My new address:
Elder Tanner Gale
92-1021 No'u St. Apt #105
Kapolei, HI 96707


Aloha everyone,

        Well sorry the email came so late today!! Been super busy today! We ended up going with most of the elders and our sisters in our zone to the beach park with one of the wards to BBQ and play volleyball. There was so many people out at the beach for Memorial day! We had a really great time playing at the beach park and then we ate choke good food! Then we played basketball with some elders! So been a great first pday back here in Makakilo!! 

          So my new companion Elder Miller is the bomb! We are having lots of fun together and getting lots of work done!! We cover two wards so we stay very busy and never really a down time! It is really cool to be here in Makakilo and Kapolei since I know lots of the members here. It was awesome to see their reactions when I showed up for church, they were surprised that I was back! Supper cool to be back to see them! In our pad we have four of us living there so it is always fun and crazy! Elder Juan and Elder Edwards are the other two elders and Elder Juan goes home with me so that is pretty cool to be with him!   

        We had a really cool experience, one of our members asked us to come teach some kids at her work... she works at the Youth Challenge. The youth challenge is basically like the military for youth, they go and get lots of experience and learn lots! So we got to go in and teach any of them that wanted to come and join... well we ended up having around 30 kids from ages 13 to 18 come in and we had a lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Was a super cool experience and some of them were really interested! We are excited to help these youth and to see what we can do to share the gospel with them! 

         Things are going great for me here and still loving every minute of my mission!! Cant believe that it has gone so fast!! Well thank you all so much for all you do for me!! Love and miss you all! Have a great rest of your memorial day!! 

Elder Gale

Sister Smith & Elder Gale

New companion Elder Miller

May 18, 2015

Aloha Everyone,

     Well this week was a great week for us! Our investigator Alex got baptized this Saturday! His baptism was so awesome and we had lots of support from our ward to help him! Alex was so happy for his baptism and so ready! Every time we would go over to teach them the kids would all want to wear our watches, so for the baptism I gave each of the 4 kids their own watch and they were so excited! We love this family and so happy for them! 

         This past Friday we went on splits with our ward mission leader and his dad. It was a great split! I was with his dad and we were able to see our investigator Robert. He was doing so great and very solid and then we lost contact with him.... well we were able to talk with him for about 10 minutes and at first he didn't really want us there. Right before we left he said I know I need you guys to keep coming back. He told us he had been struggling a lot with word of wisdom and that his life wasn't going so well but that just having us there with him made him feel so much better! He invited himself to church and accepted a blessing!  

     We also got to see our other investigator Pua, she has been struggling a lot lately too and we were able to give her a blessing as well and she said it made her feel a lot better! It was so cool to be able to get to see both of these investigators because we hadn't been able to for a while! 

         We found out about transfers this week... and I will be leaving. I'm going back to Makakilo to be in the Makakilo and Kapolei wards... so yes I already served in Makakilo and Kapolei ward was my 3rd ward that I was in, so i'm pretty excited to go back and see the ward again! I will be the zone leader for my last transfer. My new companion is Elder Miller. Don't know too much about him yet but I'm sure things will go great for us! I am excited for the new change and its crazy that it is my last transfer!! 

     Well things are going great for me here in Hawaii!! Loving my mission and loving serving the people here!! Thank you all so much for all you do for me I really appreciate it! Hope to hear from you all soon! Have a great week! 

Elder Gale

Elder Gale & Alex

Aloha,

        This was a great week for us!! So Alex is still doing great and we are so excited for his baptism this Saturday! He has finished all his lessons and is already to go! He is very excited and cant wait for his baptism! Our other investigators are doing good! We found six new people to teach this week so that helps a lot! And we have received some great referrals from members! Things are looking great for our area and we are seeing so many miracles and lots of work to do! 

        We went on an exchanges with some elders in our district cause one of them is really struggling to stay motivated and want to work.... all he wants to do is to do service all week. Service is great when we do it along with our regular missionary work. So he came into my area with me and my companion went to his area. Just on that day of the exchange they were able to get a lot of work done in the area and it really helped this young missionary gain back the motivation and showed him that there is still work to do.  

So another funny experience with my district...... So on Sunday nights our district reports their numbers to me then I have to get them to the zone leaders and they told us to get the numbers by 8:30pm. Well one of the companionship in our district wasn't getting their numbers in and it was taking till around 10pm to get them to do it. So finally we had to tell them that if they don't get them in they would count for 0 and not get to change them.... well 9:00pm rolled around and still nothing from them so I had to report their numbers as 0. That was the first time I have had to do that, but hopefully they will be better from here on out.

       Well Saturday was a very busy day for us. We had a service project in the morning and we cut and trimmed trees and things for a member and his neighbors. It was a really good service project and our whole elders quorum was able to come and help. After the service they had a huge BBQ which was awesome. Then we got to Skype our family for mothers day. Had to do it Saturday because we weren't able to on Sunday. It was awesome to see family and to talk with them!! So crazy that it was my last call home and made me realize that is going fast! Not too sure I'm ready to come home other than to see my family of course!

       So Church was pretty interesting for us! About half way through the sacrament meeting Brother Finau was speaking and he called my companion and I up to speak!! So he does this to all the missionaries when he speaks in their wards cause he is a High council speaker. It was really cool what he had us do. He had us help him tell a story about a job interview. The job description made it sound like no one would want this job and he began to list off things that the job required; No vacation, no holidays, no weekends, only can take a lunch when your associates have eaten first, have some type of degree in medicine, and many other things. He said that 24 people applied for the job and that there would be no pay. Almost at once everyone that had applied said they no longer wanted the job. He then said that even with this job description that Billions of people hold this job today and it is the mothers! It was a really cool way to introduce mothers day and made everyone realize how much mothers have to deal with and go through. So all we had to do was be the 24 people that applied and respond to what he said and he made things for us to say that were pretty funny! 

       I hope you all had a very good mothers day!! Thank you to all of you for all you have done for me! Thank you the most to my mom!! Your the best! I'm very glad to have you in my life and love you very much!! Hope you all have a great week! Hope to hear from you all soon!!

Elder Gale

My district ( I am the district leader)

May 4th, 2015

Aloha,

      Well its been another great week for us! We had our zone conference this past Tuesday and that is always a great time and we enjoy seeing President and Sister Warner along with some of the other missionaries! This zone conference was a crazy one for me! Because it was my last one!!!!!!!! Cant believe that is came that fast! So for the last zone conference they have you give your dying (finishing) testimony, and then they have all of the missionaries that its their last one stand up in front and they sing Aloha Oe which is basically talking about last goodbye so that was pretty weird!! All in all it was a great conference and I'm sad that it is my last!! 

        Things with our investigators are going great! Still working with Alex towards May 16 for his baptism and he is doing great and almost ready! We are very excited for him and his family! Thank you all for the prayers form him I know that it has been helping them! 

     We had a really good week finding some new people to teach and that is always nice! There is so much work for us to do in our area and it keeps us busy! 

      We went on an exchange with our zone leaders this week and I was with Elder Bergstrom in his area. That day turned out to be a great day!! We had lots of success and ended up finding a new person that wants to get baptized for them! We committed the lady to be baptized and she accepted and then she said will you guys come with my family tonight for family night? So we said yes... well they ended up taking us laser tagging! It was so awesome of them and we had lots of fun! They had their 4 kids there and they paid for us to have unlimited and so we got to play with the kids for as long as we wanted! Really cool way to fellowship with their family! 

      Well things are going great for me here in Kalihi! Loving my mission and having a great time!! Thank you all so much for all you have done for me! hope you all have a great week!! 

Elder Gale

       

Aloha,

       This was a great week! Alex is still doing great and working towards his baptism! We spent our last Monday shopping for clothes for them! Their family doesn't have much so I decided that I wanted to get them some things. We finally have the 3 boys white shirts and ties and the oldest has pants. Still working on finding the younger boys pants. But they were so excited that we brought them clothes! This family is so awesome and I'm so glad that we have this chance to be with them! 

Our other investigators are doing great! Angela is still not sure what is stopping her from being baptized! We have challenged her to pray about it and she has many times but still feels that she isn't ready. We had a really good lesson with another less active family that their 9 year old daughter isn't baptized yet and so we are going to start teaching her!! 

       Thursday some other elders in our zone had 2 dinner appointments and lessons right after both so we said we could help them out and split with them. I was with Elder Mortensen and we went one of their dinners and then we went to our lesson. As we went to our lesson we were walking down the sidewalk in the housing and I saw Star.... Star is a very funny lady who yells at us every time we see her! She will tell us that we shouldn't be visiting people or just random funny things! Oh and she is most definitely on drugs.... One of my first transfers here she tried to spray us with her hose as she was watering.. Well this night we walked past and she was watering her lawn and side walk funny cause it was raining pretty hard... and I thought she might try and spray us so I walked off the sidewalk into the grass and didn't tell elder Mortensen.... I said hey Star and she quickly turned and said "I DON'T KNOW YOU!! HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME!!?!?" And then she sprayed elder Mortensen!! Elder Mortensen then realized that I was walking in the grass and he laughed and said you knew she would do that uh?? We got a really good laugh about that! Good thing she only got his ankle!

      

      Friday we were on exchanges with our zone leaders and I was with Elder Lee Chip Sao form Tahiti... We had some people in our area that I knew where from Tahiti and so I wanted to take him to see them. Well it worked out great! We got to see both of them and he ended up knowing their family! It turns out that one of them is a member!! She just didn't know what ward she was supposed to be in and where to go so now she knows! Pretty cool that we were only going to see them so he could talk to them in French and Tahitian and ended up finding out that they are members!! 

        We had a really good service project on Saturday all set up by the Just Serve program. It was at the Kakaako park where lots of homeless people live.. well we were all set to go and the night before a member called us and told us he had a lesson set for us at 9 am the next morning..... and the service started at 8 am.... He told us that this lesson was more important and that he couldn't reschedule it... We were pretty disappointed that we couldn't go but we ended up having a really good lesson and found another service project to do after.

       Things are going great her for us and having great success!! Thank you all so much for everything!! Hope you all have a great week! Hope to hear from you all soon!! 

Elder Gale

love doing Service

April 20th, 2015

Aloha,

    It's been another great week! 

So every Tuesday we have a correlation meeting with our ward mission leader and after we were done we went to our car and it had tape all over it! We didn't even have to think about who it was.... It was a sister in our ward that is always teasing us and playing jokes... Looks like we will have to get her back now;) 

    Our investigators are all doing great! Alex is doing great and still set for his baptism! It will be on May 16 so we are excited about that! 

We had a really good lesson with Angela and Sister Lupe was with us and she asked Angela.... What are you waiting for? Jus get baptized. We love how bold she is! Angela responded well I guess there is no reason for me to not to... So we left her with the challenge to pray about it! We are hoping and praying that she will feel she is ready! 

     So this Friday we had a pretty funny lesson... A less active member who is returning to church asked us to come teach his kids and a family friend of theirs. So we were excited and when we got to the lesson it ended up just being the family friend(Jimmy) and this brother.  We shared the Restoration with Jimmy and through the whole lesson the less active brother was trying so hard to help teach the lesson but he had no idea what he was saying. He kept saying very false things and so we had to fix those and that happened the whole lesson. Ha the funniest one he said was about the priesthood. He said there are different ranks and that he was at the priesthood rank right now and then he will go to the sacrament rank then to secretary and then Bishop.  We had to explain that we don't see the priesthood as ranks and that each priesthood calling is important and has its specific duties. Over all we felt like the spirit was there and helped Jimmy understand and hopefully not too confused. 

    Well things are going great here in Kalihi! I am loving my mission. I'm so grateful for my chance to serve and be a missionary! I hope we can all share the gospel and I know that we receive blessing for sharing! Thank you all so much for all you have done for me!! 

Elder Gale

Aloha, 

     This week was a great week for us. Transfers was Wednesday so now my companion is Elder Salazar. He is really awesome! Been out 6 months, from Alpine Utah. So far we have been great and doing good! We had a really awesome experience this past Friday, we taught the Legg family again and had a great lesson! So their 9 year old son Alex isn't baptized yet so we have been working towards that. Sister Legg was worried because Alex has ADHD and didn't know if he was ready for baptism. Well Elder Salazar shared with them that he too has ADHD and that they shouldn't worry about that. It was awesome to see the comfort that brought her! We invited them to set a baptism date for Alex and they accepted!!!! May 9th Alex will be baptized!! We are so excited for them and for their choice to have him baptized! 

    Our other investigators are doing pretty good. We finally got a hold of Robert so that was way nice and Angela is going to be less busy now that her kids don't have football. We are working with a couple families so we are pretty excited about that!! We are seeing so many awesome things happen here in Kalihi! 

       Saturday was pretty crazy!! We went from one service in the morning helping a family in our ward move and then straight to the preschool to do our regular service. At the preschool we have been fixing the playground equipment and that has been quite the process!! We finally have that done. We love being at the school and doing service for them!    

      Today for pday we went on a hike with our district, It's been too long since we have hiked! It was a cool hike and lead to a small waterfall. After we were done with the hike we came back to the chapel to play basketball with some of our members. 

    Well thank you all so much for everything! I am doing great and loving my mission! Cant wait to hear from you all soon!! 

Elder Gale

All my friends that left to go home this transfer

Elder Salazar & Elder Gale

Aloha,

      This week was a great week for us! We started teaching a family who has 2 unbaptized kids and they want them to get baptized! We are super excited for them! Our lessons with them are pretty funny! Alex is nine and he is all over the place and cant sit still, Matthew is 8 and really quiet so they are complete opposites! Their older brother Nephi was baptized a couple years ago and he really helps them understand the lessons! He remembers almost everything and so he can answer the questions we ask them. The last lesson we had with them they asked if we could cut hair, well my companion said oh yeah he can, he cut mine! So I ended up cutting all 3 of the boys hair. I guess it turned out pretty good, they were happy and told me I will have to cut it again before I leave!  Our other investigators are doing great, still haven't heard much from Robert and we are starting to think he is avoiding us but still praying for him and hoping that something will touch his heart! 

     So we were at one of our members houses and we received a call from our mission president but we missed it... He left us a voice mail and told us he had a referral for us! A member talked to him and said he has been praying for someone to share the gospel with and finally received the name of the person.... well this member already invited this friend to listen to the missionaries and that just so happened to be us! We are setting up a time to meet with him this week! Super excited to see what will happen! 

      Thursday we did our service project for the preschool... did it then instead of Saturday because of General conference. We did our regular things and then Aunttie Annette asked me to tell her what we should eat for lunch that day and the first thing I thought of was Navajo Tacos. Not even sure why. She had never heard of them so she said give me a list of what you need and then you can make it.... so she bought the ingredients and then I cooked it for the missionaries and for her family.... I was worried that they wouldn't like it but there was none left! Everyone liked it, they kinda thought it was weird but good.

     General conference was so awesome! For the Saturday morning session we watched it at our steak center. For the Saturday afternoon session we watched it with a member and after they made us hamburgers!! Sunday morning was awesome!! We watched both sessions with a Samoan member in our ward and she made us so much food!! Seemed like that was all we did Sunday was eat! Eat before the session, during the session and after! It is always so great to hear from our Prophet and Apostles! Always feels like they are speaking directly to you and their messages always teach us things that we should work on but at the same time bring so much hope to our lives that it doesn't matter as long as we have the hope and use the atonement! I loved Elder Bednars talk on Fear.... I love how he takes things that we think we know pretty good and puts it in a brand new way! He is so knowledgeable of the gospel and very strong speaker!

       Well I guess I will tell you (mom) what you have been waiting for... transfers are this week.....My companion will be leaving and I will be staying... Sad to see my companion leave after only a short time together but I know that our Heavenly father has a plan for us! My new companion will be Elder Salazar. Haven't heard too much about him and he is pretty new in the mission. I'm excited for this transfer and for the chance to get to know my new comp!

Thank you all so much for all you have done for me! Hope you have a great week! 

Elder Gale

Aloha,

     This week was a big learning experience for me and one I will never forget! We saw so many miracles happen this week and it made me realize the love our father in heaven has for each and everyone of us no matter what we have done he still loves us and wants to bless us! 

      Wednesday was our Pearl Harbor service as a zone... Always fun to go and do service on the Battle ship. We had a really great service and then the guy that helps us when we are there(Kevin) took us to the Utah memorial site, really cool to see what is left of the ship.. cant see much other than the top sticking out of the water. After our service was over we had a very busy day planned! We got ready and went strait to meet up with one of our members. We went around in one of the housing areas with this member and visited 5 families......  These families were families we have been trying to see for quite a while and we have never been able to catch them home... well turns out that we got to see all 5! I realized how much we need the members to be involved in missionary work! We tried to visit these families on our own but for other reasons could not get in. But when this member was with us she was able to be super bold and tell them things that we as missionaries cant! Because of the member we got 3 new investigators and 4 return appointments! I know that this is the way our father in heaven wants us to do his missionary work! Members and missionaries together. 

       Our investigators are all doing pretty good. We weren't able to see Robert this week and we haven't  been able to contact him. We are hoping that things are still going good with him and maybe he just needed some time. We are still working with Pua, Angela and Alia on working towards their baptisms. We are really focusing on the 2 new families that we are starting to teach. They both have 2 unbaptized children and they want them baptized! Things are picking up here in our ward and area and we are getting lots of help from our ward! They are now getting on board with investigators and wanting to help them! We are getting calls almost daily from members asking if they can go out with us! 

       Well I am loving my mission and learning so much about myself and about this gospel! I truly know that this gospel is true and that our savior Jesus Christ is our loving brother and that our father in heaven loves us more than we can know! I am so grateful to be a missionary and for my chance to learn and to grow spiritually. Thank you all so much for all your love and support I really do appreciate all you have done for me! 

Elder Gale 

       

Aloha, 

      It's been another great week!! This past Tuesday we went to the Temple as a zone. Always great to have a good Temple trip! And after the Temple we always eat at North Shore Tacos!! Best place ever! 

     We got to see some people this week that we haven't been able to see for a while so that was awesome!! We found a less active family that has been lost for a while and their kids were talking to us and that's how we found them! One of the kids is baptized and then the other 3 aren't yet!! Hoping that we can start teaching them!! 

      Our investigator Angela is doing great, got to see her for the first time in a couple weeks and had a really great lesson with her! She has had 13 sets of missionaries! She wants to know everything before she gets baptized and no matter how many times we tell her she will never know everything she still wants to wait and learn more! So we keep praying for her and hope that Heavenly Father will tell her when it's time! 

     Robert is doing great!! We have a awesome time teaching him!! He makes our job so easy! He asked us if we can do 2 lessons a week instead of 1 and if it is alright if he brings friends!! Love when they do that!! We have a cottage meeting tonight, he asked if he could go with us and if he could speak! A cottage meeting is where recent converts give their testimonies and we bring investigators! He already wants to speak!! So excited for him and where he will go with the gospel!! 

         Our Saturday service project was really fun! Spent the day doing shingles on a roof for one of our member's! We got all the old ones off and then it decided to rain! We were soaked cause we stayed out in the rain to get the felt paper down so the rain wouldn't go through.... Then we covered the tools and got off the roof just in time for the rain to stop again!  So back up we went and got all the roof done except we were one bundle of shingles sort to finish the last part so we had to cover it with tarps till he can buy some more! Had a good time helping out and had fun! Got to talk to a less active member that was helping to so that was cool! 

      Last night we had a awesome dinner with a Tongan family in our ward the Finau's! They invited lots of people to eat with us! None member families, part member families and less actives. Was really neat to see how many people came and got to meet lots of potential people to teach! One of their tenants is a family who is interested in meeting with us and they were there at the dinner. We got to meet them and talk shortly with them. Awesome to see how much desire to share the gospel this family has!! I'm sure the missionaries in your ward/area would love that too!! Please try and find someone to invite! Makes missionary work so much easier! 

        I am loving my mission and am so very grateful for my chance to serve our father in heaven and the people here in Hawaii! It has been a blessing for me! Thank you all for everything you have done for me!! I love each and everyone of you! Hope you all have a great week! And please remember to share your missionary experiences with me!! 

Elder Gale