Elder Tanner Budge

May 29, 2017 Hey Everyone! Not a whole lot went on this week because of transfers, but its been pretty fun adjusting to this new area. We played baseball with a bunch of kids before we left Gonzalo. Its was pretty sad leaving, but NEW AREA My new companion´s name is Elder Chicom, and he's from Panama and doesn´t speak any English, so  Spanish here I come!  The Bavaro area is huge, we cover Punta Cana, Bavaro, and a couple of other cities nearby. We live in an apartment complex in Bavaro, and its super nice. Definitely a big change from living in Gonzalo. I'll attach a pic of my new ¨¨Back yard¨¨.Also, Americans attend church here all the time, so that will be a little weird. I also got to go on an intercambio with Elder  Hallett in La Ramona. Cool town and an awesome guy. The church is true and the Book of Mormon is true! El der Budge  

April 24, 2017 Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't right last week. Things have been pretty fun. We baptized Ryan yesterday. He's nuts, He's part of this group of kids that live right outside of Gonzalo in a town called Carmona. They go to church every week but they are a handful! Hopefully we can baptized that whole group. Next week we are planning a Noche Blanca (White Night) which is a night where our zone has a baptismal service all together, and we have 3 people planned to be baptized on the 30th! I think there should be around 20 or so people getting baptized so that will be awesome. One of our bikes broke right before we had to ride over to Sabana Larga, wich is 5 or so miles away , so I ended up taking one of the bikes of a kid in our branch. I'll attach a picture. We also found this shack thing sitting in a field so naturally we had to climb on top and take a picture. Elder Budge    

May 15, 2017 Hey everyone,  This week was pretty good. We went to Los Limones again, but this time we weren't covered in mud so that was nice. We taught our 6 investigators who are preparing for baptism on the 20th.  I also got to talk with my family yesterday. Remember to thank your mothers! It reminds me of the army of Helaman  in Alma 53:16-23, Alma 56:44-48,56, and 57:19-21, 25-27 I forgot my camera stuff so no pics this week Elder Budge

May 8, 2017 Hey everyone! This last week was pretty nuts. Its been raining a ton the last two weeks, which is strange for this time of the year. On Tuesday, we rode  to a town Called Los Lemones. Its about an hour away on bike, and it was awesome. It rained for the whole 5 hours we were out. We arrived, soaking wet and covered in mud, and found out that none of these people have heard about the church before, so it looks like we are the first missionaries here! We also found a family from Boise in the middle of the town working for the Paragrine Foundation studying a endangered bird of some kind. They live here for 6 months and live in Boise for the other half of the year. Crazy! I would have never expected that to happen. We also have about 6 new investigators that are preparing for baptism on the 20th, so we should be pretty busy preparing them for the next couple of weeks! The Church is true! Elder Budge    

May 1, 2017 A pretty good week.  We traveled to Sabana Grande de Boya for a Noche Blanca last night with our zone and 15 people were baptized. Elder Portillo and I baptized 2 people, Nicolas and Luzmaria. Nicolas read Jesus's invitation in Matthew 27:19-20 and is preparing to leave on a mission in a year, so we're super stoked about that.  We went through China Town Santo Domingo and that was weird. I would have never thought of experiencing Asians speaking Spanish, but its real. We also stopped by a shoe place where I bought a pair of Echos, which are 150 bucks in the states, for 30 dollars.  God is our loving heavenly Father, and he loves us! The Church is true! Elder Budge    

April 10, 2017 Hey everyone! Pretty awesome week. We baptized a little girl named Yurami on Sunday and shes amazing! She's 9ish years old and has been coming to church by herself for years. Us and other missionaries have been trying to get her baptized for the past year, but her dad never gave her permission. He finally gave it!. Ill attach pictures if this computer lets me. Elder Lopez and I finished the transfer with 6 Baptisms. Pretty great. On Tuesday I'm getting a different companion from Honduras. I've heard he doesn't speak very much English so it should be interesting! Lately I've been studying the New Testament alongside with Jesus the Christ and I've learned a lot more about the Ministry of Christ from that.  Jesus is our Savior, The Church is true, and Thomas S. Monson is Gods prophet on the earth! Elder Budge   Wow thats' awesome news with Westbrook! the only thing that might hinder him from getting MVP  is

April 3, 2017 Hey everyone! We baptized Angel this week. He was tough to get a time. Hes goes to school and works with his dad so we picked him up at  7:30 pm , drove to the nearest building with a baptismal font (about a half an hour away) and baptized him, and got home pretty late. General Conference was awesome! I don't have my notes about it with me, but i really enjoyed Elder Chio's talk  was really awesome. We went to this jump trampoline place with a bunch of other elders, and Elder Lopez and I forgot shorts and t shirts so we just went in our white shirts and pants. I was soaked in sweat. here is a pic of the place.                                   The church is true! Elder Budge                                                                                                                                                    

March 27, 2017 Hey!  The package came last t Tuesday and that was a lot of stuff! thank you though, just for future reference, You don' need to send that much stuff. The cliff bars are great and I've almost eaten the whole bag of high chews. We go to a mall in the city every month to buy some stuff so I bought the weight gain last Monday and got your package on  Tuesday so ill be set there for a while.  The next time you sent a package, you can send it to a place in  Florida where they bring it over here. Its a lot cheaper that way. I don't know where it is but if you look into it you can find out where.  I'm starting to adjust a little but more so that helps. I don't have a ton of time so I'll write a little more about them. All of them except this last weeks have been pretty young boys. We met them, gave them the lessons, they went to church, and decided to get baptized. We are constantly busy teaching and finding people so its been going b

March 27, 2017 Its been a pretty crazy week! Last Monday we traveled to a giant mall in Santo Domingo. We went to Burger King ate a burger, and got some churro. it was glorious, but expensive. Just for an idea of how cheap it is to live here in Gonzalo, I can buy a bottle of water for 10 pasos, and a tostada for 25. The double whopper meal cost 400 pasos, and churros cost 250. 650 pasos is about 14 dollars.  I could have bought 26 tostadas for the same price as that meal! But esta bien. We traveled back to the Capital on Tuesday for Zone meeting. President Corbitt is an awesome guy! I've learned a ton from him and I'm grateful to have him be the president here.  We had 5 baptisms planned for yesterday, and only one was able to come. A little sad about the four, but we still baptized Adolfo! He's awesome, He will receive the Gift of the holy Ghost, be confirmed a member, and hopefully receive the Aaronic priesthood next Sunday. I kno

March 20, 2017  Hey everyone!  This week was pretty solid. We baptized 1 investigator, and have a few scheduled for next week. Elder Anderson, one of the apostles for the church, came and gave a talk to Our mission and the West mission! I got to shake his hand too!  He talked about a lot of good stuff but one point that I thought was really interesting was the 2 things that every strong member of the church has or has expierienced: 1. They have felt the love of Christ after sincere repentance 2. They have a testimony of the Book of Mormon So I challenge all of you to strive towards those things if you have not already. After seeing him, we went to Wendy's, and It was glorious. At that point I haven't had meat  in 4 days . I've survived on my humble meals of Locust and  honey. Just kidding, but really I've survived on shelved Chocolate Milk, Rice, beans, and tostadas. So having a burger, and fries was the best thing ever. 

March 13, 2017 Hey Everyone, Its been a great week! We baptized our first 2 converts last saturday. We jumped in the back of a truck and drove down to this river with a waterfall. I got to do the actual baptisms. I forgot my camera so the pics will have to wait. Its constantly raining down here. We got caught in a storm yesterday, and were drenched. I don't have a lot of time so sorry the emails not longer! The Church is true! Elder Budge

March 6,2017 Hey everyone! Last Monday was the last day in the MTC, and it was a little sad to say goodbye to everyone, but It was time to move on to bigger, better things. We first went to the mission home and there I got assigned with Elder Lopez, who is a beast of a missionary. working in Gonzado, Prestident Corbitt gave an awesome lesson about  Atonement of Jesus Christ, and we headed out to our area. It took about 4 hours to get to Gonzado, and its a town in the middle of the Jungle. Its the only Bike Riding area in the Mission also!  Where we stay is the most wealthy part of our area,and we travel out to other villages.  It kinda feels like camping all the time. There are mosquitos everywhere. I have to cover myself in deet two or 3 times a day to keep them off. The area is ready for the Gospel! Elder Lopes and I have almost 20 new investigators, and several of them have Baptism dates set! Church was pretty fun too! We had about 40 come,

Hey Everyone We went on splits last Friday and it was awesome! We went to Cristo Re, which is a "suburb" in East Santo Domingo. It's about as poor as you can get here. I got a picture of the main streets, but it doesn't do it justice. The first guy we talked to lived on top of about 3 other tiny houses, and climing up was really sketch. the stairs were a foot and a half wide and we had to squeeze in between some rails to get to his house, which was two. He has a really adorable 2 year old daughter, and I can't speak any spanish so i just played with her the whole time. After a couple of more lessons, we stopped by a saloon where these twin ladies always give the missionaries free food. We got some coconut cookies, Coke, and some raw sugar cane. And headed back after that. The Church is true and JesuCristo is the Savior of mankind! Elder Budge

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Monday, March 13, 2017 2:19 PM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com > Subject:  Re: First Week in the Field! They have bikes here, but they have been trashed along with the apartment. We had to do a big clean the first p day and have to constantly clean because of how quickly everything gets dirty and ruined so quickly The area used to be only 2 missionaries and now we have 4. The other 2 missionaries, Elder Lanzaz and Elder Valle, are from panama and Costa Rica so they don't know too much English. The apartment is really only made for 2 so its been a bit crowded. He's been awesome. Hes american and is fluent in English and Spanish. He's awesome I'm kinda starving here as far as food goes, so just load up the package with stuff you think will be good! Sorry i can't right more Elder Budge

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Thursday, February 16, 2017 11:23 AM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com > Subject:  Re: week 4 Haha I haven't got the ID yet  . Yeah and the Rags are definitely a good idea. it doesn't have to be anything nice but whatever works. Can you look into a quick dry towel for me? My companion has one, and it might be from the REI, like it's a packable hike towel like the ones you sent never dry because of the humidity. If its super expensive then don't worry about it.  And They Don't have Chili Powder here! it would be super good on avocados but they don't sell anything spicy, so when i get out that would be great, and plus some of that really good hot sauce that i showed you. I also heard that kids love stickers here so that might be a good idea. Anything you want to send works for me. Plus i heard its safer to sent stuff via FedEx and UPS. Its not ter

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Thursday, February 16, 2017 11:08 AM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com >; Jacob Edward Simmons < jacob.simmons@myldsmail.net >;  benjamin.coon@myldsmail.net ; Richard Budge < rwbudge@gmail.com >; Mc Burk < roandmich@gmail.com >; Damien Evan Peterson < damien.peterson@myldsmail.net >; Lousie Jensen < weesejensen@hotmail.com > Subject:  Week 4 Hey Everyone This weeks been pretty good but super chaotic with the new group of missionaries coming in. We got to go to this place called Tres Ojos and it was gorgeous. We had some time in between transfers on p-day so our president decided to take us there. Ill send some pics. Not a whole lot going on but the usual day to day stuff, But we got to go to the beach and contact some people. There weren't that many people around, but we started to talk to this guy Named Pedro and he seemed really excited abou

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Thursday, February 09, 2017 7:40 AM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com > Subject:  Re: week 3 is there any way you can find my fairwell talk outline? jake said he wants to read it On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 10:04 AM, Tanner Wallace Budge < tanner.budge@myldsmail.net > wrote: Love you too! The soup isn't too bad and it didn't make me sick so yeah.  Boomer is getting huge! and the rest of my district was laughing at my long hair so yeah. Im sure the weather will clear up a little bit. Still seems like its been a really extreme winter this year. Dad probably loves the skiing and drifting that comes with it hows jamie Doing? I haven't hear to much from him besides a few references to videogames and him asking to use my jacket. heres a pic of the temple and my district And Womens conference? As in stake?  Talk to you next week!

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Thursday, February 09, 2017 6:49 AM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com >; Jacob Edward Simmons < jacob.simmons@myldsmail.net >; Richard Budge < rwbudge@gmail.com >; benjamin.coon@myldsmail.net Subject:  If you are what you eat, then I'm definitely a grain of rice at this point (week 3) Hey Everyone! This week was bitter sweet. All of the elders that were heading to Puerto Rico and Barbatos headed out yesterday, so we had a single day of just the 6 of us chilling out here. Our companionship is now Assistant to the President until we head out to the field. We had about 40 new elders and sister come yesterday, and 16 of them are Haitians that speak french, so now we have to conduct our meetings in english, spanish, and french, so that should be a lot of fun. We got to go contact some people for about an hour last friday at a park in front of the oldest University in th

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Thursday, February 02, 2017 12:02 PM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com >;  rwbudge@gmail.com ; Mc Burk < roandmich@gmail.com > Subject:  Week 2 Hey everyone! Week 2 in the MTC. Pretty average week. Every day is pretty much the same right now so the food is the most exciting thing.  I don't have a pick of anything but all the meals pretty much consist of 2 types of rices, 2 kinds of meat, and a bowl of beans to poor over the top. And other meals are weird contraptions of foods that they try to make american, but have no idea how so we get these really random foods for breakfast every once in a while. Then on tuesdays we have this soup stew stuff thats called San Cocho, which is just a bunch of random animals, usually chicken, beef, and pork, chopped up and thrown into a soup. When I was eating is, I found part of a vertebrae in my soup, and I had no idea what it was from since it

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Thursday, January 26, 2017 12:18 PM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com >;  rwbudge@gmail.com Subject:  First week in the CCM Hey everyone! The first week here has been amazing! After the Flight down here, we drove across Santo Domingo and we got a little taste of the DR. The Drive over to the CCM was hilarious! Everybody is always honking and cutting each other off, and we almost got in like 5 accidents and nearly ran over a kid on a bike haha. The other elders that have been here a while said thats pretty normal trip across town. The MTC, or CCM en español, is in the nicer part of Santo Domingo and we share the campus with the Templo, so thats pretty cool. Its a blessing to be this close to the templo and It definitely helps us being this close. We'll be able to go there every week on P-day and I'm pretty pumped for that .I'll attach a picture to show how close we are

From:  Tanner Wallace Budge [mailto: tanner.budge@ myldsmail.net ] Sent:  Wednesday, January 18, 2017 3:29 PM To:  Toni L. Budge < tbudge@scentsy.com > Subject:  Re: Did you make it? I sure did! The boise flight was delayed by like 3 hours, so i had to sprint over to the the new York flight when i got to Seattle, and same with new york to the DR. I met up with Elder Smith, whos my companion btw, and Sis Smith so i wasn't totally alone for the last flight. When we got to the DR nobody spoke English there so it was tough to get through all of the security stuff. Then we had to wait at the Airport for another 3 or 4 hours so that was fun. But we finally made it to the MTC and everybody is super chill. And we figured out that we got a new mission president yesterday so the transition will be pretty fun. '