Di Todo

5/30/11


Hola Flia, how in the shmeck are ya?

So.... a lot of things happened this week. and I feel so good about them.

first I want to describe what happened two weeks ago.

we had a zone meeting with all the missionaries. We were in the chapel of my church and the benches, (you can move them here) were in a semicircle. One missionary from utah, (there are three of us gringos in my zone) he changed into gym clothes and no one knew quite why. The ZL makes him go into the middle and starts offering us milky ways. Some people took them and some didn´t. Every time regardless if we took the candy or not elder larson had to do however many pushups. No one knew what was going on. but he just kept doing pushups. and kept doing them. and we could do nothing about it. and it was torture.

Obviously I`m thinking this is some sick mind game, and I`m supposed to act. but I didn´t. but when it was my turn to take the candy I stood up and grabbed it from the hand of elder Porter, the ZL and threw it away myself, (thinking it was a sin, turns out it was representative of Eternal Life...oops) then I kneeled next to elder Larson and encouraged while he did the 4 pushups for me. (he had done at least 100 or more by this point and was drenched in sweat and his body was shaking) then I stood up and left him alone again. Only me and his comp did something trying to help him.

After everybody had either accepted or rejected eternal life (the milky way, dang, I had it and threw it away...) and he had done over some high number of push ups, elder Porter explained the comparison. and watching someone struggle and sweat and suffer for you like that, even in only pushups has an effect. it was nuts.

but I didn´t realize how much it affected me until later when I shared my testimony reading Luke 22 40ish to 44 ish and reading about the angel and thinking of this experience, to a member who we ate lunch with. the Atonement is real.

Then last week, we had a conference with Elder Nash. He is one of the seventy pictured in the magazine even! qué chévere! He spoke in spanish but i could understand his spanish, it is the flippin native speakers, anyway he told how his son returned and said to him, di todo, which means, I gave it all. that is what I want to say. I gave it all. and after that when we went to thank him he said to me, in English, "You could understand?" ya, pretty much all of it, and he said, "I want you to know your family is proud of you. You are doing what you are supposed to be doing. You bring a good spirit with you. Thank you for being here. You are going to be a great missionary."

He looked right into my eyes as he said this. He reminded me of my strength, of the way I handle problems, of what I want for myself. and with God I can really do it. for me, he basically told me that I don´t need to fear. General Authorities are decently trustworthy and when they tell you are you good, and you have potential it sort of means a lot. He answered so many prayers.

And you know what happened this week, when I was myself and had fun? We had 9 investigators at church. That`s a lot and that`s not even all of our solid ones. so sweet. We have three weeks left in this cambio so who ever is in this area next is going to have a lot of baptisms ready.

Oh this feels so good. I have not yet found the adress or how to send letters. Though I have written some. And I always feel safe, I`m 6` 8``, amongst not 6`8`` people, unless a bird attacks, which happened to my comp yesterday. so funny.

And rain, after 15 minutes of rain a river downs my street. nuts. you wouldn´t believe.

I`m really beginning to love it and the language comes... so slowly. but I open my mouth regardless.

I decided I`d much rather burn in infierno, (guess what that means), for an act of comission than omission.

love you all,

Elder Taylor