Hola

¡Hola!

This week was a little stressful, but still awesome! To start off, the week was just as usual. We visit our investigators every day and teach them a little something about the gospel, and then we do it again the next day. This week was a little different. My district leader, Elder Heyrend, decided it was time to interview one of our families for baptism (a really positive family). In order to do it we had to do divisions. I ended up staying in Calahuache on divisions with his companion, Elder Zapata. 

While with Elder Zapata, we went to a place called Santa Maria de Jesus, which is close to the border of their area and the mission itself! Its so beautiful there. The sad part is that I can´t send any pictures to you guys because it´s illegal to take pictures of the dam that we were near. It´s the same dam that we went to a few weeks ago for P day, but this time we were doing missionary work there. For dinner we ate empanadas. Really great stuff. 

When we got back to the house, the district leader called to take our dats for day and he told me he was gonna have to stay another day in Pueblo Nuevo because they had passed by the house of the family four times that day and they were never home. At that moment, I was a little worried. When you have a progressing family in the mission, you have to be constantly visiting them, like daily, to make sure that they are doing alright. At this point, I was praying that the Elders would be able to find them the next day and interview them. 

So I was going on my second day of divisions in Calahuache. I dont mind divisions, but it is a little rough to be out of your own house for two days straight. On the inside I was just hoping and praying that an interview would happen that day and that the family would accept the fecha bautismal (baptismal date). That night I wanted to wait for the phone call, but Elder Zapata was tired and just texted our dats to the district leader, and then we went to bed. In the morning Elder Heyrend notified us that he had finished the interview the day before, but he never mentioned the results of the interview. My patience was just being tested over and over.

Finally I got back to my house with my companion and we sat down to study for a little bit...

...and then out of the blue he told me,¨The family made their choice on who they want to baptize them.¨ At that moment I was so full of happiness. I´m going to baptize this Saturday!!! It´s been months since a family was baptized here in Pueblo Nuevo. As President has told us before, Pueblo Nuevo is an area of faith. Our faith has definitely brought us to this point. Not only do we have a baptism, but a familia de oro! My companion is going to baptize the mother, and i´m going to baptize the father and the daughter. Heavenly Father is always listening to our prayers, and I testify of it. 

Sorry that I don´t have any pictures this week, There wasn´t really much to shoot pictures of. But next Monday, I´ll have some really special ones for everyone to see! For now, I´d just like to wish everyone a great week! Keep us in your prayers! We´re receiving the blessings! 

Elder Taylor

Pueblo Nuevo, Zona San Felipe

Hola Everyone!

I´m going on my second transfer here in Pueblo Nuevo, Zona San Felipe, with my same companion, Elder Tumbaco. We had a few changes in our zone, including a new Zone Leader from Delta, Elder Peterson. He´s a stud. I think we`re gonna have lots of fun with this new zone. 

This week was a week of exito (success)! We brought two of our three families to General Conference in San Felipe! I feel so blessed and that my prayers have been answered. We are preparing these families for baptism the 17th of October. Please keep them in your prayers! They are progressing and we love them a lot. 

Speaking of General Conference, the whole thing was amazing, as always. Unfortunately, I wasn´t able to watch the first two sessions because we were visiting all of our families and investigators so that they would go to the broadcast of conference in San Felipe. Fortunately, it paid off because we had 9 investigators there with 2 families. I have to say that I felt the spirit especially strong when we brought the father of one of our families to the Priesthood session. I know that Heavenly Father has been looking out for us and for these families. To me, it seemed like most of the talks were centered on faith and obeying the commandments. I am positive that all of our investigators had at least one of their questions answered. I also really enjoyed the music that we heard at conference. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir definitely can bring the spirit so quickly. Heavenly Father loves us so much. I have such a strong testimony of that. If anyone every feels like they have a lack of knowledge of the scriptures, or obeying the commandments, they can always remember that they have a Father in Heaven that is always listening to them and will always love them no matter what. 

Today, for P Day we went to a toy museum where they had lots of cool toys and figures of Marvel/DC comics, Video games, movies, and books. It was really cool. After that we did a short paintball fight. And by short, i mean really short. It was still fun though! After that we travelled to Mazatenango, which is out of our Zone. We got permission to go because we had lots of success with bringing  investigators to conference. I got to eat Taco Bell! I cannot even begin to describe how great it was to eat Taco Bell for the first time in months. All in all, today was a great Prep day. 

Anyways, Sorry for the late email today! We got back a little late. Hope you all have a great week!

Familias De Oro

¡Hola!

I think I mentioned this before, but this month is ¨mes misional¨. Presidente challenged us to find a familia de oro this month and Heavenly Father has blessed us beyond that. Right now, we have 3 familias de oro. We feel extremely blessed because Pueblo Nuevo is definitely an area of faith. Those of you who are praying for us, we are seeing the blessings every day. Very recently the branch president challenged all of the members to visit investigators and menos activos (less actives) before church and after church. The members here have become super pilas (pedal to the metal)! Something else super special happened this week. There´s this little kid that we met and taught a few days ago with his family. On Wednesday, we went tracting and he found us again and told us he knew some people that we could visit. We received 3 references that day from an 8 year old non-member. 3 may not sound like a lot, but here in Guatemala every reference matters. Most of the time when we ask for references the people say the exact same thing ,¨La mayoría de las personas aquí ya van a una iglesia¨ (Most of the people here already go to a church). Not one day has passed in the mission field where someone has not said those words to us when we ask for references. We just shrug it off and keep searching. We keep searching for that familia de oro that has been prepared by Heavenly Father. 

Today for P-Day we played soccer at a field across the street from the Stake Center in San Felipe. It was pretty fun. Im not very good at soccer but the other missionaries said I wasnt bad so I guess thats a compliment. Other than that today has been pretty relaxing. Hopefully we can have a good family home evening tonight. Last week we had one with one of our familias de oro and some members in the ward. Members make lessons SO much easier and the investigators can relate. My desafio (challenge) to all of you is to accompany the missionaries to visit the investigators. The lessons are even more powerful when there are more witnesses of the blessings of the gospel. I really hope this family gets baptized. They are super duper special.

Conference is coming up and I have never felt so excited. I want to bring all of our familias de oro. We are going to visit them daily and get them to go because I know they will receive answers to their prayers there. Ive already heard multiple stories of people becoming converted because they watched conference. Another missionary from Cedar City that is serving here in Reu told me that a few conferences ago, he heard that 8 investigators arrived and that all 8 got baptized because they felt the spirit so strongly. I want to see that happen with our families. They are all very special children of God and we can´t afford to not share the blessings of baptism and temple convenants with them. 

Oh yeah. I dont know if I said this before, but the dogs here are crazy! For some reason they like to gather in groups and roam the streets. Then, they attack other dogs that bark at them or act like a threat. I attached a picture so you can see one of the groups. After I took that picture we went inside and waited for the dogs to pass because you can never tell if the dogs will be nice or not. 

Thats all I can think of for this week´s email. This week i will have completed my first change but im pretty sure my companion and I will be staying here together in Pueblo Nuevo for at least another change. Have a great week, and watch conference!!!

Elder Taylor