Tanner's Letter Sent on January 3, 2012

Hey Happy New Year!

Sorry it's taken so long to email you, I haven't been able to get back to you since last year! Haha-wow-It's great using that same joke we've all heard since 1st grade:) Original. bahaha! Anywho-hope you all had a Happy New Years Day! Here at the MTC we had quite the wild party! It was pretty wild-haha! Just kidding-no celebrations-well in my room at least. I hope that all is going well for you all!

The language is coming along really well-we are doing better at speaking it more and I feel that I can say a lot of what I want to say with just basic Khmer words and throwing in some english when i don't know what it is in Khmer. It's really crazy how much I've learned. I know that the gift of tongues is real. I remember being really frustrated trying to pray in just khmer because I felt really limited-but the other day I was asked to pray in class and I was able to say the whole thing in khmer and almost as fast as I might say it in English. It definitely takes diligence and work though-I have really noticed that when I work and study hard it pays off.

This week we now teach 2 investigators now-Phannat and Som. I feel that I am getting a lot better at planning and studying effectively. I firmly believe that the better you plan, the better you study, and when you do those things you become a much better missionary and are better able to teach to investigators needs and have the Spirit.

I noticed that eating 3 big meals a day and just sitting in class all day wasn't helping my girlish figure, and that I have been getting really out of shape-haha! So lately I've been trying a little bit to work at running and I've been doing some crazy ab workout and a pushup workout where you do like a 100 different pushups with some elders in my zone and eating a little more healthy so I feel like i'm getting back into pretty good shape:)

Elder Barney has a member of his home ward that works at the Provo temple and so today after the temple; Elder barneys friend was able to give us a tour of some of the temple that you don't normally see-like going on the roof and to see some of the construction and stuff, which was really cool!

This week we talked a bit about the Atonement and here are a couple of scriptures I love about it-3 Nephi 9:22, and D&C 18:14-I love it because it's Christ inviting us to humble ourselves and come unto Him-that's why he Atoned for us-Because He loves us and wants us to come back-Simple yet I love that!

Anywho-sorry that this email isn't too exciting..Just know that all is well with me, i pray that all is well for you too. I love you and hope you have a great week!:)

Srolan,

Eeldoo Garlick

Elder Garlick & Elder Barney

Elder Garlick's companion, Elder Barney, knew a person that works in the Provo Temple. They had the opportunity to have a tour around the Provo Temple where most people aren't normally permitted. Here are some pictures of them on the Provo Temple's roof.

Tanner's Name Tag in Cambodian

Tanner's Letter Sent on Dec. 27, 2011

December 27, 2011

Hey hay hae hei! Suasdei!

How's life treating you?? I hope all is well. This past week has been great! I told a bit about Elder Bednar's talk-which again was incredible! Wow- I could have listened to him all day! So that was definitely the highlight of Christmas-a real spiritual feast to say the least. We had a real good lunch with turkey, potatoes, cheesecake, and what not but then dinner was good ol' sack lunchies but hey they were pretty good:) So yeah Christmas for me was great-I definitely missed the normal Christmas stuff and spending time with all of you and the fun traditions but I still had a great one. Sounds like you all did too! That's great.

So have I told you how we teach progressive investigators? It's our teachers but you still need to love them and you are blessed with the Spiritual insights as you love them and really try to meet their needs as if they were a real investigator. And sometimes nonmembers who come and let the missionaries teach them really do end up joining-so it's definitely something we take seriously! The lessons are all in Khmer so at first we would pretty much be reading the whole thing but now it's a lot better and we are learning to plan our lessons better and allow for us to say things in our own words(usually I'll write some cheat stuff in a little notebook and peek if I need to remember a word or point I wanted to address) We taught Hol Mon who ended up being Lukroo Marill, now we are teaching Phannat but he is gone for the week so we are teaching Som(Lukroo Marill-It's awesome to see how much better our lessons are teaching him compared to just 2 weeks ago! I can only imagine in another 8 weeks) So things are going great with the language and were learning to read-it's humbling because it really is like being a 4 year old trying to read! But hey it'll come!:)

I like to play 4 square a bunch in gym many times and everyone is fighting for the coveted king square-especially at the end-cause whenever the gym time is up whoever is the king gets bragging rights till the next gym time. Well, buckle your seat belts and prepare yourself mentally for what I'm about to disclose-I was pronounced king of 4 square on friday and we didn't have gym on saturday because of Christmas Eve and not on Sunday either-so I was King of the Grid for 3 days! ha then my loyal subjects dethroned me on monday. I know i know-I'm sure you are very proud-it's not worth crying tears of joy over though I 've already done that. Thank you though.

Haha anywho...Things are going great-It's really kinda weird that I will see like 4 groups of english speaking missionaries leave! The groups that I became friends with on my floor that came the same day as me left and then Elder Barney and I had the opportunity to orientate and welcome a new district in our branch on wednesday! One of the elders just got accepted to the byu animation program so i was freaking out and went to his room and had a good long chat with him!

Sickness is going around our district-we had three elders barfin it up from our district yesterday. And all the past week elders have had colds. I'm afraid my comp elder barney was barfin his guts out all last night-so yeah thats no fun..hopefully they just ate something that their stomachs didn't like... but hey I feel great!:) I hope it stays that way and I don't get sick!! So far so good.

Welp, thanks for everything-my love and prays go out to you!

Love,
Elder King of the Grid Garlick

Tanner's Letter Sent on Christmas

December 25, 2011

Comriapsua family!

Hey how´s it going? Tau krom kruasa robah khnom soksabaay tee?? I hope all is well. Happy Christmas!

I just want to first say thanks so much for all of the letters, emails, and the packages that I was blessed to recieve from you. I hope you know that I really do appreciate it- and that it means the world to me to hear from all of you! So um, yeah thanks!!:)

Alright, so Christmas in the MTC is awesome. Today we had a mission wide sacrament meeting with an apostle-Elder David A. Bednar. It was incredible. I was blessed with the opportunity to be apart of the group of elders that were chosen to help and pass the sacrament. With over 2100 people present for the sacrament in one room it was quite the spectacle! All week we have been hearing how much of a treat this Christmas was going to be and how we would be spiritually fed. I was so excited! and really was looking forward to today and especially to go and listen to a prophet teach and testify of Jesus Christ. I had high expectations about today and that I would really be nourished spiritually, but those expectations were greatly surpassed! Elder Bednar gave the most powerful and motivating talk I have ever heard in my life. And I'm not just saying that. Incredible. Really. He taught: "The work is a whole lot more about who you are and what you are than what you say." He taught us about how we need to not learn about Christ, but instead learn OF Christ. He then taught about the character of Christ and how he turned outwards. How often when things aren't going good do we turn inwards-like the natural man-The Cookie Monster as he made an analogy of(and did a way funny impersionation of-he's really funny by the way:) We think about ourselves and how we want others to help us out and to give us their attention. We need to strive to develop Christlike characteristics and reach outwards. He was really blunt and direct-"This mission is not about you. It's about what the Lord wants. It's not about you." It's about serving the Lord and turning outwards and not caring about yourself. The natural man is selfish but Christ is selfless. He taught us that a testimony is not enough or even the end goal. We need to become converted-Conversion is turning away from the natural man and turning outwards. Consistently being true to what you know to be true is conversion. And the only we wcan make those changes and turn outwards is through the Atonement-the Atonement gives us strength. Not only does Christ's grace cleanse us from sin but it also enables us to do good. The Atonement gives us strength beyond our own. When you think you can't do this on your own, you're right! But with the strength of the Lord you can.

I wish that you could have heard it yourself. I can't quite do it justice at all-the Spirit was strong and allowed us to feel the message. Anywho -the turning outward and becoming converted really stuck out to me. I loved it and have a lot to study and ponder now. I hope you know that I do have a testimony of Christ and His Church. I love this gospel. I know that I am in the exact right place and that is very comforting to me. I love our Savior and look forward to continuing to serve Him. Thanks you for all of your love and support. I will do my best to get back to all of you that have writen me, sometime this week. Thanks again! I love you.

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Elder Garlic

Tanner's Letter Sent on Dec. 20, 2011

December 20, 2011

Howdy!

How's life treating y'all?? From what I've heard things are going great:) That's l?awe nah to sdat. Things in the MTC are good, I am getting a long a lot better with my companion and my district. Elder Barney are becoming a lot more tight and we make each other laugh a lot now-he's really good at doing voice impressions and stuff. Haha oh funny thing last sunday the first one-a guy in our District-elder jongsma-kinda nerdy but way funny guy-love him-the branch presidency member read his name wrong when he was announcing something and said, "yongsma" and elder jongsma accidentally just instinctively said/yelled "Jongsma!!!" It was way funny and I love teasing him about it-sounds pretty bad but was actually funny. The branch presidency member was a little annoyed. Anywho-excited for Christmas?? I know I am! But this is the first Christmas that I'm not really looking forward to material things so much. We are going to have an Apostle come talk to us during a mtc wide sacrament meeting. And my companion and I were chosen to be among the few that get to help out with passing and blessing the sacrament- how exciting! I feel very blessed to have already had so many cool opportunities to serve and be involved.

I am startting to like the mtc a lot more-now that i am getting a lot more used to it! The first few days were really hard and i was getting really frustrated and felt really stressed. But things are a lot better now. I feel the Spirit super strong so many times-my testimony is growing tremendously. We have the opportunity to teach "investigators" some are actors and some are really nonmembers and have been converted from missionaries practicing on them. It's tough because you are to teach in Khmer-so we have to read probably most of our lesson- however last week as we taught Hol Mon-when I looked him in the eye- after explaing a little bit about who Heavenly Father was and Jesus Christ, and testified- without reading my words- that I knew that our Heavenly Father loves us and that we are children to God and that Jesus Christ was our Savior-I felt the Spirit very strong and am so thankful for his confirmation and I know Hol Mon felt it too.

Sister Dalton came and talked to us last week about 'gifts' and about how this Christmas will be unlike any other and how we will be seeking gifts but not spiritual ones. She gave an awesome talk and I love hearing from amazing speakers and general authorities every week! What a blessing! I always come away spiritually strengthened.

We started to learn to read Khmer sorta...I have gotten down most of the constanents all 33 of them and a number of the subconstanents (33as well) plus theres like 20 something vowels, It's the longest languuage alphabet in the world. You read in circles sometimes while reading left to right-in short its going to be real tough. And I've been frustrated but I know and we've been told that if we'll work and seksaa our hardest and pray with faith we will be blessed with the gift of tounges and the Lord will help us learn it. (1 Nephi 3:7) It really is miraculous how much we ahve already learned!

I found out that Elder Mathis is actually on the bottom floor of the same building as me and we see eachother like every day-so that's pretty cool! And I see elder jake christofferson a lot too! It's great having friends in here with me:)

Anywho, have a Merry Christmas! I love you all and pray that you'll be safe.

Thanks for your love and support-i really appreciate it.

Love,

Elder Garlick

Tanner's Letter Sent on Dec. 13, 2011

December 13, 2011


Wow, sorry it took so long to get to you guys, busy busy busy! My p day is on tuesday so that's when I'll be able to email. Life at the MTC is going great! I am liking the food-pretty yummy! All you can eat...need to watch out for that!:) The first few days were kinda tough..tougher than I thought they would be.. I was pretty frustrated and a lot of new rules and busy schedule. The language is coming pretty well, I can bear my testimony, say a lot of a prayer in khmer and say a few other little things. But I feel that I am really learning a lot-It's crazy! The teacher will only speak khmer the whole time and we are teaching an "investigator" who only speaks khmer-it's really hard to communicate but it is getting a lot better. I feel that I havent been getting a lot of personal study done and a lot of the time in class the district will just be talking and goofing off a lot, so I was getting frustrated with that. But things are better and we are getting along better. My companion's name is Elder Barney, he is 26years old and half japanese, he is from orem. We get a long pretty well and are getting along better. It's hard being around someone for every second of everyday and having a shadow. But no he's really great and has a strong testimony. We're become pretty good friends:) So on the second day I was asked by our branch presidency to be district leader-did not see that coming! very humbling. Then two days later on sunday I was released.........and was asked to be a zone leader with Elder barney!!!! Crazy. I am very humbled by this. I am humbled that the Lord would trust me with this responsibility. I feel a much greater desire and need to be exactly obediant and an example. I remember when the missionaries that were my zone leaders met us they seemed so much older and mature-they had been here like 8 weeks-they just left today and yesterday. I feel very new and will pray that the Lord will bless me to be a good zone leader for the elders in my zone. I want to do as Christ would and learn to love them all. There are 11 people in my district and i'm not sure on zone...prob like 40? I have felt the spirit a lot since I've been here-my testimony is definitely growing a lot! I have learned more about my purpose as a missionary-to invite others to come unto Christ, I feel a greater and greater desire to love and share this message of happiness with others-which means I'm becoming more converted myself. I just want you all to know that I know that Jesus is the Christ, this is His Church, I love it with all my heart and the more i've been here the more I feel the Spirit, this place is sacred. My gym time changes just depending on the day. We definitely study a lot- I'm very rarely in my residence, you have 2 three hour blocks of classtime/investigator and you are to do all of your meetings, personal and companion study in the classroom. So we pretty much live there. The first few days were tough however, I like it here and the longer i've been here the more i'm getting used to it and loving it! I'm sorry if I haven't been able to respond to your letters or emails in this but I will make an effort to write some handwritten! But, please keep them coming I really love hearing what everyones doing and for your thoughts and testimonies. You don't realize how much a letter from someone means until you're gone and away from them. I've seen a lot of friends: Elder Mathis, Christofferson, Eastmond, Haskell, Pittard, Scott, Etc. So that's been great!:) Hey could you please send me a list of email addresses and even more so a list of home addresses of grandparents, friends, etc? Whatever works but that is one mistake I've made-I have really no addresses. Check the mailbox cause I'll try to send something soon:) I love you all. Thanks for your love and encouragement- means the world to me.

With seckdai sralan(Love),

Elder Tanner Garlick