May 13th

It was great to hear from you! I really enjoyed it and it was exactly what I needed. I'm sorry mom for getting on you for calling me a spiritual giant. I thank you for the recognition, but I have a hard time seeing myself as that because I see so many other weaknesses and flaws. Also I have a hard time accepting compliments. So thank you.

So the family that I told you about that almost dropped us. Yeah they are back on track! Last night after I got off the call we went over to their house and we sat down and started talking to them. We also brought the relief society president over and she is such a saint. They just clicked. We started to teach and the husband even came in and sat down and listened to us. It was a really spiritual lesson and the entire time my heart was just bursting with prayer in their behalf because I realized that this lesson could have been either a make or a break one. So the entire time we were teaching I was basically crying out in my head for Heavenly Fathers help and acceptance of what we were teaching them. It was amazing. Now they are back on track of investigating and we think stronger than before. They don't have a baptismal date yet, but they know that is our first goal for them.

Also today we will be playing basketball with an investigator, so that is exciting.

 Love ya family!!

Elder Taylor



Went to Indiana to get a portable Baptismal Font

 

May 6th

Captain Moroni, AKA Elder Taylor

Recent Baptism

So to be completely honest, I am having a hard remembering what we did this last week. The mission truly does seem like the days feel like years, the weeks feel like months, the months feel like weeks, and the years feel like days. No we didn't have a baptism this last week, but we are starting to gear up for some future success. If things go great we could have 4 baptisms at the first of June. But if not there will be at least 8 baptisms coming up in the next 4 months that Elder Anderson and I found and started teaching. We have 6 investigators in our teaching pool are really progressing well, and two other gators are having a hard time reading and stuff, but they have felt the spirit and want more of it. You can just tell the look that they have in their eyes when we come over. They want more, they just aren't quite willing to act on it yet, but they will.

So let me tell you a story that has been going on for about a month now. Its about an Inactive part-member family. A little bit of background on this family is that he grew up Mormon and he fell away at like 16. So he went off to the Army at 18 and he has had to go through two deployments to Afghanistan and through it all, he has lost all but a little strand of faith and he really doesn't want anything to do with God. He married his wife who is catholic and they have four sons. So here is where we come into the picture. We knocked on his door and did our little approach and he told us that he used to be Mormon but he politely told us that he doesn't want to have anything to do with us. So I asked if we could at least leave the Savior's peace and blessing on his home through prayer. So he agreed. We said the prayer and afterwards we offered to do any service that he needs and I could tell that flipped a small switch in his head. He declined and so we left.... but we came back to him and his family again, and again, and again. The first few times were a bit rough because they didn't really know why we kept showing up and so it was a little awkward, but the more we came back the more he started opening up. His wife was down right closed off to us, but this last time we stopped by his wife was sitting out in the garage and we had a really good talk with her, she invited us in. We helped him with some of his plumbing, and it was cool afterwards they asked us to teach their kids... So we are now teaching their kids, and she is even somewhat interested. So good things are coming from them as well.

It was funny while we were doing the plumbing he started to cut some of the pipe with an electric blade and it started to shake a lot, so he asked me to hold the above and below where he was cutting, and I did. As he cut through the first bit of pipe there was still water in it, and it squirted me right in the face. He looked at me and asked if I was good I nodded and so he went to town on the pipe. It was awesome my arms were vibrating hardcore and water was spraying me in the face... I had a flash back of getting drug behind Coach Andersons boat having water splash me in the face.

Well I love you family!

Elder Taylor

April 28th

So this last was extremely crazy!  we had a little mini MTC for the youth and basically what it is, is we are paired up with a young man and we take him around to classes on Friday and then we take them out with us on Saturday. We had 26 missionaries in Elizabethtown for Friday and Saturday and we had to find over 40 appointments for all the missionaries and the young lads to go to. So we spent the entire week trying to find LA's and investigators who would be able to help us out. But I was with two young Deacons who taught me a lot. One of the kids his name was Spencer and he was only 12 but he could have already been a missionary, he was that prepared. As we were teaching on Saturday, he was able to explain the great apostasy clearer than I have ever heard it be explained... it completely blew me away. Yeah anyways that was fun on Friday evening we stayed up till 12 and then woke up at 4:45 to go and play some basketball, and it was so fun, but afterwards I was completely tuckered out!

By the way, after holding those snakes, I have really contemplated getting one. The python was completely harmless (until it saw a mice then it broke its little body, it was crazy) but feeding it and everything costs so much, so I will have to wait a little bit for a snake haha. I almost listened to it when it told me to partake of the fruit, but I pulled back at the last second.

 Love You!!

Elder Taylor

Deacons helping Elder Taylor become even a better Missionary!

 

Nathan doing the Haka!

Met up with Elder Johnson at the Mini MTC Conference
 

April 22nd

P-Day in Elizabeth Town



Hey family!! That is so neat that Gentry was able to have a missionary experience with one of her friends. Many believe that we are saved by the grace of God, no matter what we do here on earth.   Except we are saved by Grace, after all we can do. He won't save us if we refuse to change. There is no amount of work that we could do to get ourselves to Heaven, and that is why we need the Atonement in our lives. Christ won't save us in our sins, but he can save us from our sins and that’s the difference. Its the enabling power of the Atonement that saves us because it allows us to climb out of the valley of our sins and climb the mountain of victory to become as he is. Good job. Ashlyn and Porter are getting so big!! Wow!! thats so crazy, it just blew my mind.

 This last week was awesome. We are seeing so many tender mercies from the Lord it is incredible and it has come in a point of my mission when I have needed it the most. Yesterday we ended up getting 5 investigators at sacrament meeting breaking my record and next week we are expected to hopefully hit double digit numbers and that's not even wishful thinking, it’s more than possible. Right now we are teaching two families in particular and both families have two kids above 8. It’s just crazy and I'm loving it and its all because of Heavenly Father. Lately I have felt extremely humble and inadequate in everything I do, even more than at the first of my mission. I have never had this happen to me, but then to see the investigators just fall into our laps is even more humbling and shows me whose work this really is. One of our investigators is a part-member and is 17 years old, his mom fell away when she was like 20ish and now she is 40. Anyways he is surrounded by a bunch of bible thumpers Baptists who give him anti all the time. He has come across so much anti its crazy. He has almost gotten into every single anti there is and he is still interested in what we share. He has such a level head on him its awesome, but he so random as well its funny. He gives us one of his anti-questions that he has and as he is asking us the question he starts to answer his own question and so it comes out as a half question, half statement. The other day after we addressed some of his questions he looked at us all leery like and said, " It sounds good, and you all seem the most convincing this far, but I'm not sold... yet! But at least you all get into the meat of stuff instead of just scratching the surface" So he is really a level headed thinker who is looking for truth and recognizes it when it comes.  

Haha funny story that I just have to tell, we were driving to hodgenville (The birthplace of Abe Lincoln :)) and we saw a turtle in the middle of the road and (remembering what happened to me in pioneer when Elder Hart put a turtle in my bathtub) we picked it up and took it home with us. We went into the other elders apartment and put him in the bathtub and named his optimums prime. So we have had another member of the family. It was pretty funny to hear them as soon as they found that a turtle was in the bathtub, they called us and were like, "we have the best Zone Leaders ever!!!" It was great. Also on Friday we went to a BYU-Idaho Symphonic band in Louisville. That was neat but at the same time weird seeing my past (BYU-I) and present (My mission) coming together. Anyways I enjoyed it.

Well family I have to run!! love ya!!

 Elder Taylor

 

April 15th

Investigator with 8 snakes

Elder Taylor Teaching the Reptiles of the Earth!

This last week has been a hectic/ crazy week. I'm still trying to decide what has transpired. I guess to start off, last week Elder Anderson and I basically had no one to teach so we decided that we were going to ask for referrals from everyone that we meet. We have been doing that and this past week we ended up getting 10 referrals from members and non-members alike. To top it off we built up an entire teaching pool in just a week’s time. We basically had no one to teach on Monday and then yesterday we ended the week off with 14 new investigators. So we have been able to see the Lords hand a lot here lately. One of the new investigators that we picked up owns like 8 snakes and these snakes aren't just the normal garden snakes that you see every day. All of the snakes that he has can grow up to about 30 feet in length. He has one named Mary Jane and she is already like 6 foot in length. Like the third time we went over there and he brought her out and I taught the restoration lesson with her curled up around my shoulders... It was the craziest thing ever. Elder Anderson had like a 3 foot snake curled up around his arm as well. It was so cool.

Love Elder Taylor