Letter #35 . . . "Be Still My Soul"

"Oh Hey Mom ..." (In that one voice :)) 
 

Tanner and Elder Reber

I loved the letter. I love hearing about all the stuff happening at home!

This week was pretty sweet. Elder Reber is awesome. In our mission there's no such thing as the 'senior companion.' President hates that label haha. I feel like we're still both learning from each other! Reber and I have been focusing on finding some more solid people to teach. This week we did a lot of knocking on potential's doors, and random ones. We found a few solid people but most wanted nothing to do with us. We met some nice people, met some hardcore bible bashers etc. There are lots of 'born again' fanatics out here, who think to be saved you confess Jesus to be your Lord, then do whatever the poop you
want the rest of your life. This week was pretty exhausting, but it felt good to work and was fun at the same time. Reber and I get a long great and have fun with each other!

This week we got a new shipment of Book of Mormons, so we decided to give them out to as many people as we could. Some of the highlights:
We gave one to the ice cream man named Jarome, one Spanish one to a
cleaning lady in a hotel, and one Vietnamese one for a random  
Vietnamese family! It was pretty sweet.

This week I focused on trying to get better at talking with everyone.
A lot of times I miss opportunities to share with someone because I
feel like it'd be weird to stop them and talk. I could see some
improvement in myself this week, and had many cool experiences that I
wouldn't have if I didn't go out of my comfort zone a little.

Beautiful Independence sunset!

Yesterday I sang and played "Be Still My Soul" in Sacrament meeting with a girl in the ward named Remi Lamb! She's awesome. She has a recording of it that I'll try to get to y'all. But until then I'll send you a version we did just practicing at her house!  (Here is the link)  It went great tho! 
 
I was also able to play the piano in a member's home for our dinner 
message. They have some cute and energetic kids with a 2 second attention span, so we thought it'd help to play a song. They listened through the whole thing!

Ryan Matthews, that awesome guy I've talked about, finally got back to us and let us come over for a lesson. He's a super genuine guy, but he loves his Bible stuff, and is one of the born again fanatics I talked about. When we sat down, he pulled out a bunch of notes he had taken about issues he had with the church that he found on iffy websites. He had a bunch of out of context statements from the journal of flippen discourses that went against one specific verse in the bible.., it was tough. We just testified that we know the Book of Mormon is true, and if he'll read it with an open heart he will see that it doesn't contradict the Bible at all. He's an awesome guy, super nice to us, but he's got a lot of stumbling blocks causing him to be blind to what we're trying to share. Sooooo hopefully he'll give the Book of Mormon a chance, because that book is perfect!

Love y'all, stay schweeet.

Elder Townsend

Sent from Zion

Letter #34 . . . stayed in Independence, new comp!

Tanner with new companion, Elder Reber from Arizona!

**Tanner likes to play a little game where he tells people to call out whatever song or artist they want him to play and then 9 out of 10 times he will be able to play it.  In the following video clip, Elder Reber is putting Tanner to the test . . . Watch the video clip here! Hopefully none of you are offended that a few of these songs are not church songs! They are just having a little fun! :)

Hello all!

This week I got a new companion. His name is Elder Reber! He is from Gilbert Arizona, and he's sweet! He's well over a year younger than me, and graduated in 2016. He's been out for 4 months. His name is spelled the same backwards and forwards. Craziness! He's super athletic, he played football in high school and a little spring football at Scottsdale College as a linebacker in Arizona!! He is planning on playing when he gets home. He's super athletic and can dunk a ball easy too. Pretty sweet. Reminds me of like a Riley Ogden! Just a stud. Go on Hudl.com and search Austin Reber and try to download the vid of his highlights and send it to me. I wanna see dem skillz.:)

Ellsworth is going back to his first area... With his first companion.... And is super excited to have a change I think.

Yeah the Bishop is so dang awesome. I don't know if it's more common outside of Utah. It just totally depends. He's my first Bishop like that. He asked me to play his favorite hymn, "Be Still My Soul" in Sacrament next week!! That should be fun!

Our investigator Ryan has Chrohns disease and hasn't been able to meet up
because he's been feeling sick. He is so solid, I hope we can meet with
him soon. We have a ton of potential investigators we've just been
going through, visiting house to house to house! We've seen some cool
miracles from it!

That's sweet that Spence did lacrosse! He's such a stud, and looks
bigger and bigger in all the pics I see. Josh is my best pal, and I
miss playing sports with him and all the boys. We get to play a ton of
basketball out here, I just got some new shoes because my other ones
had the grip of slippers... I love basketball, and it makes me think
of playing with Josh and Spen all the time! I miss it!

Love you family and friends!
- Elder Townsend

Sent from Zion

Letter #33 . . . transfers coming and General Conference in Independence!

Here are a few videos that Tanner sent with this email . . . a few songs he recorded in between conference sessions on Sunday . . .  Tanner's guitar version of "I Can Do All Things" (2015 EFY song) Tanner's guitar version of "Hallelujah"   And here's his letter . . .  Hello friends and fam! Hope all is well. Transfers are this week. Ellsworth thinks he's leaving cause he's been here three transfers. I don't know, we'll see! Parker sent me the vid he made for Sarah! It is sweet! I'm so proud of you Sar and Brady! Keep it up.   Wow, was that really a year ago when Grandma was dancing in that  facility?! Man I love her. She's amazing, and is so happy now. This week... I had Interviews with President Vest. It was pretty good. The interview basically consisted of him asking me if I had any questions for him, and I didn't really, so our interview was pretty short haha. That's how it usually goes. We've been getting really close with Bishop Hubner. He takes us out to lunch and has us come over all the time. He's awesome. He heard from one of the members I made YouTube videos and his family watched all of my videos and loved them he said! It makes things so much better when you have a sweet Bishop!! We went and watched Conference on Saturday at the Church. In between sessions I recorded some song ideas on the piano with some singing. They're definitely ones I will record when I get home! :) For Sunday's sessions we went and watched at a members, (the Lambs.) They're this awesome family with these awesome daughters with really good voices! They were naming off songs and I was playing them. It was schweeet. I can't choose my favorites . . there are too many!! I went on exchanges with an Elder that's been going through a lot of struggles with his faith. We had some pretty amazing conversations. Both of us learned so much from each other. It's amazing how much more you can learn and be guided when you're in the spirit. It's crazy how quickly we just forget how much Joy we feel in those times. Conference talked a lot about that, and a lot of other topics I really needed to hear. Mama, these vids of Claire are killing me. She is SO. STINKING.  CUTE. AHHHHHH! Love y'all, - Elder Townsend Sent from Zion