29 Enero 2016 and Something I forgot...

29 Enero 2016
This week was really interesting and here's why:

Humbertina decided she doesn't want to listen anymore. Also Celia, the mom of an active sister, decided she doesn't want to listen anymore either. Basically, all the potential and progressing investigators that they had before I came decided to not want anything within a week of me coming. This actually has happened to me in ALL of my areas (except Frontera) and we have to start from scratch.

BUT....

We went with a family of five that had been going to church a year ago but hadn't gotten baptized because the mom didn't want to give up on the Virgencita, even though apparently the dad is just about ready to jump in the water but he kinda wanted to do it with his wife. We were with the missionary whose dad passed away because he was on his way to the airport in Monterrey so he came with us for one day. We went to their house and the whole dang family was there and they are SO COOL! I'll teach anyone that'll sit still long enough to listen but it's so much more fun when they're goofy and fun.

But this time they were a little more sad than normal, because it turns out the mom's dad had a stroke and can't move and now she and her sister are the only ones taking care of him and basically it's a hard situation for everyone. We talked about how coming to Christ we get divine help and we can become clean of all our sins and how one day we will be able to have an eternal family. Then the Elder whose dad passed away bore the most intense testimony I've ever heard about all of that. For about three minutes after, nobody could speak. Then we invited them to be baptized the 13th of February. The dad (thinking that the wife wouldn't say yes) told us that they would think about it and would talk about it as a family. Then the mom said "I'm going to tell you something. When the missionaries were coming before, I was so sure about everything that we were doing in our life, that it was the truth. Now, I don't know. I'm going to read the Book of Mormon, I'm going to pray, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to discover the truth and accept it."

WOOOOOOH!

Then another interesting thing happened. I was on splits in Ramos Arizpe (I've been on splits twice already this week and we're going again tomorrow) and we went to a district meeting in the morning and the church was locked up because they changed the locks without bothering to let any missionary in any ward know. So there we were waiting outside when suddenly an ex-investigator from Frontera pops out of nowhere and says hi. I try and get his address and he says he doesn't know it, but he gives me his phone number. Later that day, I call Elder Ninataype to tell him about it and turns out HE AND ELDER DAINES (who also had been in Frontera) BUMPED INTO HIM AS WELL! And even crazier, HE LIVES JUST A FEW BLOCKS FROM THE CHURCH AND IN OUR AREA! WHAT?! Where does that sort of thing happen?

Those are basically the coolest things that happened this week. We also have a few other really good new investigators that are really exciting. So I hope to be able to have more news next week.

Que todos tengan una EXCELENTE semana!

Elder Taylor

Something I forgot...

I FORGOT TO TELL YOU GUYS! IT SNOWED HERE! IT'S BEEN TWO YEARS SINCE I'VE SEEN SNOW!

investigators in Piedras Negras

Our trio. Elder Goeckeritz and Elder Hernandez and Elder Taylor. That's me.

Elder Hernandez and I in the Santa Claus cachuchas that you sent us.

The baptism of Karen. Her dad and her little sister....and Alejandra. 

Limhi. I would've LOVED for him to be my companion.

The snowstorm, even though the camera didn't capture the snowflakes very well...

22 Enero 2016

Saludos desde Saltillo!

It's weird being here. I feel like a new missionary again. I'm even seeing some of the same people I saw when I first got here, I can just understand them now.

The ward is interesting, too. Most of the active members are converts of less than 3 years. Also, President Rodriguez is in our ward, so it was interesting this morning when he asked us when we could go do visits with him to visit a recent convert because the bishop asked him to. It was also really interesting asking him for a reference as a normal member and when he gave the same excuses ALL the member give: "I don't know anybody, everybody works and is never at home, these people next door just moved in, so we don't know them." So we committed him to take us to go visit them one of these nights.

Other awkward moment: in a capacitation for the new missionaries and we go to put on a video that the assistants made a while ago of interviews of the highest-baptizing missionaries in the mission and some that are already at home. I was introducing it and explaining basically what it was when suddenly my face shows up on the screen because I was the first one on that segment of the video. Awkward moment.

I like working with Elder Ninataype. He's a great guy. I also like being in the offices. It's given me a different perspective of missionary work and missionaries. We get many phone calls in one day, and it's interesting seeing the difference in character of the different missionaries. One missionary calls to exclaim he's not going cooperate in anything because of an error in the office more than 6 months ago and the missionary whose fault it was has been home for a while. On the other hand, we hear from a missionary that his father has a week left to live but that he's going to continue working as hard as he can. And people wonder why the President has favorites.

The weather has been super nice here.

We have a lady who's going to be baptized in two weeks. Her name is Celia Favela and she's SUPER funny, basically the kind of old lady that all the young people like. We've got another lady whose name is Humbertina who reminds me a TON of Mayela from Frontera.

I also have heard about my converts. The Alvarez family is BACK IN CHURCH! WOOH! They're just in the Guayulera Ward. We'll go visit them one day. Mayela and her kids are doing fine, except Emilio, the baby, ate a whole thing of vaseline and got super bad diarrhea and lost a lot of weight. Lucy and Blanca keep going to church when they can. Supposedly Carlos Moreno is still going to church, but I haven't heard anything of Karen Sanchez. And the converts in Piedras are as I left them, I hope. And I'm going to write Gilberto a letter. Actually, I already wrote it. I just need to send it.

So yeah.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Taylor

17 Enero 2015

Well, I'm just going to write really fast. My PDay has changed to Friday, so I won't be writing Mondays anymore, so I decided to write you all really quickly so you don't get worried when I don't write tomorrow. My new companion is Elder Ninataype, who was with me in the MTC. We are assistants.

Really quick about Piedras, we found a lot of people, but I'm obviously not going to be there to see them get baptized.

Karen got baptized! But I had to come to Saltillo that night so I didn't get to see her get confirmed. I read her Acts 8, the last few verses.

Yocelin got married! THAT came as a shock. But suddenly EVERYTHING made sense. Oh well. I hope she can be happy. Her husband is not a member and has made it very clear that he doesn't want to be, but with faith, all can happen. She's just not going to be a missionary anymore.

I had my first Sunday here, I like it, I like my new assignment, I'll give more details on my new PDay, Friday.

Thanks, Los quiero a todos!

Elder Taylor

....elder montero said hi :D 

11 Enero 2016

Well, this week was fun. We went to Saltillo for Leadership Council again, probably the last Leadership Council of Elder Briggs, so it was nice to see him before he goes home. Looking around the Council, it was weird to think about: I'm one of the oldies now, and in ONE WEEK when we have transfers, I'm going to be one of the oldest zone leaders and the oldest missionary in the council. Elder Briggs, Elder Lopez, Elder Chable and Elder Resendiz are all going home this transfer or the next. Hermana Valerio y Hermana Murset the next one and then it's my turn. It's so weird.

Well, Karen decided to change her baptismal date. TO THIS SATURDAY! WOOH! So now we just have to find baptismal clothes...shoot.

Mayra and Carlos continue to not go to church. But we met with them I think it was Tuesday, and Mayra said that she's decided to be baptized. She's maybe just a little lazy getting out of bed on Sunday morning.

Ruben came to church! WOOH! Ruben is Ana Maria's husband, investigators from forever ago that kind of became like less active members for us. We weren't going to drop them because they kept asking us to go to their house and kept being interested, they were just too busy to progress. (Excuses, but oh well. It's because they still don't understand the gospel.) So now that Christmas and New Years are over, it's time for them to come back to church. AND GET BAPTIZED!

Gerardo said he was going to go to church and then didn't. It was a shame.

That family that we found that the dad is a member but inactive, well it turns out Jennifer (22) is SUPER interested and accepted the baptismal invitation, and turns out she's in basically the same situation as Karen, in that her mom is Catholic and her dad Mormon but inactive. He's always wanted them to go to church but the mom always said no, even though she and her sisters always wanted to get to know the mormon church. So now we're here teaching her, turns out her friends are LDS and she's SUPER cool and will get along with the JAS super well. (JAS is YSA).

Dora wrote me, she's almost going to complete a year of being a member. Her step-dad is reactivating, her mom is still interested as well as Martha, her dad went to Elder Gibb's farewell from Bellavista ward (Elder Gibb was one of the missionaries that found Dora and he's going home in a week, right now he's in Bellavista which shares the building with Frontera Ward.)

We've got one week left before the transfers. We managed to get the Bishop mad at us for baptizing too much. I'd say that's pretty successful. And I have a much stronger testimony about Jesus Christ and the Atonement, as well as every other doctrine of the church. That's also a success, I hope.

Elder Hernandez is actually surprising me how quickly he's learning English. Words I taught him this week: "Shotgun," "Dibs," and "Woosie." And another word that's not too nice.

Have a nice week, everybody!

Elder Taylor

3 Enero 2016

3 Enero 2016

YIKES! We're already in 2016!

This week I don't have a whole lot to report. We found a lot of new people in varying degrees of interest. We went back with one reference and out came an old lady named Maria Concepción whose husband had passed away just a month ago from a sudden heart attack. She let us in and we started teaching about the plan of salvation and how she could see her husband again by living by the principles of the góspel and we were about to invite to be baptized when in that very momento the door opened and a whole troop of grandchildren marched in and sat down. Well, the spiritual momento left, we were going to get late to the next appointment, so we just left pamphlets of the plan of salvation and committed them all to read it and to pray about it. We were just getting ready to leave when the dad of the family asked us what Ward we go to and if we were still attending church in the stake center. WHAT?! Turns out he was an active member up until the age of 18 years (right before he went on a misión) and went inactive. So it should be fun. It's a family of 5 kids from the ages of 9 to 22 and the mom seems pretty interested as well. I hope to have something more to report this next week.

This week everybody's coming back from vacation, so we hope to see a lot of the people that we had seen before Christmas.

We taught the Book of Mormon to Dulce and Ceydi and they LOVED it. She said she was going to tell her husband to ask for one in the states so he can read it.

We also taught baptism to Gerardo, an old man who was a reference and lives about one block away from the house and invited him to be baptized. Then we explained that to be able to receive a confirmation of this all and prepare himself to be baptized, he'd have to read the pamphlets and pray about it. His response: "Oh. I hadn't read the pamphlet before. But now I will." So that was fun.

Karen is determined to be baptized in February 5. It's exciting to see her enthusiasm for the góspel, even though it's sad to think that I'm not going to be here to see her get baptized. I hope I stay one more transfer, but I know that it's not very probable.

Mayte is struggling. Seems like she's not willing to leave behind her past life yet. Or she's got something holding her back that she hasn't told us yet.

Mayra Rocha and her husband had been progressing as well, but it's been a long time since they've gone to church and our appointments with them have been falling through. But we have an appointment with them tonight.

As well, Ana Maria is coming back from Guanajuato today! So we've got an appointment with her and now that the holiday travel season is over, she's going to have a WHOLE lot more time to go to church. Her work is in piñatas, selling clothes, a super small grocery store, haircuts and organizing tourist bus trips to the south, five jobs that require a TON of time, and especially in the holiday season. So now we hope to be seeing her and her daughter and her husband (and her son as well, but he's already told us many times he doesn't want anything to do with any church) in the church.

Updates from last week: Elder Hernández hasn't complained about his behind after sitting on the nail, so I guess he's fine. Alejandra has been reading Nicole's blog and has been LOVING it. I hear more about my sister's dating life than I do about the crappy mexican soap operas that everybody watches here.

I've been teaching Elder Hernández English. Words of the week: "Good grief." and "Sweet!"

Pues, que todos tengan una muy buena semana!

Elder Taylor

28 Diciembre 2015

28 Diciembre 2015

Well, gee. I don't have a whole lot to say this time.

For those who missed the video chat, my companion sat on a nail this week. That was pretty funny.

Also we ate Christmas Dinner with the Castro family. It was really good and we played UNO but with strange mexican rules that kept changing. Oh well. I won anyways.

Right before going to dinner, we found ourselves with about 40 minutes with nobody specific to visit, so we decided that we were going to go knock doors in a colonia where we'd never been before. Before we went, we said to each other, "It's Christmas Eve, everybody's busy and the only people that aren't are going to be Jehovah's Witnesses and they're not going to want anything." We laughed and kept walking. We saw a man sitting outside his house on his patio and decided to try it. He said he wasn't busy and let us pass the gate. Turns out he's Jehovah's Witness. And didn't want to listen. Oh well. Maybe we should have had more faith, but at least I think we were graced with the gift of prophecy, even if for one moment.

Leopoldo was baptized! Yay! Another show of our lack of faith: nobody thought he'd actually make it. But he did!

More miraculously, he came to church the next day to be confirmed. We woke up on Sunday morning and it was frigid cold, about 35 degrees Fahrenheit, I think. And super windy and raining a little bit. He'd already told us that if the weather was bad he wouldn't come to church. But we prayed a lot, had more faith than we had before his baptism, and went to go pick him up. We just barely get there and he comes bouncing out of his house, ready to go.

But nobody else came to church. Less than half the members came and almost no investigators came. None of ours, but a new family came from the other area of the ward.

Then after church we went to eat with a member family and then went out to work, thinking that it was going to get a little better. But it didn't. It just got worse. Nobody wanted to come out of their house. Something REALLY annoying with this part of the world is that if it's cold, people don't open the door, often even if they know you. We went to go contact a reference, we saw the reference's kid inside dancing around in his pajamas. Nobody answered. We go with a contact we'd made a few days before that hadn't been there for the appointment we'd set with him, he wasn't there but his mom came to the window and opened up. Here's how the conversation went:

"Hello, we're Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ.......We'd like to share a message with you and your family."

"I can't right now. It's really cold outside."

"....Actually, that's precisely why we'd like to share this message with you. It's really cold."

"....Oh. No, I'm busy taking care of a child that's sleeping."

"Okay. Well, thanks anyway."

We're all speaking Spanish but we're definitely not speaking the same language.

Well, that's really what's going on with Piedras Negras right now. We played basketball and bump this morning at the church with the missionaries from Cumbres and two of the converts from that area, Jorge of about 20 years old and Kleever (pronounced "Clever") of about 9 years old. Other young men from the ward were invited but showed up with standard Coahuilense punctuality. In other words, just as we were leaving. It was really fun.

We started teaching a mom and her daughter this week named Dulce and Ceydi. They are VERY interested and VERY smart. Ceydi it turns out is Yarik's friend from school, so we already have a built-in friendshipper. We were just getting ready to leave and asked the mom to say the closing prayer and in her prayer she asked for God to return her husband to her soon. So we asked her where he was after. It's super normal for mom or dad to be working in the States whether legally or illegally. But it turns out it's not that. She just started crying. Turns out he's in prison in the States. We didn't ask why. She said she hasn't told her younger two children yet, one of 6 who obviously has aspergers and another of 4 who she thinks is too young to understand. I know that this gospel is exactly what they need for their life in this moment. They just need to know it.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday and sorry that I'm not sending pictures and not responding to people individually very much. This ciber's internet has become pretty darn sluggish.

Elder Taylor

21 Diciembre 2015

21 Diciembre 2015

LAST LETTER BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

Yarik was baptized and it was a very special experience. His great-uncle President Sierra of the Stake baptized him and then gave his testimony afterward about how forty or fifty years before, his brother, Guillermo (Yarik's grandfather), baptized him. I especially loved Yarik's prayer at the end: "Thanks for allowing me to enter your true church and thus one day qualify for eternal life in your kingdom." It was one of those moments of "Wow, you hardly said one word during the lessons but truly understood the teaching." His dad came to the baptism as well and seemed to like it, so we'll have to see how we can get to him to teach him as well. Eternal families are AWESOME!

Leopoldo couldn't be baptized this week. We saw him on Thursday and he was smoking but saw (or rather heard) us coming up and threw away his cigarette. But oh well. We explained to him AGAIN about that and went by for him on Sunday. He asked me "When are you guys going to baptize me?" I rolled my eyes and told him "As soon as you stop smoking." Good thing he couldn't see me roll my eyes....

Some SUPER funny things he's said: I'm going to say this is Spanish because it doesn't make sense in English:

"Quien va a hacer la primera oracion? Usted, hermano, escoja."

"No soy coja, soy cojo."

"Hace mucho frio, entonces me la paso todo el santo dia tapado en mi cama. Bueno, cobijado, porque tapado suena feo."

"Antes tenia una novia bien bonita."

"Y como sabe?" (We implied "Como sabe que era bonita?")

"Rica."

Good grief. This guy has us laughing every time. Except when he's sad. He just found out that he has cataracts AND glaucoma. Good side (here I'm going to drift into politics, sorry conservatives): medical care is free. Bad side: he has to find someone to take him to the hospital at 7 in the morning for the operation. He can't stop a taxi because he can't see them and doesn't have a phone to call for one. And finding an hermano or hermana from the church willing to take him at 7 in the morning and be with him until he's done on the 30 of this month is going to be something SUPER hard to find.

Karen and her dad came to church! They left in the middle of sacrament meeting without an explanation, but she sent a text to Alejandra telling her that she loved the church and that she can't wait till we go today to teach her and to come next week as well. Her date is for the 16 of January, so we're praying really hard for it to work.

The Rocha Family didn't come to church this Sunday, but the hermana told us this last time that she has been feeling her life change little by little and that she might be ready by the 9 of January for a baptism. It's really a lot like teaching Karen Sanchez from Monclova a year ago. They just kind of listen and come to church sometimes and sometimes read and sometimes not but they're always praying and say that they'll be ready for their date. Kinda weird.

Gilberto is gone. And we are very sad. We are hoping that the missionaries in Monterrey will treat him well and that in one year he can go to the temple to be endowed and sealed.

We fasted for Maria Esther's family this Sunday so that the members of the family that haven't accepted the gospel fully yet (Tia Eliza, Mayte and Maria Esther's husband) can feel the need to do it. We'll see what happens.

We've received a TON of references lately and have gone to contact almost all of them and a TON of awesome-looking people have come out of nowhere, so we'll see what happens. There's one guy named Jose Navas who is from El Salvador and looks like a small, skinny version of Obama and sells Herbalife for a living. There's another young couple that apparently the wife used to go to church all the time and was reading the book of mormon and everything but her dad said no. But that was almost a decade ago. We're going with that family tonight.

Well, I THINK that's it...We're going to go make Mexican-street-style hot dogs today for lunch. That should be good.

I read the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes today and broke my head making sense of it, but now it makes sense. Read it, it's pretty darn cool.

So, as far as when I'll be calling...it will be at around 3:30 Piedras Negras time. that would be 2:30 ish Boise time? I think...I don't know. We had a SUPER confusing two weeks when Coahuila time change for Daylight Saving Time, but for some reason everything north of Zaragoza DIDN'T change and so we were an hour off of everyone else in the mission. It was even worse because it coincided with transfers and the leadership council. We had to try and guess which salida times and llegada times were for Coahuila and which were calculated for Piedras Negras, and some of them were calculated and some of them not....it was fun. I don't think anyone missed their bus but a few people ended up in the stations an hour early or getting there an hour later than planned.

Los estoy viendo en unos diítas!

Elder Taylor

Jesucristo es Señor de Piedras Negras

14 Diciembre 2015

14 Diciembre 2015

This week was an interesting week. We had transfers on Tuesday, and as it appears to be becoming a habit, I got very sick. We went to the doctor (had to chase him down in the parking lot because he was leaving) and he told me it was probably the same stuff from the last time. It might be just the same intestinal infection from the last time or a different one, but one way or another it was an intestinal infection. Good news was this time it wasn't as bad as last time and so he just gave me a few pills and sent me on my merry way.

Then the pills plugged me up and I didn't poop for two days straight. So now I'm eating very carefully and eating prescribed amounts of prune yogurt (which is better than I thought) and cooked carrots, but other than that I'm eating normally. One morning I was popping antibiotics with one hand and preparing probiotics with the other. I thought "Maybe I'll just become a raw vegan instead." That is, unfortunately, impossible here in the Mexican North.

So THEN my companion got jealous of my constant phone calls with Hermana Rodriguez and decided to fall deathly sick of a horrendous throat infection, doubled on top of his asthma. Basically, we hardly worked this week.

But even so, we saw some awesome stuff. Usually when an investigator says, "I've thought more about my baptismal date..." as a missionary you think "Oh crap, they're having second thoughts." So when Hermano Sierra, Yarik's grandpa says that very sentence, I was prepared for the bad news, especially when he said he wanted to change the date to be on Yarik's mom's birthday. Those are especially hard to change the mind of the person.

"We think he should be baptized on his mother's birthday, the 17th." ....."Of what month?" "Of this month, December." I check the calendar. "...So in one week from today?" "Unless that's inconvenient." "Nope, no problem at all."

So we're baptizing Yarik on Thursday and his great-uncle, the stake president, is going to baptize him.

Leopoldo's date as well is still valid. So Saturday.

Karen Rocio is still thinking of a date, but we're going to see what she says tonight. Last time she said that she'd prayed about it and that she'd received a confirmation. It's super fun to teach them because she's SO smart and SO ready to learn and she and her dad are SO goofy together and her chihuahua is SO dumb. Seriously, the dog started chewing on staples during the lesson last time. It's a miracle that thing is still alive.

We're teaching a less-active lady and her kids now. The Family Tokunaga Flores. Her kids are SUPER smart but somewhat lazy. It's going to be a little hard because they go every other weekend with their dad and they're going out of town for Christmas, but as soon as they're back, I think they'll be ready to go.

We had the Temple Dedication of the Tijuana Temple on Sunday! It was super awesome. We just had to tell a few people that they couldn't come because of it being a dedication, which was pretty hard, but I think everybody understood.

We started teaching some pretty interesting people this week, so I hope I'll have some more names to put in here for future reports.

We had a lesson with Maria Esther and Yocelin about the Book of Mormon and we talked about it being written for the Jews, the Gentiles and the Lamanites and when we told them that they were probably descendants of the Lamanites, Yocelin nodded and said "Yeah, I thought so." Smart girl.

Gilberto is leaving us. He is moving today to Monterrey to live with his daughter and help her in her business. Also to work on his genealogy of the Perez side of the family, he says his sister has already pretty much finished all the Ruiz part. We're going to miss him a lot. Good news is he'll be super close to the temple and will be able to go a whole lot more often than once every 2 months, which is how often the ward here goes.

So yep. That's how this week has gone. We got news this morning that tonight we're getting two new missionaries in the zone. They're going to be in Cuauhtemoc Ward where there haven't been missionaries for a few months. One of the missionaries coming in is Elder Rambal from Boise, Idaho. My first fellow Boisean that's I've met here! Go Broncos!

Everybody have an AWESOME week :)

As far as time for the googlehangout on Christmas Eve, actually it turns out that it would be better for my companion's family in Puebla on Christmas Day. We'll confirm an hour by next week.

Atentamente:

Elder Taylor

7 Diciembre 2015

7 Diciembre 2015

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS A BIRTHDAY IN THESE WEEKS!

There, I'm covered.

Well, it was a fun week. We finished Elder Goeckeritz's training and spent the whole week thinking about the transfers. This transfer brought some pretty big surprises among the zone leaders. Such as certain zone leaders that are about ready to go home were NOT sent to be trainers, which is something that would be normal. A different zone leader, Elder Morales, that still has about 10 months left, is no longer zone leader and is coming up to Piedras to be with Elder Goeckeritz. Also, Elder Vielma (who is going home in just two more transfers and so would have been logical for him to go train) is going to go replace Elder Morales in Monclova Este to be with Elder Flores as Zone Leaders there. Two Chihuahua goofball punks together as zone leaders. That's going to be a blast.

AND I'M GOING TO BE STAYING IN PIEDRAS FOR CHRISTMAS! WOO!

Mayte told us this morning when she called to check up on the changes (we hadn't said anything to her, I think she just calculated from 6 weeks back and put in her calendar or something) that she knew I wasn't going to leave. On Saturday, she prayed and promised God that she was going to go to church but that He had to leave "both Hernandez and Taylor" here to keep teaching her. And so she went to church for the first time! Well, her ultimatum to God worked apparently. Pues, héme aqui. ("Behold, here am I.")

Gilberto is SO stoked to do family history work. He's just itching to get to the temple to do the work for the dead. He is also determined to put a goal with his daughter (who is more or less active) to go to the temple together in one year to be endowed and sealed. (By the way, Mayte has been forgetting to send you, mom, the photo of us in the font. I'll keep reminding her.)

We found Karen Rocio this week. I think I might have mentioned her dad last week, how he shouted out to us in the street: "Hey! I want you to go and my my daughter Mormon!" So we went to their house this week to meet her. She's 16, her father, Daniel, is LDS and has been forever even though he's really less active. But he's one of the rare less active members here who says he knows that the church is true and that he has to get his life in order if he's going to get to the celestial kingdom. She says that she's always wanted to go and get to know the church and maybe join it. So we told her that she could if she REALLY wanted to and then gave her the pamphlet of Lesson 1 to read and pray about it. She's SUPER intelligent and they are REALLY funny together, her and her dad. We just have to be careful to not be in the house at the same time as the mom, because she'll get mad.

Yarik is still progressing. We've got a schedule established: every tuesday and friday we go and teach him and then we eat dinner with them. His tiabuelo (brother of the grandpa) is the stake president, and he's pretty excited that his great nephew wants to be baptized.

Brandon is a kid that we'd been teaching as well but we were just about ready to drop him because he wasn't coming to church and wasn't progressing towards baptism. But then out of the blue showed up to stake conference! So YAY!

This next week is going to be really nice: the temple dedication of the temple of Tijuana! If you haven't already, look up pictures. It's BEAUTIFUL!

We've had an interesting problem recently: Maria Esther has been meeting several missionaries over the past couple weeks. That's not a problem. The problem is that she's been invited them ALL to eat in her house. It's not a territorial pride thing, but it's been creating a problem of logistics and time management for the missionaries and for us. It's an issue when we get on time to the appointment with her and we find a district leader and his companion already in the house because apparently she invited them to pizza with us, us not knowing that we were going to eat and having already made other plans. Good grief.

Mission slang: "galleta", a person that gives a lot of food to the missionaries or in general spoils them. "Matar," literally, to kill. In mission terms, purposefully or accidentally cause the missionaries to spend a lot of time in your house without letting them leave. Example: "Thanks for letting us visit you for a few minutes, is there anything we can do for you?" "Elders, I already made dinner for you. Don't tell me no." Maria Esther is quickly becoming the Mama Galleta for the whole dang zone and seems to be making an unashamed effort to murder us. I am reminded of the story of Lydia in the Bible in Acts 16:13-15.

Mayra Rocha and Leo accepted a baptismal date for the 9 of January. Leopoldo might be baptized this week if he passes his baptismal interview and doesn't come out with the question "But what's the difference between God and Joseph Smith? Which one is Jehovah?" and decides to stop smoking "to make his food go down easier." Good grief. Mayte has a date for the 26 of December, and even though we'll have to ask for permission, I'm convinced there won't be any problem. Yarik as well has his date for the 26 of December. We're looking at mid-january for Karen Rocio. I'm very content to be here in this area.

By the way, all the people we're baptizing here are natives of Piedras Negras. Of all the other people I've had the opportunity to teach and baptized, only one other was a native of Coahuila.

Well, everybody have a great week!

When do you want to talk to me? The Castro family has offered their house and internet for us and as well we're going to pass Christmas Eve with them. If it's possible, for me it would work out better to talk by google hangout the 24 around 7 or 8. But we could also do it Christmas Day if that's better for you all.

Les amo!

Elder Taylor

30 Noviembre 2015

30 Noviembre 2015

Que rapido se va el tiempo, volando!

This week was the most hectic week of the mission, but we survived and kept a cool head the whole time.

1. We had to plan the Christmas activity for the 3 zones of the north (Nueva Rosita, Piedras Negras, Acuña/Zaragoza) and carry it out. As it was decided that it was going to be here in Piedras, we were placed in charge of everything and even though we tried to delegate what we could, there was only so much the other leaders could do. It turned out really nicely, though, even though we had to end it early because we were outside preaching and showing the "He is the Gift" video by the plaza by the international bridge when suddenly a freezing rainstorm came in and got us all wet. But oh well. Everything else went well, and only one borrowed extension cord went missing.

2. We're training Elder Goeckeritz, but we've been trying to get him out to his own area as much as possible, so we've been doing all the logistics involved in getting a ward full of people that don't have cars and have little or no sense of the hour, that work all the time and whose young men and young single adults are not too enthused about missionary work to cooperate to be with Elder Goeckeritz. Good news: he had two confirmations this weekend despite it all. Also good news: a missionary just barely got back from his mission and says he's basically open all week to go with Elder Goeckeritz. I think we're going to take advantage.

3. Baptism for Gilberto and Yocelin, and all the chaos with that. But as well, everything turned out very well. Gilberto went down and came up weeping and saying "Thank you, Lord, Thank you Lord." Mayte snapped us a pretty cool photo of us hugging in the font. It was a very special moment. (Actually, we asked if to send it to you, mom, so if you get an email one of these days from someone you don't know that has an attachment of a photo, that's it. If you could then send that to me, that'd be awesome, please :)) Yocelin's baptism I'm sure was special as well, but I was already changing when she went under.

Mayra Rocha is progressing really well. She's still coming to church and sometimes bringing her second son, Leo. Her older son, Carlos, is already baptized. Next time we see her, we're going to try and put a baptismal date with her.

We found Yarik this week! Actually, we found him last week, but this week was cool. One Saturday, we had a little time before going to lunch and so we decided to pass by and see him and his family. He's a twelve-year-old kid of an all LDS family. His grandpa's brother is the stake president, his parents are both members, but they say they've never taken him to church. His uncle died a few years ago in a car accident and the whole family got angry at God and hasn't been back since. But on Saturday, we showed up and his grandpa said, "Come on in!" Super excitedly, he told us they were planning on coming to church on Sunday, that they wanted his grandson to be baptized and if we could come back for dinner on Tuesday to teach him. We taught a little about baptism and then asked him if he'd like to be baptized on the 26 of December, and he said yes. And then they came to church on Sunday! WOO!

Supposedly Leopoldo has his date for this Saturday, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. He still really hasn't demostrated that he understands the difference between God and Joseph Smith and he keeps asking us every time we go why we don't drink coffee. It doesn't matter what or how we tell him, he just doesn't get it. And so he hasn't stopped drinking coffee. But oh well. We'll figure out how to do it.

We've got one week before transfers. We'll find out on Monday, or Sunday if I'm training, if I'm leaving or I'm staying. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm pretty darn pleased with everything that's been going on here.

Today, if we have time, we're going to go to the Plaza de las Culturas, which is a cool place where there's a bunch of Maya and Aztec temples in miniature and now they're surrounded by Christmas decorations, so it should be fun.

I'll talk to you all in a couple weeks!

Elder Taylor

23 Noviembre 2015

23 Noviembre 2015

Oh my GOSH it's been hard not to get trunky. I've got exactly 6 MONTHS left from today and seeing all the thanksgiving and christmas decorations (those have been up since right after dia de los muertos), let's just say it sometimes would be a REAL temptation to miss you guys too much. But we keep working.

Miracles this week:

YOCELIN ACCEPTED THE BAPTISMAL DATE FOR THIS SATURDAY! WOOH! Unfortunately, her mom had appendicitis and is now in the hospital, so we're really hoping that she can get out in time to be there. They said that she should be out today or tomorrow, but one way or another is going to be pretty weak for a while. So let's hope. But, we got a HUGE surprise when Yocelin came ALONE to church because Maria Esther was in the hospital. We thought that she wasn't going to come because she was watching Mayte's and Brando's sons while Mayte was with her mom, but at 11:30, there she came with Mark (Brando's 2-year-old son) in tow. Who knows what may have happened with Isaac (Mayte's 2-year-old son) but at least she came.

Mayte also accepted the date for the 26 of December, so we're pretty excited. Unfortunately, she didn't come to church this week, but at least she was with her mom. We took them the Santa Cena last night and it was pretty neat.

GILBERTO IS GOING TO BE BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY AS WELL! He's got three days now that he hasn't smoked, so now we're just waiting on the interview from the president which should be done Friday at 9 in the morning. He's SO ready, just about ready to do a belly flop into the font. It's so gratifying to see him, how he started our teaching with "I can't promise I'll be baptized, but I'll go to church" and now he's at "I have to be baptized so I can see my wife again after this life." He had a dream about her this week where they were walking together along the beach hand in hand and then at one point she vaporized and left him alone, but he didn't feel alone because he knew he would see her again. And then the guy that works with him (his name is Juan "sin miedo") interrupted and told us about the dream he had of Noah's ark flying through the sky and a giant snake that attacked him. But oh well. So please pray for Gilberto to be strong to be able to withstand the temptation to smoke so he can be baptized this Saturday!

Leopoldo keeps coming to church. He's the same as always, but he seems a little happier and at least he's not praying to Joseph Smith anymore.

This week we went looking for a house and couldn't find it, so we started knocking doors and nobody wanted anything. That when we saw an old man walking along the street who looked really lonely so we went and talked to him. The first thing he said: "I'm alcoholic. I can't get off of it. Can you help me?" Of course we can. That's what we're here for. "Okay. Come into my house, please." So we sat down and listened to him talk. He told us that he was about ready to get divorced because he keeps stealing money from his wife to buy beer and that his kids had given up on him. He also hinted that he was contemplating ending his life. He was already intoxicated and speaking Spanglish so it was a little hard to understand him sometimes (Elder Hernandez says he understood everything with the little English that he speaks), but we explained priesthood blessings to him and gave him one, then handed him a pamphlet of the Word of Wisdom and one of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to church. He said he was willing to do whatever it took to get him out of his addiction and get his life in order. I've never seen anyone who was just so desperate for the affects of the atonement in their life. His name is Oscar Rios. I hope to be able to report more on him later.

We're in a trio now! Elder Franco from Villa de Fuente Branch got sent to Saltillo to be trained to be the new Executive Secretary of the mission, so they assigned us to finish the training of his companion, Elder Goeckeritz. It's been pretty fun. Elder Hernandez speaks a little English and Elder Goeckeritz a little Spanish and anyways the Sports Language words are generally the same or similar so they've been having a good time. I told them I'm the only one that actually speaks both languages but I have no idea what they're saying. Unfortunately for Elder Goeckeritz, I said it in Spanish so only Elder Hernandez laughed. But it's been fun. The lucky duck came in just in time for Yocelin's and Gilberto's baptisms to "count" for him, so when she goes to the temple to get ready for her mission and when Gilberto goes to seal himself with his family, he'll be able to go with them. Elder Hernandez just barely won't make it because he's just a little less than a year left.

We put up our tree and an hermana gave us tree ornaments, so now it's all decorated. We just need lights.

We went with Juan Valentin. I don't know if I'd mentioned him before, but he's a young guy who we've been with off and on for the past 3 months because he's never come to church(so that's why off and on), but he's super golden (and that's why for 3 months). Anyway, he told us he didn't come to church this week because he was busy studying for a college entrance test that he's going to take this week. We read Doctrine and Covenants 93:(?) where it says that the spirit will illuminate our understanding according to our obedience. We committed him to come to church and to read the pamphlets and book of mormon before studying and he interrupted us and said that he'd had a dream this week when he was super worried about how to study and cram for the test. In the dream, he heard a voice telling him several times "study my books." He didn't understand what that meant until our lesson with him, but now he's determined to read and come to church.

This week is going to be the mission christmas party. We're getting together with the zones Acuña/Zaragoza and Nueva Rosita, which means that I'm going to see Elder Briggs again (Yay!) and that we have to plan EVERYTHING for 40 missionaries (Ugh...). But oh well. It looks like it's all going to work out. Delegation and follow-up. That's how to do this leadership/planning thing. Give out the things you don't want to do, but make sure that the other people actually do them.

That's awesome that the package I sent actually got there! And that's good that you liked the cookies. Seriously, packaged cookies here in Mexico are SO much better than American cookies. Even Oreos and Chips a'Hoy are better here.

Well, have a good Dia del Pavo (here in Piedras, that's what it's called. In Saltillo and Monclova, it's Dia de Accion de Gracias.) Que disfruten la pachanga, pay y huajalote!

Ooh, really fast: I read the book of Haggai (Hageo in Spanish) today in study time. SUPER awesome stuff about the temple and being prepared for it and how we should prepare to enter even before they lay the stones to build it. Also, Jehovah promises the sealing keys of the priesthood to Zerubabel at the end of the book.

Elder Taylor

Gilberto and "la llorona" for Halloween

Elder Shipley, Elder Hernandez, Elder Vielma, Elder Taylor in front of a monument to Benito Juarez (supposedly he met Joseph Smith). There were some pretty interesting Masonic symbols all around the monument and we were joking that if we put a certain rock in a certain spot, the whole thing would open up and we would find the national treasure of Mexico.

16 Noviembre 2015

16 Noviembre 2015

Dia del pavo se nos aproxima, pero no se ni cuando sea. Me supongo que esta semana...

This week was super tiring. On Sunday, we passed around a list for the members to write down their information: Name, Phone Number, Schedule of when they could come with us, and if they have a car. So we completely changed our rhythm of working this week. Every night, we call the member they said they could come the next day and we schedule with them for them to come with us for certain hours, not necessarily for certain appointments as is custom. So if we get to the appointment that we have set and the person isn't there (which is really normal in a culture where the hour simply is not material) we go and knock doors and get in houses that way, or the members can take us with their less-active friends or just with their friends. We got 21 lessons with member present this way this week. And it's not just about numbers. The members can testify in a way that we can't. Example: We get to the house of a young man who almost lost his hand when he punched through a glass window in a fit of anger with his family. Obviously, this family is having tough family problems. The hermana that's with us talks about how when she met the missionaries when she was passing through divorce and starvation and literally had the noose around her neck when the missionaries knocked on her door. The spirit was so strong, and there's no way that we could have possibly done a lesson like that on our own. And then she personally invited him to come to church. When we invite, often it comes off as a sale for an attractive church just because of the way the people see us. When a member invites, it comes off as a personal invitation from someone that's willing to help you.

We had a great lesson with Jocelin and Mayte and committed them to rethink the deal about a baptismal date. Jocelin can be baptized any day now. If she decides, she could be baptized this Saturday. Mayte will have to wait BECAUSE SHE STILL HASN?T COME TO CHURCH! We invited her to church to get to know that this is the truth and she responded, "I know it's the truth. I know I have to go. I know I have to get baptized. I'm even thinking about getting divorced because my husband made fun of me when I told him I wanna go." So we read 1 Corintios where is says, "don't leave your incredulous husband" and I told her "don't quit your husband like jocelin quit her job." And I think she decided it was better to stay with him. But she didn't come to church this weekend. Which means that she's going to miss the Temple Dedication of Tijuana.

LOOK OF PHOTOS FOR THAT TEMPLE! IT'S SO PRETTY!

We got back with Juan Valentin this week, a young man we were teaching a while ago. He told us he's been studying everything and knows it's all true. Now he just needs a baptismal date AND TO COME TO CHURCH! AH! That’s the most frustrating thing about it all. He's SO ready; he just doesn't come to church!

Ana Maria, we're still working with her. We went to her house and she straight up invited a young guy there who came to get his hair cut to come with her to church. His response: "I was going to a christian church before." Her response: "These aren't just Christians, they're Mormons." But she as well didn't come to church. We'll have to see why...

But we started teaching Mayra Rocha. She is a mom of an active priest in the ward who was baptized a year and a half ago because his girlfriend invited him. We sat down with Mayra and talked about Eternal Families and asked her what she'd be willing to do to have an Eternal Family. "Well, go to church, for one. Get baptized. And then continue faithfully until I die." Well, that sure made it easy. And she came on Sunday. We're going to go with her tonight to set a date for her baptism.

Leopoldo didn't come this week, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's because it was super cold this weekend.

Gilberto went to Monclova this weekend, so he didn't come either, but he is just SO excited to be able to be baptized. I hope we can do it in time for him to get to the temple dedication. We're praying super hard and he has the goal to stop smoking COMPLETELY by Friday. This guy was smokingup to 30 cigarrettes a day 3 weeks ago and had 50 years smoking.

It's an exciting time to be working here. Even if it's super cold and we're getting sick and getting better and getting sick again every couple days.

Well, I'll see you all later! We've got a little more than a month until I'll see your more or less pretty faces, some more, some less!

Con amor!

Elder Taylor

The baptism of Maria Esther. Jocelin is on the Left, Mayte with Isaac on the right. Alejandra's comment to Maria Esther after the baptism: "And you wanted to wait till February." She just laughed in response.