Tanner's Mission Experiences

Hello friends!! I hope all is well! For me as a missionary I can't say things are perfect but I can say I'm so incredibly blessed. For any of you debating on serving a mission let me just say this. If you go, you will never regret it. You will learn so much and grow spiritually. You will grow in your ability to love and understand others. You will learn how to deal with people who drive you crazy! haha. Your social skills will improve. You will see lives changed. You will become best friends with your Father in Heaven and the Book of Mormon. Your family will be blessed. You will see miracles. You will develop life long friendships. You will learn to work hard. But best of all you will be happy. Not everyday cuz some days are so hard, but I promise you, if you do all you can to serve, you will be happy. Sooo in short if your are thinking about going but you aren't sure, let me just help you with your decision. GO!!! There is no better thing you can do than serve th...

Tanner didn't have time to write.  Tyson says that usually meant they were playing basketball but I found out the next week he was going to the mall :)

Hello friends! In my personal studies I  learned something that hit me hard. Good thing we have the Atonement! haha. I read Jacob 2:18-19. Basically it talks about first seek the kingdom of God, and if you do you will be blessed with riches. It tells us we need to use what we have to bless the poor and needy and sick and people who are less fortunate than us. So for me I need to be more charitable. I realized I need to give more freely of myself and give more of what I have. Sometimes many of us including myself get so caught up in the world and the riches of it but we don't realize we really have nothing. Everything we have really isn't ours, so whatever we are blessed with we should use it to bless others.  Charity is the pure love of Christ. If we think about Christ our perfect example he wasn't rich as to thing of the world. Instead of chillin in some huge mansion with 12 cars, he gave everything, including his time, talents,and eventually his life. So for this...

Hello friends! I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. I know I did!  Seriously, I think this could have been my favorite Christmas so far! It was a little stressful (mom note:  due to a misunderstanding it was announced he was making dinner for the whole ward which he hadn't planned on) but at the end of the day when I went down for bed all I could do was smile. Sooo it was awesome to put it in short. This past week my area was blessed with three baptisms and in the district we had 5! Our district has been dry on baptisms for a while so we are so grateful to finally bring some souls unto Christ. My companion and I are expecting to baptize at least one more this week. What's even better is she is a contact, and usually they are the most stubborn. But this person is seriously powerful. One of our baptisms this past week was Brother Issac. He is a police officer. His wife is a strong member and has been waiting for him to baptize for sooo long! I think in the p...

We finally got to speak to Tanner today.  It was 9 pm his time because he had been busy all day and all the night before. After discovering many families could not afford to do much for Christmas if anything he asked us if he could use some extra money to make a special dinner for about 4 families and get them all gifts.  He said he wants to pay us back when he gets home because he wants it to be a sacrifice from him.  (Sounds like he also got gifts for the elders in his apartment which he said they loved.) Then he explained his plan and asked the counselor if he could use the chapel today.  The counselor somehow misunderstood and invited the whole ward to Tanners dinner!  Needless to say Tanner was stressed!  He worried about having enough food but he said he had extra.  He said the numbers didn't make sense that it would be enough but it did.  He served 50 people today! His menu:  fried chicken (YES, you read that co...

Hello everyone! Guess what!  Next week is Christmas!!!  If I could suggest something I would say this year try to focus more on Christ than the materialistic things. Something I see being away from the US and in a third world country is by nature Americans focus too much on the gifts but maybe should take more time time to reflect on the greatest gift of all time given to us. Let us this holiday season try to be a little kinder, thoughtful, patient and charitable. Let us apply the Atonement more fully and strive to prepare ourself for the new year and our goal to become more like Christ. I love you all and I'm thankful for your prayers, they are working!!  Oh btw I prob won't do a group email next week. Love you all Elder Pace Tanner is excited to try and help several families have a little bit of a Christmas.  He is planning on making a dinner and getting them dessert and gifts for four families and doing a devotional with them.  He is able to ...

Sooo I'm very short on time but this week we met very many people. I think we will have one or more baptisms this month and I'm excited to give that gift to the Savior. I'm happy, healthy and I just really love being a missionary.  It's hard, like way harder than anything but wow, it's the best decision I have ever made. Love you all! Elder Pace