Well, it has been a good week this week. Just a few highlights to bring up then I will talk more about the branch (by popular request). So first of the week I got to go on exchange with Elder Cowdry from Adelaide Australia. He has been out for about 6 months now and is a great missionary. He is in Porthmadog, which I think is about the farthest out that you can get in the mission besides the Isle of Man. While I was with him, we met a few good people. One of them was actually a born again christian who was sincere enough to actually take a Book of Mormon and say that he would ask God. That is a very rare occurrence. Normal born agains are very hostile and will only bash you and try to destroy your testimony. This man, Simpson, was really sincere in his desire to do what God would want him to do. The only problem that made me cry on the inside a bit was that when we were leaving he said that we had had an interesting chat and that he would need to bring some of this up with the elders at his church. Inside I was just screaming "Ask God!!!! Don't ask man!!!!!!!!!!!" But what can you do. We will try and go back and see him later this week.
Back with Elder Cossa we had a Thanksgiving dinner with a family that have an American daughter-in-law. That was really fun. The Carders take very very good care of us while we are here. The daughter from Texas even made pumpkin pie and sweet potato with marshmallows on top. That was so good! She put orange oil in them so they were orangy as well. Boy they were tasty.
We were able to start teaching the friend of a less active girl which is really good. It gives her a reason to be an example and it makes it easier for her to want to be an example. This young man started out by telling us that he is an atheist but is interested in different religions. We told him that the Book of Mormon is really interesting and then told him what it is about and what is in it—about the plan of salvation and the love that God has for each of us. At the end, he just really quietly asks, "Where can I get one of those books?" Made my night. He then came and watched Meet the Mormons later in the week and had a good experience. He asked really good questions about the Book of Mormon as well. He has a very sincere desire to know and understands that it's not going to just happen, he has to work for it. To be fair, I would put him as being farther along than I was at 14 and I was raised with the gospel.
The other really major miracle of the week that I would like to tell you about is these two girls that referred themselves on mormon.org from a pass along card that I had actually given them. I've never had that happen in my whole mission—someone refer themselves. We went around and they wanted a Book of Mormon. We gave them each one, taught them the restoration and set a return appointment for two weeks. That is going to be great.
Other things that I havent told you (at least I think), is that we are going paperless. Our paper planners are no more. We now do everything on the iPad. Not sure that I like it to be fair. It takes alot longer to do everything but at the same time it makes it easier to keep up on recording things. If you dont record what happens in the lesson, it doesnt record the lesson as happening so you dont get credit for anything unless you do everything. Keeps us accountable I guess.
Right so the branch has about 30-40 out on a Sunday. Mostly older. The primary is like 5 kids. The youth is quite small as well but they are good. The young men are recent convert brothers, the young women are good, but there is only one very active one and one that we are working with. The branch feeds us pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day. It's not good for me, I'm going to get fat haha. We are still working to get people to come to church but we need to liven up our teaching pool first, a lot of them are pretty dead investigators. They are changing over slow and steady. I think that by the end of the transfer we should have people at church. I just am praying that I get to stay for Christmas here.
Thats about me for the week. Sorry for the kind of rambly email. My mind has been all over the place today.
Love you all!
Elder Tarbet
Caelitus Mihi Vires
My Strength is from Heaven
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