28 Octubre 2015

28 Octubre 2015

Okay, let's see how this goes.

Investigators:

We have a lot, but here are the ones that have progressed the most.

1. Esther De la Rosa-- Mother of a guy who was baptized 3 weeks ago in another ward. She's coming to church and loving it, but she's reticent to put a baptismal date. We're also teaching her daughter Joselyn and her aunt (88 years old and deaf) but they haven't come to church yet. She also just happened to bump into one of her best friends in the church this last Sunday. So there's a built-in hermanadora. (friendshipper).

2. Nayeli, Juan Valentin, Patlan-- a group of friends that are listening to us. They haven't been able to come to church yet, but they're all very interested and have  TON of hard questions for us. They are all reading the Book of Mormon. We have a Noche de Hogar with some active members and them tonight, so I hope it goes well!

3. I don't remember her name-- we just met her on Sunday. We went to eat at her son's house. Her son, by the way, is the first counselor of the stake presidency. We're eating and talking and it turns out that she's not baptized. So then we share a message and she says that she's never been convinced enough to be baptized, even though she's been to church with them a lot. All four her children were baptized about 15 years ago. She says that that same Sunday morning (as in this last Sunday) she just happened to grab her granddaughter's Book of Mormon and opened it up and saw the scripture in Alma that says ''this is the day given for man to prepare to meet god'' or something like that. I don't even remember and I don't have my scriptures handy right now and they'd be in Spanish anyway. At this point in the narration during the lesson, she just busts up crying incontrolably for about 5 minutes. The spirit just soaked that room. And then she says. ''I think it's time for me to be baptized. I think God is telling me that.'' So yep. I hope it all turns out well. She just happens to be in Piedras Negras for a month before going back up to Houston. And we just happened to go and eat with her son that same Sunday.

We've been taking Alejandra Castro out to preach with us. She just got back from her mission in Tabasco about 4 months ago and it's really nice to be teaching with a member that can just take out the scriptures and knows exactly how the lessons are supposed to go. She's determined that we're teaching wrong, though. She told us a whole long list of things that she would have done differently (basically a whole bunch of object lessons) and that she's going to make us a box of visual aids to take around preaching with us. So then I told her: "Wow, look at you, caring about the investigator. I'm just thinking about the lesson with a member present." (Translation: I'm just glad our numbers are going to look really good this week.) That made her mad, but then I told her I was just kidding and that we would consider using any visual aids she made for us. So then she forgave us. And then came to another lesson the next day. So that's good. :)

We made enchiladas and horchata today for lunch. Well, I made the horchata, my companion the enchiladas, which, by the way, are NOTHING like what we call enchiladas.

Horchata:

1. about a handful of rice sitting in water for about a day. Works better with warm water, but obviously when it's sitting around for about a day, it's not going to be warm the whole time. Also maybe oats.

2. about half a can of canned milk.

3. cinnamon and lots of sugar.

After blending the rice (and oats) and water to the point of being a little bit of sludge at the bottom of the blender and lots of milky looking water, you pour in a lot of water and lots of sugar and some cinnamon. And some canned milk. And that's it. I know some people also throw in vanilla and maybe peanuts and even coconut, but those are just variations. An hermana from Guatamala told me basically: If it don't got peanut, it ain't horchata.

This week is going to be crazy. On Wednesday in the morning we're leaving to Saltillo. We're not coming back until Friday very early in the morning, like around 5 or 6. Then we're going to have General Conference on Saturday and Sunday. So basically, we're going to be working Tuesday and Friday, and that's it. But good news is: GENERAL CONFERENCE! And I might get a chance to see the Familia Alvarez in Saltillo because we're going to be stuck around there for a whole afternoon waiting for the bus to Piedras Negras.

Miss you all! Los extraño!

Elder Taylor

21 Septiembre 2015

21 Septiembre 2015

This week was very tiresome, but we're getting over it.

I'm here in Piedras Negras now and I feel like I'm in a different mission. In Monclova, it's SO HARD to get a direct response from anyone and almost nobody lets you in the door, but here, people open the door and tell you a direct yes or no after listening, so it's super easy to find new investigators and even easier to decide who to continue visiting and who no. So basically, I arrived into this area and there was already a lot of investigators in various stages of progress. Which was nice. Sad to say I sure didn't leave this much behind in Frontera.

And besides the people that were already here, we've found a TON of people in the past few days, and some of them seem SUPER ready to receive the gospel. One lady is the mom of a recent convert and she went to his baptism and ''felt so good'' and couldn't explain why. She came to church this week and we haven't gone back to see how it went yet. Another new investigator is the girlfriend of the son of a lady that got baptized last week in our area. Apparently she's always been around the house whenever the missionaries were there but they never thought to invite her to listen. And another guy, we got turned around and went in a wrong street and then realized it and turned around and he was coming up the street to us and turns out he's the husband of a recent convert and wants to come to church. They just moved here from Veracruz. So yeah. We're pretty excited and my companion is pretty dumbfounded because this sort of thing just wasn't happening before. I think God is recompensing me for a hard last transfer.

We have an odd dude in the ward. He wants to get the whole ward involved on his business plan to make a company for dog houses and bicycles. He started passing out business cards in sacrament meeting.

There are some things that are just too weird about this place. It's not even nearly the same as Monclova or Saltillo. It's just across the river from Eagle Pass Texas and everything is really almost more American than Mexican. A lot of houses have front yards instead of patios and garages instead of the half-garage-half-patio thing they usually have. The people dress and act more American and the streets seem more organized in an American manner. Everyone here has a car, which is hugely different, and even the church building looks more like an American Chapel instead of the normal cookie-cutter mexican style. Also, most of the music people listen to is American Music instead of banda or norteña or cumbia and a lot of people speak English and actually really well. And there are TREES! I haven't seen so many trees since I left the states!

Speaking of that, my companion is helping me a TON with my spanish. He's from Chihuahua, Ciudad Juarez area, and speaks both languages fluently. I don't know if it's a Chihuahua thing or if it's just him, but he speaks in almost just idioms and so I'm learning a TON of things that are REALLY useful and don't make any sense if nobody explains it to you.

Here are a few I learned this week: Rifársela (me la rifo) and it means do something and do it in a really cool way. (Te la rifas? means Will you do this for me?)

Te mueve el tapete: he pulls the mat out from under you. It means like catches you off guard or throws you off.

Valió barriga: it was worth a belly. It means a whole lot of effort was spent and at the end didn't end up mattering.

Those are the ones I remember right now. But it's going to be fun learning them.

So to throw him for a loop, last night leaving from Ward Counsel I told him Let's make like a bread truck. That got him pretty confused. It was fun.

There's a really cool graveyard here on the way to the church that looks like something right out of a movie with voodoo, like Princess and the Frog. I'll get a picture of it and send it next week if I remember.

Whoops! I didn't finish the last email before sending it.

My companion and I while eating lunch right now watched the movie of the Restoration. Whenever I see these movies or even just think hard about Joseph Smith and what he did and what he saw, I'm always just so amazed. He saw God and Jesus! Who doesn't want to hear about this?! This has got to be the coolest thing that has ever happened besides Jesus himself and maybe the creation!

I know this church is all that we profess to be. It just has to be. And even if it weren't, it wouldn't matter to me. It makes me happy knowing that God cares about us and is willing to restore His religion by means of a simple farm boy. It makes me know that he doesn't care who we are or what we've done or not done in this world. He knows what we are capable of and will help us get there if we're just willing to get there. I run into SO MANY PEOPLE every day that want nothing to do with this, and I sometimes feel like grabbing them and shaking them and telling them: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING! And then there are people that try and prove it false with scriptures or scientific or historic data and we can be arguing for hours upon hours about these things that are truly superficial. It all comes down to three simple facts:

God loves us and sent His Son to do all He did. Joseph saw them. We can come to know it and it will make us happy if we just put it to the test and are willing to receive the answer.

Well, that's the spiel this week.

Hasta la proxima semana!

Elder Taylor

14 Septiembre 2015

14 Septiembre 2015

This week was a week of surprises.

1. We found a few new people, and one of them whose name is Jose Luis at first was a super Christian guy. Just so everybody knows, Catholics here tend to be hard to teach because they either don't care about anything religious or are super Catholic and are determined to not change, even if they know and admit that they know that their religion is wrong about many things (that sounds ugly but that's how they themselves say it.) Jehovahs Witnesses are hard even to get in the door because they try preaching to you and don't listen to anything you say. Atheists don't want to listen. Gnostics think they know everything and don't want to listen. But Christians might be the worst in that they know all these scriptures about the Restoration, they know about the Spiritual Gifts and they know about just about everything that is the True Church of Jesus Christ but have different interpretations of it all and generally come back to the line "well, I have crazy spiritual experiences in my church, so that means that my church is of God." There's also a general belief here that there is no·True Church of Christ and that it doesn't matter what church you belong to, you're going to be saved. I've even heard Jehovah's Witnesses say that.

Anyway, this Jose Luis we weren't too sure about him because he seemed pretty sold on his current church which is governed by a pastor and then by an apostle at a regional level. He talked about how they laid their hands on him and gave him the Gift of the Holy Ghost and how then he talked in tongues. And then he demonstrated how to talk in tongues. But then when we came back he told us about how he's just never run into the church that has "the greenest pastures" for him and that he's looking for the true church. So then when we talked about the Book of Mormon he wanted it and so we gave it to him and he got really excited. So that was kind of a surprise. We weren't sure he was interested at all.

2. We've been trying to get with this lady named Carla Rios for a few weeks, but something has always just been coming up and so we haven't been able to line up our schedules with her until finally we went to knock her door again and she wasn't busy. At first she had expressed doubts about Joseph Smith and had seemed pretty adamant about that. But then when we were sitting there her doubts just kind of went out the window. She even mentioned she had looked online to find stuff to bring up in the lesson, but we answered her questions really well. So that was cool. Another surprise. Also, she has a German Shepherd named Hitler.

3. We had the Temple Rededication of the Temple of Mexico City this Sunday. Turns out President Eyring REALLY struggles with Spanish pronunciation. At one point he didn't even try to pronounce the name of someone and just waited for the translator to say it. But it was really awesome. But that's where the surprise comes in. I recognized the translator! I don't remember his name, but he was in the MTC with me in the other district. His Spanish was TERRIBLE when we were there (which is only to be expected) and you couldn't understand a word he said! But when he was translating for President Eyring, he sounded native. His accent switched in and out of Argentine and Mexican, so I´m thinking he probably has had an Argentine companion or something like that, but it was definitely not an American accent. So that was cool to see.

All our converts went to the dedication as well! It's nice to have been here long enough to actually be able to see these people progress in the church, not just as investigators but also as members. And it's REALLY cool to see that they're still active. I don't have a lot of baptisms and a lot of converts, but from what I know, most are still active in the church. And that makes me feel like I've done a good thing. (Apparently something happened with the Familia Alvarez and it sounds like the husband is mad about it and so he hasn't gone to church, but I hope they can get it worked out because they've got less than 2 months left before they can go to the temple to be sealed.)

4. We felt like we should call Martha Sanchez to get an appointment with her this next week because it's been just about 3 months since we've been able to sit down with her to talk. So we called and she answered super excitedly. "Elders! I'm no longer working on Sundays! When is church so I can come this Sunday?!" So then we had to explain to her about the rededication and how only active members can enter. So that was disappointing, but she was already talking about getting with Sister Coty to take her to church or maybe even just grabbing a taxi if Coty couldn't take her. So that was another surprise.

We went with her on Sunday to say hi (and teach a lesson of course) and I asked her how to make horchata. So then she explained it to me and it's super easy. I'm making it today and then I'll tell you all how it goes.

5. And the last surprise of this week. Actually, many surprises. The transfers.

I am leaving to Piedras Negras tomorrow. That means I'm going to be on the Texas border. My companion is named Elder Flores and he's from Chihuahua and got here to the mission the same day I did. And being from the Mormon colonies, he speaks both English and Spanish fluently. This is going to help a lot.

But that wasn't too much of a surprise. The real surprises were these: Elder Briggs is ALSO getting transferred and is going to Nueva Rosita. The new Zone Leaders are going to be in a different area and Elder Johnson and Elder Cerron are coming here. There were basically a TON of changes in these transfers. A lot of people are staying here in Monclova but are going to different areas. Also, a lot of areas are being whitewashed which is where both missionaries are getting taken out. I was sad to learn that Aeropuerto 1 is getting shut down because the missionaries were doing dumb things and lost all confidence of the members. But oh well. One of our best missionaries from this zone is going to Aurora, so he'll be there taking care of my converts. I'm glad for that.

Well, that's basically all that's happened in the past week. I'm pretty excited to get to Piedras and see what it's all about. We're going to have a small zone with looks like all obedient missionaries. I've heard this ward Barrio 4 is one of the best of the mission, I've heard the food is awesome, and I've heard just about half the people speak English. We'll see.

Que les vaya super mucho mega muy bien!

Elder Taylor

7 Septiembre 2015

7 Septiembre 2015

Hola todos!

This week was fairly uneventful. We went to Leadership council which took two days out of work, so we didn't exactly have as much time to work as normal.

But some pretty awesome things did happen.

A few months ago, we had a lesson with a less active lady who was living in a different ward but was in her mom's house to visit. We shared her a lesson about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Just about every Sunday she's been coming to church since then. This last Saturday, she was endowed. So that was pretty cool.

Also, MAYELA WENT TO THE TEMPLE! WOOO! She later told us about how when she was waiting for her turn to be baptized, she felt two strange sensations: first, that she felt like she was surrounded by a lot of people waiting their turn for something but she didn't feel rushed or frustrated as if she were in a crowded space. Second, that she just felt a ton of sadness and she couldn't explain why. But she said that as she was baptized for these names, every time the sadness got less. So then I mentioned what I'd heard a temple president (or was it a general authority?) say about once in the baptistry he saw a line of spirits waiting their turn by the font and then as someone else was baptized for them, they left and the next one would step up. She said that she had that same sensation as if something like that were happening, except she couldn't see it, she just felt it. This lady is SO awesome.

And then she got up to share her testimony. The Bishop said "the time is yours" and she just bolted right up out of her seat and got up the microphone and went off, starting back to when she was an atheist student, to having family and health problems to then searching for the truth in just about every religion there is, listening to the Jehovahs Witnesses and Christians, going to Mass, reading about Buddhism and Hinduism, just trying to find out the nature of God. She said basically she was confused for many years, but she just figured that God existed and that was it. Until, her words, "two young missionaries knocked on my door." At that point she started bawling and I have to admit, my throat got lumpy. And then her baby on her hip threw up the cookie he was eating onto the pulpit. But then she continued about how she came to church the second week we were with her and told about the dream she had about the church the night before she came and how that dream was fulfilled and how she saw people that she saw in her dream, then how she saw angels standing behind the people giving testimonies and behind the bishopric. And how just since then she's been happy and hasn't looked back. She's just got the coolest conversion story I've ever heard, and it's just so cool that I got to be there for it.

And then afterward we went to her house and ate cake.

Bad news: we are back up to 40 degrees this week. And that's 40 degrees celsius. It sounds like we might even hit 45. Good news: this will likely be my last week in Monclova. I've been here longer than any other missionary here. I'm going to miss it. But I'm feeling like a change is coming. I just hope I like it.

Unfortunately, I'm not leaving much for the next missionary. We've worked harder and smarter than I have ever in my mission, but we just haven't found people. The assistants asked us about why we didn't have any lessons with a member present this week. The truth: generally you need an investigator to stick around longer than one lesson to be able to get a member in with them. We haven't had that recently. The only two who have are Ericka, and she's disappeared from off the face of the earth and Perla, but she told us basically she can't be looking at the idea of joining a church. Oh well. We still have one more week and this is generally the week where the miracles happen.

The missionaries found and taught Maribel! She was the investigator who was SO ready to be baptized and then disappeared out of nowhere. We FINALLY got the other missionaries over to her house on the other side of Monclova and she has a baptismal date for October! WHOOO! Too bad I probably won't be around for it. But Elder Briggs says he'll send me pictures.

Funny story: this actually happened about a month ago but I don't think I shared it. We have a friend whose name is Chento. He's a drug addict. We tried teaching him once and he says he wants to be baptized but he doesn't want to come to church. Anyway, he keeps finding us in the street and saying hi to us. A few weeks ago he comes tearing around the corner on his bike and doesn't even say hi. "Where are you guys coming from?" From that direction. "You haven't seen the police, have you?" No, we haven't. "Okay, thanks, bye!" and he tears off in the direction we had just come from.

Other funny story. We're walking along and this guy calls out to us in English: "Where are you going?" We stop to tell him in English. He shakes his head and says that's the only phrase he knows because that's what they said to him when they caught him at the border.

I've been studying about conversion and what that means. Among many other things on the subject, I found one thing that I really loved. Actually, President Rodriguez said it: "Si quieres ver que nivel de conversion tienes, mira que tanto predicas el evangelio." If you want to know what level of conversion you have, look at how much you preach the gospel.

Well, let's hope this week we find some awesome investigators for my companion's next companion!

Con much amor,

Elder Taylor

Continuation

One thing I forgot: Elder Briggs and I went to downtown Monclova today to buy soccer jerseys from the Mexican National team. There was a cool black one and a green one I wanted, but apparently nobody buys those old ones anymore so the vendors don't sell them. So I got the cool new white one from this season. But it was weird being back in Monclova's downtown. It had been six months since I'd been. They'd painted a few things different colors and they’d put a bigger flag in the plaza, actually I think for the independence. (Independence Day is the 16th.) But it was just kind of strange to be back, almost as though I'd never left. We went back to Irma's flower shop to say hi, but she wasn't there. We said Hi to her husband and left her a photo of me and Elder Vasquez, but that was it. But oh well. It was cool to go back. Elder Briggs was disappointed when he went to smell a flower and realized it was fake.

31 Agosto 2015

31 Agosto 2015

Querida familia y amigos!

Okay, so in this letter I'm going to tell some things that I forgot to in the last one.

From last week, we ran into a Zeta in the street who was drunk. For those of you who don't know, Los Zetas are one of the more powerful cartels here in Mexico and they're dominant here in Coahuila. Anyway he called out to us and we started talking to him, and while he wasn't making a whole lot of sense, he started talking about how he believed in the Aztec gods and while he didn't appreciate Christian missionaries forcing their religion upon his people, he wasn't going to kill us. At least that's what I got out of it. Then he started talking about how he hated Americans and just killed whatever "Bolillo" (that's one of the many words for "white american" here) he saw without asking questions, he wasn't going to kill us because we were preachers. Then I saw him make a motion of pulling out a knife from his shorts, but I didn't see the knife. All this while he's still talking about how he would otherwise kill us if we weren't missionaries and then to demonstrate, he swiped his hand past my face and that's when I saw the knife. The good thing was that it wasn't open. So we said it was nice to meet him and then said good bye.

Erica is SO COOL! She got a new job so she said she'd be able to come to church this week, but she didn't and we're not sure why not yet. So we'll see what's going on.

Emiliano, Mayela's baby son, took his first steps this week! And Mayela taught her first lesson in primary this week! We asked her on Saturday if she was already prepared and everything, and she said that yes, she just had one question. What is the Article of Faith Number 9? What is that? So we explained it to her. "You remember that little card we gave to you our second time here that you just loved so much and went off on an hour-long rant about with the 13 points? yeah, that one." Okay, we didn't tell it to her like that.

The Canicula is OVER! It actually wasn't too hot. It only got up to about 47 degrees, or about 115 Fahrenheit. The worst part of the Canicula is the wind because it's hot and dry. But now the nights are cool and the wind is moist and cool, even though it's still hot. So we hardly sweat at all.

Another drunk man run-in this week. We went back with a new investigator we had who was always drunk and at his house, we found a less-active member from another ward that we happen to know who also happened to be drunk. This man is a nice man and gets his living begging on a corner in the plaza in our area because he can't walk. So he got excited when he saw us and then handed us what he swore was enough money for a big coke and chips to share ("Not for me," he said, "for Jesus") and then sent us on a wild goose chase for a store he swore was just around the corner. We finally find a store and check how much he gave us, and it's barely enough for a little coke and the smallest bag of chips there is. So we bought it and then took it back to him and he just started bawling about how he wants to change his life around and then tore off his rosary and chucked it ("This doesn't do anything!") all the while telling his other drunk buddy to shut up ("You don't know what I'm feeling!" "Let me tell you something: I'm not going to tell you anything!") and then promised to come to church with us on Sunday.

Earlier this week we felt like we should go back with Antonio, the one whose baby daughter had died about 5 months ago. We ended up not having time until Saturday, and so right at 8:30 pm we headed over to his house and found him there. He let us in and sat us down and asked him how he'd been. That's when he told us. His wife just died about a week and a half ago and he just got back in town. This guy is 30 something, his baby daughter dies, 5 months later his wife dies leaving him with a pre-teen daughter and a 6-year old son. He brought his son down with him to Frontera, but his daughter sounds like is going to be living up in Piedras Negras with his mom indefinitely. He told us what we'd told him about the Plan of Salvation is really making him feel better during this time, but that he's not willing to come to church. He says he believes it's true, but for the same reason as before he doesn't want to come. Right now he'd be too distraught seeing a church full of intact families. I don't know what I'd do in that situation, but I imagine I'd feel pretty similar.

We found a new investigator who is really interesting. Her name is Perla. She's a Gnostic, which means basically she studies a TON and believes is some ODD things. She and her family live at the Mason Temple where they take care of the grounds and interior. We didn't have enough time to explain a whole lot so we left her with a pamphlet of the Restoration and left. We went back and found her husband. He explained some of their beliefs to us. Some of them are just off-the-wall odd (well, I guess you could say the same about us, right?) but most of them were really just what we believe, just with longer, fancier words. Then we left them with two more pamphlets, The Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and left. Then something crazy happened: SHE CALLED TRYING TO SET UP A SECOND VISIT! This is the FIRST time I have even HEARD of this happening! We hand out our number on cards and on pamphlets all day long, but NEVER has it happened where something actually CALLED that number after receiving it. We went back and again, a whole bunch of beliefs that we have in common, just with fancier words. It was fun being able to use Moses 6:57-59 (i think those are the verses) in a lesson about baptism. It's going to be an interesting run, but she might be ready to receive this gospel.

Well, that's really what I've got for this week.

Les quiero bastante!

Elder Taylor

24 Agosto 2015

24 Agosto 2015

It's been quite the week.

This week was pretty hard, partly because, like in the United States, everybody was getting ready for school to start and so just about nobody was at home all week long. Even in long hours of knocking doors, nobody would open. But oh well. Now they've started school, everybody's going to have a set schedule again.

Mayela dropped us some bombshells when we went to visit her and her kids this week: 1) that her husband was coming home this weekend and was willing to come to church with her. 2) That she had been interviewed by the bishop for a limited use temple recommend (the Mexico City temple is going to be rededicated in a couple weeks and it's going to be broadcasted to the stake center). 3) That she was going to be given a calling. 4) That the Relief Society President put her on the food roll for THIS SUNDAY! BOOM! So this Sunday was a big one for us and this family. Pedro, her husband, came and liked church and accepted a Book of Mormon and Mayela said they'd try to work something out so while they can't necessarily do family scripture study together, they can at least read at the same rate while he's away. She also told us she already has an hour established for family scripture study with her kids. And we went and ate with them this Sunday, taquitos de pollo with some sort of tomato cheese sauce and sopita! It was GLORIOUS! And she was sustained as a Primary teacher in church on Sunday.

We also had a HILARIOUS conversation with Mayela's mom who is just this really old opinionated lady. I wish I could remember everything she said, but even if I could, I know it wouldn't be as funny written down. But something funny that I do remember: Afterward, on Sunday, we were talking about her mom (she wasn't there) with Mayela and she told us about how when she went to ask her mom about her birthdate and age to fill out some legal form, her mom refused to tell her. "Basta con que yo sepa" she just said (It's enough that I know) but then said that she didn't even remember. So Mayela dug out the birth certificates of her and her brothers and then noticed something rather disturbing. On all three of them, her mom had put her age as 33. When it came around time for her mom to apply for senior citizenship, her mom wasn't even too sure of her own age and had to go to Monterrey to dig out a birth certificate in the public records.

This week we decided to go back and find Erica Valdez again. She had accepted the baptismal invitation a few weeks ago but then because of work and home just kind of disappeared. So we went back and found her and invited her to be baptized again and she said "Yes, of course. I wanted it however long ago and I still want it." So then we read D and C 20:37 with her about the baptismal requirements and asked her if she felt like she met them. "Yep, I really do. I am ready for my life to change." So then we asked her when she thought she could be baptized. She thought about it. "Probably not this week because I think it'll take some planning, but how about in two weeks?" Nos quedamos atónitos por un momento. (I'm sorry, but saying it in English just doesn't quite express it.) Then "Well, alright. Let's do it."

We went two days later and talked about fasting with her so that she could get her Sundays off of work to be able to come to church. She was all over that, it wasn't even really a question when we asked her to fast with us this saturday (even though it ended up that her boss didn't let her go). She said basically, "Heck, I'm willing to sacrifice a whole lot more than just food and water for 24 hours to be able to be baptized. I KNOW God will give this to me." Then the next time we came we talked about the Restoration. She cried when we were talking about Joseph Smith seeing God and Jesus and somehow, MAGICALLY, her friend came over just as we were starting the lesson who just HAPPENS to be a member from another ward. Today we're going to go over and give her a Book of Mormon. We'll see what happens with this lady. She's pretty awesome.

One day this week I was feeling really down for a couple things that were going on. I told my companion about it and he helped me get up and out the door. Then we went looking for a referral that we had and ended up at a wrong house and a young lady came out and we thought we'd try teaching her. So she let us pass the gate and we all sat down on her patio. While we were just starting, out comes the gramma who is from a Pentecostal Christian church. I don't know what they're like in the States, but here in Mexico, EVERYONE is just obsessed with what we call the gifts of the spirit: the gift of prophecy, gift of tongues, gift of healing, all of that. So she went off about how she had the gift of prophecy and about how she sometimes feels guided by God to tell certain people certain things and then all about a phony preacher that she once listened to whose prophecies didn't come true, and then a whole bunch of other things (by the way, I've said it before and I'll say it again: people here talk a TON to the point it's often hard just to get a scripture thought in before having to get off to the next appointment.) So we had to get going before even doing a real lesson and left them the pamphlet of the restoration and said a prayer and we were just getting up to get going when she turned to me and said: "No tema. No tema. Dios le va a cuidar. Lo que hace es el mandato de El." Then she turned to my companion and said basically, "you too, but you're fine. Your companion is the one that needs to hear this one." And then told me some things that were specific to some of the problems I was going through. We left that house pretty dumbfounded. We're going back on Tuesday. We'll see what happens.

That's really it for this week. Thanks for everything you all do!

Elder Taylor

my companion and i