How is everyone? Are you ready to leave to Hawaii tomorrow? I hope you have so much fun and think of me the entire time. I'll be workin hard, so relax extra for me!
We just went to the temple. I love the temple. It was really neat! Missionaries filled the entire room besides like 10 other people. It was awesome. And it was the newest new film so it was sweet. I love the temple. It was soooo peaceful and quiet in there despite the loud chaos of the NYC life.
So a bit about my week...
Okay so a couple in our ward made a reservation 2 weeks in advanced and then took us to serendipity for dinner last week. We had to get special permission to go. Before hand we went to the candy store that we bought our Easter candy from last year haha I was surprised that I remembered my way around! But it was really good and fun to go to since the last time I was at serendipity was with you(mom), Jax and Riss in DC and before that last year here in NYC with the fam! When we got there they said "okay so we will order you dessert first. Frozen hot chocolate. A couple minutes later they brought out 4 frozen hot chocolates. One for each of us. I was full before I even got my food! Members here are crazy because when they take us out they buy us tons of food and we are like dying by the end because we are so full and the bill is like 12 thousand dollars and we feel so bad and they don't care at all.
So I realized it is a really Good thing I grew up walking dad's pace so often. Learning to keep up with dad has really benefitted me because I've definitely got the New Yorker walk down when we need it. I also learned that the white man and the red hand at stop lights mean absolutely nothing here. If there are cars, you stop. No cars, you walk. Cars coming, you run. And after living in Utah where they ticketed j-walkers like crazy.
This week has been kinda rocky but that's okay. I think The Lord just needs us to show Him our faith and the blessings will come :) For example, yesterday we did "inspired tracting" and my comp and I got the same thought of where and what floor to go on....and nobody was home/they said don't ever come back. So sad. But that's okay. We left Mormon.org cards for them all. Agency can be a tough thing sometimes.
Okay so At the temple/church there is a guard that sits in front and it's not through the church so they aren't all members. We are really good friends with all of them though because we talk to them like 4 million times a day. One of them was in an article in Deseret news I guess. He invited us to his endowment last week but sadly we weren't able to go because he wasn't our recent convert or in our ward. But he is awesome. I'm sad we weren't able to be there. But read the article if you can find it! :) Another guard we call Aunt Millie. She is so awesome. Every time we go in she gets really excited and we just say "aunt millieeee!!!" And she says something along the lines of "I've been waiting to see you sisters!" She is hilarious and always trying to do her job as best she can. So we gave her a Book of Mormon and she has been reading it!! She reads it every time it's quiet there. We all wrote in it and wrote our favorite scriptures and bore our testimonies to her. I'm excited for her to learn more :)
Jonathan is so awesome but apparently his mom isn't on board even though he is 26. He has been loving the lessons and eating up everything we are teaching him. But when we went by on Saturday the mom answered through the door and asked why we were there and we told her we are missionaries and we were looking for Jonathan and she paused and hesitated and then said there is no Jonathan that lives there so we could just leave. So that was weird.
The life in the Macuilt home continues to get crazier. We spend tons of hours there because we meet with Sasha and Natasha separately from Isaiah and also try to meet with just sister Macuilt sometimes too. And on Sunday sister Macuilts son (Isaiah's father) came to live with her as well. There are like 40 million people living there. Sasha is doing better than last week though. Having Isaiah on board helps a lot because those girls really look up to him. But lately we haven't been able to get ahold of any of them.. That is agency again.. On Sunday the Bakers came and said hello! So I am glad you got that picture from her :) it's so fun seeing familiar faces! I felt bad because it was a super crazy Sunday so I didn't really get to talk to them. None of our investigators made it to church and a few of our less actives that have been coming didn't even come! It was so sad and stressful! Once again.. Agency..
Alright for real I love agency though. This email makes it sound otherwise but it is a good thing!
Haha Okay so more about Sunday. This is the long story for the email...So Ron was suppose to Come to church. Then he wasn't home when we went to pick him up. So we went to church so sad. So then he called during the second hour and we called him back after and he said he was coming right then(at 3) and that he had to take his mother in law to her church. So we were thinking alright at least he is coming. So we go down to wait for him..he doesn't come. We call him..he says he is leaving.. Then it was 4! We were so sad that he didn't come. At 4:05 (church was over) he shows up. He was all dressed, but he smelled like smoke and he said "I have to leave. I have to take care of something for my mother in law. So I was jus thinking "Ron why did you even come." So he left. Now he was supposed to come to dinner with us that night at a members house. (The members told us to invite an investigator. We picked Ron). Then Ron called us and asked if he could still come to dinner. Of course we said yes. Before we left to dinner my companion and I said a prayer because it was just such a rough Sunday. Then at 5 we headed to his house to meet him to walk over with him to dinner. Luckily, he was allll ready. He had showered and changed. And no longer smelled like smoke. So awesome. So we get to the members house(the Merritt's)and Ron pushes the doorbell twice and knocks. So embarrassing. He is 59. Luckily they are home and ready. We go in and it's a huge apartment. 5 bedrooms which is unheard of here because of how expensive it is. They had just moved in from Connecticut and wanted to downsize. It was sooo fancy though. We had full on fancy appetizers and then the dinner table was set up soo nice and fancy. Here we are, in these rich peoples house, with an investigator from the projects who has fake teeth and they always wiggle and look like they are going to fall out. He was In heaven, we were nervous and praying our hearts out that it would go well. Luckily he followed us with everything we did manners wise and it went well. After our fancy delicious meal we were able to teach the word of wisdom and the Merritt's helped as well and the lesson was so good! Like it couldn't have gone any better. God really does answer our prayers. Ron used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and now he is down to 3 cigarettes a day. Since we were like out of time because the bishop was coming over to meet that couple we had to wrap things up so we invited Ron to pray about some goals he could set and accomplish to stop smoking. Then he randomly called US the next day. We didn't call him. He called us. And he said that he set some goals and has been praying and reading the Book of Mormon and he is really excited and thinks it will go really well. He's awesome. Although it'll take time, he will get baptized. We are so excited for him.
So we were teaching our investigator Jonathan this past week and we talked about the priesthood. We asked him what he thought it would be like to be able to access the power and be able to act in Gods name. While in awe, He replied by mentioning how much responsibility would come with it but how it would still be so incredible. So I began thinking about that more. Growing up in the church, it's often easy to overlook the true power of the priesthood and the responsibility that comes with it. It's easy to remember that through the priesthood we have special, blessings, ordinances, sacrament, etc. but the true power of it is often overlooked. As members of the church, we know we all have the ability to access the power to act in Gods name. Why then do we so easily forget that? It really is an incredible gift we have to be able to have that opportunity. We all need to be worthy of that priesthood power. It is a huge responsibility that God gave to us as members but we are so lucky to have it. Each day we can focus on one thing to better ourselves so that we can act in Gods name worthily. God doesn't ask us for perfection right now but he does ask for progression so that's what we can do.
I love you all. Life is good, the mission is great! Have a good week! Be safe in Hawaii! :) Love, Sister Tanner <3
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| The hall at church because everyone walks |
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| Frozen Hot Chocolates |
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