Letter #39 . . . tough and so rewarding at the same time!

Family and friends!! 

Bowling with the zone . . November 14, 2016

Life is good over here in Missouri. We went bowling with some of the zone today! I won both games. No big deal. :D I'll send some pics. Transfers are this week, I am guessing I'll stay in Independence with Reber! We work hard and have lots of fun. 

Tanner and Elder Reber!

That makes me sick about Annie Schmidt. I can't imagine what they're feeling like, I'm praying for their family for sure. Life is way too fragile... 

Yeah send me screenshots of Dad's new website! I wish I could have made the date night!! I miss the fam, Gramps, the boys and all! I hope they're doing good, and know I'm happy out here. I love hearin about what the bros are up to! Britt, that dance looks fun. She looks like a cutie! Mom, I'd love for ya'll to come pick me up!! Is there any way we could go to New York again too and see those sites?? 

Stuff that happened this week . . . it was bike week and my brakes were broken, and an older guy we were talking to on the street said he called himself the "neighborhood fixer upper" and said he could fix it. We brought it into his garage, in which the toxic fumes let us know he was definitely on crack. We decided, eh, well he couldn't make it any worse. (Lol) He worked on it for a solid minute, and managed to clamp the brake with pliers and snap them in half, braking it even more. Why thank you kind sir. Also, this week we helped these awesome members, the Wilkes, put up some Christmas lights. Makes me sad we never went all out with lights haha!

Went on exchanges with the District leader and met with Jesus and Roberto M. Roberto is 18 and was just baptized. He has an awesome testimony. We were able to go through and teach them the lessons for a second time. We taught lesson three, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We then ate lunch with John Davies, the organist of the COC! 

Bowling poses!

Our investigator Matt B. is RLDS, and we had awesome lesson with him. He really is progressing super well! We are helping him gain of testimony of prophets and apostles! We brought this sweet kid Dallan C. with us, who's about to go to Raynosa Mexico on his mission, and he was able to come out of his shell a bit and bear a strong testimony of the Savior at the end. It was AWESOME. 

My testimony is growing every single day. I am learning so many things about myself. It's tough, and so rewarding all at the same time. 

Love y'all! 

- Elder Townsend

Sent from Zion

Letter #38 . . . organ playing at Community of Christ auditorium!

P-day fun!

Hellooooo!

Halloween was great last P - Day, . . . it's interesting as a missionary. President told us not to go out! So we stayed in and played games in our apartment!  It was a good week, some notable things from this week, we stood in on two blessings the bishop gave to this young couple. Their 21 month old son passed away unexpectedly the night before. So sad. The Spirit was so strong in the room, knowing that they'll be with him again.

We ran into a guy named Justin A at Subway.  He was baptized a few years ago and fell away from the church, but has felt like he needs the gospel back in his life. He said he's been looking for our number everywhere and couldn't find it. He was shocked when we walked into subway!

We met with this guy named Matt who is RLDS, (we've been talking to a ton of them lately) that may as well be Mormon!! Haha He talked forever about how much he loves everything about the Mormon church, and is disappointed with the direction and emptiness his church offers. But he feels like he hasn't got a spiritual confirmation to change churches. We'll see what happens with him!

We did a lot of service this week. We planted flowers like the gardening prodigy I am. Dangerously hacked down a tree with an axe hahaha. President doesn't let us use a chainsaw for "safety" reasons, but lemme tell ya, that chainsaw would have been a million times safer than swinging a dull 30 pound axe 1000 times. Just about cut off our legs a couple times!

At Zone training at the Independence Visitors Center this week, we got to see an early showing of the New Christmas video the church comes out with every year around this time. It was sooooo good!! I'm pumped for you guys to see it!

We were able to meet with a couple investigators we haven't been able to reach forever!! They both have little kids, and we do this awesome object lesson that we call the Fire Atonement where we draw a little stick figure, and draw chains on him with a magic pen, then show how Jesus can remove the chains with his atonement. We then hold a flame to the paper, and the chains disappear! Kids minds are blown and it's so fun. #magicpens.

Community of Christ auditorium

This P- Day we toured the Community of Christ auditorium with John Davies, the organist of their church, who I've gotten pretty close with, and a bunch of missionaries from our zone. The auditorium is pretty amazing. John has been RLDS his whole life, and played the organ for them almost his whole life, and he is now a member of the LDS church, and has been for a little over a year! (Even tho he feels like he's been a member his whole life) I was able to jam out on the organ with him in there. Click here to watch the short clip! (Sorry it's a little blurry!)  I think the auditorium is the second biggest in the United States, just behind the conference center! Also got to play on an amazing Steinway and Sons Grand piano that belonged to the great grand daughter of Joseph Smith! 

The large auditorium!

Love y'all!

Elder Townsend 

Sent from Zion

Letter #36 from Tanner . . . SWEET members everywhere!

Hellooooo!

Mom, I got your package!!! It made my day, thank you. I'm jealous I
can't be with y'all on vacation!! This week was good, but tough. Reber
and I were on bikes this week, and biked over 15 miles a day, visiting
everyone we could in the area book, and talking on the street with a
ton of people. We laugh and generally have a good time doing it, and
the weather has been amazing this week... So many people in Missouri
are just kinda rude haha! Like it's honestly rare these days to run
into someone who treats us like actual human beings and show any hint
of kindness, and not annoying salesman. It's hard not to feel down
after a long day of work with no success. But that's mission life out
here. Still trying to get used to it.

We did some service just about every day this week. We picked up tons of giant, rotten walnuts (see video here) off this lady with cancer's yard, we laid some bricks in a members garden, planted some flowers, moved some fat TV's, "raked 1 billion leaves" (See the video here), and helped cut down a tree. I'll attach some pics and vids we took there! :)

So, our teaching pool is almost non existent. Work is TOUGH these days. Our super solid dude Ryan just now wants us to come over to 'help' us really get on the right path. (He wants to bible bash) He says he feels bad that we've been led astray in this religion...

We visited a part member family where the wife is an inactive member, and the husband is an RLDS dude. They're so sweet! We have been meeting with them a bunch, and teaching him the lessons. We've been visiting active and less active member's homes during the evening and getting to know them, and sharing spiritual messages with them. We've had some pretty awesome spiritual moments with some of these peeps. One of my favorite things about the mission is seeing how there's just sweet members EVERYWHERE you go in the world.

This week at district meeting, I gave a training on the story of Christ asking Peter three times, lovest thou me? I love it. Go watch the Bible video, Feed My Sheep.

I love you all, until next weeeeeek.

- Elder Townsend

Letter #37 . . . funny and cool things that happened this week!

 Hello Fam and Friends!

I'm jealous of your trip to Costa Rica!! The pictures looked awesome. Love how you're keeping me up to date with what's going on with the boys. I miss those dudes. Also, the Annie Schmidt thing puts a pit in
my stomach. I can't imagine what their family is going through. I've been praying for them.


Some funny things that happened this week . . . We have a member of our ward who is a carbohydrate Nazi and gets very heated and riled up as we ask him lots of questions throughout the week about what things have carbs or not. :)

 We judged the Chili Cook-off and had to try 20 different chili's and pick the best one. It was quite the experience. 

We met a man named Joseph from the Community of Christ Church, who had a super long gray beard, and wrote a book about evidences of the Book of Mormon. 

We went to a member's house for dinner and found out that the first meal the Elders have over there HAS to be eaten with their hands with latex gloves... We had spaghetti. It was amazing. haha 

Also, we made a sweet missionary rap with some other elders. 

Some cool moments this week . . one day we were street contacting and
walked past a construction site. A worker named Jeffrey was sitting in
his car, we passed and he said, "Are ya'll Jehovah's Witnesses?" We
explained who we were and he told us he's been wanting to find a church.
We were able to talk about the gospel with him, and have appointments
to meet with him next week! As we were driving away, we saw him
reading the Plan of Salvation Pamphlet in his car, and when he saw us,
he quickly put it down acting like he wasn't hahaha. This week we had
lots of awesome street contacts meeting new potential investigators.
They are solid!! I'm excited to be able to start meeting with them! We
have 6 or 7 new potentials we're working with!   

Short and sweet this week.
 
Love you all,
Elder Townsend

PS.  haha

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