Letter #97 . . . Christmas call, Baptism, Peanuts and Moana!

Merry Christmas!

Short email today, I'll talk to you soon on FaceTime! 

Darcio and Ryella

Highlight of the week, Darcio and his daughter Ryella were baptized on Saturday! It was such an awesome day. It was Booth's first baptism, so it was a special time!! Booth's such an awesome dude. 

We had a talent show on Christmas Eve at this member's house! It was awesome cause Booth and I both have that Christmas Eve tradition at home, and we were pumped to be able to join y'all in doing that tradition!! Just 1100 miles away! :) 

Christmas FaceTime!!

Also we got to watch Moana!! Our mission President authorized us to watch a Disney movie! All I could think about the whole time was Claire!! I now can come home and have the perfect way to relate to her! ;) She's so squishy! Send some more vids of her getting big. 

- Elder Townsend 

 

PS.  Tanner and missionaries re-enacted the PEANUTS Christmas . . .haha! Click here to watch the PEANUTS in action . . . and then Click here to watch the missionaries in action! :)

 

December, 2017

New Christmas sweater!

 

Letter #96 . . . mission is awesome, I tell ya!

Hey family and everybody! 

Elder Booth and Elder Townsend

Twas a great week! Christmas is in a week, oh meh goodness. Time really is flying by here. Weeks go by so fast. The mission is awesome I tell ya. 

This week we had the opportunity to go to the temple after Zone conference. It was my first time going in a while. I'm loving it more and more the more I go. I got so much out of it this time, and I feel like I learned a ton. I want to be sure to keep up my temple attendance when I'm home. Because it makes me so happy!

Zone Conference at the temple

Our investigator Darcio is super excited to be baptized on the 23rd still! Al, who I was teaching in my last ward, got baptized on the 16th, and the Hills from my last ward, are getting baptized on the 6th of January! Exciting stuff! 

 

We can FaceTime around 4-4:30 our time, 3-3:30 your time!  

 

That's cool you saw a bunch of my pals at Jenna's homecoming!  Miss them all.

I love and miss you all. I will see you pretty soon. :)

 

Elder Townsend

Letter #95 . . . Darcio, Dallin, Liberty Jail and Llamas!

Familia and Friends!

At Liberty Jail with Darcio and his family!

Hope all is well! This week has been a fun one! Highlights... We got to go to Liberty Jail with Darcio and his family! It was such a sweet experience. I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to finish teaching him and being a part of his conversion! He has three little kids and a wife who is a member. We watched the Joseph Smith Restoration movie. There is such a cool Spirit felt there! He's still looking solid for his date on the 23rd.

We were on walk week this week. Although it was flippen cold, we still had a grand ol' time walkin everywhere! We performed at the Ward Christmas party which was awesome.

We weren't able to meet with Jennifer this week, she has a crazy work schedule. We have an appointment with her on Wednesday!

Elder Booth and Elder Tan Man!

Dallin Bytheway, Brenden Bytheway's little brother is serving in my district and we've became buds. It's pretty awesome he's just a mini Brenden hahahah!

Britt and Spencer's perms, oh my goodness!! Hahah who did those, why did they do those? And why did Spence have to sit in the art case all day?!

I am so happy that Claire knows who I am!! Wahooo I woulda thought she didn't know who I was! :)

Love you, till next week! :)

- Elder Townsend

Purty!

Tree huggin!

Letter #94 . . . transferred and fancy music night!

Hola familia and friends!  

"Fancy Music Night"

Sad news! I was transferred from Lauritsen and NKC Ward! I'm now with Elder Booth in the Lee Summit 3rd Ward, serving in Kansas City Stake! We whitewashed in. It's been awesome so far. The Ward has been super nice to us! We have been able to play lots of music for the ward which has been sweet! The first night we got to play at a little fancy music night like Leon Peterson does. It brought me back to old times. We played a bunch of numbers! 

 

Tanner and Elder Booth

The coolest part the week was these 2 investigators that members referred to us, that are mega solid and ready to be taught. We taught them both, one named Darcio is the coolest dude ever, and is now on date for the 23rd of December! The other's name is Jennifer and we are starting to teach her the lessons. She is looking for some peace in her life. She definitely is seeking the right place for it. :)  

 

He found a street named after his Mom! :)

Been reading the BOM over and over, and am loving it more and more. I'm so grateful for it. Hope all is well. 

 

See you soon. :)

Tan

PS.  Here are a couple of links to watch from the "Fancy Music night" . . . 
Be Still My Soul  
Come Thou Fount  

 

Letter #93 . . LightTheWorld vid and transfers!

Hey familia! 

Sorry I didn't write yesterday! We got busy editing that LightTheWorld video! Click here to watch! It's been cool to see it's already been viewed 12k times!! (4 days later it's at 34,000 views!) Cool way to spread the message for sure! It's fun to do things a little differently sometimes! 

This week we got to meet with our investigator Al a bunch to read the Book of Mormon. We are doing little marathons with him because he is DEAD SET on having to finish the Book of Mormon before he gets baptized. We set him on date for December 16th, he has 55 chapters left. So we're helping him finish, and it's been awesome! :)

We have transfers this week, we have no idea what's going to happen! We hope we stay together! I'll let you know what happens. Mission is good, I'm sorry I don't have much to say, thanks for the email mama, and keeping me updated. I'm doing well! 

Till next week, much love!

Elder Townsend

Letter #92 . . . Community ensemble and awesome people!

Hey all!

Sounds like y'all had a sweet week and Stake Conference! Wish I
could've seen it! Guess what? Me and Lauritsen are in a community
Orchestra/Chorus Ensemble that's performing for a Christmas Program in
the community! Our investigator Bill is a violinist in it, and invited
Lauritsen to come play cello! He has very limited time to meet
with us, but we are able to be around him all the time and chat with
him now that we're in this orchestra haha. They have me singing in the
choir. Turns out the songs they're doing are impossibly hard, we are
talking like flight of the bumblebee, flipping impossible level... for
reals. We were kinda shocked, thinking "what did we get ourselves
into" after the first practice hahaha. We will see if we stick with
it. Probably don't have the time to commit to it!!

New Zone shirts and bowling!

Missionaries in the Liberty Ward, November 2017

We met a few awesome people out on the streets this week! One lady Vicky is going through a super rough time with divorce, her son's in jail, etc. and she is the nicest, most open hearted, faithful lady. We came back the next day and raked her leaves, it was awesome... We met a lady named Maria who is very sweet, doesn't speak much English but found the words to explain how grateful she is for our church helping out with all of the natural disasters! We have a ton of awesome med students in their 20's in our ward who all speak Spanish, so we're going to bring them so they can teach her in Spanish!

Al, this non member that comes to church every week is FINALLY on date! He's almost done with the Book of Mormon, and he wants to finish before his baptism! That's on December 16th!

That's all for this week! Love ya.

Tan

Letter #91 . . . Zone Conference and "Kengolfa"! :)

Familia and friends! 

How ya doin? Love ya miss ya lots. It's funny! We've been finding some solid people, then it gets real tough to get in contact with them! I guess that's just how life goes. I'm happy tho! Life is good. 

Zone Conference with the Liberty Zone and half of the Independence Zones . . November 10, 2017

Yayyy I'm happy you met Staheli! He's such a good dude. I loved being with him. I have heard about his girlfriend! Apparently they're getting married the 24th, which is the day after I get back! I still don't know if I feel old enough to be getting married... Craziness! 

Dad sounds busy too! I love hearin him speak. That is so true, he will make ya pee your pants and in tears because you're laughing so hard one minute, then the next minute you're in even more tears crying cause you're feeling the spirit so strong. All in the same minute! It's amazing. My dad's a Superhero! :)

Sounds like everyone's staying busy! Hope Grandma Carolyn's doing alright. I love her lots. Same with Grandpa Mike. Can't wait to see them! Russell M Nelson is coming to your stake conference?! No way! Could you voice record his talk??? I'd die to hear that!!!

Love you lots. 

Tan

 

PS.  Here is a fun video that Tanner a few other missionaries created on this last p-day . . . Playing a new game called "Kengolfa" (instead of Kendama . . . get it?:)) Click here to play!

Letter #90 . . . two cool miracles in the same day!

Hey hey hey!
I've loved my time serving with Elder Lauritsen! He's been one of my
fave companions. We made t-shirts for our Zone and they're sweet!
Claire looked so dang cute in her Halloween costume! She's getting so
big!

Hey, it's the temple! :)

It's been pretty awesome with smartphones and social media. I really think this is going to be the way the church starts to explode as a
whole... we saw some pretty cool miracles in the past few days.  Started Saturday morning. We decided to go play basketball at the church, which is random because we've only done that once or twice this whole transfer. After we were done shooting, a guy named Bill Steele walks in, he was there for an orchestra practice they just so happened to be doing at the Mormon church. He's a super nice baptist guy that believes the Mormon church to be the closest to Christ's original church! Later that night we went and checked out his violin shop where he repairs violins for a living at his house. We were there for a few hours, getting to know him, playing violins and guitars, and teaching him about the restoration of the church! It was such a cool experience.  He's this 73 year old dude with the purest heart ever. What's cool too is that he's been going to his baptist church for his whole life, and that church's preacher just left.  His church vanished because of it, so now he's looking for a new church, and we happened to meet him at this time. He promised us that he'd read the Book of Mormon! Also he gave me a nice guitar, TO KEEP! And he gave Lauritsen a cello!!!

Another amazing thing that happened on THE SAME DAY, we received a
call from a lady named Frances who needed help moving a bookcase. We
went and talked to her and came to find she too had been looking for
another church, and was really touched by all the Mormon friends she's
had over the years. That's what triggered her interest in the church.
She said, before we even taught her the restoration, that she was at
the point where she knew that the Mormon church was where she needed
to be! We taught her about the Restoration. It was one of the coolest
lessons of my whole mission. She looked like she was listening so
intently. Such a cool experience. The mission is awesome. That lady
was in another area tho, so we referred her over to some sister
missionaries in that area.
 
Hahaha Dad's vids had me dying. That dude is hilarious.
 
Love y'all
 
Tan

PS.  Some member's sent me some videos of some of Tanner's music experiences this past week . . .   An original song at a member's house and A little jam session with Elder Lauritsen and members!

Letter #89 . . . thing I'll prob miss the most!

Selfie time with Elder Lauritsen and a few sisters!

Hey all!

We had a cool little experience this week!  We spent a good portion of the morning and afternoon one day leveling out some concrete for a trail. The whole time there was this dude who we got to talk to, who is looking for a new religion, and is the most faithful guy. We are going to start teaching him through FACEBOOK! Sweetest thing ever, he is in a "KISS" tribute band. Hahaha it's the greatest thing ever. We're excited! 

I'm loving being with Elder Lauritsen! That's funny you talked to his mom! We're keeping pretty busy these days. Some fun stuff . . we judged TWO chili cookoffs this week! Sadly I always chose the one that tasted most like canned chili hahahaha. I'm not the greatest judge. Other fun stuff, we're writing songs for all the peeps in the Zone, trying to get em pumped up to do some work! Click here to listen to 1838 at the Jailhouse! and Click here to hear a song for the YSA! Also making Zone t-shirts!

Thing I'll probs miss most on the mission is the opportunity we have to just help others feel of the peace that comes from following Christ. I know that sounds super missionary cheesy but man it's the best. That peace is real. So so so real.

Claire is so dang cute it kills me! Keep sending vids of her talkin' and stuff! Joshie, that's sweet! Hope that team is fun!! And yes the 25th of February will work for my homecoming.

- Elder Townsend

Letter #88 . . . transfers, Facebook and lovin' life!

Hey fam and friends! 

Short email today. Transfer weeks are crazy. We're trying to get back in the swing of things. 

 

Breakfast with the zone on transfer day!

About Elder Roberts . . he was the last AP . . we wanted to be comps so I thought it was going to happen. But he's training now way down south for his last transfer! 

Tanner and new comp, Elder Lauritsen from Idaho

You found my comp's fam on Facebook? Yup that's his family! Haha he's from Rexburg. He's super awesome. We work super well together. Love the dude. To answer your question, we are still Zone leaders in Liberty. 

Speaking of Facebook, our mission is now a Facebook mission and we are going to be able to use it as a proselyting tool!! So don't freak out when you see me using it! :) 

That is really weird that some of my pals are getting married! I miss those dudes and gals. Tell them hi for me! :) 

Saying goodbye to Elder Sandkamp

I fly home Friday February 23rd so we can do my homecoming whenever works best. 

Life is good, things are busy out here. We are lovin' life! Mom, I will send you our address. 

Love,

Tan

Letter #87 . . . Zone Conference with Elder Echo Hawk!

Friends and Familia!

Look at these colors! Awesome missionaries too!

Thanks for the great email. I was so sad to hear about little Lila. That stuff kills me inside. Gehhh!! Life isn't fair.

This is Sandkamp's last few days, and he's having a hard time! He is hanging in there but man, he is very ready to go home. Makes it tough to not feel the same way at times.

That's awesome you got your patriarchal blessing Britt! I want to hear your thoughts about it! Was it like you expected? I read mine probably once or twice a month! That's awesome Sar was on Studio 5!  Good for CC and Alta for showin' respect. The rivalry and the nasty social media fights and comments was one of my least favorite things at home. Haha. I don't miss high school.

Some cool things from the week . . . we had Zone Conference with Elder Echo Hawk of the Seventy. He is an awesome guy. He's the head of the Correlation committee of the church, which means he probably knows Grandpa! I forgot to ask him, dang it!

Tanner and Elder Sandkamp

Mom, I like beef jerky, slim jims, chips, trail mix, those chocolate covered pomegranate things, yogurt covered craisins etc. Thanks!
 
Love ya
 
- Elder Townsend


PS. Here is a video clip of Tanner and Elder Sandkamp playing, singing and signing Savior Redeemer of My Soul . . . click here!

PSS.  Here is a short video Tanner sent of him playing and singing "I Can Do All Things" and Elder Sandkamp doing sign language. Click here to play the video. 

 

Kansas City Temple

Zone Conference, October 2017

Letter #86 . . . when I feel it, I FEEL IT!

Tanner's happy face . . . feeling humbled and grateful these days!

Hey y'all. Things are good here. Things have been flippen crazy trying to double cover two wards. Sandkamp leaves in 2 weeks and he's been mega trunky lately. Haha I don't blame him, he's been out over 25 months, I love him to death. He is such a good guy. One of the most pure hearted people I've ever met. I've learned a ton from him. I'm guessing I'm staying in the ward, and an Elder named Elder Roberts will be coming here... We'll see! Just a guess.

Something cool I've figured out slowly and imperfectly out here, is the fact that's put very simply, I am happy, at peace, and can feel myself progressing toward Him when I am putting time into reading the scriptures, Jesus the Christ, etc. with REAL intent. I've also found when I don't study, and justify it like it's not going to hurt anything, that day becomes a day full of anxious retreating and withdrawing, temptation, sin, and unhappiness. I forget over and over how real Jesus Christ and his love really is. But man, when I feel it, I FEEL IT. I am so grateful for that feeling. So humbled by all the revelation you can receive from the Holy Ghost if you are upright with God and ready listening for it. For me, revelation usually comes as I'm pondering something, usually in the scriptures. Then I see the thought pop into me head, and it rings true!

Beautiful temple!

To anyone who is reading this. I plead with you to give this church a chance. Give the Book of Mormon a chance. If you've gave it a chance and you're still not feelin it, give it another chance, with a sincere desire to know if God really loves you. You will find that answer. These things are true. I'm believing that stronger and stronger everyday and it is crazy to me. This church seems too good to be true, and almost impossible to believe if viewed from the world's eyes. "REALLY..? I'm a member of the ONE true church? Logically that makes no sense!" These are thoughts I ask myself and it blows me away how I can
truly answer yes to all those questions. I feel so grateful to be born
into the situation I was. Feeling humbled and grateful these days.

Tan and Elder Sandkamp

I'm good with clothes. I like beef jerky and slim Jims haha. Spence quit? Dang! Hopefully he'll stick with it and start to love it like I did. :)
Love ya.

- Elder Townsend

PS.  Here's a few second clip of Elder Sandkamp and his sandals. :)  Click here to watch the 10 second video! Looks like something Tanner would do. Love it!   

Letter #85 . . . Conference was Amazing!

Hey fam!

Watching conference at the church . . photo sent by member!

Just had my last General Conference out here! Yes, conference was amazing. I loved both of Uchtdorf's talks the most. I loved Elder Anderson's talk. I agree with you mama, there was a cool reverence as he was talking about President Monson and Elder Hales. He will sure be missed. He's an amazing man. He is so happy now tho, free of all his afflictions, and in the presence of God. :) Conference is so cool. Especially the way you view it and approach it as a missionary. So attentive, so excited, so prepared to hear the message. That's something I want to take home with me. Because there is so much you can get out of it. I had my questions and thoughts addressed and answered. :)

Their district

Things are crazy these days. We are hardly in our area which makes it tough. Yes, lots of paperwork haha. But I love getting to know the missionaries better. I feel like I'm serving around my best friends out here! 

As for my time here... It still feels like I have a ways to go! I'm still not at the point where it feels like I am going home any time soon. Haha! I'm loving it out here. But I am very excited to come home too. My companion Elder Sandkamp goes home in a little over two weeks. He's trying to hang in there, but is starting to have a hard time. Especially because he hit his two year mark weeks ago haha. 

The zone conference we're singing at will be on Thursday! Elder Echohawk of the Seventy will be there. We then have a meeting with him with the zone leaders of the mission at the mission home! (Which is in our area!) He asked to have dinner with us after that too! So that will be super cool. 

The guy in the middle . . . :) 

Eating pie at the mission president's house after priesthood session!

I miss Amosa! Those pics are sweet. I will definitely keep in contact with my comps after the mission!

That trip Sar went on looks SWEET!! THEY WENT TO A COLDPLAY CONCERT?? Haha man I'm jealous. We still need to go to one as a family some day. 

Love you all! I'll send pics later. 

- Tan