Sister Tanner in Ukraine: One week to go

December 8, 2014

First off, I invite you to go to christmas.mormon.org and watch an awesome two minute clip on Christmas entitled He is the Gift. :)

Second, Yucaipa got rain! Lots of it. Two days’ worth. And not too heavy so it didn't cause floods and landslides, and all that other unpleasant stuff. Because no one had made invitations to the ward Christmas party, we whipped some up and delivered them during those rainy days around our appointments (which weren't many this week). I got wet. It was great!

Oh yeah, and I got Angus McCurdy's (correct spelling) on Monday. That was my third time having it, and all three times it has been free. Win. Some of the other elders happened to be there at the same time and they got what is called the "dirty McCurdy." Basically a heart attack in a bun. I have a picture. They ate it all.

A less active family wanted to feed us their "famous" spaghetti before I left. That was dinner Tuesday night. It was MASSIVE. It was GREASY. It was good. And, for the first time ever with this family, I was told I could take the rest to go. You bet I did.

We volunteered at the Mousley Museum again, and they invited us to attend their fancy lunch/induction to the Yucaipa Historical Society ceremony. So we did that Saturday afternoon. It was what you call a pleasant time. We were definitely the youngest attendees.

The Ward Christmas Party was Friday night. A little different from my ones at home. At this one we just ate dinner, sang some songs, and that was pretty much it. After the closing prayer they had their Yucaipa First Ward's tradition: the Twelve Days of Christmas. Each table is assigned a day, and we sing through the song, and basically each table is trying to out sing the other ones. People either love it or hate it. We were at "12 Drummers Drumming" and totally won. Just sayin'.

Saturday night we had an appointment with an investigator. Her husband is an atheist. He was there. It was...intense. You could say he shared all the reasons he is an atheist and we shared why we are not. That is putting it lightly. No we did not bash. Bashing gets nowhere. But it was intense, and seemed straight out of the scriptures of "hard-hardheartedness." No joke, I found in the scriptures this morning some of the same exact stuff this guy was putting out. Really, it just made me sad. I couldn't stop thinking about it for the longest time. Maybe we can talk more about it later.

On Sunday I was going to bare my testimony, seeing as it was my second to last Sunday. Then I got assigned to speak next week. So I thought I might wait. Yep - I'm the youth speaker next week. Exciting!

I think that is it for this week. I was slipping into trunkiness, but I pretty much fought it off this week. I feel great! But now I have to pack today. I have so much going on this coming week, it's just going to zip by. Crazy town.

Love ya! Have a great week!

Sister Tanner