Rain Dance #2

I already told you a little bit about the zone p-day we had last Monday. Had a lot of fun ate some great food played lots of games.
 We have been working closely with someone who has been reading the book of mormon and recently confessed that she found the Nephi chapters to be very boring so she skipped a head and found herself reading in Mormon and loved it. She said she really likes stories and chapters with faith so we gave her Either chapter 3 to read, the one about The brother of Jared seeing the finger of Christ. She really liked it and asked how she could grow more faith like that it was a really good lesson. 
 
 Keep having these crazy experiences here recently. The relief society president called us and said we needed to get over to this less actives house. We were luckily in the area and went right over. Her and her daughter were scared to death. They had some pretty crazy experiences. In the middle of the day she had seen a ghost like 3 times. She said it was so clear she could see the color of his shirt, jeans and his tennis shoes. So we blessed the house and left. We stopped by the next day to make sure everything was still okay and she said that as soon as we left the house felt normal, more peaceful even. I don't know why this keeps happening but wow its been a whole of situations like this over the past month hahaha.

 So remember me talking about doing the rain dance? We were over with that same family and they had a couple cousins over. They asked us to do the rain dance again so we did it, had a blast. We left and as we were driving it started to rain!! every time we do that it starts to rain I'm never doing it again haha. Its funny cause the little girls think its real now because each time we have done it, it has rained. Coincidence??? I think not!! haha just trickin ya, its funny though.

 We got new beds!! This might be the highlight of the week!!!! Extra long new beds, this is the first time I have fit on a bed my whole mission, only my toes hang off now not my entire ankle!!!! We rearranged our room and now it looks super awesome and we have new beds its fantastic!

 We had Stake Conference yesterday. We got a new Stake President this new one is only 32 years old! He is highly educated and was recently the Bishop over a ward. We had two members of the 70 there who spoke and gave a great meeting. 

 Speaking of 70 turns out our new Mission President will be delayed a couple of months. He had a surprise surgery last week. They removed a football sized tumor from his stomach. So a member of the 70 and his wife will be filling in for that period of time. He has been mission president twice before once in Mississippi and once for the Salt Lake Visitors center. So they have a little bit of experience with missionaries haha.

 This week was Good. Started out really fast and then ended really slow. No one was home Saturday or Sunday. We spent the whole day trying to visit people. It was a strange change of pace but not a bad one. 

I will be fasting with you guys. I hope everything works out great for Brenen. Whatever is supposed to happen, will happen. Trust the Lord and it will all work out great! 

Love you all, Love Tanner 

So i honestly don't care about the numbers but just so you have an idea of how busy we really are here we had 10 investigators at church on Sunday. We have truly been blessed with a couple families to teach and a lot of others that are really trying to do what they can to find the truth. 
 Monday we decided to go play some sports in a local park. It was 93 degrees on a black top court that seems even hotter. A couple local guys showed up and we got some pick up ball going. After one game the 3 other Elders with me said they were too tired and sat down, so there was me against 4 black guys, they were all 18-25 years old and really good at basketball the heat sure got to me and being out of shape and my general lack of great basketball skills. I dunk it on them tho so that was pretty awesome! I even hit a few threes but wow was i worn out!!!  
   We have this investigator that is really interested. She comes to church, activities, etc. She  lives in a complex with members so we have her over there for lessons and teach her at her house as well. She told us that she now knows its true. That the Book of Mormon and the Bible work together and that its the true church, then she said..... she does not want to be baptized. She understands that's what the next step is and that's why she does not want to get baptized right now. She said she feels she can't fulfill the covenants that you make and that because she does not have a car if someone can't take her one week she can't go to church and that really bothers her. I think over time she will be softened and do what she needs to do. I really kinda respect her for why she is not being baptized right now, Because she truly understands what it means and the commitment involved.
 
We moved here from Honduras about four months ago and didn't know how to get to the church. She found an English ward but couldn't understand or talk to anyone so when we knocked on her door she was very excited. She is 22 and lives here with her two Aunts that are not members. They all came to church on Sunday and she made some great comments in the Gospel Principles class that really helped  a lot of the investigators there including her Aunts. They asked us when we can come teach them and are really excited about everything at church.
   
I swear almost everyone I have met over the past few weeks are from Honduras I am not sure what that means but seriously like 20 people I have met only recently are from Honduras. 

 We taught a lot of people this week, a lot of really great and interesting people we are really looking forward to what the next few weeks bring. An investigator told us a really cool story last night, she will be baptized in a couple weeks (as soon as they get the marriage license) she live din LA for a long time and always noticed the Elders passing by each day and her first thoughts were "wow these guys don't have anything to do they just walk around with their backpacks and try talking to people all day" then at a local place she used to go too every Sunday she noticed the missionaries teaching the owner of the store each Sunday and then a little bit later the owner of the store had her whole family there and then after a couple months the store was closed on Sundays because they all joined the church. She knew that the owner had changed because she said before she was really sad all the time and not very nice and then after she had been baptized she totally changed. She was happy ALL the time even gave free things out to people only for the sake of being nice. She said she had forgotten about that until recently. Its interesting how we get experiences that prepares for later in life right?

The making of the famous potato salad

To spare you all huge email Ill jsut cut to the end of the week. Sunday night I was up super late making Dads Potato Salad that was asked for again by popular demand. I had to boil about 30 potatoes and 20 eggs. That takes awhile it was worth it though they ate the entire bowl!!! Dad I added in a few extra spices and used a little bit of mayo that has lime juice in it. It turned out pretty decent! 

 I hope everyone is having a great week. Brenen Glad you are home even though you did nothing in the hospital except order food and watch disney channel, sounds like fun to me. Bet you go bored though after a few days huh?

Love you all

Many hand make light work

LOVE TANNER :)

The Rain Dance

So this week has been some what challenging in the fact that I'm now almost positive I have a sinus infection!! It makes talking and hearing a little difficult. There is no time for me to even slow down and take care of myself though. We have so much going on. I just ignored it for the first few days and then each day as the week went by it got worse and worse until Saturday I decided I wanted to breathe and i got a sinus irrigator machine  so i could breathe a tiny bit. But it continues to get worse. If its not better in two days ill go to the doctor.

 We had a really busy week as usual here. It was really nice not getting a new companion this transfer this is a first for me! It makes things go so much easier we didn't miss a beat just kept on working. Monday we had a really fun P-day it was R birthday so we had a big lunch and then went a park and tried to teach Hispanics how to play Rugby......soccer is definitely their strength haha. 

 Every companionship in my district changed except for mine, so I have three new elders that i have never met before and it just so happens that all of their cars are in the shop this week at the same time so its made things interesting, I have had to give them a few rides to church and such because they live so far away. On top of that it rained this week so they had a great day walking around in that! haha our car works just fine..... I did take them some hot soup one cold rainy day.





We have a couple members who have been on fire lately giving us referrals which is really good, they just expect us to be able to drop every thing in that second and go with them to see them, i wish that were the case at times but we are so busy right now that literally we need atleast a days notice so we can fit them in! Everyone is available at night so we teach EVERYONE at night and it makes things harder to fit everyone in. 

 We met this family who went to our church in Mexico and had the missionaries teach them for a while but never got baptized there and now they have asked to come by and teach them at least twice a week. Their entire family lives in the same complex like 3 or 4 other apartments so there is a lot of potential that comes form that as well. They are excited to come to church next week!

We have been working with a lady that was baptized in mexico when she was 14 but moved here soon after. She has three little girls of her own and always has like 3-5 nieces over. her brother is the only boy in the family, all the kids are girls.. the family name literally has dies out now. these girls are so funny!! from ages 9-4 they are all chatter boxes and love to ask questions and play around. We were over there yesterday after church, we were casually talking about family heritage and stuff and it started talking about native americans then the girls randomly asked if i knew the rain dance, so elder steele and I were like yes of coarse we do. we stood up started hopping around on one leg and doing the indian call got all the girls up doing it, everyone was jumping around yelling like indians. When we finished they asked how long it takes for it to work, we said give it a couple days and it will rain i promise. So i woke up today with these great plans to go to a park play some basketball early in the morning and I step outside and its RAINING!!! the rain dance worked and I am not very happy about it!!! That family is so great though we have been having a lot of fun with all the little chatter boxes, they actually listen really well and are not crazy or anything if you ask them to sit they sit, to participate or answer a question they do great! They even will line up in a single file line to get a sticker. That kind of discipline is not the norm that I am used to with kids here. 

 Had a very interesting experience this week I will only share parts of it because its kinda of personal to me and the person that was involved. 
I would like to start out by saying God exists of that I am certain, that also means Satan exists. He has power on this earth. That power we must give him, but once he has that power he uses it. In Mexico there is a lot of "black magic" or "Santa  Muerte" practices some of those things that someones family members were involved with followed them here.  They have always had certain experiences and understand why they happen to them. This person reached out to me and said they did not know how to bring it up but shared to experiences and asked what we could do to help. We blessed the home and then I was able to give this person a blessing. I felt the Spirit every strong and know that God took care of the problems that were there. Light always stirs up darkness that is an eternal law. I gained a much stronger gratefulness for the gospel particularly the priesthood through other experiences and especially this one. God is real of that I am still certain!

I hope you are all doing great!!! 

Love Tanner