Also, Happy anniversary mom and dad!! Thanks for being the best parents ever. I love you!!
Wednesday
So I Got an email from Sister Smoot about our investigator Barbara from my last area. Do you remember her? Well she stayed up till 3 am finishing the the Book of Mormon! Wow I am SO proud of her! She is so awesome. I can't wait for her to get baptized! I will get to skype in probably so that will be cool. Also, there are a million other miracles that sister Smoot sent me, so I'll send that to you too!
Thursday
We had a Skype interview with one of the companionships who live far away and then we planned for like 12 thousand hours. Not really but it seemed so long. We created our VGPA and we put our families down for holding us accountable, so I'll send it to you and if you ever want to follow up with me and check on something then feel free! VGPA stands for "Vision, Goals, Planning, Accountability"
For dinner we went to a members house, she is from Japan and they have three kids. Two boys and one girl. Their boys names are "shay" and "kier" hahaha not even kidding. That's their real names spelled like that.
Friday
We found a lot of new investigators who are super awesome and interested. It's really hard to tract here though because since there are 4 companionships and not too huge of an area then people are always like "someone just came here" but it's okay, we do it anyway for those people who are seeking truth.
We had a Skype conference call with a couple other zone leaders and sister training leaders for the Alma activity. It was fun because two of the other STLs that we are doing it with are from my district in the MTC. The Alma Academy is on June 6th and it's from 8am - after the adult session of conference. So really late. It will be so awesome though. We are having the seniors in HS experience a day of missionary life in the city. So here are a few things that will be happening..we will do companionship study with them, and then we will go contacting for 3 hours outside the temple and down at Columbus circle so that they can talk to a lot of people. We will do a training, some lightening rounds, and have dinner. Stuff like that. It'll be fun though. I'm excited to go back to the city for a day :)
Saturday
So we went to support Julian at his Soccer game. Julian is a little boy in a family we are teaching... but he wasn't there because he was sick. awk. But while we were there we ran into Dave who was a man we tracted into last week and he had rejected us Hard core. He actually started talking to us first..and then when we left him and went to a new spot, he came back and gave us his card and number. So now we will have the elders contact him :)
Sunday
we gave talks in church. So while I was giving my talk a huge spider started crawling around the stand and I wanted to kill it but I was afraid I would scream. So I had to keep my eye on the huge little thing the whole talk haha it was scary though! I couldn't put my hands or body or anything close to the stand because I didn't want it to get me! But right when I sat down one of the guys on the stand stood up and killed it.
Sister smith (the little one that finished her mission 2 weeks ago. She was my roommate in southman for 6 months) came back with her family so she was at church! It was so fun to see her. She came back so early after her mission to go to a wedding reception.
After church we had Interviews with president Morgan! And it was Our last one with him!! So sad! He finishes his mission June 24th I believe. I love him so much, he is SO awesome. Really, he is the BEST. You should check the NY mission blog and send me some of the interview selfies because we never actually see them, they just go on the blog. But anyway, the interview was really good. He talked about how grateful he is to serve with us and how much he loves us and he told me about different strengths that I have and how in the future I will really need those strengths as well and he kinda gave me a mission president blessing type of thing so it was really cool. He's the greatest.
Monday
Since it was Memorial Day, what did we do? We went tracting! :) and it is definitely starting to heat up a lot. So we went to lunch with sister smith and a member in the ward and then we went tracting for 2 or three hours. We met some awesome people. One house we knocked on a guy answered and he was so taken back and confused. We didn't understand why he was so confused....until later when we realized we had knocked on his side door and not his front door haha oops so that was kind of funny. A lot of people were really nice and glad to see us. Most people were home too so that was good. However, some People are so scared of us. We are so nice though! We were talking about how When someone is in the dark and a light is turned on all of the sudden, it hurts their eyes for a little bit. And that's how it is with the gospel sometimes. Some people have been in the darks I long that they get scared at first because of the light and the peculiar-ness of it, but eventually they realize the spirit they feel. So when we talk to people and they aren't interested, we try to break past that "no, I'm not interested" until they feel the spirit. And I have really seen that make a huge difference throughout my mission. Some people who at the very beginning say no, end up taking lessons because they realize it is good.
After tracting we looked up some less actives in New York and then headed back to Connecticut for a BBQ that a ward member invited us to. It turned out to be really fun. We only stayed about 45 minutes but we had delicious food and got to get to know a lot of members and their friends. There was country music playing and we were dying because we miss it haha. We never hear music here like we did down in the city. One guy came up to us and was like "sorry you have to listen to country music. I bet you hate that" haha
Tuesday
Oh my goodness. Okay so we went to get certified to volunteer at this place called Glen Hill. It's a little senior center. so we did this training and it took like 2.5 hours! If it wasn't for sister Groberg I probably would have been like "forget it, I don't want to come here anyway!" Haha because it was Sooo boring watching these lengthy videos about safety for so long. Ridiculous if I do say so myself. But it will be worth it because it will be fun actually visiting the people when we go back.
One less active that we looked up at night let us in and she was asking us about missions and getting our call and how it all works. We told her how it's a big deal and how we have a bunch of people come and then we record it and stuff. She then asked if we had the video of us opening ours...we didn't. So can you maybe send that to me?? Luckily Carter Had sent me a video of him opening his call so we showed that to her and she thought it was the coolest thing. She got all into it and was cheering. I wish I would have recorded her somehow. She was like "ohhh he has to learn Samoan! I didn't even know that was a language!" She actually watched it twice. So good thing I had that video on my iPad! She thinks elders are so cute and awkward and then when carter said "I'm nervous" before he opened it then she was like "awwwe cute!" Haha
Wednesday
Today we are going to the Templeeee! And I am SO glad that sister Groberg is my companion because she loves the city as much as me. So it really helps! I am so excited. We are going to do a little shopping and go to the temple then head back up and buy groceries and what not. I love it. I love being back in the city though! The people, the food, the smells, everything! I love it!!
Thanks for the reminder that I hit my YEAR mark this week! Ah, crazy. As time goes on, don't remind me how little time I have left! I have to finish strong. It'll be good :)
It was interesting, at the bottom of my journal where I write my testimony of Christ each day, the two scriptures were "For after much tribulation come the blessings"(D&C 58:4) and "and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose"(Romans 8:28) and I thought about president Hinckley's quote that is something along the lines of "everything will be okay in the end. And if it's not okay, then it's not the end." I just love those scriptures and that message. We were talking to an investigator about suffering this week and why we have to suffer. It's hard to fathom the thought of God loving us, Christ paying for it, and us Still suffering especially because some suffer way more than others. But as we keep our faith and broaden our view of the great plan of happiness, we can understand a little bit more. Although we can't completely know why we sometimes must suffer so much, we can always remember that Christ knows how we feel and that God wants us to feel His love and turn to Him especially during those hard times.
I was reading this talk this past week called "the inconvenient messiah" it's from the March 1989 Liahona and it is really good so you should go read it. It talks about difficulties and temptations we will face. Elder holland says "Life was very inconvenient for the Savior, and, I believe it will often be so for us when we take upon his name." And one of my favorite quotes is in it as well that says "If sometimes the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived." Although life won't be easy, it will be worth it. I know that enduring to the end is real and that when we give our all and hold strong to the faith we have, one day, even if it's in the next life, we will be able to understand the trials we go through. I know that this gospel is good, and that God is good, and that he loves me and each of you.
I hope you all have a great week. I love you so much. Happy anniversary again! Xoxox
Love,
Sister Tanner <3
No comments:
Post a Comment