Girls Camp!

Hi everyone!
Well I don't believe anyone else got home from their mission this week that I know so that's a surprise! Buuut HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEXT WEEK MOM!! I love you so much!! Sorry that I'm gone again, but hey, next year we can celebrate! :)
So this week was good! I don't think I have ever seen so much rejection in a week where we are working SO hard. But hey, it's all good! We need the hard times to appreciate the good times even more! :) I love it! :)

THURSDAY
On Thursday we got to go to girls camp!! It was funny because sister Standage and I both didn't love girls camp yet we had to act like we did haha oh well it was good, we just talked to the girls about how awesome a mission is and we shared some experiences and had them share some with us. Afterward sister smith took us all to chick fil a for dinner which was fun to have because I haven't had it in years...and it was free so it was even better :)
We had a good lesson with John Elliott afterwards and invited him to be baptized. He said he will pray about it, so we will see how that goes!

FRIDAY
We had Zone conference which was so fantastic! Sister Standage ended up giving the talk for this zone conference so that was good! She did a really good job. Sister Terry also gave a talk (the girl from grandma harpers Ward) and she did super good as well. All the missionaries did good. We also talked about the Book of Mormon, being war builders, online proselyting, teaching doctrine, being organized and a few other things. It was all so good. Afterwards I felt so overwhelmed though. Like always the call was to do better. We can always do better. I just felt like I had a thousand things that I wanted to apply right then and there even though they would take time. After praying a whole lot, I felt peace knowing that little by little we will accomplish all the things we need to in this area. It got us really motivated to do better.
At night we were on the phone with Jenn. She was having a hard time praying and reading the Book of Mormon and she stopped having the strong desire to go to church so we were talking her through that and our district leader called in the middle. Well we didn't answer because he always calls when we are talking to her and we just call back after and its always perfectly okay. Well turns out this time they were calling us because (they are in a trio) one of the companions fainted and wasn't breathing or something and so an ambulance had to come and it was this big scary thing for these poor elders and they needed us for some reason because we live in the same complex as them. Well we are the worst and didn't answer. Luckily it all turned out okay and the elder is okay and all is well! We never again will ignore our district leader when he is calling! We ended up making them some cookies and apologizing so it's allll good :)

SATURDAY
Okay so Saturday started out great and then when we went to look up a bunch of people and to tract, nobody was home and nobody was listening, it was super rough. We kept going though but so much work yet rejection was making us mentally, spiritually and physically exhausted like always. Well we had two more potential investigator look ups that we planned to do, so we said a prayer and set out to do them. We put them both into the GPS and then headed to the first one. Well it was suppose to take us to like 217 boulevard st and instead it too us to 13 fair view ave or something like that. Super random. We were confused. So we looked back into our GpS and the address wasn't there in the history. It acted like it never took us there. So we decided to get out and knock. So we did. Well the woman was so nice but didn't speak English so we got her name and passed her off to the Portuguese Elders which was good because they gave us 3 English referrals the day before. Anyway, then we realized we had a potential across the street-Allen Ritter. So we went to see Allen but he wasn't home. However his friend who had just moved in was there. We think his name is Drew. (We are really bad with names and we forget them so fast. We are working on it though). Well Drew and Allen are both musicians and drew said that he is open to change and everything we talked to him about he liked. At the end of the conversation he said that he, Allen and Marcus (Allens brother) will all come to church next week, so that was cool. The lord definitely guided us to talk to him even if nothing comes of it, he needed our message and we needed someone that would listen so that we could keep going.
In the evening we were able to see Jenn and talk to her and teach her about the word of wisdom. After the lesson she asked us if we would fast with her to have courage and strength to give up her desire to break the law of chastity. It was cool that she came to us to ask us to fast for her, so of course we jumped on that and fasted with her. She really, wants to change. Bad habits are hard to break and satan wants her to continue breaking them but luckily God wants her on His side more.

SUNDAY
We fasted for Jenn and that was awesome. After church there was a baptism for a little boy who just turned 8 and so we went with Jenn. It was so cool. After the baptism was over we were talking to Jenn about what she thought. She said she felt like crying. She said she just felt so much good for the little boy and just felt Gods love for him. She described to us how she felt the spirit and felt God tell her it was a good thing to be baptized. She told us she wants to be baptized and that she will give up her worldly happiness. She is just so awesome. Baptisms are the coolest thing.

MONDAY
We tracted for a good two and a half hours or so and talked to a few people but nobody was really interested. We looked up some less active families but they weren't interested in hearing from us either. We decided to head to our dinner appointment. We ended up getting there 10 minute early so we tracted a few houses. The last house we tracted before dinner was this super nice Spanish woman. Now, I have not been practicing Spanish so I used all the Spanish I knew to tell her we are missionaries from the church and that we were sharing messages about Jesus Christ. We then showed her the "because he lives" video in Spanish. By the end of it she was crying. She said a whole lot of things in Spanish. I only understood half of what she said. She talked about how grateful she was for us and how she loves Jesus Christ and yea things like that. It was really cool!

TUESDAY
So our day started out great! A member picked us up and took us to a lesson with Jenn. It was really cool to have her there because the testimony she shared at the end was EXACTLY what Jenn needed. The whole lesson though was really hard. Jenn is at this point where she knows this is good and true and she knows she needs to be baptized but she is scared to fully commit and get baptized and then make a mistake. She understands that nobody is perfect and that she can repent but she is afraid of going back to her old ways. It's hard because we know this gospel isn't easy to live by. But it is so worth it and after a while it does become a lot easier. She is surrounded by temptation everywhere she is and she has done such an awesome job withstanding it, but satan wants her so badly. She has so much potential and so many questions. Throughout the whole lesson she was explaining this and asking really tough questions. It was soo incredible though because we could just tell that all our answers were coming from the Holy Ghost. It was not us. I don't know what we said but the Spirit was so strong and she felt it. By the end her mind was at peace and she said she is willing to continue learning. after the lesson I thought to myself "oh my goodness this poor member probably thinks we are insane because we just told her how solid Jenn is and then we had that crazy lesson. She probably thinks we are awful missionaries" and then right when we got in the car the member said "oh my goodness! You sisters are rockstars!! I didn't know how to answer any of those questions. That was so tough! She truly is awesome and you guys handled that so smoothly and perfectly!" It was such a relief haha. Having members trust us is so key.
The rest of the day was interesting. We tracted for like 2.5 hours and nobody answered. And the people that did just looked at us and then closed the door. While tracting, these little kids yelled out their window at us and screamed to never come back. That was sad. And then this other lady just creepily stared at us through her window while we tracted that entire street. We just kept meeting weird people. Later it started pouring rain. There were floods in the street so we couldn't get anywhere so we were like "alright let's go talk to that potential investigator. So we grabbed our umbrella which did just about nothing and we ran to the door already drenched head to toe. Well the son answered again and he felt Sooo bad for us so he was really nice. Hopefully we will meet with his family this week. We keep missing his mom. He was the only person nice all day though! Well when we jumped out to go talk to him, our phone fell on the grass. We noticed about 30 minutes later so when we went back, it was too late. We quickly put it in rice but it was pretty much sitting underwater for a half hour. So now we dont have a phone which isn't good so hopefully we will get one soon! It was a miracle that we found it and that the rain and stopped so it didn't get even worse. It works to receive texts and every now and then we can send a text but that's all. No calling and not everything comes through, by the end of the day today it probably won't work at all.
In the evening we went to buy some fruit since we wouldn't be able to shop today because we had to take the 8am train to the city to get back at 6pm to teach people. We ended up getting pasta and apples because the other fruit was all gone. Well while we were paying the guy behind us in line asked us out on a date! Hahaha it was awkward. He talked about how we had random food and he was buying hot dog buns and tomatoes so his food was random and then he was like "we should combine our food and have dinner at my house" haha we were like uuuummm... Maybe not.. Super awkward but it was pretty funny. He loved us.
We laughed a lot this week, it has been SO refreshing and good. I love it! I haven't laughed this hard in a long time so it's been really fun!

WEDNESDAY
Today we get to go to the temple!!! :) wahoo! I am so excited! We taught Jenn about the temple this week and so it was really cool to study it a lot more before we go. It has been too long since I've been to the temple so I miss it a lot. I'm excited to finally get some peace and quiet and be stress free! It's also fun to be in the city for a Sister Standages first time :) life is good :)

This week I was studying in Alma 36. I love this chapter because it is written in chiasmus (one of many but this is one that I have marked up for it) which fascinates me thanks to my seminary teacher junior year(Brother Warner). Well anyway, verse 3 really stood out. It says "And now, O my [daughter Sister Tanner], behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day." I love that. We don't EVER have to go through hard times alone! I know that God will help us through anything when we turn to Him and let Him. I have found so much comfort it knowing that I am NEVER alone and that as I have faith in God, I can find strength. I know that his gospel is true. It brings me so much joy and so much hope. I love my Heavenly Father and I love my Savior, Jesus Christ. And I love being a missionary!

Have a fabulous week! Thanks for the family picture! You are all adorable. I love you! Xoxox

Love,
Sister Tanner <3

Invited to Girls Camp

Hand-outs we gave after our talk at camp