{Week 46} Polanco - October 27, 2014

Dad, your beard was lovely. And every time you send me a Star Wars reference I can just picture you snickering away. Love you tons dad :)

And Jordy, you're crazy if you didn't like that picture. You are seriously gorgeous. I show lots of people here the picture of my family, and most of them point to you and tell me that you are beautiful. You're amazing kid!

Mackenzie, I look forward to your wedding. lol

Katia, you're just adorable.

Carlee, I'm proud of your awesome VB skills, and super excited that you're going to play Basketball!

And Jenna, I loved the story of the card game and you screaming. I miss your screams lol.

And Chelle and Logan! the other day I printed off a couple pictures that you had sent me of Addison, and showed them off to a bunch of members. They all instantly fell in love and demanded some copies of the photos. So there are now a bunch of strangers in Mexico that have pictures of your baby... lol.

And Mom, I always love your letters. You're amazing, and I have no doubt you'll be able to manage your busy schedule.

And I don't know how much a peso costs, but a dollar costs roughly 13 pesos...

So last Monday, another member invited us for a FHE, but it actually turned out to be a surprise Birthday Party! And this time the cake was CHOCOLATE and tasted so amazingly wonderful!

Cutting the cake! (it was SOOOOOO good!)

My beautiful chocolate cake!

The surprise birthday party. The lady in the background is one of our old investigators. She's friends with the member that gave me the party (Rocio) and came and gave me this necklace and the 2 tiny people you can see on the table.

Then we had a FHE with Fabiola and her family, and her brother Oscar who is 12 did the lesson - he made an awesome poster and taught us about keeping the Sabbath day holy, but he's really shy, so he kept hiding behind his hands, and it took us 5 min to convince him to talk. It was so sweet! Then we played telephone - that game where you whisper in the ear - and ate Rice pudding! It was so much fun! And they have a dog named Reina (Queen) that just had puppies! 2 of them and they are adorable - I'll send pics someday.

The FHE - Lalo has the paper, Oscar, and his Grandma.

And Fabiola did get baptized. That was beautiful. It was Saturday morning, and her family all came. We convinced Oscar to give the message about Baptism, and Fabiola's sister America (15 years) to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. Then, Hna Luque and I sang. Hna Luque is a music major and has an amazingly beautiful voice, and she convinced me it would be a good idea to do a duet. We sang ''He sent His son'', and she convinced me to sing a couple parts in English. I was so nervous I sounded like an opera singer because my voice was warbelling. lol. But it was actually really pretty, and the spirit was strong. Then Elder Gerken baptized Fabiola - her Grandpa doesn't have the priesthood, and then he was sick and couldn't even come. Fabiola had to get baptized 2 times because the first time her feet came up lol. But it was super sweet and she was really happy.

Fabiola at her baptism.

Fabiola, her family, and us at her baptism. Back: her uncle, her mom, her sister America, me, Front: Hna Luque, Suzana (Fabiola's grandma), Fabiola, Lalo and Oscar. (Oscar is her brother, Lalo is her brother's friend.)

And a couple kids contacted us this week - first a baby, he was in the window waving at us so we went over to say hi. Then his mom came to the window and let us in to teach them! Monica is the mom, and she has 2 little kids - Maria (5) and Joel (1). They're an adorable family - couldn't come to church, but we've got a lot of hope for them.

The second kid is name Karla - she's 8 and was in her doorway crying. She called us over and said she was all alone and was really scared and her mom hadn't arrived yet. She also said she hadn't eaten all day. She tried to get us to come in, but we can't be alone with kids so we didn't enter, but the weird part was that she was insisting that Hna Luque came in, but didn't want me to enter. We thought someone was inside and was making her bring us in to do something bad. But then her mom arrived and we realized that Karla just has a really active imagination and was super scared to be alone for 15 min while her mom went to the store. We ended up teaching them. the mom is named Ana, and she has 3 little kids (Karla (8), Vanessa (5), and Antonio (2). They're really poor, but super sweet.

And we also contacted a teenager named Emili. Normally the teenagers will give us an appointment just because they don't know how to say no, but then later never are there or don't let us in. But Emili was there waiting for us with her mom and 2 brothers. The mom is Yessica, and her 3 kids are Emili (13), Javiar (11) and Raziel (5). Raziel is the funniest little boy - super clever and he laughs histerically at the smallest things. He thought our accents were hilarious and laughed through the whole lesson lol. But they are a really sweet family and we feel like they've got a lot of potential. Love it!

Hna Luque has had a lot of migraines lately. If you wanted to pray for her it would be appreciated.

And Day light savings was Sunday! And no one told us! I knew it was soon, and have been asking everyone when, but nobody knew. I was so excited to sleep an extra hour... we went to church Sunday at 9 for ward council, but then found out it was actually 8, and had to sit there for an hour. The Bishop thought it was pretty funny.

So Jorge, Raul and Edgar are 3 of Adolfo's friends. they don't have anything so they're living with him right now. And they were progressing really well, but Sunday only Edgar came to church, and after when we went to visit them, Jorge said he didn't want to get baptized, and Raul doesn't like the idea of only 1 true church, and Edgar wants more time to think about it. So... we watched the video of the Restoration and the Spirit was strong, and they all promised to pray about it. We're visiting them again on Wednesday, and they need prayers. They have so much potential to change their lives, we honestly love them, and are trying to do all we can to help them.

And Aaron. Sadly, we had to drop him. He's the sweetest old man and he loves the doctrine, but he isn't willing to come to church. It was super sad.

But! we're having fun. We're working hard. We have some investigators that are progressing, and we're seeing some miracles!

Love you all tons. Keep being awesome and giving your all in everything you do. I am so glad i came on the mission. This time has been so amazing and I'm looking forward to working hard for the next 8 months.

Be good, say your prayers, and send some prayers this way por favor! Gracias, les amo muchisimo.

con amor,

-Hna Taylor

PS - I forgot to tell you something funny - we're teaching Abraham, Adolfo's 16 year old son. And he's great and progressing well - but this morning when we dropped by to visit him, his grandma (Adolfo's mom) told us that last night when we visited Raul, Edgar and Jorge, she saw us all kneeling to pray at the end. And then she told us that she can see spirits (she goes to a church called espiritualistas - apparently she talks to spirits and stuff.... yeah) and that while we were praying, she saw the spirit of an old hermit man with long white hair and a beard and apparently it was my spirit! She's slightly crazy... then when she left Abraham and Hna Luque snickered and teased me about apparently having a beard. It was weird and funny lol.