Mission Week 87, Tacna Peru {Chased by an addict; font overfloweth; needle in a hay stack.}

This week has been much smoother than the last. The last week had me at the end of my patience but I now know that god listens and answers prayers not in our own time but in his time. He knows our weaknesses and our strengths and he is going to push us to our breaking point and then give us all that we need. This week we had a few notable things happen.

1. I was shouted at and chased by a drug addict from Brazil. He was yelling a lot of different words and the best part was that it was in Portuguese and I did not understand anything.

2. We had lessons set up with a family that we really want to help but they rejected us three times.

3. We had meetings with two of the stakes and because of the holiday no stake is having it at the same time.

5. after the church meeting on Sunday we had a crazy guy who is also famous come to the church. He started yelling and saying that these are my brothers from the one and only true church. People say that he is crazy but that he is also extremely intelligent!

4. We prepped the baptismal font for a baptism. Usually the fonts take around three hours to fill and when they do they have a run off pipe that keeps them from overflowing. Little did we know that the font in the arias araguez building fills faster than the run off pipe lets water out. We started filling and thought that it would at least take a few hours to fill and we left to go make a payment. When we cam back to the church we found water in the entire floor of the church. It somehow had managed to make it into the entire sacrament room and cultural hall but avoided the classrooms. We were extremely lucky to have caught it before it made it into the basement. We spent the fallowing two hours cleaning up all the water. During which we did not have any idea how to turn on the fans which would speed up the clean up. I said a quick prayer asking God to send me the knowledge to figure out how to turn on the fans or to send me someone who knew how to turn them on. About a half an hour into the clean up our relief society president rung the bell in the front door and asked about a certain activity that was going to take place in the church. We had no idea of the activity but we asked her how to turn on the fans in the sacrament building and she explained us the way to turn them on.

5. NEW INVESTIGATORS: this week has been an amazing week to find new investigators and we have received MANY references. I am not saying that all of them are golden investigators that are ready to be baptized in fact until Sunday night I was super happy to have the new investigators but I told my companion that all of them are going to be a lot of work. I was telling him that we have lots of new investigators and lots of work to do but I did not see much desire to learn more, However, Shortly after saying that we had a little kid run up to us and say ELDERES!!! we contacted the family. They are not members they have been going to church and they want to hear more. That was a tiny mercy of God. He was letting me know that he is going to make us look for the needle in the haystack. We are going to find a LOT of hay but that is what it is going to take to find the needle!

I am just grateful for the opportunity to be in the mission for this opportunity to serve my heavenly father and my siblings.

Mission Week 85 & 86, Tacna Peru: "I know that God lives and He loves each and everyone of us. It is the first truth of the gospel."

HEY MOM! (10/24)

Wow Stressful week full of amazing experiences. This week I was able to get through my last week alone without having another companion. President was telling me the whole change that I was going to train in the upcoming change while being a zone leader. I was on top of everything trying to prepare the rooms and getting all the things I needed, writing contracts and going to get things legalized. I almost jumped on a bus to go get a document from a really small town a few hours away. super stressful week. I was called rude by three different people who almost did not make it to their bus because I was pushing them out. INSANE WEEK!!! but its over my new companion is another Argentinian. His name is Elder Velasquez every has great comments for him

(10/31)

 This week was a good tough week. The work was a little slow. We found a lot of new people and were rejected a lot too. We had a fun time teaching a fairly stubborn family. I hope that the lord will answer there prayers and soften their hearts. When we got back there were lots of missionaries who needed things done, people waiting for us to remove the furniture out of their house. Today I became overwhelmed and was thrown into a down warding spiral of doubt, frustration, and feeling inept. I get to the point where I do not know what to do. Do I do the things that the missionaries need, or do I do something that would help me unstress. I cannot sit still knowing that other missionaries are not well because they do not have money and need reimbursements. Is there a moment where I just say I cant do it anymore and stop answering the phone calls. Maybe I am just overthinking everything. I feel bad because today it is taking a toll on my companion to see me in such an oblivious state. I feel bad but at times I do not know how to react and rather than getting angry its just easier to literally let everything go mentally.

What is it that you do when you cannot feel like you can complete all the things you have to do?

Some of the sacrifices that I want to make for this week in November are...

1. Smile all the time. I guess you could take this as maintaining a positive state of mind even when passing through difficulties.

My companion and I went to one of the ward activities and as we walked into the activity we could both feel the spirit slowly dwindling away. After sitting through the most uncomfortable 45 minutes of my mission we left the activity. As we silently walked up the road from the church I talked with my companion. I asked him if he could feel the spirit in the activity and he told me that he did not feel it at all. It was a strange feeling of emptiness that I have yet been able to shake. I worry a lot about the Esperanza Ward. La Florida is doing great we have been finding new investigators asking for references and receiving new work. This upcoming month will be a fruitful month.

I hope that I can shake this feeling of doubt and inability.

Elder Tanner

After Five minutes of sitting and almost crying in a public internet cafe president gave me a call. He just gave me a pep talk and helped boost my mood. God answers our prayers!

I love you. I want you to know that in the hardest times of my mission and the hardest times of my life I have always depended on the testimony of you and Dad. I know that the promise of alma is true. In alma 37:16-17 we learn the importance of being obedient. If we are obedient nothing in hell or on earth can take away the blessings of the lord. I know that this is true not because I have participated it first hand but I have seen the blessings that my parents have received. In the mission I have seen Elders go home because they doubt. I know that God lives and He loves each and everyone of us. It is the first truth of the gospel. There is no way that out of two hundred letters to president he read mine out of chance and new that he had to call me. I Know god has a divine path for each and everyone of us. Sometimes we need to do hard things with him to be able to help others. I love you Mom. Thank you for your testimony always!

Elder Tanner

Mission Week 84, Tacna Peru: "Dedication, Devotion, Allegiance."

"Gopher Everett?"

Gray Hair or just dust?

This week was a good week. The zone had success. We Ended this week with 6 confirmations and 7 rescues. We still have room to improve. The Tacna district seems to be having a few bumps in the road. Elder Barrientos is trying to do all he got here this week in an emergency change and he will go home this week too. The Missionaries in the Alameda District are having lots of success. This week we will do divisions with Elder Senden and we will have a good day contacting with lots of spanish practice. 

Compromiso. While pondering you letter I thought about the things that I needed to do to become a more committed missionary. While looking for synonyms to commitment I found the fallowing word. Dedication, devotion, allegiance, loyalty, faithfulness and fidelity. What mission president would not want missionaries with these actualities? I feel like I would shout with joy if our investigators were a little more dedicated to their scripture study. What would any missionary do to have liders devoted to The Mission Work. I know many missionaries that long to have a more loyal companion. I feel like there are so many ways we can improve our commitment to the mission. 

 I feel like before the mission we were all spiritually unformed. We all we starting our lives and starting to understand our purpose in life but we there was something that was missing.  A lot of times when a person needs to get in shape physically they go on a diet and they stop eating and drinking things that are not bad, but at this time they are not absolutely necessary. The mission is a diet of our lives. For two years our heavenly father is ready to shape us spiritual. The commitment to this spiritual diet will effect the results for the rest of our lives. I will be putting goals down and looking for new opportunities to become a more committed missionary. Thank you president.

Mission Week 83, Tacna Peru; "find the means to keep going on"

Mom it has been a very very challenging week. We had correlations with all three stakes. Later President came down for interviews and a stake conference. While president was here Every stake leader wanted to talk to him... It was a lot of correlating but in the end it all worked out. President went back to Arequipa Sunday. He told me that this trip was the smoothest trip he has had and he felt like he had accomplished a lot because I had scheduled him things to do for almost every hour he was here. I am not going to lie that it used up a lot of my concentration and Sunday I was paying the consequences but the lord always comes through and when we should be absolutely dead because we have nothing left to give it comes out of somewhere.

Elmer Is awesome. He is from tacna and He is a rather serious person who takes a lot of time reflecting and meditating what he will say and do. It is a refreshing change from before. This week I was trying to do the informs for all three stakes which would usually take Elder Behotas and I three hours. I was talking while Elmer got board and organize EVERY THING IN THE ROOM. That being said the room was left in a horrendous condition when Elder Behotas Left I will send you a photo and I will send you a photo now. He has been a huge blessing, However yesterday was to much for me the ward has not been pleased with the absence that the interviews. I did not know what to do being as president had given us the assignment also to work in another ward. I was ready to lose my mind. Elmer said that he noticed that I always took the responsibility upon myself and he did not know how he could help because he has never done any of these things. He encouraged me to pray and look for support from my heavenly father because if I am here in these whirlwind of tasks and preoccupations. I did exactly that and somewhere I was able to find the means to keep on going.

Mission Week 82, Tacna Peru

Guess what We had Emergency Changes. I am staying in Tacna. I will be sending my companion to Ilo He will meet up with president and the other assistant and he is the new assistant. It was time. Being a zone Leader is not the easiest thing to do. He was sure tired of being in charge of the zone. Supposedly the load of being assistant is not as demanding. As of right now president says that the mission lacks leaders and He is sending me a temporal because he does not have other zone leaders. This is the first time that I have seen a Zone leader with someone who was not another zone leader. It seems to me a very interesting concept. Divisions will be extremely hard as my companion is not quite yet a missionary. I also have to talk to three stakes and I am just one Zone leader... I am a little bit stressed but If thats what the lord wanted, its what I can do. 

General conference was great and yes I did see Abby. It was fun to see a familiar face. I liked the Saturday afternoon session and the morning session. There were a lot of talks about the lessons we teach as missionaries and in the afternoon there was a ton of Missionary talks. I think that my favorite talk was the talk about how we as saints can be joyful through whatever circumstances.The talk reminded me of the time we had the problem where the pipes were clogged and the basement bathroom was flooded.. I remember that when me and maddy started we were a little bit upset and we did not want to be cleaning any such thing😫. Then shortly after getting to work for a little bit we were able to have a great time just by looking at the chore differently. Pretty soon we were not dreading it but the fact that we were cleaning up something so gross made us laugh and smile😝.  It does not matter what we are doing or what circumstances we are in we can always be joyful through what ever difficulty we are passing.

Tell Benson and Kaitlyn that I said Hi. I miss them a ton!

Mission Week 81, Tacna Peru

Hey Mom and Dad,

This week has gotten better,  I have been able to really hit the pavement and give it my all. This week We had an emergency change, Elder Pintado was sent to the office so he could recover from the back problems that he was having. His replacement was Elder Hinostroza. President was not to excited to be sending Elder Jones a new trainer because he had only had a week but he determined that the best thing to do was send me for a week help Elder Jones get his feet wet and then send Him his new trainer. I was in Ciudad Nueva this week Training Elder Jones. Knowing that it was an area that had been struggling for baptisms for some time now I new that I had to start from the beginning. I talked to the bishop and arranged for a meeting with him the ward secretary and the first counselor. I found out that relations with the ward mission leader were not great so I arrange for a meeting with him and told him that we just wanted to get to work and needed to know where to start. We found ourselves having lessons with less actives contacting looking for directions and we were moving a ton in the area. I got to know a lot of the area and many of its members. It was amazing how at the end of the week I did not want to go. The Bishop told me that he was going to call president and tell him that I had to stay. It was a fantastic week and during that week my companion organized the baptism for Sister Evelyn. She was so happy to be baptized. She has come a long way and has truly repented for the past and she is excited to make good choices in the future. She asked that I baptize her and that Elder Behotas could confirm her. It was an amazing experience and Elder Jones and I were able to take a few investigators to the baptism and they want to be baptized in the fallowing weeks.

Mission Week 78 & 79, Tacna Peru

Elder Tanner did not write an email for Week 78.  Week 79 we were able to hear multiple voice recordings how his week went and a song they sang.  He is interested in extending his mission; learning tons; lots of new missionaries coming into Tacna this week.....is keep super busy.