Howdy Howdy Howdy! 

First and foremost, thank you so so so much for going to Steven's farewell. I know that meant alot to him that you guys were there. Thank you for having gone to all of my friends farewells and showing your and my love for them. It means alot to them and it means the world to me. Thank you thank you:) I'm humbled at Steven's kind words, but in actuality it's quite the reverse of what he has said. I have learned so much from my group of friends, especially Steven. He is super in tune with the spirit and knows how to help people. I thank our Heavenly Father for him, my good friends and such a wonderful family!

How busy the Christmas season seems like for you guys! Haha I love hearing about all the activities!  I sure hope you guys enjoy the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert! That's one thing that I want to do when I get back, is go and see one of their concerts live. I am also surprised by the assignment of the Elders to the stake! How awesome is that?! I remember not seeing the Elders very often in our stake before I left and now they are going to be there full time. That's amazing! This work is truly moving forward. 

The Lord is moving the work here in Thailand faster and farther than ever before through our mission president, President Senior. How grateful I am for him. Last month he set a goal to have every companionship have a baptism and through the miracles that happened, we had 110 people get baptismed in the month of November in Thailand! Can you believe that?! The Lord has opened up the windows of heaven. We are striving to do that again this month and in the month of January he has set a goal for 200 people to get baptismed. I have full faith that we can get this goal. President Senior, through the inspiration of our Heavenly Father is truly shaping a new revolution in Thailand. We hope and pray for a temple here soon, and we hope and pray for the 200 people to get baptized next month here in Thailand. With Heavenly Father, all things are possible. I have seen His hand in all things and we believe. 

Yesterday, we were able to have a baptism for Sister Fan. Thank you all for your prayers in behalf of them. We really felt and saw miracles. This last Thursday we were waiting for her at her interview when she called us and told us that she could not come because she was working and was the only one at work. My companion told her to pray that she will be able to come to the interview at 4 pm and that we will pray to and she will be able to come. So we prayed for her and waiting for her at 4 pm. And in she walked with her mom and was able to pass her interview and recieved baptism yesterday! Heavenly Father has been so good to us.

I'm truly thankful for a loving family. I think to mom's comments about Drew and his search to find a wife. Nowadays you don't find alot of good men striving to find a righteous wife. I'm thankful for Drew and Sean in both showing a younger brother how to live a righteous life after the mission. I will lean on their examples both on my mission and when I get off too. 

Thank you all for your love, prayers and support. The work is hastening. Jesus Christ is coming once more to this Earth. How grateful I am to be apart of the work at this time:)

I love you all!

Elder Tanner

Dear Familia,

I am absolutely grateful for your emails this week because it is exactly what I needed to hear. I really enjoyed the messages about peace that you guys shared. I think sometimes I get wrapped up in the logistics and numbers of a mission and I need to slow down and think about the REAL reason for which we are serving these people. I loved what President Monson said, "simply drop the last syllable and you have the 'spirit of Christ'". How much I need and long for the Spirit of Christ in my life. I also appreciated the scriptures from Mom's email. I am going to study those too this week! Niall sounds like he really understands the scriptures and that's something I want in my life as well. Thank you thank you for your messages. Thank you also for those two packages that you shipped. I really have a great family. I will tell you when I recieve them in the upcoming weeks.

It's crazy that their is snow in Utah now! Here in Thailand it is still one tempreture - HOT haha. But I love it! I used to not like the warm weather, but when it gets down to 22 degrees Celsius, It's super cold to me! Crazy how our bodies adjust to the climate. 

This week we have just been blessed to the point of overflowing. We have seen miracle after miracle as the humble in heart have come back to church and brought family with them to be baptized. We have been working with this woman named Sister Pen who was baptized about a year ago and hasn't lived in Sakhon Nakon since her baptism. She has tried to come to church but hasn't really had many chances. We met with her and her daughter, Sister Fan about 16 years old, and she told us that she just didn't feel right. She wanted to repent and make things right again, and have her daughter receive baptism as well. How merciful and loving is Jesus Christ. We talked about repentance and the fact that Jesus Christ is more than willing to forgive those who are humble in heart. I love that part about the gospel the most I think. Great things will come of this sweet lady and her daughter.

This week we also had an interesting situation happen. We had met with an investigator of ours, an elderly man in his mid 70's one time. A couple days passed and we heard that he was in the hospital. We felt that we should go visit him in the hospital with a member friend of his. He could not speak and he could not talk to us, but he had his eyes open and I remember my companion showing him the picture of Jesus Christ and telling him to remember this picture because we weren't sure if he was going to recover from his illness or not. Yesterday, we received word from our member friend that he had slipped out of this world and into the spirit world. It was interesting for us because the next lesson we were planning on teaching him would have been the Plan of Salvation. We had given him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet before he went in to the hospital, but we weren't sure if he read it. I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole situation, but I am grateful for a plan to help him receive baptism and eventually inherit the kingdom of heaven if he chooses to accept. I hope with all my heart that he will meet great missionaries on the other side of the veil to help him progress further.

Thank you so much for everything that you guys are doing. I really could not be doing this without you all and without the help of our Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all so much!

With much much love,

Elder Tanner

PS - If you could sometime make a Skype account for me and send me the username and password, that would be awesome. I can't remember my old one for when we Skype on Christmas:) Thank you!

Dear Family,

Happy Thanksgiving!!! it sounded like there was a quite the party over at our house this year haha. I'm sure glad to hear that all the family is doing so great! I absolutely love the holidays because it brings everyone together! It's something that I don't think I really appreciated before I came out here. I also wanted to thank you for keeping in touch with Brent and inviting him to things. I know he appreciates that and I do also. He has made a deep impression on my heart. Hayley, I'm so proud of you for inviting that boy your mutual activity! that's so awesome! And don't be discouraged by him not coming this time, as missionaries our lives are filled with that kind of stuff haha. President Senior has said that it takes a person at least 7 times for a person to either talk, see, read or hear about the church through missionaries or other means for them to become interested. Can you believe that?! And you just knocked down one of those times. Invite him again next week too:) You guys so great!

I won't lie, I missed you guys like the dickens on Thanksgiving Day. I had my first real sickness here in Thailand and it started on Thanksgiving Day. It started with a fever and other things, and resulted with me checking in to the hospital, but all is perfectly well now. I got much better and I am out and working and riding my bike and doing just fine:) I can explain some more about it when I Skype you guys on Christmas day. It's crazy how fast time is flying by! Christmas is almost here! I'm super excited to see you guys.

This past week we also had a Mission Tour. We had Elder Larry Wilson come and talk to the missionaries and his wife as well. They both touched on the importance of the Book of Mormon and how key it is to use it in conversion. They also focused on a point that I had never really thought about til now. They told us that we should strive to read the book of mormon with our investigators. Elder Wilson told us that he had a friend who once he read the book of mormon with him, he joined the church and was sealed with his wife and kids. It's something that I really want to do and something that I want to focus on when I get back to our ward in helping less active members come back to church. I thought it was a great idea. 

I can't believe Niel Staddard is already back from his mission! It felt like his time went by so fast! How long does Elder Gibb have? and Elder Clements? That's so crazy!

Thank you for all of your prayers and love. Mom, your email was an answer to a prayer of mine. I love you guys so much! Have a great next week!

With much love,

Elder Tanner