Take Care of Your Body-Your Virtue-Your Mind

9/26/11


Hola!

First of all -- !HORMICAS! You CANNOT ESCAPE them! And the ones in this new house BITE. And it itches forever. And it was just that kind that invaded my package. So I was obligated to open it. Cursed insects. You know what they were after? That orange coconut peanut butter stick - that’s it! They CHEWED through the plastic to get to it and only that! The rest was fine! But they forced me to open it early dang it! Thank you for all the good stuff. I share almost all of it cuz these Elders never have tried such goodness in all their life and the jockstrap is sweet. WAY better than the boxers I bought here and I’m flattered you bought me a large. The shirt is sweet and the shorts are perfect - and all the yummy goodness sustains me - there are Elders here who are lucky if they even get letter from their family or even an email. You guys are the best.

This week was sweet - I did inter cambio with an AP from Idaho. We ended up with 7 lecciones con miembro. It was cool to see his example y to see him fulfill his calling or assignment cuz I felt totally hopeful after he left. Last Friday we did a camida gringa with some of our investigatores. I made ham cheese and tomato sandwiches and accidentally bought jalepeno flavored cheese so it was PICANTE. But good - and apples and pringles which they don’t like - Wierdos. I put lime juice on the apples just for the heck of it and it was so good. And during the dinner they brought us this crab, alive but without pinchers and I was holding it and it started to freak out - all of its legs were flinging every which way and I just held it yelling “Oh My GOSH! OH MY GOSH!” cuz I had no idea what was happening and everybody laughed.

The houses are tiny and built super poorly - It’s never cold here so they hardly worry about windows - just bars so no one gets in and they are built from bricks - bien fubros asi. with cement in between - we could make them as a service project in one day --or faster but that’s all they need here a roof from the rain and a fan from the heat -- a toilet, water, gas and a mattress.

Being the district leader in this district is weird cuz everyone is the same or older than I am - I’m trying to set 3 goals for the district each week but I still got a lot to learn. Pedro y Ana Iris are getting along - he understands not a lot and she is sort of dragged into by her dad, but hey, she’ll feel it I hope. I’ve almost let myself get mad at the costerios? They mess up there lives so bad and just don’t get it. No one here gets married. A lot of the men are planting way too many seeds. And the trash. It is everywhere. Sometimes I just want to scream “Take Care of Your Home!” I didn’t realize a difference it makes to simply appreciate what you have by taking care of it. Like your body -- your virtue - your mind. God gave us these things we’ve got to take care -- never had it hit me like that before - a little thing like litter - makes a HUGE Difference.

I am definitely starting to take more of a lead in the missionary work and it is good - I am definitely learning what it is to be humble - we’ve been doing a lot of splits lately with the members which I love. I told you we moved - our new house is way far away from our area. Then we have to cram into this little car that takes us to our house - terrible -- but adventurous.

I’m doing great, trying to focus more and work according to Preach My Gospel. !Love you tons! You are simply the best,

Love,

Elder Taylor

Mission Life

9/19/11


Hola Familia!

And here we go -- this last Sunday I gave a talk on the 11th and I talked about the Atonement - I talked about how we are bought with a price, how everyone is but don’t know it. How we have to share it, that is the price we have to pay. It was really cool because when I started talking, en espanol, there was noise and stuff and shuffling there arrived a point in my talk that was just intense. The atmosphere was just thick as heck and nobody - not even the little kids were making noise. I had successfully captured everyone’s devout attention. And I told of when I watched the Elder do pushups for me - it was intense - and whether they were so attentive for their desperate lack of understanding or overwhelming inspiration from the Spirit I have no idea, but it was awesome.

We had cambios this week...I’m staying here with Elder Jorge but did move from the cool house to a more ugly house farther away from our area - not awesome and somehow they made me Lider de Distrito which is surprising on several counts. But hey! Obviously God expects more of me and knows I can do more so he called. But I’m looking at this like a “Step it up Elder,” and not a Congratulations.

Let me explain my companion to you. He is from Argentina, can speak english (almost really perfectly) is super funny - he’s only got til January - he’s exactly one year ahead of me and he’s made an awesome and useful friend named Richard. They are like best friends 4EVER. Richard says I’m the only Gringo que le cae bien - which means I fall well with him.

We are working more and more with the members, which is awesome. This mission as a whole has struggled with that. It was the foundation of our Zone Conference. There are some really powerful members here and the bishop is awesome, though a little strange. Also we’ve had a failed English class every Saturday for the last 4 - number of students I have -- 0 - that, my family is a big Goose Egg. Mi Distrito es pequero - Elder Taylor, Elder Jorge, Elder Frenchy y Elder Ellis - Solo 4 and they are cool - but I try not to get Frenchy speaking english because he only knows bad things. And yes, I’m the only gringo pero no impenta porque soy costeno mas nada.

The people here are great, they really are. My comp and I went to dinner with an investigadora - her two member friends and Richard were so awesome! It was like dang! Wish I had a testimony like that!

Let me tell you about the mission life here.

• I have a fan blowing on me from 9 PM until 11 AM the next morning almost all the days. Air conditioning does not, or at least efficient house cooling air conditioning, does not exist.
• (I recently received a new Black fan that is mega awesome.)
• Letters come like every 3 to 6 weeks. (I did receive your two giant packages - Gracias - I’m trying to decide whether I want to wait until my birthday to open them or not)
• It costs $10 dollars or almost $10 - Quince mil pesos to send a letter to the states and even then it has got to go through the office so it takes even longer.
• There are ants everywhere - in everything - they are like boogers for me now - I just pick em, roll em, and flick em when they are crawling on me. Or just chew em if they are on my food.
• The rule changed and now we can eat fish and seeing as we live in the coast - they give us a lot of fish - but it is not normal fish - its the body entire - O joy -
• We have contracts with the members to wash our clothes - but we can’t include our garments - so sometimes in the night or like once a week or when I feel like it I wash my garments by hand! so fun
• We lack a lot of things that just make life nicer - like a microwave - a warm shower (not necessary now that I think about it) carpet and stuff but we are never in the house so it doesn’t matter.
• All missionaries did receive a DVD player to improve teaching so that’s cool.
• The members feed us every day - rice - rice - rice - rice - so much rice - and gaseosa - or juice from the fruits here that are so amazingly delicious - You’d be surprised at what I eat now.

Investigators -

• Pedro Ruiz y Ana Iris - they are the next for baptism - He struggles to understand pretty much everything and can’t read well - But his daughter Ana Iris is So dang cute. She has 12 years and reads with her dad and they read though they may not understand.
• Francisco y Jusney are cool - he is a less active member and they need to get married - she’s not a member - He’s building desire and we went on splits yesterday and El. Jorge and I and with Joned who is awesome and another member whose awesomeness we discovered so Joned were with Francisco and it was one of those sweet moments and Francisco said - I feel more of the desire to progress - or a literal translater - There’s a little seed I feel. It was cool.
• Luz Belky, Carina y Haner are cool but I have no idea what their desired are - they have 18 years.
• I’m bowling with they assistentes as I write this - cool. And I’m doing really well - wonderfully even.

Love you all tons y espero que esta carta salga bien!

Love Elder Taylor

I Am Here To work

I Am Here To work

9/5/11


Hola familia!

i don`t have a lot of time, surprise right but i wrote an outline so this should contain some good stuff. first off it rained A LOT one day and was awesome we got got compltetly soaked and our lunch failed us so we were going to mcdonalds in the mall. but we had to cross the road with some construction and the entire thing was flooded and all we could see were some piles of dirt so we headed towards those. Raining ferociously and all of the sudden my comp drops, and is up to his chest in muddy water holding his bag above his head. So funny. i had no idea what to do so i stood there dumbly laughing as he crawled out. later we cleaned ourselves in rain from the rooftops and he was not that much wetter than i was even though he fell in a hole.

Good news, Moisès got baptized the week after I left so we are good on him. Everything went well. This last week we had a zone conference and it was sweet. Elder Holland gave a talk in the MTC the week before I started the mission and we watched this talk. his main point was about being active after your mission and how we`ve left our nets like the apostles forever I was totally pumping up.

I am a better missionary because of my companio. I look at the mission more practically now and how to work màs eficaz. Really what I learned the most from him is my own drive to work. I`m not perfect, but i know why I am here. I am here to work.

More than anything i need to learn to take initiative in every moment. Like cleaning the bathroom and creating a rag out of nothing was how I applied this today.

I am doing well. learning lots and trying to forget myself for these people, even though that is not easy. Anyway i love you all tons thanks for all you do for me. I really feel great here and I love the challenges. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Jacob 1 8 ish i think

love you tons,

Elder Taylor

Rain Rain Go Away

8/29/11


Hola Familia,

i am good. i am eating well and doing more exercises in the morning. i have been way lazy since i arrived in colombia, like 100 jumps of the rope. can you believe it?

This week i went on two cambios in a row and they were sweet. i love going to other people`s areas and working. it is fun one was with an elder named Frenchy and the other with my zone leader who is sweet but kinda hogged the lessons. i still love him. we had to run in the rain to our house to make it on time and the streets were literally rivers. it was nuts. when we got home i literally poured out my shoes.

We have two investigadores quienes son bien bacanos. but they have to married and their esposos no son bien bacanos. so we are working with that. and we are finding some good people- what i want to see is someone just in the depths, and they pull themselves, o sea, Christ pùlls them out and they just CHANGE,

what i don`t want to do is baptize a bunch of people who are going to go inactive because if you look at it, 1 of 10 baptisms has remained active in this ward. and it was like that in my last ward too. The work really is laid out for us.

i feel great. I am learning tons. like a real whole lot. màs que nada how important is the family.

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

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