We just about cried

Hello again! Thanks for the emails and love. This week flew by once again but it was a good one! 

WEDNESDAY 

So the Statue of Liberty was good! right before we left it was pouring rain but as soon as we stepped onto the boat it stopped thankfully. We did get all wet when it was raining but not as bad as it would have been. It was fun to go though! 

While on the boat there was this Asian family in front of me and they didn't speak any English and the little boy got a nosebleed and they were frantically trying to stop it and find some tissue. Luckily I had some in my bag and so I was able to give it to them. It was cool because they just smiled and even though there were no words exchanged, you could see in their faces and in their eyes that they were grateful. It was a cool experience that I needed to have at that very moment. God works in mysterious ways. 

THURSDAY

wow it was a quite the day. We woke up at 5:30 and went to spin class from 5:40-6:05 even though it actually starts at 6. Then we showered and got ready and left by 7:15 to head to Scarsdale. So I dropped off Sister Groberg at the mission home and then I went on a split with sisters kovac and jones while all the dying missionaries went to the temple(it will be closed for cleaning so they had to go early). Then we went to Ossining and weekly planned and studied and had lunch and all that good stuff. The APs told us to be back at the mission home around 4:30 to Unsplit/pick up my companion. So we got there around 4:45 but nobody was there yet. They said they would be there around 5:15 so we waited and a couple other sisters came. We all just talked and hung out for a few minutes but then the companionship that was dropping me and another sister off had to go and so me and that sister companion split while we waited. We ended up sneaking into the mission home through the back door so we could use the restroom and then we just chilled in there. Well they didn't get home until a little after 7. Then we had to drive two sisters to stanford which got us stuck in traffic. Then we finally headed back to Danbury. Once we got to Danbury it was time to meet sisters jones and kovac again to go on a real split with them.

Well a lot happened during the day. One of our investigators-Jamie and max with the three cute boys that we play with-dropped us. we just about cried. It was the saddest thing. She texted us about it too. Ouch! So she told us that she has been meeting with the preacher from her church and that she needs to take a break from visiting with us so she can figure out her faith. She thanked us and told us that we helped her believe in God again and for that reason she will never forget us. It was really sad and cool at the same time. She just has so much potential! her family could be sealed together if she just listened to the Spirit telling her to learn more about this true gospel. 

That morning I had read Mosiah 28:18 which says "Now this account did cause the people of Mosiah to mourn exceedingly, yea, they were filled with sorrow; nevertheless it gave them much knowledge, in the which they did rejoice."

I felt that. There was Definitely sorrow but it's also good that we helped her believe in God again. We helped her in a way she didn't think was possible. And there is a good feeling about that. We will still go over from time to time and play with the little boys outside so that she knows that when she is ready we will be here for her. 

FRIDAY 

Sister Jones joined me in this area for a split and it was awesome! She has only been out for 4 weeks so it was a lot of fun. She said it was the best day of her entire mission so that was cool. During companionship studies and the hour of 12week we had some really good gospel discussions and I was able to answer a lot of questions about the mission. We addressed some of her concerns and were able to turn to PMG, the scriptures, and personal experiences for answers so it was really cool and the Spirit was really strong. Then we picked up Camille(a 17 yr old girl who wants to serve a mission) and we went to a couple lessons. It was so much fun being with the two of them for a few hours because they just have such a wonderful spirit about them. it was really stress freeing. 

So we started off with Jay! Jay is doing SO awesome! He first explained in such great detail all about what he read in the Book of Mormon from chapters 1-4. He loves reading it and he said he knows it's true because of how he feels when he prays about it. Then We taught him the plan of salvation and he LOVED it! He was glowing with excitement. Probably not as much as me, but that's okay haha. Seriously it was so cool! I felt the Spirit so strong. We invited him to be baptized next month and he was like "well ya of course! Why not? I want to go to the celestial kingdom! This is great!" I wish I could explain in words how much joy I felt as he just accepted all we taught him. Wow it was a great lesson.

After that we were feeling goood! So we headed to Dan and Dan. Big Dan freaked out at first again just saying he is Christian not Mormon but since I already heard that before and since I was so filled with the spirit we just easily explained how it's okay, we are Christian too. We don't worship Mormon and then he was like "okay great let's read!" So we read from the Book of Mormon with them again and of course that was good.

We then did some Tracting and got ice cream because it was so hot and eventually went to the Lopez/Rocha home for dinner. Let me tell ya, it was delicious but boy were we full. She was like "how many enchiladas do you want to start with?" And then her husband was like "just give them three to start" and in my head I was thinking "to start??!? I will die tonight" so she gave us 3 but there were more like burritos. Super delicious. We put queso fresco, creme, avocados, and salsa on top and it was delicious. Then after she said "how many more do you want? 2? 4? 6? 7? 8? 10?" So we went with two more and still died. Then after that she was like "I have a surprise!!" And she pulled out ice cream. We walked out of there ready to explode. 

We did some Tracting after to work some of that dinner off and ended up Tracting into a member from the Spanish branch and he was really nice but he told us that Tracting isn't effective haha we were like weeeeell actually that's where all of our investigators are from. Either members give them to us or we knocked on their door. Anyway it was a great day and at the end of the day we Unsplit. 

SATURDAY

We had a lesson with Jen but it went really well! We had it at the church so that we could give her a church tour and it really helped her. She really felt the spirit which is so key for her because she fights it a lot of times. We ended up setting a baptismal date with her for September 19th and she is really excited for that. She is really trying to change. She had this ring that she got from some girl in Ecuador that she felt she should get rid of. So we took the ring for her and As I was playing with it I realized that it was the exact same size as my ctr ring...so I gave her my ctr ring to replace it. It was the cursive ctr one that I bought at the byu bookstore. So that's what I want for Christmas, a new ring! :) it's weird not having it because I wore it like everyday but i know Jen needs to remember to choose the right and that's what she needed right now. 

Afterwards we went to visit this Cute old couple because the wife just had surgery. They were so cute. We had a little lesson and they told us some stories and then they fed us supper. Haha it reminded me of being at grandma and grandpa Harpers. Just all about it was so similar especially hearing the stories about the missionaries from grandma. I loved it. 

We went to do a media referral lookup for someone named Jose. So we went to his house and his parents were not very nice. They said Jose was not home and that they didn't know when he would be and kinda just gave us the "you should leave now" tone. So we left and as we were walking away there was this kid so we said "hey are you Jose!?" And he said yes and stopped so we explained how we got his name and address and came to bring him a Book of Mormon. We asked if he ordered it or knew someone that could have ordered it. Then he said "no I ordered it. I did some research on Google and it brought me to a website that I ordered it from. I'm really interested in reading it. It doesn't replace the bible right? It supports it? Because my stepdad tries to tell me that it replaces it but I don't listen to him" and then later in the conversation he said "do you believe in personal revelation if it's what the commandments follow? Because I believe that stuff. And you believe in a living prophet right? That's so cool! I believe that." It was incredible. That was definitely a miracle. 

After some more Tracting and look ups and getting Attacked by dog, we headed to spend the last 30 minutes of our day using Facebook. We ended up having a really fun search to find Bruce (the member that Jay knows but can't find the phone number for) and we were able to search him out and then message him to explain the whole situation. It was really hard to find him at first but once we did it was gold and we were really excited haha. It's so cool what we can do on Facebook! It's the coolest tool that I have become converted to. 

SUNDAY

It Started off kinda rough. Sunday's are stressful because we want everyone at church but we don't know who is going and we try so hard to do all we can to help them come. So we first went to see a less active who ended up not being home but it made us Late to ward council. Buuut then Jay came to church And he wants to come again! So that made it all better. For dinner we went to the Rochas/Lopez home last minute since our dinner appointment cancelled. So of course they are the best and want to help us out. It was really fun and crazy as always.

MONDAY

We had district meeting in the morning and it was all centered on prayer. It was really good and the spirit was really strong. But the cool thing was afterwards we went and looked up a referral from a member. We had asked the member where she thought we should tract and she said she had a friend on a certain street and that we should tract into her. So that's what we did. Well the friends name is Mandy. Mandy invited us in and had so many questions. She pretty much told us her life story. It felt so comfortable being in her home. She has two little kids (boy almost 2yrs and girl that is 6 months) and a husband but he isn't interested at all. But anyway, it was so cool because she is so ready. We explained a little about what we do but we mostly just listened to her. At the end she brought up the member and we told her we knew that member (the member didn't want us to tell her she sent us) and then she invited us back for dinner with that member as well. At the end she said "sometime while you are teaching me, will you teach me how to pray?" So we said "ya we can teach you right now" and we taught her how to pray. It was awesome because we had just talked about prayer and had the spirit so strongly as we discussed it that it was so easy for her to feel that spirit. Ya it was a really cool lesson. After we left she called the member and told her the whole story. We ended up leaving her house after 40 minutes which was 30 minutes later than planned which made us a little bit late to the chiropractor. Luckily it was something about air awareness day or something and so there wasn't as much traffic as there normally is. Good news about the chiropractor is I'm getting better! 

At night we went to the Wells house for dinner and it was really awesome. Serah(the one who doesn't want to go to church or anything but goes anyway because of the grandma) read 9 chapters more than we asked her to. So I mentioned how we are reading the Book of Mormon backwards and so she was suppose to read Moroni 1 which is super short. But she read all of Moroni which is unheard of for her. She hates reading it. We were SO excited. She also made us a dinner she hasn't made in years and she said she will never make it again because it takes so long. But she wanted it to be special for us. She's the sweetest. Gosh I love that family. It was a really good day. Miracles all around. 

TUESDAY

We had an awesome lesson with Jay! We taught him the word of wisdom because on Sunday after church he said to us "members can't drink at all?" And so we thought it would be perfect to teach him then. So we had Edgar-the recent convert who comes to Jays lessons- come and help us teach and we taught him all about what we should and shouldn't eat. After the whole thing we asked him if he will commit to living the word of wisdom today for the rest of his life and he said "yes of course! God said to so I will. In fact, I was planning on buying us all coffee right after this lesson but let's get hot chocolate instead!" Haha unfortunately we had to go home because it was 8:45 but next time we will have hot chocolate. It was just so cool to see his questions about 'why no coffee or tea..' and 'well what if I'm really tired while steering the ship and I need coffee..' And then us explain that it's a commandment from God and we don't know everything but these are a few reasons. And then he was just so accepting. After the lesson he gave us another name of a member he knows in Utah and asked us to contact him too. 

Something interesting is when we asked him about church he said "bishop Kurt Anderson shook my hand and welcomed me personally and talked to me and I thought that was really nice. In other churches the leader of the congregation doesn't do that. So how does that work? Will brother Capone be the next bishop?" It was so cool because he remembered everyone's names and what their calling was. And he loved church so that's good too. 

WEDNESDAY

Happy Pday!! :) today we are just doing lots of shopping so sister groberg can get a going home outfit and then we might go on a hike or something soon. We will see! 

As I was studying the Book of Mormon today I came across alma 5:12 which says "And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true." So then I was going through the institute manual for alma 5 and President Ezra Taft Benson had some really good quotes that really stood out to me. Here are a couple of them:

"Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world."

"Finally, men captained by Christ will be consumed in Christ. To paraphrase President Harold B. Lee, they set fire in others because they are on fire."

"Their will is swallowed up in His will. (See John 5:30.)"

Today I like those simple quotes because I really saw that in Jay this week. He is just so willing to change. He wants to do Gods will. He really is on fire and it is so contagious. As soon as he learned a new lesson, he wants to apply it all and change everything he was doing wrong. He is constantly repenting and reading from the Book of Mormon to learn even more. He is going to change the world one person at a time. If everyone in the world was like Jay, there would be so many people getting baptized! And the world would be such a positive place. Anyway, I love being a missionary and seeing the fire in others as they come to know Christ and want to change to be more like Him. It really does bring true joy. I wouldn't trade this time in my life for anything. I am so happy here.

I love you all and I hope you have a fabulous week. And Stay out of the ER, Thanks! Xoxo

Love, 

Sister Tanner <3