25 Marzo 2016

25 Marzo 2016
Not much new is going on. This week is Semana Santa, or basically a cross between Spring Break and Thanksgiving. It's been hard to get into people's houses because everyone's on vacation or has family in town. Basically just Basilio and Hagapita are the only ones that are reliably at home.

Funny moments from the house of Basilio and Hagapita:

Us: "Are you two ready to get baptized April 9th?"

Basilio: "I am. I don't know about her. Hey, Gapi!"

Hagapita: "What?"

Basilio: "He's asking if you want to get baptized."

Hagapita: "What?"

Basilio: "Do you want to get baptized?!"

Hagapita: "If I want to get baptized?"

Basilio: "DO YOU WANT TO GET BAPTIZED?"

Hagapita: *pause* "I can't hear you."

Basilio: "DO YOU WANT TO GET BAPTIZED?!"

Hagapita: "Oh, of course!"

Other moment: We just barely get there to her house. That's the setting.

Hagapita: "Come on in, my husband's not home yet, but come in!"

Us: "Don't worry about it, we'll come back in about 30 minutes."

Hagapita: "No, just come in!"

Us: "No, really, we'll just come back in half an hour."

Hagapita: "Okay, that's fine. Today I drank orange juice and milk and it gave me really bad diarrhea."

Us: "Uh...We'll be back in a little bit."

We found another really awesome lady this week. Her name is Elidia Valdez. She was an old investigator that we found by the area book. We shared the "Aleluya" video with her and at the end of the video comes the phrase: "Averigua como" or "Found out how." The video ended and she looked up at us and said "How?" We kinda were stumped by that question. How what? But then she explained. "How can I have the blessings of the Atonement in my life?" We shared a scripture about baptism. "Oh, so I need to be baptized. I haven't baptized my kids yet. What do you guys think about infant baptism?" Moroni 8. "That's what I've always thought. Yeah, I'll be baptized. Just let me get to know the church a little first and pray about it." Yeah, that was pretty awesome.

We've been finding a lot a awesome people recently. I really hope I have more to say next week.

Last week I mentioned some really good news. Well, never mind. The news were that Elder Flores and I were going to train a kid in the last two weeks of the transfer who was coming from Chile. Right now in the mission we have sister missionary district leaders and we would've been assistant trainers, two things that I don't think have ever happened in the history of the mission. But the process with his visa got complicated and so that's not going to happen.

A couple days ago I was in the hospital with a missionary who was having some health problems. He's Elder Domiciano from Brazil, so it was interesting hearing his Spanish all day with a really thick Brazilian accent. We sometimes speak in Spanglish and missionaries, he was speaking in Brasanglish. It was kinda weird but cool. And we saw part of the Iron Giant in Spanish while we were there. It was really good. A lot of movies translated to Spanish don't make a lot of sense, but they did that one really well.

Well, those are the highlights of the week. We're not entirely sure we're going to have P-Day this next week, so if I don't write, I'm probably fine. Just don't worry about it.

Talk to you all later!

¡Los quiero!

Elder Taylor

18 Marzo 2016

18 Marzo 2016

It's been a while since I've written. However, I don't think that means I'm going to write more.

A couple days ago I was in a wheelchair because I got part of my toenail taken out. They gave me two options in the hospital: 1, they take the nail out to the root and I'll be in bed a few days and probably not working a whole lot the next two weeks but it'll never grown into my skin again or 2, they take out just a part, it'll come back in about three months and I'll just be one day in bed and then back to work. I obviously went with option 1. I only have ten (now nine) weeks left, I don't want to spend two of them in bed. But I didn't stay in bed even one day. We just found a wheelchair and went with that. I was amazing how suddenly the world was nice to us. Normally these people don't even look at us twice. Suddenly they were all smiling and we got into a lot of houses. Elder Flores said it would be his turn the next day.

The Leadership Council went well. It was lots of fun, it was really spiritual, and a ton of zone leaders have said that they've seen a lot of success because of stuff they learned in the practices. So that's good. Actually sounds like a few investigators accepted baptismal dates because the zone leaders applied what they learned in the council.

We got some awesome news that I'm excited about, but I can't tell you all about it because I know that there are people within this mission that read the mission blog, so you'll just have to wait a little longer. But it has to do with my last transfer. And it's very exciting.

I was in divisiones all last week so I hadn't seen Sofía and Basilio and his wife, but basically it sounds like Sofía has a ton of questions and is ready to learn and she's going to give us a baptismal date tomorrow. Basilio has his date for the 9 of April, so please pray for it to work out!

We also found this AWESOME lady a few nights ago. What happened was this: We went and knocked a door of a reference but they weren't there. So we felt like we should knock the door in front so we crossed the street and knocked. Through the door we could see that the lady was on the couch watching TV and not doing anything. So then when she comes out and tries the same spiel that every does about "I'm busy, but I don't know when I won't be busy. Come back some other time, but I can't promise I'll be here," we know that she's lying. But in that moment we felt like we should ask her an inspired question. This is how the conversation goes:

Señora: "No, I'm busy getting ready for work tomorrow. Come back some other time."

Misionero: "Have you ever wondered what happens to us after we die?"

Señora: "Yes, I've wondered that a lot."

Misionero: "Have you ever gotten to a conclusion?"

Señora: "No."

Misionero: "Would you like to know?"

Señora: "Of course. My husband just died about three years ago."

Misionero: "Could we rob you about 10 or 15 minutes to tell you about it?"

Señora. "Come on in."

We sat down and it turns out that she's Catholic but that she's always wanted to try going to the Mormon Church. She's got a doctor's appointment in Monterrey this Sunday, but next week she should be able to go. She lives about three blocks from the church. She accepted the baptismal invitation and we left her a pamphlet of the Plan de Salvación. Her name is Cristina without an H. She's really a cool lady, too.

I went to Monclova this last week. It was kinda nice to be back. It's a strange place full of strange people, but it felt a little like going back home being there among the Monclovenses, as bizarre and loud as they are. There are really not a whole lot of redeemable qualities of that place, but we love it anyway. It kinda grows on you. Like a fungus. Just kidding, no, I did love it and it was nice to go back for a couple days.

Getting ready for GENERAL CONFERENCE! WOOH!

With love to everyone!

Elder Taylor

9 Marzo 2016

9 Marzo 2016

Well, this letter is going to be a little shorter than normal because this last week was a little shorter, just Friday to Wednesday. But it's been a good one.

Basilio's getting baptized next Saturday! Yay! We'll see if Hagapita as well, but it's going to be a little harder. Here's the thing: she definitely comprehends well enough to know the difference between good and bad and therefore needs baptism. But I'm not convinced she comprehends much more than that, and probably not enough to have a comprehensible baptismal interview. Maybe we could just have a missionary that doesn't speak Spanish very well do the interview so he'll just assume that it's all good without having actually understood much. Come to think of it, maybe that's how Leopoldo passed his interview. The kid who interviewed him was Elder Miller who was kinda struggling with the language. Good news for us is he's now here in Valle de las Flores. Bad news is he speaks and understands a whole lot better now. Oh well. We'll figure out some way to do it.

We found this AWESOME lady whose name is Sofia Vasquez. We were looking for a reference of a less-active member and got the wrong house. She's just AMAZING! She's a single mom with adolescent and young adult children. We taught her an awesome super-charged lesson about faith and repentance and baptism and she accepted baptism so well! And now she's thinking about a baptismal date and we're going back on Saturday to see what she says! YAY!

We did splits yesterday with the elders from La Cañada: Elder Marín and Elder Hernandez. Elder Hernandez came with Elder Flores to Oceanía and I went over there with the other guy. It was fun to be with Elder Marín again. When I first met him, he was in Bellavista and I was in Frontera, him as a new missionary and me as a new zone leader. That was about a year ago. It was cool to see how much he progressed. And it was fun because he's a super goofy guy. Then Elder Flores and Hernandez had fun here in Oceanía. They got a lot of work done, and between lessons spent the time talking about Piedras Negras and the people from there. It was kinda weird getting back to my house this morning and seeing my two favorite companions and companions. They both said that they LOVED working together and Elder Flores said he would love to have Elder Hernandez as his next companion. We'll see what happens.

Ate brunch with Sister Elisabeth this morning. I ate seven gorditas. It was glorious. I'll have to figure out how to make those for you guys.

We're super excited for how this transfer is going. We've got the Leadership Counsel tomorrow. I'm going to be in Monclova Friday and Saturday. We've got Zone Conferences this transfer. The secretaries actually know what they're doing in spite of being new. The assistents not so much but we're working on it.

This morning Elder Marín and I practiced lesson 3 this morning. It was interesting reading and studying about Justice and Mercy and how they apply to our life. Justice: for every action, there is an equal and complementary reaction. For every bad thing you do, there is a bad consequence. For every good thing, a recompense. At least that's what a strictly just universe would be like. But also according to that, after sinning or having weakness just once in our life, we would never be able to get back with God. Nothing impure can be with Him and so just after one tiny little impurity we can't get back. We would receive maybe a lot of recompenses for good things that we do but we could never make it back. That's why Jesus came.

Mosiah 15:8-9: And thus God breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men, having ascended into heaven, having the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice.

I'm glad to be here in the mission. It's great and even fun to be working here and helping others get these same blessings that I hope to have in my life.

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

4 Marzo 2016

4 Marzo 2016

¡Saludos desde México!

There were a few things I forgot to mention last week, so I'll just go ahead and mention them this time.

Two weeks ago we had stake conference which means I had the chance to see many of the same people that I'd known two years ago. Wendy Orozco was there (she was less than fully active last time I saw her) with her son, Nicolas, who was walking by himself this time. That was fun. Also, Hermano Águila (who now has a son) saw me and said hi and I reminded him that a year and a half ago when I was going to Monclova he told me that the next time I saw him, I would be speaking Spanish a whole lot better and with a thick rancher accent to boot. He laughed and said that apparently he'd been right. I also saw the De la Rosa family who now have a four-year-old son that they've adopted.

I realized this week that March comes before April and not after it, so I noticed that Carlos Moreno is quickly coming up on a year as a member, so it's quite likely we go to the temple one of these days. And if the Alvarez go...and if Karen Sanchez gets active again, that could be three trips to Monterrey. And then if Blanca Cardona goes when her time comes (which sounds like she's still active)...Basically I might be spending many of my last weeks in Monterrey. That sounds like a ton of fun! And the offer is still open: who wants to go with me in August when Mayela gets endowed? (By the way, I've been talking with the missionaries there and sounds like she's basically become the de facto ward mission leader; I think she's going to become the highest baptizing non-missionary of the mission.)

We haven't seen Basilio and his wife recently because she's been sick, but we're going to keep on at it. This last week he left in a huff from Gospel Principles because he wasn't understanding something about tithing but we couldn't really understand what his question was. He went to the Bishop's office and came back about two minutes later and seemed pretty content and didn't say anymore. Later when we were talking with the bishop he mentioned what had happened. This was basically how the conversation went:

Basilio: "Hey, Bishop, I have a question. I make $X000 a week. How much should I pay in tithing?"

Bishop: "You should pay $X00."

Basilio: "Okay, I'll bring it next week."

And that was it. I just hope it's so easy with the Word of Wisdom.

It's SO much fun being back with Elder Flores! We just got right into the groove right away. Elder Ninataype and I got along and worked hard and we even have a lot of great memories, but it's just another level with Elder Flores. We're finding a lot more people now, too. Hopefully I have more to report as far as investigators next week.

We received the new kids this week and sent the old guys home. These new kids are AWESOME! They're much more quiet than the last batch to come through, but they're SUPER focused and seem much better prepared than the new kids a year ago. There have been a lot of changes as far as how to run the mission on world-wide, mexico-wide, and mission-wide levels. It's exciting to be a part of it but saddening to think that I'm just catching the front tail end. It should be super exciting for the people just getting ready to go out on a mission, but it should also be exciting for the people at home because it's going to effect everybody, every member of this church. Retention rates in this mission are rising pretty rapidly. Last month we baptized a record 68 people and a larger percentage of these numbers represent families. Frontera Ward is baptizing twice as it was than when I was there (I think largely due to Mayela and her family) and the converts are staying active. Mayela's dad moved to Monterrey to convert his other kids that live there. I LOVE those people!

And, like I said, we said good-bye to the oldies. Elder Briggs was among them, so it was kind of nice to see him leave. Also Elder Chable left. I was his District Leader in Aeropuerto, so I could see his progress. Not every good missionary ends well. Not even every great missionary. Being here in this ward, I've heard (thankfully few) stories and seen evidences of missionaries that had been my examples that they did not end their missions well. It was very inspiring to see how Elder Chable, who started out as more or less, ended his mission like every missionary should. He worked super hard right up to the last day and knowing that he wasn't going to baptize much found a TON of people for other missionaries to baptize in the next few transfers. I want to end my mission like that.

We're gonig to do a ton of splits this next week. We've already got it all planned out, and I'm basically not even going to be here. But it'll be fun being with other missionaries. And I fully trust Elder Flowers to take care of the area. Also for that same reason, we're taking our P-Day on Wednesday next week.

Yesterday (or was it two days ago), Elder Zapatero asked me to help him with something on the computer. I said sure and walked over to see what it was. It was my flight itinerary to get home. He asked me to write the email. It was like asking a convict to tie his own noose. To all those who read the email: the part with good Enlgish was mine. The part starting with "And please confirm..." was Elder Zapatero.

In these last few weeks, a lot of people told me that words I've been using my whole mission aren't technically correct, but they're used here. So my Spanish is very Rancher/Northern/Spanglishized Spanish.

Well, I'll talk to you all next Wednesday!

Elder Taylor

26 Febrero 2016

26 Febrero 2016

We FINALLY have someone lined up for baptism! WOOHOO! His name is Basilio and his wife's name is Agapita. She's a little off her rocker (in the middle of the lesson, we're sitting in their patio in front: "Come on inside so you can see my Virgensota. She's HUGE!" Not out of contention, just out of being a nice person) and he's quite strange as well, but they're 70+ and have been together for more than 50 years and are deeply in love. It's really cute. "Back when we were young and I loved her...well, I still do love her very much" or "I haven't been taking her to church recently because she's old and she gets tired really fast. But if she wants, I'll take her this week." Or when we talk about having an eternal family: "Well, we've been together this long and still love each other. I guess an eternity sounds pretty good." They were investigators from the sisters in the ward but they've been with them for four weeks and haven't been able to teach them because he gets late home from work, she's not lucid enough to teach by herself, and they live far away so it would be hard for the sisters to teach them and still get back in time by 9:30. But Basilio's been coming every week to church and has been reading his Book of Mormon faithfully. He's already going through Mosiah. So we taught them about repentance and baptism and invited them and the wife just said yes (I HOPE it was because she felt the spirit, but it was likely because she didn't understand) but Basilio said that he's been feeling great in the church and that he'd be baptized.

A TON of crazy stuff has been happening in the offices this week, most of which I can't say over email. But the stress has been so much for President Rodriguez that apparently something snapped in his brain and his eyes went cross-eyed. So now whenever he's talking to a missionary over the phone and the missionary asks him how he is he tells them: "Not so good. If you were standing in front of me, instead of seeing you and your companion, I would see two of you." It's fun being with him so much. He and his wife are super goofy together.

My companion lost his bag in a taxi this week. And the worst part was that he was sitting in the front seat and didn't contact the guy so we don't have any information about how to contact him. He lost his scriptures (including his new bible because his old one was stolen on a bus), and his camera including ALL his pictures from the mission. And I think a few other important things but those are the two big ones. So right now we're going through our days with only one set of scriptures. And I get to carry it.

Doing transfers this week. We get them all set up, and some companionship does something stupid. So we have to change that companionship, plus every companionship that that change affected, plus every companionsip that THAT change affected, and so on and so forth. For every dumb move of a missionary, we have to change between five and fifteen areas, and that usually takes about an hour and a half to three hours of debating, thinking, reasoning and making phone calls. This happend about three times this week. There have been days that we haven't even really gone out to work in our area. This is why sometimes assistants don't baptize.

Food I forgot to mention last week: BARBACOA! It's SOOOO good! And it's better in Bolillos (word that means little baguette or white american). It's basically pulled pork (or cow or horse or dog) and is super duper delicious.

I think I might write a little later, but right now we're going to go play basketball with the zone leaders, another companionship and the old secretaries and the new secretaries. It should be fun.

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

19 Febrero 2016 and 19 Febrero Continuación

19 Febrero 2016

Fun week this one. I went on divisions two days to Nueva Rosita and Piedras Negras and on Monday we made the transfers.

Nueva Rosita is really pretty. It's super duper flat, not a hill in sight. But it's really nice and the people as well.

And it was really fun to be back in Piedras Negras! They hadn't planned on going with any converts that day, but the person that was going to give them lunch left town and so we went and ate pizza with Hermana Maria Esther's family. The Hermana and Mayte didn't show up, but it was nice to see everybody else. Yocelin is back in the game. She has a new car and said she's going to start going out with the missionaries to preach and going to church again. So YAY! Apparently Leopoldo hasn't been to church for about a month, but good news is he's going to get operated in a few days. And this time it sounds like it's furrealzies.

We didn't get to see Yarik, but Karen called and invited us to go and eat carne asada with her and her dad and sister in their house so we went and it was good and very filling. And Alejandra came out and worked with us for a few hours, so it was just like old times. Well, sort of. It was fun. Sister Castro wanted to make us dinner, but we were busy eating the carne asada. So she brought me a sandwich for the road back. And María Esther came to take us to the Central de Autobuses in the night and brought me a hamburger from McDonalds or Burger King (I never found out which because it was dark when she handed it to me and I didn't check when were already in the station and then I didn't look at it again until I was on the bus where it was dark and there were people sleeping.) She brought Mark, her grandson, with her. When he saw me he started shouting "Te-lo! Te-lo!" And it took me a while realize he was shouting my name but in a Mexican 3-year-old's accent. It was nice to see them again.

As far as things going here...well we've still got a few people and we're finding a whole lot more. But nobody's really progressed really well. I'm saying it's Elder Ninataype's fault. Before this transfer started he read Elder Eyring's talk about asking for mountains to climb. And got the brilliant idea to try it. Good grief.

Good foods from this week: Capirotada. Apparently it's a Lent tradition, but it's basically Mexican mincemeat. It has bread, syrup, raisins, coconut, apparently sometimes cheese, orange peal, peanuts, guava and basically whatever the heck you want in it, but it is SO GOOD! 

Also Arroz Chaufa, which the hermana said is a peruvian thing. But it was basically rice with eggs and bacon and ham.

Favorite things so far from my mission:

Foods: Burritos (they're different), Chilaquiles, Espagueti, Lonche de Discada, Enchiladas Suizas and Entomatadas, Mole, Posole, Carne Asada (dad would LOVE this one), Gorditas, Gringas (or campechanas or piratas, they're all basically the same thing), Hamburguesas (which are also different), Hot Dogs (also different) or taquitos of just about anything with flour tortillas.

Desserts: Pan Dulce, Arroz con Leche, Capirotada, Pastel de tres leches, Pay de Limón (the kind with galletas María). The rest are just the same as American desserts.

So yeah. As I remember other things I'll write them home.

With love to everybody!

Elder Taylor

19 Febrero Continuación

How could I forget?! Mayela's dad got baptized this last week! That was the most exciting moment I've had in a LONG time!

Okay, now we're good.

Elder Taylor

12 Febrero 2016

12 Febrero 2016

Another fun week. I realized this week that--AH!--we're already finishing up week four of six of the transfer! Mine and Elder Ninataype's time together is already more than halfway done! I thought time went by fast as a Zone Leader. Nope.

We did splits with Acuña and Monclova Este this week. Elder Flores came down here for two days while Elder Ninataype went WAY up north. It was fun to be back with Elder Flores again. We found a lot of people to teach, so we'll see what happens in these next few weeks.

Mario, the guy that's from Frontera, good grief he started working! So that means we can't see him hardly ever! We see him around working (he's started pedaling around a taquitos de olla cart) and he even gave us some of his wares (don't ever eat those things; they're diarrhea gut bombs...I'll try and make them for you all when I see you). But we haven't been able to sit down and teach him. But we set a date with him for the 27th of February. We're going to have to pray a LOT to get it to happen!

We started teaching a cool catholic lady and her family. We started the lesson with "I'm Catholic, but I'll listen." Then it turns out her sister-in-law who was also there is LDS but less-active. Then we ended the lesson with "Yeah, I want to get baptized." The only problem is she's moving and didn't know to where. And she's likely a stripper. But that's not necessarily a problem. She just goes out to Zacatecas to work and travels back on Sundays. That will create a problem.

Actually, that's all for this week. 

Saltillo is pretty frustrating. In Monclova, all the Catholics say they know that (in their own words) "Catholicism is bad" and would really like to change the Catholic church, but then they don't want to listen to the Mormon missionaries because--according to them--everybody is going to be saved. In Piedras Negras, the Catholics like listening to the missionaries and are open to new ideas. Here in Saltillo, the Catholics actually believe that the Catholic Church is the true church of Christ and that either EVERYBODY is going to be saved or just Catholics. But they can't agree on their doctrine. I've heard wacky things since getting here: the Holy Spirit is inside every one of us, so we help make up part of the Trinity. "God? I don't go much for that saint. I go more for the Virgin." Stuff like that. And people here don't tell you that they don't want to listen. Either they shout it out you rudely or they just don't show up to the appointment that you set with them. In Piedras they tell you nicely that they don't want to listen. I'm kinda missing Piedras.

Also, WONDERFUL news from this week: I was in a zone meeting in Miravalle Stake and met the missionaries from Guayulera Ward. I asked if they happened to know the Alvarez family, the converts from the Aurora but that went inactive. This was his response: "Yeah, they're super active! He's the Sunday School President and they're all getting ready to go to the Temple to be sealed soon. Wendy is pretty quiet and so is Carlos, but he's still there. But Julietita is a fireball and really wants to go on a mission in the future." YAYAYAYAYAY! WOOH! I hope they go before May, and then I'll go with them. :D

Speaking of which, Mayela should go to the temple in August of this year. If I came down to go through the temple with her, who would be willing to come with me?

Have a great week, everybody!

Elder Taylor