President Taggart and I went on a split!

So, Tab gets a new companion and gets to go on splits with President Taggart on his first day in the field! No pressure. And I was lucky enough to get a sweet text and picture from a sister in New Jersey who had them over doing some service work in her yard. It was a good week!

Hi Mom! 

Well I'm here.......Are you on today?

Here's a little bit that I wrote to dad and I will write back to your letter as well... "I was not able to say goodbye to the Jeppsons. We had an all mission transfer conference and we got to hear their departing testimonies. Some missionaries lined up to hug them and say goodbye but somehow I missed that. I'm not distraught that I missed it. They were pretty darn good, though. President Jeppson shared some wild stories with us about his growing up. He has an amazing life. I like the way he speaks - he's very Baptist-preacher-like. The churches in some areas (like Tom's River) need more of that, in my opinion. Anyway, President Taggart is the new mission president. His first day here he decided to take a road trip down to Tom's River and go on a split with our companionship! So Elder Packham (my new companion) went with Elder Jones (one of the assistants) and I went with President Taggart. They called us about an hour before they got there so we didn't have near enough plans to be prepared for that. We had some set appointments, however, so Elder Packham and Elder Jones went to those for a couple of hours and President Taggart and I went and saw inactive members. It was a treat for me. I have never done anything like that. I had almost no idea what I was doing, but we got it done. It reminded me of home teaching with Brother Kahn. We ended up teaching three lessons together and so did the other elders. So, we had seven lessons that day. It was a good day! Hopefully I impressed President Taggart at least a little bit ;) I really like him. He said he would much rather be spending time teaching with the missionaries than doing things in the office or whatever would take him away from that. I am sure President Jeppson felt the same way, but perhaps President Taggart has no idea what he's getting into OR he'll place more of a priority to come out with us than President Jeppson did. We'll see. I like them both! Of course, I would never compare him to President Jeppson. That's the same advice that President Jeppson himself and our Stake President gave us.

That's about it from me. We saw Igor again. He was on vacation for the last two weeks. He came to church and had an ecclesiastical endorsement interview with the bishop. So that was great. He has a baptism date of July 13th! We'll see how that works out."

So that's President Taggart for you! He's awesome. He will probably do a lot of things differently and perhaps he will catch on to writing letters in a couple of weeks. He had about 2 hours to spend with President Jeppson when he came into New Jersey. An hour was spent eating dinner together, haha. They really left it all up to him and the Lord and the missionaries. I find that impressive. It's another reason to believe that this is God's work. Elder Perry shared a neat story I was just reminded of about a conference he had with the leaders of Christian churches across the world. I forget the name of the group but it's a big deal. They discuss how to maintain religious freedom and equality and how to build interfaith relations. Anyway, they meet once a year or so and in the last meeting Elder Perry said that the counsel
(including guys like the Presiding Archbishop of Rome, the senior Apostle of the Quorum of the Twelve, etc.) discussed how to protect religious freedom. They were very concerned at the way the world is turning. After all was said and done, they had many ideas and actions to take. The question was asked who would be able to take the initiative and lead out taking a course of action. Nobody spoke up. Nobody knew what to do. All of them looked at Elder Perry. They knew that the Quorum of the Twelve was the only group that could and would do it. In essence, he was the only one in that council that held the Priesthood of God. Only The Twelve would have the divine assistance and power from the Priesthood needed to carry out the plans the council had made. I wish I could tell it how he did. But he said that that happens every time they meet together. He bore a strong testimony that the Priesthood was restored to the earth and that the fulness of the keys were held by President Monson. I felt it! Especially when he talked like a cowboy out of the side of his mouth.

I got your package. Thank you again! you knew exactly what I wanted. I did give my coat away because I bought a new one. I will bring the new one home, though. It is really nice. I don't think I will stay out longer. Nobody that I know of has been granted an extension. Perhaps President Taggart would have a different opinion on it.

I'm glad Sister Reynolds sent you a picture. We get to do service every once in a while. Maybe once a week. I forgot to bring regular clothes though and we were far from home so we just stayed in our missionary garb. Sister Reynolds is great!

Well that's about it that I can think of!

Love you, 

tab

Thought I'd post the sweet note and pictures I got this week. Love getting these!

My text from Sister Reynolds

Doing work with Elder Packham

Sister Reynolds and Elder Comish

Still the same old smiley, goofy, laid back, happy camper Tab!

Love these faces!

Just chillin.

Gettin' some good grub!

Doing work!

Elders McLain and Comish

Zone 9

The dynamic duo

yep.....a frog!

He would kiss it.

Subway into New York.

Baptizing in Tom's River

On the way to the temple!

Gotta love him!

Work in our area was weird this week, but we still had a baptism!

Mondays. The one day I wake up and immediately check my email. I love seeing Tab's name pop up knowing he's there emailing me. Sometimes he is and sometimes he's not. Today I missed him. I was bummed but his sweet letter was enough to sustain me until next week. Love my missionary!

Hi Mom! 

It appears that you are sleeping today. Maybe. 

Well, this week was kind of an odd one. We went to the temple on Thursday and that was pretty neat. It was a pain in the neck to try to keep all the missionaries in the zone together while going through New York. We took a direct route to the temple and on the subway there wasn't enough room so all of us got split up. It was really annoying. I hate Manhattan. There are way too many people there. Most people only care about getting to and from work on time so they can get pretty nasty if you get in their way. And the whole city smells like cigarettes. I would never live there. I like the temple though! And it was the first time I had done baptisms for the dead in over two years, so I really enjoyed that part. I prefer baptisms and confirmations over endowment sessions. All in all, it was a pretty regular trip to the temple. We ate at a Portuguese barbecue place in Newark on our way home and that was yummy. 

Work in our area was weird this week. We tried really hard to teach people and get at least 10 contacts a day and for some reason it was really tough. So we didn't have near as much success as we usually do, but we still had a baptism! So that's good. Natalie really enjoyed it. She is super quiet, but I know she was excited. She is Vietnamese, by the way. So we may be getting some authentic Vietnamese food one of these days. :) We lost track of a lot of our other investigators this week so we're probably be doing a restart this week (and transfer). Elder Comish is being transferred so I'll be leading out the area. I don't know it very well, but it'll be alright. I hope my new companion has a GPS. If not, I'll be asking for one soon! I'll let you know. 

Yes, we traveled a lot this week too. We usually do. Driving people around! Two of our companionships' cars have gotten hit in the last few weeks so they were both in the shop this week. We were helping them out with that as well. Then one Elder hit his head (funny story) and had to get stitches so we were driving around taking care of that. It was a busy week.

I am glad your surgery went well! The side-effects you had sound a lot like the ones I had when I got surgery on my pinky. Mine was less intense and I only was on medication for a day or two (oxycodone) and then things got better. But I hated taking that pain medication. It always made me light headed and nauseous. I can't see how anyone would get addicted to something like that. It stinks! My comps have told me that I breathe heavy at night but I doubt that it is my nose. i think it's my tonsils! need em out. Actually I think it's allergies too, because it hasn't been a problem in the winter. Maybe i should just have my nose cut off!

By the way that Masala and naan was super good so if you bought that at just any other normal store, let me know and I'll go find it. Thank you for that! I have yet to cook the Stubbs stuff but we have a slow cooker now. So I l will et you know how that goes next week. yumyum 

Other than that, this week was pretty normal. We made the stuff you sent and I ate all the oreos. Those were the best tasting oreos I've ever had, tied with mint oreos. I will be getting more at walmart. As for the indian food, I really enjoyed just dipping the naan in the sauce. It was better than the dish itself, with the rice and chicken. I got super full so I didn't even end up eating dinner that day. We ate lunch at about 2 or 3 and then my stomach was full for the rest of the day. I think it expanded in my belly. It's pretty dense food. I loved it though. From where did you buy it? 

Ahhh those food trucks! where's that at? jdawgs needs a truck and they need a taco truck.

Send me updates on the world cup! Not a link to a webpage but just a written out scoresheet or something. I like hearing about it - it makes for good small talk with the people we meet. Does North Korea have its own team? If so, are they doing well?

Have a good week!

LOve,

tab

We've been meeting lots of great people here!

Best part of my week......Letters from my boy. Still doing well and going strong!

Hi Mom! 

Oooh, I gotta try that surgery when I get home. Just straight cut off my nose so I don't have to deal with it! Hope it goes well for you. 

Question - When did we live in San Francisco? what years. I am wondering if you got hit by the earthquake. 

So I wrote another long letter to Dad. That should let you know how my week went. 

Love you!

​Hi Dad!

I had no idea that Dean Larsen was the Dean Larsen that was a general authority. I just figured he was a really good guy. I hear the name Jack Welch all the time on my mission, especially from long-time members who enjoy church history. ​I would be nervous to teach a lesson in front of them as well. This morning I read President Monson's talk called "True Shepherds" and it briefly mentions a story told by President Hinckley of when he was meeting in his home with Spencer Kimball and Thomas Monson (the Missionary Executive Committee then) and his home teacher stopped by, unanticipated. His home teacher nervously shared a quick message and then left. Your experience reminded me of that. 

So, I have humbled myself a little bit from last week to this week. Our meetings were much better yesterday. Sadly, instead of having five of our investigators come like last week, we had none. That would happen! I'm not mad, but I was a little bit disheartened. Nevertheless, I enjoyed sacrament meeting a lot. I love reading the scriptures, so I did that for much of the meeting. I enjoyed the speaker selection this Sunday. By the way, Happy Fathers Day! I wish I would have been able to tell that to you yesterday. You've been a great example for me. It helps to be a missionary - while preparing for lessons I try to think of my personal experiences with gospel topics and so I reflect on lessons learned and childhood memories often. In my patriarchal blessing I am encouraged to do so regularly. I still need to be better at writing in my journal. That just isn't something I enjoy doing, so naturally it doesn't get done. I prefer to read or just sit and think. 

We've been meeting lots of great people here and I am excited to see how things turn out within the next couple of weeks. A lot of the very "prepared" people we have met have slowly fallen away or dropped us entirely and that is sad to see. That happens a lot in this area. We teach a lot of investigators one or two or even three times and then we never see them again. Igor is one example. We haven't heard a word from him since last Sunday when he came to church. :( Yesterday, we were super fortunate and we met with an investigator we had only taught once before named Jeni. It was kind of a miracle that we were even able to visit her but the lesson we had was even better. She has grown up in a Jewish home for her entire life and so the Gospel was something completely foreign to her. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and she soaked it up like a sponge. She is really humble and I think that is why. She realizes she needs the Gospel probably better than anyone I have ever taught on my mission. So I'll let you know how that goes. I know we'll for sure be able to see her again. ;) 

The Stake President came to our meetings yesterday and so I assume that he will be calling a new bishop fairly soon, perhaps within the next two weeks. It's like the Church's version of scouting!

Anyway, thanks for the letter. The Pereira's story is a neat one! I tell it sometimes. 

Love you,

Tab

So, I've said this before. I love letters between Tab and his dad and I occassionally share them because of their message. Here is another one of those times. I loved the story Tim shared.  Here goes.........

Hey Tab.

I hope you had a great week. My week went quite well — no complaints. I kept busy, met a few deadlines, resolved some stressful issues, got caught up on some things.  Now I just need to do the same this week.  I taught priesthood today in the 14th Ward HP group on Honoring the Priesthood Keys Restored by Joseph Smith.  Brother Dean Larsen (formerly senior president of the Quorum of the Seventy) told an awesome story. He told about a time when area presidents (who were also in the Quorum of the Seventy) were starting to be called — area presidencies were a a new way of handling the growth of the church.  He told about a training meeting he was helping to lead with Elder Packer. At the time, the area presidents has been set apart in their callings and had realized that they had not been given keys. They asked Elder Packer the question, "How can we preside as area presidents without keys?" Elder Packer turned to Elder Larsen and said, "Dean, what's the answer?" Elder Larson read to them scriptures from Section 107 of the Doctrine and Covenants (verses 22-34) and taught them that they do not have keys, but that they have apostolic authority to act in place of the apostles when they are directed by the apostles to do so. They cannot initiate the work of an apostle or make the decisions of an apostle, but they can carry out the work of an apostle under the direction of an apostle. Anyway, it was a really cool complement to the lesson and added tremendously to what I was trying to teach. I shouldn't get stressed out to teach this group with Dean Larsen, Richard Anderson, Jack Welch, and others, but I do. They are all so nice and supportive.

Before I forget, Oneill said to tell you that the Miners send their love and that they appreciate the friendship that you've given to their family.

Last week you lamented a little that the Spirit was not a strong in your ward as you would hope and that your investigators were not being uplifted by the members like they could be. I've been there. In the last area of my mission, the bishop actually pulled me and my companion aside and told us that the investigators and converts we were bringing into the church were not any good and would not add to the ward and would just go inactive. This was the least successful time of my mission — we worked super hard, but had pretty minimal success.

I'm attaching a couple of pictures. The first one is of the Restinga Branch in July 1982. Restinga was considered a bit of a slum. To combat the poverty in the area, the government had built a large amount of housing projects. Most people were quite poor. Only one member had a car. We met in a school building and the branch was mainly composed of women and children. The branch president was "on loan" from a ward in the city. My companion and I were the counselors in the branch presidency. Ivan, the little black guy on the front row was one of two active priesthood holders in the branch. There were some great women in this branch (the two grandmas on the front row — one left, one center). I am certain that they will be exalted some day. Our meetings in this branch were a bit crazy — rarely did a Sunday go by that we weren't called upon to speak or teach lessons because those that were assigned didn't show up.

The second picture is of Ulisses Pereira and his wife Maria in front of the Manaus Brazil Temple, which was dedicated in 2012. Ulisses is the temple president and Maria is the temple matron. Ulisses and Maria were baptized into the Restinga Branch in August of 1982 as a young couple with two children. Ulisses was set apart as the EQ president after a couple of months and became the branch president within the first year of his membership. I'm sure he must have wondered what he had gotten himself in to. He and Maria have gone on to do many important things for the church and Brazil. My point is that you should not worry too much about the conditions in your ward. Work to help the ward improve. Do your part and the Lord will take care of the rest! He will bless your investigators.

Have a great week Tab!  You are doing great things!

Love, Dad

This week was great and not so great!

Hi!

Hope everyone had a great time on their trips! 

Dad and Colby - 

Man, sounds like you had a good time. I am jealous of Colby - trying
to get around by himself in two big cities. I would love to do that.
It's fun using public transportation even as a missionary. A few times
in Trenton we took the bus to get to church in Princeton. Making the
transfers between bus zones was difficult there, but in Newark, public
transportation runs smoothly everywhere. Newark is probably like a
small version of SF with much fewer tourist attractions. And it's more
dangerous, I would imagine. I'll show you around one day :)

This week was great and not so great! On our part, we had a lot of
success in finding and teaching. We fell short of our goal of 20
lessons, however we had five of our investigators at sacrament meeting
and had a lot of member present lessons. We have more people on
baptismal date too. One of the highlights from this week is a lesson
we had on Friday with a new investigator named Igor. He is Ukrainian
and his family members are Jewish. He speaks something like five
languages fluently (Hebrew, Russian, Yiddish, and two others besides
English) and he is only 20 years old. He is a Christian. He is
planning to go to BYU so he showed up to church during our zone
meeting and asked us about getting an ecclesiastical endorsement. He
also said that he was interested in joining the Church. So, we sat
down with him and talked about his religious background and it turns
out he knows way too much about the scriptures so we had a hard time
teaching the Restoration simply. It wasn't a mess, partly because we
were in a trio with one of the assistants, but I wish that I had been
more prepared for that. It worked out alright. He came to church on
Sunday and he said he would "absolutely" be baptized. I look forward
to going to school with him! I think right now he has a desire to be
baptized in order to join the crowd when he goes to BYU. But I am
certain that desire will change with time, especially while he's at
school. He's awesome. We had good lessons with Jackee and Jose this
week, and they also came to church, but left after sacrament meeting.
More on that later. Natalie came to church and enjoyed it as usual.
All three of them have a baptismal date of June 22nd. We're praying
for them! Igor should be on date soon, too. One of the recent converts
in the ward, Denise, brought her son who we just started teaching. He
is 10 years old. He will be baptized and join the church very soon as
well. The only reason he hasn't already is because of a custody battle
that Denise is still going through. She recently married a member in
Texas and will be moving there in August assuming she wins her case.
She is one of "the elect" if I have ever met one. So Ryan will either
be baptized here and move quickly thereafter or join the church in
Texas.

We've been contacting a lot and teaching new people, but it is
difficult for us to see them more than once or twice. I'm not sure
why. That is kinda how New Jersey rolls from what I've seen. But just
making 10 contacts a day helps us feel accomplished and it helps us
reach our goals. We see blessings in other areas of the work as a
result. Our teaching pool recycles a lot quicker through people who
are or aren't interested. Finding motivation to get our there and talk
to people is hard for me on some days. Other days I am all for it. It
helps to have a companion who can pick up the slack on the days that
I'm not feeling it. I try to do the same for him. We work well
together.

Thanks for all the snacks! We enjoyed them, especially mint oreos haha.

Love you too! Hope you all enjoyed your trips. :)

Love, Tab!

I don't want time to pass by quickly!

Well, after reading this letter I think it's safe to say Tab is keeping very busy! I love his praise for his companion. He sounds great, but he wants an extension?!?!?! I guess he's happy and Jersey Strong!

Hi Mom!

Another Monday... did you enjoy your week?

I did. We stayed really busy with stake and missionary meetings in the north. We did a lot of driving. That is the only problem with thesouth. New Jersey isn't even that big of a state! It just takes 3x as long to go the same distance in Utah. My companion and I set some good goals and we saw lots of success. We had 22 lessons, which is the first time since he has been here (at least 6 months) that that hashappened. So that was good! I ate at Smashburger again and then I had a beef brisket sandwich at Costco. It wasn't bad. I would probably eat it again. Our team up Ryan Stojka takes us out to eat every time we go with him so we've been getting lots of free yummy food. :) I had Five Guys too after our meeting in Morristown. We also had a meeting with the stake president in East Brunswick to address the problems in the units in the zone. Face to face with a Jersey stake president talking to him about the problems with the leaders in his units is really scary! It must be very humbling for him.

I sent a big letter to dad and so I'll copy it in here for you. Hopefully it answers your questions!

"Thank you for giving me an update on your trip to Alaska. I enjoyed hearing that you were able to fly around in a Cessna. Elder Traasdahl's brother in Norway was required to take a small plane like that to get to transfer conference when he was serving in Svalbard. Supposedly, the missionaries there are required to carry around shotguns to protect them from bears and other wild animals. I'm not sure if that is true, but it sounds cool.

So I'll update you a little bit on the work. We stay really busy. I am surprised at how much time we have to work in our area. We had 22 lessons in our area last week, which is something hard to do even as a regular missionary without leadership responsibilities. We lost a lot of time on Thursday and all day Friday due to stake and mission leader meetings. It takes us a little over two hours to drive up to Morristown with regular traffic. That's the one problem with this zone: it is huge and it is way down south... "down to the river to [work]!" But other than that I love the zone. We have great missionaries who are strong enough to stay busy and be obedient without the nearby presence of leaders. We only get to see other missionaries (besides the ones in our ward) once a week at district meetings. I pray for them a lot - this whole zone seems to struggle with finding and baptizing. However, my area has been fairly fruitful in the last few transfers. Since I have gotten here, things have slowed down a little bit. But I try not to let that happen!

We have a couple investigators who have baptismal dates - Natalie (June 21st) and Jackee (June 22). Natalie is very promising. She is only 14 years old, but she is very mature for her age. She has already been taught everything over the phone by sisters in Salt Lake, so all
we do is just follow up to make sure she understands everything. She has come to church on her own for several weeks. The only hold back is getting permission from her parents. I haven't met them yet, but she says they aren't interested in learning more about the church. We'll see what they have to say about her joining it! She is Vietnamese, by the way. Jackee is hispanic and she is 24 years old. She actually just broke up with her boyfriend she was living with so now she can get baptized without having to get married! She is like most investigators - super willing in lessons, but she doesn't do too well at keeping commitments. Other than that, we have taught a lot of people once or twice and then not been able to see them again. New Jersey special! People seem to just disappear...

My companion is a champ. I love him. He is what President Jeppson calls "the consumate missionary". I have a lot to learn from him. And him from me, hopefully.

Thanks again for writing! I look forward to going to Alaska with you again. Enjoy your trip with Colby! Get some yummy Vietnamese (#23 Dry - was that the dish?) for me. We've seen a couple places around here so I'll go check them out."

Haha, no I don't want time to pass by quickly! I thought about asking for an extension but I highly highly doubt they would give it to me. :) Reese will get back in time to go to the winter semester so we'll all go back at the same time :) I just have to find an apartment! Elder Traasdahl is coming too!

I'm doing great. I love you all!

Love, Tab