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