A Whole Year

June 23, 2014

Well, well, well folks. Little Sister Tanner ain't so little anymore. This past week I was haunted with memories of confusion, foreign languages, skirts, and brown hallways. Yes, the MTC. A place I entered exactly one year ago last Thursday. Can you believe it's been a whole year?! I can't. But then again, a lot has happened to me so maybe it has been a whole year.

                                                    Entering the MTC

                                               Tracting in Atlanta, Georgia

                                          Tracting in Lugansk, Ukraine

                                           Street contacting in Kiev, Ukraine

                                          Tracting in Yucaipa, California

I'm just glad I managed to throw off the little mission weight I gained in Lugansk. Walking for 6 hours a day will do that do you. And no, that number is not an exaggeration.

You see, Sister Webb and Sister Tanner didn't have a great deal of appointments this past week, so we did a lot of walking. Maybe too much. We do have a car, we just try not to use it too much. But really, we need to use it more because we are getting way too tired and sore by the end of the week. I have never had my feet muscles hurt so much. And this past week it got HOT.

This week I went on my first official exchange as a Sister Training Leader. Woot woot. I was with a brand new sister. Which means I have served in the Redlands, California Mission longer than she has. WEIRD. Because neither she nor I was cleared to drive a car we got to walk. All day. Luckily it was a cooler day. Poor Sister D - we stopped by the D family, and the mom and daughter were there. We had a good impromptu lesson with them, but during the little chit chat the mom had been going on about how she was just feeling old that day (she's not that old), and then Sister D is like "so do you have any grandkids?" This lady's oldest is 14. My face may have turned a bit red. But it was pretty funny. Also that day there were some men working in this guy's yard, and this one man was hacking away at a bush with a machete, and Sister D is like "I like your machete!" and the guy literally said "Why are you liking the machete and not the men?" Uhhh... So we kept walking, but then we had to walk by them again, and the same guy is like "You must have big muscles, you walk a lot." ...why? This is all in a Mexican accent, mind you. Anyway, also pretty funny after the fact.

In other news, again, I turned a year old, and Sister Webb bought me two donuts and then made me eat both of them right away because she is currently off sugar and didn't want to be tempted. They were delicious but two made my tummy hurt. I have also eaten many delicious apricots straight from the tree.

                        One of the perks of California is homegrown fresh fruit.

This morning we heard the sad news that the family dog, Pearl, had killed one of the baby chicks. Of course it was the runt. I can never look at Pearl, the chick murderer, the same.

                          This photo with Pearl was taken before the chick murder.

                                           The family chickens

On Sunday we had a lady who we just barely started semi-teaching come to church! She is a Seventh Day Adventist but wanted to check out our services. Seventh-Day Adventists are the nicest people ever, and actually believe many of the same things. In fact, this lady very much enjoyed herself, and said herself the services are very similar, and she felt right at home. Good, because I was semi-freaking out the whole time. Didn't help that Sister Webb and I were teaching Gospel Essentials/Sunday School (it went well). That night there was a fireside that we really wanted to go to, but we needed an investigator or someone to come. This SDA lady said she might, so we got to wait in the lobby and earnestly hope (because all our other investigators know each other they were all having dinner together. Or otherwise busy). Well, she didn't come, so we had to sadly get up and leave. One day, my ability to attend a social event will not be determined by other people's agency.

That is about it I think. Like I said, we walked a lot. But all is well in the neighborhood. The work is great actually. Hopefully I will have some exciting updates for next week :D

Love you!

Sister Tanner