Letter #10

Well, I´m here in the campo, and things are interesting to say the least, but I have a great companion and we´re ready to go. I arrived in Londrina at 7:30 a.m. after waking up at 3 in the morning to get to the airport and fly here. There were some poignant goodbyes and a ceremonial last playing of Claire de Lune. I´ll miss some of my district members a lot. 

We had a very warm welcome from the president and enjoyed a good snack at the mission home which is an eleven floor penthouse. We had some training, interviews and more training all in Portuguese. We headed out for our new area called Tupã, way in the north. It was a 3 hour bus ride to Presidente Prudente where we stayed the night before another 3 hour bus ride this morning to Tupã. The houses are different and transfers are hectic. We actually don't have a house yet so we're staying in a house belonging to the other missionaries in the area. Missionary work tires you out! But its worth it and we plan on teaching 3 lessons tonight and have, hopefully, 2 baptisms for Sunday. We also are going to teach English on Saturday nights.

The country here is really beautiful and looks a lot like Texas by Hutto. Lots of farm land and small rolling plains with sugarcane plants, half dead, ready for harvest. The bus rides here are best described as cultural: ) but weren't painful and it was nice to see lots of the country. The language is hard but not too bad. Everything here in our town is owned by one man named Gaspar. Hilarious in a not funny way that everything has his name on it: the grocery store, houses, cars driving around proclaiming his merits. Also funny. We were walking to our lunch appointment, and a car driving by literally lost its muffler, all of it. It just came off in the road. The car kept driving another half a mile before they stopped and came back. We have had some interesting experiences traveling, figuring out sleeping arrangements, travel arrangements for us and our bags, but I´m here, I´m ready and I pray that I may have the strength and continued desire to work hard and bring those ready to the gospel.

I´m here to lose myself in the work, Mateus 10:39. During our devotional Tuesday from the Sao Paulo Temple president, he talked about service, but I finally realized what the preceding scripture meant, to lose your life in the service of others. To not be worried about whether or not you achieve what you want to achieve first. But do what the Lord wants you to do first even if it means losing what you want to do. This is one of the great tests of life. Submitting your will to the will of God. Already in the first two days of being here I have felt the foundation of my testimony tested, And it holds strong. I know that this church is true. I know that when we follow the apostles, when we follow the prophet, when we listen to the scriptures, seek the spirit constantly, rely on the Lord and always seek to improve we will be blessed and find more happiness than we knew existed before. I love you all and am here because of you. Because I want others to have the great reassurances of peace that we have.

Love,

Tanner

Thank you so much for the blogs. I love them so much.

P.S. I can't email pictures - mission rule - soooo, I'll figure something out, ehh: ) Also, I heard rumor through the grapevine that you might be sending package. I don´t need one but of course would enjoy one so if this is true and you we´re wondering what items might be most appreciated now or in the future, then they are: good antiperspirant, degree is prime, memory cards for pictures that I could send back or keep, iodine tablets for water maybe, they discontinued the water bottles so I´ve only used bottled water, my favorite face wash Neutrogena orange colored, lots of pictures of you all, a pad for writing letters like the kind Hunter gave me for Christmas, a mosquito net. Other than that I think I´m good; ) ´I am proud to say though that I have less stuff than any missionary in the mission, bar none. Everyone´s suitcases are huge! I love you all so much, thank you for your prayers and smiles: )

And, some extra scoop from his CTM companion, Elder Cummings, whom we've grown to love!...

"In the field I get one hour for email/computer on p-day!!!! Just a heads up before I start talking about the field. Letters from the mission home get delivered to me once every three weeks to a month. Letters don't get sent directly to us at our apartment, at least not in the area that I am in.

Let’s start at the beginning. We went proselyting one last time on Monday at the CTM but this time we took a city bus to downtown São Paulo and proselyted there! It was pretty sweet! One experience that was really touching was the first person that Elder Schenewark and I talked with was this young man and after talking with him a bit he wanted to know some more so we taught him a mini super short 5‑minute version of the first lesson (First Vision and the Book of Mormon, etc.). By the way, the spirit helped us out a lot, I know, because we were speaking much better Portuguese than either of us knew and one of us always understood what he was saying! The spirit was really working overtime to make sure we didn´t screw this one up. At the end he asked us if he could have a second copy of the Book of Mormon so he could share it with his friend as well!! It was really cool!

Yesterday, Tuesday, (seems like a week ago) we woke up at 3:12 to get ready and head out for the airport by 4. We had a one-hour plane ride and landed in Londrina at 7:30 in the morning with Pres. and Sister Tavares waiting for us with the APs and the secretaries! They are really awesome! I am really glad that I have Pres. and Sister Tavares! So, next we went to their house/apartment and had some bread and jam and butter for breakfast (it was really good) and talked about the doctrine of Christ and had interviews with the president which was awesome. Then we had this really yummy lunch that they made for us with the missionaries who would be our future trainers but we didn't know who would be our trainers. Then we talked some more and FINALLY they told us who our trainers were going to be for the next 12 weeks! (It was so hard to listen to 12 hours of Portuguese after getting 4 hours of sleep so by the time they got to this point I was already so tired and dead it was not even funny. I am surprised that my brain did not ooze out my ears because it was so mushy!)"