Letter #12

My Dear Family,

This was a week of work. From visiting a lot of less active members all over the city, to meeting 3 times with the various district, branch and mission leaders to coordinate all the actions on missionary work. We planned activities, taught lessons, we´re denied, fried and lied to. Unfortunately we saw the aftermath of a man being hit by a very large truck. We avoid the blood splatters now when we walk to the grocery store.

All in all, this area is hard, which I think will make it more rewarding when things begin to work. To give you a small idea, we have over 700 members on our records, for our branch not the other one, and we had 50ish in church on Sunday. Lots of work to be done! Our meeting with the newly called branch president was refreshing because he´s setting out to transform Tupã, at no small personal effort. We are very grateful for his enthusiasm and help. He has approved weekly activities, which hopefully will help some of the young people to come back to the church and we have two sets of excellent ward missionaries. I don't know the final outcome for Tupã, but we intend to leave it much better than we found it!

The countryside resembles Texas, but there are wild flocks of green and gold parrots that fly like sparrows from telephone pole to telephone pole. When they talk they sound like cats dying, and they´re very loud. They really put the squawk in squawking if you know what I mean.

Other notable news, we still are not in our new house, but hope to move in on Thursday. That will most likely take up the day, assembling all the beds, dressers cleaning, moving stoves and washers etc. It is closer to the church though and that is always a plus. The address for that house is:

As promised my top Five General Conference Moments:
1. Elder Cook: Alma 5, Can you feel so now? The family is the foundation of love and spirituality.
2. Sister Ann M. Dibb: I´m a mormon, I know it, I live it, I Love it.
3. Elder Marcus B. Nash: Live the gospel at great personal sacrifice. Faith and reason are companions, nurture faith until it reaches reason.
4. Elder Bednar: Testimony and Conversion. Often testimony is not enough; Conversion is an offering of self in gratitude for testimony.
5. President Monson, Priesthood: View people as they will look when they have a testimony, as they enter the waters of baptism; Woe is to me if I do not preach the gospel; ) 1 Cor.

Honorable Mentions: E. Nelson, E. Scott D. Whiting´s analogy of the standards of temple building to our lives, E. Holland´s and Hale´s use of the last chapter of John. Indeed the list goes on. . . I look forward with unmatched expectations to the Ensign: )

(Due to extraordianry circumstances today, this letter will be a bit shorter than planned. It has been QUITE the P-Day.) We had interviews with Pres. Tavares, short and sweet, he shared a message with us after, and. . . bought us pizza, which has saved my life the last two days. We had one investigator in church (yes!) and not at all the one we thought would be there. Remember the Lord works in mysterious ways. I think we also set a new record this week for the most crazy people talked to in such a period of time. Must be the Heat.  And we had our first real Brazilian rainstorm. I´ll send pictures along, but it turned our ruas (streets) into rios (rivers). Sunday I played the piano for both wards, and loved doing it, but I really would like to sing sometime too. I'm  feeling a little bodily pain in the knees and legs, but have a plan to counter it, and I'm beginning to develop a nice collar and shirtsleeve tan.

Spiritual thought today goes to Elder Bednar´s talk. Here in Tupã we see all too frequently the difference between testimony and conversion, and what seems to destroy testimony before the latter can become strong. Top three testimony takers? 1. Not keeping the Sabbath Day holy. 2. Breaking or being lax with, the Law of Chastity. 3. Breaking or being lax with, the Word of Wisdom. These bad boys will snatch, in a matter of days, your foundation from under you. Be wise, be careful and build a strong conversion so that when choices need to be made, often over one of these three areas, the choice has already been made. 

I Love you and thank you for your prayers and just being you! The sun always dims (which is good) when I think of you: )

LOVE,

Tanner

p.s- (there always has to be one; ) Right now I either buy water, or boil it. It is expensive or time consuming but I believe they´re supposed to get me a water bottle filter sometime soon. I do not have a safe place for valuables so I make sure to lock all our doors. Please do not send me money. What I have here should be more than adequate and I ´m trying to live frugally (for you Mom Mom; )

As for Facebook, a picture every now and then would be good, along with any thoughts or experiences you think are funny, short or inspiring ; ) that you would like to share! I don´t know about the chalk. At least not here in Tupã. If I go to Londrina it might be a good idea, and I really like to draw. But I´ll let you know before so probably not right now. There just aren´t enough people who would see it to be an effective use of time. Thank you for the ideas for helping with the members! I really like Cooper´s and we are doing Sawyer´s, have done Porter´s, and can no longer do Hunter´s. As for Dad´s, we are really trying. Well I think that´s it. . .

Ok. Yes, the water does indeed spin the other way in the toilet ; ) Look for Letters!  Love, Tanner (Again; )