1 Transfer down already

WOW! Let me just say that I loved EVERY SINGLE email that I got this week!!!!!  People here in the library probably think that I'm crazy...laughing, crying, laughing a little louder.....Let's face it, I am pretty crazy!

Let's start where I left off last week.....

Friday was Sister's lunch! It was so much fun!!!!  All 25 of the sisters in the mission got together at the mission home and had lunch and we just got to hang out together!!  The mission home is like an actual house....I wasn't expecting that! AND It's directly accross the street from President Monson's house.  Like from the front porch you can look at Presiden't Monson's front porch.  I guess there is a house that the church provides for him to live in but his wife won't move so they've just stayed living in their regular house.  I attached a couple pictures from the sister's lunch with me and some of the other sisters.  All the sisters are SUPER cute! I love them all so so so much! The one picture where we're hugging is Sister Stoner (I know, right?!?!?). She came to the mission the same day as me and we were instant friends!

Saturday nothing too exciting happened....But Saturday night we went to a birthday party for one of the grandmas that live in the ward.  We just stopped by for a few minutes to say hello.  She would have been super offended if we wouldn't have showed up!  So that was kind of fun!

Sunday we had an appointment with Irene and her husband to talk about getting married.  We brought with us the secret weapon: ELDER DEHYLE!!!!!!! (it's like daily)  He and his wife are full time missionaries in our mission.  He is over the entire spanish program and he is AMAZING!!!!!  He is the expert for getting people married.  It took about 15 minutes in the appointment with him and Emilio and we had an appointment to go down to the marriage office to get their marriage liscence!!! Looks like I'm going to be making a cake!!! YAHOO!!!!!  They're getting married March 6th! And hopefully the baptism will be the same day...we're not quite sure yet on that one!

Monday...Have to say the best day of the mission so far.  We went with Emilio and Irene and their 4 super cute little girls (Yetcely8, Emily6, Haniah4, Yamilet1) to get their marriage lisecence.  Irene was so so happy.  And I couldnt believe the 100% pure joy that I felt in that day because they took a step closer, a step of faith.  Seriously, I can't even explain it! It's amazing.  I can't imagine what it feels like when one of your investigators gets baptized, or even better, sealed in the temple.  BEST DAY EVER!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday we had a zone breakfast as one last zone activity before transfers on Wednesday.  Ok, so here is the confusing thing......They tell us whether we are staying or going on Tuesday.  So we go home and pack and then on Wednesday we go to transfers and find out where you will be going and who will be your new companion.  I didn't get to go to transfers though because I'M STAYING IN ROSEPARK!!!!! I'm really excited. I'm definetly not ready to leave here yet.

So Wednesday was just a regular day of work and now today is Pday!  I'm not sure which day will be pday next week because we have mission conference but we dont know what day yet!!!!

Now I can see how much the Lord is blessing me.  I have seen so many blessings every single day!  I just had to get through the trials of my faith and now all is good!  NOw I know for future trials that come my way that there will always be amazing blessings waiting on the other side.

C0n muchisimo amor ~ Su misionera de Sion

Hermana Taylor

3 Month Mark!!

I attached a bunch of pictures!!!! Some are of the house that we live in and our tiny little room and our one puny cupboard.  Then Griselda and her daughter that we took to temple square, then one of me and Jessi!, The beautifil Utah sky.  And then my favorite house in all of Rose Park...It's bright turquoise.  Then, don't be freaked out....we Committed Alvino not to smake anymore and he gave us his cigarettes! I was very excited!  And then lastly, some of the friends I have met/other sisters serving here! They're all AMAZING!!! I can't wait to have them all as companions!!!!!

My letter to the President was a little short this week...The work is good but we need more!!!!!!

This week was a very interesting one. But I learned a ton! On Sunday we, as a zone, fasted to keep our investigators on date. And while we were fasting, 2 of our investigators fell off date. It was a big disappointment. But that same day, one of our investigators brought her husband to church with her. It was such a huge miracle because he doesn't ever even have time to spend time with his family at home but he called in sick to work on Sunday and came to church! It was a Huge miracle!!!!

We've met a lot of new people and have added quite a few new investigator's. We've had a hard time getting into contact with any less active members and the referrals that we've received. They never seem to be home but we keep trying!

With Alvino, we have decided that it would be better if the Zone leaders teach him. He called us and said that he is very confused because he thinks that he has feelings for Hermana Hernandez. We want him to get baptized for the right reason so we figure that it would be best for Elders to teach him. He is now back on date for the 20th...which is GREAT!

I love this work so much! It has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. I just know that the Lord will put people in our path that are ready and need to hear the Gospel.

So I've been keeping a list of things to write about because whenever I get infront of the computer, I can never think of anything to say!  So these are all really random and in no specific order at all...her we go:

• Hermano Haight, my MTC teacher, told us that we were going to hear 2  phrases a lot.  It was kind of more of a joke than anything.  The 2 phrases were :  "Para el Lunes"  People say that like "oh come back on Monday" and then they're never there.  Then the 2nd one is "para que le echo mentiras?"  Which is like "why would I lie to you?"  I have already heard both of them and I couldn't help but laugh when I heard them.  My companion probably thinks I'm crazy.
• Not many other people will get this but MOM-  on Friday night there was a huge yellow full moon and it made me think of you!!!!!
• Totally random but I think it's kind of funny....we live on the street West Niles...like the disease!
• oh this one is fun.....it's a game that I play with myself.  Whenever my companion knocks on a door, she knocks for a long time.  My whole life I've been a 4 knocks at a time kinda girl!  Well Hermana Hernandez....not so much!  I always count how many time she knocks.  The record has been 12 for quite a while know but she broke it the other day woth a whopping 16!!!! Like she just knocked 16 times right in a row with out a pause....WOW! That's all I can say!
• There are 2 things that I have found Hispanos are not so good at:  Whispering and singing!  They talk so loud, even when they're trying to whisper.  And during church I always feel like I'm the only one singing.  Barely anyone sings and the ones that do have horrible voices.  That is SO rude...but I think it's so funny!
• On Saturday I had my last New Misionary training!  It was Extreme Street Contacting!  I was with Sister Yamashta and we went up and down 200 south in downtown and had to contact all the people we came accross and we had certain things we had to give out like, book of mormon, dvds, pass along cards, etc...It was SO fun!!
• We  had the all day in the temple! It was AMAZING!!!!  We were there from 7am to 7pm.  And in the middle of the day we had a devotional with all of the missionaries from the entire mission.  It was so cool! The devotional was with President and Sister Sonne, The temple president and his wife, and Elder M Russell Ballard! WOW! I was totally not expecting that!  It was an amazing day!!!!!!

well, I'm off to do all the thousands of things that we have to do on this very busy pday! I love you all!!!!

con amor

Hermana Taylor

Another Week as a Zion Missionary

I don't know if I've told you all about our theme of our mission.  It is that we are all Zion missionaries and we are trying to create a celestial culture here in SLC!!!

 

Anyways, this week went super fast!  I can't believe that it's already Pday again.  I feel like I was emailing yesterday! 

 

Here is what I was up to this week:

 

Letter to the President:

There was a lot of work to do this last week.  We have been working really hard on getting our investigators and less active members to church.  That seems to be one of our front running obstacles right now.  We have daily contact with each of them to encourage them and remind them of the blessings they will receive from attending church.  The good thing is that we had 6 investigators come to church this past week which was such a miracle! I am so grateful for the Lord's hand in this work because I know that He is the reason that all 6 of them came on Sunday. 
     The second front running problem we've had is that people need to get married. Two of the three situations that we have are depending on the husbands.  But both of the wives are staying strong.  They both came to church on Sunday with their kids and we are still continuing to teach them.  They both have said that they know that this church is true and they will do everything they can to get their marriage license.  I am so excited for both of them because they are on the right track and have such a strong desire to learn more about the Gospel.
     I have learned a ton this week about how to teach and how to follow the spirit in order to teach what the person really needs to hear.  We have 2 little kids that we are teaching, Manny and Leslie, that have a baptism date of the 14th.  They are SO smart! They are SO ready to get baptized!  We are going to take them to the stake baptism for the 8 year olds this Saturday so that they can see what they're going to be doing in 2 weeks!  They're both very excited!
     One thing that I have seen that helps tremendously is having a member with us at the lesson.  Every lesson we had this week with a member was absolutely incredible! They were there for a very specific reason and they bore testimony of exactly what the investigator needed to hear! This week has been a great learning experience for me.
     We received training from President Atkinson yesterday and I was so excited to try it out.  So, we went to our very first appointment yesterday afternoon and we decided that we were going to try out this new method of inspired inviting.  This appointment was with a lady that has been meeting with the missionaries for 7 years and her 2 teenage daughters.  We decided that if they didn't accept a baptismal date in this appointment then we should probably drop them.  So we got to the house and got to know the 2 daughters a little bit.  Then we sang "Be Thou Humble" to bring the spirit.  WOW!  The spirit was already so strong at that point.  Then we asked all 3 of them if they would share an experience with us when they have felt God really knew them  and blessed them with something that they needed.  The 2 daughters were not taking anything seriously and didn't have an experience to share.  But then their mom shared an experience she had when her husband passed away 7 months ago.  Then we applied that to how much God loves us and wants the best for us.  Then we had them each individually pray right there with us to know if it is God's will that they get baptized the 20th of Feb.  WOW WOW WOW!!!! What an amazing experience! Each of the daughters said a very simple, sweet prayer.  After they were done,  they were very serious.  Neither of them were laughing anymore.  They each said that they felt something different and that it felt right.  They accepted the date of the 20th because the spirit was testifying to they that this is what God wants for them right now in their lives!  It was a great experience for me.

 

So, It has been a pretty good week.  Like I said in my letter to the President, I have seen so many miracles in this work. 

 

The super bummer is that I took a bunch of pictures to send out in this email but we're in a family history center in a regular church building and it wont let me load pictures onto this computer :(   BUMMER!  But we'll go somewhere else next week and I'll send them then.  They're just boring pictures of the house that I live in and things like that.  Speaking of the house that I live in, mom you had a couple questions.  The people that we live with are pretty nice.  Just an older couple.  We have a whole page of rules to follow on cleaning and doing our laundry and stuff.  We only ever see them when we come home at night and they're watching tv or playing a game or something.

 

Well, Sorry this letter is so boring. I'm just not quite sure what else to say.  I love you all so so much!!! Thank you for all of your letters this week! I loved them!

 

Con Amor

 

Hermana Taylor!