{Week 18} Aculco - April 14, 2014

I love you all so much! Thanks for the letters everyone. And Dad thanks too. I love hearing from you and I felt the Spirit and your love when I read your letter. (yeah, I cried)

  

So tomorrow is transfers, but my comp and I don't have cambios. We'll be together for another 6 weeks! I've decided I'm happy for that. We have another 6 weeks to learn to talk to each other and get along better. She was sick this week (doesn't that sound familiar?) and on Thursday we went to the temple to see the doctor, who ordered her to bed rest for all of Thursday. It's the favorite joke of my district and my ward that I 'kill' all my comps. It's pretty funny. Everyone is always telling Hna Cruz to be careful with me.



Me at the Mexico City Temple

The temple was so beautiful. I love going there. The feeling is great. And we took a taxi to get there, and ended up having a great talk with the driver about the gospel.

(Unfortunately, she probably won't be able to go in this temple. 
 It closed for renovations in January and isn't expected to reopen until late 2015.)

On Friday I went on splits for the first time! Hna Mendoza - the sister training leader for our zone who only has 6 weeks left - came to our area with Hna Cruz, and I went to her area with Hna Williams (who has 6 more weeks than me)!  So there were two tall blond white girls together in an area where the guys just looove to catcall. So that was fun. We taught some lessons and contacted and chatted! It was really nice to be with her and I learned some stuff from her in the one day we were together. She's super sweet, but has cambios. Tomorrow she'll no longer be in my district.

My district. Left to Right - Arcia, Sibrian, Cruz, Me, Nance, Mendoza, Williams, Cardenas, Bennett, Mercedes, with Hunsaker in the back and the DL Elder Perrea in the front.

And on Tuesday we had to go to the immigration offices to finish visa stuff. So we had to be at the mission offices by 7:30 am, so we had to leave at 6! Then all the Americans, one elder from the Dominican Republic, and one Canadian (me!) all said adios to our comps, who hung out in the offices all day while we all went to immigration! That was fun - a herd of white people. There were about 18 of us. And Elder Hixen was there! I was so happy to see him again. He's a great elder, and has baptized almost every week. In case you don't remember, he was in my district in the MTC and was one of my zone leaders there. So it was Bennett, Lopez, Hixen and me - half our MTC district. Hna Gurley was scheduled to go the next day so wasn't with us. And then when we went to the temple, Elder Hixen was there too! I got to see him 2 days in a row!

Something that made me pretty sad this week was our investigator Armando. He's about 38 and a sweet guy. We've been teaching him for a while, and he was supposed to get baptized yesterday. He passed his baptismal interview, he was excited, and then Saturday night he told us he wasn't sure. Sunday we went to get him to bring him to church, and he wouldn't open the door. That was pretty sad. The church is true, and it's so sad to see people who know it's true, not want to change their lives. And then our other 2 investigators didn't come either. And another just left on vacation until May. So that's been kind of depressing. But somehow, I now have a renewed determination to work harder than ever. Hopefully I'll be able to communicate it to my comp, and we'll work harder than ever!

And Mom, about the shoes - I would love another pair of the Kadee crocs in black. They're the comfiest shoes - the clarks rub the side of my foot funny, and aren't great for all day walking.

Have I told you about Hno F? He's the old bishop, and is now the first counselor. He's one of the 4 men in my ward that have served missions, and he's awesome! He's funny and really smart, and he helps us out a lot. He was the one that was going to feed us tacos de tripe on Thursday, but my comp was sick so we missed out. Rayos. (that means 'lightning', but they use it like 'dang it' here)

But things are looking up! Obviously there is something that we can still do in this area to help the people, or we wouldn't still be here. There was a rumor going around for awhile that they were going to close our area because there hadn't been baptisms in so long. But we're still here, and I'm determined to work harder than ever. We taught some members about patience the other day, and I'm doing my best to have patience and faith in the Lord's timing, and until then just keep working as hard as I can. We've had some amazing experiences here, and I know that God is on our side. Did I ever tell you that I read Jesus the Christ about a month ago? That was amazing. I highly recommend it - but if you don't have time, just read the beginning, the end, and the part about the sermon on the mount - particularly the Lord's prayer. Seriously amazing.

Me at the Visitors' Center

I love you all!

Be good, say your prayers, and have patience in all things! Mom if you're still reading Preach My Gospel, the part in the attributes of Christ about patience is pretty awesome. I recommend it!

Love you!

-Hermana Taylor



And now for some more pictures . . .

My kitchen. We have a blender, a fridge, and a stove.

The other side of my kitchen. Food!

Hna E - a less active convert of 4 years, who is the sweetest old lady you'll ever meet. She has cancer :(

THis area is called Aguamiel, and is pretty typical of my area. Big edificios and large plazas

  

The view from the top of one edificio - the green tents are the tiangis - the outdoor markets that are there everyday.

 The tiangis again.

  



This little girl is my favorite! Pretty sure she's the Mexican version of Katia. Her name is Sophia.

We were in an investigators house and she had a coconut monkey! I had to take a picture. Were your coconut monkeys like this mom? and yes I did get your FB letters from Hawaii and the mission experiences. Thanks!

 

It's hailed twice.

Daniela,Hna Cruz, Andrea, and me! I love this family - the V's. They are amazing and their kids are all really sweet. I sent this because we fit 5-6 people in the back of a car on a regular basis. Seatbelts don't exist here.

 Love you all!

{Week 6} MTC - January 18, 2014

Hola! Last week in the MTC!!! I leave in 2 days!!! AAAAHHHHHH!!!! I am so excited and so nervous at the same time, but I know that it will be great!!

 

The Hermana's in my district today at the Provo Temple.

Today we went to the temple for the last time in 17 months, and we got to see the new temple film! It was really good. I love them both! It was so nice to be in the temple, and it was kind of sad to know we won´t get to go to the temple for awhile. A Spanish session got out in the Provo temple just a few minutes after our session, so there were a lot of Latinos in the temple. I love them all so much!! I can´t wait to teach them for real.

 

I bought a calling card. I should be calling around 6 or 6:30 on Monday morning. So make sure you pick up! lol I'm almost done packing, and I did all my laundry. It's so exciting!!! I feel like we barely got to the MTC, but at the same time I feel like we've been here forever. I'm excited to talk to you all!!!

 

Tuesday devotional was Elder Bednar again!! We have two devotionals a week, and I always say that I have a gut feeling that it is going to be one of the twelve, and I'm always wrong so they make fun of me lol. But this time I was positive, and it was!! It was really funny. Elder Bednar told us that they had received over 1000 questions last time, so he and his wife just continued to answer them. Some of my favorites included when he discussed fear being the absence of faith and faith being a principle of action, when he told us about spiritual gifts and how we can only receive them if we're using them to bless others, and when he bore his testimony of the Book of Mormon. One of the questions was "will you please bare your testimony of the BOM?" and he said "I would love to" then proceeded to bare a really powerful testimony. It was wonderful. He also talked about how a lot of the questions asked about miracles, and he said that what we really need to do is pray to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the miracles that are already all around us. It was a really great devotional. At one point, his wife called up some elders to ask them a question, and one of them was brand new so he still had the orange dot sticker on his nametag. After they sat down, Elder Bednar got up and said "Elder, that little sticker is called a dork dot. Lose it." It was so funny!! We laughed so hard. I love hearing the apostles!!

 

On Friday we had In-Field Orientation all day at main campus. It's for all the people who are leaving soon, and it was basically a bunch of workshops where we practiced skills like effectively using the members and street contacting. At the end the instructors (a whole bunch of RM's) put on a cheesy play about some Elders and how they meet with the Ward and use them to help teach. It was really funny, and we were so tired that we laughed at the silliest jokes. It was fun though!!! And I looked for Sister Coward, but couldn't find her. I think I scared one girl because I was trying to see her nametag to see if it was her, so I kept looking in her direction... Oh well lol.

 

Thanks for the packages!!! I love the shirts, and that orange shirt was pretty sneaky lol!! I was confused when the package said there were 3 shirts in it lol.

 

My companion and I wearing ugly shirts our mother's sent us. lol

(We call the orange shirt our plucked chicken shirt!  The girls in our family have a game with it - we just hide it in odd places in each others rooms and wait for it to be found.  I found it in my pillow sham just after Christmas so I sent it to Jasmine in a package with her two Spanish P-day shirts.  She made all the hermana's try it on.  It's so stretchy that it fits size newborn to XXXL, and even fits dogs!!!  I'm pretty sure it's in the package she's sending home!)

 

The Anderson's sent me that hot waterbottle. They also sent me a whole bunch of muffins and valentines treats!! And a copy of Elder Anderson's letter, which I later regaled my district with. We're all super excited!! And our teacher Hermana Bair told us she hopes we all get robbed at least once. lol.

I have loved the MTC. It has been an amazing experience (and right now it's pretty much my dream job to be a teacher here) but I am so excited to get to Mexico!! I'm excited to no longer be in a huge group all the time... we have a lot of fun and I love them all, but it can be really easy to get off topic. I've learned that at the MTC, you learn as much as you want to. Your teachers teach you a lot, and if all you learn is in class, you'll learn quite a bit. But there is so much more time that is available to you! It's been a bit frustrating these last few weeks as I've been trying to study as much as I can, and everyone else is too busy laughing and joking. I think it's important to remember that we're on the Lord's time, and we're here to do what he wants us to. It's been a test in patience for me... and when things are out of control I'll often say "dos pies!" (two feet) It's kind of our district motto - it means have two feet in the mission at all times. I love my district. They're just not used to sitting in a desk all day lol. But one study time I love is our personal study. We're really good about being quiet the whole time, and then after we go around the circle and all share one thing that we learned. And we've learned a lot!! You can see how much everyone's testimonies have grown from the last 6 weeks.

 

Thursday was our last class with Hermano Eaton. He's the teacher we've had the whole time we've been here, and he's great. At the end he bore his testimony to us in English, and then we asked him to say the closing prayer, and he did that in English as well. The scriptures say we should have the opportunity to learn the gospel in our own tongue, and that is something I really believe. We hear Spanish all day long from Hermano Eaton, so to hear him bare a simple and earnest testimony and then prayer in my native tongue was extremely powerful. I'm so excited to be able to help others to hear the gospel in their own language!!

Us with Hermano Eaton - he's the blond in the middle.

Our last class with Hermana Bair is in a couple hours. She is marvelous. I love her!! All our teachers have been great. If I were to pick a favorite it would be Hermano Hardy, but I've loved all 4 of them. And we have several traveling teachers that I love too. Hermano Christofferson, Hermano Lebron, Hermono Wright.... They're all great.

 

Us with Hermano Hardy (second from left).  It took us forever to track him down.
He teaches a district two floors above us now.  Love him!!!

Tomorrow is our last full day at the MTC!! Our zone sings a hymn and has a prayer every night at 9:20, just before we head home, and whenever a district is about to leave, we sing "Para siempre Dios este con Vos" (God be with you till we meet again. The chorus "till we meet ("till we me-ee-et, till we me-ee-t") is "hasta ver" ("hasta ve-ee-er, hasta vee-eer") which actually means "until to see", but it makes sense. We sing the fist verse normal, the second louder, and by the third verse we're practically screaming!! Then on the 4th verse, we sing it super reverent, and the Spirit is always so strong. Then we pray. Then they usually sing the American Anthem, which is also really nice. I kind of smile and hum along because I don't know it lol. And there's no way I'm singing "O Canada" by myself!

 

Anyway, I love it here, and I can't wait to leave. My next email will come from Mexico!!! I look forward to it. I love you all and I loved all your letters.

Be good, say your prayers, and I'll see you in awhile!!

 

-Hermana Taylor

{Week 5} MTC - January 11, 2014

The Map!!!  We're all heading to Mexico City Southeast!

Saturday/Sabado! We had our discussion on 3 Ne 27 with Hermano Hardy. He came in and asked us how much each of us had studied the chapter. When he found out that we had all read the chapter 4-9 times, and spent approximately 3 hours on it, he was dumbfounded. We all recognized that it could be a super spiritual experience, and we were all worried he'd say we hadn't done enough, so we put everything we had into it. He apologized because HE wasn't ready, so while we all studied Spanish for the next hour, he studied the chapter. Then we had our discussion. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had in my life. We all shared things we had learned and new insights we gained as others spoke, and the spirit was so strong!! I had gained an amazing testimony of the Atonement from my study, and as I shared that I pretty much bawled through the whole thing. It was a truly amazing experience.

 

Sunday/Domingo! Fast and testimony meeting!! It was so much fun and super spiritual to have all the missionaries in my branch and the other branch that meets with us share our testimonies in Spanglish. I loved it. And then after the meeting, our Branch President, President Stewart - who is pretty much the sweetest and cutest old man you'll ever meet - called me to be the new Sister Training Leader for my district. That means I'm also sort of the zone STL, when needed. So next Wed when we get a new district I'll get to welcome them. There were a lot of really good talks shared on Sunday. It was a very spiritual day.




Hermana Bennett and I in the Salt Lake City Airport.



Monday/Lunes!  Vegas!!  We got on our bus at 4:30, got to the airport in Salt Lake around 5:30, went through security, and then hung out in the airport till 8:30 when our plane left! There was 11 of us who travelled to get our visas, but one then continued on to her mission while the rest of us came back. The airplane was a lot of fun - but it was super short. We took off, levelled out, got our drinks, and suddenly we were descending. It was fun though!


Hermana's Bennett, Benson (Ingram's comp!) and I on the plane to Vegas.

The first thing we saw when we got to Vegas? Slot machines!!! Elder Greer, an elderly service missionary picked us up and took us to the Del Taco then the institute, where we hung out for a couple hours while he shared random helpful facts about Mexico. Then we went to the Mexican Consulate. We were there about 1.5 hours, waiting in line, then we had our pictures taken and gave our fingerprints, and that was it! It was fun to (attempt to) chat in Spanish with the people in the Consulate, and we talked with a ton of people in the airports. After the consulate, we went back to the institute and talked for a while more, before getting to the airport around 5. Then we hung out until we left at 7!! It's an hour flight, but due to time change we got back to SLC at 9, and back to campus at 10:30. It was a really long day, but we got our Visas!! and everyone else in my district will have them by the 15th. Elder Gilbert randomly has to go to Boise Idaho for his, and it's an overnight trip...

Las Vegas from the air.  It's a little blurry! lol

 

Every other day of the week!!! (it's all kind of a blur...)
 

I had an amazing experience as sister training leader where as I followed the spirit I was able to help others... but I can't really go into detail. It was awesome though!!! Follow the Spirit! It will guide in what to say and do!!

 

We've gotten to the point where our brains are filled with so much vocab, we've started making some funny mistakes in lessons. Hermana Gurley said that after you pray for repentance you can start sinning again (Jacob was like "what!! and acted out getting drunk" lol), Elder Koehler told Jacob that he was beautiful rather than his prayer, Elder Hixen told Jacob they had a massage for him rather than a message, and some of the new girls told their investigator that the Atonement is for their dead fish rather than their sins. We have some good laughs over those.

 

Our new teacher is Hermana Bair, and she's awesome! She's super bubbly, and very enthusiastic about everything. With her, we have a new investigator named Gabriela, and she's really sweet too. Hermana Bair is decorating our classroom right now as we're writing our emails. We love her.

Hermana Bair in the middle.

We've started something new called TRC (I can't remember what that stands for). It's when members and non members volunteer for us to teach them, but we don't know if they're members or not - they all fake ignorance. Hermana Gurley and I had the absolute privilege of teaching a beautiful old man named Jose from Guatelmala last week. He was one of the sweetest people I've ever met!! We only got to teach him three times, but he was wonderful. We taught him about Jose Smith, then El Libro de Mormon, then the Plan of Salvation. Each time the Spirit was so strong he would start to cry, and I'd get teary too. I truly love him, and even if he's already a member, I just want to help him come closer to Christ. At the end of our last lesson, he asked what he should do if he knew the Book of Mormon was true, and before I could even think, I said, "Debe seguira el ejemplo de Jesucristo y sera batizado" (You should follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized - roughly, my grammar isn't great lol.) And he said "ok, when?" It was a super amazing experience. But then we didn't know what to do after the lesson... because we didn't know whether or not he was a member already!! Apparently he is, but that's ok because I think we helped him anyway.

 

My zone on the way to the temple.  They're all awesome!!!

This morning we got to go to the temple!!! We got there, and they were backed up 3 sessions because there were so many people!! It was really packed, but I was so glad for the opportunity to go. I've missed it.



My companion and I at the Provo Temple

 

Thanks for the cinnamon rolls!!! I was going to tell you not to send food but I forgot. We have so much candy and junk in our apartment that was given to us by departing districts. But then the Schedule changed, and now we eat supper at 4:30, so by the time we get to the apartment at 9:30 we're all starving!! The cinnamon rolls provided a more substantial snack and were greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!

 

There are some teachers here known as floating teachers - they don't have a district at the moment, so they travel around and help other districts. One who's been with us for a little while is Hermano Christofferson - D Todd Christofferson's nephew!! He's really awesome. He knows a lot about the gospel, the scriptures, and Spanish. He helps a lot. He also tells us some cool things about the 12 and First Presidency. He said that they are the happiest people you'll ever meet. He said the gospel is a message of happiness, and they all truly live it. He also said they are the funniest people he knows. He told us about how Pres. Hinckley used to play elevator tag with his security people, and they once lost him for 3 hours!! Smalls!!! Trivia!!! Who invented the whiteboard? - Robert D Hales!!

 

The MTC is awesome, but I can't wait to leave... and we got our travel plans!! We leave at 4:30 AM on the 20th. Our flight stops at Atlanta, then we head for Mexico City. The 5 of us going to SE are together, but the 3 elders going to N are taking a different flight together :( It will be sad to say goodbye to them all, but we're all really excited.  If I do phone from the airport it might be around 6 AM.... just so you know.... I'll let you know for sure next Pday!!
 

Hermana Prochello and I.  She's heading to the Canada Calgary Mission, Spanish speaking.
She's in my zone and is super sweet.  You probably won't meet, but if you do, say HI!

 

I love you all. I love MTC life. And I can't wait for Mexico City!!!

See you in 17 months!

-Hermana Taylor

To The Temple

Jasmine attended the temple on Friday, October 4, 2013.  She was so excited on the car ride - just had this huge smile on her face, and little giggles would spontaneously erupt from her!

 

It was extra special because Jasmine's cousin, Jaime, who got her mission call on the same day as Jasmine, also attended the temple that day.  And it was the day after cousin Grady returned from his mission, so he was there too.  Jas also had both of her grandparents there and sister Richelle and her husband.

 

 

Being with family in the temple - it just doesn't get much better than this!