Family Visits in Salt Lake City

We flew 'home' to Brazil and our missionaries on September 27, 2011. We were thankful for the chance to finish our mission and very grateful for the unexpected time spent with our family in the States.

Julie and the kids drove up from Huntington Beach the first weekend we were in Salt Lake City. We had a wonderful time, and even had weather warm enough to swim in the apartment pool.

Glenn and Kirsten came up to SLC several times. One afternoon we strolled around Temple Square with them and Ashley, Ty, Sarah and Ted.

We met Holly and Jarom at Mom and Dad Tanner's home in Saint George and had a great weekend together.

Salt Lake City - September 13, 2011

September 13, 2011 - These past two weeks have been full of doctor visits, visiting kids and family, and spending time in St. George with Mom and Dad. We’ve been treated so well. We have the use of a sporty red car and this pleasant apartment, Zion Summits, directly behind the Conference Center. From our living room windows we have a panoramic view of the Salt Lake Valley. The sunsets are gorgeous and we can watch jets taking off and landing at the distant airport. From our bedroom we have a beautiful view of the capital building. It fills the window and we sleep with the curtains open at night so that we can see shining on the hill.

Dr. Christopher Jackson, a rheumatologist at the University of Utah has been treating Marsh. He served as the Sao Paulo Interlagos Mission President during our first year in Campinas and helped us with some of Marsh’s medical needs. These past few days he has spent a lot of time with us examining Marsh and very patiently talking to us and answering questions. Within one or two visits the consensus was that Marsh doesn’t have Polymyositis but rather, a related condition called Inclusion Body Myositis. This is an inflammatory muscle disease, characterized by slowly progressing weakness and wasting of both the large leg and arm muscles. Unlike Polymyositis there is no cure or treatment and physical therapy is of little or no help.

On a positive note, the doctors feels that the disease will progress slowly enough that Marsh can return and complete his mission. Since there is nothing more that can be done in Salt Lake City, the decision has been made by the Quorem of the Twelve to send us back to Brazil. Elder Anderson met with us in his office where he told of us the Twelve’s decision. So with the Quorum’s blessing we are ready to head back. We will leave in two weeks, on September 27th just in time for transfers on October 3 and 4. We didn’t expect that we’d be back so fast.

Forty-two Wonderful Years and Counting

We are here in Salt Lake for a short time while Marsh undergoes some medical testing and we are celebrating our anniversary with a special dinner at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building where we have a spectacular view of the Temple.

Forty-two years ago, on September 3, 1969 Marsh and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple. I thought he was so mature, an older man. He was three months shy of twenty-three and I was nineteen. Everything was before us, nothing was yet determined. Would we have children? Who would they be? Where would we make our home? What would he do for work? What experiences would we share?

Early in our dating he'd told me on the steps of BYU's Joseph Smith Fieldhouse that he thought he would like to be a high school track coach or maybe a airline executive so he could travel. Either sounded good to me. Since that day so many years ago, all those questions have been answered and I look back on forty-two wonderful years filled to the brim with life. We've been blessed with seven wonderful children, six loved sons and daughters-in-law, and sixteen beautiful grandchildren. I love this good man I am married to. I am so thankful that I've gotten to live life with him. He is my anchor, my North star, my friend and my sweetheart. Happy Anniversary, Marsh.

Amparo and Claudio

One morning a few months ago,Marsh and I drove two hours to a charming little tree-shaded town called Amparo for a baptismal interview with an investigator who hoped to be baptized that afternoon. It is a city of lovely cathedrals, leafy plazas and stone streets.

The branch president met us at a stop along the road and guided us to the rented building where the members meet on the second floor. This young branch president was dressed in a suit and white shirt and tie and had such a spirit of goodness and light about him. I could feel how proud he was of ‘his’ meetinghouse as he led us through each clean and airy room.

While Marsh conducted the interview, I did my best to talk with a little family whose twelve year old son was waiting for a baptismal interview, too. Claudio, a counselor in the branch presidency joined us. During our conversation I asked him if he was a convert or had been born into the Church. He answered that he joined the Church at eighteen years of age against the wishes of his family and today he is still the only member in his family. Then he told me the story of his conversion some twenty years before.

Something very difficult had happened to him, and for the first time in his life he prayed to God for help and direction. He had never heard of the Church. That afternoon there was a knock on his door and he opened it to find two missionaries standing there. They were looking for a referral with the same first name of Claudio but had mistakenly come to the wrong address and had the wrong man.

'Claudio, we’ve come to teach you,’ they said, thinking that he was their referral. He had never seen them before, and was shocked when they called him by name, but he believed that God had sent them to him. He invited them in and listened to the first discussion. At the conclusion of the lesson one of the elders asked him if he would pray to know if their message was true and he said that he would not. Surprised, the elder asked him why not and he answered that he already knew it was true. His father was furious with his decision to be baptized and wanted to stop it, but Claudio knew that the missionaries had been sent to him in answer to his fervent prayer and that their message was true. Claudio is still the only one in his family who has joined the Church.


Claudio is on the left.


This is where the Branch meets upstairs. You can see the Church's sign on the railing above Marsh and the Branch President.


Amparo has a tranquil feeling in it. Love this little town.


This is a little park in the town with phones that are affectionately called 'big ears'. Guess why.


Notice the hand laid stones streets and the intricately patterned stonework of the sidewalk in front of the branch meeting house.


I love the soft colors of the buildings and the flower boxes in the windows. The blue building on the left is another cathedral.

In our mission I hear many versions of stories like Claudio's. So many members are converts and everyone has a story to tell of their conversion. Most of our Brazilian missionaries are converts themselves and often have only been members just long enough be able to go through the temple. They come with a great desire to serve a mission and with much still to learn about the Church.

Marsh and I attended a Stake Conference where a counselor in the Area Presidency, President Godoy, asked the convert members to stand. Most of the congregation did. Then he asked everyone whose parents had joined the Church to stand. It seemed like everyone else got up. He asked all third generation members to stand and a scattering of people rose. Finally, he asked if there were any fourth generation members in the congregation. One man raised his new baby high above his head. The Church is in its infancy here and growing rapidly.

The Church in Brazil began slowly in 1923 when a Mormon mother and four daughters emigrated from Germany with their non-member father who later joined the Church.

In 1928, the first mission in South America was opened in Buenos Aires and two German-speaking missionaries were sent to Brazil. They baptized just one German family of five.

In 1935, Brazil opened its first mission in Curitiba.

In 1937, the Book of Mormon was translated into Portuguese and the next year the missionaries began teaching the Gospel in that language. President Faust was part of that first small group of missionaries. He arrived in Brazil with no language training, just a study guide for learning the language as he went. He found and baptized just one young family in his three years in Brazil.

In 1940 there were only 200 members in all of this enormous country. Ten years later there were 1000. Eight years later, in 1958, there were 3,700 members and from that point on the Church began to expand rapidly.

Eight short years later, in 1966, Marsh arrived in Brazil as a young missionary just three days after the first stake was formed. There were 34,000 members, 1 stake, 2 missions, and no temples. Today, 45 years later (just a blink) Brazil has well over 1 million members, 240 stakes (the most of any country outside of the US), 27 missions and soon will have its 7th temple. I am very grateful that Marsh and I can be part of this great work here in Brazil. It's a special place to be a missionary and to get to know wonderful pioneer Saints like Claudio.

Happy Birthday, Brent!

Today, July 17th, is Brent’s 39th birthday and I’ve been thinking of him all day long. I’m so grateful he’s our son and I dedicate this blog to him.

I saw Brazil for the first time when Marsh and I went to pick Brent up from his mission in Curitiba. We arrived at Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport after a long flight from New York City's JFK. At Guarulhos we collected our luggage, crept slowly through customs, found our connecting gate and prepared to board for our final leg to Curitiba. To our utter dismay and alarm we discovered that this flight, though paid for, had never been confirmed by our travel agent. We had lost the reservation and were told there were no other available seats on flights to Curitiba for several days.

Then things got very exciting. Marsh had not spoken Portuguese in nearly twenty-five years and at that time none of the airline employees spoke English. He dusted off his Portuguese and went to work trying to get us to Curitiba. The flight we were supposed to catch left without us and we still had no hope of getting another. We considered renting a car and driving, but that would take a day or so and by this time Brent and his mission president, President Oliveira, were already waiting for us at the airport in Curitiba. In 1992 there were no cell phones that would allow us to reach him with our change of plans. After a couple of frustratingly fruitless hours trying everything we could think of, our situation looked hopeless. We were sweating bullets. Then, miraculously, someone found us two seats on a plane leaving immediately. We ran and caught it with just minutes to spare. I was still shaky when our plane landed in Curitiba a couple of hours later and so excited that soon we would finally see Brent.

As the plane taxied down the tarmac, from out of my window I caught a glimpse of movement on a distant airport balcony. I peered closer at the small figures, one a tall man in a dark suit excitedly waving both arms back and forth. With a leap of my heart I realized it was Brent, our Elder Tanner.

It seemed to take forever to disembark but finally there he was waiting for us at the gate with a shining face and his radiant smile. He looked so good. I wrapped my arms around him and cried a bucket of joyful tears. I couldn’t let go of him, and I couldn’t stop crying. We were so happy to see our beautiful boy again. I will carry forever in my memory that priceless image of our tall shining son on the balcony waving to us with such typical abandon and energy.

He is the only one of our four missionary sons that we ‘picked up.’ I’m so glad we did. Everywhere we went we saw how much he loved the members of the branches and wards and how loved he was in return. He always had a flock of children following him around like puppies, clamoring for Elder Tanner’s attention, which he gave each one.

This past year, as Marsh and I have spoken at church meetings throughout the mission we have met faithful members who served in Curitiba with Brent. They come up to us with their families and ask hopefully if we are related to a really tall, blonde, good-looking Elder Tanner who served in Curitiba years ago. They are so excited when we make the connection. Brent is remembered with much love and fondness. His old mission companions have wonderful stories to tell. Teary-eyed and laughing they tell about his enthusiasm, his smile, his hard work, his humility. He worked tirelessly and did so much good.

Sister Almeida (nee Camargo) is one of those missionaries. Today she is married to the second counselor in the Botucatu District presidency and has several children. At our last district conference she excitedly brought several of her old mission photos to show us. I looked at those pictures and the years dropped away. It seemed like it was only a moment ago that Brent was an enthusiastic 21 years old with boundless energy and never-say-die determination.

Today, Brent is a devoted husband and father to his wonderful family. He works long and hard to care for them. I am proud of the good man you are, Brent. Happy Birthday! I love you with all my heart.







The above photo is of Brent's first Mission President and wife, President and Sister Covington. Sister Almeida, nee Carmargo, who gave me these photos)is in the center.

Our First Year

On June 30th we reached the one-year mark of our three year mission; three hundred and sixty-five jam-pack days. When we pulled up to the Mission home for the first time a year ago we had no real idea what the next twelve months would bring. As a former Mission President once said to me, a mission is made up of long days and short weeks. He was dead on. In those fifty-two weeks Marsh has given around 960 missionary interviews, read and replied to 8300 weekly missionary emails, taken hundreds and hundreds of phone calls, some at midnight or 5 AM, written 52 articles for the weekly Mission Newsletter, conducted 20 half-day Zone/District Leader Leadership Training Meetings and 8 full-day Multi-Zone Missionary Conferences, met 130 times with stake presidents in monthly PPIs, and participated in 20 stake leadership training meetings. We have sent home 94 loved elders and sisters and welcomed 100 wonderful new missionaries to fill their shoes. We have spoken in over 93 Sacrament meetings and firesides and have driven over 30,000 miles to get to all the places we need to be.

I have answered some 2,000 phone calls from missionaries sick with colds, flu, appendicitis, pink eye, fungi, hernias, dog bites, spider bites, ingrown toenails, flat feet, knee pain, ankle pain, back pain, stomach pain, chicken pox, food poisoning, heart inflamation, and kidney infections, toothaches, migraines and much more. I have cooked batch after batch of hot fudge sauce, baked nearly 100 loaves of banana bread and a couple thousand snickerdoodles, brownies and chocolate chip cookies. I have purchased (and often delivered with Marsh) countless irons, washing machines, fridges, beds, blankets, fans, mattresses and on and on, and with the priceless help of our housekeeper, Leonora, prepared dozens of gigantic meals for a lot of ravenous young missionaries.

Throughout this year we have met many faithful and dedicated saints in the stakes, wards and branches of the mission and we’ve heard their inspiring and faith promoting stories of conversion. Best of all we’ve gotten to know and love our missionaries like our own family and we really miss them when they return home after their missions. Many of them write to us about their engagements and weddings and plans for school and jobs and we have had quite a few come back to visit and sometimes to live and work within the mission boundaries.

These are just numbers but they help to tell the story of our life this past year. It has been an amazing experience, both exhausting and fulfilling. Nothing else we’ve ever done has been quite like this. We will take what we've learned and try to do even better this coming year. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve here and most grateful that I’ve gotten to do it with the perfect companion, my beloved Marsh.

Easter

Today is Easter. It’s been a beautiful day, very different and much simpler than those we’ve celebrated in the past at home in California. No decorations around the house. No baskets of Easter eggs and candy. No special meals planned. No family or friends coming over for dinner. But a simple sweet feeling of peace surrounds me today. Marsh and I slipped into a ward for their Sacrament meeting and the bishop called us up to bare our testimonies with the members. This morning, especially, I had been thinking of the Savior and His atonement for us and I was grateful for the chance to share my thoughts and feelings. As always I wish I had the ability to really express myself in Portuguese but I often feel that the Spirit helps me when I struggle to find the right word or conjugation. Marsh often stands beside me and translates when I need him to. I am thankful with all my heart for my testimony of this Church and Gospel. I know it is true. I feel my testimony growing and strengthening daily.

I thought of an experience that my mother, Grandma Alma Hobson Bonner, had years ago when she was listening to a Relief Society lesson on the Atonement. As she sat pondering the Savior’s great and terrible sacrifice for us she began to marvel at what he had done for us and she wondered how He could have done it and why. She couldn’t imagine. It seemed such a difficult thing to do. She said that as she asked that question the Relief Society room full of sisters faded and she felt she was back in a hospital room where my youngest sister Tamara lay unconscious and fighting for her life. Mom had been with Tamara several years before when my sister had nearly died from complications of childbirth. It seemed to Mom that she was there again and pleading with the Lord to spare Tamara. Tam was young and had just had her first baby. Her whole life lay ahead of her. Mom pled, 'Let her live, take me instead. I love her so much. I want her to live’. And then she had the thought, ‘That was how it was done. He loves us so much that He wants us to live. He would die for us that we might live.' I have thought of my mother’s experience often. I can better understand how the Savior would love us enough to atone and die for us, because I understand a mother’s love. I hope I never callously forget or disregard the Savior's sacrifice for me. I love Him and am grateful for what he has done for me and for all of us. I hope you have a wonderful Easter. Love, Mom

Wishing you a Joyful Easter

Tomorrow is Easter and it is a huge holiday here in Brazil. For weeks the stores have been filled with brightly wrapped chocolate eggs that hang from low ceilings. They make a colorful arbor to push your shopping cart under. They can be as small as an egg or as large as a football and many have prizes,candy or toys hidden inside the hollow interior. Brazilians give them to their children and friends instead of easter baskets and they are surprizingly expensive.







Happy Easter, Love, Colleen and Marsh

How Can I Be

I love this video and thought you might enjoy it, too. The words are so inspiring to me. The young man on the left is serving here in our mission. He has a beautiful voice and even stronger testimony. He is one of our best missionaries. This video was made several years ago and you can find it on You tube under, 'How Can I Be.' Love, Colleen

Three Month Interviews

A couple of weeks ago we finished up our third series of Missionary Interviews. Every three months we do this. For four weeks every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday we travel to different zones where Marsh meets with each missionary for at least ten minutes, often more, depending on the need. This time one zone averaged over thirty minutes per elder. Each zone is made up of ten to twenty missionaries. Twice we did back to back zones, one before lunch and one after. These days are long. Most often we leave our house by 7:30 AM and get home in the late afternoon or evening. Most of our zones are in areas far from the Mission home. This month we put over 3,100 miles on the odometer. Our two districts, Botucatu and Pouso Alegre, are each a three hour drive to the outer edges of the mission. On the drive to Botucatu a bridge had been washed out and we had to backtrack half an hour to a small junction and take a different winding road into Jaú. I love the drive no matter the distance and no matter the weather. Blue skies and billowing white clouds, or grey and overcast, the cane fields and orange groves and green hillsides dotted with white cattle are always beautiful.

Most zone leaders have their missionaries studying their scriptures, reading their ‘Preach My Gospel’ or practicing teaching discussions while they wait their turn. Often an elder will play the hymns on the little keyboards in the chapels and others will sing along. When both companions are finished with their interviews they sling on their backpacks, give hardy handshakes and bear hugs and head out the door and back to work. Occasionally, a whole zone will wait until the last missionary is finished and then go prepare a late lunch together at one of their ‘casas.’ Some of the zones are very spread out and it’s an hour or longer bus ride to get to the Zone interview. They like to be together and they buoy each other up.



During the interviews I make good use of the timer on my I-Touch (the missionaries are fascinated by it and check to see what music I have downloaded,(none)and bargain with me to trade it for their dinky little cell phones). I give Marsh a signal when he has two more minutes left and again when ten minutes have passed. Then I turn off the timer and wait while he finishes talking with the missionary. I enjoy this time because I can visit one-on-one with the elder or sister who is sitting beside me awaiting their turn. It’s a chance to get to know them personally, to learn how they are doing, and see that their health is improving if they’ve been sick, or to hear about their families. I hand out worm medicine to those who have passed their one-year mark. I ask about their ‘casas’ and discover that the electricity has been off for a week, or that water is dripping down the wall near their bed when it rains, or that they need a refrigerator, desk or bed frame. We talk about their investigators and their hopefully coming baptisms. We practice my Portuguese and their English. They chomp on thick slabs of freshly-baked banana bread that I bring. Each interview month I bake around twenty-five loaves and that gives each missionary two slices apiece. They could easily eat a whole loaf each. It’s Grandma Tanner’s recipe and they love it! I tell them that I married Marsh to get his mother’s banana bread and hot fudge recipes and I’m only half kidding.

When the missionaris finish their interviews I send them off with the things they requested for their houses. We have eighty or so houses or 'casas' and keeping them supplied is a never-ending process, like trying to fill up a black hole. There is always something needed. I am hoping that soon we will have stocked all the houses with the big stuff, ovens, fridges, beds, desks, and the like. Finally we bid our last missionaries adieu, climb into our SUV, lock up the gates of the Church and head home.

Pedra Grande

Last September we took our office missionaries and assistants on a well-deserved P-day. For weeks they had not taken a day off, and neither had we. We were planning to visit nearby Holandia, a quaint town founded by the Dutch trying to escape the devastation of WWII. During September the residents celebrate their Dutch heritage with a month long festival. You would swear you were in Holland as you stroll down shaded streets brimming with flowers and lined with tidy little Dutch shops. Everywhere you see blond, braided, blue-eyed kids in colorful Dutch costume performing the dances and music of Holland. Then you hear Portuguese spoken and the illusion is broken.

Missionaries are not allowed to drive automobiles in Brazil and with eight of us going I knew I would have to drive one the cars. I hadn’t driven the freeways yet but I figured I could do this.

We found out the night before that the festival was closed on preparation day so Marsh told the elders to pick another place and we would take them there. They chose to climb Pedra Grande, Big Rock. I was leery of driving up a mountain side, but the elders assured us that it would be a piece of cake with a good road and a large area to park in. I assumed that we would drive to the parking area and they would hike to the top. I would wait in the car studying my Portuguese until they returned. I was surprised when they appeared dressed in their suit pants, white shirts and ties. And church shoes. How were they going to hike in those clothes? Marsh and I were in our Missionary clothes, too, but I figured that we would just be waiting down below for them. This was a clue that the day was going to be different than I had thought.






Marsh drove the smaller Zafira minivan with three of the elders and I followed in the heavier four-wheel drive diesel with three more elders. We drove about 50 kilometers and then turned off the freeway and followed a narrow dirt road that grew narrower and windier as we climbed. Hey, wait a second. Where was that nice flat parking lot I’d been promised? After a few kilometers the road became steeper and more deeply rutted with jagged rocks poking up everywhere. Hey, wasn’t this driving up a mountain road, just what I’d said I wasn’t going to do? I worried that we’d pop a tire or put a hole in the oil pan as we jolted along. Still, I think we would have made it to the top with no problems if it hadn’t poured rain the night and day before and turned the dirt into slick mud. My four-wheel-drive diesel was straining and the oil light came on. You could smell the hot oil. I was sure that I was going to burn up the engine so I stopped.

Ahead of me Marsh was churning up the mud and struggling to get traction on the steep slippery grade. He began to slip and slide and finally came to a stop about thirty feet from the top. Try as he might the wheels just spun helplessly in the thick red goo. The Elders loved it. Mindless of their shiny shoes they piled out of the cars into that sticky muck and with Marsh at the wheel and the engine revving they pushed that minivan with all their might. The tires spun madly but the car only slipped and slid sideways toward a trench. I had visions of the car sliding backward over the missionaries in their clean white shirts. I could see the headlines. Mormon Mission President Kills 6 Missionaries and Destroys Two Cars. How was I going to tell their mothers? The Church would send Marsh and me packing. We’d probably be back home in Huntington Beach in time for Sunday dinner. But. These were determined young missionaries having an adventure and with another mighty superhuman heave, they pushed that car with its tires whining and spinning furiously up the last few feet to the top of the hill. There was triumphant celebration and high fives all around.



Now it was my turn to get up the hill. I turned on the engine. No red warning light. With the missionaries cheering me on, I jerked and jolted to the top of the grade and finally there was my nice safe flat parking area. We were perched on top of a mountain of solid rock. What looks like paved surface is one massive chuck of granite. It was worth the struggle to be able to see the whole valley from every direction. The rain from the night before had cleared the smoky air and we had a rare day with brilliant blue skies and beautiful clouds. I learned that my idea and a twenty-year-old missionary’s idea of what constituted a ‘piece of cake’ were worlds apart.


I made it...alive!











Our Brazilian assistant, Elder Gabriel, was going home in three weeks. There on top of that mountain of granite with the wind whipping all around us we sang 'God Be With You Till We Meet Again’ to him. It was a sweet moment.






Since that day we've taken other elders to that mountain three more times and only in the four-wheel drive. It's a peaceful and beautiful spot.