Doing work in Trenton!

When it rains it......still means work!

Jos finally gets baptized!

A message of hope, of joy, of love.

I love this! Tab shared it in an email he wrote to us last week. He said it was in President Jeppson's letter to the missionaries and he enjoyed it very much. What a wonderful president he is!

Well,

New Jersey has a small army of Latter-Day Saints, including about 250 senior and young

missionaries, who are striving to reach out and share a message of peace and salvation. A

message that will bring far more happiness than anything else. It’s a message of hope, of joy, of love. And it happens to be the only way by which mankind may be saved. God bless you my dear missionaries for embracing the gospel, when the world would have you reject it, or even worse, willfully rebel against it. Because you have embraced it, and if you remain true to it, you shall be blessed forever.

President Jeppson

Just another week!

Just another week and still doing the good work. Tab seems HaPpY hEaLthY and BuSy! Love his letters and love him too. Here we go........

Hi Mom! 

So this week was pretty good. The baptism for Jos went great! She was really excited the whole time, which is good because a lot of the time she is really reluctant to do things. She felt that it was right and everything went according to plan. I baptized her, and that went fine too. The confirmation is next week, and either Elder Vargas or one of the bishopric will do it I'm sure. Her parents weren't at the baptism but a lot of her cousins were (I'll send you a picture) and Ange and Curt and Johnson and Courage were all there. And some other members of the ward, including our new WML Brother Pace, who is awesome. He's a younger guy from Bountiful and he's super nice. But everything went according to plan, so that was good. Nothing out of the ordinary! Brother Aikins was there and so were some of our investigators and the other missionaries investigators. I enjoyed it a lot.

My birthday lunch was great. I went all out like you told me to! Yes, it was all four of us at Red Robin. It was great, but still not as good as the home made burgers we had. We make teriyaki and habanero burgers every week and they are way better, haha. We've (I've) started making more food at home than eating out cause the stuff we eat at home is much better. Nobody in my apartment really knows how to cook, so I make the food. Which is fine with me because I enjoy it and I know it will be good. I don't mean to boast, but to me cooking good food is really easy because things just make sense - like what ingredients are good with each other, and how much to use, etc. Elder Thompson was a great cook so I learned a little bit from him. And he knew how to bake stuff, something I still don't know how to do. I made a peach cobbler the other day though, it was decent.

Yes we waved to a ton of people and now people are waving and honking at us. It's just great!

Transfers are in a week. I will most likely leave, I've been in Trenton for a while. But I will still have my district leader calling, so I'll just go to another area where they need a district leader. Unless I get released on Sunday night. In that case, you'll know when I email you next Monday. So you'll know if I am leaving or staying, and whether I am still a district leader. I hope to go to Eatontown if I leave :) That area sounds like it is the best, besides East Orange, of course. I've gotten lucky to have great companions. Thing is, I feel like it's not very hard to get along with most of the missionaries in this mission, or with anyone for that matter. This mission has a great group of people!

Sorry my letter this week isn't really that much about the things going on here! It was a slower week than last, and we didn't meet that many new people who we are teaching. Not much exciting happened, so I can't think of what to talk about. But it was a great week nonetheless. Thanks for all the letters and emails! I love you all-

Have a great week! I pray for you to be happy :)

Love,

Tab

p.s. How did Colby's tournament go? Did he win? The varsity tournament that is. It was 2 weeks ago I think. But I was wondering how he did there, what he shot, etc. And he is trying to use my irons, I want to see how he likes them! I have the best clubs in the world, so I'm sure he'll like them. Oh yeah, the JV team won every single tournament except for two in all the four years that I was there. The JV team kills.

Hey Dad!

So you got to meet up with old friends... where from? I have never had mussels in my life, but I've seen them. I wonder what they taste like. I haven't had much lobster either. I think the last time I had it was at a fish fry in Georgia about 10 years ago. And I have no idea what bechamel is either. But if you liked it, I'm sure I would too. As of late, we've been eating better meals at home rather than eating out. We shop at ALDI, a cheap store that has pretty good quality food. I wish they had one in Utah, because I really like it. We made some curry's and I made Haitian food a couple times. Our neighbor gave us a nice grill and so we have been grilling a lot of teriyaki burgers :) I am glad I grew up in our home where I learned how to enjoy good food, and cook it too.

Well, I have been understanding the doctrine of the redemptive part of the Atonement wrong. Perhaps almost all the missionaries in our mission understand it incorrectly. So now I can go tell everyone and look really smart, haha. It makes sense though, imagining what it would be like to return to God's presence as a sinner and beholding his purity. We would feel so inadiquate and uncomfortable it would make us want to leave, to go to a place where we fit in. So you judge yourself! Elder Bell (my zone leader) explained it well when he said that a lot of people think that we will return to God and beg to stay with Him, but that is not accurate. In fact, he imagines it will be near the opposite - God will be begging us to stay with Him, because He loves us.   It's an interesting image, but it helps me when I remember that before I make a decision.

I'll close now. Time for you to get back to school! That was fast. I hope you have another great week. Get some rest.

Love,

Tab  

Never thought bowling could be so intense!

A fun P-day activity turned into two missionaries, one intense bowling match, with two highly valued prizes up for grabs. Heard it was historic! Wish I could've been there to witness the grand event.

The two contenders! 

FACES that my kid loves!

These are a few of the faces that my kid loves......And I have come to love them too!
In his weekly letters home, Tab often mentions someone by name and says how awesome they are or how much he loves them. I think he's going to return home with a million new friends. And I hope to meet them all!

Elder G.....he's the Man!

I think Tab is rubbing off on them!

 This is a face that I happen to love!

Elder H.....and the famous hat and glasses!

Elder H.....he loves this kid!

Elder E.......a magnificent creature!

quote by Elder McLain

Elder T.....the awesome 2nd companion!

Elder E......The beloved first companion!

The 7 ft. giant that's filled with pure love!  

quote by Elder McLain 

Elder V......they just mesh well together!

Charity is to love others, even when they disappoint you.

Another great message from father to son.....one that I appreciate hearing and being reminded of often.

Tab,

I heard a quote attributed to Mother Teresa today (I have not verified the quote) that I thought was insightful: "Charity is to love others, even when they disappoint you." As a missionary, you will certainly have people fall short of your righteous hopes for them, so there is ample opportunity to develop charity for those you teach and work with.

Have a great week — I'll try to check in with you from Boston.

Love,

Dad

Thanks Dad!

 

That's the type of love Jesus Christ had... everyone let him down! But he still loved everyone. I've got to work on that... we had a lot of disappointments yesterday, so an opportunity to build charity it is! Have an awesome week in Boston.

 

Love,

Tab

We met another amazing individual!

Another GREAT letter from Elder McLain! I love all the letters we get from him.  But, what I appreciate the most is that despite the frustrations and hardships they face during the week, he still manages to find something good about it! And most of all I love how he realizes that to be really great doesn't mean to do everything perfectly. It's about sincerely loving others. I'm sure Tab is good at that!


Hi Mom!

Well, it was a pretty great week again! This time, it ended not as well. Usually Sunday determines if we had a good week or not because it determines my mood for Monday. But we had a lot of lessons this week and we met another most amazing individual named Nnameaka. He is from Nigeria. He is one of those people who you can just see the spiritual light that he possesess. I've not met very many people like that. We were walking to an appointment and he was sitting on his porch watching his family play on the sidewalk. We waved and I really wanted to stop and talk to him, but we didn't. I even told Elder Vargas right after that I wished we would have stopped. We went and visited some people and fortunately that road Nnameaka lives on was on our way back. So about an hour later we walked down the street and he was still there. So of course we stopped to talk to him. He was so nice to us. He told us that there was a church in his village in Nigeria and he thought that the members were an exceptional group of people. I think that missionaries had even talked to him before in Nigeria. So we gave him something to read and talked a little bit about what we do and then we set up an appointment for the next day. And best part - he was actually there waiting for us the next day at that hour. Nobody does that. We taught him three times last week and he accepted a baptismal date of September 8th. He told us he had no concerns but that he would pray to know what we had taught him is true. He understood everything, especially the message of the Restoration. Sadly, he couldn't come to church on Sunday but he said next week he would. Now we just need to get some members at his place so he has friends in the church. Because I know soon he will receive an answer to his prayers and he will be baptized. So that was our miracle new friend of the week. We still are teaching Jos and Manny and the Cassignol family (part member family). And we are still trying to teach Camille's family - the best family ever! But the parents are just never home except for Sunday afternoons so we can only visit them once a week if that.

The whole week was great, but our Sunday was kind of a let down. All of our investigators, less actives and recent converts couldn't/didn't come to church so we only had two investigators there with us. Half of the ward was gone too because it is vacation time for a lot of families. A lot of families have moved out lately, and we haven't gotten the new families yet. ACTUALLY, Fritz and Akim came, which is awesome. They only come about once every two months. Fritz is Courage's friend (Recent convert from 2012) and Akim is Courage's brother. Courage is the only one in his family who is active in the church, which makes his story even more amazing. I was really happy to have them there. Ange had to work last minute and so he couldn't pick up Johnson and of course his brother couldn't come. And he was supposed to pick up Manny. Ugh. Then Jos had a family/friend conflict right before church so she didn't come, and she was giving our investigator Aluel a ride. So that was a big smack in the face like an hour before church started. But Marshelle Cassignol and Edward came (investigators)! So that was great! But we were doing favors for all the teachers so we couldn't sit in any classes, so it was just a decent Sunday. We've got a good week ahead of us though!

 

Sounds like you had a good week! Good ole Indie bike rides, I remember the first few times you took her (it may still be this way) and she would tug till she busted her neck muscles. And it looks like Dad had some fun for the first time in a while! Or at least I hope he had fun.... What does the yard look like now? Oh how was Ritas? The gelatti with swedish fish ice is still the #1, but don't spill it on anything because it won't come off. I'm glad Colby is good - tell him he's a goon - I never had that problem from my golf swing! Either he is swinging funny or his golf bag is not on right. Or he's swinging too hard, haha.

To answer your questions:

1. Yes, I am enjoying him as my companion. He's in the great companion bubble, which is basically all of my companions! We're starting to get much better at teaching and the work in our area is accelerating. We enjoy each other, and seriously, we don't ever have conflicts. That's mostly why I don't write about him, and the fun/great things we do every day are just normal to me. He's good at keeping an easy going attitude like mine. All four of us in the apartment have a blast!

2. Being district leader is great - I am not really that great at it. But my district likes me and I try to help them the best I know. The cool part is that our area is a really good example area for the district (so hopefully they look up to us for that) and President Jeppson told me that I don't need to be the greatest at anything to be the greatest district leader... I just need to have sincere love and concern for my district. So I try to do that, and the other things come naturally.

3. Yes, I did. And thank you kindly! I'll find somewhere to go that is yummy. We went to Red Robin for my birthday - that was really good, but not as good as the teriyaki burgers I cooked for us at home. Oh, we have a grill that our awesome neighbor/landlord gave to us. His name is Bill, he lives above us. He's really cool.

4. Yes, last week I did. I haven't heard back yet, though. And I will. Our secret.

5. I can't think of much that I need. Just keep doing your thing! I might send some ties home that I don't wear that much. I'll switch you for a few. Like that one tie I am wearing in this picture I am going to attach. I want that one! It's nice.

 

6. Well I hope that I don't become a wierdo on my mission. If you ask me, I've learned to be a lot funnier and random from living with Elder Traasdahl. That helps me in the work. My letters aren't ever going to be super funny - I am not good at conveying satire in text, especially an email. Unless you want me to write the way I do to Clark and Reese. In that case, you probably wouldn't understand what I am saying. President Jeppson is serious, but he is always funny too. And he is mega passionate! So I don't think with him as the mission president that it is possible for me to be any different than I am now, because that's the way he is. He's the greatest. I might become more loving and passionate about things though.

 

Well I have to close up. Thanks for the email! How are Regan and Caitlin doing? What are they up to? I don't hear from them much. Tell Regan and Chase to get married or something. Hey, see if you can find Clark's home address for me. That would be neat.

 

Buenas. I love you!

 

Tab

With God, All things are possible!

I love reading the correspondence between Tab and his dad. Tim always has a good uplifting message for him. Here's a portion of his letter this week along with Tab's reply.....

Hi Tab,

In my scripture study this week, I came across a simple scripture in 1 Ne 17.  It is Nephi talking to Laman and Lemuel about their spiritual laziness. He tells them, "Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God." I thought that sometimes I get busy and am slow to remember the Lord. Remembering the Lord is so important so that we can always have his Spirit with us We need to be quick to remember the Lord and slow to do iniquity. Nephi then tells his brothers that because they were past feeling and could not hear the whisperings of the Spirit (because of their iniquity and slowness to remember the Lord), the angel of the Lord spoke to them with a voice of thunder and caused the earth to shake. I thought this was interesting because if we are close to the Lord, he will speak to us through the whisperings of the Spirit. Because of the importance of Laman and Lemuel's mission in taking a branch of Israel to the promised land, he sent angels and loud manifestations to them to get their attention, even though His preferred approach would have been to send the still small voice of the Spirit.

Remember the Lord always so that you may have His Spirit with you always. Listen for the whisperings of the Spirit.

I love you buddy.  Do great things this week!

Dad

Hey Dad,

 

Sounds like you had a crazy week. I feel bad - I've never experienced anything like that. Haha, I can imagine that you would have been on edge for the whole thing. That's tough.

 

Ironically, Elder Vargas and I taught a lesson in High Priests group out of the Lorenzo Snow book (ch.14) title "With God, All Things Are Possible". We weren't well prepared because we have no access to that manual during the week so we had to read and plan during the free hour we had before church. That was frustrating because the material in that lesson is really informative and we could only share surface level insights on it. But it worked out because you know how High Priests are - they talk for minutes at a time. Here's a direct quote from Brother Gruber, "Let me tell you three stories". So we didn't end up teaching much anyway. I learned a lot, though! And if you haven't read that lesson yet, you should. It may help you with all the things you have to prioritize.

 

One of my favorite scriptures is 1 Nephi 17:3, and we have shared it a lot with families. We also talked about a similar topic in PEC yesterday, walking by faith. Brother Herway shared an exerpt from August's Ensign and talked about people who pray for guidance and afterward are still unsure of what they should do... something that I feel happens to me a lot. And the advice was to take the first few steps into the dark, then our path will be lighted. Then he shared a scripture from Ether 12, "dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Again, I learned something new.

 

In my letter to mom I'll include some information on how the work is going. Thanks for being a great example of hard work!

 

Love you,

Tab


Hey Mom!

I am good today. We had a really good week work-wise. We met lots of new people and we got a lot of referrals! We had interviews with President Jeppson and he just filled us with his love. Sacrament meeting went really well... ANGE AND ARDING passed and blessed the sacrament!!! Oh that was so great. And they loved it, I was so happy about that. I didn't really get to pay much attention to the talks but the one I did hear was great. Brother Marcelino - the brazilian (born in Sao Paulo) guy who made the most amazing meal ever for us - talked about the blessings of bringing his child up in the church. His wife isn't a baptized and confirmed member of the church, but she probably will be soon. She is an unbaptized member of the church, literally. They come every week and I think she will be speaking next week, haha. Anyway, when I get home dad, I'll have you cook this meal for us cause I'm know you told me you've had it before and have some idea how to cook it. It was the traditional Saturday meal - it has a name - and it was rice, beans (with sausage), collared greens, vinegar, and then fried empanada type things filled with seasoned beef. I was so satisfied with the food he made, and he's a great guy so of course I listened to his talk.

 

We saw Jos this week and she committed to next Sunday as a baptismal date. I was not expecting a positive response when we first invited her, but she said yes and that she'd do it. The only thing that would postpone is if we don't get to visit her enough times to teach her the rest of the lessons we planned to prepare her for a baptismal interview. But, in that case, we would just move it to the following week. we're excited for her - she tends to be really good at keeping commitments and so I'm excited for her to be able to continue progressing in the gospel post-baptism. There's a lot for her to do, maybe she'll think about serving a mission.

 

We picked up a lot of new investigators and we still weren't able to see Camille's family! We went there yesterday and he was busy with some of his friends so he told us to come back on his next day off, which is Sunday. But we did get to teach his wife and she is way more receptive than he is. The kids are so awesome, and we have planned to teach them a sweet lesson so I'm excited for that. If we could get them all to church (which we made a goal to for this coming sunday)... oh man. The ward would love them! I don't know if it's so much that they need the gospel, but the church needs them! They are a great family.

 

No, I'm not that busy with my new responsibility as District Leader. I just have to keep track of the districts numbers on Sunday night and prepare meetings for tuesday. The obligations I have as a leader are just to love the members of the district and to teach them how to do missionary work. Apparently God thinks I know what I am doing... ha! But it's fine, and I enjoy it. No I don't have a new companion and no, it's just an individual calling. So I'm still with Elder Vargas. Yes, I do get to hang out with Elder House a little bit more, but not much. Just at meetings. He's a good district leader!

 

Yes, the mission is going wild! Sort of. Sadly, our zone struggles (zone 9). We have the worst numbers in the mission, and I feel like the missionaries I know are doing good work, but somehow we just don't put out the same numbers as the rest of the zones in the mission. I think it has always been that way. However, I am not mistaken when I say that many of the best missionaries are in this zone. Our zone leaders are the best zone leaders in the mission. Elder Bell (the seven footer) is a wizard, and so is Elder Rodeback. So I hope things can get better - we had an awesome zone meeting last Tuesday and not an awesome week. We'll see how the rest of the month turns out.

 

So I am reading the Book of Mormon again (only the best! just kidding) because it's part of the missions goal, and I am in the very beginning of Alma. I have to finish before Sept 30th, and I'm a little behind. It's difficult for me to finish this challenge because I am a super slow reader and I process information like a million times. I basically have put notes on every other verse, but the thing is I just need to read through it fast. I hate doing that though. Have you already read all of the Old Testament?

 

It's cooling off a little, like today it was beautiful, overcast, and it just rained. But lately it's been really humid and about 85 degrees. I don't like that weather because it's not overbearing but it is the type of weather where I sweat if I move at all. And it's even hotter in peoples houses cause nobody out here has central air. Anyway, I have to close up.

 

Thanks for the awesome letter! It sounds like everyone is great, except Rorie, Caitlin, and Regan cause I didn't hear about them. But Colby is awesome! I'm proud of him. His golf team is great, too.

 

Love you all,

Tab

This was a great week!

Still doing the good work! 

Hey Mom!

 

Haha, how in the world did you get that picture? Elder Bell took it - Elder Bell is one of my favorite missionaries in the world, in case I didn't already say that. He's 6'9" and every inch is full of love. He is so nice to me. Plus he's super funny, as demonstrated from the photo he made.

 

Well, this was a great week! We didn't have any investigators at church :( but Ange and Curt received the aaronic priesthood and Ange was able to participate in the ordination of his brother... I loved that. They are the most solid guys ever. And they are sticking to it. Johnson is a super solid guy too, all three of them are diamonds in the rough of Trenton. Jos didn't come to church yesterday because she always cries during the testimony meetings and she doesn't like it... Seriously! She refused to come. So that's good. We saw some awesome people this week though like Camille (I talked about last week I think) and Manny. Manny (27) is the most sincere and thoughtful person in Trenton. We walked by him the other day and he smiled at us - we waved - but then we decided to turn around and talk to him. He's just the nicest guy. We talked to him for a while and next time we visited we gave him a Book of Mormon and a Bible. He was extremely thankful. Then we talked all about the scriptures and he loved it. He's been to a lot of churches but wasn't all that excited about any of them. So this coming Sunday he will come to ours. And he lives right by Ange so it's perfect. We plan to give him a baptismal date in our next visit :) We also saw Darlington (finally) and he is the inactive member who almost served a mission that I talked about weeks ago. He's in a tough situation but we're helping him back into inactivity. He's really excited about it, but kinda down on life sadly. And he has no phone, so it's tough to have appointments with him. We taught a lot of lessons last week, which is nice. And we committed three people to baptism, two saying yes! So this coming week should be good.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed the memory card. Haha, Elder House got his glasses back. He kicked me in a bowling match the following week. So he's ok now. Yeah see if you can get another Golden State hat, he loves the thing so I'll just give him the old one (sorry Colby). I have no recollection of what store it was, but I know it was online, and it was the same store that I got my blue ear muff GS Warriors hat. Hope that helps. Those ties you sent this week were awesome! I love the Tommy Hilfiger one - it is beautiful. Thank you! And of course, the green one. I got plenty of compliments on both. The Ted Baker is so nice, so I'll have to find a day to wear it when I won't be going outside or anything - haha. And I'm wearing my tan pants right now :) Did the shirt fit Colby? or someone? I thought it was sweet, just had shorty sleeves.

 

Good luck to Colby! I know he'll be just fine. Tell him to say hi to Jackson and whatever people I knew that were on the team when I was. And Brady and the Pro shop people.

 

I haven't heard about anything iPads or Facebook yet.

 

Alright have a super week. I love you all.

 

Tab

p.s. LUCKY DOGH! Wish I were hangin out up at Snowbird right now. We were just talking about Snowbird and Park City. I would like to live in Park City one day......or South Africa.

Make it manifest

Got this picture today from a friend who lives in New Jersey and attends church in the same ward building as Tab. I love getting unexpected emails with pictures in them of my missionary!

Elder McLain and Elder House