Peachtree

Well yep I got transferred. I'm here in Peachtree city it is super nice here!
Before I left a couple members threw me a little birthday party. Sticking to the Spanish tradition I was covered in cake. They love smasing cake on people. I took all their wind out from it though and smashed my own face in the cake before they could touch me!!!  

I have really enjoyed this area so far its a tiny branch but a really good one. Our area is the entire county so we have lots of work to do but we have along ways to go at times. We are teaching a ton of people. A lot of them are really cool. A couple of them scare me!!! Allow me to explain! We show up to this apartment as we are walking up my companion decides to give me a fair warning and tell me these guys are super gay. So I walk into the apartment and well he was making an understatement! Very very nice guys they really are nice they also said some very not appropriate comments to me. Obviously one of the things they bring up is Homosexuality in the church. So I was very direct. They want to come to church next sunday and want to keep taking the lessons but i explained to them the things they would have to drop if they wanted to be baptized in the church. They really respected it. But all the comments they kept making about me makes me not want to go back. If it were one it would not be so bad but there were 5 of them all talking about me!!! and I am pretty good at spanish and i know alot of slang and they are not saying good things at all! well enough said on that. 

Thank you all for the birthday wishes by the way. Annie I got your package it was fantastic. Mom got yours and Sierra got yours!!!!! Made coming to a new area a little easier haha.

Saturday night I was all relaxed and in bed and then the phone rings....... "Elder Charlesworth its President, can you speak in sacrament meeting tomorrow my speaker cancelled, Great thanks, have a good night.. oh you need to speak for 15-20 minutes, bye" SO yeah I had a couple hours before sacrament to prepare. It actually went really well. A member told me later at her house I have a good Spanish accent and that she was impressed with how well I knew Spanish then she told me a list of the words i messed up hahahahaha it actually was really neat. She is fluent in English and Spanish so she corrects us a lot and i really like it. I wanna get good.

Sorry this is so short. Out of time here. I would love to tell you more what happened this week but cant..

LOVE YOU ALL

Tanner

Time to pack

On P-day we went and played some sports. A little basketball, a little soccer. I totally dunked it. I'm getting my jump back!!!
 We did the usual Noche de Hogar with the M family. This time it was a little different. I tried playing a mormon messgages and it only had subtitles so i was like hmmmmm which one should i do then. I put on the one called "better things will come" by Elder Holland. Well by the end of the message almost everyone in the room was crying. The spirit came in blanket and covered the whole room. It was a very neat experience.
 
 On the 4th we had a lot of fun. We had a soccer tournament. I played way to many games it started getting way to hot. I scored a couple goals tho so that was cool. We had a blast a lot of people showed up.
 K and his wife invited us over for lunch and we had a lesson. K will be baptized in two weeks. We are really excited for him. He has really stepped out and come out of his shell its been a really cool transformation to watch like I mentioned last week. His friend G is really coming to like what we are teaching as well we have had some great lessons with them and now K has his own testimony and helps us testify to G.
 Another family in the ward that we have been working with called us over for Carne Asada!!!! Always a big treat. They made GIANT tacos. Its a dish from their state in Mexico i mean this taco is HUGE like large pizza crust folded in half filled with beans meat salsa and cheese!!! I wish I had a picture to show you it was awesome! We had to be in by six p.m. so we played some card games and then ordered pizza I even got to bed a little early it was so great!!!

 We finally met President Snow and his wife. We had a great meeting with them he has a lot of experience over 10 years as a full time missionary. He was only released last year as a 70. He has already made a lot of changes here and I like them. He changed the way we do numbers and the way we do transfers. I am being transferred to Spanish Fayetteville with a kid who was Elder Steele's companion in the MTC. Yep another young one. I don't think I will ever not be with someone who is new for the rest of my mission haha. I am really kinda sad I am being transferred. We have so much going on here and so much left to do. I got really close with the people we are teaching and the branch but this is the mission and its time to go somewhere else.
 Nayeli had a birthday so we were put in charge (the night before) to invite some people for a surprise party and make the cake. So we called some people made the cake showed up and Nayeli got there before everyone else did. She was still very surprised and really enjoyed it. We put trick candles on her cake and she had to blow them out at least 6 times haha.
 We went over to teach an Investigator that has been kinda skipping out on us the past couple weeks she finally let us in and after a really good lesson she said she needed to tell us something. She cleans houses as a living and was talking with one of the owners as she cleaned. The owner asked where she goes to church. She said now where right now but I'm listening to the "Mormons" in my home and I'm going to start going with them. The lady flipped out and started yelling at her and told her all these crazy things crazy things about "Mormons"  She said to throw away the book and that its all of the devil. So she was terrified she came home threw away the book and hid from us a couple days. Then her husband said what are you doing they are not bad. So she prayed and said she knew we were not bad. She lost two houses she cleans because she listens to the mormons but she says that she knows its true and wants to meet with us every week no matter what happens. She felt so bad she threw the Book away then said she had been reading it everyday in her free time and loved it. She said she needed to tell us this because she felt so bad about it. Some people are crazy! haha. So i said well here is your test, how do you feel when we teach you and when you read from the book and she said she feels so good and. I told her there is your answer if you feel good there is now way it could be bad. Satan can imitate a lot of the things God can do. Healings, miracles he can even appear as an angel. He cannot imitate the Holy Ghost and thats what tells us when something is good!

Glad you all had fun on the 4th I miss you all and miss all the family fun.

Love tanner

One Wild Week!

This was one wild week!!!! Just so you all know you don't understand what heat is!!!!! It was 108 here plus the humidity. Try tracting in that, just try walking outside your door in that haha.... we survived tho!!! You know its really bad when you knock on someones door and they ask if your okay and if you need water haha we got invited into a lot of homes, but of coarse there was never any men home so we could not enter!!!! We suffered in the heat on the porch!

 I went on exchanges with an Elder from Oregon Elder L he is from a town near Salem Oregon. He is the most talented artist I have even seen like seriously amazing he is going to go to school or animation or product design talents like that make me jealous I wish i could draw, sing, play piano like a champion but I have none of those talents haha oh well!!!..

We had a good time we went around and visited a lot of people Z made us dinner and it was fantastic then we stopped by a part member families house and had a blast we started teaching one of the none members and it went really well luckily she spoke English so elder L was not completely left out of there. We started to leave then ended up talking and laughing for another half hour some people are just so easy to get along with and have fun. Its nice when people are not so up tight.

 We have this amazing sister in the branch who cooks for us often. She a good cook but on a hot summer day Mole is not a food that you really want plus no matter how many times I eat it I just can't learn to love it. Its not bad but its just one of those foods that you don't ever ask for. Its a really think heavy sauce and chicken with rice. There are different types of Mole as well. Chile, Dule and Verde. Verde and Chile are the best but Dulce is made with chocolate and well its my least favorite. Bless her heart tho that sister does a lot for us. She works at a dry cleaners and well I'll be honest my suits were well beyond in need of a dry cleaning so she took them and did both of my suits and had them back and ready by Saturday so I could have one too wear to church.

 
 
We started visiting this family that is less active but her niece and nephew just moved here from Guatemala. They are one of the funnest families ever. Her niece turned 15 the day we stopped by. She does not have friends her yet and is so cool and awesome we had to do something. We left the lesson went and got some cupcakes and candles from the store we went back and surprised her then we did a fun game. Well she thought we were playing a fun game.
 You have 4 people stand in a line crouched down and close there eyes the back one stands up and claps once then everyone claps. The second one stands up and claps twice the third person is the birthday person and so they stand up and then you smash cake in their face!! Spanish people love to smash cake on you, Birthdays, goodbye parties etc.. they smash cake its just what they do! Then Her Aunt made us Tacos al Pastor with Tortillas de mano (hand made tortillas) it was soooo good!!!!! 

 One of our investigators has turned into a little missionary. She found and invited two people to church who are actually members that had recently moved here from other countries and had not been to church here so she called us and we got them rides. She invites someone to church every time she goes to the store or is out walking around she is not even baptized yet and is beating the members at their job haha. Her daughter just came out from California so we are starting to teach her as well/ We are jsut waiting to get her and her boyfriend married. We are praying for a miracle this week! She is ready just need the license!!!

 One of the best things ever is when an Investigator comes up and gives you a giant hug and asks how you're doing (it was a guy don't worry i didnt break a rule haha) He was so so so shy when we first met him. You could not hear him talk he would avoid questions well now about 3 weeks later he is coming up and saying hi to us, making jokes. Its amazing what it does when you show someone you care about them and how much the gospel can change someone. He even invited his friend and his friend is now taking lessons with us. He told us last night that he is going to be baptized but he wants to know more and be sure of what he does. His wife is a member who has recently become active again. They are actually married so we don't need to worry about that. Sad but true they are the first people that I have taught that are married! They are only like 23 so we get along really good and have a great balanced relationship during the lessons its business but after the lessons we can talk and have a good time. He is really funny and goofy and a super cool guy it just took a couple weeks the get him to open up its been a really neat thing to watch happen.

 You need to stop having so much fun you are making me jealous. Rodeos, camping fishing its just not fair hahahaha.
Kim glad you finally got a car mom is very happy im sure! she has been praying for you to find one so she didnt have to frove to logan so much ahahah. Oh mothers how great are they huh?

A little friend

I need to make this fast, sorry it will not be very long today.
 We had a good week as usual. It is going well here and we are staying busy. It has slowed down sightly so we are filling that extra time with finding more people to teach. 
 
I went on exchanges with the Vietnamese Elders in my district. As a District Leader I get the opportunity to go with an Elder in his area and his companion goes to my area and we spend the day like this. The Vietnamese Elders do not have areas like we do. They are able to go wherever there are Vietnamese since this is the only branch on this side of the United states. We did a lot of driving it was a lot of fun tho. We were going to knock the house of a potential investigator and I saw something scurry across the drive way at first glance I thought it was a GIANT bug, after closer examination I came to the conclusion that it was a Tiny Lizard with a really cool bright blue tail, So i grabbed an empty water bottle and we scoop it in after a couple of minutes of struggle haha I can only imagine what the neighbors in the pool across the street thought we were doing haha after a successful catch we knocked to door no one was home so we carried on our way. It is so hot here that I did not dare leave the little guy in the car or else he would have cooked and so I released him back into the wild where he was free to roam and eat ants as he pleased. We had a super good dinner where i got to use my chop stick skills, they kept trying to offer me a fork to eat with and I kept insisting i was fine! After dinner they said they were surprised an american like me could use chop sticks and just said it was easier than tortillas. I guess all that sushi Sierra and I would eat came in handy after all p.s. I miss sushi!!!

 Thursday we had a great dinner carne asada and pollo asada that Elder Steele and I helped cook on a charcoal grill. After some time as you can all imagine we smelled like a BBQ we ate the tacos and ran to our next appointment where I'm sure we made a great impression by our excellent smell, or at least just made them really hungry! 

 One of our Investigators had the task of moving all by her self while her husband is out of town working. So of coarse we offered out help. We went with her and got the UHAUL truck and then it was Elder Steele, Alex, and I charged with moving out all of the furniture ourselves. It was 95 plus humidity added with the extra heat that comes from working hard we almost cooked ourselves like the Lizard would have been so after some gaterade and a bag of well needed chips we went and picke dup two brand new giant beds and got to move those in as well! Doing service is always great and the exercise is well needed, these tortillas we eat everyday take there toll thats for sure! Imagine if you ate your fork with every bite. Yeah we don't really use silver wear  its all tortilla some times they give you a spoon (try cutting and eating meat with a spoon). We had a really good class that the missionaries taught in the third hour about rescuing the less actives. A English speaking woman came into the church to talk with our branch president seeking help not knowing it was Spanish. President Garcia asked me to translate for her. It is SOOO much easier to translate Spanish to English than it is to translate English to Spanish like I used to do in Cartersville each week. The members got really involved and had a lot to say and we made assignments of less active for companionships to go visit. We are really focusing on strengthening the branch and the members with our them we really cannot do a whole lot to be honest. Members are really the full time missionaries we are here for only two years and in each area for only a few months so after we leave who is left??? THE MEMBERS so remember that mom as you are teaching you gospel principles class, they couldn't do it with out you!
 
I am jealous you all went to the Rodeo I sure miss that a lot. Glad you all had a great time. Any results on Brenens tests???


 Love Tanner 

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