Letter #71 . . . kidney stones and baptism date for Barbie!

Hey fam and friends, 

Passing kidney stone in the hospital

'Twas a fantastic week. Mom, thanks for the great emails every week. I love them! Me and the rest of the fam were twins this week . . Dad went to hospital and I did too! You ran over a nail and we just barely did too! :) Staheli is awesome. We get a new mission President July 1st! 

Lots of cool stuff going on in the Whitmer Ward! Definitely the most missionary minded area I've been in. Besides the fact that I passed a kidney stone, this week was great! That was pretty crappy. Kidney stones feel like you're having a baby, I'm told, but the outcome and reward is not quite the same hahaha. Cute lil baby vs tiny stone.......?? Doesn't even compare. So moral of the story . . . I don't recommend having kidney stones, so if you've been considering it, I recommend ya maybe consider not putting yourself through that. :D

Baptisms for the dead at the temple with Ashlee

Started playing Bingo with the old folks at Barbie's work!! Reminds me of the good old days where we did it all the time earlier on in my mission. Barbie is doing amazing. She came to Bible Study Class Tuesday, and church on Sunday!! She is truly so prepared. She is half way through the Book of Mormon and is eagerly wanting to learn more and more. We introduced her to the bishop and a few members and it turns out she already knew the Bishop!! Her brother served in the military with him and they've been family friends since then!! That made her feel a whole lot more comfortable. She asked to be baptized!! She's on date for the 8th of July!! :)


We went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with Ashlee, who we taught and baptized last transfer!! She also gave an amazing talk on missionary work 
in sacrament!! It was an awesome experience. She said she 
felt an overwhelming peace in the temple and wants to come back
again and again!! The group we went with did about 100 names together!
Staheli and I baptized each other! That was pretty special! I'd never
baptized anyone in the temple!


Love, Tan

PS. Here is a video of "I Need Thee Every Hour" that Tanner played and sang with his previous comp, Elder Anderson, and a country singer named Arthur at Ashlee's baptism a few weeks ago! He just sent it this week!   Click here: "I Need Thee Every Hour"
 

At the temple with Ashlee, Elder Staheli and her boyfriend

Nail in the tire!

Splits?

Letter #70 . . . new comp, passing kidney stone and district torn apart!

Hi All,
 

Last days with Elder Anderson

Barbie is doing awesome. She's loving the gospel. Her life and outlook on things is being changed for the better as she's been reading and studying the Book of Mormon. She can't stop tellin us about the impact that us missionaries have had on her life. She's been reading every night, and threw away her list of questions about the Church she was going to ask us at our lesson because the Lord told her, "Do you not trust me? Have I not given you a witness with all these divine coincidences happening in your life?" Ahhh she's so great. We weren't able to meet with the Gordons this week since he had chemo therapy and is recovering from that.

Sad news . . . our super sweet district got torn apart. They all became some real close pals. Me and another sister were the only ones to stay . . it was tragic. :(

My new comp is Elder Staheli, I've served around him for a lot of my mission! I'm super pumped to be with him!

In a member's home with new comp, Elder Staheli!

I had a kidney stone this week (still in he midst of passing it!), so that's not fun. 😧 Used up probably five of the pain killers I brought out here. I have five more. Hopefully this will be the last time this happens on my mission!

All else is well! Short letter today! Just know things are good and I'm loving life out here. I'll give you a better email next week.

Much luv!

- Tan

Letter #69 . . . happiest I've ever been on my mission!

Hi All, 

Highlights of the week . . . Bob Gordon and his wife have been reading 
the Book of Mormon! We had like 20 people show up to help them on 
their farm. It was awesome how much the ward supports that kind of 
stuff! 

District fun!

 We went to the visitors center in Independence with Barbie!! It 
honestly was probably the greatest moment of my mission. She is so 
prepared. Her husband is opening up to us too!

Sheering llamas in Excelsior Springs

We sheered 13 Llamas this week with our district. Hahaha it was an amazing experience. Those things are insane. Literally the weirdest animals ever but I think that's why I love them so much. There are some crazy service opportunities here in Whitmer!! They just keep getting more and more interesting haha!

The first annual CROCK POT COOK-OFF went down following our last district meeting of the transfer. Leading up to the big day, numerous trash talk texts were sent and some sleep was prolly lost in anticipation but it was all worth it when 12:33 pm on the 8th of June in the year of our lord 2017. We had quite the array of dishes - cream cheese chicken & rice, sweet pork street tacos & chip dip. But the greatest of all and the winner of the world was cooking in Crocky (yes, we named him) on low for 8.5 hours... cream cheese chicken is what we made. . But on the real crock pots are the most magical invention cause I'm pretty sure none of us have any cooking skills but thanks to our crock pots, we had a delicious feast. BEST EVER.  

Click here to watch a 1-2 minute segment of this COOK OFF!

Elder T and Elder Anderson

I am the happiest I've ever been on my mission! I feel so fulfilled and am actually sincerely enjoying every day. I love the mission.

Love you all :)

Tan

Letter #68 . . . Bible class and Ashlee's baptism!

Hey fam! 

Love you all and miss you lots. Claire is so dang cute, it's been killing me. She's so big. Spen, Brit, Josh, love that y'all have been riding at the skatepark! Haha you guys are way cooler than I ever was. All three of you! Britt, how's SBO stuff been going? Have you started filming the vid yet? Gimme all the deets of what you're up to! Josh and Pen, I loved your recital stuff. Those are two of the sickest songs ever! Keep singin' and playin' you three!

Last zone conference with President and Sister Vest!

This week was President and Sister Vest's last Zone conference. They're the most awesome people. They told us the story of when they got their call here. They were called in to meet with Elder Christofferson, and were eventually given the priesthood keys by Elder Holland who gave him a blessing. Super cool! 

Tanner's district

We teach a Bible Study class every 1st and 3rd Tuesday! The class has doubled every week! This week we had 22 people there. It's been awesome. 

Tanner and Elder Reber

Got to go on exchanges with my District Leader and past companion, Elder Reber! I flippin love that guy. We have so much fun together. He's a lifelong pal for sure. He also has the greatest District Meetings ever. Last week we did a Spiritual Scavenger Hunt, and next week, our district will be doing a Crockpot Cookoff afterward hahahah! We had a lesson with one of their progressing investigators and we put her on date to be baptized. She's awesome!

Ashlee was baptized! Her future hubby baptized her and is now coming back to church! It was amazing. She looked so happy. After she was baptized, she said she felt so peaceful and clean, and that her face hurt because she'd been smiling so much. Me, Anderson, and Arthur, that country singer dude in our ward, were asked to sing "I Need Thee Every Hour" for the musical number! 

Elder Anderson, Ashlee, her future hubby, and Tanner!

Teaching Ashlee has been a mission highlight for sure. She was truly prepared to accept the gospel at the very moment we started teaching her. It clicked so fast.  It's cool to see how the Lord truly prepares people. I feel so grateful and lucky I was able to be part of her conversion! Sunday was a pretty special day. Ashlee asked me to confirm her the next day in sacrament meeting. That was pretty special as I was not expecting her to ask me. I don't remember a thing I said in the blessing. I hope she did haha! She was so smiley all day. :) 

Musical number at the baptism!

Later that day, some members talked to us and told us their non member neighbors would be open to a blessing. The Gordon's is their name! Bob, the father, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and was told he has maybe 8 months to live. "We're desperate for a miracle" they said. They told us about how they've given up looking for a church because the ones they've been to in the past could never agree on any doctrine, preachers would be there just for the money, etc... All the beliefs they've had all along go right with what we believe. We taught about Joseph Smith and the Restoration and how similar their story was to Joseph's. They were blown away. They asked question after question that they had never been able to get answers to in their other churches. They were pretty choked up. We were all feeling a pretty awesome spirit. I gave him a blessing and promised him that with God, nothing is impossible, and that he could be restored to full health, if it be the Lord's will. They are the most humble, faithful people ever. We're going to start teaching them and helping them out on the farm. That was one of the coolest experiences of my whole mission. Words are not adequately explaining how cool this moment was haha. I'll remember it forever! 

Much luv, till next week!

Elder Townsend

Tanner's district

Ashlee's baptism day!

Letter #67 . . . amazing youth!

Hey fam! 

Youth Activity every Tuesday night!

This week was great! We worked our hardest and had fun doing it!
 
Some stuff that happened this week . . our district sings at an Assisted Living Home every week, and this week we all sang "I Can Do All Things" to them! Click here to watch! Hahah it was pretty funny. Love those people in there!  

Went to Adam-Ohndi-Ahman for a ward youth fireside! Click here to watch a short segment! A while ago we started a youth/ missionary activity night at the church on Tuesday nights. It's not for mutual tho . . that's on Wednesday. I'm blown away with the youth in our ward! We played dodgeball this week, 
and we had around 30 youth show up!! It was so fun! Click here to watch a 30 second clip!

 

Cutting heads of chickens! Yikes!

Another first for me . . . we butchered chickens this week! Hahaha that was fun. We brought our whole district to do it and it was surprisingly such a good time. You eventually get used to seeing the heads get cut off. They had me dipping the headless chickens in boiling water most of the time. Hahaha ''twas a good experience. But with that, I feel like I've had my life's share of butchering chickens. I'd be fine to never do that again. :)

We are pumped for our Investigator Ashlee! We taught her the last three lessons this week, and she's still good to go for her baptismal date on June 3rd! She's even been pushing and encouraging her less active future husband to talk to the bishop so that he can baptize her! Wahoo!! She has been so excited this week, she says she finally feels she's found that "more" in her life that she was looking for. She's been reading from the Book of Mormon every night. We asked her to start from the beginning, but she's just been flipping to random pages, highlighting like crazy in pure amazement of the content she's
been coming across. Some random chapters she's randomly flipped to and
studied: Alma 5-7 & 34-36, Mosiah 4, 3rd Nephi 11 & 27 and more. It's
so funny. I looked through her Book of Mormon and she also has
highlighted the violent war verses because she thought they were
awesome haha. It's been a mission highlight for sure teaching her!

Youth activity at the church!

Taught Barbie this week! She's the Activities Director at the Assisted Living we do service at. She is the sweetest lady ever.  (She is the one sitting on the couch in the vid of us singing to them!) We taught her grand daughter too! She's staying with Barbie. Barbie said she prayed to know what she is missing in her life, because she felt she was not spiritually progressing in her other church. The DAY AFTER that prayer, she had missionaries show up to do service at the Assisted Living for the first time. She told us she knows we were led to her for a reason. We were 
amazed at how prepared she is. She is going to read and pray 
about the Book of Mormon, and she wants us to pray she'll get an 
answer!! We're super excited to keep teaching her and her grand 
daughter Marissa! Our whole district has joked for months as we've 
done service for her, that she is going to be the world's best Primary 
President some day. ;)

That's all for this week, church is true!

Much luv,

- Tan

PS.  Here are some more photos! 

Letter #66 . . . Bible Study Class and cholocate shake!

Familia!

Some highlights of the week . . we had our last interviews with President
Vest and his wife this week! They leave July 1st. I'm going to miss
them so much! 

We started a Bible study class! It's open to all the community, and we have 
taught two classes so far. It's been awesome! We are teaching Matthew 4-8 
next week from the institute manual! :)

Tanner and his comp, Elder Anderson - May, 2017

We taught the first two lessons to Ashlee this week! She's 25. She is so ready it's crazy. She's engaged to one of the members in our ward, and asked to meet with us. She's kept her commitments to read the BOM intro! She read that, and the testimony of the witnesses multiple times! She says she wants to find something "more" that she feels is missing in her life, and feels like whenever she reads the BOM and hears us teach, she feels she's finding it. 

Funny story, we dropped off a large chocolate shake from sonic on Ashlee's porch cause she was sick, and we were in the area. Turned out she wasn't home, it started pouring, and so it sat there for hours in the rain, and overflowed all over her porch hahaha. That's the story of my life . .  try to do nice things for people and she ends up with them having to clean off sticky chocolate shake of her porch for 20 minutes. ;)

Liberty Jail - May,

We went to Liberty Jail with her this week, and took her on a tour. At the end of it, she got emotional bearing her testimony of the Savior.
She said she has felt more peace in the last week than she ever has. We put her on date right at the end of the tour, sitting at the base of Liberty Jail. It was such a cool experience. She's great. Her baptismal date is set for June 3rd! :) That night we took her to a little Mission President's fireside where the recent converts in the area share their testimonies! Ashlee thought that was awesome. They had me play and sing, "Be Still My Soul"! That was the audio recording you got mom! The lady that sent it is an old friend of President Vest back in their home ward in Texas that came to visit them! She was awesome. Also got to perform that song at a baptism in one of the other companionship's areas!


We also took another investigator, Ryan to the Liberty Jail earlier in the week. Before taking the tour, we watched the new Oliver Cowdery Priesthood Restoration video. He thought it was awesome and asked a lot of questions. Went through a tour of Liberty Jail. He said it was interesting and cool... Still needs to gain a witness by himself before any of this matters to him.
I love sharing my testimony of the Book of Mormon so much. It shows us how much Christ really loves us. I've been trying to cherish every moment I have out here. Time is going by fast!
 
Love ya,

- Tan

PS. Our investigator Ashlee is in the middle!

Letter #65 . . . a lot of farm work and Mother's Day phone call!

Loved talking to you guys yesterday! It made me so happy! Miss you guys. 9 months is going to fly by! I'll be working hard out here!

Posing for pictures while on Facetime!

We've been doing service almost every day. Been doing a lot of farm work. Haha it's been awesome. This week we cleaned eggs, chopped up a rotten dead pig, fed some rotten milk to some pigs etc. I'm getting some nice sun burns! #FarmboyTownsend
  
Anderson is awesome. He's a laid back, funny guy and is a super hard worker. I love being with him.


I'm doing well. Thanks for the update on what's going on with ya'll!

Farm life in Missouri!

I'll have a longer letter for you next week!  

Much luv!  
 
Tan

Hey, there's Elder Reber!

Elder Anderson