse to a donkey and let them off into the pasture. Leave them for about 6 or 7 months and come back and see how they went. When you came back, you would discover that the donkey moved a bit quicker and the horse and calmed down a bit. So your end result is you get a better horse AND a better donkey. You get it?" I thought that story was so good. Sometimes I wonder which one I am, the horse or the donkey. I thought it was something good to think about. But anyways yeah, Elder Hamula was so good. And this was like they 3rd time a general authority has shown up at one of our zone conferences on my mission. I must be pretty lucky.

One other thing from zone conference that I loved was this scripture that President Cahoon shared with us. It's 2 Nephi 9:39. Read that verse and then circle the first letter of each of the last five words, and keep in mind that President Cahoon was a dentist before he came out. I love that verse now and I'm always going to remember that one and be able to share it with everybody. Oh ok, TWO other things from zone conference. The second thing was the lunch. This was BY FAR the best Zone Conference lunch that I've ever had. It was put on by my ward which is just full of Polynesians so it was a very poly lunch. Having served with a Polynesian and one of my favorite families being Polynesian, (the Berrymans), I just loved it. Elder Glover has never served with a Polynesian and so he didn't really like it. But I loved it. Oh yeah, I got to see Elder Glover which was sweet. I can't believe he only has 6 months left. When he started training me he was at where I am now, which means before I know it, I'll probably have 6 months left as well. I just can't believe how fast time flies. Amazing. I think that's it about Zone Conference, but I'm sure I'll think of more to tell you as soon as I click send on this email.

Another thing that made this week so good was Stake Conference yesterday. We got to drive down to Mandurah for it which is about a 20-30 minute drive depending on how fast you go on the back roads. ;) It was held at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre which is a really nice place. Everybody hung around for like and hour and a half afterwards because everything was so pretty. It sat right on a boat harbor so everybody was just standing around having a good chat taking in the sights I guess. Every single speaker that spoke in conference shared a really good message and they all connected to each other. It was really funny as soon as Sister Cahoon started to speak all of the kids got really quiet. Just goes to show you how much of a loving person she is. She told this story from The Chronicles of Narnia and tied it to the gospel. I've never heard a stake conference so quiet. It was so good. After Stake Conference Shay was getting the Melchizedek priesthood and we wanted to come watch. So we waited around for awhile because there were 7 other people getting ordained and Shay was the last but when we finally got it, Shay asked me to participate in ordaining him. I was so not expecting that since I've only been in the area for 3 weeks but I guess I've already built up that good of a relationship with him and his wife that he wanted me in the circle. His dad came down from Merriwa, about an hour away, to ordain him which was really cool. I bet his dad has been looking forward to that day for a really long time and probably thought it would never come at some point.

After Stake Conference they invited over for dinner and some games. All in all, best day ever. I did the math and if I'm in this area for 6 transfers (aka ages) I'll get to be here when they go to the temple. If anything I'll be here the whole time they're preparing and then get transferred out right before it happens, just like it happened with Sophie and Blair. But I'll be happy either way, just as long as they get there.

One of the down points of this week was Elder Jack was sick so we didn't get to do a whole lot of work towards the end of the week, he had to save up his energy for those two really important meetings aforementioned. But he's doing a bit better now. And I've been doing a pretty good job at staying healthy which is always a good thing. Usually when this bug goes around the mission I always get it but I've been doing everything in my power to not get it.

Trying to think of anything else spectacular that happened this week. but Zone and Stake Conferences were definitely the highlights.

I hope you all had an amazing week and are staying awesome. I love each and every one of you.

Elder Tanner

Happy Birthday, Clark!

Week 2 of Kwinana - Lovin it!

I have to say, this is definitely the most awesome ward I've been in on my mission, the Baldivis ward. We had a ward activity on Saturday called a progressive dinner. I don't know if you've ever heard of that but it's probably the best idea ever. Well, except for maybe a chili cook-off. But anyways, everyone signs up to bring either an appetizer, a main course, or a dessert. Everyone goes to one house for the appetizers, a 2nd house for the main courses, and a 3rd house for the desserts. Any missionary would love this activity because we basically got 3 feeds in one night. It was amazing. There was probably about 100 people that showed up so luckily the 3 houses we went to had a pretty big backyard because if we all had to stay inside it would've been crammed. The 3rd families house even had a basketball court and a playhouse for the kids. It was just so cool. You can tell how unified this ward is. I can't wait to get to know everybody in it better, cause right now I only know a few families.

Not much else happened this past week. We got 2 new investigators so our total is up to 4 now. So we still got a ways to go before we have any real progress in this area. But hopefully we can set a baptismal date with one of our investigators. We gave her a triple combination and she's been reading it a lot lately. Even though she's been an investigator for a really long time, we feel pretty good that she's ready, and she's even mentioned that she thinks she's almost ready. She just wants to do it right. She also has a lot of family influence on her that is making it difficult, but I think we had a really good impression on her dad the other night before he went back to Tasmania. The he played us so Johnny Cash on his guitar haha.

This week is going to be so good, I can already tell. We have Zone Conference on Friday and Stake Conference on Sunday. Elder Hamula of the Seventy is going to be coming for our Zone Conference, and anytime there's a General Authority at a missionary meeting, it's always inspiring. I hope we can all be spiritually prepared for what he's going to be speaking to us about. And it's going to be fun going to Stake Conference because it's a 45 minute drive. I figured out that I'm pretty much in the country now. There's one more area south of us that's still a part of the "city zones" but past that it's country. If all country areas are this awesome, I really want to go country for real after this.

Another reason this area is so awesome is Shay and Ruth Preedy. I think I mentioned them last week but I've seen them twice since then. Shay has been a member his whole life, but was inactive for 10 years. He's been coming back since Ruth was baptised in April. He's getting the Melchizedek priesthood this week. And next April they're going to the temple. That's kinda the reason that I hope I stay here for 9 months, so I can be here for that. I love those guys so much already and I've only been in the area for like 11 days. It's been so good.

I've been studying the New Testament and reading it chronologically rather than from cover to cover and I've learned so much. Institute manuals are the best. And I read a quote this week by Spencer W. Kimball talking about missionary work. Basically what he was saying that if we continue at the pace we are going at, it is going to take us 10,000 years to baptise 1 billion people. Then we still have 3 billion to go, not counting all the people that are being born and dying in that 10,000 years. This work really is the most important work we ALL can be doing right now. If every member of the church brought a person or family into the church every year, the membership of the church would grow exponentially. EVERY MEMBER A MISSIONARY!

I attached a picture of my new companion, since I forgot to do that last week.

Love you all, keep up the amazing work
Elder Tanner