Freakishly Cute

November 7th Letter

Hola Familia!

I found something the other day => yesterday in fact => in the scriptures, that really struck a tone with me, dice "Porque no me envio' Cristo a bautizar, sino a predicar el evangelio". Dang it! that's in 1 Corinthians 1:17 => totally like, "Elder, you can't worry about the baptisms - I'll do it and do all I can so He can make baptisms happen.

But I'll tell you what - it is frustrating to not know if you're working effectively, helping the people effectively because in my life I learned effectiveness got results - and to this point I don't even have investigaters with una fecha - haven't for almost three weeks -

BUT on the bright side we have an awesome lady Jenys - (Jenys is pronounced He-nis) and she wants to get baptized but her husband is overly stressed and a little immature - in that he's not her husband - solo son uma pareja que viven juntos - so we went to talk to him on Tuesday and he just went off complaining. I didn't understand everything I don't think it was anything new to her and she still wants to marry him! and they have three little girls who are freakishly cute - they are so cute! (like totally adorable).

So today - Thursday, the 3rd of November we talked with her husband and her for a good hour - way different. She told me that they never talk. I was like whoa! This makes so much sense! The younger generation, never learned to talk out problems, talk through things and invite divine guidance. Part of the reason why today a lot of marriages struggle so much, I suppose, is that they never learned to talk to people well and just sort it out and I made a rule for myself that I'm sure my future spouse will approve of - that even if I am so mad that I can't talk to her or she can't talk to me, we always will be able to talk to God together.

It's Monday now, this week was sweet even though my numbers don't show it at all. I actually doubt I've ever had worse numbers, but I've realized something. I'm not looking for lessons just to pass time. I'm looking for baptisms - before anything else... which is IRONIC because still I have ningun investigador con fecha! Not one -

So there you go => Gosh, super frustrating but we made a lot of progress with Jenys and her husband. Two lessons more with the youth of the ward and she and her husband read 3 Nephi 14 juntos! It was cool and they saw the ways they can both improve. He was a lot more receptive.

This has been really cool because as they expressed their different points of view of how things were going in their family, I realized that they had the same goal - take care of their ninas but were going about it differently, so we read Alma 56:27, 46-48 and we talked some and the Spirit was working and he got all like shaken and weirded out by the feeling and made an excuse to leave to pick up one of his daughters - totally sweet and she's told us multiple times that she wants to get baptized but that she has to get married.

Cool - so let me tell you about Halloween - yes they celebrate it here but the candy is not as big or as much and no one goes around with pillowcases full of candy - all very small - but is was almost cold Halloween night. It had been drizzling pretty much all day and the night was completely tranquila. In a neighborhood that we work in a lot where normally there is tons of noise and people - nothing - no one in the street - no noise just totally nice. I loved it. As we went back in "jeep" I was standing, riding colgado, everything was just totally calm, no music - few people - weird for Cartegena.

Wednesday was Dia de los Muertos. I organized, basically, a plan to go to the cemetery to contact people about their dead loved ones. 11 missionaries, the assistants showed up (surprise!) and we talked to a lot of people and this cemetery is nuts! Like uber creepy and awesome and way too cramped and broken. They struggle to keep anything truly nice looking here but still awesome.

So I planned that or at least made it possible then the bishop asked us to remove dirt because a ton(!) of mud fell into a lot that he owns and we did that and it worked out super well because hen a member let us shower in his house and we didn't have to waste a ton of time going back home to shower.

I also spent a couple of hours looking for a service project to do in Inanga which we have 0 investigators in. It's all apartments and "rich people" which makes me laugh cuz they are not rich at all! Just have a car y ya - mas nada - their hearts should not be that hard.

So I'm searching for this service we'll see how it goes. Guess what, this week I work today and tomorrow and then they shut us in for the parties. Apparently it gets ridiculous - everyone throws foam and water and there are dirty and clean dances nastily in the streets so we are FORBIDDEN to leave even the house. It is an inferno! But you should have a freakishly long letter next week from my mini MTC time here in the house. Five days without leaving - so great.

Well, there you go! Love you all tons!

Elder Taylor