Finally! a letter and an e-mail

This is all that we received by e-mail on September 3. I did not post it to the blog because I was waiting for the hand written letter. It turns out the letter was not mailed until Friday and we received it yesterday afternoon.

Okay, so I need a library card to spend more than fifteen minutes on here, which I will have next week. I took pictures of your letters and will read those later. I am also hand writing my letter to you today and will send that out. I love you! This week has been incredible. If you want to send me a hand written letter, send it to the office address, and they will forward it to my apartment address. the address is:

Georgia Atlanta Mission

112 Governors Square Ste A
Fayetteville, GA 30215

Love you!

Sister Tanner

September 3. 2013

Dear Family,
            Boy oh boy, do I have a lot to write you! Sorry, mom, about the pain of transferring this to a computer, but I need a library card to use the computer more than 15 minutes, and I won’t have that until next week. So here we go!
            First, I do not get an English nametag, which is sad. Instead I just walk around with my Russian one (Tanner is in English), and most people don’t read it anyway or if they do, they get this confused look on their face. But hey, the fact that I’m going to Ukraine is something to talk about.
            And now for the travel. So waking up at 1:00 AM is a little rough, but I had to be at the travel office by 2:30 AM. Sister Finlayson and I checked out, and then with a bunch of other missionaries we loaded our luggage into a moving van, and then we got on charter buses. The buses dropped us off, and eventually our luggage showed up too. There was a long line to check the bags, and there was one not happy lady directing all of us. Small miracle: my heaviest bag came out to exactly 50 lbs., so I didn’t have to deal with it being over. Then I was able to call you, and then our first flight was there.
            On both flights I was in the window seat next to two elders, so no missionary work there. We also had no breakfast because everything was so early, so the granola bars you sent were a blessing. There were 50 missionaries going to Atlanta. President Harding calls us the “Fabulous Fifty,” and 25 were visa waiters, 25 not. The 25 non-visa waiters were on a direct flight that left an hour later and arrived an hour earlier than us. Of us visa waiters there was Ukraine, Brazil, and two other sisters, one going to Australia Mandarin speaking, and one Taiwan.

                                                The visa waiters

            Once we arrived in Atlanta and got our suitcases, we were picked up by the Mission President, the AP’s, and the office elders. They had an attachable trailer for the luggage, and then we piled into the cars. They drove us to the church where we had some information thrown at us, the local young women fed us, and then some more info. I was so tired at that point; I don’t think I remember anything they told us. Different local members came over and we stayed at their houses. We were in the Peachtree City Ward, so the houses were pretty nice. Everyone drives golf carts everywhere, and they congregate on the street corners in their golf carts and chat. The members who housed us also fed us breakfast, and then returned us to a ward building. So that is how they deal with 50 new missionaries. Apparently President Harding asked for 100, but the Church wouldn’t give it to him.

            Wednesday was transfers day. You have seen pictures. My new companion is Sister M. She’s great – very funny and very bold. She was also a cop back in Florida, so I feel safe with her. All of Wednesday felt a bit surreal, as I was truly becoming a missionary. So I am in the Atlanta district, which covers the Atlanta Ward. There are 10 sets of missionaries in that one ward. The boundaries are huge, so I mostly cover the College Park area. It appears you have done a little research on that area, and you are correct. I kind of stick out, and it’s not just because of my nametag. [Editor’s Note:  According to Wikipedia, College Park is approximately 81% African-American.] Sis. M and I share an apartment with Sis. R and Sis. B. Sis. B is another “Fab Fifty” who was actually assigned to Atlanta. They are both great.

     The apartment is huge compared to the MTC dorm, though a little lacking in furniture. Sis. B and I sleep on air mattresses. The four of us sisters share a car. One companionship will either drop off and pick up, or you walk, or take MARTA. MARTA is the public transportation system, which has a metro and bus system. That first Wednesday, after Sis. M and Sis. R took us to the apartment to drop our stuff off, we went tracting. Tracting was a little nerve racking, but it turned out well. We actually ended up teaching a lesson on the door step of this one guy. I had my Book of Mormon I had pulled from the free bin of the MTC. We were going to have him read Moroni’s promise (Moroni 10:3-5), so I flip there and ...someone had ripped out the page. It was kind of embarrassing. But now I always check.

September 6, 2013

            So there is no time to do anything but missionary work. Sorry! I wish I could include more, but this needs to be sent off. Suffice it to say, every day I see miracles, and the people out here are absolutely wonderful. I am also constantly reminded that you cannot judge a person by the way they look on the outside. Everybody has a story. And I will have some stories to tell when I come home!
                        Lots of love!
                        Sister Tanner

September 9, 2013

Okay! So I finally got a library card, but then I had to use twenty minutes of my time to fill out a survey, and I still have to write the branch president, so this will be brief. Go!

Every day is so busy. That's why I had no time to write you a letter. I really do feel bad about that. Hopefully you have it by now. We received it later in the afternoon. So some random fun stories/miracles.

Sister M and I decided on a little something different for tracting in Wal-Mart. It's really awkward to just walk up to people and talk to them, so we decided to get them to talk to us. We made a sign that said "what is the greatest gift you have ever received" and if we caught someone reading it, we made them answer the question. We actually talked to a lot of people that way. We like the Wal-Mart because it has air conditioning. It is so hot here, I am constantly sweating. It's a good thing I brought lots of white shirts.

And more about Wal-Mart: a Wal-Mart miracle. So one day Sis. R and Sis. B had to go to the WM, and Sis. M and I had to take them because we share a car. This was not in our plans, but it was okay, we would just do our tracting thing. Well, we are crossing the parking lot when this lady gets out of her car and asks us where the closest ward is. We were surprised, because she said ward (congregation) and so was obviously a member, but we did not recognize her. Turns out, she had just moved here a couple days earlier from Utah. What is even more incredible, is that when we went to visit her and her family a little bit later, we learned that she had actually been inactive for many, many years, and had recently decided she needed to become active again. But then she moved, and wasn't sure if her records would transfer, and how she was going to find anyone. Lo and behold, we sisters needed to make a trip to the Wal-Mart. The Lord is truly in charge of this work, and it is just so cool to be an instrument for him. 

Another story: So one day Sis. M and I received a referral on our phones from some other elders. We drive on over to the address, but as we pull up, we're just like "oh no." I told Sis. M that I thought some elders should probably handle this referral. Boy was I wrong. So if anyone is familiar with the shows Duck Dynasty or Swamp People, you have a pretty good image of what these people are like. They turned out to be some of the nicest people ever. We are now teaching three of them, T_, his cousin B_, and their friend A_. T_ was the referral we received, but the other two are taking the lessons too. T_ is just the most humble guy, and wants this for him and his little son. They are also hilarious. B_, well B_ is absolutely hilarious in that he just says the most random, awkward things. One lesson we went over, and B_ told us he was going to quit drinking and smoking right after his last six pack. He then proceeded to get drunker and drunker as we taught, with all the accompanying noises and such. T_ and A_ were getting so frustrated at him. It definitely made for a memory. We almost got them to church, but they were nervous, and I guess it was too much because they didn't show up yesterday. It is actually devastating to have someone you are expecting, not show up to church. My little heart just broke. Next week though. 

T_ is a good example of the people here though. I serve in the Atlanta Ward, which takes in all of Atlanta. We see a range of people. People have very tough backgrounds, but there are some of the nicest people here. A lot of people here believe in Jesus and such, so it’s very easy to bring up gospel topics. We say a lot of prayers with them. 

One last topic: little children. So one of the rules of a missionary is that we are not supposed to hold children, or have them sit on your lap. Probably a liability issue. I didn't think it would be a big problem, because I somehow usually end up scaring children. Well! I have never had so many little children try to climb into my lap or want me to pick them up as I have these past two weeks. This one time, I was at a family home evening/dinner, and I was sitting in this chair and this little two-year old is just crying, wanting me to pick her up, and I was trying to distract her by having her look out the window and no one would come save me. It was awful. Children are great though. The other day the niece of this guy we are teaching was like "afterwards you should go to that house, and that house, and that house" because she had seen us tracting. Well, after the lesson with the guy, she then proceeded to lead us, with some other kids, to each house, knocking on the door before we could get there. No one ended up answering, but it was pretty adorable. She did not want to give up either. Future missionary right there. 

Sorry this letter is so haphazard. I really am limited on time. Everyone is getting sick, I'm the only healthy one in my apartment. I don't really know why I included that. 

I love you all, but I have to go. By the way, I love hand written letters. I can read them when I get them. Plus its mail. Just saying. 

Love you!

Sister Tanner

I hope I answered all your questions from last time. I'm sitting here trying to think about what else I could write, but honestly, so much happens in a day, that I forget all of it. I have it written in my journal though, so don't worry. There are waffle houses everywhere. That's a tidbit. There are like, zero crosswalks so people just run across the street. I live in the hood. They don't recycle out here. I went into Atlanta for last p-day. We were trying to find a pizza place but just ended up walking around Atlanta and never found it, so we ate in the CNN building. Just in time to hear/see the Syria hearings. I'm glad I'm in my own little world and not having to think about that stuff. That is also why I had less time on P-day to write you. 

I think those are the tidbits. Love you