Monday, July 25, 2016

Knee Calluses (How do you spell that?)

Dear family and friends,

There was a little earthquake here on Wednesday! That freaked me out.  It was the first time in my life I´ve ever felt even a little earth-shaking, so that was nuts.  Don´t worry though; I´m still alive;)

We noticed the other day that all of us missionaries have developed callouses on our knees from saying kneeling prayers so much.  I even have little indents in my knees now, so all that´s pretty...weird.

Here, all the kids have to take religion classes.  Well, they don´t have to; many of the LDS kids get excusal notes from their parents to take a different class.  Why, you ask? Because that class is pure apostasy!! Haha a kid in the ward showed us his assignment this past week.  One of the statements: "God will forgive sins, but not scandals."  One of the questions: "What would have happened if Jesus would have been disobedient?" What are they teaching those kids??  I guess one of the only benefits of the US´s Seperation of Church and State.  One of the few haha! Sorry to get all political, but I thought that was funny.

We had this big activity planned yesterday, an open house of our chapel.  Our branch president was all excited and printed 600 invitations.  I was trying to be optimistic, but I was like, "Are we really thinking that passing out invitations in the street is going to have a big impact?" Plus, I don´t like doing that as missionaries.  I feel like it kinda ruins our image, or at least makes it seem less powerful.  I don´t feel like the Savior every would have done that.  But, they passed out the 600 anyway.  Yesterday was showtime.  Exactly....3 investigators showed up.  And they were existing investigators! So that was kinda embarrassing.  And hilarious.  It was a good idea though, we´ve just gotta involve the members a little more haha.

I´ve really felt the importance of helping people here learn how to read The Book of Mormon.  Remember the cheesy quote about buying a man a fish and teaching a man to fish that I refuse to quote here?  Elder Bednar said in the Christmas Devotional when I was in the MTC that we can´t just give investigators answers; we need to teach them how to find their own answers! So I´ve really felt the importance of helping investigators read, understand, and apply The Book of Mormon in their lives.  If we could help just 5 families here in Viru develop that habit, I feel like it would be worth it.  

Anyway, hope you all have a super week and I´ll talk to you shortly! I quite enjoy all the updates and pics, keep it up!

Love, Tanner


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