Sister Kiera Tanner: Saturday I will wake up an old woman!

Wow can you believe it is already the middle of APRIL?? What the heck, time needs to slow down! Also, Thanks for all the birthday shoutouts and for those who didn't know, I'll get over it!!! Tomorrow (well Saturday) I will wake up an old woman!.... ;) [love you bay!]

Well it's been another awesome week. Spring is here!! (I think) the snow has melted and it's been between 50-70 like all week! Thank goodness :) Sister Smoot and I work well together, we go hard everyday so that is a huge blessing and it's much easier to do in warm weather.

On Wednesday last week after pday was over we went Tracting and met this lady named Amanda and her son Darius. Well at first she wasn't too interested. She's not religious, never has been, she believes in God but that's all. Then we showed her the He Lives video and everything changed! The Spirit took over and touched her heart for sure. She was super nice and loving and asked us to come back every Wednesday around the same time. She gave us her number as well and asked about church and all that good stuff. It was awesome.

Thursday started off a bit rough, again everyone was canceling, we had to do this thing on the computer and the computer was broken, it was raining, nobody was home when we looked them up, everything was going bad. But it's okay, we kept working hard and eventually we talked to some really nice people! We talked to our JW friend so that we could go to church and she said "Ya come to my church, like you can go to both church's and then eventually you can just pick one. Maybe you will want to switch over. But I mean come with an open heart and an open mind and then you can see. I'll tell everyone you are coming so that they can welcome you and it can be really good. You will love it" haha she's awesome.

Okay get this, Brother King stopped smoking!!! Wahooo! Like legit he isn't just saying that too. You can really tell it's incredible! He feels the spirit so much stronger now, he tells us all about his Book of Mormon reading, he is doing SO good! We had prepared a lesson for him and were really nervous about it because the elders were coming and it's kinda stressful teaching with missionaries older(mission age) than you because they are more experienced and what not, so we really wanted it to be good. Let me tell you, the lesson we picked was direct revelation from God. Everything we planned to talk about, he brought up within the first 2 minutes we were in his house. It was awesome. We focused mostly on the talk "stay by the tree" from Kevin Pearson. The spirit was so strong and guiding us through the whole thing. It was AMAZING.

This is kind of random but I wish Liv was going on a mission right now or something! It would be so fun to take her (or any of you) around Tracting and to lessons and stuff. A few of the missionaries here did that. Like this one elder had his brother (who received his mission call already and would be leaving just before the older brother got home) come stay with him for 5 days. President Morgan picked the younger brother up from the airport and took him to the older brother and they were in a trio for that time. That would be sweeeeet. I wish you all could be here loving these people along with me! They are GREAT!

Friday, wow I don't know where to begin. Friday was SO fun! It was Sister Hsiehs birthday. So for lunch we ate with the Hsiehs which was delicious as always. Afterwards we went to get the Hsiehs spare key from the Elders so we could secretly decorate their apartment later for her birthday. Well when we got there the elders had already left...but their door was unlocked. So we went inside and turned their couch around and then locked it for them and left. We went and worked and tracted and what not, and then when we got home, all of our furniture in the front room was upside down! Haha it was pretty funny because we said after we left "watch them go into our apartment and mess up all our stuff" and then it happened. So we flipped it all back and haven't said anything to them yet. I guess it's kinda fun when we all have each other's keys (it's so that if we lock them inside we can still get in). Anyway, then we went and decorated the Hsiehs apartment and then went and watched meet the Mormons with our branch which was so fun because that movie is SO good. After the movie we raced back and went into the Hsiehs and turned off the lights and waited for them until we could yell surprise. Then the elders came and we all had cupcakes and took some pictures. I'll send you a video we took! Sister hsieh made the longest wish ever and then after we went and had her chase a deer haha. She wanted to "go deer hunting" which to them is just finding and running after deer. It was cute because all day we were telling her to do something crazy for her birthday and that's the craziest thing she could think of. Gosh they are so cute. I love them.

Here is my name in Chinese!

琦安拉

Kiera （shi-ann-la)

科蕾特

Colette (col-lay-tah)

唐納

Tanner (tang-ner)

On Sunday we went to the Kingdom Hall after church! (the Jehovah's Witness place) and it was really um...um...interesting. But we answered questions so that was fun. He asked a ton of questions and would call on people to answer so we decided we should contribute and he called on us. It was pretty exciting. We are going to go one more time, just tomorrow, so that we can see how they do role plays because I guess that's what they do on Thursdaynight-Door approach role plays. It should be interesting, and then our friend will come with us to ours.

Monday we went and taught a new investigator of ours who we met Tracting last week. Her name is Barbara. She is really nice and seems super interested. We talked about the restoration and all that good stuff and so she loved it. She asked if we can meet with her twice a week so that's what we are doing! And the Hsiehs are going to pick her up for church on Sunday too!

Yesterday we had a lesson with Sister McCreary (our neighbor) and she set a bap date!!! We were expecting her to pick a date in like May or June but she picked April 26th!! So pray for that please! Even if it doesn't happen on the 26th, I know it will happen soon. Super crazy and awesome. Gosh I love her so much.

This week I was thinking a lot about how Sharing the gospel is like a train station. Our job is to drive the train up and invite people on, but we can't force them. We don't shove people onto the train, but we explain why they should get on rather than just stay on the platform. Although the train leaves, another one comes and we keep trying. It may take a whole lot of trains before they get on but that's okay. Some people may get on the wrong train for some time, and some may just stay in the platform for a really long time. But we can't ever give up. One day they will see the good in jumping aboard and even if that day isn't today, at least we help contribute to them taking a step closer to the train door and they increase their faith.

During the good, the bad, and the in between we need to trust God and rely on Him for strength. Only through Him are all things possible. Even when it seems like everything is going wrong, we can remember that God has a plan for us and wants to help us be happy. Turn everything over to Him and rely on Him. "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation." 2 Nephi 22:2

Anyway, I love you all so much! I hope you all have a fabulous week! Party it up! Xoxo

Love,

Sister Tanner <3