Taylor Family and Friends,
Well hey there! How´s everything going? Things are going just dandy here. It´s still pretty chilly; this morning we woke up to fog and a cloudy sky-great weather on P-Day. Haha.
This week was a pretty normal week, as far as the work is concerned. Last night we ended the week feeling content with the work that was done in our area and we are also seeing a big push from the zone, so that was great to see. On Tuesday, we had interviews with President Peterson and the Hermana; it was a lot of fun. They started at our house. First they inspected the house and let us know if it was clean enough, nice enough, etc. The Hermana said she´d already told 9 companionships to find new houses. Haha. She said they´re trying to raise the "standard of living" in the mission. After we had our interviews, we sang a hymn and President said a prayer, during which he blessed our house and both of our companionships-a neat experience. Then Elder Shupe and I accompanied the Assistents and the Peterson´s to each of the houses in the zone and while President was in the interviews, we went on splits with the Assistents to do contacts in the street and try to find new people. Neato. After we finished the interviews around 1 PM (we started at 9 AM), the Peterson´s took us out to eat with them. It was fun to just sit and get to chat with them and get to know them better. I had a really good garlic chicken with mashed potatoes and Elder Shupe and I shared a banana split for dessert. Mmmm.
Health wise I´m doing just peachy, no worries Mom. We are planning an activity for sometime in mid-August for the ward; we´re going to play human foosball. I´m super excited. We´re really pushing it to make sure we get a lot of the less-active members involved. We´ll see how things turn out. This ward is awesome! I love the people here. I´m really going to miss this area whenever it is that I get transferred. The members, the investigators, and just the people we meet are awesome people.
I don´t know if I told you, but we are reading Preach My Gospel as a mission this change. I have read it before, obviously, but it is amazing to see how different things stand out and catch the attention this time around. It has been a great learning experience.
So things are sounding busy on the homefront. I hope Melanie and Megan had an awesome time at EFY last week and learned a lot. I´m looking forward to their report next week....hear that, Mel and Goose?! Haha. Dad, that organization chart was pretty sweet, I hope I understood it well. My dad´s a pretty important guy, apparently. Haha. Why are you getting a new boss? Is it over the whole branch out there in Magna, or just in your department, or what? Mom, how are you enjoying your break? I hope things are going well!
Sorry for the bland letter, but that´s what´s going down this week. Have a great week! I can´t believe we´ll already be starting August. Crazy. Take care and I can´t wait to hear from you!
Elder Taylor

Howdy!

Taylor Family and Friends,
Buenos días! How ya´ll doin? Hope everything is going just dandy up there! Things are going well here. The weather has gotten a little chilly again-this weekend we actually had to put on our jackets in the streets and sweats in the house. They said it was supposed to rain this weekend, but it never did. Not complaining by any means, don´t worry!
Last Tuesday we went down to ´Deo for ZLC, with the District Leaders as "special guests." Haha. It was a lot of fun to get together with some of the Elders of the mission, as always. It was a great learning experience, we talked a lot about the importance of goals and what we can do as individuals, as companionships, and as a mission to reach them. After the conference, we had lunch at the mission home, and I got the chance to just sit around and chat with the Hermana Peterson and President with some of the Elders for a little bit. It was a fun, casual chance to just get to know them a little better and ask them questions. I am so grateful for them and their counsel to us as missionaries. I have no doubt they have been divinely called to preside over this mission for a reason!
We had a nice little surprise this weekend. On Saturday night, we were planning for Sunday and, all of a sudden, we hear the apartment door open. Elder Shupe went around the corner to find Elder Hansen and Elder Centurión (the assistants to Pres.) in our door! President and the Hermana are on a trip to visit each house in the mission to make sure it is in suitable conditions, and at the same time, President is conducting interviews; they told us our interviews are tomorrow morning, but they just came to stay the night at our place for a couple of days. The President and the Hermana are staying in a hotel. We´re basically the launch pad-yesterday after church they drove up to Bella Unión and came back, and this morning they went to Salto and this evening they´ll be back.
Yesterday, President and the Hermana came to our sacrament meeting before leaving for Bella Unión. Just to make sure I was awake, or for some other reason, the bishop asked me to give a talk about 5 minutes before sacrament meeting started....! Thanks a lot, Bishop. Haha. I was up on the stand already, because I play the piano for the ward, so when the Bishop announced that I was the closing speaker, Pres. just looked over at me and smiled a "tough-luck" kind of smile. It was pretty funny. It was just a quick, simple talk about scripture study and why it is so important for us. Simple and sweet. :o)
Things are going really well for us work-wise. We´re still going out to Casa Blanca once a week and visiting the three or four families that we are teaching out there. Rosa wasn´t able to be there on Thursday, because she had a meeting for work, but we had a good lesson with her mom, Elsa, and her daughter, Viviana. They are doing really well, and our goal is to get them to church this week-we´ll see how it all goes! We also found a really neat lady named Patricia out there on Thursday. She is a widowed mother with 5 kids under the age of 17, and she´s probly about 35 years old herself; her husband died of cancer at a VERY young age. But she is an amazing woman with unshakable faith in her heavenly Father. She is Adventista (I believe it´s 7th Day Adventist in English) but she says that sometimes she just gets confused because of all the different religions that exist today. We had a very nice introductory lesson and we´re excited to go back on Thursday and continue!
So yeah, everything is going well! Melanie and Megan, I don´t know if you´ve already left or not for EFY, but if not, HAVE A GREAT TIME! I had SUCH a good time up at EFY. Just get involved and don´t be scared!
Mary-Anne and Nathanael-HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! I can´t beleive it´s been three years since you guys got married. That´s so crazy. I hope you had a great weekend and are enjoying the time together. What are you doing to stay busy, Mary-Anne? Swift, what do you do in your new job? If you give a good enough description, maybe I´ll come join you up in Oregon. Haha. Yeah right!
Mom, enjoy your break! Any big plans for the next few weeks? Matt is headed up to USU? That´s awesome! Do you know where he is going to live? That´ll be cool to have him up there. How´s the rest of the gang doing?
Well, I think that´ll just about do it for me this week. We have interviews tomorrow, so that´ll be fun. Other than that, just finding more people to teach and helping them make the necessary changes in their lives to come closer to their Father! I hope you all have a FANTASTIC week, and I´m looking forward to hearing from all of you!
Elder Taylor

Hey there...!

Taylor Family and Friends,
Well, this letter might be kind of a short one, because the internet is being SUPER slow today, but we´ll see how it goes! Things are all going really well here. Changes came and went, no problems. The new zone is a great one, we´re really excited for this change.
Tomorrow morning/tonight Elder Shupe and I head down to Montevideo, but this time we´ll have two guests-Elder Stobbe and Elder Larsen, our two district leaders. This change President has invited all of the district leaders to come to ZLC so we can help train them and things can be more unified. It´ll be pretty sweet. Elder Larsen is my old comp from Cerro-he just got here to P-Du this last week, where he replaced another Elder Larsen. So here in the zone I have 3 comps-Elders Shupe, Huber and Larsen-that´s pretty cool!
This last week wasn´t as "great" as the last few, but it still went really well. We went out to Casa Blanca again on Thursday afternoon and had a GREAT lesson with Rosa and her family. We arrived and chatted for a minute, sang a hymn, and then I asked if we could start with a prayer. Elsa, Rosa´s 70-year-old-ish mother, said, "Well I read that pamphlet you left me last time, and I have a question I want to ask." I said, "That´s great! Could we start with a prayer first, and then you can ask your question?" Sure. We said a prayer, and then she pulled out the pamphlet of the Restoration that we had left her. She turned to the back, where the index of words is located, and started to read the definition of "Restoration." As she came to the name Joseph Smith, she stopped and asked, "So this means that this Joseph Smith is a prophet? Ok, but where how did he know he was a prophet; where did he get the authority?" What a GREAT question, Elsa. We proceeded to talk about how God had previously set up the Church on the earth through his Son, how it had fallen, and how he had restored it in our day. Just a fantastic lesson with lots of great questions and at the end, a conditional invitation to be baptized: When each of you know that this message is true- that God has restored the authority to baptize to the earth and that authority is found in this church-will you be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ? Rosa IMMEDIATELY said, "Yo sí!," followed by her daughter who said, "When I receive an answer for myself, yes." What a sincere and prepared family! On Thursday we are headed back out there to teach them about the Book of Mormon and prayer-definitely looking forward to that!
Sounds like you all had a great week! Mel and Goose, I´m glad to hear you had a fun time up at girls camp-I´m looking forward to your email that tell sme what you learned! Have a GREAT time at EFY. I´m so jealous! But hey, everything has it´s season, right?
And Mom got to see them put the angel Moroni up on the temple-sweet! Does that mean the temple is basically done? Dad, did you tell me the open house is going to be like next April or May? It´s going to be so crazy to get home and see a temple up on that hill and lots of houses behind the house.
Haha. Here I am thinking that the package was going to get here this last week or this week, and it´s still sitting at home! But hey, it´s all good, I understand. PS, I took some money out of my account last week so I could buy a sleeping bag from one of the missionaries who was headed home. I´ll use it for a bit and then sell it to someone else before I leave; I already have a buyer. Haha.
Anyways, I think that´ll be it for this week. Sorry for the short letter. Just remember that you love me! Have a good one!
Elder Taylor

Pictures!

Here are a couple of pictures from our Zone Conference in Mercedes! After the Conference, we had a couple of hours to wait for our bus, so we went and hung out by the river! Good times!

Buenos dias...! Changes...

Taylor Family and Friends,

So here we are, at the end of one change and getting ready to begin
another! Time is going so quickly! So where is Elder Taylor going to be for
the next six weeks, and with whom? Drumroll please.....
Elder Taylor is staying in Paysandu and he´s staying with Elder Shupe!
I am SO excited! I was really nervous that I was going to be heading out,
but all is well in Barrio Ombu!

Last week had another SWEET experience, and yes, it was in Casa Blanca,
yet again! Elder Shupe and I went out there, and had a good lesson about
the Restoration and the Book of Mormon with Carina, which she accepted to
read. We left that lesson feeling great and headed over to a lesson we had
set up with a family we found a week earlier...nobody´s home. Oh well,
sometimes it happens. We decided to start knocking, which is what you have
to do in a little pueblito where you don´t know anyone. We walked down a
street and Elder Shupe looks at the house NEXT to the Catholic
church..."Let´s knock this one." Sure, why not. As we walk up the tiny
little walkway, we can see a couple of people sitting around drinking mate
and watching tv. Well, they can´t say they´re busy....! We clapped, and
out comes Lorena. Elder Shupe tells her who we are and tells her that
we´re here to share a message about/for the family (as we see their two
daughters in the house). She looked at us hesitantly for a second and then
invited us to come in.

Inside, we met Lui­s (her husband), Rosa (her older sister), and her two
daughters (12 and 4). We sat down, showed some pictures, and then the first
question out of Lorena´s mouth-"So what is the difference between your
church and the Catholic church?" What a LOADED question! Is this a trap or
is it a sincere question? Elder Shupe and I kind of paused, he looked at
me, and I started to talk about the authority of the priesthood. The Spirit
quickly filled the room as the family learned of God´s plan for them, and
how it is made possible through the power of the priesthood. Rosa, the
older sister, then commented that her father had recently passed away, and
that her mother was going through a hard time. She asked us why God allows
that sort of thing to happen; we explained that the purpose of this life is
to learn and grow, which takes place as we face and overcome trials. Tears
welled up in the eyes of the two sisters. As we are getting ready to end
the charla, Rosa asks us if we have somewhere else we have to go, or if we
would be willing to go over to her mother´s house with her; of course
we´ll go! We ended with a prayer, and went over to Elsa´s house.
At Elsa´s place, we found her and Rosa´s two children, Viviana and
Nicola¡s, waiting for us. We got to know them a little bit, laughed, and
showed some pictures. As we´re showing pictures, Elder Shupe finishes with
the one of his uncle´s sealing to his three children. We began to talk
about how it is God´s plan for families to be together forever and how
that can only take place in the temple with the correct authority. We had
an AMAZING lesson with this family, and the Spirit was SO strong! We ended
with a prayer, and we have a return appointment for this Thursday, where
all 7 people will be waiting for us in Elsa´s house...! I have no doubt
that I am where I need to be, and I am so grateful that the Lord allows me
to take part in His miracles!

Conference last week was fantastic. President talked about faith and
symbols of Christ-amazing! We met his son, Chris, who just returned from
Sao Paolo. And I learned something REALLY cool- I can understand the
majority of Portugese! It´s been a long time since I´ve heard it (since I
was in Artigas) but it is REALLY similar to Spanish, and I could understand
most of what he said! How cool is that?! I´m going on a vacation to
Brazil!

Well, I think that´s going to be about it for this time around! I hope
this letter finds you all well and content after your holiday weekend! Know
that you are in my prayers! Love you all !
Elder Taylor