Desire To Do Good

10/24/11

Hola Familia - Dear Family -

Hey. How are ya? This week was indeed stranger - I got sick of contacting poor people so on the splits that we did I contacted a rich neighborhood - and we found a couple good people and an old catholic man that spoke English - “I can’t, I alone!” He said frustratedly -

We had a TON of rain! So much rain! So much in fact that the house 50 yards down the street flooded like you wouldn’t believe - it almost reached our house but it wouldn’t have mattered for us because we live in the 2nd story - but like 3 feet or more of water in some of these houses - I have no idea how it happened.


But, now everything is back to normal and I could go running again on my birthday! And we did run very far it was awesome - to a building that is big and white on the south side of the lake-bay-body of water. And this body of water is freaking beautiful! but nobody takes care of it! Drives me nuts - It’s like they do not care at all - at least for this sweet lake - now bordered with trash - like what the heck? Anyway - don’t litter - it ruins beautiful things - I made the cake and it was delicious - every body loved the heck of out of it - the hermana debajo has an horno so she baked it for us and it salio perfecta! Course I decorated and coordinated everything because in all honesty, latinos sometimes don’t know what’s up - and I escaped the idiotic tradition of cracking an egg on someones head - to me that doesn’t even seem creative - but they did smash my face in the cake and spray me with foam - so clever - but it was a cool birthday and I had a sweet chance to clean the church for some of the relief society sisters - so they could leave early. Then we went on splits with future missionaries in missionary prep - el Sabado - my split partner was sweet - he sent his papers last week and is a 2 year convert - his parents don’t know yet. So that's fun.

We have a bunch of investigators that are not doing anything - like the majority - so we are starting to focus a lot more on finding people to teach. That’s the problem here is that a lot - just let you in cuz they’ve nothing better to do - My personal goal is to train the wards that I’m in - Missionaries - we learn by practicing - practicing everything - so I want to do that with the members. Prepare them so when they have opportunities to share the Gospel they can feel confident - then no matter if the missionaries are good or fuleros - their ward can progress - that is my idea - We’ll see if it works. Cuz I figure they are the ones that have to live with the work I do here - like it’ll be on my conscience if I messed something up - but If I can help them to realize - help them to fulfill their calling as witnesses of Christ and mobilize them a little - things will start to happen in this ward - I hope the practices I do will be effective. Yesterday I taught the gospel principles class and I talked for 40 minutes en espanol, and then after a member - (who wasn’t in the class) in priesthood asked my companion to translate for me - thinking I couldn’t understand - way funny.

Well, with all this rain the mountain - or hill - that I live by erodes - rapidly - in fact I spent this morning digging out the back porch of a member. She has like 2 meters high of mud for like 30 feet in her “back yard.” So bad - I’m not sure what they were thinking when they built these houses in the hill. All of them are going to fall some day. I believe the pope itself - that church on top of the hill - will fall - and great will be the fall thereof. :)

So my district has its difficultades - I try to help them set goals to be better in obedience or language or whatever but I realized they have to make their own goals - one that is personal to them - I was talking about cleanliness - how if our desires are clean and how they can become clean through the atonement. It was powerful - I said - “I really do not care if a word is considered a bad word or not - what I do care about is desires to do Good!” In word, thought, and Deed and WORD! Nothing really changed in the district but I felt good - the thing I hate is that they make me feel like an alarm clock - like - guys - It’s time to study - guys come on - so dumb. And I always talk about it like, “I expect you to do it for yourself!” But hey, whatever. Cambios are on Wednesday - I know my comp is leaving - I do not know my Cambio yet, we’ll see - It’s been an interesting transfer - It is almost unnerving how much my eyes have been opened. I feel I don’t look at, or judge anyone the same.

Pedro got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday and showed up in his white shirt and tie and it was the most interesting knot I have every seen - totally reversed - and the big part was out front and still - I’m not sure how he did it.


But I can tie my tie decently well and I am learning a ton - the things come in waves. sometimes they swallow you and other times you ride them.

We’ll see how the cambio goes -

I love you all tons.

Elder Taylor