Patrick and his bunk matesWednesday, April 11, 2012
Look Beyond What You See
3/12/12
Hola familia,
I'm in Colombia! What the heck? And Jess and Ez are in China with twins! I even saw pictures of Kristina and Adam in Europe. What an excellent world. Questions of mom: Shoes: Totally good. Scripture cases. Do not need. Not a big deal.Twice(robbed). Colombia struggles in organization and most girls don't shave their legs but I find the necessary toiletries easily. Vitamins: I still have those you sent me in September, and what do you mean ointments? What a gross word. I'm good on SD cards too. And pictures we can only take on P-days and in activities especially.
P-days are just long lately. All we do is clean from the Elders that slept in our house for whatever reason. But the trainings were good. The problem that we face is that we baptize and baptize and baptize, but the church stays the same size. Not good. But it also made me not worry about how many baptisms I've had. Just to keep working. Honestly i just thought during the training I am not made to sit all day. And we sit so much in the mission! In study. Lessons, planning, lunch, walk and sit, walk and sit. So there we go. 7am til 8:30pm in the church. Two full days. But it was only like that for Elder Cregor and me because it's our capilla that's used to hold these. But after each night we got to close the church and he first night we totally freaked ourselves out. It was like 8:30. And the second night we cleaned and I really liked it. But I was really disappointed in the missionaries. The leaders of the mission hardly even tried to keep the church clean. Made all these little paper messes and left their trash everywhere. But it's easy to be critical so I'll stop. Elder Cregor and I and 1 other missionary, Elder Spencer, cleaned the church. Those 2 are awesome. At the end of the training I was just thinking, gosh I want to be able to help someone! How am I going to help the church to really grow? What can I do? How can I do this? I don't feel like I've helped anyone! And I was filled with desire to help someone and I thought about the companionship with Elder Cregor. And then an awesome conversation started and I helped someone. It was good to clean the church.
I met an hombre menos activo. He's coming back. No family support, but we visited him on his 11th floor of probably the highest point in Barranquilla. Sweet view. And we shared just a mormon.org video of "I want you to know we're having a hard time." with Quentin L. Cook and he got all teared up. It was sweet. Though I may have killed the moment. Oops. we could hardly meet with anyone this week because of the trainings for LZ and LD. But we did meet with Ledi twice. And I asked her. Will you live the law of chastity? (She's a 20 year old joven) and her eyes went all big and she looked around and was like, "Uh, yes" and it was totally awkward. But still came to church. We actually had a bunch of investigators in church. Like 7 with very little time to work. The magic of starting to work with members for ya. But then there is also a danger because they always want to feed you and you lose a lot of time. (Discovered that the hard way. Some situations are just hard to get out of when it comes to food.) Trying to focus on building my comp, I haven't been doing that very well lately, and repenting. Starting to discover what it is, really.
It is really already March?
Love you all tons!
Elder Taylor
Hola familia,
I'm in Colombia! What the heck? And Jess and Ez are in China with twins! I even saw pictures of Kristina and Adam in Europe. What an excellent world. Questions of mom: Shoes: Totally good. Scripture cases. Do not need. Not a big deal.Twice(robbed). Colombia struggles in organization and most girls don't shave their legs but I find the necessary toiletries easily. Vitamins: I still have those you sent me in September, and what do you mean ointments? What a gross word. I'm good on SD cards too. And pictures we can only take on P-days and in activities especially.
P-days are just long lately. All we do is clean from the Elders that slept in our house for whatever reason. But the trainings were good. The problem that we face is that we baptize and baptize and baptize, but the church stays the same size. Not good. But it also made me not worry about how many baptisms I've had. Just to keep working. Honestly i just thought during the training I am not made to sit all day. And we sit so much in the mission! In study. Lessons, planning, lunch, walk and sit, walk and sit. So there we go. 7am til 8:30pm in the church. Two full days. But it was only like that for Elder Cregor and me because it's our capilla that's used to hold these. But after each night we got to close the church and he first night we totally freaked ourselves out. It was like 8:30. And the second night we cleaned and I really liked it. But I was really disappointed in the missionaries. The leaders of the mission hardly even tried to keep the church clean. Made all these little paper messes and left their trash everywhere. But it's easy to be critical so I'll stop. Elder Cregor and I and 1 other missionary, Elder Spencer, cleaned the church. Those 2 are awesome. At the end of the training I was just thinking, gosh I want to be able to help someone! How am I going to help the church to really grow? What can I do? How can I do this? I don't feel like I've helped anyone! And I was filled with desire to help someone and I thought about the companionship with Elder Cregor. And then an awesome conversation started and I helped someone. It was good to clean the church.
I met an hombre menos activo. He's coming back. No family support, but we visited him on his 11th floor of probably the highest point in Barranquilla. Sweet view. And we shared just a mormon.org video of "I want you to know we're having a hard time." with Quentin L. Cook and he got all teared up. It was sweet. Though I may have killed the moment. Oops. we could hardly meet with anyone this week because of the trainings for LZ and LD. But we did meet with Ledi twice. And I asked her. Will you live the law of chastity? (She's a 20 year old joven) and her eyes went all big and she looked around and was like, "Uh, yes" and it was totally awkward. But still came to church. We actually had a bunch of investigators in church. Like 7 with very little time to work. The magic of starting to work with members for ya. But then there is also a danger because they always want to feed you and you lose a lot of time. (Discovered that the hard way. Some situations are just hard to get out of when it comes to food.) Trying to focus on building my comp, I haven't been doing that very well lately, and repenting. Starting to discover what it is, really.
It is really already March?
Love you all tons!
Elder Taylor
I see dead people
3/5/12
Hola familia,
We flooded the church! It was totally wicked! O! The joy! A town called Puerto Colombia had 2 baptisms but they lack a font. So we filled ours and it was going SLOW. And we figured it had the "can't go above this point" drain. Like a bathtub. Which it does have, but ignoring a year of Colombian experience (which I have) (almost) I trusted the aforementioned drain. We came back after lunch and a lesson, AT4, and were reopening the church and I said "I see dead people" (Little did I know I was talking about us). Elder Cregor said "Oh no!" and I looked more carefully into the hallway! We entered and quickly turned off the water and passed an hour pushing water into the bath room to drain. (There's no carpet here, just tile) Did you know that you can eternally pour water into a toilet and it will just keep going down? Like on eternal flush (better than royal) (but if the toilets bad, makes a smell) Nothing damaged. Awesome experience.
Gambios happened, or transfers happened. Still with Cregor, Elder style. and we had to do a ton for the changes! We totaled 11 missionaries in our house, new ones had to sleep there. But I solved a year long mystery. October 2010 I found a future elder going to Barranquilla Colombia Mission! Whoa! We met unexpected at a dinner, at BYU, at a friends named Liz Hosted in Oct 2010. Now I arrived MTC totally stoked to see him. Wasn't there. What the heck? For one year I wandered, lost searching for this mysterious elder and that i had met only once. Did he chicken out? Did he head out early? Where is he? Last Tuesday all doubts fled. It started out as any other day. No. That's a lie. We had to go set up the church (our building is where a lot of the trainings are held) and in come the new ones! (to be honest I did not recognize anyone) But after 20 minutes, getting everything inside WHOA! "Hey" a random greenie said to me "What's your first name?" "No way!" I exclaimed "Dude!(elder) What took you so long! Geez you let me come to Barranquilla all by myself." And thusly me and a complete stranger (basically) were lovingly, mercifully, reunited (Elder Gardner). Mysteriousness gone. 1 and 4 months after. Turns our his plans fell through, no money, worked a year more, got money and came to his mission. Battled for it. I need to be more grateful. And now I'm not utterly tormented by where this elder is.
And we found on aunt of an elder in CA, who is from Florida, and knew Elder Gardner in the MTC, but I was with 2 different elders (when we met her). Not elder Gardner. I found her in a little bakery here and she took me to her sister's house. They are a beautiful family of 3. Working with them. Fed us dinner once and gave us a ride home in his Toyota hic truck. The nicest car I've been in for a while.
The 2 elders that we lived with left and another gringo and Latino came they're good but I miss the ones that left. They were awesome. But hey I'll learn to love them. We're finding a lot more people and trying to involve the members more but this Sunday Brigitte came to church and she's a recently divorced mom and her son is abominably cute. He looks like a little gringo. Blue eyes. But he was being a little pain in sacrament meeting so I took off my name tag and put it on the pocket of his little overalls. So freaking cute because he looked down and up and his face got all bright like Wow! Totally happy. He's like a year old I think, more than.
Haven't been able to meet again with the new yorker and some other key investigators, but we'll keep hunting them down. We did find 2 Jovenes who came to church. Ricardo and Sofia, 17 and 13. They're really chill, like relaxed. Sofia kinda reminds me of Shalie. Kar and Shae that's sweet you got your patriarchal blessings. Mine was stolen from me, but don't worry I have another copy. We have more capitations this week so that'll eat a monster load of time, and the transfers killed study time. I'm excited to get that back. Got to use it better.
Love you all tons, Elder Taylor
Hola familia,
We flooded the church! It was totally wicked! O! The joy! A town called Puerto Colombia had 2 baptisms but they lack a font. So we filled ours and it was going SLOW. And we figured it had the "can't go above this point" drain. Like a bathtub. Which it does have, but ignoring a year of Colombian experience (which I have) (almost) I trusted the aforementioned drain. We came back after lunch and a lesson, AT4, and were reopening the church and I said "I see dead people" (Little did I know I was talking about us). Elder Cregor said "Oh no!" and I looked more carefully into the hallway! We entered and quickly turned off the water and passed an hour pushing water into the bath room to drain. (There's no carpet here, just tile) Did you know that you can eternally pour water into a toilet and it will just keep going down? Like on eternal flush (better than royal) (but if the toilets bad, makes a smell) Nothing damaged. Awesome experience.
Gambios happened, or transfers happened. Still with Cregor, Elder style. and we had to do a ton for the changes! We totaled 11 missionaries in our house, new ones had to sleep there. But I solved a year long mystery. October 2010 I found a future elder going to Barranquilla Colombia Mission! Whoa! We met unexpected at a dinner, at BYU, at a friends named Liz Hosted in Oct 2010. Now I arrived MTC totally stoked to see him. Wasn't there. What the heck? For one year I wandered, lost searching for this mysterious elder and that i had met only once. Did he chicken out? Did he head out early? Where is he? Last Tuesday all doubts fled. It started out as any other day. No. That's a lie. We had to go set up the church (our building is where a lot of the trainings are held) and in come the new ones! (to be honest I did not recognize anyone) But after 20 minutes, getting everything inside WHOA! "Hey" a random greenie said to me "What's your first name?" "No way!" I exclaimed "Dude!(elder) What took you so long! Geez you let me come to Barranquilla all by myself." And thusly me and a complete stranger (basically) were lovingly, mercifully, reunited (Elder Gardner). Mysteriousness gone. 1 and 4 months after. Turns our his plans fell through, no money, worked a year more, got money and came to his mission. Battled for it. I need to be more grateful. And now I'm not utterly tormented by where this elder is.
And we found on aunt of an elder in CA, who is from Florida, and knew Elder Gardner in the MTC, but I was with 2 different elders (when we met her). Not elder Gardner. I found her in a little bakery here and she took me to her sister's house. They are a beautiful family of 3. Working with them. Fed us dinner once and gave us a ride home in his Toyota hic truck. The nicest car I've been in for a while.
The 2 elders that we lived with left and another gringo and Latino came they're good but I miss the ones that left. They were awesome. But hey I'll learn to love them. We're finding a lot more people and trying to involve the members more but this Sunday Brigitte came to church and she's a recently divorced mom and her son is abominably cute. He looks like a little gringo. Blue eyes. But he was being a little pain in sacrament meeting so I took off my name tag and put it on the pocket of his little overalls. So freaking cute because he looked down and up and his face got all bright like Wow! Totally happy. He's like a year old I think, more than.
Haven't been able to meet again with the new yorker and some other key investigators, but we'll keep hunting them down. We did find 2 Jovenes who came to church. Ricardo and Sofia, 17 and 13. They're really chill, like relaxed. Sofia kinda reminds me of Shalie. Kar and Shae that's sweet you got your patriarchal blessings. Mine was stolen from me, but don't worry I have another copy. We have more capitations this week so that'll eat a monster load of time, and the transfers killed study time. I'm excited to get that back. Got to use it better.
Love you all tons, Elder Taylor
Lots of Faith
2/27/12
Hola familia,
I opened my first wine bottle! And poorly. With a recent convert and we drank to good health! Delicious! False. But as I had never pulled a cork out of anything before with the little cork screw things. I didn't reach a sufficient depth and half the cork fell into the wine. How embarrassing. I had ruined everything. Luckily she had sacrificial plans and we happily poured the sweet smelling wine, worth 50 bucks, in her kitchen sink. Because she wanted to show God that she'd be obedient and earlier we prayed together before she gave her tithing. Lots of faith she has even in her financially tight times.
This area in awesome. The normal knocking on doors gives very few results. These people 'the rich" make like 3 thousand dollars a month. Uh. Not awesome. And they work so much! Or at least they are not in their house. They leave a house keeper without keys. So we got to find a different method de encontrar.
But we found two men who are awesome. Alvard and Duvon. One from here but Duvon is from New York. Colombian but grew up there. Totally awesome. Taught in English and he loved it. Says he's got lots of questions and Alvard ordered pizza for the lesson and it was delicious. And it was a good lesson where he kept saying things about the judgement and what God was going to say to him "I sent you these two missionaries and you chose to work instead of go to church," and such. They're awesome. Luis too, he's intellectual and gave us a ride home one night which I liked. And then an oldy and a young woman who's progressing. There are lots of cool members but we need to take advantage of them more to really help this area.
Love you all tons. Elder Taylor
Hola familia,
I opened my first wine bottle! And poorly. With a recent convert and we drank to good health! Delicious! False. But as I had never pulled a cork out of anything before with the little cork screw things. I didn't reach a sufficient depth and half the cork fell into the wine. How embarrassing. I had ruined everything. Luckily she had sacrificial plans and we happily poured the sweet smelling wine, worth 50 bucks, in her kitchen sink. Because she wanted to show God that she'd be obedient and earlier we prayed together before she gave her tithing. Lots of faith she has even in her financially tight times.
This area in awesome. The normal knocking on doors gives very few results. These people 'the rich" make like 3 thousand dollars a month. Uh. Not awesome. And they work so much! Or at least they are not in their house. They leave a house keeper without keys. So we got to find a different method de encontrar.
But we found two men who are awesome. Alvard and Duvon. One from here but Duvon is from New York. Colombian but grew up there. Totally awesome. Taught in English and he loved it. Says he's got lots of questions and Alvard ordered pizza for the lesson and it was delicious. And it was a good lesson where he kept saying things about the judgement and what God was going to say to him "I sent you these two missionaries and you chose to work instead of go to church," and such. They're awesome. Luis too, he's intellectual and gave us a ride home one night which I liked. And then an oldy and a young woman who's progressing. There are lots of cool members but we need to take advantage of them more to really help this area.
Love you all tons. Elder Taylor
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)