Week 8: Goats, Pigeons and an Umbrella

Hola Familia.

This week has been a pretty good week i think. i have received one of the packages that you have sent me, and thank you so much! the translator has been great, along with everything else in it! it had been over a month since i drank a dr pepper. it reminded me of all the good times with my friends when a dr pepper has been at hand. fantastic. i got some cokes this week too, because we sometimes get the janitors to bring us coke haha. this one elder here, Elder Haws, from Arizona, had knee surgery so he's been here for a while, so he's got all sorts of little secret combinations like that in here haha. Rumor on the street is that it was fathers day last Sunday, so happy fathers day to you dad! sorry its a little late. the only dates i know are Halloween, Christmas, new years, and Canada day, along with a few birthdays, so I'm bound to forget to wish a happy whatever the occasion may be while I'm on my mission.

This week i gave a talk in sacrament meeting, in Spanish of coarse. it went fairly well. i guess its just the first of many. yesterday we went to the plaza to go contacting again. it was really sweet. usually we all get Latin companions to go with, but there wasn't enough in our time block so it was just me and elder moon. we were kinda nervous but it ended up being so sweet. this plaza is one of those plazas where there's just pigeons EVERYWHERE, along with goats for some reason, but we were teaching this man, kinda sitting on a bench with him, all the pigeons started flying away, flying right at and over us, then it started to POUR. The streets instantly were turned into rivers, everyone in the huge plaza ran for shelter, but we took out an umbrella and all three of us sat under it in the rain and continued to discuss the gospel. it was a really cool experience. there was another lady who was saying that she only needs the bible in her life, and then i shared the last 2 paragraphs of the intro of the Book of Mormon, and she was like in shock and said that that's beautiful. In total we got five contacts. I love how almost everyone here believes in Jesus Christ, it makes things easier to introduce. There was even one man that while we were talking to someone, came and sat near us so that we would go to him next, and he right away wanted to know what time church was so that he could go. it was a pretty good day. I think we leave on Monday to go to our missions i heard. we have our old president for 2 days and then the new one comes in. Its going to be an adventure. I'm excited to get out and start actually doing missionary work. plus I'll be in the nice warm weather. both here and in Provo I've been cold from the air conditioning, and i have a sweater i keep in class in case i get too cold. everyone thinks its weird that the Canadian gets cold.
That's so sweet that Zach is close to getting his mission call. That makes me happy, I'm proud of him. He better write me the day he gets his call! I don't know when I'll be able to email you next, as I'll be in the field and there's probably a lot of things i need to do when i get into the field, and who knows if I'll be in an area that will be easy to get to a computer. I've been trying to live the saying of "Nothing but the best" and it has been helping me be the best i can be. i think it will be a phrase that will stick for my whole mission. Love you all so much! Be nothing but the best in all parts of your life!

Love tanner