Mission Week 48, Arequipa Mission Office

This week was great! I was able to get a lot of studying done and the office work has been going smoothly. It has been a great learning experience. I have learned more than anything to say no. It has been so interesting to see how everything is important to the lord on a spiritual level. In doctrine and Covenants we read

D&C 29

34 Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created.
Here we can see how the lord could view something like money as something spiritual. I know that god does not need money however he is worried about how we use our blessings that he has given us. If we have spending problems its probably because have some unbalance in our lives that is affecting our ability to feel the spirit. Its amazing to see how the lord works through each and everyone of us, however, if we are not ready and prepared to be instruments in the hands of god we will sit and watch as blessings fly by like clouds in the sky. We cannot be passive in our gospel lives and we must act on the invitations that we receive from the spirit of god! Well this week being valentines week I have focused my studies on the important topic of Love. Not the shallow feeling of attraction that we feel as we see a fairly attractive person of the opposite gender walk into the room, no, I am talking about Christlike love. The love that each and everyone of us should have for every single person that we pass. Firstly question, Do you love god? How do you show your love to god? 

John 14: 15
15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

John teaches us how we show our love to god in the most simplest way possible. Obedience. I love how we show respect and love to our heavenly father through our obedience. We always love to teach this lesson to people who have problems forgiving other people. Now if you truly love god you must show him through your obedience to ALL of his commandments. Just a chapter earlier john gives a new commandment from god,
John 13: 34
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

To show our love to god we must show our love to others and not conditionally. We cannot say we love god and hate This person or that person.
John 4: 20,21
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

In this very special time we all must think of the way we can show our love to god. We must love others. Whether it be cleaning up trash along the road or helping a neighbor weed their garden, we are showing our love for God. If we choose to sit and listen to a friend in need of friendly advice we are doing exactly what our heavenly father would do if he was here. If we hope to show our love to God, we must let our actions speak for our words and we must come to realize that God loves all of us, so we must love too! I hope all of you have had a great week and enjoy this day of love! (The pure Christlike kind)

Mission Week 47, Arequipa Mission Office

This week has been insane with tons of extra workload I am doing great. We had Three goals for baptism and ALL OF THEM FELL!!! they moved away they got sick and went to their aunt marthas house. All of them just left But three of our other investigators started progressing so we should hopefully be able to end this month with three baptisms! Thier Names are

 

1. Raul: Super shy guy who has a mormon friend. He came to church one day and said That he loved the meeting and that he had a testimony of the church and wanted to get baptized we were left with faces like this 😐 (What...)
2. Beggy: A friend of Renson. He is a returned missionary who brought a friend (Beggy) To church. She Told us that she loved the meeting and that she had talked to renson a ton about our ideas and why we live the gospel so faithfuly. She told us that she wanted to listen to the gospel and learn more with the end of getting baptized, Needles to say, we were left with faces like this again 😐 (What...)
3. Marianne: Marianne has had HUGE struggles and she has had to overcome so many different difficulties in trying to become baptized. It has been amazing to see her story of how she has been able to overcome her problems. Yesterday she told us that she wanted to get baptized next week and that she was ready to do all that it took to get baptized. This time we were left with faces like this 😅

Anyways I know that this is super short but I have tons of Emergency Work to do. I will see if I can get on later but I doubt it.

Mission Week 46, Arequipa Mission Office

 

 

Guess what! Yesterday I was throwing up like CRAZY!!! I was super sick I could not even keep a little bit of Gatorade down. It was terrible! Then I got a blessing and cried because I could feel how much love my companion and my heavenly father has for me and slept the whole day. I woke up this morning and I am not eating anything solid but I feel Great! So about last week when I said that I was not going to go paint balling I went and Ezra told me that if his little sister was going to do it then I had to do it. In the end I played. My team won every single time except once. Webb asked me if I was going to join a branch of the Military what would I join because I was super good! Everyone immediately started shooting like crazy. I was super conservative with my ammo and was basically the supply guy because everyone was always running out but I always had more that I shared. I had a ton of fun! It was amazing. I will put the pictures in the one drive folder! How do you like the one drive folder! 

Transfers are hard for everyone. I especially do not like them. Elder Webb gets to travel because he is an assistant to the president he went to
Moquegua and said hi to Mamita Luz. She sent me a piece of cake and said para mi hijo flacito. (For my skinny son)

 

I really wanted to eat the cake last night but I decided against it. I will save it for tonight. I loved the Jerky that you guys sent in the mail. I was super good! Everyone else loved it too! I only have one bag left but I think I am going to open it up today.

I cannot believe how tall Maddy has gotten! She looks so grown up! I cannot believe it. She is finishing up her Sophomore year right. That is insane! She only has two years left! She is going to be so big by the time I get back! Can you believe it? I also hit my year mark three days ago! Now everything is downhill. Everyone says that the second year flies by! I cannot believe it. In less than a year from now I will be on a plane heading home. 

We had divisions with the zone leaders the other day and It was absolutely insane. We had four lessons which is a lot for us considering we only have four hours to teach. Two out of the three houses that we went to we gave blessings. One was a blessing of health for Hermana Anita, she was working all day and her Arthritis was giving her a really hard time. She is a radiological technician. She loves the gospel and is full of love for our savior. She is the only member in her family and she wants so badly for her family to come to accept the truth.  He has been talked to by so many missionaries and he never progresses. It makes me sad but I know now is just not his time. Hermana Anita’s daughter was in town so we took the time to teach her a lesson before giving her mom the blessing. 

 

Love Elder Tanner

Mission Week 45, Arequipa Mission Office

 

This week was a rather tough one. Thought a lot about the advice that you and Dad would give me if I could talk to you. Many times the SUCK IT UP Story came to mind. Interviews with president happened and I told him that all that was left was to suck it up get back up and keep walking forward. Sometimes we fall, sometimes we fall hard but we can always get back up and keep walking.

We are going to go paintballing. I will not participate. Tonight we have three lessons planned and the Assistants have a baptism in our ward so we will invite all of the investigators that we can!

One investigator has been struggling with her parents to get permission to become baptized for almost a year now. She was almost eighteen and she told her parents that she knew it was true and that after she turned 18 she would still want to go through with the baptism however she did not want to do it without getting their permission and the other day she ran into the church with the biggest smile on her face and I knew that she would be baptized in a relatively short amount of time. It was a good day in the ward and everyone in the ward council had watched her progress for so long and to see her become baptized is a great victory for the lord. The lessons are with a few less actives and two young men who are not extremely interested in the church but their family members are members and they would like to learn more. EXTREMELY SMART KIDS! The older one Kevin is so interested and opened minded. It is absolutely amazing. Good news, Ezra, a member who lives here and is constantly hanging out with us is going to give me all the photos that he has. It will be awesome. Bad news, Elder Muñoz got an emergency change back into the field and the new materials secretary has not figured out how to pick up the package yet. It is here in Arequipa.

 

Love Elder Tanner

Mission Week 44, Arequipa Mission Home

I have been doing extremely well. I have been having a great time in the office. I have been learning tons of new ways to work more efficiently and I have become very good at counting money! I can see the importance of a budget and organization skills and I have been applying more effort to both of those skills in my life. We currently are teaching a couple and they are struggling with the family. We were in a lesson and their marriage was hanging by a thread.  The situation was extremely delicate and we were able to help them see that this is not what God wanted. That they were going to have to let go of the past and Fight for the family that they wanted. Another couple of recent converts have been having marital issues due to the dependency that one has to her parents. I know one thing though. When we do all we can the lord provides the rest. 

This week I have been learning lots of new ways to teach and ways to help people understand Doctrinal Principles. My teaching skills have tanked a little since coming into the office. We do not get to do much teaching but when we do I always feel the spirit. Right now we are teaching about 4 Investigators, 8 less actives and about 15 Recent converts. We have been focusing a lot on helping the less actives come back to church because that is something that the ward has definitely struggled with. We have four less actives who are all coming to church and learning tons and reaching out to friends and family and inviting us to teach them. I have been studying a lot harder. It has been a ton of fun to see how the lord guides you in your studies for your lessons. I am also looking for a way to learn Spanish while in the office. I have been looking up tons of synonyms and I have been trying to improve my vocabulary base. 

 

My week has gone really great.  I hope all goes well with the weather! 

Love

Shaw

Mission Week 43, Arequipa Mission Home

I got the package! It was an amazing day! I almost cried and then when I finally got home I DID CRY!!! I saw the package that you guys had sent me and I opened it and saw every careful wrapped and tied present. I put them all on my bed and was enveloped with a spirit of Christmas(and smell! Thanks for the scentsy bag!). I opened all of the gifts and they were all amazing. I have almost half of them here in the office! I set up the Christmas tree and I have the lights plugged in and everything. I love it so much. I will definitely use it next year wherever I find myself. I could not believe all of the food and clothes and Missionary stuff that I could use. I used the socks and the tie the very next day. I love the tie. I opened up the package of legos and built the ship that very night! I also have that sitting on my desk along with the most amazing calendar I have ever seen and the GO and DO sign. I have gotten so many compliments from so many members who pass by the office about the marble Christ statue. It was an amazing experience for me I will also put the pins and rings to good use. It was so amazing I still cant believe it happened. I opened the jerky first thing and started eating one. I shared them with everyone in the office. The M&Ms were gone within the first day.

 

Yesterday I had another very spiritual experience. The other day we were preparing for our lessons I was calling everyone because we had planned so many lessons that we had to do divisions I was looking forward to that and all of a sudden people started canceling. One bad phone call after the other left me desperately looking for people to teach. Eventually we gave up the idea of doing divisions and let the other office missionaries take the other member because one of them was so busy he could not leave the office. After going around looking for people we had the impression to go look for Hermano Marcos. Marcos is a recent along with his wife. They have a son, I think he is about a year old. We went to look for him and on the way we passed a man on the street and said LETS GO CONTACT HIM! We talked to him and shared a quick story about the restoration of the gospel. He said that he believed in god but that none of the churches were from god. We asked him when you have a question for god who should you ask. He said a preacher and I told him that if he wanted to know something from god he needed to ask god, and that a young man of fourteen years had the same question as he did and he asked god which church is true. Then we explained the restoration and he said when do you guys go to church. We told him what time and where and then we planned a lesson with him for this Sunday after church. Then we started to walk down the street to go to the house of Marcos and all of a sudden the phone started ringing. It was Marcos. He had gone to look for us in the office and so we jumped in a taxi and went screaming back to the office and we were able to talk to him about the gospel and how it blesses families. It was an extremely spiritual experience that I will never be able to forget. There is a quote from Jeffery R. Holland about when the blessings come and it is "Gods opportunity is Mans extremity" Its when we feel like there is nothing else to give but we decide to give it anyway that god steps in and helps to overfill our cup that may feel empty. I know that this is true. Its in the bleakest times, the hardest times, the saddest times, the darkest times, when we are tired and tested and want to give up so badly but don´t that the lord steps in and can fully shine his light in our lives.

 

 I love you guys so much and I know that you are in good hands. Thank you for the presents and thank you for the prayers I feel them daily! I love you so very much. 

 

-Elder Tanner (Shaw)

Mission Week 42 Arequipa Mission home 2016

This week has been an insane week. first I am going to talk about lesson stuff,

We have been teaching a couple and they are awesome. Their names are René and Alicia. They have a daughter and they have had a few huge challenges pass in their lives but they have remained together. Their daughter has been their major motivation. We have only visited them three times and they already came to church. The other day we went to the house with two members it was insanely disapointing. The members asked us what we were going to teach. We told them that we felt like we were going to talk about marriage. The members started to murmur... They asked us how many lessons we had and how well we knowed them, They all said no its way to soon to talk about marriage. That would be a mistake you should definately not talk about marriage. You guys may have the spirit but you need to teach with intellegince too. OH MY GOODNESS!  We went to the lessons and within thirty seconds we were talking about marriage. She had just talked with her husband about their plans for marriage. So goes to show LISTEN TO THE SPIRIT.

I went to presidents house to move around some old documents with Elder Hildebrandt and we ended fixing his surround sound and his direct TV and his blue ray. Afterwards he invited the whole office to lunch but everyone else had already eaten and so Elder Hildebrandt and I went to go eat at this really nice Italian Restaurant. I had Four Cheese Gnocchi and we got to know President and Hermana Zobrist really well.