May 18th

OK, 

not a lot of time this week. Elder S. is sick and I dont want to keep him up for very long. 

Long story, i will get to it. 

So please make sure that the other relatives know that birthday things should go to the office address for convenience. :)

ok so for my week. it was actually really good. We havent had any real problems being around each other again. which is a good thing. His birthday was on wednesday, and that was park day so it was tough. But we got through it. Shelton is a lot more of a mountain town than lakewood so biking is a lot less fun... 

But this area is really nice. Its a lot of farm land, and forest. And Shelton itself is a very small town. But with all that we found a new investigator almost every night this week. Except for tuesday (we didnt have much finding time because of transfers) and yesterday (we were home all day). 

so for the most exciting part of the week. 

Yesterday Elder S. was fine in the mornings until a little after breakfast when his stomach started hurting. So we kind of ignored it and went to church, and after church he said the pain had increased. So we went home and I called Sister Blatter (mission Pres. wife) for advice. And she told us to stay home and let him rest. We figured it was just a stomach bug thing at this point. 

So we waited and it just got worse with time, so I gave him a quick blessing and afterwards I called Sister Blatter again and she wasnt sure what it was so she had a doctor friend call us to give us advice. So we explained the symptoms (pain, not able to go to the bathroom, pain, vomiting everything he tried to eat or drink) And that turned into a visit to the hospital. Because with all the symptoms he was having and with his diabetes it was a better idea to just go get someone to look at it. so we called the branch president and him and his wife took us to the ER. 

There we waited for a little bit, for the pain they gave him some pain drugs and tried to figure everything out. After a few hours we find that it is most likely his Gall Bladder. And he had a "gall bladder attack" due to the food he ate at breakfast. So now he is on pain killers and resting a lot. And if he doesnt feel better by tomorrow he will need to consult a surgeon to see what we can do to help. So kind of scary stuff. Definitely not expected. 

So we went shopping today and i bought some stuff for him . he is stuck to a diet of clear liquids and no fat foods. lots of fun. But the way i see it is everything happens for a reason, and we will be able to see the reason later on. Just hope that it doesnt get worse and he doesnt need something more drastic than rest. 

so that was last night. We finally got home around 1130 (past our bedtime) :) and i stayed up a bit longer to get some jello made for him. and finally got to bed around 1am (just me, he tried sleeping right away). and a few times during the night he needed help with pain. So running on around 5 hours of sleep right now. lol not complaining. I am glad I am here to help him get through this. Maybe that is why we are together again, so he could go through this with someone he knows already, and not a complete stranger who doesnt know as much as I do about him. :) who knows.  

so staying home for the most part. lots of time to clean and study lol

yeah... great transfer so far :) 

not much else going on. got to go though so we can get him back to resting. 

love you!!!! miss you!!! 

email more next week, hopefully with great news :)

by the way..  there are a few familiar names here in shelton. all in the english ward but we have a sister woodward. and there is a burke family. lol i got here and immediately all the members ask if i know the burkes here. i still havent met them. :) 

one hispanic even asked if i was their son... nope. :)

fun stuff.  

May 11.. day after Mothers day phone call/Skype! Also NEW ADDRESS!

Hey!

so today has been rough. We spent 3 hours looking for a bike seat for someone (not me) and really i am done with bike shops. But during one of the bike shop visits my companion and i left the others to find a bathroom and we found a donut shop in the meantime. And we both got bacon maple donuts. :)

ummm... yeah not much to talk about.

Going to Shelton. I hear it is not a big branch and the members dont feed us much, which is great for me. now i can cook more! i just also have to be more frugal with money though. 

NEW address: 

281 SE Arcadia Rd #C1

Shelton, WA 98584

make sure both grandmas get this please. they have sent me stuff to the appartment before and i want to make sure they have the right address. Shelton is not near Lakewood. So i have a limited amount of times of getting things from other areas. Oh and for birthday stuff, send boxes to the office address because the next transfer is two days before my birthday and it might get hectic if i am moving again. :) but who knows if i will really change again so soon?

So yeah. Getting back with Elder S. (MTC companion) Should be fun. I guess we will see. lol 

glad i got to see you guys! even though there wasnt a lot to say. :)

As for this last week, not much happened so not much to say. Changing areas is basically the news. 

cant think of much else, so i will end for now. 

love and miss you!!!!!!!

-Tanner

May 4th

ok my week-

found a couple new investigators. going to be visiting them more this week. 

Still trying to work with members more. Such a hard job. We visited one couple the other night to spend like 30 minutes with them and ended up staying for an hour because they had some things they wanted to get off their chest about the ward. Nothing like listening to other people complain. So we are helping everyone to get their feeling out so hopefully we can know where to focus. Yeah... but at least we are getting somewhere with that. 

Along with that we are going to start trying more on getting home teaching done with members. They are all converts and dont know about things like home teaching very much, so we have to help the members with that too. maybe that will help the ward function? who knows?

So this was bike week and it was a good week for it. But we walked three days this week. The first time we were stuck in the not so good city again. without bikes or a ride. because a member we set up stuff with cancelled. so we walked home from there again. then the next day we were about the same distance away as that city but in the other direction and my comp got a flat tire, so we walked home again. and the third day we walked because of his flat. oh and two days before the bad city walk, one of my tires went flat. luckily one of the other elders had a spare patch to fix it. that was an adventure too, fixing the flat. so i had a patched tire and his went flat without another patch, so we were walking. 

lets just say how glad i am to have a car this week. 

so buying a new tube today for my bike (i dont like the idea of a patch on my tube forever) and a new patch kit in case it happens again. 

so lots of trials this week. with bikes mostly, but we got through it. and I know that as long as we are doing our best everything will work out fine. 

Oh, and another exciting thing this last week. We set up a booth at a local place called swap meets (have i told you about it before? dont remember?) anyways. swaps is like a giant daily flea market, mostly hispanic, and great for finding hispanics to talk to. so we normally just hang out outside and talk with people in the parking lot (sketchy)

but this time we went inside and got a booth (normally they charge people, but since we give out free things we got in for free, just needed a license form town hall) and that was exciting. only a few people tried to bash with us over doctrine, and we gave out a ton of pamphlets and cards. So many seeds planted, now we jsut wait to see if anyone actually cares :)

and we are planning on going back for the next few months during summer time every weekend because of all the people we can talk with. that and it is fun to look at flea market stuff (you know) :)

other than that stuff i think everything is still the same. still finding people and praying a lot for miracles. 

transfers are next week btw so during my skype call i will let you know where i am going (if i am going) :)

yeah. 

cant wait to talk on sunday!!!!!! 

(btw- six months and my family starts growing up without me. those pictures of everyone are crazy different! wow. cant wait to talk on sunday! oh and i like daisy in the pic of you and abby lol)

Love you!

-Tanner