20 Julio 2015

This week was pretty hard. Elder Pieper from the Seventy came to the mission and so between the Zone Conference, District Meeting, the Leadership Conference, cleaning the church for the 
Zone Conference, baptismal interviews and weekly planning, we only had one full day of work and that day, all the appointments fell and we ended up just knocking on a bunch of doors and for some odd reason, nobody was home all day. But whatever. We did what we could and went home very tired but happy for having worked.

Maribel didn't come to church again! We even asked permission to the president AGAIN to be able to baptize her this next week, but we went to go check on her Saturday at night after getting back from Saltillo and Hermano Martinez told us she had gone to La Madrid because the Martinez family had family over on Saturday night. I swear this family that she's living with has been half of the opposicion, and they should be helping her! But oh well. Nayté, the friend that she lives with, is just about fully active now and working on going to the temple this next temple trip.

Maricela has disappeared from off the face of the earth. Better said, she left to San Buena this week and so it's really been two weeks since we've seen her. But we saw her son last night and got an appointment for tonight at 6. I sure hope it goes well!

We haven't been able to coincide with Antonio this week and had to cancel a couple of appointments that we had with him, but we dropped him off a Book of Mormon to read and he loves reading, lives alone, the only problem should be his work, but he says he'll be able to work extra hours before or after Sunday to be able to attend church for at least an hour.

Speaking of which, Lucy came to church this Sunday and I asked her if she was going to be able to stay for the three hours and she looked up at me kind of sheepishly and said "The lady to cover me never came, I just sort of left without permission from work." Which made me feel awesome that she's just sacrificing her work like that to come to church. It's just awesome to see how she's so concerned about doing what's right. She may not understand everything perfectly, but she sure gets putting God first in her life.

Mayela and her children came again! And they say that they want to be baptized on August 1 because that's when her husband's going to be in town! WOOO!

The Conferences with Elder Pieper were really cool. I'm not gonna lie, he's a bit of a rambler and I saw a few missionaries fall asleep. But he gave us some awesome stuff to be able to put in practice. Afterward he personally interviewed me as part of a random-selection, "let's see how the missionaries feel in this mission" survey-kinda thing. He asked me about how I felt, about how my family was, about what I'd learned and just things like that. He told me to tell you all hi and thanks for helping me be ready to come out on the mission.

Afterward I told the Zone Leaders from Monclova Este that he was interviewing possible missionaries to be sent to open Cuba. They believed it. That's one thing I've been working on and been progressing in: convincingly lying.

That's about it this time. I'll try sending a few pictures this time.

Con amor,

Elder Taylor

Yo con unos girasoles y mi sombrero.
Me with sunflowers and my hat.

Comida tipica de aqui, gorditas de picadillo y soda fanta
Typical food of here: gorditas of picadillo and Fanta soda.

la family haro acosta, una familia que ayudamos a reactivar. ya llevan 4 semanas seguidas viniendo a la iglesia, la hermana hasta hizo la oracion en la sacramental.

The Haro Acosta family that we are helping reactivate. They've already come to church four weeks in a row and the sister has given the prayer in sacrament meeting.