Letter #102

Dearest Family...whom soon I will see,

I'm living in a dream right now. It's over, but not over, yet. . . We continue our rhythm of madness, traveling and training throughout the mission. Last Tuesday we welcomed Elder Jouinsse officially in as assistant to the president as he helped mount our zone conference training. I mostly spent the time preparing all of the necessary things to help him take over, training him on numbers, records, etc, etc, etc. We continued that training today. 

Early Wednesday, we were off to Maringá with President and Sister Genaro to begin our zone conferences. Maringá felt like Zion. The zones of Apucarana, Maringá and Morangueira, each with remarkable leadership. There was no poor in spirit among them, and the outpouring of joy and humility we felt there was amazing. 

Thursday was all day in the Hi-Lux with the President and his wife until we arrived in Foz. About six hours in the car or something like that. We worked with Elders M. Santos and McGaughy that night, which was enjoyable and also included a ward activity where I learned some fun games. I won't explain them now, since I'll be home in eight days. They'll be my wild card contribution to family home evening : ) One is called Chibutar, and the other is the poisonous snake game.

Friday, while the rest of Brasil geared up for the big game of Brasil vs. Colombia, we geared up spiritually with the conference of Foz and Cascavel. It started out panicky, literally. Just as we were beginning our portion of the conference, a sister began to have some sort of muscular attack, I'm not exactly sure what it was, however, it made her unable to walk and trembling. President Genaro called my name, and told me to carry her to the hospital, 2 1/2 blocks away, which I did, thinking, "Please don't die, please don't die!: She didn't and is all right, but I'm thankful for having the strength to get her there, and I'm thankful she was a "light" sister. Others would have had been thrown fireman style if they had any such attacks. : )

Brasil won the game against Colômbia : )

Saturday we geared up with a tropical colonial breakfast at the hotel, before another long ride back to Londrina. We spent a lot of hours in the car this week!

Sunday was special, with testimony meeting being the first time I was in the ward for the last month. We had several "miracle" investigators show up for church after we had invited them weeks before and they decided alone to go this week. Also, new member converts received callings in the church, 2nd counselor in the sunday School presidency and secretary of the Relief Society. Both attended leadership training later that night with the visiting Area Seventy Elder Cruz!

I bore my farewell testimony, crying. That's something I learned to do here in the mission : ) The spirit was strong, especially the spirit of love that I have for this imperfect, beloved ward. I was touched to see the majority of the ward in tears as well, and further touched when the Bishop stood to close the meeting and thanked me, in the name of the Bishopric, for the work that I had done,the converts I had converted, the growth of the ward and spirit of missionary work that he attributed to my patient work with the members. He, on the verge of tears as well.

Funny how going away makes people remember you more. I received a week full of dinner invites for this week : )

This week we finish conferences and have some divisions marked and then I'm home : )

I love you all. I'll keep going strong, but I'm worried about not speaking English. This week we met up with some American college students and I was not able to keep a fluent conversation going, always reverting back to Portuguese. Hey! I tried!

Keep some of that apple pie warm for me!

The gospel is true. I know it, I love it, I live it.

Love,

Tanner

The Great Escape.