Elder Taylor en casa de la Familia Miranda en Chamac

Elder Taylor with Elder Hernadez

With brother Boris Ariel Miranda behind Elder Taylor and Boris Jared behind Elder Hernandez

Wise Men Still Seek Him

Hola Everyone and Feliz Navidad! 

It's so weird that I've already passed 2 Christmases in the mission. Time passes so quickly, it's crazy! 

Last Monday we did our big service project in the park. The relief society of one of the wards made a hot drink to share with the people of the park and we got to work contacting strangers. We had speakers and a screen and showed the Christmas videos of #lluminaElMundo and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was super successful. We found so many people! We pray we will see lots of fruits in January from this activity. 

This week was great because Julio got baptized. He is the first convert-baptism that Chamac has had in like 2 years. Curse broken! A lot of people showed up for the baptism and right after we had a Christmas Devotional with the ward. 

Double Rainbow in Chamac! 

                                                            Our Kiosk in the park

Ilumina el Mundo

Julio's baptism. + 8 Elders. (In order: Elder Alfaro, Mex; Elder Preciado, Mex; Elder Smith, UT; Hermano Rene; Hermano Julio; Elder Cancino, Mex; Elder Adams, AZ; Elder Hernández, Mex; and Me. Below: Elder Sanchez, Nicaragua)

A Guatemalan Tamale. 

This CHRISTmas season has truly been one of reflection and meditation. It is so easy to get distracted fromt the true meaning of the season; Even for us missionaries. I pondered this a lot when one day in our old house in San Pedro, the Jehovah's Witnesses left invitations at the doors of everyone's house in the neighborhood to a conference that they were going to have, and on the front of the invitation was a picture of Jesus. I found it very interesting when we got to our house in Chamac that almost DAILY, someone would leave pure advertisments and magazines from local electronics stores under our door. It made me reflect a lot. How quickly the world tries to change the meaning of Christmas, from a season of Christ-like love and service to a season of total commercialism. Even though the JW's don't celebrate Christmas, I appreciate their invitation to remember Jesus Christ in this season. The same invitation I extend to each of you, although the season comes to an end. We should always remember our savior Jesus Christ and the everlasting love of our Heavenly Father for sending him to this world. He is the reason for the season, and 'Wise Men Still Seek Him.'

Hope your Christmas was as wonderful as mine, and may the tender mercies of the Lord be with you all in this special season!

Elder Taylor

Christmas is coming

Hola Everyone!

Well, this week has been a new adventure here in Chamac. We are getting to know the members and the majority of them are super mature in their knowledge of the gospel. A lot of them are returned-missionaries, which is a good advantage. The hardest part of the area is that the people are very traditional, as in, they stick with the traditions of their past until death. The people here are VERY Catholic or Evangelical. The good thing is that we already have a baptismal date for this week that the Elders from before left, and that's going to break the no-baptism curse in Chamac that has lasted for about a year. We also are teaching a family that has recently become very interested in the church. Wish us blessings!

This week we also moved into our house here in Chamac and did a SUPER DEEP CLEAN. The house was so dirty! It had tons of old food, dust, and fleas. We took a whole afternoon just scrubbing the floor and with bleach, floor cleaner, and a broom. This is the finished product:

The first morning we woke up to a little suprise also. In the house, the toilet doesn't have a floater, so we have to shut off the valve of the toilet after every use. Since the city water shuts off in the late afternoon, my companion decided that he wouldn't need to turn it off. Well, when the water came back in the early morning, it overflowed the tank and started pouring into the bedroom. I was pretty shocked when I woke up in the morning and put my feet down into my sandals covered in super cold water:

On Friday, we also had our Christmas Multizone Conference with President Goodman. It was super spiritual and we got a lot out of it. We presented a skit as a zone, that was modeled after the song: The 12 Days of Christmas. On our way back, our bus broke down on the highway and we had to get out to push it to start it up again: 

Me and my skinny arm. (I think it's even skinnier than when I came to the mission #LAMAQUINA)

Anyways, Wishing you all the warmest of holidays and the merriest of Christmases! Enjoy your turkey and ham, and we'll be enjoying our tamales and beans. 

Elder Taylor

P.S. As I was writing this we felt a mini-earthquake. Spooky stuff! 

Surprise Transfers and Lighting the World

Hola Everyone!

Well, it was completely unexpected, but we got transferred out of San Pedro. My new area is Chamac, where our zone leaders used to be. They took out the zone leaders and combined our zone with Zona San Marcos. San Pedro got combined with another area and our new area as well. Our area covers Chamac and another little town called San Antonio. We are planning on working purely with members now, since there is way too much space to contact in both areas. Chamac has always been known by missionaries to be one of the most difficult areas in the Guatemala Retalhuleu Mission. I don't think this area has baptized in like a year. The bright side, is that we already have an investigator with baptismal date that the zone leaders left behind. His name is Julio. He is a policeman that works in Guatemala City, but he lives in Chamac with a less-active member. He's wanted to be baptized in the church for a long time, but his partner never wanted to get married with him until now. He's going to get married and bapitzed on December 23rd.

We have been working a lot with the new Christmas Initative #ILUMINAelMUNDO (#LIGHTtheWORLD).  On Wednesday we had a fun service activity in the park in San Pedro. The Relief Society from the San Pedro ward made hot chocolate and we contacted and passed out pamphlets to everyone. At the same time, we took pictures of and with the people in the park. It turned out really well and we found lots of new people to teach. 

On Saturday, there was a parade in Chamac and our ward participated in it. The members prepared a truck with a nativity scene and the primary kids acted out as the Joseph, Mary, and the wisemen. We passed out a ton of pamphlets and sang Christmas hymns the whole way. 

Today as a new combined zone (Zona San Marcos/San Pedro) we planned for a skit that we are going to present in our Mission Christmas Devotional. Its going to be based off of the song the 12 Days of Christmas. We modified it to fit our mission and the things that we see and do in the mission.

Zona San Pedro (before it got combined with the other zone)

Lighting the World in San Pedro

                                                                             A Nativity Scene

Lighting the World in Chamac 

                                                             A view of my new area!  

                                                             Have a fantastic week!

                                                             Elder Taylor

                                                            #ILUMINAelMUNDO

Illumina el Mundo

Hola Everyone!

This week has been pretty great. We've been using a lot the new initative that the church made for Christmas this year. #ILLUMINAelMUNDO (Light the World). This initiative gives us ideas of service that we can do every day until Christmas. We have been doing this ourselves as well. This month we have some activities of service planned to help others and at the same time to find new people to teach the gospel. This last week we decided to decorate the bulletin board to help the members get more involved in the campaign. 

Yesterday we had the chance to watch the Christmas Devotional. It was super awesome! I love the music and the messages that are shared with us every year during Christmas time. Sometimes it is nice just to hear someone talk about the story of the Nativity. I also loved the story that President Eyring shared about their family nativity scene and how they included the story of Samuel the Lamanite from the Book of Mormon. I would honestly love to do something like that with my family someday. 

Today for P-Day we went to a little town called San Lorenzo and went to a museum/home of some famous guy from Guatemala. He's the same guy that is on the front of the 5 Quetzal Bill in Guatemala (Justo Rufino Barrios.) It was pretty neat. There was a book there where we got to write about our experience so that other people could read it. I left my experience in the book . 

                                                 After we tore down the old bulletin board.

  The finished product. A calendar of all of the days of the month so that the members can hang the photos of      their service projects.

                                                         Justo Rufino Barrios (The 5 Quetzal Guy)

                                            

                                                             A painting of the house

                                                           Me and Ruffino.

                                                        Hope you all have a wonderful week, and may we all #LIGHTtheWORLD!

                                                       

                                                       Elder Taylor

Work Hard. Work Harder.

Hola Eeryone!

Hope everyonve was able to have a happy Thanksgiving. Our Thanksgiving here was awesome. We had a really good turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and pie at the end. We also got fed a lot more than last year so that's good. 

We are still working super hard with Fredi. He didn't get baptized last week because he didn't feel ready. I think he's just putting more and more conditions so that he won't have to do it, but he knows he needs to do it. We are going to work extra hard with him this week. We also are working with a single mother named Paola. She is also an ancient investigator that the missionaries had worked with a long time ago. She is super nice and wants to receive an answer, she is just scared of leaving her Evangelical Church. She also is waiting for God to give her an answer, but I feel like she's waiting for some revelation. 

Today we had a free P-Day. A few of the Elders in our district went to a restaurant in San Marcos called Ones. It was super good. 

                  Elder Contreras (Honduras), My comp Elder Hernandez, Me, Elder Tumbaco (Ecuador)

                          Have a wonderful week everyone. and #LightTheWorld
                          Elder Taylor

FRIO (COLD)

Hola Everyone! 

Well, the weather this week has been insanely cold; Especially in the morning and at night. I've gone through my whole mission wondering why I brought a beanie in my luggage.. and now I know. I can't sleep without a beanie at night. We tend to not use our heater because it raises the light bill way too much. Luckily we have plenty of blankets.

Today for P-Day we played dodgeball and ate hamburgers at a place called Abuelos Cafe (Grandfathers). I forgot to take pictures of the hamburgers they sell there but they are really big and are so good. 

This week we have planned the baptism of Fredi for Friday. He is still sitting on the fence a little but we are planning on going with him daily to help him get ready for his baptism. He knows he needs to do it, I think he just has fear of getting baptized again since he was baptized in the Catholic Church. Your prayers are always welcome (and needed ). This past Thursday we did a Family Home Evening where we taught Fredi and his family how to make hamburgers: 

Fredi making the patties

Fredi's wife, Sylvia. She is a member and used to work in the temple in Quetzaltenango. 

And pictures of our new house like I mentioned before:

And a sweet view of San Marcos and San Pedro from a part of our area. 

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Taylor

Tiernas Misericordias

Hola Everyone!

This week has been pretty good here in San Pedro. I finally am getting used to cold weather again. As always, the majority of people don't keep the appointments that we make with them, so that's kind of annoying, but we are slowly seeing some progress in our area. Up to this point we haven't had one investigator in sacrament meeting, but we still have faith that one of these weeks, someone will be prepared to go. 

Yesterday we had a pretty spiritual experience in a lesson with the husband of a member. The investigator's name is Fredi and he has been visited by the missionaries for the past 2 years. He was first visited by a missionary that went home when I came to the mission. Fredi has received all of the lessons on multiple occasions and has been to church countless times. I had been looking at his name in our Area Book for a while now, and yesterday I felt that we should stop by. We asked the bishop to accompany us. The bishop is the father of the wife of Fredi. When we got their, we taught The Restoration and he understood everything. My companion, Elder Hernandez, asked him after why he hadn't chosen to be baptized. Fredi's answer was that he didn't feel good in church; not for anything that the members had done, he just didn't like going. After that, I decided to share some scriptures with him from the Book of Mormon. Then I asked the first three questions from the baptismal interview. To our surprise, he answered to us that he knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the church is true, and that the Book of Mormon is scripture. I told him after that he has a testimony of the gospel, and that the only thing he needed to do is act. I challenged him to be baptized on November 25th, and we were all super surprised when we heard him say, 'I'll prepare'. This has definitely been our biggest miracle of the week. We are going to have to take care of him a LOT! I'll keep y'all posted on how things go.

Today, as a zone, we went on a mini-hike on a mountain close-by in San Antonio. We thought we were going to get a good view of San Marcos and San Pedro, but there were too many trees and the mountain wasn't tall enough. . It was still fun though, because we made our own trail on the way back down. After the hike, we went to a park on the side of the mountain and played capture the flag. We had a pretty great time. Our district went to a cool little restaurant after.

Here are some pictures:

Near a place called San Jose Caben

A cool painting of Antigua Guatemala

My District (minus two Elders) Left to Right: My trainer Elder Tumbaco (Ecuador), Elder Contreras (Honduras), Me, My companion Elder Hernandez (Mexico), Hermana Gonzalez (Mexico), and Hermana Cabrera (Ecuador).

A Graffiti wall close to our house

Me and my companion Elder Hernandez

A street in San Pedro

The famous Gallo Statue

Downtown San Pedro

The Central Park of San Pedro

Have a great week!

Elder Taylor