Buen dia...

Taylor Family and Friends,
Well hey there! How are you all doing this week? I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend and ate plenty of banana cream pie for me. :o) I missed that more than the turkey. Haha.
So I woke up here Thursday morning, did my exercises and what not, got showered, studied and was getting ready to head out the door at 9:00, when I looked at the awesome calendar that I have on my wall and saw that it was Thanksgiving Day. That was weird. I had kind of thought about it during the week, but seeing as how I´m at least 2 hours away from any gringo, there wasn´t really any thing to catch my attention about it. We stopped by a member´s house that morning to see how they were doing, and I made the comment that it was Thanksgiving; the Hermana asked me what that meant. I didn´t know whether to laugh or cry for her. Haha. I then explained to her the whole deal about Thanksgiving and what we do and what not. It was a good cultural experience for her.
On Thursday we ate lunch with the Hermana Alvez, who is probably the oldest active member in Bella Union. I think she´s like 88 or something, and she´s in church every single week. It´s very admirable. She´s been a widow for about 10 years, but she loves the missionaries and looks out for us; her husband was the ward mission leader for about 10 years, she said. Anyways, I didn´t make any comments about Thanksgiving at lunch, obviously. We had a really good stew with peaches for dessert. To be honest, I don´t think I´ve even seen a turkey here in Uruguay. I know there are, but I haven´t seen one. Pretty crazy, uh? Anyways, so that was my Thanksgiving. When Elder Bankhead, my district leader, caled on Thursday night, we said Happy Thanksgiving to each other and got back to work. Haha.
It sounds like you guys had a great Thanksgiving with the family. And even had a good missionary opportunity! That´s so cool. Way to be, Aunt Trina. Did you guys have the chance to mention to them anything about the gospel? That´s pretty sweet that they saw the sign and showed up to hang out with you guys. Did Nathanael get his football game in? Did the Lions win their Thanksgiving game? :o) Yesterday there was a big game here in the ´Guay...Nacional and Peñarol played, which are the two most popular soccer teams here. Neither of them are doing very well this year, but still. They ended up tying, so there weren´t any riots or anything. Haha.
Speaking of riots, it´s possible we could see some tonight. No, just playing Mom. But yeah, the President of Uruguay is coming to Bella Union today! Presidente Tabaré will be giving a speech at 8 PM in the Plaza 25 de Agosto, which is the plaza right across the street from our house. Pretty sweet, uh? We are having a Family Home Evening with a less-active family tonight, so I doubt we´ll even pass by, but maybe on the way home we´ll walk around the block. The Plaza has been taped off since yesterday with two policemen keeping an eye on things. There is a little stage set up with a bunch of speakers. It´ll be interesting to see how this little city reacts to having the President of the country here. Anyways, thought that was pretty cool.
Oh, mom, you asked me if there was anything that Elder Wall would want or need here in the ´Guay; I was thinking about it a little this week and one thing that I´ve been really grateful for is my Leatherman. In the houses here in the ´Guay, it´s something that´s VERY handy to have. Next to my scriptures and my shoes, it´s probably what I´ve used most.
Hey Dad, that letter from NASA was pretty sweet; thanks for sharing it with me! Doesn´t surprise me at all; just reaffirms what a stud my old man is. :o)
This week was a pretty normal week, just trying to do the things the Lord wants us to do here in Bella Union. Elder Bankhead was up here with me on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, doing divisions. That was a lot of fun. It´s been a LONG time since I could talk English with my companion; it was really nice. Elder Bankhead is from Mt. Sterling, Cache Valley. Really good guy. He´s been on the mission one more change than I have, so we´ll be kickin´ it here together for another year or so.
We had an awesome lesson with Roberto Albarenga and his family on Saturday night. They had read 3 Nephi 11, so we reviewed some of the key parts and went on to explain more about the Book of Mormon. Jessica, his daughter, set it up perfectly with the question "Where does it talk about Joseph Smith in the Bible?" We explained to her that his name isn´t found in the Bible, but prophecies about what he would do can be found, such as Ezekiel 37:15-17. It was like a light turned on for the whole family. They understood really well, and Roberto even got teary-eyed. The family is going through a trial right now. They have been working on the papers to be able to go back to the US for about a year, and they just barely found a way to be able to do it, but they have to come up with the money for the visa´s before January. Here in the ´Guay, that´s not something that can be done very easily, if at all. He´s trying to sell his car, their moto´s, clothes, anything, in order to be able to come up with the money. He always tells us, "We are finally SO close, and yet so far." We told him that God knows that this is a hard time for the family, and for that reason, He has sent this message of hope and truth to his family. Things are going well with them, to say the least.
This week is going to be another week with a lot of time away from our area. We have our district meeting tomorrow in Salto and then we have interviews with President Peterson on Wednesday, so we will be staying there on Tuesday night. We´ll either get back here Wednesday night at about 12:30, or Thursday morning at about 10:15. Well I guess it´s Thursday morning either way, technically. Haha. So that´s a little rough, but it´s all good.
Anyways, I think that´s about it for me this week. I hope everything is going well for all of you, and that you are enjoying this special time of year. I hope that we can all take advantage of the special opportunities we will have to help others feel of the spirit of the season, and especially the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Just take that extra 20 seconds to share the blessings that we all enjoy, you never know when someone´s heart is ready to receive. ¡Cuídense y pórtense bien!
Con Cariño,
Elder Taylor

Another Week...

Taylor Family and Friends,
So another week has gone boy. *Sigh* I'm glad that this week is just
going to be a normal week. We were running around the country last week.
You know those stories that are in the Ensign and stuff that talk about the
wards that make crazy trips just to get to meetings in crammed busses in
110 degree weather? I always read those stories and wondered what it would
be like. I guess I thought too loudly, because the Lord put me in that
situation yesterday! Haha. The bus wasn't too crowded, but I'm almost
positive that yesterday was one of the most humid days I've had in Uruguay
yet. We left here (Bella Union) at like 7:30 yesterday morning and got to
the chapel in Salto at about 9:30; had an AWESOME general session of
conference until noon; and we got back here to Bella Union about 3 in the
afternoon. Elder Marroquan and I got off the bus, changed out of our
suits, and headed back out into the heat. What a great idea. Haha. It was a
good day.
Sounds like Megan had a great birthday; I hope she could understand the
Happy Birthday that Elder Marroquan and I sang to her during our studies
on Saturday.
So the musical is in the middle of it's run; well, I guess it would be
at the end. Tonight would be the closing show, right? Man, those were some
good memories. Melanie, just tear it up tonight! Do it like you麓ve never
done it before! And tell the boys to do some yelling and jumping for me.
:o) Stephen Nelson is home?! Holy cow, I remember when he left. That麓s
crazy. Tell him I want one of the first copies of his cd when he puts it
out! Seriously. And a signed copy would be appreciated...haha.
Francisco is doing well, Mom. It麓s funny you asked about the old guy in
the plaza whose mother and sister we were teaching...because that麓s
Francisco! Haha. We went to our next lesson with his mother and sister and
afterwards took about 15 steps to the back patio and had an amazing lesson
with him. Since that time, we have stopped teaching his mother and sister;
they are great people, but lack the desires to act according to the
knowledge that they receive. Francisco, on the other hand, reads and prays
like crazy. The only thing that麓s holding him back are little doubts and
concerns that he has; the biggest one being that about 7 years ago, he was
baptized in another church and afterwards found out that it was all a
fraud. He had done it really believing and with true intent, so it really
shook him when he found out it was all just a scam. It hurt me so much
when he told us that; for the selfish and lucrative actions of some, this
amazing son of God is hesitating to accept the truth. It's just unreal to
think that people take the hopes and dreams of people and twist them to
accomplish their own desires. So what I have told Francisco is that despite
all of his little questions and doubts, he can still know that the Church
has been restored on the earth; he just needs to ask our Heavenly Father
with faith and true intent. If he continues to do that, I have no doubt
that one day he will take that ever-so-important step of faith. He always
says that maybe it's just not us who needs to baptize him, which is true.
But it doesn't matter if I'm here when he gets baptized right, just as
long as he takes that step. Maybe the next Elder that gets here will say
the magic word and the next day is the water. I hope that that's what goes
down.
So ya'll are headed to Moses Lake for Thanksgiving, uh? Well, tell one
of our old Assistants hello for me! He was actually a friend of the
Boyce's: Caleb Stones. Maybe Matt or Meredith will remember him. He was a
machine of a missionary. Unbelievable. Tell all of the family that I say
hello! How long has it been since I went to Moses Lake? A few years. I
think the last time you guys went up I didn't go because I was working.
Hmmm, that's too bad.
So Pops, you're on the missionary committee. Do you deal with the
missionaries directly? 26,000 spanish speakers moved into SL county last
year?! Wow! That麓s awesome! So are the missionaries there bilingual, or
only a few? I'm going to be able to keep my Spanish up, it sounds like. I
love this language SO much. I was never a big fan of Spanish before the
mission, but now I just LOVE it. It's just such a pretty language. For
those of you who understand it, you know what I mean. When you don't
understand, it just sounds like a bunch of "s"; or at least that's what I
always thought.
Sweet, well I think that's about it for this week. We are going to head
to our lunch appointment now! I love you all and I hope you have a
fantastic Thanksgiving this week! Eat some turkey and banana cream pie for
me! I don't think these people even know what Thanksgiving is. Haha. Oh,
Mom, I thought of something I would like in my package, if you haven't
sent it yet. Lemonade mix! I am craving my good ol' lemonade from the
states. Mmmm. Thanks! :o) Love you all!
Love Always,
Elder Taylor

Beautiful Day...!

Taylor Family and Friends,
Mom, to give you an answer right away to your first question, I have gotten a few of the letters through the mission address; I don´t know if you´re sending them through the mission address every week, so I don´t know if I have gotten every single one of them. But no worries, even if I don´t get a hard copy of them, it´s ok. I can print them off here in the cyber if there´s something really important that I want. Mary-Anne got a job! YAY! That´s awesome. But don´t stop looking for other opportunities, especially if it´s only a temporary spot, or if you don´t know for how long it will last. But I´m way stoked for you; way to be, kid. :o) Just recently the bishop here in Bella Union was looking for a job because he was without work, and when he finally got a job, his father-in-law stood up in testimony meeting and said that Heavenly Father must have gotten tired of hearing all of us praying for the bishop, so that´s when he finally sent the blessing. Haha. I thought that was an interesting outlook. Maybe blasphemy, but it was funny igual. Mom, you asked if we have eaten anything weird lately-not really. We ate pigeon the other day, as well as a thing that looks like a groundhog with Jimmy Pio and his family, but that´s about it. I watched him skin the groundhog thing a couple of days before, so that was pretty...interesting. Haha. And justamente (I don´t know if there´s a word in English that has that definition, and that´s the one I want to use, so look it up in a dictionary..haha) that day I didn´t have my camera. Incredible. We are fed the same types of food VERY often. When there´s some type of meat, we eat rice with it. And the other days we eat noodles with some type of sauce. We probably eat that 5-6 times a week is my guess. I still haven´t gotten super bored of it, but variety is nice every once in a while. But we usually get our variety meal when we eat with Jimmy and his family-they always cook something weird so we can try it-they know how the system works. Jimmy and his wife are preparing to go to the temple here in the next couple of months, so that´s cool. They were baptized the 3rd of December last year, so it´s coming up. They are just an amazing family-have two kids- Juan Ignacio, 10, and Silvia Selena, 4. But yeah, that´s the food plan. Our apartment is 1/2 a block down the street headed south, on the east side of the street. The vivienda is pretty old, and kind of deteriorating, but it´s still pretty nice. It´s a lot bigger than my house in Artigas, so that´s good, I guess. It doesn´t need to be big, because we as missionaries don´t have a lot of stuff, but still. The sink in the bathroom is broken, but we make do. We´ve only seen a couple of cockroaches, every once in a while, but spiders are pretty frequent visitors. Not to mention our dog. Did I ever tell you guys about Negro? He is our dog. Haha. Mom, you never let me have a dog in the house...who would´ve that my first dog I would have on the mission?! From what everyone tells us, Negro has been around for quite a few years with the Elders. I guess his old owner used to live where we are living, and passed away. So when the Elders moved in, the dog just stuck around, because (of course) the Elders started giving him food! Haha. Not dog food, mind you, rather left-over pizza, rice and noodles. Not the healthiest diet for a dog, but he seems to be doing just fine! Haha. When we leave the house, he usually follows us for about 2 blocks in any direction and then heads back home to do his thing. We we come home every afternoon and every night, there he is waiting for us. What a great feeling. Haha. So we had an interesting experience yesterday. We had a lesson with Francisco, and when we got there, he was talking with another man. We all said our hello´s and Francisco said, "If you guys don´t mind, he´s gonna sit in and listen today." Nope, not a problem at all. Come to find out, Delsito is some kind of professor of philosophy-what luck! Haha. He teaches in an institution called Gnosis. I had never heard of it before getting here to Bella Union, and I still know basically nothing. It´s not a religion, but they conduct studies of the Bible, and help people be good people. Sweet. So anyway, justamente (that word again) we had planned on talking about the last past of the Plan of Salvation-what happens to us after we die. So we started talking about the Resurrection-a great topic for a charla with a philosopher, right? Haha, could have fooled me. No sooner had the word come off my lips than Delsito began to talk...and talk...and talk. It was a really enlightening experience, to be honest. It really helped me understand and simple and perfect God´s plan for us really is. Delsito went off on tangents about reincarnation and dual personalities and all this crazy stuff, with some probing questions from Elder Marroquín and I. It was cool, because Francisco would ask a question, we would give a simple 2 sentence answer, and Delsito would start to go off on some crazy tangent with words that none of us had ever heard (not only the gringo. Haha) Francisco would finally stop him and say that either he did not agree, or he wasn´t answering the question. So at the end of the charla, we set up an appointment to visit Francisco again, and I gave Delsito a folleto about the Plan of Salvation. It is amazing how simple the truth really is.This week we have a really busy, traveling week. Tonight we leave for Salto and tomorrow the whole zone leaves for our sector conference in Paysandú with Elder Claudio M. Zivic, from the Area Presidency. That´ll be cool. We´ll get back to Bella Union wednesday afternoon. Sunday morning we go to Salto with the members here because we have Stake Conference. That´ll be cool. I believe Elder Zivic is going to be there, as well. A long week, with little time here in our area, which is really sad. Hard to help your investigators when you´re not there. But that´s where the power of prayer and faith comes in. Anyways, that´s about it for this week. I love you guys! Can´t wait to hear from each and every one. ¡Cuídense y pórtense bien, por favor! :o)Love, Elder Taylor

Hey There...

Taylor Family and Friends,
Well hey, what´s up? How are things going over there in the beautiful
United States of America? Everyone here keeps asking me if I´ve heard
about some huge fire in California or something, so you don´t need to tell
me about that!
Anyways, so it´s now November; how crazy is that? Time is such an
interesting thing. But we´ll leave that subject right there. Haha. Things
are going REALLY well here in Bella Union. Elder Marroquín and I had a
fantastic week last week! Now the test is to prove that it wasn´t just
some random fluke. But we have really stepped it up a notch...or at least
that´s what Elder Taylor says. Haha. I know that we both feel a lot more
satisfied with the work we are doing. Not that we weren´t working before,
but it´s just that once you REALLY push yourself and you go beyond what
you thought you could, you ask yourself why you didn´t just step it up and
do it before. That was last week. Found a lot last week, and we´re really
looking forward to the opportunities we´ll have this week.
We had one of those lessons that missionaries always dream about on
Saturday night. We taught Roberto, his wife, and his two kids ALL together!
It was amazing. We went over on Friday night to set up the lesson and asked
him if 8 on Saturday was ok. Yeah sure, he says, and we´ll bring the whole
family together and talk. That was the best answer ever! Haha. We went over
and he was just finishing up working on the muffler of his car. Washed his
hands, we had a glass of soda, and then we all went into the front room to
talk about how prayer can really bring us together in our families. At the
end of the lesson, we invited them to kneel down every night and say a
prayer together, and they accepted! Then I told them that we would like to
be a part of the first one...we kneeled down and I asked Roberto if he
would say the prayer...he did, and it was amazing how much the Spirit could
be felt in that home! We have another lesson tomorrow night with them and
we are super excited. Oh, forgot to mention, this is a family that lived in
West Palm Beach for 9 years...so all of them speak at least a little
English! So that is exciting!
Anyways, I think that´s going to be about it for this week. Sorry for
the short letter, but if you want a couple of other bits of info, ask
Mary-Anne for parts of her letter! Haha. Know that I love each and every
one of you! Take care!
Elder Taylor