Tanner arrives in Trujillo

Tanner and Elder Chapman

The new missionaries with President and Sister Rios

Tanner with his new companion, Elder Guerrero

Elder Chapman and Tanner at the Trujillo Temple

Letter from Elder Hansen

Your son is incredible!  I think you know that, but allow me to stand as yet another witness that this young man is really something special.  As a special assignment, I serve in Elder Hart’s branch presidency at the MTC-Lima and have come to know him quite well.  I interviewed him the evening of the first day of his arrival.  I knew then that he should be assigned as the district leader and that he would later serve as zone leader.  He has never disappointed us.  He plays the piano, he sings, he stands and testifies; he leads by example.  Yesterday he was called upon to speak in sacrament meeting.  Every time he stands up he says something like, “Please forgive my poor Spanish.”  His Spanish is near-native ability!  He is very, very good.  In priesthood meeting the zone leaders stand and share something of their choice from the “Missionary Handbook.”  He said, “Elders, please forgive me.  I am going to be a little bold.”  Then, he gently and very appropriately taught them from the handbook about language, how they all need to work on being not just crude, but also less rude.  It was so perfect. 

My wife and I were with the missionaries in the CCM most of Christmas Day.  I watched Elder Hart talking with you and thought you might like the photo.  He is not in his suit because it was at the dry cleaners, certainly a “forgivable sin,” considering that tomorrow he leaves for Trujillo and needs to look his best when he meets his mission president.  We will miss him here and I will never forget him. 

May the Lord bless you and keep you and Elder Hart. 

Un abrazo,

Elder Hansen

Tanner talking to us on Christmas Day

Merry Christmas to all!

Hola everyone!

Christmas week, holy cow!!! I always wonder what everyone is up to back home. It´s weird that you guys even have lives anymore, it feels like all of you guys died or went into a coma or something when I left haha!;) I´m glad you didn´t though haha. So Dad told me that I wouldn´t care about sports when I left. So far, that´s
not true. Saturday, I was nervous all day. I wore my BYU tie Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to support my boys. I kissed the logo a few times for extra support from Peru. I flew my BYU flag in my bedroom.
Sunday morning I was nervous. I know I would know the score in a few short hours. I approached Elder Sheffield in the branch presidency after leadership meeting with a sick feeling in my stomach. I slowly
asked him the score....35-0 in 8 miunutes Cougs??? I can just imagine it all in my head. But then he recounted the rest of the game, how we shut them down and came back and had a chance to tie it with the ball
and punted! Probably the right decision, but it just killed me. I was sick about it all day Sunday. The fact that the Utes beat Duke at MSG just made it worse. But I´m over it now haha!! Kilane Sitake will be
a sweet coach, I´m excited for that. Dang, there´s almost nothing about my life to talk about here. It´s all what´s going on back home!  I only have five more days here at the MTC! It´s crazy how fast it´s
gone, and it´s crazy how slow it´s gone. I´m pretty scared to go out in the field, but that´s what a mission is all about! The MTC is really comfortable. They serve you meals, your schedule is exactly planned out, I room with three other Americans who are really funny, our investigators aren´t real so there´s no pressure, it´s all role
playing and fake...but a mission isn´t about being comfortable! I can´t wait to start making some relationships in Trujillo! It will be really hard to leave our teachers and my district, we´ve gotten pretty close these six weeks! Not as hard as leaving home for sure (I´m not gonna cry, I guaruntee it;)), but still definitely hard! My Spanish is getting better and better which is encouraging to see! There´s still miles and miles to go though obviously. One of the supervisors here had me help him last night with translating Spanish to English. They had all the missionaries here write down a question for an apostle about missionary work, for the Provo MTC devotional. He needed all the questions in English, so he asked me to help him translate the Latinos´ questions into questions that made sense in English. It actually wasn´t too bad! So that was good to kind of build my confidence with language skills a little bit! This is crazy though! My last P-day in the MTC! I feel like I´ve been here for forever! I probably won´t write again until almost 2 weeks, on Monday! IN THE FIELD BABY!!

Love you all!

Elder Hart

My flag!

This looked so Christmasy at the Lima Temple today

December 16, 2015

Hello to all my dear family and friends! 

I have succesfully completed another week at the CCM! It kind of just feels like one really really
really long day since I last emailed. We go to bed, then wake up 10
minutes later to get ready and go back to the cafeteria for runny
eggs. At least it feels like that;) In reality though, I absolutely
love the CCM. Love it!! I would so much rather spend this Christmas
here than in the field, so I´m pumped that I get to do that. Elder
Chapman and I were assigned to be the Zone Leaders over all the North
American missionaries this past Sunday, so that´s been cool so far!
We don´t have too many responsobitlites, it´s a lot different from
being a zone leader out in the field I´m sure. But it´s still good to
be in a position to serve! We had a really cool experience last
Saturday with proselyting, "proseletismo" en Español. We all hopped on
a bus and drove to this chapel in the Lima South Mission, about an
hour or so away. I was assigned a missionary, Elder Sejas, and a
member, some old guy, and we were off to visit menos activos! Less
actives! It was actually really hard. My missionary I was with was
super shy, so I would try to ask him a question in Spanish and he
would respond and ask the same question back, then I would answer in
my limited Spanish and it was back to silence. I was trying to talk
to people but everyone talks so fast that I had pretty much no idea
what was happening. I could at least say buenos tardes!;) We weren´t
able to teach any lessons, none of the people we were visiting would
let us come in, so that was kind of a bummer. Most of the other
people in my district shared like three lessons though and they said
it was cool! Or, the Latino missionary and member shared the lesson
and then they bore their testimony haha. There were lots of dogs in
the streets, both dead and alive. I hope my trainer is a little more
talkative and helpful than Elder Sejas, but if not all is well! I know
whoever it is is who I´m supposed to be trained by so I´ll just trust
Heavenly Father. In our study of Spanish this week, one of the things
we´ve been learning about is Por y Para. Literally the hardest thing
in the world. Por is for reason, Para is for purpose. Understand?? Um
no actually, I don´t understand! Haha we are actually getting a little
better at it though. Practice practice practice! Last week I said I
really miss music. We do get a little music each week! Our morning
teacher, Hermana Cyndi Altamirano, will play a video on youtube titled
"Instrumental (Mormon)". So if you´re curios, that´s been my music for
the past month haha! I can´t remember if I´ve said this already, but
the ice cream here is so good. SO GOOD!! I don´t know why, but we
speculate it´s because they use real sugar? It´s delicious though, we
get to have ice cream at every lunch which is fantastic. The only
thing better than that is the churros, but we´ve only had them twice
since we´ve been here. They´re more of this pastry thing with cream
in the middle, MAN! they´re good. The worst thing is the showers. You
turn the hot knob 1/100 of a degree and it goes from colder than
lukewarm to burning flesh. Literally, there are times when I don´t
think I moved it until I feel the water rise in temperature 15
degrees. It´s weird. But I can´t complain about hot showers! They may
be the last ones I have for a few years! Haha anyway, love you all and
miss you tons! Have a merry christmas season! Chow! (it´s weird, they
say chow all the time to say goodbye here in Peru haha) 

Love, Elder Hart

This is Elder Benitez from Lima. He left to Piura on Tuesday. He
actaully spoke really good english and is headed to BYU after his
mission. 

It´s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...actually not at all

Family and friends!! 

This has been an uneventful and crazy week
combined somehow. The Christmas spirit is here in Lima and it feels
like the middle of summer! We streamed the First Presidency Christmas
devotional on Sunday night which was sweet. Then we had a CCM
Christmas devotional that Monday. One of the 70 came, but I don´t
remember his name!! He spoke Spanish and is in the presidency of the
group over the northwest part of South America. It was so good! It
was kind of crazy actually, he spoke mainly to the Latinos about
learning English, telling them that they need to learn English and
read the scriptures in English because even though the Spanish ones
are great, it´s still one more translation. He shared the example of
D&C 8:2-3, and even though it´s almost exactly the same, Spanish says
“talk” and English says “tell” and that makes kind of a big
difference. I´d never thought about that before! I was in the CCM
choir and it was fun, we sang silent night and it was really good
until the new latinos wanted to join and then it dropped a level or
two. The latinos are mostly tone deaf;) It was still fun though.
Then they had a big turning on the lights ceremony and had a big
dinner outside in the CCM courtyard area. It was funny, it was like
75% dessert and 25% real food, but they called it dinner anyway! Lunch
is the most important meal here so that probably had something to do
with it. There were a bunch of mission presidents and their families
here from surrounding missions and that was fun to see. P-Days are so
great! We get to go to the Lima Temple every week and shop at some
stores and email and laundry and then just do nothing for three hours.
They are literally the only three hours of the week that aren´t
scheduled for us to be doing something. It kind of just feels like
one long day, like get in bed for five minutes, then get back up and
dressed and go down to breakfast again. But I love it here! It´s kind
of weird actually, I like it way more than I thought I would. Maybe
the field will be different, it probably will be actually, but for now
I´m just going to enjoy this! Man there´s actually not a ton to write
about. The language is coming to me! I listened to the temple session
and ccm devotional both in Spanish and understood a lot of it!
Conversation with people is so much harder though, they slur their
words a lot more and speak faster. But I know it will all come to me!
I miss Christmas music so much. That´s one dumb rule they have here,
no music at all. I want to listen to the tabernacle choir, the first
noel, so bad!! Maybe once I get out into the field, even though it
will be January by then haha. I honestly don´t have much else to say
except for thank you all for your prayers! I can feel them helping me
and know that this wouldn´t be easy or possible if not for Heavenly
Father and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love you all and hope that
all is going well back home! 

Love, 

Elder Hart

And come on seniors! Only 13,000 dollars raised up to this point?! WEAK!! ;)

Nativity at the Lima Temple


My new scripture cases
My district with our new soccer jerseys








Our Christmas setup.  Elder Lish's mom sent him with a tree!  That Christus at the top is also his.  It's pretty sweet.






 Our Christmas setup. Elder Lish´s mom sent him with a tree!! That

Christus at the top is also his, it´s pretty sweet.

El Dia de Accion de Gracias! Thanksgiving...‏

Hola family and friends!!! 

This week has been great, my first real
full week as a missionary! Kind of haha…but really it’s been sweet! I
am seeing miracles every single day with trying to learn this stupid
language! I realized a few days ago that if Heavenly Father wanted me
to be fluent tomorrow, I am living worthily and righteously enough
that I’m making myself available for that blessing if it was part of
his will. Obviously it’s not, but I take comfort in the fact that
because I know I am worthy and righteous and asking, if it is his will
he will bless me! And I have definitely seen those blessings, slowly
but surely.
So Thanksgiving in the MTC is…..pretty unspectacular haha. That was
the day we had “migraciones” so we were gone from about 12:30-5:30.
We watched most of the Elder Oaks Thanksgiving Devotional being
streamed from the MTC, but we had to leave just as Elder Oaks started
to speak. It was a bummer! Haha it was funny though, he dropped one
line that had all the missionaries ooing and ahing. He read some long
quote by George Washington about loving your country enough to make
right decisions and ask God to bless it because he´s the one who gave
it to you. Then he said “I wish our current…..national
leaders…..would think the same way.” Hahaha it was pretty funny. But
yeah we were bummed that we missed his talk! And then we missed the
Turkey Bowl that all the American Elders and Hermanas had too because
we were still gone. So that was dumb too! It’s all good though, you
don’t need turkey and football to be thankful for stuff I guess. I
wasn’t hardly homesick at all which was good! But I still missed
everyone a ton. There’s a difference, I’ve learned that.
Sorry this email is so crazy and helter skelter. I take notes every
night about stuff I want to tell you guys about when I write in my
journal, so everything kinda jumps around. We’ve started playing
Ultimate Football every day for physical activity. That is my
favorite part of the day by far! It’s so fun, just good old ultimate
Frisbee with a football to run around and forget about Spanish for an
hour.
We watched 17 Miracles and Ephraim’s Rescue these past two Sunday’s.
Every Sunday is a video of an apostle devotional from a few months ago
and then a church movie. Those movies are so good! And I saw David
Maynard in the Provo MTC choir from a Jeffrey R. Holland devotional in
May, so that was fun.
So let me tell you all about Hermano Gavancho, one of my teachers.
Man that guy is so cool. I just love him to death. He wears the
exact same outfit every day because I think it’s all he has. He has a
wife and she’s pregnant so he’s about to be a dad. He is so fun and
humble and loving, I love having class with him as our teacher! He
told us a few nights ago that we’re the best district he’s had since
he started working here 9 months ago and that we have a chance to be
the best district ever in the CCM. But we have to work harder! We
have to speak more Spanish! He’s so cool, haha a few of the Hermanas
were crying when he was giving us that pep-talkish thing and I was
ready to go run through a wall or something, I was so pumped. So
needless to say we decided amongst ourselves to have an English fast
the next day. English fasts are the worst, you can probably guess
what they are. No English. All day. But we wanted to show him and
Heavenly Father that we are willing to give all we have to learn this
language!
All the 6 week North Americans and Latin Americans left this past
week, and we got new ones today. We’ll have to see if we have
anything in common with any of them! There are only three new elders
and one new Hermana, so no one knows how that’s going to work with her
companion.
Our district is randomly kind of good at singing. We have one sister,
Hermana Rushton, who can sing Alto, and I can sing Tenor on a lot of
songs, and the others all have decent voices, so it sounds good when
we all are clicking. We sang “Cantan Santos Angeles” (Angels we have
Heard on High) in sacrament meeting last week for a musical number and
got quite a few compliments on it so that was cool!
So there are so many birds chirping here. It’s really cool actually,
it sounds like a Disney movie soundtrack or something. It doesn’t
even sound really, all the chirps are so loud and perfect. So that’s
random and neat haha.
I’ll close with a quote from my beloved companion, Elder Chapman.
It’s not really him, but he’s the one who read it to me. Something
like “Don’t give up what you want most for what you want in the
moment.” Don’t do it!!!!! Great advice, especially for missionaries.
Really for anyone I guess.
Also, they put up all the Christmas lights here and turned them on
last night for the first time. It’s not temple square, but it’s not
bad!! Christmas could be harder than thanksgiving, just because
Thanksgiving isn’t even a real holiday here and they go all out for
Christmas. But on the other hand, I haven’t felt homesick yet so why
start now right?? I love you all so much! I don’t even know who’s
reading this, but if you are, I love you lots and lots and lots.

Love,

Tanner Hart
 
My living quarters. This is my closet, the other one is my bed. 




The view as you walk into my room!  Plus Elder Lish being a weirdy....









My district outside of the Lima Temple!