Two Days Late

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for the late email. I didn´t get the chance to write on Monday, or yesterday, so I´m writing today. 

Yesterday we had a reunion with Elder Lopez (a seventy) and his wife. It was really nice. The office is super busy lately because we are finding a bunch of mini-missionaries to help us with our goal of 300+++ baptisms in March. We are also starting to work with our Ward Mission Leader. He was also an office missionary during his mission, so he can relate to us very well. We also have Sister missionaries in our ward too now, so we hope we can see lots of fruit in the next few months!

Sorry this is so short! Hopefully I can send a better email next week. Love you all!

Goals

Happy Birthday Mom! Hope it was amazing. Thank you for all that you have done and all that you do for me continuously! 

Hey everyone!

This week has been awesome. We have some progressing investigators, lots of work in the office, and we are seeing lots of miracles!

Since we reached our goal of 200+++ baptisms in January, as a mission we set a goal for 300+++ in March. The whole mission is as excited as ever and we are totally going to meet the goal. The office is especially pumped up now as well. We had some area changes just within the office and we hope that these changes are going to help us become more fruitful as a district. SOMOS UNA MISION DE 300 is our new little slogan for these next two months (We are a mission of 300). We have been fasting every Wednesday as a mission and our testmionies of the law of the fast have been strenghtened. We have seen all the miracles, so we are putting all of our faith in the Lord so that we can save 100 additional souls in March. 

Another cool thing that happened this week was my birthday. I just gotta say that I don´t feel like a 19-year-old. I kind of liked telling people here that I was only 18 and seeing the surprised expressions. Presidente and Hermana Ruiz were very very kind to us this week. They bought a cheesecake (which was so good!), brought the office out to dinner, and bought me cake at dinner as well. In conclusion, my birthday was pretty great. 

I´ve also had some opportunites to get out of the office and visit some of the missionaries in the field for some projects we are doing in the office. It´s nice to see the missionaries in the field after being in the office day after day. The office definitely has its perks, but it also gets pretty stale after a while. 

elders in picture are: Elder Caniviri from Peru and Elder Adams from Arizona

That´s all I have for today. Hope everyone has the best week ever! 

A Good Exchange

Hola!

This week was one of the best i´ve had in the office. I was able to get a lot of work done, and find some new investigators in the area. This Sunday we saw miracles. We had 9 investigators in church, and 7 of them were from a family (familia de oro). 

On Friday, I went on divisions in my area with Elder Mattson, our new zone leader. We went contacting in a colonia, and didn´t find anything. Later we walked a little farther, and I felt impressed that we walk down a certain street. Without even time for me to think, Elder Mattson pointed to a blue house and said, ¨Let´s go there.¨ We contacted the house and met a bunch of people who are all family. There are four siblings living there currently; two brothers and two sisters. The older of the brothers lives with his wife and two children, one over the appropriate baptismal age. The interesting thing is that all of their names start with the letter e. Their names are Edwin, Exiba, Elmer, Elisabeth. The older of the sisters (Exiba) also has a son who is 9 years old. In total, the number of people living in the house is 7. That night we contacted them, and asked them if they had any questions. The questions they asked us directed us into Lesson 1: The Restoration. They were very open-minded, alert, and kept asking us more questions. 

At the end of the lesson they invited us to come over Saturday afternoon for the little boy´s birthday (he turned 8). They told us in exchange for us coming to eat cake, they would accompany us at church. Elder Mattson and I thought this was a great deal. 

On Sunday morning, I passed by their house in the morning with the new AP, Elder Pugmire. We accompanied them to church and I think the members were a bit surprised when they saw how many people walked in one after another. It was really awesome that they came this week too because it was a fast and testimony meeting. A lot of members bore their testimonies there. The family seemed to enjoy it. The wife (Elisabeth) told us that she really enjoyed sociedad de socorro a.k.a. soc-soc here (relief society). She also told us to come back whenever we want to. Things are really looking good with this family.

I am extremely grateful that i´m finding familes during my mission journey. At this time, we are teaching 2 families and a partial family (the husband is a member of the church). Although we cannot tell for sure how these individuals will progress, we are planting seeds for when the time comes that they are ready to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. Once again, I would like to give a genuine thank-you to all of the people who constantly have the missionaries in your prayers. We are constantly seeing the blessings. 

Sorry for no photos this week! I hardly took out my camera. Hope everyone has a great week! Please keep feeding the missionaries well! :)

The end of the 8-week-change

Hola Everyone!

Well this week has been a busy one! Part of my job as secretary is to send missionaries who need to do paperwork for visas or doctor´s visits to Guatemala City. I´ve had to do this three times this weekend, so things have been stressful. Transfers also happen this week so on top of all the normal office work, I´ve had to prepare things for the new missionaries coming to the mission and the missionaries that are going home. 

I put a couple of pictures I took of my new companion, Elder Wilcox, and the Assistant to President, Elder Gosain, who is being relieved of his missionary work this Wednesday (he´s the sad one; the same one who was taped to the cot in last week´s picture). 

Last Saturday, Presidente asked us to attend the Priesthood Session of the Stake Conference here. The special guest of that session was Elder Maravilla, a Seventy. He was the mission president of the Guatemala Retalhuleu Mission before Presidente Ruiz. He spoke about our role as priesthood holders. He started by telling the priesthood body, ¨Anyone who has given a priesthood blessing to their wife today, please stand up.¨ Nobody stood up. Then he continued,¨Those who gave a priesthood blessing to one of their children, or family member today, please stand up.¨ Only a couple of people stood up. He continued again, ¨Anyone who has given a blessing today at all, please stand up.¨ The object of his talk was to help us reflect on how often we are exercising our priesthood. It made everyone meditate the importance of using the Priesthood as a husband and father, and I´m really happy to have been able to have gotten something out of the talk that will help me be a better priesthood holder in the future. The meeting was very spiritual. 

That´s it for this week. Hope you all have another great week!

Elder Taylor