You can call me Knight Hawk

This transfer has blown by. I say that every transfer but this time I mean it even more so. 

Hearing about all of the sheep stuff sounds like fun! Next year you will all do better!! First year went pretty well.

Elder Searle

Making fondant roses. Oh the skills he will have when he comes home.

Corn snake 

So after the sudden change of companions things slowed down just a tiny bit. I went on exchanges with Elder Gautuvi (now to by) he is Samoan and from Bountiful. He graduated with elder heimuli actually! We had a really good time. He is a great Elder. He just wants to learn the "best practices" and eat up all he can to be a good missionary. We went to teach someone and they were not home it turns out one of the members in the English ward he serves  lives on the same street so we stopped in to ask if they knew any other Hispanics on the street or in the area that we could try to visit. (its hard to find hispanics here they are very spread out) Well turns out he has his Falconry Master cert. He has a red tailed hawk. I told him how brenen really wants to do falconry and they are so excited they starting telling me how great it is and how he needs to do it and that its so worth it. They are an incredible family. Both converts of many years now. They adopted one boy. He died at age 16 of brain cancer. The Gospel has really helped them through that. They have some incredible experiences and it was privilege to meet them. Oh yeah and I helped with the hawk. Brenen don't be to jealous. I printed out some pics of it that I'll send to him but I'll email them to you know. 

 We had some great teaching experiences this week. J and Y I think i've mentioned them before. They lost her mom and their one year old in the same accident only a couple months ago. They have so many deep and profound questions. I mean naturally they just lost their family. Seeing them get happier and happier over time has been very exciting. They are great, great people and the gospel has really been blessing them. They are moving along great now and really want to know whats true.

There is a gospel parallel somewhere in this picture

 Well I got some news last night. I will becoming zone leader here in this area and elder anderson (from canada) will be my companion. I have always wanted to serve with him, but because of the fact we are both older missionaries we have always been with younger or "help needed" missionaries. Neither of us have been zone leaders before and there have not been spanish zone leaders in well over a year. So we will get to learn how to be zone leaders together. He only has two transfers left so i might kill him off and be in this area for awhile. I am just so glad I didnt have to go english. They turned this area into the Zone leader area and we get to keep working spanish. I love the branch and love speaking spanish I really feel like I'm hitting that next level with it! And Elder Anderson and I have always gotten along plus he likes to work hard like I do so we are going to tear up this area I'm so pumped! 

The new transfer starts on Wednesday so I have couple more days to relax before even more responsability hits me!!! being a zone leader with someone else who has never been zone leader is going to be a fun experience. Trial and error, I have a feeling thats how we will learn most of it hahaha.

Love you all!!!!!!

Good luck in school! 

love tanner

New companion

So.....This always happens to me. I am sent to areas to fix them or get sent companions who need help, or some sort of a thing like that. Elder Searle and I had really started to work great together. He had really stepped up and started to come out of his shell and then I got a call that President was making an emergency change and he would be sending me a new companion. Lucky Elder Searle got to go up to Chamblee!! My new companion is Elder Serrano. His parents are from Mexico but he grew up in California and Currently is from Arizona. Its really great having a native speaker. I don't have to do all the talking now. Its very even and shared now its really nice!

 This week was kind of rough teaching wise. We has members with us on a lot of days and no one was home. We have a lot of people that we are teaching who are working in Alabama so they get home really late some days.

We had a great experience on Tuesday though. We are teaching a few different people who are all neighbors to an English ward member. Even though they don't speak Spanish they are great friends with all of those that we are teaching and they really want them to get the blessings that come with being a member. We are only allowed to teach Preach my Gospel lessons when we have a member so we took A over the this family's house on afternoon. We taught the Restoration and then committed him to a day that he could be baptized. The Spirit was very strong. We asked the members to share their testimony and I translated it. Even though he could not understand the words that they said we all felt the Spirit that came with their testimonies. It filled the room and he could feel the love that these people had for him. These families are true examples of love your neighbor. They can't speak to each other. They show that they care by acts. Their neighbors cut their grass. Fix their roof. Bring them treats and things to eat they just help each other with out being asked. They love each other even though they can't understand what is said. Their served in Argentina and is a Branch councilor in our Branch so he has helped them translate at times but mostly its all acts and good deeds.

 

 We have been really focusing on getting the members to help us and they have started to really step to it. We are teaching them and their families and then committing them to helping us for the love of the Lord. We have had some neat experiences with that. We had fun helping the M family (one of my favorites here) make gum paste flowers(you use to decorate cakes) ill send pictures later I forgot my camera today but we had a lot of fun designing and then painting and molding these flowers just talking and having a great time. This Branch is really different than the Chamblee Branch. I really like it, but also miss Chamblee. Its really calm and peaceful which is really nice. Chamblee is full of energy and crazy kids. All the kids here are very well behaved and the Spirit can be felt in Church. The Branch here is really small but they are fantastic and are on the climb up to greatness! 

I hope you all have had a great weekend. good luck with starting school. Mom send me some pics of brenens lax tryouts if you have any! I had a dream about a tool that i could make him to help practice shooting goals. Maybe i'll draw it up and dad could make it. Or i'll just do it when i get home (when ever that is)

Love you all!!!

Love Tanner

The work rolls on

This was a great week!!!

We have been given a lot of new direction and I have loved it. President pulled me aside after a Leadership meeting on Friday and pulled out part of a letter I had written two weeks back (we write each week to him by email) at first I thought I might be getting a lecture but it was exactly the opposite. I expressed some real struggles and challenges I was facing with the way missionary work was being done. I didn't feel like the work we were doing is how it should be done. I said I felt like I was beating a cement wall with a chisel by that I meant I was working all day long and working really hard but a chisel is not an effective way to get through a cement wall even though you are working very hard. I told him how I had been praying and studying and asking local leaders and I could not figure it out. Well the week after I wrote that letter he gave us the direction we needed to go. He taught us about the way the First Presidency wants missionary work done by using Chapter 5 in the church leadership auxiliaries manual. WOW!!! I learned I was doing missionary work sooooo wrong. It was not our fault I was doing missionary work the way I was taught. I even work a little bit differently than a lot of Elders and I still was so off. Missionary is not what everyone thinks. We play the smallest role when missionary work is being done right. We are to teach and thats about it. The ward council really leads the missionary work. This direction was the answer to my prayers I was looking for so we talked about that and talked about how Elder Searle and I are starting to do a lot of good things here in the area and he said if i keep doing what I am doing with the same questions I asked and the same attitude that this area is going to explode!!

Baptism day

 We had a really good week I'll start with the best part first, L, G and Dl got baptized on Sunday!!! They were supposed to be baptized Saturday night but their baby sister had to go to the hospital. She was a preemie baby and her lungs dont work well. She is on full time oxygen. She stopped breathing for a little bit. Everything is fine they left the hospital that night and she was at church Sunday just smiling. This baby smiles more than any child I have ever seen. She is 6 months old but should only be 4 months old right now. She just looks around and smiles and everyone all the time I love it!!!They were baptized and then confirmed, I got to confirm Luis the oldest boy it was a great experience. It was fast and testimony meeting I normally let the members bear their testimonies because its there time and I bear my testimony everyday. The Spirit hit me so strong It basically kick me out of my seat I had to go up and bear my testimony. 

 We have a lot of other people who are really close to baptism. We just need to get them to church. The members are really getting behind us and starting to invite their friends to dinners or to meet with us or ask if they can come out with us! its been great. This Branch is really small but they are very firm and willing to help us. Its a great mix of countries in this branch as well. Argentina, Colombia, the DR, mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador etc. its very neat, especially eating with them we can talk about the different foods for hours I love it!!! 

 WOW the rodeo looked like so much fun!!! Seriously I miss summers with y'all so much!!!! I just miss summer with the Charlesworths we always have soooooooo much fun I think we are the funnest family in the world during the summer! Especialyl when you get the whole clan together!

LOVE you all, Love tanner

Note from mom Tanner said that olga is an coconut statue that gets into mischief in the apartment.

After Olga strikes

Before Olga

We love riding bikes

President Snow came to our Zone District meeting and said he was going to take two minutes, well two hours later we all had our minds blown! He talked about faith and how all the things we complain about, or problems we have in missionary work are symptoms of a lack of faith. He also talked about having enough faith to repent and especially repent of something that is keeping the powers of heaven from your life. Then he talked about sacrifice and being willing to sacrifice something to the lord so he can bless you. I loved every second of it. He really shook the faith of a lot of missionaries to the point where they wonder if they even have enough faith to be out here. 

 We were really short on miles so we decided to borrow some bikes from the APs and hit the cart path trails here for the day. Well having never used  cart paths before Elder Searle and his keen sense of direction got us 5 miles(at least) out of the direction we wanted to be going. We made it back from were we started and then asked some girls on a golf cart how to get where we wanted to go. We made it!!! After hours of wasted time trying to get where we wanted to go we ended up at a members house to see if he could go to an appointment with us. Turns out we showed up at the perfect time. He really needed help. We changed his flat tire while he cut his lawn. He invited us in after to do family home evening with him and his family. He committed to us at least two days a week that he could go out with us. One of the new things President has put in is we can not teach any lessons from preach my gospel without a member. If a member is not present then we can only read the Book of Mormon or answer questions. We went out on his golf cart afterwards and tried to visit some people.

We spent the whole next morning doing service for a sister who's husband is in Iraq. We cut the grass. Did the hedge trimming, pulled weeds. The cool thing is they have a riding mower. The really bad thing is that the Elder who was cutting the grass has never driven one and had no clue what he was doing so the grass looked horrible. Then the mower died. I couldn't stand how the yard looked and the member was very concerned with the disaster grass so I cut it all over again with a push mower. I don't think any of you people realize the humidity and the heat we have going on right now!! She is from the DR and made us Mangu, its a super good dish that I love!!!

 We have three baptisms this coming Saturday so we spent a lot of time getting them ready this week. We had some great lessons and they are getting very excited! We take a white board to keep them into the lessons. They are teenagers so they get distracted really easy! Sound familiar mother? You've had a house full of them for years!

We were at a members house eating a little snack before we headed out to a lesson. She came running back in the house and yelled for us to go help her neighbor move his yard sale in. We stepped out side and realized the problem. IT WAS POURING RAIN!!!! We ran over and started taking stuff into shelter. We were instantly drenched with in a few seconds. We literally looked like we jumped in a lake! We borrowed some shorts threw our pants in the drier and then headed back out to work.

We spent all day Saturday helping a member move, but nothing was ready to go. So we got to help pack and then move. We were staying in the same trailer park and went to the new trailer where that family was still in the process of moving out. We got to help two people move out. We had 15 people there to help move. The branch president says thats a record! Normally 3 show up. We made a great impression on the family to the point where she turned to her friend and say "me voy a cambiar de iglesia" (I'm going to switch churches)

We had a great meeting with our branch president on saturday, he then taught the sunday school class and really threw down on missionary work. The branch is getting really excited about it. They came up with activities we could do and gave us times they can come out with us. Its really picking up!

 It is really hard to get members to lessons especially when our branch area covers the whole stake. We have lots of struggles missionaries that teach in english or teach in other countries don't have. They talk about people walking to church and blah blah blah, well the church is over 20 miles in one direction from some of the people we teach. There are fears of driving for legal reasons. People randomly get deported. We have lots of struggles, But we have been trying so hard to get members to our lessons. The support is really building and I  think very soon we will have the majority of our lessons with members. We need to do as our leaders tell us and thats what we were told.

Happy birthday Jack!!! I was not able to get a letter to you yet but i'm sending it today!! 

Sometime we get really cool surprises! We were teaching a family when their friend came over. She answered a lot of the questions and helped her friends understand what we were teaching. She knew so much. At the end of the lessons I asked her if she had met with the Elders before or how she knew so much. She told me that she was baptized in mexico four years ago!! This happens from time to time. They come here, can't find the church or find it and assume its in English so they feel like they can't go. Well she is excited to start coming to church and hopefully she will continue to help us teach her friends.

We are teaching a recent converts family. She is a single mother with 6 kids. She has three older boys who we commited to baptism in two weeks. They made the choice on their own. We are really excited for them. They saw the change it made in their mothers life and felt the spirit as they were taught. They are such a great family. They are ages 16 - just a couple months. There is a little girl that is only a couple moths younger the Kaydie jo. They are so fun to be around. Super funny kids! 

Really very short on time today! Yesterday we ate dinner at a member who is home schooling her son so she has been learning about learning styles. She had us take the learning style and disposition tests. I am a performer (shocker right) and I had one that was one point less that the performer was Thinking/creater they are pretty opposite from each other which is kinda odd. I am a Kinostetic learning with visual tendencies! haha it was a of fun hearning the profile and then trying to deny all the things you don't like about it hahaha. I also may or may not have ruined a 10 year old childs life. They were talking about music and Rollingstones so i said how horrible their music is and that Apostle rode with Mcjagger and the things he said about their music. Well turns out its his favorite band and now he can't listen to them anymore. I did him a favor in the long run the rolling stones only have a couple good songs anyways hahaha. He is very upset with me though ahahahah!! His mom was happy though and she's the one who cooks so I think i'll live.

Brenen good luck with try outs!!! How is everyone else doing? how did Guppy like soccer? I really miss summer, parades. Cook outs and the Cabin!! I would love to just have a little vaca right now!!

Love you all!!! Love Tanner

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