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 :)