Sister Tanner Update

It has been a great week! We have been having a few lesson opportunities while we are out tracking!! Its been great! I love it so much! It is hard at times but all that you need to do is push through it and all will work out!! Also many people don't like how we are out when its so dark outside when we are tracking they always tell us many reasons why we shouldn't be out at 7 at night....we are careful where we go so don't worry! :) 

Halloween was this week! we had a Halloween party on Wednesday with the ward! it was great! There were less actives, members and non members there. It was a great turn out! Since it was a costume party we got permission from President Weaver to dress up like pioneer missionaries!! It was great! The lady that was in charge of it (Sister Bartlett) had dresses and bonnets that we used! Many people loved that we could come and that we dressed up!!

 

On Halloween since missionaries are not allowed to be out tracking and doing things since there are many people that dress up like missionaries and do things that are not good.. all of us missionaries in each zone had a zone party. We all played games and had a great time.

Also we got to watch Ephriam's Rescue!! It was way good!! I am so glad that I got to watch it and that I didn't have to wait until I got home to do so!

 What a powerful movie and story that it is! The party took all night and we got home just in time for curfew. 

We have a few service opportunities of service that we have been able to do. We also have been getting referrals from mormon.org to go and check up on and one of them happened to be one that we already have been teaching! Crazy how it all works. 

Our ward is wanting to do things that they can to help hasten the work of the Lord. Its so great that they want to do that. There are less actives that have been coming back to church and its so great to see all of this happening! 

Sunday was another great day like they all are. There are many people who have been through so much and they have great testimonies! 

God works in amazing ways....we were headed out to visit a less active and we found this lost dog walking around. We were not sure what to do but we decided to go and see the less actives and ask them about it (the dog) and they invited us in and talked with us and they were excited that we came...They said that they are going to start coming to our ward now. Also the bishop called when we were there and scheduled an interview with the daughter!!! And all of this there reactivation is pretty much all because of a dog! Well of course it's all of the Lord's doing! :) 

Just yesterday we had a missionary fireside that half of the WA TAC missionaries sang for a stake. It was an amazing experience.  I love it so much! I love to sing! Always sing praises unto the Lord!! :) 

I love this gospel and all things that are in it. Times are tough but if we all work together all will be for the best! This gospel has blessed my life and I am so grateful for everyone that has helped me along the way to where I am at today! so glad that I am not alone on the path back to my Heavenly Father. I know that He truly does love us and wants us to go back to Him. He would not have put us on this earth if He didn't want us to be like Him  and receive all of the blessing that He has! I love all of you and want all of you to know that the work is hastening! I love it!  

Love Sister Tanner

So to start off on I gave a talk on Sunday in the ward. It was on how to prepare to invite others to come unto Christ. I don't know what I said I just let the spirit guide.

So this week has been great! Been working a lot with the ward. That is such a blessing! They all love having sisters in the ward. They haven't had sisters for 20+ years......I have been getting feed everyday this month so far and the calendar is filled up all the way. 

We started meeting with this girl named Alyssa and she is awesome. She is Christian and she is willing to learn more she knows that God loves her. She really is ready and I hope wiling to be baptized. Well she is awesome. we have also been getting and going to the less actives and helping out there. The ward is going to help out with what they can.

 On Friday we went up to Port Orchard where Sister Johnston served because this 72 year old lady got baptized!! She (sister Johnston) helped out a lot with the process of everything. It was amazing to see a baptism!!  Saturday the young women came over to help decorate our house. We are making it look more like a house of the Lord and more Christ centered. I don't know if I told you that when we walked in there was coffee vinyl letters in the kitchen.....we fixed it up and made it look cute. :) 

Saturday night the stake put on this Joseph Smith play/musical called One Life. it was good. we had a great time watching it and saw a few members of my ward there (desuttes river) 

I love the work of the lord! its so great to be here on a mission! Like what President Clark from byu-i would say "its a great day to be here at "Tacoma, Washington" I love it so much! there is so much that needs to be done but also so much that has been done already!

Tracking has been getting harder and harder for one thing is that it gets dark at 6ish!! Its crazy!! Its so hard to see at night especially when I am driving!! But we came to the conclusion that I will not drive at night because its so hard for me to see and sister Johnston can see a lot better than I can!!! There is so much love here for everyone!

One thing there are spiders EVERYWHERE!! No joke! Every house has at least one spider by the door!! Haven't seen any really big ones yet!!

Its so hard to see people all the time and have them not realize  that there is so much out there that they are missing with the gospel and everything else!!

They don't realize that they need Christ in their lives! Its so sad!

Cool thing is that everyone in this ward reminds me of some of everyone back at home!! It makes it feel more home like!!

This gospel is true! I know that. I have seen a few miracles too many in just one day!! There is so much happiness in missionary work! It is a hard thing to do but I am learning and getting used to it!

I hope all is well with everyone! I love you all! You all really have been a great example in my life!!

Love you!

love sister Tanner :)

Week 2 in Washington

Hey family!

This week was great! The first part was really hard but it got easier as it went along. It is safe to say that we think that all of the fleas are gone! Yay!! I love it here and its a great place to be. There are so many families here that we are helping and meeting with. I love this ward! There is this one family that reminds me of Ben and Phebe!! They have the exact same personalities almost. They are awesome!! They are awesome!!  I love serving here.

There are two families that have kids that go to BYU-I and they both went to Get Connected!! That was awesome!!! Yesterday we gave out two Book of Mormons, it was great and both were within an hour of each other.

Sorry, there is this guy sitting next to me in the library that is singing this song that I have no idea what it is, but its not that good and its distracting me and I can't function with it. I am not listening to what he is saying but my mind is just not working because its so uncomfortable to be next to it and I am on a timer of a computer.Well anyways so bear with me.

Yesterday was great, we taught this family that had a daughter that wants to get back into the church, she is 17. The same family is going to be adopting a boy who is 18 and he is not a member but he wants to learn more and we gave him a book of Mormon! It was great!

Then we went tracking after and the first door we went to was this guy named Chris and we gave him a book of Mormon as well! He wants to learn more!! A few houses down the guy who lived there didn't speak English so my companion started speaking Spanish to him, He wants to learn more and so the Spanish Elders are going to come back for a lesson. That was awesome!!

 I just love everyone in this ward! They are so great and very fun and loving! They want to do so much for us and I love it! We have a few people that we are starting out to teach and continuing to teach. This work here is getting better and moving forward. I love it and its great to be here in Washington!

Cool fact, I have seen 40 Yellow houses! believe it or not!!! I have been counting, and there are so many of them here. They are all different shades and different types of houses but I love it. It makes me happy when I see all of these yellow houses.  Just thought that you would want to know that. So I came to the conclusion that I don't want to live here because I don't want every other house to be yellow!!! :) haha

What I love is that so many people are coming back to the church! It is really great.  There are so many different reasons for their leaving and coming back but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they are coming BACK!!!!

There are many different cultures and religions here. There are Buddhists, Muslums, RAMTHA....,Jehovah Witnesses, Christians, and many more. Most of them don't like us and don't want anything to do with us. But there are a select few that are kind to us but also don't want to hear what we say.

Funny,crazy and interesting story, so we went tracking and knocked at this guy's door and we were talking with him and he is Christian. Anyways while we were talking he randomly brought up that he was "very single".......... um ok? right? Well anyways we told him that we are only here for a bit and only to do missionary work.

Anyways... I went on my first exchange. It was great! There are many different people there as well and that area was way different as well.

I love it here and there is so much to say in so little time!

Just know that I love you all and I want all of you to know that I know this Church is true and I love it. I wouldn't be out here if it wasn't true or if I didn't love it. I love my Savior! He really does help us in our times of need!!

Love you all!

Until next week

Love,

 Sister Keely Tanner :)

Sister Tanner's First Week in Washington!

Sister Tanner at SLC Airport on her way to Washington!

Family!!!

I love it here in Washington! Its so great to be a missionary!!! 

 I can have anyone email me, as long as I have the time to read it :)

Well to begin! I don't know where to start! It is amazing here! I am in the area called Deschutes River. That is the name of my ward name. I got doubled in so my companion and I both don't know this area. There were Elders here but they decided to change it to Sisters. The ward is great. I love all of the people that I have met here so far. They are so loving to everyone! We don't really have investigators that are progressing at all....its hard to be doubled in. My companion Sister Johnston has only been here for 4 months. She is awesome! We have already become good friends! There is so much work that we need to be doing here. We don't really have a game plan at all but its great to figure it out along the way!

To explain where I live I wanted to compare it to other places.  It reminds me of so many places. It is like South Carolina because there are so many trees here. It is a forest everywhere. The houses are so spread out,  some of the time they are as far away as the houses by Grandma and Grandpas' neighborhood in Cove, but there are trees are in between all the houses here. 

My whole ward is in a really big area. I didn't think a ward would have so much miles in between. but I guess its a lot different than Utah! Haha. We do our tracking from 5-7 everyday. In my area there are so many that are less active or part member families! I think that is one reason why I am sent here, to help them to learn more about the Plan of Salvation. What a great thing that it is! I have felt love from all of the people in my ward so far! They are always willing to feed us no matter what!!!! I love it here.

 The past few days actually had sunshine! Tt usually doesn't happen. It was warm for a bit and that's not normal for Washington, especially at this time of the year!

So gross thing,  my house has nasty fleas in it....I heard that the Elders before us had kittens in there because they found them stranded and dying so they brought them in. Then they gave the kittens to random people. So I have seen a few fleas jumping around the floor.....we are trying to get rid of them...

I don't have that many good stories from tracking at all. The people we meet simply don't like us and they don't want to talk to us. No scary stories at all, so I am glad of that. It is sad that not  many people like us or even want to talk to us. I knew it would be this way but its still hard.

My companion, SIster Johnston has helped me a lot. She is from Ohio. I am glad that I know her and that she is my trainer!! Right now we are just getting to know the area and figuring out where everything is, but that's what we get for being doubled in. I think that is a great time and place for me to be a missionary! I can't believe that its been a year exactly when they announced the missionary age change. I am here and a witness of the power of it. Even though it took a year for me to get out there, I am so glad that it did take that long. I don't know where I would be if I went out at that time a year ago...

I did get to watch conference and it was amazing!! I loved it all, there wasn't a bad talk! I know there was a lot of things that were said that was just for me!!! It was amazing!!

I am glad to hear that you are all checking up on the Wa-Tac blog! There should be a lot of others ones yet to come!

I do have a story to tell you, the reason why Sisters can't ride bikes in my mission is because a few months ago there was a bike accident with a Sister. She was riding with her companion and her brakes did not work and she had to get stitches on her bum....It actually was my trainer who had got in the bike accident. She is good right now and doing well.

Here there are a lot of people that are were investigators than not and then they are again....crazy and confusing I know. The reason is because they weren't progressing at all so they got dropped and then they began to be taught again and so forth. One of them well I should say two is, Tia and Cindy. They are best friends and are around the age of 60 or so. They are best friends and they live next to each other. They both have families but I really don't know their situation because we never see them or really hear from them. These ladies like to talk and talk all the time so we are trying to work on getting them focused so we could  teach them better. They haven't been progressing because they can't focus and I am not sure if they are ready.

Oh Washington  has hills everywhere that have trees on them. Mom, it like the windy street that we used to take to go to CBT and over by the post office? I hope you know what I mean. But its like that everywhere! 

One other thing that happened when we were tracking the other day is that we went to this house and the lady said that now is not a good time but she seemed like she really wanted us to come back later.

I know that this is the true church. I love this gospel. I don't know what I would do without it! Christ did die for us so we could live with Him again! I have felt that love and I have gave that love to others. How great is that!! We can live with Him again if we follow His commandments!!

Hope you all have a great day! Love you all!!

Love Sister Tanner

P.SI hope I did not miss anything :)

Sister Tanner Sings at the Relief Society Broadcast!

Sister Tanner had the privilege to sing at the 

Relief Society Broadcast!

Along with 300 other Sister Missionaries from MTC, she was able to preach the Gospel and share her love of music. We were able to enjoy seeing Sister Tanner in all her glory (even if she did stand behind the organ).

Here are some stolen moments of the wonderful meeting.

Please watch the entire meeting, it is full of inspiring messages of love. 
LDS General Relief Society Broadcast 2013


Where is Sister Tanner?

We love you Sister Tanner!

Off to the MTC
September 18th 2013

Saying goodbye to the Roxies

     I hope you all will enjoy this blog of my mission. I will share my testimony to you each week and a few experiences that will happen to me in the next 18 months....
     Tomorrow I am leaving to my mission in Tacoma, Washington. I know that the Lord loves you and that He will always be with you, through the think and the thin. He never wants you to be alone, He wants you to return to Him. He will not leave you comfortless He will come to you.
               John 14:18
     I am laying 18 months of my life down so that others can come unto Christ. Christ layed His life down for us so that we can return to Him again. What a great Love that Christ has for us. Always keep that in mind.
              John 15: 12-14
     He loves us and wants what is best. He knows what is best for us.  We need to help others come unto Christ in any way that we can help them to.
     Always remember who you are. You never know who is watching you. Always be an example to those around you.
      Love you all! May the Lord be with you!

Love, Sister Tanner