Christmas at the MTC

Christmas here was fantastic!!!! One of the best yet!!

On Christmas Eve we had a devotional with the MTC presidency and their wives.  It was fun!  Sister Clegg talked about Mary and her great experiences and hardships she had.  Then Sister Brienholt had us sing a fun song. She wrote the MTC 12 Days of Christmas. And it goes like this:
On the 12th day of Christmas the MTC gave me 
12  hours of class
11 loads of laundry
10 more commandments
9 outbound calls
8 hours of rest
7 lukewarm showers
6:30 wake up
5 HOURS OF GYM!!!!!
4 chocolate milks
3 new companions
2 haircuts free
and a rock solid testimony!!!!

I was really fun! She chose a sections of missionaries to sing each part so we were constantly getting up and sitting back down again. Each verse got louder and louder and louder!  Everyone was very into it. Especially day #5...everyone here LOVES gym! There were always whistles and yahoos after that line.

We got to hear from L Tom Perry on Christmas morning. He brought most of his family and they read the story of Christ's birth from different perspectives from the scriptures. It was fun. He said "I will let you borrow my family so you can have one here with you on this Christmas day". It was very sweet! Oh and by the way our Elders got up at 6 and got in line to save us seats so we sat in the 2nd row right smack dab in the middle....they're so good to us!

Then we went back to our rooms and got our white elephant gifts we made for our Elders and headed to the classroom to open all our presents with our Elders.  Unfortunately the Elders were late because they found that a bunch of stuff had been stolen out of their room while they were at the devotional.  It was so sad. There was a total of $1200 worth of stuff stolen. Ipods, cameras, cash, speakers, and other things.  Hopefully they'll get it back. They've interviewed everyone that lives in their building.  But once the Elders finally arrived we all changed into our Christmas pajamas...Thank you MOM...... and we opened presents together around our little pink tinsel light up tree....thank you EMILY!!!!! It was fun!

Then we had a Christmas dinner/lunch which was surprisingly good and we got the rest of the day to write letters and study.  Then that night we heard another devotional form greg Olsen who is a famous artist from the church.  It was interesting to hear him talk about how hard it has been for him to depict the life of the Savior.  It was a very nice devotional and I really love his paintings!

It was so amazing and uplifting to have a whole entire week of talking about the Savior's birth. Instead of frantically running around buying Christmas presents and trying to bake everything I possibly can!  I've always known that I should be focusing on the true meaninng of Christmas but I finally comprehended and undersrtood it this year and I hope I will never look bacl from this year on! I love our Savior Jesus Christ with all of my heart! I will forever be grateful for His infinite atonement. I know that through His atonement I can do anything and  I can overcome anything.

I love you all and I am so grateful for all of the Christmas love, packages, artwork, gifts, cards, and pictures that I have received! Once again, I am the most loved missionary in the entire MTC....by far!!!

con amor

Hermana Taylor

Christmas is Coming...the Goose is Getting Fat!

I CANNOT believe that is is already the week of Christmas! I am SO SO SO excited to be spending Christmas in the MTC! We have our first of many devotionals tonight and we're all hoping it will be an apostle. Word on the street is that Donny & Marie Osmond are coming Christmas Eve....jajajja

Thank you to everyone who has sent me fun packages!!!!! The melendi bunch and those AMAZING coconut cupcake!!! The Jestice familia!!!! Katie & the boys!!!! I hung the poster up on my closet door and I'm never taking it down!!!! JJ, Boyd, Gma Penny and Gpa Laryy!!!!! And The Vegas Lythgoes!!!!! I have been the most loved missionary in the whole MTC....by far! I've pretty much been getting packages every day and I LOVE iT!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!

And mom I got your package! That was so sweet of you to think of my roommates and Elders! They already love you....Be expecting letters from them soon!

I CANT believe that I only have 2 weeks left here! Then I'll be out in the field!!! 4 new elders came into our zone this week that are all going to my mission and they're all natives so I've been talking to them a lot in spanish.

I only have like 3 minutes left so if this randomly cuts out at any random place just know that I love you all and I hope that you have the most wonderful Christmas EVER!!!!!! We have the greatest gift in the entire world that our Savior has given us and we get to celebrate His life this week!!! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have been singing Christmas songs a lot and to hear 2500 missionaries singing so loud makes me cry. Apparently I'm related to my dad!!! I love it. The spirit is so strong when we're singing!

Here is an awesome thing that I have treasured during my time here at the MTC
The obedience is the price
Faith is the power
Love is the motive
The Spirit is the key
And Christ is the reason!!!

I love that! And Christ really is the reason that I am out here learning about the Gospel so I can share it with people who want to come unto Christ!  Through Him we can do ANYTHING!!!!

I love you all!!! FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

con amor, 
Hermana Taylor

Another Week in the City of Enoch!

This week has been pretty exciting!!!! Not anything too big happened but I feel like I've progressed a lot. On Friday we taught in the TEC which is the Teaching Evaluation Center where we teach to teachers and they pretend to be investigators that they taught on their missions. It's great practice! SO we started teaching Marcela. She has 4 boys and no husband. We taught her about God's love for her and that she can receive answers to her prayers and help with her 4 crazy sons if she prays with a sincere heart and real intent. It was pretty cool. We taught for 30 minutes and we taaught the entire time in Spanish! It felt so good!!!!  Then she emailed our teacher that teaches our class and said "Hermanas Taylor and Ouellettte are amazing! I believe that they can single handedly destroy the forces of evil!" WOW! that was pretty cool to hear!

Then later that day we taught in the TRC which is where volunteers come in and we teach them. Most of them are students from BYU but some of them are actual real investigators.  Our teacher's friend Stacy came in for us to teach! She is amazing! She has leukemia and we taught her about the plan of salvation and that she will receive a perfect body after the resurrection! It was such a cool experience because it was a REAL experience. I twas something that she honestly needed in her life!

This week I memmmorized D&C 4 in Spanish! So Elder Walch owed me a snickers icecream bar! We had a race and I won! OF COURSE!!!!

We have an hour and a half of service every Thursday and this week we had to clean the showers! GUACALA!!!!!!

Hermana Ouellette had to go to the dentist cause she had a tooth that was bothering her. I told her that she was going to need a root canal and I was totally right!!!!! She saw a crazy dentist ant the MTC and he actually knows Craig Smith! He was so funny! He goes to the DR every year and Craig went last year and another dentist that went to School with Dad and Craig.

I only have 2 more minutes but I wanted to tell you a little about my teacherrs! They're both so amazing!  Hermano Haight served in my same mission. He's Gringo and thinks he's native. It's great! We found out that he's dating a native girl but he won't give us any details. He is SO so so sososososo Funny! Yesterday he was wearing a navy suit with one grey sock and one black sock! I love it! He's the biggest dweeb! And then we have Hermana Neeleman who served in Costa Rica and she's awesome! She love her hermanas the most!

Really fast...I made a call from the RC in Spanish yesterday and it was great I talked for 10 minutes with a guy! SO SO SO cool


-Hermana Taylor

LOVE YOU ALL

Feliz December!

Rabbitt rabbitt rabbitt!!!! I CANNOT believe it is already December!!  I had such a great Thanksgiving. Or as us Spanish speaking folk call it, Thanksgeebing!!!!! My companion and I probably said that 976 times on Thursday! Emily would have hated me! On Thanksgiving Elder Holland came and spoke to us, it was absolutely amazing! He answered some great questions that missionaries had submitted to him a week prior.  His wife spoke as well and her talk was equally as amazing. This was my favorite quote: "My husband took my breath away when I fell in love with him; And now without him, I cannot breathe.  He is my life!" WOW! It was the sweetest thing I have ever heard.  And I was pretty impressed with the food. We had a regular turkey(pavo / chompipe) dinner. Oh ya... one point that Elder Holland made about being homesick really hit home for me: he said, "it is healthy, as a missionary, to be homesick for your family. It is the same as our Father in Heaven. He has children that are not currently with Him or communicating with Him. He is missisng them like crazy.  And it is our job, as missionaries, to  bring those children back to Him.  Our homesickness can be tool to fuel our desire to bring people to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And the best part was that they turned on all the Christmas lights here! They're so good to us!

So here is a little rundown of my week:
We have Gym 5 -6 days a week and I've been running atleast 2 miles every time! Which is great but sometimes I have the extra energy to run more and sometimes I barely have enough to run 2. There is an elyptical machine right at this huge window that looks out over the temple and 9th east. I love watching the real world operate. I always see Garrett driving in to work!

Sunday was busy! We had sacrament meeting, Music & the spoken word broadcast, Relief Society, Study time, walk to the temple where I saw Carly and Cru and Shad which was so so so fun! Then a devotional and then we got to pick a Sunday night church movie. Sundays are just fully loaded but the greatest day!

On Monday we taught the first lesson twice IN SPANISH!!!! It was so cool. I had been praying so hard for help and I spoke so many words that were not my own! It was such a great experience!  We started learning doctrine for the 2nd lesson on the plan of salvation.  And last night was really fun because both of our teachers were there at the same time cause Elder Lee is leaving for the Peru MTC and we wanted a picture of all of us together!

I love you all so so so much! I can't wait to hear about all you all are doing!!!

con amor,

Hermana Taylor