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

Letter #64 . . . transferred, new comp, grave sites and more!

Hi All,

Said goodbye to Maryville this week! Sad Griffiths and I had to
finally part ways. Haha we're pals! 

Tanner and new comp, Elder Anderson from Layton!

Elder Anderson is my new companion. He's sweet and a super awesome dude. Super hard worker and is an awesome missionary. I'm in the Whitmer Ward in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. I'm still in the same zone/stake that I was in. The Far West Stake! Whitmer has a lot of sweet church history here! Richmond Missouri is where most of it's at. It's in our area! Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and 5 other people that were one of the 8 witnesses are all buried here. We visited their graves! We also visited the site where Joseph Smith rebuked the guards in a temporary prison in Richmond. This place is awesome!! I'll attach pics! (See below)
 
It's been funny, I've had like 3 families freak out right when they 
saw my name tag, asked if I was Matt Townsend's son, and they said
they know you or know of you!! You're a celebrity out here paps! 
One of them who've taken your classes about 6 years ago and read 
your books . . names are Brady and Hillary P. The other two didn't 
know you personally.

And another of Tanner and Elder Anderson!

Other cool things in the week . . . worked on a farm for the first time! Haha I guess we'll do a lot of that up here. We made a chicken coop! We have a recent convert in our area who is seriously one of the best musicians I've ever met. He sings country and is amazing at the guitar. I'll send a vid, but do not post it or show anyone because it's a song he wrote for a girl, and she doesn't know about it yet!! ;)
We went to the mushroom festival and talked to a ton of people! Yes, people are obsessed with mushrooms here. Haha Our ward is awesome. Our ward mission leader is AMAZING! I bore 
my testimony in Sacrament Meeting! We started teaching a girl named 
Ashlee! She is super solid and is super prepared. I'll keep you updated 
with her! 

Well hope ya know, things are great out here!  I love the Whitmer Ward! 
Life is good! :)


Love,
Elder Townsend

Letter #63 . . . Baptisms make all the hard times worth it!

Elder Griffiths and Tan!

Hey hey! 

Hope all is well! Thanks for the email. Miss y'all! It's been a great week! 
 

I read the first 20 or so chapters in the Book of Mormon this week. Man oh man that book is absolutely amazing. I tend to forget that over and over again. Then I start reading again and am so dang humbled. I'm seriously so thankful to have the knowledge and testimony of the restored gospel and Book of Mormon that I have. We can all have that testimony if we just read and pray with an open heart! It is amazing how perfectly worded it is throughout the book. It is so consistent, so simple, so powerful. No man could have ever written it. The Lord's hand is so evident as you read the words of that book. Where would I be without that book? Who knows! :)

Dalton's baptism day, April 28, 2017

Dalton was supposed to have his baptismal interview early on in the week, but everything started going wrong and getting super chaotic. So we ended up having to do his interview Friday night, the day before his baptism. Which isn't ideal, but it worked out fine. He passed easily and was ready to be baptized!! His baptism was awesome. His non member Grandma he lives with even came!! Matt Alonso, the guy who baptized Taylor also baptized him. We didn't do a musical number this time. That pic you saw, I'm still not reading music. ;) but just using the hymn book to read the words to follow along, to make sure I end at the right time. Haha! Baptisms are the best. They make all the hard times worth it. 

Elder G, Dalton, Matt and Tan!

I went on exchanges with our DL Elder Call this week. Mom, he's the Elder who's mom works at the preschool and you've mentioned her before..? Love Elder Call!! He's one of my favorite dudes I've met out here. They have a guy named Zach Mays that's on date. We did a super cool object lesson  with him with a jar of rice and 3 golf balls. The jar represents our time in a day, the three balls represent scripture study, prayer, and coming to church. The rice represents all other things we do to fill our time, everyday things we have to do, and even the things that may distract us from the important things. We showed how if you put the rice into the jar first, the golf balls won't fit in the jar. But if you put the golf balls in first, aka put God and his commandments first, all the rice fits in along with the golf balls. If we put God first, everything else will fall into place. 

Dalton's baptism!

He is a Junior in high school, super solid stud of a guy! It was awesome to see how sensitive and receptive to the spirit Zach was. He was getting all choked up, getting teary as we testified of the Savior's love for him, and as he told us how he feels like everything we're teaching him is true, and feels peaceful. Super awesome. We also visited a drunk guy riding a 3 wheeler w/ a popped tire... that he had no idea was popped. Hahaha I live for stupid moments like that. It was the funniest thing ever. #MeanwhileInMissouri

President Vest is done in July, our new President's name is President Love! They're from Layton! Transfers are this week. Griffiths and I think it may be best to take missionaries out of this ward for a while. So we suggested that to the AP's. Although we were able to baptize a few times in the last few months, to put it simply, ward support is not great, and not much member missionary work is going on. We feel like closing down the area is the only way we see them possibly gaining some motivation to step up and reach out to the 70% inactive members. I guess we'll see if that will happen! 
 

Tanner looks like he is reading the music but he is playing by ear and reading the words!

Love y'all! 

Tan   
 

PS. I'm writing a super cool song with Ukulele and Voice... I'll send it to you soon. :)