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 

A relaxing week-kinda

According to bing the translation from this facebook caption. "In the game of the night home"

Yeah so I really can't remember that well what happened this last week since its now Tuesday. I didn't email yesterday because the library was closed. 
 We did the normal missionary things haha. Wow I'm having a really hard time remembering what we did this week. The days all blur into one day. Time is going by really crazy fast. The transfer is already over. Elder Steele and I are staying together. This is the first time I have not gotten a new companion. It is such a relief to finally not have a transfer! We have a ton of work going on here so that is nice as well. Nothing changes we can keep moving on what we were doing.

 Sister F, from the F family that I got really close to when I was in Chamblee Branch the first time had a baby girl this week (this is child number 8) they now have 3 girls and 5 boys. They never found out what it was going to be so she was thrilled it was a little girl. We stopped by to see her in the hospital and then on Sunday I got the chance to go with our branch president and Elder Thomas who is currently covering that area to visit the whole family. Oh it was so nice to see them. They are one of the only families that can say my last name haha. The kids came running greeting me, they are wild but so fun. 



 Nothing super crazy happened this week, that is always a good thing!! A normal week is hard to come by here. In fact in the "norm" is something crazy happening so when its relaxed and chilled that is a present! 

We have been getting some good referrals lately, one of them was a member who is the only member in her family. We stopped by left a note because no one was home. She called as soon as she got it. She said I live with my two aunts who are not members and there are kids that are 9 and older who are not baptized we are excited for you to teach us. They said they were coming to church but never came. Hopefully we can get over there this week and teach them.
 I'm not sure if I have mentioned the other one before, but she was baptized when she was 14 and soon after came to the us and has not been to church since. She really wants to get back and for her kids to learn. On top of this we have lots of other things going on and literally have not enough time to get them all done and the times people would like. Its a problem I wish I had my whole mission haha. 
 
 The last few weeks here have been really good, but really challenging keeping up with every thing and some struggles that have come up with some investigators and the other Elders serving in that branch have made it hard to get the things done that I would like to. I'm looking forward to the change that this transfer brings into the Branch and hope it is all for the good. The Branch is getting stronger but sure needs a lot of help. Some days all the problems pile up at once, but I never have been happier! Things really are going well. The days may drag on at times but the weeks pass with no warning. Its fantastic.

Hope you all are ready for summer. The heat sure as kicked in here thats for sure. High 90's with high high humidity. I'm cooking crispy out here!!

Love you all

Tanner

Cartersville flashback

         This was a pretty good week!! Still super busy and that's fantastic!

I had plans to go up to Cartersville on Saturday for Destinys baptism but my ride cancelled, i found another one and it cancelled and so for awhile i frantically searching for another ride, since i would be in the water I didn't wanna miss it at all. I love those kids and I taught her the lessons so she could be baptized. Well both rides that cancelled suddenly un -cancelled and C my good buddy from cartersville came all the way down and got us so we could go up!  The service was great, it was nice seeing all those folks from C'ville. J C a good friend from there came and picked us up and took us to his house after the baptism. He just got his patriarchal blessing and is really close to finishing his mission papers, the last thing I did before I left cartersville was called the patriarch and hand him the phone to schedule the appointment (he was really scared about it for some reason) well he is really excited now. His mom is not a member, but pays her tithing every week and testifies of the power of tithing, but wont get baptized. she never misses a sunday. I think was J gets him call things will change, she does not really want him to go. 

This was a pretty good week!! Still super busy and that's fantastic!

 Monday for P-day we went to breakfast with some members at Ihop and then we went out did all of our errands and then I got a nap and that nap was so fantastic I have not had a nap in such a long time. It really was like the highlight of that day!! 
Then after my glorious nap we had a Noche de hogar with the Familia M like we do every Monday night. We had M one of our investigators over there. She is learning pretty well and if she has a questions she asks it. Its great!

Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Fruean a Samoan Elder. He was my zone leader in Cartersville and we got to know each other pretty well up there. He is zone leader down here now and we had a good exchange. The only problem is he does not speak any Spanish, I mean yes I'm training, and a greenie can't say that much, but Elder Steele does a great job and he can help out in a lesson. So for the whole day it was me doing all the teaching by myself. We had a lesson with M. She has been reading in the Book of Mormon and has a lot of questions. Its different teaching her, you need to teach her differently than most people. Its cool though I have been learning a lot from it. It shows how necessary the Spirit is in teaching. The lesson went well and she said she has really been liking church and everything she is learning.

wednesday we got a refferal from some English Elders down in Lithonia, which is the bottom of our area (our area is HUGE) we went there to teach her and turns out her son is a member in Mexico. This was one of the most powerful first lessons I have been apart of. We taught the entire restoration and she ate it up. I asked if she had any questions a few times and each time she said no that it all sounded great. Then she told us an incredible experience she had. She witnessed a miracle with her son that is in mexico (the member) he was going to die, he was in the hospital dying, she tried every single religion she could find and no one could help. So she prayed on her own and asked God to save her son. He did. And now her son is a very strong member that goes to the temple in mexico. We committed her to baptism right then in that lesson. She said that she is ready and willing to accept all that we have to teach and ready and willing to do her part. That she feels the truth here and has participated in so many other religions and didn't find what she was looking for. The Spirit was very strong and I am excited to teach her again this week.

Thursday we had dinner with a part member family we have been working with. Her boyfriend is a member and she is not. She has investigated for awhile and knows a ton about the church. So I decided we needed to go to the source We taught her about how the Spirit works and how you can recognize an answer. We committed her to baptism and she said yes, and said this week she will tell us what day she is going to work for to get baptized. We need to get them married as well (3 families we are getting married and baptized, lots of work)

Friday was Z birthday, they threw a huge party at the church. It was a good time!! Good food, good cake, it was great. 



Sunday was busy and while we were at Z for dinner we got a call from L telling us to get to the house of the lady they gave us to teach. We went down there really fast and met liek 10 of their friends and set a couple things up for this comign weekend! This week has been busy and crazy and i love it!!

I hope you all are doing well, I'm almsot out of time so I gotta go but i love you all
Love Tanner

Mother's Day Weekend

Well happy mothers day again!!

It was so great talking with all of you! Sounds like things are going well there!! Besides the fact uncle Donald got shot, Uncle Greg got his finger bit off... i'm scared to see what happens to dad?? I guess i'm not the only accident proned one huh??? haha

well i jsut talked with you so i'm not sure what to say really hahahaha.

we had a really fun time at the activity on saturday. The men set the gym really nice and cooked everything and the youngmen served the women at their tables. They had music and dancing it was a lot of fun to see them having fun. We had a lot of investigators and less actives come it was a great turn out!!

We had dinner at a part members house from Puerto Rico after we got done talking, wow it was good. she cook ham with pineapple and cherries, pork thigh, rice, and salads. It was so good i ate way to much! (against my will, haha they give you so much food its not funny)

The went went really good. We had a meeting down in peach tree for the trainers again and it was pretty neat. we learned how to use some cool things on mormon.org and we had some good trainings on how to teach and study better. I enjoyed it! President S is going home at the end of this transfer so its going to be interesting to see the changes that will be coming!!!... I enjoy change so it wont phase me, i'm just excited for what ever comes (unless he is a natzi then i retract my liking change statement) 

Love you all hope everything is going great.... have fun up there 

Love Tanner

We got to Skype with Tanner on Mother's Day!!