Mission P-day Today!!!

Sorry this email is a bit later than usual. We've had a crazy amazing day. So 3 weeks ago the APs challenged us as a mission to find 250 new investigators and set 33 baptismal dates in 3 weeks, and if we did that, then we would be having a mission p-day. Most of us thought it was not really going to happen because 250 is heaps, but we found 296 new investigators and set 40 baptismal dates. It's amazing the things that can happen when you set your goals high AND have a reward for achieving said goals. So our day started at 6:30 where most of our zone met at a park and practiced our rugby skills. We did that until about 7:30 and then went home, showered and got ready, and then by 8:30 went to the shops to buy our zone uniforms. For the mission p-day there was an award for the best dressed zone and an award for overall winners of the 3 sports we played (rugby, basketball, and ultimate frisbee). So we went to buy our uniforms which were just pink polos and anything else pink that we could find to wear. I got some pink shoelaces for my converse, some got pink cowboy hats, we all had pink face paint like the stuff football players wear, it was mad. We ended up winning the best dressed zone, so at least we won something haha. It was really good just to see everybody though at the same time. It's pretty rare for the whole mission to get together somewhere, especially for something like this, so it was way fun. We did ok in the sports though, well in rugby anyways. We didn't lose a single rugby game, got 3rd place (out of 4) in basketball which I was the team captain for, and dead last in ultimate frisbee. I think out of the 4 or 5 games of frisbee that we played, we only scored once or twice haha. Good times though. I hope we get to do that again sometime.

This week has been really busy. Not only because we've been trying to find new investigators like crazy, but because of the planning of Angela's baptism. By the way, we found 5 new investigators this week, that's the highest we've ever found in a week in this area since I've been here, so we were pretty proud about that. In fact, I think for the last week of the challenge, as a mission we needed 102 new investigators and our zone alone found something like 58, so that was awesome.

We've been driving all over the place trying to get this baptism planned this week. As you know, she wants to be baptised in the ocean. So we've been driving all along the beaches around here to look for a place that would be private enough and that would be good for having a baptism. We found one place that we liked, but it's like 20 kms away. And when we told Angela about it she said that it wasn't the place she had in mind, so we had to drive back and try to find this place that she was describing to us and we couldn't find it anywhere. She couldn't even find it on the map so I don't know why we went and tried to look for it. It will probably end up being at the place we picked out but we have to go and see Ange tomorrow and finalise it. We'll probably have her go with us to the place or follow her to her place that she seems to know. Another complication that we've run into is that with the baptism being at 4:30 on a week day, nobody from the bishopric can be there, our ward mission leader can't be there, we finally ended up getting the High Priest group leader to be able to come, so he'll be the presiding authority at the baptism. We were talking to Brother Foot, our ward mission leader and he was saying that he's actually been to a couple of ocean baptisms and all that happens is probably just an opening prayer, a few remarks from... somebody, the performance of the baptism, then closing prayer and go home. We'll probably have Elder Murray say a few things since he's the one baptising her and he seems to be able to connect with her unlike any of us can. Overall, it looks like it should be an alright baptism, it's just the planning of that has been hectic. It's taken up a lot of our time this week, as well as reteaching Angela all of the lessons again. This week we taught her about prayer because we found out that she doesn't know how to say a proper prayer. And we also taught her about sabbath day observance because we found out that she goes to the markets after church on Sunday. It's amazing the things you find out a week before the baptism.

We finally got to see the Preedy's yesterday after almost 2 weeks of not being able to come over. Ever since they found out that she's pregnant again he's started working more, even picked up a night job, and so he's busy as. He says that he's going to drop the night job though. He wants more time to be able to spend with his family and with 2 jobs, he's just not getting it. It was good though seeing them last night. His sister has just recently moved in with them and she's a less active member, so we had a really good lesson with them about Helaman 5:12. Shay gave most of the lesson though, we just started talking about it and went into building our foundations upon Christ a little bit and then he pretty much took it away from there. His testimony is amazingly strong. They are so going to make it to the temple in April. He actually gave a talk in church yesterday and it was really good especially since he said that he didn't have any time to prepare it. He even got a bit emotional near the end when he was baring his testimony, which I've never seen him do. You could tell he was feeling the spirit. And he bore his testimony again when we were having that lesson with them last night. You could tell that Ruth even has a pretty good testimony for only being a member for 6 months now. She was trying to get her sister (who also lives with them) to participate in the lesson and was asking her questions and all that. She really wants her sister to know what she knows. Just a really good time last night. I can't wait for them to go to the temple in April, that will just help their testimonies that much more.

Speaking of temples, I saw on LDS.org that they just had the ground breaking ceremony for the Rome, Italy temple. How cool is that? I never thought I'd see the day that there would be a temple just down the road from the Vatican. That's how you know this church is growing all over the world. Even in Catholic central, they have enough members to need a temple. I just thought that was a nifty bit of information I'd share in case you all didn't already know, but you probably did.

I'm attaching some pictures from our Mission p-day, hope you enjoy them.

Much love! Have a fantastic week!

Elder Clark Tanner

Obedience brings about blessings, Exact obedience brings about miracles!

Well this week has been... kinda average I guess. We had a visit with Angela on Tuesday that did not go well. She started going off on about how it was wrong for her children to be baptised when and how they were. Mostly because of the way they are living now, she doesn't feel like they should have been baptised if they weren't going to commit to living the commandments. We tried to explain to her the principle of agency and how it's not the church's fault that they aren't living the way they should be. We actually found out that that's the main reason she doesn't want to be baptised in a font. Because her children were baptised there and they shouldn't have been, according to her. And if you knew Angela, you would know that once she has an opinion on something like this, it's nearly impossible to change that opinion. I've found that getting her to feel the spirit is actually really hard. However, towards the end of our conversation on Tuesday we started talking about conference and how she liked it. She said she loved it. She loved it because it felt like the speakers were talking directly to her and that they answered some of the questions that we haven't been able to fully answer for her. I know that she felt the spirit in that at least. She didn't come to church yesterday because she was feeling a bit sick, which was actually a pretty big bummer because bishop was going to talk to her about her baptism and try to convince her to be baptised in a font. I think bishop is pretty keen on not doing the ocean baptism. We only have 10 more days to plan this baptism too. We're probably going to just have bishop call her tonight and have a chat about it over the phone. That way when we go see her tomorrow hopefully she'll have had a change of heart. But we'll see. I am excited to see her tomorrow though. I'll be with my district leader on an exchange and maybe he'll be able to help her in ways Elder Jack and I can't think of. Mainly it's just trying to plan this baptism that's made this week a bit stressful. Every time I think about it, I'd rather just think about something else... but that won't help it get planned haha. After tomorrow though we should be able to get the planning rolling. After Bishop Chessel and Elder Foster have a chat with her that is.

Our teaching with Evelyn is actually going much better. This week we taught her about the Atonement and how she can pray to know that the things we have been teaching are true. I can't really say if she accepted the invitation to pray or not, but I know that her husband is going to strongly encourage her to do so. We can really see the spirit working on her slowly but surely though. She seems to understand a bit more every time. I don't think it will be as long as I originally though until she decides to get baptised. But we'll just have to see about that.

A new family moved into our ward this week and they are the best. Well, I don't know if they're family because they all have different last names, but they're Maori which pretty much means they're automatically family. They moved over from Brisbane for work and are staying for a year. Apparently there's going to be 9 people living in that house once all of them get here. 5 of them are members and 4 aren't. The 5 that are members (Brother Takairangi, Bro Makai, Bro Brown, Bro Taraungi, and another one I haven't met) are all keen on sharing the gospel with the 4 that aren't members. We haven't bet those 4 yet because they haven't arrived from Brisbane yet, but when they do arrive, they want us over to meet them. We really hope that they are keen on hearing the gospel, and maybe even coming to church with their housemates. I love meeting new people like this that automatically love the missionaries. They just got in past Tuesday. Found out our number somehow and had us come over by Friday. They wanted us to come over to give the the chapel and temple address and to bring some books of Mormon for their friends/brother/cousins/whatevertheyare. They even told us in church yesterday that if they ever need someone to come teaching with us, just give them a ring. I don't think I've ever had someone tell me that in this area. But yeah, we're super excited to have them in our area. We always need more strong members in this area. And the Lord just blessed us with 5 of them which is great.

We got to do some service this week that involved breaking down a wall and tearing up a roof. I felt kinda like we were cleaning up after an earthquake when we were picking up all the pieces. Just roof and wall scattered all over the place. It was pretty fun. I love doing service for people, aye. And we got to help the Terepais move which was fun because the Zone Leaders were on exchanges with the AP's which meant Elder Crawley was there. I hadn't seen him since I left my last area. He actually gave me some really exciting news. Because he's an AP now he knows a lot about what's going on around the mission. If you remember me talking about Trent Dashwood in my last area and how we were teaching him? Well I found out that he's getting baptised and he wants me to be there! Elder Crawley said he would get to me with all the details on when the baptism is, but I'm so excited. He said it's either at the end of October or early November. But I'll definitely be able to go. Woo! That was probably the highlight of my week right there. (That and finding out that OU is #1 in the BCS, woo!)

That's about it for this week. I love you all. Keep up all the amazing things that you do!

Elder Clark Tanner

General Conference was amazazing!

So we spent the last two days just watching conference at the chapel. All three Saturday sessions and both Sunday sessions. I'd have to say my favourites were Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon. Elder Holland gave such an inspiring talk on Saturday, as he usually does. President Uchtdorf also gave a really good talk in that same session I think. Talking about how we should slow down in life sometimes when the going gets tough. We don't want to overwhelm ourselves when bad stuff happens because that just makes it worse. I still can't believe I never used to watch the Saturday sessions back home, those always seem to be the best ones. I'm so thankful for our prophet though. You can definitely tell from the love that he has for each and every one of us reflects the love that God has for each and every one of us as well. You can hear it in his words and see it in his face.

This past week we taught Evelyn twice. The first time didn't go so well. Well it went well, but we learned that she has a lot of concerns and she's not anywhere close to baptism. We brought with us Caleb Simpkins who was able to talk to them in Tagalog. We found out that it's not only the language barrier that keeps her from talking to us, but she really is just super shy. I felt really useless in that lesson though because basically Caleb was just reteaching everything that we had already taught her in Tagalog. And then after the lesson he said that she just wasn't ready yet. We had been planning on committing her to baptism in that lesson as well. It's going to be awhile before that can happen. Caleb reckons if she keeps going to church and reading the Book of Mormon with Arturo and if we keep coming over to teach, she'll be ready someday down the road. And yesterday when we taught them again we saw that already starting to come true. Yesterday we finally got the Tagalog reading materials for her and so we went over the first part of the restoration. Starting with God is our loving heavenly father and teaching her all about Christ's earthly ministry and then the apostasy. We had her read the part about apostasy in her own language and I could finally see a light of understanding in her eyes. It was just amazing. I really hope that we can just keep that up and start to see great changes in her life. I really love Arturo and Evelyn and I think that's why I want to see her get baptised, because I know that would make Arturo so happy and I want that happiness for him. It's the happiness that comes from families being in and living the gospel. There's no other happiness in the world that can beat it or even match it.

We saw Angela this week and it looks like we're going to be doing her baptism in the ocean. She wouldn't budge on getting baptised in a font. We even talked to her about how the chapel is a dedicated house of the Lord and she would be able to have a really spiritual experience there, we tried to get her to feel the spirit in that, but we failed. Then we read Moroni 6:1-4 and talked about the requirements for baptism. Mainly being humbled and having a broken heart and contrite spirit. It's hard to tell if she's really ready for baptism, but I guess we'll find out when we have the baptismal interview in the next couple of weeks. And we just gotta keep teaching her and helping her to feel the spirit in the things we say.

We had a Zone meeting on Friday and it was really good. The Zone Leaders challenged the whole zone to tract every day at 4 o clock and begin with a prayer. So the first day we did that we didn't find any new investigators but we still had a really amazing experience. The first street that Elder Jack chose I told him that I didn't really feel good about that street so he chose another one and we decided to go to that one. The very first door that we knocked on somebody came to the door that we already knew. It was Loraine Brennan. I don't remember if I ever told you about her but she's way less active and she's really trying to get her life in order right now. But she was at this house and she was getting it shown to her by the Realtor. It was a really nice house too compared to what she was living in before. Her house before was basically falling apart. But basically if we hadn't knocked on that door on that precise day at that precise time, we probably would've never found her again because I think she's moving out tomorrow. I think with an experience like, you can't deny that the church is true and the we are not alone in this work.

I love being in the work of the Lord and I try to better myself in it every day. Some days can be harder than others but I always think of Christ on those days and know that he will help me. Even if I can't tell at the time, he will always help me.

Love yous! Have a Tremendolishious week!

Elder Tanner

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