Semana 1 de Bella Union...‏

Taylor Fam and Friends,
 How ya´ll doin´? I´m doing well here in Bella Union! So remember when
I was in Artigas and it rained a ton and I loved it? Yeah, I don´t want
the rain anymore. Haha. It has rained everyday here since Tuesday and it is
COLD rain with a COLD COLD wind. And almost all of the streets here and
just dirt (o mejor dicho-MUD) streets. My shoes are just covered in mud as
well as the bottom part of two pairs of pants. Good times. Today it´s
looking like it might clear up-we´ll see!
 Mom and Dad-thanks for the coat you sent, again. My trench wouldn´t have
worked hardly at all this last week, but the other one works great!
 The work is going well here in Beautiful Union. Remember last week when I
told you a little about Cristian? Well he´s getting baptized this
Saturday! And he´s asked Elder Taylor to baptize him. It´s gonna be a
pretty sweet week. Tomorrow night we are taking a bus down to Salto so we
can leave with the rest of the zone on Wednesday morning to go to Zone
Conference in Paysandu. And then we´ll stay the night in Salto on
Wednesday so we´ll be there for planning on Thursday morning. Then Elder
Huaman will stay in Salto and our District Leader, Elder Maughan, will come
up to Bella Union with me to do the interview of Cristian on Friday. Then
we´ll switch back on Saturday morning. Pretty sweet, uh? So yeah,
Cristian´s baptism. That´s the big news for this week!
 We received a new rule from the Area Presidency this last week-we can´t
ride bikes anymore. They didn´t give any specifics, but the missionaries
can´t ride bikes anymore. I have mixed feelings. The bikes are a pain to
ride, but they make the work more effective, especially since there´s only
two of us here. For example, on Saturday morning we went to contact a
reference that we received, and they live in the neighborhood of Las
Piedras. It took us about 25 minutes to walk out there. So yeah, it would
have been nice to have bikes for that. But, we´ll be blessed for our
obedience, so it´s all good!
 When we went out to Las Piedras on Saturday, the reference wasn´t even
at home. We had decided that we were just going to spend the rest of the
morning out there knocking and contacting, so we did. After trying to
contact the reference, ´Huaman looked at me and asked, "Now what?" I
said, "We start here" and walked up to a door. We knocked and out walked
Mirna. Ten seconds later we were inside the house getting to know her
better. We introduced ourselves, chatted, sang, and said a prayer. We then
proceeded to talk about how the gospel can bless our families and such. We
got through the whole first lesson and after we went over the steps of
prayer, I asked her if she was up to praying before we left. She quickly
accepted and proceeded to offer a very heartfelt, sincere prayer. She
thanked our Father in Heaven for having sent these two ´muchachos´ to her
home with the word of God. We set up to head back out there tomorrow
morning, so I´ll keep ya´ll informed! It was just a cool experience.
 Dad, you´re in charge of Special Needs Mutual? That´s awesome! What a
great opportunity to learn and grow while teaching at the same time. Wow,
I´m stoked for you! Make sure to let me know how it´s going!
 Mary-Anne, I´m glad you´ve finally come to accept the fact that I´m
the favorite child. Haha. Just kidding. What is this teaching position they
offered you? You said a teaching position of 45 kids; what would you be
teaching? Is it like daycare place or what? Sounds pretty intense, but hey,
we gotta work. Unfortunately, it seems sometimes, but still!
 And Nathanael now is going to be up to his head in homework. Sounds like
fun. I miss school, but I don´t miss those first couple of weeks when they
just overload you! Just do what you gotta do, bro-you´ll do fine! And you
have 24-hour access to the library? Haha. That´s awesome. That´s another
scare tactic for this first semester. Show them you´re not scared-move a
tent into the library! That´ll show your professors what´s up! :o) Just
don´t forget to keep me up on my Lions, bro. Remember, this is our Super
Bowl year...!
 Mom, you asked if there´s anything else I want/need. If you can find
them, either my Lions or my Indians baseball hat. I don´t know why, but
I´ve been craving a baseball hat. If you send me one, I won´t have to buy
one here. Haha. If not, well...! And I think I asked you before to send me
my Eclipse Christmas cd. If you can find it, that would be great. That is
if the girls didn´t steal it along with all of my other stuff that I left!
What was I expecting, right? It´s a good thing I have cute sisters...!
 Nathanael, everyone here keeps telling me that we almost look like twins.
It´s pretty sweet. Haha. You and I look more alike than any of my
siblings-go figure, uh? That was just a cool little tidbit. Of course,
everyone still says I´m better looking, but hey...we already knew that,
right? ! Haha. Love you bro!
 Mom, make a scan of JoHanna´s invitation and send it to me in an email,
if it´s not too much trouble. If so, just keep it there to make sure it
doesn´t get lost. Make sure you send them my congrats and my love!
 Well, that´s about it for this week! Know that all is well and that I
love ya! Take care of yourselves and don´t forget to write!
 Love,
Elder Taylor