A fabulous Trio

Dear Family,

This past week was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! I love my trio, it's so bomb!!! My companions are E Lattuga and E Packer. E Lattuga has been out for 21 months, and has actually served in Motown before. I was worried about getting him as a comp because he's been emergency transfered a few times for flirting and stuff like that, and he's really well remembered around here as kind of a flirt by the members too, but they all love him! And so do I!!! He's way cool, and from Las Vegas!!! E Packer is so sweet. He's only 1 transfer older than me, and guess what? He's from Kaysville, Utah. Wanna know what's crazier? We share the same friends, but we've never met before. Like he's way good friends with Trevor Fry, Austin Seegmiller, Collin Pace, pretty much all my junior high friends!!!!!! Is that crazy, or what?!?!?!!?!?! He was a DJ before the mish, and so he's got a keyboard, and basically just busts out these really really cool versions of hymns and stuff. He's teaching me and E Lattuga how to play a little bit. It's awesome. Besides all that, we all get along really really well!! We have very similar personalities, and I've decided that I wouldn't mind staying in Motown for longer in this companionship haha! We joke around alot, and we're always laughing and having fun, but we are being obedient and doing what we're supposed to and teaching the people, which is important. This will probably be the best transfer of my mission so far!!

 Tuesday, the only thing we did was get them unpacked and played soccer. Which was fun. Wednesday, we had Zone Training Meeting, where our zone leaders trained and introduced the new monthly focus, which is consecration. April month is consecration month :) One quote that I really like from I think it's E Maxwell, is "consecration to the Lord is the only surrender that is actually a victory." It's really cool, because the Lord really can make more out of our lives than we ever could! These past few days we've been writing up "consecration contracts" where we commit to be more consecrated and obedient missionaries.

Aside from that, we taught an investigator of ours, Beatriz and Grisel, that E Lattuga actually found when he was first here! It was cool because they remembered who he was, even after a year haha! We have seen them twice this week, and they are open to hearing the message, but it's hard to teach them because Grisel (beatriz' daughter) has two twin girls who are 11 months old, so they just cause chaos and distract everyone...We also taught Marvin, an investigator that E Diaz and I found a few weeks ago! He's 17 and still in high school, but he's very promising! I think he could get baptized this transfer!!! We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and then at the end, we committed him with a baptismal date of April 27! And.....he accepted!!!!!!! He just needs to come to church, but he is so prepared, he understands so much, and he prays the RIGHT way every time since we taught him how!!!!!!! He even included in his prayer the question of if the things we had taught him were true!!!!!!! I'm really excited for him. He comes and plays soccer with us, and he's really good.

Thursday and Friday were days that we just taught a few member lessons, and got everyone reacquainted with E lattuga and just acquainted with E Packer. The weather here is so weird though. It had been great up until Friday, and then friday and part of saturday it rained...

But this weekend was awesome, because it was conference weekend!!!!! General Conference is basically like the superbowl for missionaries. We love it. So much. I loved all the talks!!!!! Also, as a mission, after the first session on saturday we started a mission-wide fast to find families and whatever other personal things we wanted to fast for! So after the first session on saturday, we went to subway with a few other elders and sisters to have our last supper, and guess how much I ate? I ate a footlong, which I bought with subway points, and then another 6 inch, and then a pear. I ate a TON of food. And I prolly could have eaten more...is that gross? ;)   But then we fasted until after the first session on sunday, and I felt fine pretty much that whole time! That was my first full 24+ hour fast! After the first session on sunday, all the branch members made a bunch of food and we just pigged out with the branch haha!

To watch conference, we went to the church. They had it in english in the chapel, and spanish in a different room, but we just watched it all in english. You gotta get everything you can out of conference, and I'm not quite perfect in spanish yet! ;) But it was really good. I felt like an overall theme of the conference was ways to protect against satans temptations and trusting the lord enough to be obedient. It was really cool to see the emphasis of families as well, I felt like alot of people mentioned eternal families, and that's a really cool principle that is found in the church that no one else has! That families can be together forever, and I know that's true!! Through the Atonement and gospel of Jesus Christ, we can live forever as a family, and with our Heavenly Father :) And that is just pure awesome :)

I finished the BoM in my studies yesterday, and I can promise you that the BoM is true!!!! I'm starting to study the New Testament now, and I'm excited!! I would exhort you all (in the words of Moroni) to do what they said in conference and study Preach My Gospel. Because there's tons of stuff in there that can be applicable to daily life as well. I've read several parts that I've totally applied to life in general, not just missionary work!! So it would definitely be smart to start reading ;)

Well...I'm sorry to hear the house is taking alot of work...but i'm glad I don't have to do it!! ;) JK, good luck with the house and school and soccer and everything!! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST FAMILY EVER!! LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!

Love,

Elder Tanner Nelson

Pictures are of me and my compas. E Packer is the tall ginger and e lattuga is the short one :)