Crazy

Hola Everyone!

Hope everything is going well for everybody. We have had a great week working in the Lord's harvest. By grace, we were actually able to teach some lessons in peoples' houses this past week so that was a big blessing. Recently, we have been working in our second area, San Antonio. It is a town that is neighbors to Chamac. San Antonio is ginormous and has tons of little villages surrounding it. Right now, we our trying our best to balance our work and determine which area is more productive. We are especially going to focus on prayer and fasting. We hope that through this, we will be able to see miracles. What we need now in our area are miracles. 

Most of the investigators that we are teaching currently are eternal investigators. The people that the missionaries have visited for years. Mainly because they are the only people that receive the missionaries. The people here are a lot harder than any of the other areas I've been in. It's going to require lots of faith and prayer, but we have lots of faith that we will make a difference in the lives of these people. 

This last Tuesday, we got to see something a little crazy in San Antonio. There were a bunch of young guys dressed up as tigers doing tricks on a rope tied to the Catholic church and a pole. A member of the ward mentioned to us that they do this every year and its to celebrate 8 days past the town fair. Supposedly people have fallen and died before, but they haven't ended the tradition because they have been doing it for years and years. 

A homeless dog drinking water out of the fountain in the park.

                                                          A Utah license plate in one of the public transit buses in San Pedro

                                                  Well, I'm kind of out of time for now. Hope you all have a wonderful week! 

                                                  Elder Taylor

Freezing with my new companion!

Hola! 

Wow. How fast the time goes by! It's kind of scary how time never slows down. Although this week was a little rough, it brings so much satisfaction putting all of your work into something that you know will bring miracles in the future. As of right now, we don't have any progressing investigators. The people are so difficult, but we love them so much! 

This past week we said goodbye to our old companions and received our new companions. My new companion is from Panama and his name is Elder Medina. He is a really good missionary. He has just a few months less than I do in the mission so he is very experienced. I was super excited when President called and told me that he was going to come up to Chamac with me. What Chamac needs is two very devoted missionaries that never get tired of working. Elder Medina and I get along really well. I think we are going to see lots of success together in our area. 

Pics:

  Saying goodbye to our old ZL, Elder Cancino (Mexico)

 All the butter that goes into making Tamales. We love fat.

                               

                                                           Making crepes at a member's house with my new companion!

                               

Waiting for food at a member's house with my new companion! (feat. Corn Flakes)

                                                                   Freezing together in the fog with my new companion!

                                                          Our P-Day Activity today

                                                          Have a great week! Adios. 

                                                          Elder Taylor

Faith

Hola Everyone!

Hope you are all having a great new year! This letter is going to be a bit simple today since haven't had many activities recently and not a lot has happened in our area. We are seeing lots of little changes here and there in the mission. A lot of reorganization of leaders and missionaries in the areas.

Yesterday, we were informed by President Goodman that there would be a change of assignments in our area. I'm going to be staying in Chamac, and Elder Hernandez is going to have transfers. My new companion is going to be an Elder from Panama, Elder Medina. I've met him before and I'm pretty excited that we are going to have the chance to work together in the mission for the first time. We were also informed that a new district leader is going to be assigned to the area where our sister missionaries are right now. They are going to switch out the sisters for Elders. I've been relieved of being district leader for this transfer, so I guess now I have the chance to focus more on my area.

Apart from that, everything is going well. We are going to work extra hard in Chamac so that we can see a miracle. A lot of missionaries say that Chamac is the worst area of the mission and i'm hoping to be able to prove them wrong. The Lord knows why we are here and I have faith that our work isn't a waste, even if the people are a little difficult. If my purpose here is to plant seeds, I'll plant seeds happily.

Have a wonderful week!

Elder Taylor

GuateBUENA

Hola Everyone!

This week has definitely been a week to learn pacience. Luckily, i'm getting kind of used to having to learn this atribute so that means that i'll be super patient when I get home! (hopefully!) 

I guess the biggest piece of news this week is that we are in charge of 4 areas. Basically my whole district got closed in this past transfer and the only missionaries left in our stake are us and the hermanas one of the wards of San Pedro. Due to lack of missionaries in our mission and other emergencies, they have been taking missionaries out of certain areas and assigning missionaries to double-areas. In my case, we are assigned to a cuadruple-area: Chamac, San Antonio, San Pedro, and La Grandeza. Each of these areas has their own ward which makes it a little difficult to conform to each of their needs. Right now we have just been focusing on our main area Chamac, and on the Progressing Investigators that we had in each of the other areas. We have been travelling so much this week between areas! It gets pretty exhausting.

The good thing is that the sisters in the Independencia Ward baptized, and the investigator asked that I baptize her. Her name is Madeline. Her husband is already a member. She's the first pregnant woman that I've baptized in the mission, so that's pretty neat..

A photo from last week when we were coming back to San Marcos from the Quetzal Refuge. We were walking along the highway because the buses were too full to let us on.

                                 The new bulletin board in the mission office. My photo is in the letter 'D.'

Hermana Gonzalez (Mexico), Me, Madeline, Hermana Cabrera (Ecuador).

That's all I've got for this week.

Hope you all have a fantastic week!

Elder Taylor

#GuateBUENA

2017 and Quetzal Hunting

Hola Everyone!

Hope your holidays were extra special! This email is going to be kind of brief because we started writing later than usual and our time is almost up! Our New Year was excellent. It's so crazy to think that we are already in 2017. Time flies by, especially in the mission! A year ago now, I remember that I was still in the office of the mission.

This last week has been really slow due to the holidays. Our dats were super low and nobody seemed to be home. We hope this week will be a lot better.

Today as a zone we went to El Refugio del Quetzal (aka. The refuge of the Quetzal) The Quetzal is the national bird. Its a bright green bird with a blue stomach. Although we didn't find any, we did get a good picture of the Guatemalan Quetzal (money) in a tree. That was the only quetzal we could find today... 

(I was going to send more photos but the internet does'nt want to today...)

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Elder Taylor