Letter #4

Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 1:52 PM
Subject: love you!

Dear Family,

I love reading your emails!!! This week was very exciting. My Portuguese picked up again after a small week 3 mini-slump and I can talk pretty fluently in present, past, and future tenses. It makes me excited, really excited for the day when I can talk to people and express my love and my love of the gospel to them, just as I would in english. This week we went to the Campinas temple again and once again it was a wonderful, peaceful experience. Last night for our usual Tuesday nioght devotional or serão, 15 elders and I performed an acapella arrangement of "the prayers of the children." It so touched the President and his wife, that they had us sing it again after the devotional and recorded it to use in the CTM welcome video!!! Also I think they are going to send it home to you! : ) I had almost no voice from a minor cold this week but was able to sing and it was one of the funnest things I've done so far. I 'm also playing piano for the fireside on Sunday. The highlight of the night, however, was watching President Monson's birthday celebration. Afterwards we had cake and sang him happy birthday in Portuguese. It was fantastic and simply made me more focused on getting ready for the field. (It was a last minute thing that they got permission from Salt Lake for.) To finish the day I received 3 letters which really just makes you smile, and I'm thankful for all those that write me: )

Another highlight of the week was teaching class on Sunday. I taugh ton the importance of constantly having the spirit to help teach and guide our lives. I'm grateful that all there were alert and really participated. The spirit was burning and many came up to me throughout the day and thanked me for the lesson. I love to teach the scriptures! Uncle Rich in his letter this week suggested I give some advice on how to prepare for a mission and I thought that was a simply excellent idea. So here's my advice for the week:

Develop a personal , father-and-son relationship with our Heavenly Father. What does that mean? To me, it means when I have a question, or a problem, or feel something lacking, I turn to my Heavenly Father. When I feel impatient or angry I pause and ask Him to help. Help me be more like him. Most of all it means always striving to do what he wants, and do it the first time. As the scriptures say, to be submissive as a little child, not because he's more powerful, but because we know that he loves us with a perfect love and wants only the best for us. As you do this, as your pray and read his words, you will know and feel his guiding hand every day of your life. You'll feel his spirit, his love, and his desire for you to do what is right. Living close to God helps you better love those around you; missionary work is love.

In other news from the week, Thursday we went to the Federal police and registered ourselves. We had our fingerprints scanned (fun!) and confirmed our names spelling about 20 times. It was good experience though because I talked Portuguese to our guide the whole time and learned cool stuff, like Brazil doesn't have Degree or Old Spice deodorant. (Our guide Fabiano would kill for some American deodorant.) I also had the oppurtunity to talk about the gospel with a French student studying in Sao Paulo. She had heard about the church but was interested in what we were doing as missionaries. It was a short and sweet conversation in English no less, and perhaps a seed was planted! I love you all and pray that everyone is well and busily engaged with all their many activities. Has Hunter won any golf medals yet? Is Porter thinking about basketball this year? And I'll bet seminary is a BLAST: ) LOVE LOVE AMOR LOVE,

Your Devoted loving son,
(And the best big brother in the world; )

Tanner

p.s. people in Brazil still hitchhike frequently!!!