April 4th 2016

We had a really good week. General Conference was amazing.  We had 5 investigators watch Conference. We watched it on their soft recliners and we watched part of conference at the church with one of them. I also liked the one about family council, Mom. 

We had interviews with President. That was really good. He asked me if I was trunky. I said no. He said that I was not allowed to get trunky. The only day that I can be is on the plane ride home. haha 

We had a lesson with an investigator. His name is Brent. He is on date for baptism on the 16^th, which will have to be pushed back a week because he did not come to the church and watch conference with us.  

Grandma, that makes my happy that Elder Purvis sent that picture to his family! That’s wonderful that Brett called you. I bet it was great to catch up on things. Elder Purvis is a great kid, awesome missionary, District Leader, and Trainer! He’s fun to be around. Hopeful I can serve with him, even though it might not happen. I have 2 transfers left. I will see Elder Purvis on Tuesday. We have a zone meeting that day.

I have prayed about going to school in the fall semester or the spring, cause it would be nice to have a job and some cash before I go. I felt like I need to go the fall semester. 

I love you all. I hope you like the package I sent home. 

March 28 2016

This week was one of the best and hardest weeks of the mission! We had a mission wide fast on Friday. We fasted for investigators, and for the hearts of the people to soften. That was the hardest fast of my life! I had no energy. I just about passed out! I was not the only one, everyone in the zone said that it was really really hard! All of our appointments cancelled. Someone for sure did not want us to be fasting for this cause! That whole day was rough, it started in the morning. We were going to go to the temple. My comp started the car to warm it up because it snowed that night and there was a bunch of snow on the car. We were going to drive to a member’s house so he could take us to the temple. I do not know how this happened but someone tried to keep us from going to the temple. We locked our keys in the car with the car running! Dad this reminded me of you! Unable to get into our car, we went to our member that lives upstairs and he called AAA. The member that was going to take us to the temple came and picked us up, and we went to the temple leaving behind our car running. Our member that we lived with took care of our car. When we got to the temple, he texted us saying that our keys were on the table. That text was relieving because those Chevy Cruizes are not easy to get into. 

The Cardston temple is so nice! It was wonderful to go, and my last time, as we are only allowed to go once a quarter. 

We went to Magrath for a Zone Conference. That went really well. Lots of things learned and not a whole lot of changes in the mission. After Zone Conference we made it home just in time for our lesson with our investigator. There we got another new investigator! When we taught our investigator Todd, his mother-in-law was there and we invited her to come and listen. She listened well, had lots of questions, and was engaged in the lesson. 30 years ago she was kicked out of her church and never went into a church again. As we were talking she agreed with everything that we said. She accepted a Book of Mormon and two pamphlets. We have a lesson with them today. Yesterday we were planning for them and role-playing at the Church. We were planning on teaching the Plan of Salvation. Role-playing that lesson was hard! It was had to know what to say and how to say it. The Spirit was not there. We both knew it was not there. Both of us were not feeling it, but it was easy to talk about the points in that lesson that are the same points in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. After that role-play we went home. This morning we were about to role-play the Plan of Salvation again, but I said, “Maybe we are not suppose to teach this lesson. The Spirit was not there last time and we’re not feeling it this time.” So we placed the Restoration, Plan of Salvation and Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlets on the floor and we prayed about it. We both came to the conclusion that we need to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We role-played that lesson for companionship study and it went really really well! The Spirit was there! 

That just shows how it is so important and so critical to have the Spirit there when you teach because he is the teacher! Without it you CANNOT teach. Without the Spirit the words will struggle coming out of your mouth and they will almost choke you as they come out. That is why as a missionary you are held to a higher standard, and you need to keep yourself worthy and use the Atonement. That is what it’s there for. That way you will have the Spirit to be with you as you teach. Tanner you are the next one to go on a mission. It’s crunch time. Keep leading by example. Hopefully this helps. Where ever you go it will be the experience of a lifetime! You will be a great missionary! Stay worthy! 

On Friday we had the opportunity to watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Handles Messiah at the Church. We invited members from the community choir. The head guy, John, the one that told me not to sing very loud, came. He LOVES the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He watches them every chance he can get. He watches them at Christmas time. All during the broadcast, when he sat behind us he was basically leading them. Tenor 1, Basses go, and now the Sopranos are going to come in. He loved it! We had one other person from the community choir as well, and a member who had her records removed came with her husband who we have been trying to teach.

I’m really looking forward to General Conference it is going to be really good! 

I sent a package along with my coat with a member that was going down to Utah, He should be calling any day. The funny thing is after I sent my coat, the next day it snowed! haha but its all gone now. 

Love y’all

March 21

This week we went to Cardston. There we met the whole zone for the first time. I met my cousin for the first time! Elder Derek Purvis! He is a District Leader in Raymond, and he’s training a missionary. He was happy to find out that we are cousins. He’s a cool guy. I got some pictures of him, and lots more pictures of other things, but I have no way of sending them because I do not have an SD card reader, and I have no place to buy one because there is no Wal-Mart in our area. I think that it will be good, because when I get home I will have lots of pictures to show for family night! A whole slide show! And I will give you a tour of Calgary on Goolge Maps!

We walked to the Church on Tuesday evening to do something, and then walked back. In Clareshome, when the sun goes down the town goes to bed. Walking home, we saw this guy walking. We talked to him and it turns out that Elder Panter knows him. He lives in the same house with a member and some other people. He knows who we are and what we do. He stayed around and listened to the dinner message when we had dinner at the house. We ended up talking to him for about 15 minutes and we gave him a Book of Mormon and a reading assignment. We had a lesson with him that week. We taught the Restoration. That was a very good lesson. He did read the chapter that we gave him, and he did accept a baptismal invite. He said that he would come to church but did not come. We have another appointment with him this week. His name is Brent, and he’s our new investigator for the week!  

 This week is so busy. We have Zone Conference and car inspections. We are wanting to go to the temple, and interviews are on April 1st. That’s funny.

We cover two wards. President has told us to focus and put most of our attention on one ward: Claresholm Ward. We still make it out to Champion once a month. We make the hour drive on Saturday to meet with Bishop and we went through the ward list, and we met with some less actives. We were able to get in one less active home. It’s hard to plan out there cause it’s too far and people don’t keep appointments. We were also there on Sunday. We gave talks in Sacrament Meeting with a High Councilman, That was good. He picked us up and drove us home. That saved us a lot of Ks! 

  

We had dinner with one of our investigators that we were not able to meet with. We taught the Restoration. His wife was there listening. Usually she wants nothing to do with church, but she sat and listened the whole time. The Spirit was there, she made the comment. Wow did you guys bug our house or something? That there was the spirit. 

I’m now getting over a small cold. Getting over it! 

Love you all 

March 14

First full week in Claresholm! It was really good. Everything is so spread out! We taught a bunch of lessons and picked up two new investigators, one of them was from tracting. We knocked on a few doors before we did some service for a member, and knocked on this guy’s door, who’s name is Darcy. We talked to him on the door for about 10 minutes about the Book of Mormon, prophets, and the Bible, told him that we did not have much time, asked if we can come back next week and we can talk more. He said okay. So kinda flaky, but we will see how it goes. 

We have been teaching Grant, he has been taught for a while. He has been put on date, but talked himself out of it. There are some things that are going on in his life that are kinda hard. We asked him if he would want another Priesthood Blessing.  We gave him one at Bishop’s house. He and his wife whom we have not taught were there for supper. We already had a supper. After our super, we went to bishop’s house and Grant and his wife were already there. We talked for a long time about the Book of Mormon, priesthood, and answered questions and concerns about things that are going on in his life, and gave him a Priesthood Blessing. That was really neat. He and his wife had watery eyes. The Spirit was really strong there.  His wife is Catholic, but she says that she will support her husband whatever they decide to do. They want to be a family of one faith. They both came to church on Sunday for all three hours! 

We also had another investigator come to church. She has been taught just about everything. It was starting to get hard on what to teach because she has been taught everything and she had not come to church. We met with her and she said that she would come. 

We cover two wards, but President told us to focus on one ward because the other ward is too far away, so we go out there once every other week or so. We are going out there this week, and we are speaking in Church this Sunday so that is something to look forward to. We are going to meet with the bishop out there and go through the ward list and find all of the less active and part member families. We did that in this ward with Bishop. We only had time to go through part of the list. We got the "H"s and there are 59 Part Member and Less Active families. So we have our work cut out for us. 

So I have been reading the Book of Mormon with the whole mission. We started on Christmas. We will end on Easter. We are highlighting every time the Book of Mormon makes reference to Jesus Christ. I am really surprised how much the book testifies of Jesus Christ. Every page talks about him. Every page except for the war chapters. That’s something that you should do as a family is to get one of the books the we hand out as missionaries and read it as a family and mark each time it makes reference to God, Jesus Christ, Holy Ghost.  It’s really cool. 

I’m in 3 Nephi right now so you have some catching up to do. 

Message to Dad Mar. 7

Where were you serving at 20 months? What were some things that were going through your head? 

Dad’s answer:

I served my last area in Little Rock, the big city life. 

Things that where going through my head:

1) I put on some after-burners and wanted to make sure I worked super hard. I may say I probably worked harder then I ever did. 

2) A drive to keep the rules with exactness. 

3) Little nervous of what’s to come after the mission life, but at the same time excited for the normal life.  

4) Wondering if the Lord was pleased with me in my 2 year journey.

5) Tired and wanted nothing more then to end with a baptism, watch never happened. 

6) Wished I was not a zone leader and training someone. (Looks like you kinda have a greeny) 

7) Ready for the small town life style and not the big city life.

8) You start looking at things differently. Not sure if I can explain it. 

9) Wanted to gain a stronger testimony of my Savior.  

10) Just felt like aaaaaaaahhh!! 

What are some of the things going through your head?

Elder Condie’s response:

       You know, those are the exact same things that are going through my head as well. One thing that President has said during my interview was to "Renew" yourself. Pray to the Lord and say that you want to renew yourself and continue to work hard. 

Keeping all of the rules is very important as well. I have done pretty swell with that. 

I’m the same… nervous and excited for the normal life, school and college. 

One of the things that I want the Lord to say when I’m done with the mission is “Well done my good, and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Just like the parable of the talents. I think that would be cool. 

I’m not Zone Leader and I don’t think that I will be again. President is having lots of young missionaries become Zone Leaders. I would have liked to do one more transfer as a Zone Leader and spend the last two as a normal missionary, but I’m a District Leader right now, and I enjoy it. Not as many executive things to do, and drama and other things that happen in the zone.   

I liked it in the city. I was there for a while. I really like the small town life now. You see many of the same people everyday, if I can learn their name and remember it that would help. haha

I can kinda see where you’re coming from on 8 and also 9 and 10. 

Time flies!