Craziest Week Ever

I don't even know where to start. This week was out of control!! To start things off I went on exchanges with Cassville Elders, Elder F went here with Benedict and then I went with S to his area. We went and ate dinner at a Less actives house who's son just decided he needed to go on a mission. We ate GIANT shrimp and you all know how much i love sea food, especially shrimp they were like the size of my hand i wish i would have taken a picture!! Then things went back to normal for a couple of days well like one DAY.

 Friday I had to go down to Peach Tree city for a Training meeting so I slept over at the zone leaders house with Elder Wood my first comp. He is a district leader in Rome the next town over about 25 miles away. We all stayed up way to late talking and catching up we woke up at six and left at six thirty and drove to Acworth to meet another District Leader and get a ride down with a member in that ward, GUESS WHAT?? I met Santa Clause!! The man who drove us is a real Santa Clause he does stuff for the biggest malls in America has posters up in malls around the world, he is like the real deal, Beard, Tummy, Everything! So he told us about being Santa the WHOLE two hours down to Peach Tree which was interesting but he talked sooo much haha. That was not all the craziness. During our meeting President Gonzalez from the 70 decided to show up to our meeting and teach us a little bit. (general authorities can do whatever they want) so after a meeting that went from 9 to 4 we left with the APs to do a few errands. I never want to be AP that would suck, so much errand running, dealing with stupid missionaries, so not for me!! We ran around town for awhile and then finally about 7 we left for home again, The APs had to come up because of some crazy stuff that went down in my District.

I've known it was possible for awhile but it finally happened. This Elder in my district had to go home for some medical issues which cause an ET (emergency transfer) to happen in my District. Elder Foote went to another district his companion came with me and Benedict (he is english so he just sits there and says nothing, poor guy) and another elder came up to file the Elder who left spot. Its been a crazy one let me tell you!

 I talked C into coming up for the long weekend,s one drove all the way back up from Athens (3 hours away) so its been a good weekend none the less, got some lessons in, taught A. That Lady just totally gets it. Her boyfriend won't listen to us at all, or even listen to her. He asked her why she reads this book (BOM) because its not the bible and she said because it teaches me abut Christ more, it only teaches me good things, how could it be bad then she tried to read it to him and he left the room. she was telling us how people need to pay attention to us, she says she knows how hard we work and how ignorant and rude people are that we get doors slammed in our face and etc. but that what we are doing is good and she will keep investigating because she loves learning! she just gets it, she is so awesome!!! I love teaching her because she reads, and she says if she does not understand something she reads it again, she is already in 2nd Nephi on her own, we have not put any pressure on her at all. She Is the best!

 We were informed yesterday at church we were doing a youth fireside for the Cassville Ward( Elder F forgot to tell us before he left)

so we went over, they had us share where we were before the mission and what influenced us to get on the mission. It was really good, we took two prospective elders with us, C and J they both loved it. They also did a question panel they all wrote a question and then then we pulled it from a bowl and answered it. It was actually a lot of fun. I hope that it helped some of the youth.

So right now I am still exhausted from this hectic week and so glad its P-day! Time to Dormirme thats for sure.

I did have a pleasant surprise this week, the Dustin's from home took us to BBQ street(way good place) thanks to an email sent to them they knew i was really close (thanks mom) it was a lot of fun chatting with them. Talked about his mission, whats going on here with our mission and just about random stuff. It was such a good breathe of air after the crazy week, just got to unwind and eat the Spare ribs and Big Sweet potato (you know i love those) it was great! 

Giddy to see Elder H

  A fantastic dinner with the Dustins, Elder Benedict and Saavedra

"what's up guys?"

Cartersville

The Weather here has been so strange. Foggy, wet, not much rain, humid, and warm. YUCKY!!

 The week went well though. We had a wonderful lesson with A and her Family. She might be one of the easiest people I have taught. She remembers everything!!! We asked her about Joseph Smith she told us everything you want to hear someone remember, even about the Book of Mormon. We then had a lesson with her. We showed the Restoration video so the kids would pay attention and they all really loved it. We had no plans of teaching her our plans had fallen through that day and we were in her area and it just happened, that didn't matter though the lesson went so well. We bore testimony of the Restoration and Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. As I was talking I had the thought we need to soft commit her, (just ask if she will follow Christ and be baptized when she comes to know its true) I finished speaking turned to Elder Benedict and the first words out of his mouth were a soft commitment. Its one thing to have to spirit, its another thing to follow it. We both had a common goal of helping her come to know its true and follow the promptings of the spirit, She said yes and then her kids asked 1000,000,0000 questions about being a missionary it was such a good lesson and good night.

I made a pretty good friend here, He is a member his name is C. L. he is 18 almost 19 he goes to UGA so we don't see him much but he was here on break so he went out with us a lot to teach he is deciding on a mission or not. We had so much fun. His mom cooked us Carne Asada which is one of my favorites ohhhh its so so good!  We had a couple more Yougioh Card Battles that rocked I'm pretty good haha who knew?? He went back to school so it was a sad day but we really appreciated his help.

Another lesson we had with a lady named M. That was another unexpected lesson, just stopped by and she let us in. She has not been reading the stuff we left, but she does like what we have to share. So we started to teach about the importance of the Book of Mormon, how its the key to our religion and if she does not read it then it will be very hard to know these things are true. It was going really good. Then she asked us if we grew up in the church we both answered yes and I felt like she was thinking well you only say its true cause you grew up in it. So I turned to Cr and asked him "how long has your family been in the church, how has it blessed you" His family has been in the church for 5 years. He bore his testimony of how it has helped his family and again just another experience that proves how important members are in lessons.

Picture description (Elder Benedict and C hit me with a 6 foot long rubber band  that's the welt and then me beating the little guy up haha just trickin)

Hope everyone is having a great time there starting school again. Miss you

Love Tanner

Well we were in by 6:00 pm on New Years, Not my typical New Years celebration but it was okay we played this fun game called Stragego and Phase 10(I dominate at phase 10, just sayin)

 

Its actually been a really hard week. We worked very hard and went by so many people. All of our investigators are single mothers so we can't go into their homes,  all we can do is see if there is anything we can do and try to find a team up for the appointment we scheduled. It has been very hard working here versus being in Atlanta. In Chamblee we had a couple of people who were available any time, all day, everyday, to go out with us. Here we do not have that blessing, its has gotten to the point where we are going to take non-spanish speaking members with us just so we can teach a normal lesson. Things are going good though.

 

We have some solid people we are teaching who are reading the Book of Mormon on their own, we just need to get in and teach them. We met with the Cassville ward Bishop and he has given us some people we can visit and different ideas so things are picking up.

 

 Its different here, but I like it. Being in the country feels good. I like the country. I am not a city living boy so its nice to be out here, but the work in the city is so much easier haha, thats okay I like a challenge. It has been so cold out here though, it is nice and sunny and then you walk out side and its 24-32 degrees, well today I think it got up to 34 for a bit so thats nice.

 

 On monday for P-day yesterday we went and met up with some members in a park and had a big football game. It was so much fun being active and playing football I have not done anything like that since Thanksgiving, it was so good. I even played really well i was surprised, Caught a few touchdowns, ran a couple in and even threw a couple touch downs, haha it was such a good time. Then we decided to pull out our inner nerd and have a yugi-o card battle, A member has tons of cards so we all went at it. I have not done anything like that since grade school and I still love it I won't lie. I am such a nerd, but I love it!

 Hope everyone had a great new year and you all had fun. Good luck back in school!

Love Elder Charlesworth

Christmas with Cockroaches

This Definitely was an interesting week. We had the attack of the cockroaches. They are everywhere and I hate them. Other than that Christmas week was great. It was sad being transferred I didn't feel like I really knew anyone here and Christmas was going to be less warm than i planned on. But I am grateful to the members here. They made me feel right at home. The week leading up to Christmas was interesting. It was hard to teach people due to the rapidly coming Christmas. In Hispanic culture they do things differently, they stay up all night on Christmas eve and open presents right at midnight and then party and eat until early in the morning, then they sleep all Christmas day, so we had no members in church on Sunday haha(well Spanish members)

 There is this lady named Randi McGarity the funny thng is she kinda reminds me of Aunt Randi, so i just call her Aunt Randi. She is a convert, and has since converted her father and about 6 other people in the last two years since she has become a member. She loves the elders we were able to eat over there a couple times and get to know her before Christmas, she surprised with presents on Christmas! She got me a Super man pez because her Dad Gene calls me Clark Kent, she filled a stocking with candy and got me Georgia Bulldogs shirt, I had convinced myself that i would not become a Bulldogs fan, everyone is a bulldogs fan. I would rather root for Georgia Tech they are the underdogs. well I guess I don't have a choice now, she threatened me with my life that I would be a Georgia Bulldogs fan so I told her I would not hate them haha. It is a super cool shirt though.

 The couple days leading up to Christmas we didn't really have anywhere to go to eat on Christmas day. Jaime and his mother allowed us to come over and use their phones which was so great and they fed us a huge meal. Christmas day we got about 7 invites from members making sure we had a place to go. They really care about missionaries here which is nice. There is such a difference being in an English ward though, there are things i love and things i really miss from a Spanish branch. I am staying positive and really liking it here. We have a couple really legit investigators. One of them reads the book of Mormon alot she asks questions like what happened to Lehis body when he died and questions about the nephites and lamenites, she is the first person i have met that really understands the book of Mormon the first time she reads something, and it is so nice teaching someone who actually reads and understands. What a break it is haha.

 Thank you so much everyone for the Christmas cards and the packages it was so greatly appreciated!

I really do enjoy it here. Not where i had planned on being at Christmas but that's okay God always gives us what we need not what we want, i keep telling myself that. I am not surrounded by Spanish constantly now which is a little upsetting i love Spanish but i just have to study harder. I hope every ones Christmas went great, missed you all. Missed ice cream cake roll. So great talking to all of you.

Love Elder Charlesworth aka Principe

We Love our tiny tree!

Elder Benedict and Tanner checking out Christmas

New shirt and blanket

"Aunt" Randi and the shirts

Spanish Etowah

Well first week was a little different than I've ever experienced here on the mission. Elder Benedict was sick so we didn't get to do a whole lot. We serve in two wards they each have a spanish group so we should have lots of work with both wards.

 I walked into Sacrament meeting yesterday and someone from the bishobrick said you're speaking today.......ummmm..... what????..... haha so I spoke, just about the book of mormon which was easy but a surprise. (its getting harder to speak about gospel stuff in english than in spanish) then after sacrament a spanish member grabbed me and said the teacher went home sick so I taught the class with 30 seconds notice. It turned out pretty okay, we had an investigator there so I tried tying the Birth of Jesus Christ (because its christmas) into the restoration and she shared some cool insights and experiences I think the class went okay, the spirit is a great teacher, I cant do a whole lot that's for sure.

I have already gained two new nick names here, apparently "prince" is here to stay, only now its "Prince Charming" oh and Clark Kent, last area I was spider man because of my glasses and this area I'm clark kent because of the glasses.

 The spanish Elders here before have not really been working with both wards a ton, they kinda stick to one, but we can't do anything without the members so we met with the ward mission leader from the ward that they have not worked with that much and turns out he has never met with the spanish elders and they are super excited to help us out, the support of a ward is exactly what we need, and we have two. That is so much Priesthood to help us, this will be a great experience having this much support, I'm very excited. Our area is GIANT so we should always have something to do.

 The southern accent is running rampant out here, I'm in a small country town 2 hours from Atlanta Cartersville). The good news is I get to go fishing now. Today we are going to a members who has a lake that we can go fishing in and I'm so excited its been so long!

 We spent most the week in the apartment, which happens to have this super cool feature....... COCKROACHES!!!! everywhere, they are planning on moving our apartment because its a complex problem, we are clean but our neighbors arent so they keep coming in, its super bad and super dirty, I hate them.

Merry Christmas Everyone hope its goes great!

Love Elder Charlesworth

Jesus' Nose

Well this week went great!!

 Started the week off with an exchanged with Elder Cowley (from california) he is really cool. Only has 4 months left. We taught like 6 or 7 lessons just on tuesday alone and they all went good! And the Exchange was a lot of fun! Cowley is one of thos quiet kids but when he talks its soooo funny.

 We continued to have a busy busy week but that is good we love busy.

We found out it was N's birthday. well funny story actually. We had him with us for a team up and he was asking us our birthday and he said " me voy a cumplir 34 anos en Deciember 4" (i will turn 34 on the 4 of december) i looked at him and said " Hermano today is the 6th" he totally forgot about his own birthday so we decided we needed to throw him a little party. We made him cupcakes ( cause he has 7 kids and that is way easier than a cake for them) and got him a sweater. We had fun!!

He feeds us all the time and goes on team ups with us (now that we got him active and excited about the church again, he goes with us almost eveyday its great) so it was the least we could do for him.

 also funny story to make you all laugh! i said my first wrong thing in a lesson. i've never messed up and used a wrong word in a lesson before (until my 6th month mark) we were teaching Rosana and her family (the ones we found and helped them move late at night) and well i was talking about Alma ch.7 the chapter we wanted them to read before we come back and i was explaining how this chapter is really good especially this tiem of year because it talks about the birth of jesus but in spanish i said " esta capitulo habla sobre la nariz de jesus" Nariz means NOSE!!!!! I didnt notice I said it and neither did the people we were teaching but Heimulli just couldnt hold it in and started laughing and told me hat i said.. i mean to say "Nacimiento de jesus" so there you have it, good thign i can laugh at my self. i just joked it off and kept on talking... ha I love Heimuli so much we never have a dull moment!!!

 We have a member who was x-comunicated last year but is trying so hard to come back. He had a really bad day at church last week and was about ready to give up im not going to go into what happened at church but basically someone put him in a situation that wsa not good for him and then he got in trouble for it. We had no appointments set up on saturday just soem plannign to do. so Heimuli randomly texted him to see how he is. turns out he was right by our apartment at a place called plaza fiesta (spanish mall) we have 3 investigators that work there so we said he we'll meet you there went with him and visited our investigators and then went to Lenox mall with him to visit another investigator that works in the food cort in Haagen Daz icecream we were trying to invite her to church again. we had a lot of fun with him and he lives pretty far away so we was like just leave me here at the train station i'll just take the train home so you dont have to drive me. We both just looked at him and at the same time said get in we'll take you. We went over and he started talking about how its been really hard and what he's kinda been goign through. so we started teaching him form the scriptures jacob 3:1 and then i bore my testimony on how we get these experiences to help other people and make us stronger then told him an experience i had in the MTC that i have not really told anyone, just how my being home for six months and the experience i gained from that helped a kid not go hom early from the MTC. The spirit was jsut really strong. And then he was at church on sunday!!! I really don't care about getting numbers or any of that stuff.. never have since i got here i hate numbers. I'm here to help people and to becoem what God wants me to be. Whats the point of teachign a lesson if it is just a number. Every lesson is a person and someone i need to do everythign i can to help them come closer to Christ. I get so upset at missionaries here that only care about the numbers... not even goign to get into that. I gain so much more from teaching these people than i could ever give them anyways. I owe them more than just looking at them as a number.

The Cupcakes Elder C and Elder H made

Today we get calls to find out if we stay or go. Sure hope we stay here. We have so much work going on and i love this bronch so much! today we went to Waffle House with N. She is one of my favorite members here. This branch is so fantastic!! Yesterday R (same people we helped move) came to church yesterday and N, N, Z and others were right there getting to know her, helping her with her baby, etc... she loved church because of the way she was treated! I love it here, I could honestly stay here my whole mission... Luckily there are 3 areas here so I still have a chance of coming back after I leave whether it be tomorrow or next transfer! Been here for 3 months and i love it.

Elder Heimuli and I still just get along so good. He is such a support and helps me out alot. with spanish.. with everything. He's the best, the Area is the best!

I hope everyone is doing good at home. <love and miss you all! Christmas is soon.

Love Tanner

Time goes too fast

The time is going by way too fast, Transfers are over next week. its so crazy! the 14th is only just over a week away.

 We found some new people to teach this week which is great. We found a family really late at night, we ended up getting back from a dinner and a lesson later than we wanted to, as we were getting out of the car we saw two ladies carrying a mattress. Of course we could not allow this, so I asked them if they needed help ( all of this is in spanish luckily) and we just grabbed the mattress and asked where it needed to go. It turns out that their plumbing above them collapsed so they had to move appartments. She said she had a taxi on the way to help take the rest of the stuff the the new room (on the other side of our complex) We told her to cancel it and we would move it all. So about an hour or so later we had it all done. While we were moving we got to know her a little bit, she is from Uraguay and just had a pre-mature baby two months before. She said to repay us she is ordering pizza and we can come over and teach her. So thats what we get to do tonight! YAY pizza!! Normal food. Oh yeah forgot to tell you, so the same lady that gave us chicken feet decided we needed to try paruvian style pansa (cow stomach) well I have eaten stomach before and it is horrible, this how ever was edible. probably the chewiest thing you could ever eat. So pizza is sounding so great right now!

 Glad Dads surgery went well! What is he going to do now that he cant run? Run half marathons instead of marathons?

Elder Heimuli and I are hoping we stay together this next transfer but we will see new spanish coming in (we dont need four right now) ha so who knows whats gonna happen.

Love y'all miss you!

Love Elder Charlesworth