Elder Tanner Hart: Tanner's email from 2/1/16

Hey everyone! I´m back after a week of broken emails haha! These past two weeks have been...just normal I guess! I´m getting used to life here in the mission. The Spanish is still hard, but I´m getting more and more used to not understanding, and picking it up a little bit too haha;) For some reason, all of our appointments have been falling through this week! Like, almost 100% of them! But we´re just pressing on, working as hard as we can trying to help these people to baptism! It´s hard to believe that I´m almost through my first transfer; in a lot of ways it flew by, and in a lot of ways I feel like it´s been about two years. The opposition is so strong here! Man I can just feel Satan attacking me all the time, trying to hit my faith and discourage me. But I can also feel the Holy Ghost preserving me, keeping me safe and comforting me! I like imagining all the primary kids singing "I hope they call me on a mission" when we´re walking. It gets me pumped haha! I can´t really believe that I´m on a mission yet, it hasn´t really set in completely. I can´t remember if I´ve shared the story of Nephi and the boat in my group email, but if I have I´m going to share it again. The Lord works miracles in two kinds of ways: he either drys up the land for us to walk across, or he helps us build a boat. Both are miracles!! The first one is just a little more obvious. But we grow more with the second one! We become the people Heavenly Father wants us to become! Could Nephi have built the temple in 2 Nephi 5 if he hadn´t had the experience of building the boat first? I don´t know, but I´m sure that experience at least prepared him for it! I´m seeing the second type of miracle in my life right now. He´s showing me how to build a boat! It´s dang hard, but I´m being prepared for something greater! I have to do the work, I have to ask him where to go to find ore, I have to go to the mount of the Lord often to ask for His help, but I´m building this boat in His way! Not after the manner of men! I like that analogy:) Anyway, keep me in your thoughts and prayers, but more keep these people in your thoughts and prayers! Man they´re just lost, most of them. "They draw near unto me with their mouths, but their hearts are far from me" is unbelievably prophetic here haha! Really all of 2 Nephi 27-29 just fits perfectly here. They need the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! Pray for them that they will accept it! Last thing that I learned this week, I´ve wondered how our prayers for others work with their agency. I found a really cool scripture about it in Ether 12:36. We can pray that Heavenly Father will give them GRACE! The enabling power of the Atonement! We can´t change their agency, but we can pray that Heavenly Father gives them more power and strength! So maybe help me out in praying that these people will have that grace, that they might have the courage to accept this gospel. Oh I love you all soooo much and am so grateful for your love and support!

Love, Elder Hart