Chamac: Land of Miracles

Hola Everybody!

This past week we have been working super hard! Last week we put a goal that we were going to contact and extend 100 invitations to church in the whole week and we surpassed our goal! I can be hard at times to talk with everyone because its easy to get distracted or tired, but my companion is very good at opening his mouth and speaking with everyone. I'm definitely a little more introverted. He is definitely a good companion for me. Right now we have been trying to get to know some new places. We went to a village called Las Barrancas last week where we found some people who had never seen, or heard of missionaries before. It's kind of fun going to places where the missionaries have never worked. This week we are going to visit a village called Santa Irene. The missionaries have worked there before, but not a lot. Hopefully we find another golden family! 

On Saturday, we visited Mari and her family. They were very excited to recieve us. Our District Leader, Elder Preciado, came with us to do the baptismal interviews and now everything is ready for this Saturday. The family is very excited to take this step. As of now, the four who are going to be baptized are Mari, and her three kids, Robin, Karina, and Cristian. Mari's husband doesn't really want anything to do with us for the moment, but we know that his time will come. 

The members of the Chamac ward are especially excited for this baptism. It will be the first baptism of the year, which is a great way to start. Before the baptism of Julio in December, the ward hadn't seen a convert baptism in almost 2 years (apart from a 9 year old who is the son of a member that used to be inactive). I remember hearing in Julio's baptism, a sister saying, ''This is so special. This never happens here.'' It honestly was kind of sad to hear that, but I know that the Lord has blessed us with miracles because of faith. Your prayers are what brought this miracle to these people.

 

                                                          Elder Cook, Elder Taylor, Robin, Karina, Cristian, and Mari

                                                          That's all I have for now. I hope you all have a blessed week! 

                                                         Jesús te ama. 

                                                         Elder Taylor

Muy Alto!

Hola Everyone!!

Hope everyone is doing well. We are having a great time here in San Antonio and Chamac and we feel so blessed by our Heavenly Father for the miracles we are seeing in our areas. This last week Mari attended again with her children, and this time her 17-year-old son, Robin, attended with them! We pushed their baptismal date to the 18th of this month because they wanted a little more time to prepare their baptismal service. This family is so PILAS. Mari has already downloaded LDS Gospel Library on her phone and she is teaching herself the hymns! I am so happy for this family. This will definitely be one of the most memorable convert-stories of my mission, especially since Chamac has been my most difficult area in the whole mission. It is amazing how the Lord prepares people to enter into his fold. The only thing my new companion and I are focused on now is strict obedience. Obedience brings so many blessings! 

My new companion is Elder Cook. He is from Mesa, Arizona and is super chill. We get along really well. He is very obedient, which I admire a lot. It is so much easier to get along with obedient missionaries. He is also way taller than me (6 ft. 5). It's funny because all of the people here in our area just stare at him. I don't think that they are very used to seeing tall white people.  I also love that he is not afraid to talk to anyone! He talks with everybody in the street, even though he hasn't mastered the language. It's not common for new missionaries to be so outgoing in their first week! 

This month, as a mission we are focusing our studies on The Living Christ, so we are studying a lot about the Savior. I personally have been studying the beginning of 3 Nephi, where it speaks about the birth of Jesus Christ, and after, about the war between the Gadianton robbers and the Nefites. After the Nephites were able to protect their lands and people, many of them started to fall away from their beliefs and the church due to their pride. Pride is where all iniquity starts. We had an interesting class in Sunday School yesterday with the young men and young women in San Antonio. The teacher spoke about Moses and serpent on his staff. The question she asked was,¨Can Jesus Christ be compared to a serpent?¨ In the beginning all of the youth began to say 'no', obviously because of the common knowledge that a serpent is always comparable to the adversary. In this case, however, we learned that the serpent on the staff of Moses is a symbol of the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. In this story, the people were suffering many sicknesses and trials, and Moses told them all they had to do was just look at the serpent. Many people looked, and were aleviated. However, a large portion of the people there were so prideful that they didn't even bother to just turn around and look. Even though it was a simple act, their pride brought upon them their own condemnation. 

I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have witnessed the signs of the birth of Jesus Christ and only about 30 years later be denying the church like the Nephites. Their pride grew so much that their judges and high priests began to secretly assasinatethe prophets when they called them to repentance. For lack of a better phrase, it just goes to show that seeing miracles doesn't persuade people if they don't have faith first. 

Let us all press forward in faith!

Elder Cook and me! 6'5 vs. 5'11

Heavenly Father loves us so much.

                                                                        I decorated a little for my new comp   

                                                                    Here we are in an Internet café in San Pedro. In the moment! 

                                                                    Have a wonderful week. Jesus te ama!

                                                                    Elder Taylor

Training

Hola Everyone!

This week I received some wonderful news! After almost 20 months of being in the mission, I am finally going to train a new missionary! This is something that I have always wanted to do, and the opportunity has arrived! I don't know who my new companion is going to be or where he is from. I'm going to go down to Retalhuleu tomorrow to pick him up. I'm super excited to work with him in San Antonio because the area is so big and we will have plenty of opportunities to practice contacting and teaching. 

On Saturday, we woke up early to head down to a training for new trainers in Reu. A sister missionary from my zone (Hermana Morales, Mex.) is also going to be training so we went down together with our companions. 

In a tuc-tuc for the first time in a while! (Tuc-tucs don't exist in San Marcos)

                                                                                           

                                                                                                Tuc-tucs!  

                                                       Recognize this wall? Now there's a tree! (Almost exactly one year later)

       

                  In a bus on our way back to San Marcos! It was so hot in Reu! Can't believe I lived in the coast for 
                  16  months..
                                                                                                                         
 This past Friday we witnessed a tender mercy. While I was with Elder Hernandez in Chamac, we visited a lady named Mari with 2 of her children. They were pretty positive, but for personal reasons, they weren't able to attend church. To our surprise, they arrived at church in Chamac last Sunday out of the nothing, and they enjoyed it a lot! On Friday we showed the Joseph Smith movie and they told us that they were feeling good about it. We were feeling really good in the lesson and the Holy Ghost was present without a doubt. I asked Mari, ¨If you feel that the church is true, would you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized on March 11th?¨ She paused for a moment and responded, ¨Yes, I'll do it. In fact, I know that the church is true. I've prayed and asked, and I received my answer. I know this is where I need to be. This is my home.¨ My companion and I were in pure shock! I didn't even know what to say next for a moment. I was trembling. I can't even explain with words the feeling that was present in that moment. I wish I could share it with everyone, but its difficult to explain. As of now, we have a baptismal date for March 11th, and Mari, her daughter Karina, and her son Cristian all accepted. Their progress is going very well. They attended church again yesterday and are very anxious to receive more discussions. 

Heavenly Father loves his children so much. 

Hope you all have a wonderful week. Jesus loves you! 

Elder Taylor