Faithful

8/15/11


Hola familia!

so this week has been good but way weird. we lost of lot of time waiting for lessons and in the hospital to give one of our investigators a blessing. that was cool her name is yusney and she is really nice and living with a inactive member quien es rè chèvere. she told me that she had been in a dark tunnel and saw the spirit of her mom while she was in intensive care. weird but if it helps her get baptized, sweet.

also i am way confused how some member ladies are so faithful and their families and so not. these two sons have everything right in front of them. a successful exemplary mom, way nice house and all this junk and they are totally ungrateful. and won`t even join her with us or go to church with her or anythings and it is like HELLO!

anyway there were some good things that happened to. my companion wanted to go buy ice cream with his friend in the mission at like 8 o clock. we are going to invite the less active husband of the girl in the hospital so he can stop worrying for a second. so we did and it was a more or less productive outing even though it wasn`t a lesson.


this week was sweet. i am trying to share my vision of what the area can be like but nobody is really feeling me yet and i think my comp may be a little distracted, so there you go. he recently dropped from being a zone leader so he`s still might be reeling from that, i don`t know. but i found a new sense of motivation this week.

love you all adios!

Elder taylor

Cartagena

8/8/11


Hola Familia

Cartagena is...

IT IS NUTS...

I haven`t been able to take any pictures yet but I walked by the sea twice. and there is sweet hill i`m going to hike today after i eat lunch. it`s called the Popa and has a big Catholic church on top that is SWEET, well it looks sweet. and what was the first thing i did when we arrived in Cartgena? bought a snickers mcflurry at mcdonalds. that`s right, i have a mcdonalds in my area. as well as some sweet legit ice cream shops and tons of tourist things that are awesome. it is much more scenic than my last area.

I came into three couples who are working for marriage. one is close, one is a inactive member and his ``wife`` but she`s catholic so we we`re working on her, and the other is an old man and his wife who just blatantly says, ``no me quiero casar contigo.``-they`ve been living together for more than 40 years and have like 2 or three kids. and now she dosen`t want to marry. so we are working on her to. and a couple others that i`ve only met briefly.

The members are awesome and we have a lider misional del barrio who is sweet. he comes with us a lot and we are always working with the members, which presents some punctuality and effective use of time problems but it is good. way better than knockin doors all day.

This ward has a potential of 400 hundred members. 40 assist regularly. so i want to focus on all of those people, get the assistance up. and when they remember they`ll bring friends and children and wives. and then the bishop will love us and we`ll all build zion together. good plan.

My compa es maravilloso. He speaks pretty good English and it is way funny. He is good for me to learn spanish and i told him to always correct me and he has been and the people have been surprised at how well i speak for the time i have which i may or may not believe but hey they are nice. ELDER Jorge used to be a zone leader so he knows all the rules and how the mission works and i think sometimes he beats the system but i can`t really tell cuz he does it in Spanish but he`s good and dedicated and has a bunch of member friends that come with us a lot. only problem is that i think sometimes we spend a wee bit too much time with them. but when i get to the point of about to say something, like hey man, i mean elder, we got to get going, he is already saying goodbye so it hasn´t been a huge problem at all.

I probably won`t get mail as often here. like once or twice every cambio. or less i`m two hours and a half from the center of the mission. the home and office i mean. and the house is so much better. i have a water purifier and a mirror and a closet and i`m in Cartagena and it is sweet and sometimes i am just walking down tthe street i start yelling WHOA WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA estoy en cartagena! what on earth does God have planned for me here? and in my first soup here, THERE WAS A HOOF. A hoof of a cow. in my soup. you can`t chew a hoof. why put it in soup? I`ve no idea. so i gave it to my comp who sucked on it and ya, uh huh,

So the mission is sweet. the language is slow but better.

I really feel like the mission is starting over again in this new area and it is sweet. i love you all tons and i am recognizing that i feel the spirit a lot more which is sweet. that`s the key, recognition.

Love you
Elder Taylor

Committed

8/2/11

HOla Familia!

I`m leaving to Cartegena Colombia.

ISNT THAT SWEET? it is pretty sweet. En Pie de la Popa es mi area. which means foot of the pope. but want to know what stinks? we were about to xplode with success. we had found so many beautiful families and w taught so good and now i got to do it all over again.

So we`ll see how this goes. Elder Jorge is from Argentina i think and he seems awesome. I met him my first night here and seen him once since so we`ll see what a team we make. .

Moisès is going to be baptized this saturday. i won`t be there. dang. but he has made some real progress and is totally awesome and just good. and prays really fervently.

Dario his family is becoming awesome. su hija caterina is awesome and bringing friends to church and inviting her mom even though she struggles to understand the book of mormon and just his wife is a bit of a booger and refuses to come to church but it`s getting better.

the ward let us know of another familia who is inactive for a long time but the dad came last sunday and we taught them last night and it was SWEET the mom, who had been kind of hard hearted was loving it. and we sang and then left and were late getting back to the house. so bad we are. but we did our best and it was sweet!

i also found something out about myself this week. I really do know this church is true. because if i didn`t know that it was, i would not be here in Colombia. it`s my conviction to the gospel that has kept me here. i think that is part of the point of missions. is that it proves to yourself that you do KNOW: i couldn`t and wouldn`t do it if i didn´t know that church was true. so that was cool for me to see like a living testimony to myself. i think there are a lot of times like that when we do stuff and we don't realize or label it as an act of faith, or demonstration of testimony, it`s just something we felt like we should do and did. i like that. just do it, you can label it later.

I also read a talk by Utchdorf that was chèvere. it talks about being committed. and two boys a top a cliff and they want to jump and the one was about to jump and his brother said, maybe we should wait, but it was too late. he said, brother, i`m committed.

how cool is that? he couldn`t stop and if he had tried he would have probably belly flopped and died. just either be committed and do it or don`t but don`t trip yourself up midway and suffer the worst consequence, of a belly flop. so there you go. i´m committed. therefore i`m in Colombia trying to make the jump successful. luckily i have a long way to fall so even if a stumbled in the jump, there is still time for a quadruple gainer swan dive entry no?

I love you all. next week from Cartagena!

Elder Taylor

So Awesome!

7/25/11


Hola Familia!

My companion is freaking awesome. I did not know how missionary work was done until I worked with him. He´s totally focused on including the entire family the entire time and just does what he FEELs in the lessons which is sweet. The other ones I´ve worked with were good but so rigid in the things they did. I felt like I had no wiggle room and we just taught. But with him it´s totally different and he´s already changing the area. Already has improved the relations with the members, and accomplished more with our investigators than we had accomplished in 4 months of being here, simply because I followed lead of my senior companions and figured that was how the mission was. We have had intense moments of goal setting with our investigators where they just really just had to choose to step up to the plate or not. So awesome!

I probably only have one more week with him. He is literally the answer to so many prayers. and we hardly speak English except to say funny things during the lessons and plan secretly during lessons. He is awesome. I felt these last months I just didn´t really know what i could do! So pretty much it´s been the best week of my mission so far.


Moisés still wants to postpone his baptism but we´ve set the members on him and lots of other cool things have happened. families families families, yes that is what I want. Dario and his daughters are now assisting the church regularly, and soon his esposa and he has a meta to be baptized and married by August 26. We just need to get his wife in the church and listening to us. We put our faith with his and something cool is going to happen. Before, we were just waiting, and now we are working. God sent McCargar my comp here cuz He knew he´d get it done and that I will do all I can to learn from him.

AWESOME WEEK:

Some much better. Just got to retain it.

LOVE YOU tons!

Elder Taylor

Colombia didn´t try to starve or dehydrate me.

7/18/11


Hola Familia!


So I got a new companion today cuz Elder Obando left to study. IN ECUADOR! in his home. and my new comp is a gringo like me but we don´t speak English cuz what would that serve us? not a lot.


Anyway this week was unreasonably normal. Colombia didn´t try to starve or dehydrate me. I live in the same house and it is white and awesome. The food is cow stomach, (only sometimes) and liver, (again not too often) and I even saw tongue, pretty much with throat attached in the supermarket today but don´t worry I didn´t buy it. We eat with the members every single day. unless they bail on us in which case we eat somewhere else but they don´t fail too often.
I feel unreasonably great in the heat and laugh in the face of drowning in my own sweat. (it is possible.)

This week something cool happened with Dario, first, his children, well 2 daughters came to church! how nice! and then one the younger one of 16 years really liked it. and then somehow the whole bishopric came and visited him with us cuz they were divinely guided and I really think it was leaps and bounds for the family. His wife doesn't have much interest, but now we get to her through her daughter and the daughter said, ´´lo que sea, voy a ir´´. which is what missionaries like to here. I´ll try and make make really awesome things happen before I leave this area.

Love you all so much.

Say hello to Nel and Ana for me.

My guesses of the twins names.

Love,
Elder Taylor

Just Laugh

7/11/11


Hola Familia!

So let me tell you about this week... this week was comically horrendous. It got to the point if lightning had struck me I would have just laughed, in fact i did just laugh. let me explain myself.

It is hot here. understatement. and to make matters worse Colombia, or just the coast struggles and sometimes they shut off the water without us knowing. Usually it comes back on but sometimes you are not so lucky.

This week we weren´t so lucky.

When the water goes out the big 5 liter bags of water all of the sudden are a hot item and disappear. so for 24 hours we couldn't shower, not even from a pot. it was nasty! you get this filthy film that i love and the funniest part. as we sit waiting for the water to turn on, (it was supposed to come on at 9 in the morning, came on at 3, too late for us,)we prayed for water, I offered the prayer and asked that the electricada would staytoo. the power went out on us. now we are really cooking, we start to pray again . the four of us. chua prays and it is awesome. Cuz he says haya luz and the power GOES ON. I literally wooed out loud and we lost it. still no water.

Then Saturday night the music went all night and I did not sleep. then Moses missed his interview and I broke my fan. and my comp thought the was out of money.

I just laughed. It´s ironic how much i really enjoyed myself this week. in spite of it all I loved this week. It was great. I´m doing well and I love you all.

Elder Taylor

Mondongo

7/4/11


Hola Familia!

This week has been good. first off.... Moses will be baptized this Saturday! i know it is kind of a step down from Jesus, but hey how cool is that. and after his baptism he can help the missionary work a ton! lessons with members! and then he can bring souls to Christ and that will be sweet too for him. i really think that he will make a huge difference in the area. as soon as we get him and Darío in the water they will basically carry the missionaries cuz they are pumped! but Darío has got to get married first dang it. frikin elevangelical wife! but she´s warming up to us and i know it is only a matter of time. anyway, poderoso baptism. sweet.

So i was reading in Ether, in Spanish, and it talked about the little things that God does that seem small to the understanding of men. think about that for a second ¿will ya? we talk about faith to move a mountain and part a red sea, but how easy is that for God? those things are already obedient. all he has to say is ´´hey water, or mountain, (lo que sea) get out of my way.´´ and it is like okay. but a person he says, hey be baptized so i can bless you more. and we say, ya... about that, that is hard. don´t you think you wanna rethink that? works with any commandment. think about the planning differences. to do all he can to change a person and influence them to have all possible chances of being exalted or just to say to the water, or the mountain, move. what really is the greater miracle? we can make the miracles to bring to pass these much more intricate movement of mountains and the ´´ great things that seem small to our understanding´´ are going to unfold as we have faith enough to move a mountain.

I love you guys lots. and i ate mondongo this week. research that. and tell me you´re not proud.

love Elder taylor