Sister Kiera Tanner: Yankees, MOTAB, and Getting completely Soaked!

July 8,2015
Hello again! Wow this week flew by again!
Okay this week we had some CRAZY adventures. Saturday kinda has a funny story and Tuesday has quite the adventure. It's been a good week though with a lot that went on! :) Today for pday we cleaned our apartment for like 4 hours straight. I did some repairs. Fixed doors and vacuums and rearranged things. It was really good. I've gotten to be quite the handy woman. Just kidding. But at least I'm better than before!

WEDNESDAY
So after pday ended we went to dinner at the Lopez and Rochas home and it was a lot of fun. They made a super cute cake. And the inside was Brazilian cake I guess. I don't know what made it Brazilian but it was good! I'll send you some pictures!

THURSDAY
So we went to this cycling class that we found because that's what sister groberg wanted to do for her birthday. It's pretty much 50 minutes of nonstop cycling and let me tell you, our legs were so sore for like 3 days. It was awesome though. They turned off the lights and turned on these tvs with bright fun pictures and then put on upbeat music and instructed us on what to do for the hour. Like whether we had to go faster or stand up while riding or go uphill. Stuff like that. It was a good class and the music was great haha. We were SO sore after.
Then we went to the Chiropractor and just got adjusted and what not. Sister groberg did it too this time because apparently her spine is messed up too. He said that everyone should go to the chiropractor because getting adjusted before the pain comes is much better. It was funny cuz sister groberg thought she was fine but she had him check anyways and so then he was like "it's like the gospel. You might be reading your scriptures, going to church, and praying and think you are perfectly fine but really, there is a lot more too it and you have room for improvement. That's how your body is. You might feel good, eat right, exercise and feel perfectly fine, but really you need help. So get help before it's too late. Find out if you have a problem before it hurts"
After that we had to go get a small offering/gift for our mission president for MLC just for fun. But we both had bad headaches and were exhausted from the long drive so it was pretty bad looking for something. One thing We ended up getting was a pig that we filled with yorks for him to put on his desk. This is the Yorktown zone and its the only area with PORtuguese speakers and there is a lot of Brazilian BBQ places with tons of meat and PORK. So we changed it to the porktown zone. Lame right? But everyone loved it so it worked out haha

FRIDAY
MLC(mission leadership council) was awesome with President and Sister Smith. They are so incredible! We learned a lot and Taught them a lot about this mission and the zones. I really felt the Spirit speak directly to me and teach me what I needed at that very moment. It's really incredible receiving personal revelation during meetings like those because it's so powerful. Each zone present the Smiths with gifts/offerings so it was cool to see what people came up with. They got some cool stuff.
Afterwards we went to the Yankee's game! It was really fun. We sat next to the smith family so that made it even cooler. President Smith was taking pictures and posting them on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook all right there. He's up to date with the technology stuff! Haha well we left about the 5th inning maybe but we heard the Yankees won in the 12th inning! So that's pretty cool. I bet there were awesome fireworks after. Too bad we were sound asleep by then. It's okay, when you are way up high surrounded by a ton of friends then the game part isn't even very exciting haha but it was still awesome to be there! :)
Random jokes from the Yankee game!
QUESTION: What do you call a waffle on a California beach?
ANSWER: A Sandy eggo
QUESTION: Why can't a bike stand on its own?
ANSWER: It's two tired.
Okay that was lame. Anyway, Motab was really good! It was fun because every time the screen showed Motab or missionaries then you just hear all the missionaries scream and cheer really loud. So it was really fun.
Oh so I met Sister Boud who knows the Harpers really well! Like Uncle Jim and Aunt Robin. I guess they would have family nights together all the time. So that was kinda funny because we found out after the game once we had been talking all day.
Oh ya, while we were at the game we found out Elder Boyd K Packer had passed away so that was sad. And we heard Elder Scott isn't doing too well either and probably won't make it to the next conference. So that's potentially 3 new apostles next conference. Craziness!

SATURDAY
So we woke up exhausted from the day before since we didn't get to bed until midnight because we got home late from the game. But we decided we needed to go to one of the city breakfasts to support the scouts and meet people. Since both of us had bad experiences tracti on the Fourth of July last year we decided it would be best to go to the people. So we gave all our strength and faith and got up at 6:15 and went to the pancake breakfast. Weeeelll, when we walked in this guy was like "oh are you guys in the parade?" We said no and so he asked if we would hold their sign and walk at the front of the parade. So we texted our APs and they said sure. 30 minutes later we were in the parade holding a random banner! So the banner was for the lions club which i guess is a big community service club possibly mainly from the Catholic Church but their float was on marriage and family so that was pretty cool. It was hilarious seeing members at the parade who were watching because they had to do a double take and then they screamed and cheered for us and then asked what in the world we were doing. It definitely wasn't as cool as getting on national television like you mom and dad. It was fun though!
Later we went tracting and it was pretty much a fail. Nobody answered. Except we met one man that said we can come back another day so we have full faith and hope in him. So hopefully he is awesome. We ended up going to kaylees aunts house with her for lunch and crashing their party. Her aunt is very very less active but she let us in and fed us delicious Brazilian food because her husband is Brazilian and was BBQing. It was SO good. Anyway, we now have access to her aunt because we made friends with her. It's awesome.

SUNDAY
It was fast Sunday so of course it was amazing! Church was great because tons of less actives came that we are working with. Like 12. It was cool. They are so awesome. Oh good news, that family that came last week that we promised would make it to work through Thursday if they stayed at church, made it to work through Thursday. Miracles are real. It's the wells family by the way. God is good and blessings come when we do what we are suppose to! So they came and stayed again which was another huge step because they refused to ever go to church on a fast and testimony meeting Sunday. Gosh I love them! They will get to the temple soon.
We had dinner with a cute awesome family and then asked them which of their neighbors we could talk to. They pointed us to their neighbor who just moved in and is solid Christian. so we knocked it and met an awesome family that we have been praying to find. There are two kids and a baby on the way and the dad was so open and nice. So hopefully he doesn't find anything anti because he invited us back on Saturday. Their family will be so perfect though so we are really praying for Everett and his family!
Something funny from Ward council. So they were giving a report about girls camp and I guess a few of the young men had gone up before camp to help set up and one of them made a comment that those boys got a lot of the girls numbers. And then one of the men in there said "they should have seen the girls do the Hookah!! That was hilarious!" And the young women leader was like "they did not do hookah. Hookah is a drug. They did the Hakka. That would be the dance" haha

MONDAY
We had zone meeting which was fun because sister groberg and I along with the zone leaders teach those. It was really successful and we had a lot of participation. Then we went and did lots of Tracting and potential investigator look ups which was really awesome. It was so successful. We found a few families for the Spanish sisters and Portuguese elders which is what we were praying for so that was such a blessing. For dinner we decided to go to this random little place that we drove by. The sign said "waffles, coffee, burgers, Colombian and Ecuadorean food." Well we went in and asked the guy what we should get because it was our first time and he told us what the most common thing was. We ended up getting a Colombian dish I believe, I'm not too sure. It was really good though. I'll send a picture. We had already started splitting it onto two plates when I took the picture though haha good thing we shared because I would have died. Oh and before the food came out they gave us popcorn. Popcorn is my favorite so of course it was amazing! Good thing we don't eat like that everyday though, I'd be SO fat.

TUESDAY
So we had a pretty crazy day. We went to cycling in the morning and took it easy by accident pretty much. We still went the whole time but we didn't put as much resistance or Something because we were not super sore after. So that was the good. We got super lucky with the rain the first half of the day. Every time it was raining we were already in the car or we were in a house. And since we had a member with us all day it was good that we weren't all wet. For dinner a member took us to a stake house and it was delicious. During dinner everyone in the restaurant phones started beeping at the same time saying flash flood. Well it wasn't even raining so it was fine.
Then we went and picked up kaylee to go to the Wells house because kaylee is their visiting teacher. we got there right on time. They told us their windows in the basement were leaking from the crazy rain and that they needed to clean it so they couldn't sit down for a lesson. So we went down to take a look. Well while we were there we thought it would be a good idea to get all the important stuff off of the floor and out of the wet cardboard boxes because there was probably a centimeter of water all over the bottom floor. The boxes contained all of the pictures and special items that they had from the sister/mom/daughter of the three people in the wells family. After we finished getting all those boxes to safety, the rain came and it wouldn't stop. It was like Turning on the bathtub full blast and having 4 of those. Two from each window. Pouring out into their room. It was crazy. So we said "we have to pray" so we prayed with them asking the rain to stop. Then we got to work. Our first thought was to make a funnel so that the water pouring in could go into buckets and then we would just keep so wrong them out and dumping them. The water was completely to the top of the window on the outside. It was very fast moving and it worked alright but not good enough. So sister groberg ran up to the outside to check out the amount of water and to see what we could do from the outside. First of all, the rain stopped, so that was a huge blessing answered. but it made it nice and hot and sunny. Anyways, there were two window well type things filled. They were about 3 or 4 feet deep, 4 feet long and 4 feet wide. Complete filled. ( the drains at the bottom don't work because they are clogged). But it was working better getting water out than trying to control it inside. So me, tiny little kaylee, and sister groberg all took these little buckets and as fast as we could started shoveling the water out of the wells onto the sidewalk. So it wasn't just like dip in, dump out. It was kneel down, dip the bucket in, pull it up, run it over 15 feet, dump it out, run back. Over and over again for a long time. These wells were filllllled. And all the water in the grass around them was going into the hole as well so it kept getting higher. Well luckily we worked fast and God helps give us the strength we needed. We were soaked though. Literally after a couple minutes every time I bent down to dish out another bucket of water as fast as I could and then picked it up I thought to myself "I am strong! I can do this! Just a little bit more!!" And then I would precede to dumb the water out of the bucket by practically throwing it down. Most of the water went all over me instead of the sidewalk but it was fine because by that point it was like we were swimming anyway. Sweat was dripping down our face but it was hard to know if it was sweat or water. (Apparentky sister groberg had the same thoughts and was doing the same thing I was too. At that point we were SO thankful that cycling class didn't make us sore that morning! That was another Blessing of this story. Well finally we got one well half way cleared out and the other well about a quarter and the Spanish neighbor comes over with a drain hose that helps to empty the one still 3/4 the way full and we keep working on the one we made progress. So the three of us finished up the one side while the neighbor did the other with his machine. It was such a workout. I was so exhausted. Just when we finished the well, kaylees dad showed up because we called him and he brought a wet vacuum to dry the inside and some fresh hot cookies that his other daughter made for their own family but decided the wells needed them more. So that was nice. So for the next house we all worked in their basement with all the towels they had and all the fans they owned just drying everything. There were inches of water and everything was soaked. Luckily it wasn't feet of water like it could have been. Finally we got it as good as it was going to get. We all had to get going. Kaylees own house was flooding a bit so we are so grateful they sacrificed their time and their own house to help the Wells family.
We ended up having trouble getting home too. Our poor car couldn't make it up the slippery hills. We burned a lot of rubber. We were safe though. Fire trucks and ambulances were all over the rest of the city. Everyone was running around. Streets were closed down because of all the water. It was just super intense. While driving home, since our clothes smelled so bad and were soaking wet, we took off our skirts and drove home in our underwear.... It had to be done. Our skirts were baaaad. We showered and cleaned up once we got home since there were slugs all over us. But anyway, it was quite the adventure and so it was really awesome being able to help them.
God answers prayers. He knows us. He wants to bless us and help us.

Oh I read a good article from the ensign this week! I'm sure many of you have read it but I loved it. It's called "filled with life and energy" and it's by Randal A. Wright. It talks about how we can best receive personal revelation in the morning. No wonder we always went to early morning seminary and missionaries wake up early and study. He talked about how that is the key to following the guidance of the Lord. He gave a few examples like in Genesis 19:27 how Abraham got up early to stand before the Lord and in exodus 34:4 how Moses got up early to go to mount Sinai and in Joshua 6:12how Joshua got up early to learn and receive guidance as well and most importantly in Mark 1:35 how Christ himself got up early to pray. And ya, just read the talk. It's really good. But anyway, I have really seen that throughout my mission. Studies have to be first in the morning. If ever there is an important conflict and we have to go somewhere and then do studies, our studies are a lot less effective and it's much harder to focus on the guidance of the Spirit. We can't ever go a day without first opening up the scriptures and receiving the reflation God is waiting to give us. I find it so refreshing and relaxing to just sit down in the morning after exercising and eating breakfast and just reading from the Book of Mormon and other scriptures. I love it so much.

Well I am glad you all had a great 4th of July! Have a fabulous week! I love you all!

Love,
Sister Tanner <3