Friendly Frisbee Golf

 

Words for the Wingmen

Dear Hunter,

This week I pretended to be in Scotland. Let me explain:

Monday, AnneMarie and I walked up to the parliament, arrived early and ate lunch at a restaurant next door, then I headed off to the parliament at two, got my badge and had a brief tour of everything. More on that later. AnneMarie waited at a Starbucks for me. I wasn't feeling great when we headed home. Tuesday, awoke with zip and pizzazz and a nice loose bowl motion and headed off to my first real day. The details are important here. I made it till about three in the afternoon when I literally tapped out and crawled home, sick as a missionary in a foreign country. Sicker maybe. I mean I barely made it home. And there at home I stayed until today when I ventured out to church.

The culprit? Almost certainly a very bad case of food poisoning, picked up at what was unfortunately a rather good restaurant on Monday. How sick are we talking here? I ran a fever over 102 degrees from Tuesday until Thursday, topping out at almost 104 degrees Thursday night. AnneMarie had a fever on Tuesday but she was able to kick it somehow. The rest was just a virulent case of the Scottish runs--runs to the loo! I'm worn out. In between worse moments I watched the Harry Potter movies and pretended I was in Scotland even though it didn't seem like it.

Luckily I married an angel from heaven. My adorable wonderful companion cared for me all week as I languished and even as she wasn't feeling great either. She also completed three very difficult puzzles, the only picture I have from this week:) I'm so grateful to have her by my side. Tonight she made an absolutely delicious tikka masala that restored my sense of purpose in life.

Here's what I can tell you about my job after a half day at work: my boss is great. Real bulldog of a parliament member. No nonsense guy. Started off slow because the IT department messed up my computer account most of the morning, so my MP got me some tickets to see that afternoons session in the parliament chamber, which I think I normally would have found highly interesting but instead found almost unbearable. Hopefully I'll get to go to that again.  I'll be working as a full fledged support staff to him, writing speeches, press releases, setting up meetings, even helping to draft motions for the parliament. I get a very official I'd badge that allows me access to the whole building by swiping it at all the doors and elevators. The cafeteria seems pretty good there as well. That's about all I can say about parliament. Hopefully tomorrow goes much better and we can get the ball rolling.

The highlight of the week was church today, as it well should be.  We rode a double decker bus there and back, on the top of course, and enjoyed the slow, beautiful ride through the city, with its views of castles and grand monuments as well as lots of green Scottish hillsides. We arrived at church to find out it was stake conference. The talks were very very good. I especially enjoyed the mission president and his wife, a young married brother's talk on covenants and an elderly woman's BURNING testimony. It was powerful. The Scottish saints may be few in number but clearly they are not faint of heart. We have five pairs of missionaries in our ward since our ward covers the city. I connected with those that cover where we live and asked them to call me as much as they dared to during the week. Bouta get the groove back on.

Next weeks letter will be much more exciting, I promise.

All our Love,

Tanner and AnneMarie

Words from the Wise One

Aló!!!!!!

This week was  National Pancake Day on Tuesday so we hopped over to iHop with AnneMarie's sisters and...I got french toast, but that's close enough to pancakes right?) The highlight of the week though came on Wednesday when I had the privilege to pick up Stephen Welch from the SLC airport and drop him off at the MTC. I hadn't seen him since the end of our Freshman year and it was a sweet reunion. We grabbed the obligatory pre-MTC/last American lunch at In-n-Out (he's headed to Mexico and this could be the last burger in awhile!), talked a bit about mission's, caught up, drove by the new Provo temple and then made our way to the MTC. These things are tearjerkers of the worst kind, by the way. I've now dropped two people off at the MTC and each time is tough! Especially when they get to go preach the gospel for two years and you have to race off to Accounting class. Enjoy your time as a servant of the Lord!

In a note from Stephen, he wrote: First of all, there were really great people on the plane helping me and talking to me. it was good. It was also incredible to be able to spend time with my good friend, Tanner Schenewark, before I reported. It felt a lot like when Alma met the sons of Mosiah. Except neither of us passed out (I think he was close, though). We got some In-N-Out Burgers and shakes, looked at the Provo City Center Temple, and took a picture in front of the Provo Temple. It was sooo great to see him, feel his spirit, and share how we have both grown. He is awesome! We ended up getting me checked in late, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It was very special to me.

This weekend we relaxed together, homeworked together, and ran 3 miles together (feeling the burn of my calves today!). AnneMarie's mom likes to say we're still on our honeymoon. We are. But its the sweetness of the gospel, together with our love for each other that permeates our days and projects happiness onto our daily routines.

Tonight we had a great time playing games and eating treats with a few other couples in our ward. We've tried to take advantage of the blessings and lessons of where we are now knowing that new ones will come along with their own lessons and challenges. That's a good principle for your mission. Focus hard on doing what the Lord needs you to do where you are now. He'll decide when it's time for you to move on.

All our Love,

Tanner and the Adorable AnneMarie

Words from the Wise One

Dear Hunter-Bunter,

I hope that this week has gone as well as last. I was thrilled to read of Willian's baptism. Help him to stay strong and move towards receiving the priesthood. I was just as glad to see that you are learning some of what I think are the key lessons of being on a mission: it's not us as missionaries, per se, we are, as the scriptures say, vessels, and as long as we are pure vessels than the message we bear to all we come in contact with will find those the Lord has prepared.

We've had a fun, fast-paced two weeks since I wrote you last. Last weekend we took a trip to SLC for a conference on "The Good Life" sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, complete with lavish meals in an equally lavish hotel downtown. (AnneMarie won me my new spiffy tie.)

We had (too) much fun acting like we were grown-ups and professionals but, as you can see below, as soon as we made our escape to our room we had to take lots of silly/serious selfies. It was a blast, made ten times more fun for being able to enjoy it together.

 Before we headed back home Sunday morning we stopped to take in a live performance of Music and the Spoken Word. Always worth it, especially since they performed some different pieces from the Messiah in preparation for their Easter concert. Hallelujah!

I've also decided that one of main hobbies from now is going to be food. I love it, love making it, eating it, trying new kinds. At the conference we tried lots of delicious foods but one in particular--sausage stuffed mushrooms--caught our eyes in particular, so that Monday we made them and they were, to quote Genesis, GOOD... The new item on the menu is all things pizza, homemade from scratch of course.

Last week we made a supremely supreme pizza and this week it was BBQ chicken with fresh mozzarella, cilantro, and famous Dave's BBQ sauce. During the week, too, we tried a new ice cream place in town where they make the ice cream in front of you--a la subzero--but roll it up. Deliciously creamy, this is my new favorite treat spot in town:)

In other news, our intramural basketball team was ranked 5th out of all 150 teams at BYU, which kind of makes us like some kind of D-II team I think. We lost our first game in the tournament though, the first game we lost all season, so maybe that pushes us down to D-III.

We continue loving to rock climb and let me just say that AnneMarie would put 10 out of 10 guys climbing in that gym to shame with her skillz. Last night we had a fun date/movie night with two other couples who invited us to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'd never seen that before, but much more entertaining was the uncontrollable laughter of one of the other guys who, let's just say, thought the ENTIRE thing was raucously funny. The best news of the last two weeks is that it's sunny, so I'm back on my blue bike, speeding to and from school in the sunshine.

Here's to knowing you're living the good life with lots of sunshine too,

Love & Prayers,



Tanner and AnneMarie

Words for the Wingmen

Dear Hunter,

Funny moment of the week: I've been writing to genealogists in Germany to try and find the Schenewark line and while working on that this afternoon began to sing the primary song "Genealogy, I am doing it, my genealogy...at which point AnneMarie cut in and started singing to the same tune "and I won't forget all the men that died who gave that right to me..." Not quite how it goes but it kind of fits right in ;) She's the sweetest and we laugh our days along...

Which is good because this week was long. 5 midterms, 2 basketball games to work, 2 basketball games to play, and all the attendant stresses of normal life. Like my phone going kaput on me. I've opted for a higher end replacement since Ammie will be coming off her family's phone plan this summer and we'll need to have our own. My shiny new iPhone should be here tomorrow! The bonus is that it will work fine in Scotland without having to pay extra so we can Face time family here without having to buy a Scottish phone. And its cool, ya know? ;)

Friday we had a wonderful day. Mimi and Grampy came into to town to ordain Uncle Ben a high priest, so we went and spent most of Friday hanging with them. They carry a wonderful spirit with them as you know and it was great for AnneMarie to be able to meet them too:) (see the picture below of him playing Call of Duty or something with Josh--priceless:)

After we hung with them, they were headed to bed early for an early morning flight back to Boston so we had a couple date with a new couple in our ward, very cool, rock climbing and burgers at Mooyah! AnneMarie won all the prizes rock climbing, reaching new heights--haha, literally--on some very challenging routes. Sometimes when I want to give up on a route she just looks up at me and gives me the best encouragement. Something to look forward to in the future;)

I wish you could come visit our lovely home and bask in its light:) We were both feeling wonderfully grateful for families this week and maybe that's my thought for you today. You are on a mission, ultimately, to unite and reunite families. Whatever family structure and happiness they may have now, it is eternally meaningless without the gospel. Now of course that blessing may come later to some, so recognizing that isn't meant to demean their families. Rather, you can help them recognize that their families will be happier NOW with the gospel. They will have greater peace NOW, less contention NOW, etc. You get the point. And they will notice that in the families in the church even if you may think there's a lot lacking.

We Love You Dearly! Have a great week working. Keep up the obedience and look for the guidance of the Spirit throughout the day.

Love,

Tanner and AnneMarie

Brotherly Love

Dear Hunter,

Hope you are having a fly week, uma boa semana:) We are in full-swing of final projects, final classes, final tests--all those good things. This probably isn't super exciting to you, but I wanted to share that one final project I had to do was literally BOOK length. I spent like twenty dollars on printing. I worked a basketball game this week too.

Today's the most exciting day of our week: we're making hundreds of cookies to deliver to family and friends, in the Hunter spirit. AnneMarie is a baker par excellence! and our house smells divine. Plus she boogies while she bakes and I love that:) Some lucky people are going to be getting some treats today:)

I think of you frequently throughout my days and week. I know how hard mission's can be and also how wonderful they are. You're doing wonderfully, just keep it up.

Did you get to see the Christmas devotional last week? We weren't able to get tickets to it so we watched it at home. I enjoyed the choir's rendition of Christina Rossetti's "In the Bleak Midwinter" and Elder Bednar's talk on Christ as being represented by light. There is such powerful scriptural imagery associated with light and, conversely, darkness. Whenever that comes up in your study I think its worth imagining how it can refer to Christ directly. Being married is a wonderful, wonderful experience and it brings with it new challenges all its own. No matter our challenges though, the light that drives away darkness in our lives and fills us with peace is the same.

Also, I know that the church has finished a King James Bible in Portuguese. Are people using it down there? How'd the language coming? If you have questions I can help. I know that sometimes Brazilians aren't very good at explaining their own language so I'm here if you need me.

Praying for you, Proud of you, and Preaching love with cookies,

Com muito amor e carinho,

Tanner

p.s. One of the photos is from when we went and taught 2nd graders about the Pilgrims and Indians:)

Pole Vaulting