General Conference

Hey Family!!!!

     Thanks for your emails!! I loved reading them! Wasn't conference like AMAZING??? Ever since last conference when I learned that they aren't assigned topics and that they come up with their own topics, I think it's really interesting how there tends to be "themes" throughout conference and how they speak about similar topics.  Obviously it's important! I felt like there were so many messages directed to the youth and that was so cool.  There was a lot about Christ like love, obedience, and just the basic gospel truths.  It was so good!!!! Oh also! There were a few talks about how important it is that we defend our beliefs.  Here's some other things that stood out to me

      Elder Anderson: talked about how the way you feel in the temple is a pattern of how to live your own life - so true!

     President Eyring: Every day and every hour you have the opportunity to KEEP a covenant.

     Robert D. Hales: Why do any of us choose to be disobedient when we know the eternal consequences? (something to think about).

     W. Craig Zwick: Words that can be firm in information can be made soft.  I liked that because even when you are frustrated or upset, there are ways to word things or ways to not raise your voice that can completely change the situation. 

     M Russell Ballard: Hahahaha his missionary/meeting his wife story was hilarious!!

     Gary E. Stevenson: LOVED THIS ONE! I liked how he talked about how we have years or preparation all for a "four minute performance".  And I also liked when he quoted the olympic athlete when she was like "I want my fellow competitors to do their best too!" And then he was like... This is YOUR 4 minutes.  SO GOOD!

     Pres. Monson: Don't have the regret of having a second chance to be kind.

     Hahaha I don't know why buta when Marcos Aidukaitis was like "one should not roam through garbage" I couldn't stop laughing! I think it was just how he said it.  Basically, conference was just so good!!! And guess what? We were watching it at the same time!!! Guess what else? Ken and John both came!!!! Ken is totally already Mormon, he acts like one and since his Dad was Mormon he is familiar with some of the phrases and words we use and he's just great!! He's like a hipster grandpa haha.  Anyway, I guess I will tell you about my week now!

     Last Monday we went roller blading and... ummm.. it's hard.  I didn't fall but it's really hard to get the motions down! So we pretty much just probably looked like we were walking with roller blades on.  It's a pretty good work out though! Ken texted us Monday afternoon just to tell us he had read and prayed that morning.  We also had a lesson with John and like he's progressing but we just get a weird feeling around him so we are going to bring a member to lessons with us from now on. 

     Tuesday we had president interviews and district meeting and we played the game head bands and we used Book of Mormon characters and you can only ask yes or no characters and on Sis. Scott's forehead I put "just say no every time" and it was hilarious! Then we had a lesson with Ken and he is basically amazing!!! Like seriously.  He is starting to make all of these connections with Mormons in his life over the past few years and doesn't think it's just a coincidence.  He said he feels good about what he is learning so far and he is reading the Book of Mormon and like actually comprehending it and applying it to him! He's so cool.  And he's really funny. 

     Wednesday I was on exchanges in the Oakville sisters area and it was really neat.  We decided to visit a less active member who they hadn't met yet and we went there and she told us about herself and that she was addicted to drugs, alcohol, etc.  And she was trying to do better but she had had a really bad week and that just minutes before we came over she was about to leave to go get high and she kept saying "So I find it really weird that you came over tonight..." It's just cool that we went there when we did! It was so sad though just to hear about her life. 

     Thursday morning at like 5:30 the tornado alarms start going off and there was a ton of rain, thunder, and lightning and I was still with Sister Barret on exchanges and I feel like I'm kinda desensitized to them now so I was just like ignoring them and trying to go back to sleep and Sister Barret hasn't ever been here for tornado season so the next morning I felt super bad cause I'm sure she was nervous and I was just like trying to go back to sleep! Anyway, it rained like crazy all day and then that night there were multiple tornado alarms and warnings and watches and the sirens were going off multiple times but like Sis. Scott and I still had things to do haha.  So we were out driving and it was like 8:30 and the tornado sirens were going off but like it wasn't for Fenton and then we get a text that was like "take shelter - NOW!" from the local weather station but like members of our ward told us it was for a different city still (I'm telling you, like the tornado alarms hardly phase me - you would think differently right?).  Anyway, the whole situation that night just made us laugh. 

     Friday we were FINALLY able to see Shannon again! I was nervous that she was avoiding us but she wasn't and we were able to set up a lesson with her for this week.  Afterwards we were also able to finally see Virginia and I thought she was avoiding us too but we got there and she had read the introduction, the testimonies, and started Nephi and read somewhere in the introduction that there was a Joseph Smith History so we left and copied that for her and brought it over and she is really interested in reading that as well as getting her son involved in the church! That night we saw Teena LaRoue (a less active) and it made me so sad.  We have been visiting her every week and she has been making so much progress and we were going over there to talk about the temple so that she could start preparing to go and we get there and she was like "I'm not going back to church anymore" and basically I guess the Bishop made her feel bad about a food order and her feelings were pretty hurt.  We watched the talk "Come Join with Us" by Uchtdorf and talked about how the church is perfect but it's run by imperfect people.  I hope she is able to forgive him though and come back. 

     Saturday we watched conference - yay!!!! Afterwards, we visited this lady the Elders tracted into and she lives in our area.  Her name is Jia and she is from China and she is seriously amazing!!! Oh my gosh.  She didn't grow up Christian so the idea of a God to her is new but she believes there might be a God.  She was asking us how she can find out for herself and so we taught her how to pray and then she prayed right then and there and told us that was the first time she prayed ever! We asked her how she felt and she said she felt happy and cared for.  You could like feel God's love for her - she was so cool!!

     Anyway, that was pretty much my week! Today we have zone pday so we are going to have an Easter egg hunt and then we are watching Ephraims Rescue.  Once again, conference was amazing!!! I feel like President Packer and Monsons testimonies of the Savior were so strong and powerful.  Also, Packer and Hales are looking soo old!!

     Anyway, I hope you all have a super fabulous day and week!!!!  I MISS YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Taylor

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Teaching Moments

Hey Family!!!!!!!!!!

     Thanks so much for your emails - I love reading them!! I think I say that every week.. but it's true!! My cut is healing which is great but like one of my stitches came out which kinda freaked me out but apparently it's not a big deal so that's good.  Also, we met this pretty cool guy tracting this week.  His name is Ken and we knocked on his door and he started talking to us and he told us how is Dad was Mormon and his Dad would always try to get him to join him and then he passed away but he had good feelings towards Mormons.  So we asked him if he would want to learn more and he was like "I don't know why I'm saying this but I'm pretty opened minded and I would be interested in learning.... My Dad is totally smiling down on me right now..." He was so cool! We are seeing him again this Wednesday and so we will see how that goes!  Anyway, I guess I will just start telling you about my week!

     Monday was pday and we went out to lunch and then just looked around some of the stores around Fenton and then that night we had a lesson with Mark on the plan of salvation and like we felt like it went pretty well. 

     Tuesday we had a lesson with Shannon and we had Sister Katseanas come with us so that her kids could play with Shannon's daughter and it went really well! Shannon still like wants to get baptized and she is seriously amazing.  Like she really believes the gospel is true and has noticed the difference the spirit has made in her life already - I love it!! I don't feel like a lot of people recognize that change of feeling right away like she has, so that's really neat.  She is getting married in August though and her and her fiance currently live together so that's kinda an issue... and it's not like it's a small wedding, it's pretty big and she is doing a lot of planning for it so we will see how everything goes with that because she can't get baptized unless her fiance moves out or they get married!

     Wednesday we were on exchanges and that night we had a lesson with John and we went over the plan of salvation and like it went pretty well but we aren't really sure what Johns motives are. 

     Thursday was pretty funny! Haha okay, so we went to visit a member of the ward that neither Sister Scott or I knew so like we go to the house and knock on the door (all we knew was that the people we were visiting were older) and this younger Mom opens the door and all her kids come running after her and as soon as I saw that I realized we were at the wrong house and so we just introduced ourselves like we were tracting but it totally took us off guard cause we thought we were at a members house but it was kinda funny.  Later that day, we contacted a media referral and a cute little hispanic woman answered the door and we introduced ourselves and then she told us that she has been waiting for us to come because her friends' son or something is dating a  girl and she doesn't want him to anymore so she wants the Mormon girls to knock at his door so that he will stop dating her and date one of us.  We could not stop laughing afterwards! Good thing that's what we are on missions for... haha not. 

     Friday morning we had a lesson with Virginia!! It was so cool! So we watched the restoration movie and then talked about the Book of Mormon and she had a ton of questions about where it came from and what it was about and then we told her to read the introduction as soon as we left and then pray about it and text us after she did that.  So like an hour later she texts us and is like "Hey... can we meet sooner than Sunday? I started reading and it all makes sense." How cool is that????? She ended up getting sick (thanks Satan) and we didn't get to meet with her but we were so excited when we read that!!

     Saturday we had a dinner theater at the church where all the youth were in a play called Jet Black (instead of Snow White) and while they did the play, they fed everyone dinner and it was cute! Candice came!!! Except I think she felt super out of place:(  Our ward has tons of families with kids and she is single and black and you could just tell she didn't really feel like she fit in.  The ward was great at getting to know her and stuff but I don't know... she ended up not going to church yesterday either. 

     It's supposed to SNOW tomorrow... GROSS!!! Oh also I didn't really explain my companion very well haha so Sister Scott is my same age, she went to BYU in the summer time and so she knows a ton of people I know from BYU too.  She has been out for 10 months and is from California.

     Anyway, I think that's pretty much it!! Thanks again for your letters!! I MISS YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Taylor

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Midnight Snack

Hey Family!!!!!

     Thanks so much for your emails - I love reading them! I hope you had a great birthday Dad!! This week has been pretty great - I got to go to Matt Westfalls baptism yesterday and it was so amazing.  You could just tell he knew what he was doing was the right choice and his wife was so excited for him too.  It was fun going back to the ward in Highland and seeing everyone!

  

     Tuesday morning we had a lesson with Arlene.  I think I started telling you about her? She's 85 and her 3 best friends growing up were Mormon and she isn't able to see them anymore so she thought that by learning more about Mormons, it would help her feel close to them again.  We taught the Plan of Salvation and I think it went really well! It seemed to make sense to her and she said if she were to start going back to a church it would probably be the Mormon church but she feels like she needs to keep going to her Baptist church because of social reasons but she hasn't been to that one in a while either.  She is so cute though and she loves talking to us.  Tuesday afternoon we had a lesson with Shannon and she is seriously AMAZING!!!! After we left last time she looked up stuff about missionaries onling and read about our schedule and what we do and she told us how impressed and grateful she is for us and then she also looked up and studied the 10 commandments on her own.  She was confused about the 2nd one about graven images and asked if it was okay for her daughter to have dolls and after we told her it was okay she was like "oh, good! I was about to burn all of her dolls because I didn't want to be breaking any of the commandments!" She also told us that she prayed the night before the way we taught her and she said she felt so much happier and woke up with a different kind of energy. She is awesome!! We went over the Plan of Salvation with her and she really liked it.  She thanked us multiple times for teaching her.  She said she has always felt like she had an old soul but she hasn't started searching until now.  We just need to get her married (she lives with her boyfriend) !!!

     So... EARLY tuesday morning... around 2... I woke up super hungry and I couldn't go back to sleep so I go into the kitchen and I saw a can of chicken noodle soup and decided that sounded good! So I pop the tab to open it and in the process of doing that I cut myself so I quickly run it under cold water and then I turn my hand around and I can clearly see it's WAY more than a small cut.  Blood was like gushing out and it was super deep and it scared me so bad! I had no idea what to do! I kept running it under water and trying to apply pressure and stuff but it was just making it worse so I wrapped a paper towel around it and found a first aid kit and it said to raise the injury above your heart so I did that for a few minutes and it helped a little but it was still bleeding super bad and I didn't know what to do because Sister Minyard was sleeping and like who eats soup at 2 in the morning? I felt pretty dumb.  Anyway, it finally slowed down a little and I went back to sleep and I wasn't planning on telling Sister Minyard just cause the next morning was transfers and I was just going to let it heal on its own but she saw my finger wrapped in a bandaid and asked what happend so I told her and she looked at it and said I should show the mission nurse so I did at transfers and she said I needed stitches! So, after transfers I got 8 stitches on my finger! I was super scared to get them actually.  Moral of the story... don't eat soup at 2 in the morning?  Anyway, Wednesday was transfers and we had (2) 30 year -olds come in to the mission! Crazy right? Sister Minyard is with one of them now.  I'm with Sister Scott and she is great! She's from California and she went to BYU the summer before I went and so we actually know a lot of the same people. 

     Thursday we had a lesson with John and his wife Nicole was there this time and it was the most awkward/uncomfortable lesson of my life!!!! Usually Nicole is sleeping when we have lessons because she is kind of addicted to perscription drugs apparently but she was awake this time and she just started talking about all their marriage problems while John was sitting right there and then she went off about how rude John is to her and how he doesn't care about her and you could tell John was super annoyed but he didn't say anything.  Anyway, Nicole apparently wants to learn more but I guess we will see how that goes...

     Saturday morning we had another lesson with Arlene and we talked about the Restoration and I think she was a little confused but we asked her a lot of questions to help clarify things so hopefully that helped? It's always different adjusting to different missionaries teaching styles too. Yesterday was Stake Conference and the theme of it was hastening the work (surprise!) but they focused a lot on like visting and home teaching and service which was great.There was a super cool statistic that one of the speakers told us too.  He said that if every single missionary in the world were placed in China right now, each companionship would have 30,000 people to teach.  HOLY COW!!!! I thought that was pretty sweet! We had a lesson with Candice last night and we watched the Restoration DVD and she said she would come to church next week!     

     Anyway, I think that's pretty much it!! Happy St. Patricks Day!!!! I hope you all have a super fabulous day and week.   I MISS YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Taylor

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14 months!!!!!

Hey Family!!!!

     How are you?? Thank you so much for your emails - I love to hear from you!! I hope the weather is way warmer there than it is here.. church was cancelled yesterday because there was a predicted ice storm but it wasn't even bad like at all.  Anyway, I guess I will start telling you about my week! It was actually kinda a slower week in some ways.   It's a little frustrating because we weren't able to meet with ONE of our investigators and trust me... we tried!! They either cancelled or weren't ever home or wont get back with us or just have a lot going on right now.  President Morgan wants all the leaders to have "model areas" and it's hard when none of your investigators will even meet with you. But we will keep trying!!

     So on Monday evening, we met with a less active member Ashleigh and her husband pretty much is always traveling for work and he isn't a member but she has been coming almost every week lately.  Anyway, she has like a 2 year old I think? She's had a pretty rough life.  She is only 19 and got married when she was 16 and doesn't have contact with her parents like AT ALL and when she got married, her husband only spoke spanish so she learned spanish and now she's a mom and looking at her you would think she was 30.  It was just so crazy to me that she is younger than me and stuff but she still recognizes how important the gospel is in her life. 

     Tuesday I was on exchanges in Sandy Creek and those sisters wrecked their car last week so members pretty much drove us around all day but we weren't able to meet with very many people!

     Wednesday we visited a couple less active members and they went pretty great! We have been trying to meet with Jen H. basically all transfer and we finally were able to catch her at home!  She is so awesome.  Her family was Mormon growing up but they were basically all offended a little bit so none of them are active anymore and her parents live in a nudest community (she told us alllll about it... it's interesting how much people tell missionaries sometimes).  Anyway, her son is actually being taught by the Elders in our ward right now and he wants to get baptized and I think that is going to help her come back to church.  She's so much fun to talk to and be around - our ward needs her!! We had dinner with Linda Cox again that night and I just really like her!! Her granddaughter lives with her and she's 6 and she likes that 'Cups' song from Pitch Perfect and she kept doing the part with the cup and I already knew it but Sister Minyard didn't so we tried teaching her but the granddaughter didn't think she was very good so she was like ... "maybe you can just be the audience".  It was pretty funny!

     Thursday we had district meeting and I gave a training on extending invitations to investigators (funny that none of our investigators want to accept our invitations right now).  So I hope it went alright!

      Friday and Saturday we didn't have much going on.  But Saturday morning we had our Stake Women's Conference and President and Sister Morgan spoke at the beginning and Sister Morgan told a story about a woman who said she wanted to be buried with a fork because whenever you are at a dinner and they are like "keep your fork" you know something better is coming!! (dessert!) So she wanted to be buried with a fork.  The whole theme was like enduring to the end and I just really liked that!! Also, this one lady that spoke used a ton of quilts that she had made as part of her object lesson and she has made a mission quilt for all of her kids that went on missions and I thought that was a good idea! Like it's super cute too not just one of those lame ones with a ton of squares sewn together.   

     Yesterday since church was cancelled we walked to the Matheson's for Sacrament meeting and the Elders came too and it was really good.  We had the sacrament and our own testimony meeting.  I've never done that before and it just was really neat to me that the priesthood can make that happen - I'm so grateful for that! Afterwards, we watched Johnny Lingo and The Phone Call.  Hahahaha if you haven't seen The Phone Call... you have to!!! It's hilarious and super cheesy and old!!! So for some more of the afternoon we tried tracting some of the houses on our walk back to our apartment (it was FREEZING!!!!!) and no one was really interested they mostly thought we were crazy for being outside.  But then, after lunch, we decided to go back out and the first 2 people we talked to became new investigators!! It was so amazing!!! We are supposed to find 2 new investigators each week and we hadn't found any this week PLUS we hadn't had any lessons with our investigators and I was stressing out and then the first people we talked to became investigators!! YAY!!!

     Anyway, that was pretty much my week! Thanks so much again for your emails.  I hope you all have a super fabulous week!!!! I MISS YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Taylor

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Book of Mormon Baseball

Hey Family!!!!!!!!!!

     Thanks so much for your emails - it was so great to hear from you!! The weather warmed up a little bit last week and it's getting cold again this week:( Anyway, I guess I will just update you about my week since Wednesday!

     So on Wednesday night, we had dinner with a recently baptized member, Linda, who is amazing and we played Book of Mormon baseball with her and it's where you ask a gospel centered question and then as you flip through the pages of the Book of Mormon, you have the person who asked the question tell you when to stop and then you ask them to say a number 1-4(columns in the Book of Mormon) and then you say the verses that are on that column and they pick one of the verses and then you read the verse and it will answer their question in one way or another.  It's pretty cool because it shows how the Book of Mormon really does answer any questions we have! Anyway, she asked the question if we will eat food in heaven and the scripture we landed on was Jacob 5 which is all about the olive tree which was pretty funny but then she was like "I have actually been meaning to ask about Jacob 5 because I don't understand it!" And so we talked about it and she brought up a good point how sometimes God answers your prayers when you are looking for answers for other things as well.  Does that make sense? Anyway, it was actually really neat.  On Wednesday, I was on exchanges with Sister Hansen - the one that the Leavitts know!! She's very sweet. 

     Thursday I was on exchanges with Sister Esterholdt in Oakville.  I love Sister Esterholdt!!! She's from the middle of no where in Oregon right over the border from Idaho. She makes all of her own clothes, she was homeschooled, she loves old westerns, and hasn't really seen any movies besides really old ones, she hasn't put any type of heat on her hair since she was 16, and she is just really sweet.  It was honestly one of my favorite exchanges!!! She was telling me a story about this boy that asked her on a date and she was like "I think the term you use is that he was hitting on me?" and she would use the term "Boy howdy!" all the time.  She is a very quiet girl but once we started talking she had lots to say and she is an amazing missionary and has a wonderful testimony.  She is the greatest!! In Oakville was where I met Sister Farmer! Haha she isn't in the ward I serve in but she is like 90 years old and when I got there she insisted that she call my Mom and it sounds like she did! She was adorable. 

     Friday I was on exchanges with Sister Herdman and we went to a trivia night with our new investigator, Krisitie and it was so much fun! There were a ton of people there and we actually knew more answers than the rest of our team and we also found a newly married couple on our team that is interested in learning more about the gospel which is so great!!

     Saturday morning we got a new investigator, Virginia! She lives a couple buildings over from us and has a 3 year old son and her husband is agnostic.  She has been to a lot of different churches but just hasn't found the right one.  She has a lot of similar views and beliefs as we do and she is looking for some wholesome activities and direction in her life for her family and actually wants to stop smoking but hasn't really had a reason to and so she has a reason now! She said she has read parts of the Book of Mormon before and that there is something different about it (maybe because it's true?).  Anyway, she's really receptive and I like her a lot!

     Yesterday we had church and no one came:(.  Mark has been at the hospital with his Mom so we weren't able to see him at all this week but we talked to his friend Sarah who is a member and she said he still wants to get baptized but I'm bummed that we haven't seen him.  Last night, we visited a new family, the Vitale's, who just moved in to our ward.  The wife is a new member but hasn't been active for a while and her husband isn't a member but she wants us to start coming over a couple times a week and to teach her how to do family home evening so we are doing that tonight! Also, Bro. Katseanas (our ward mission leader) and his Dad both served in Nagoya and I'm pretty sure his Dad is the one you know Dad!! Pretty cool right?

     Also, I got your package this week and I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!! Getting random packages are always exciting!! Muddie Buddies are AMAZING and thank you for the M&M's Erin - I'm glad you enjoyed Hawaii!!!

     Today I think we are going to go to the stake center and play games with our zone - our zone is a lot of fun!! Anyway, I think that's about it!!! I hope you all have a super fabulous week and day!!! I MISS YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Taylor

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Exchanges

Hey Family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     Thanks so much for your emails - I love hearing from you!! I hope you all had a great Valentines Day! Sorry I haven't been able to email you until today - we had zone conference yesterday so we had to wait for this morning!! Guess what?? Mark is going to get baptized!!! We set March 8th as his date and he came to church and said he felt like that was where he was supposed to be - yay!!! Also guess what?? Remember Matt W? He is getting baptized also!! I guess he had a dream about it and now he feels like he needs to get baptized.  I just found that out yesterday so that was pretty great!

     Anyway, I will just tell you about my week! Alright, so last Monday, Sister Smith colored my hair for free and I love it - she is amazing at hair and so I feel super lucky that she did mine! On Tuesday, we had zone conference and it was all about raising the bar and there were a couple of quotes from it that I really liked. 

The first one is:

"If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got"

The other one is:

"If you don't raise the bar, how will you ever know your potential?"

The first one, Sister Morgan shared with us and the second one is from a story about a high jumper and his last name is like fosberry or something like that? Anyway, I really liked them because it's true! I feel like sometimes I make goals but then I don't do my part and try to change things and so my goal doesn't really go anywhere so we have to act on our goals!

     Tuesday night, we had a lesson with a referral we got from another ward named Mary and she is amazing! She is probably in her early 60's and she grew up Catholic but doesn't agree with everything and she wants a sense of belonging at a church and she asked if she could come to our church and wants to learn more - she is so great!!

     Wednesday morning we did service at a Baptist Food Pantry and the man who runs it is so sweet! He said he talked about us in his sunday school class and is just really impressed with what we do as missionaries and he is just really sweet! And he thought I was 14... It's cool.  I've gotten that more than once actually haha a lot of people think I'm like 16 or something! Anyway, we went on exchanges that afternoon and I was in Frontenac with Sister Gunter! It was so fun being back in Frontenac.  I saw some of the ward members and I honestly didn't really expect them to remember me but they did and that made me feel good.

     Thursday we went to visit all the less actives that had birthdays to give them cookies and NONE of them were really home but we decided at each house we would tract the 5 houses around their homes and it was amazing!! We found 3 people like one after another that wanted us to come back which was so great.  I think I just always expect people to say no when we ask them if they want to learn more so when they say yes it's so exciting to me!! We have appointments to go back and visit them this week! The weather was so amazing on Thursday (it is today too!!).  Thursday night we had a special district meeting where everyone in our district was asked to bring a convert to the church and then each set of missionaries were asigned to one of them and they just kinda interviewed them and asked about their conversion stories and the spirit was really strong.  Afterwards, the converts bore their testimonies and it was just a really good district meeting! We interviewed an older man and he emphasized how important being friends with your investigators is and that that is what helped him along the way. 

     Friday we had a lesson with Mark at the church and we gave him a tour of the church and it went really well! We had his friend, Sarah, who is a member come with and it just adds so much to the lesson when members come and share their testimonies during the lesson.  I love it!! We ended the tour in the chapel and talked about Sacrament meeting and Mark really opened up and we set a date for him to get baptized!! For Valentines Day, a family in the ward had us and the Elders over for dinner and we played a candy bar game with them and that was really fun.

     Saturday we had a lesson with a former investigator that the Elders told us about and long story short, his name was Jesse and we had a wonderful lesson with him and his boyfriend and probably wont be going back! That night we went around to all of our neighbors and introduced ourselves to them and gave them cookies and I'm so glad we did because a lot of them invited us to come back!!

     Sunday Mark came to church and he said it was different but that he liked it and felt like it was where he was supposed to be - yay!!

     Monday was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!! It was zone p day and we went roller skating and it was a blast!! I'm not very good haha and fell flat on my bottom once and basically ran over the same little girl twice but it was just really fun! Our zone leader, Elder Reay is like amazing and him and his family do this regularly at home and have a video on youtube of them roller skating.  It's so weird though, I'm so sore from it!!  That night, we got a new investigator!! His name is John.  We were trying to contact a less active and when we got there, they had moved but John and his wife live there and his wife was sleeping but John said he will give everything a try once! We left him with a Book of Mormon and shared our testimonies with him and set up a time to come back this week. 

     Yesterday we had another zone conference and then afterwards we found another new investigator!! Her name is Kristie and she is a young busy mom with a ton going on in her life right now and we just really focused on even though making God a priority seems like one more thing on your plate right now, it will only help put things in order and it will help her.  She's mostly looking for something for her 2 young kids and so we talked about primary and she wants to try it out. 

     Oh ya! Haha okay so we have been bringing cookies to the less active women in our ward on their birthdays and we got to this one house and no one in the ward knows who she is so before they answered the door I was like "Sister Minyard, lets just start singing Happy Birthday when she opens the door" and she was like "No! I'm not singing" And I was like "Yes, I'm singing whether or not your singing" And like right before someone answered the door Sister Minyard was like "Don't do it!" And they open the door and for some reasong I decided not to and it's a good thing I didn't because the lady doesn't even live there anymore!! How embarassing would that have been? I would have sung Happy Birthday and then she would have been like, uhhh it's not my birthday... awkward. 

     Anyway, that's pretty much my week! I hope you all have a super fabulous week and day!! I MISS YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Taylor

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Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Hey Family!!!

     Thank you for your emails - it was so great to hear from you!! It is still paretttyyy cold here and it snowed AGAIN yesterday.  It snowed twice this week and Missouri like doesn't plow their roads and there are a ton of hills in Fenton so we would be trying to drive up a hill and either we wouldn't make it or the car would literally crawl up the hill.  Anyway! I will tell you about my week:

     Last Monday we went to the Keetch's for dinner and Bro. Keetch has bees too!!! They are in their backyard and apparenlty he babies his just like Dad does hahaha.  He makes honey as well.  Also, Sister Keetch went to Midvale Middle School! I really like their family a lot. 

     Tuesday we had an STL training meeting at presidents house and guess what... ya... I got sick.  Kinda embarrassing... Anyway! That day it started to snow a ton and we didn't have any appointments so we went to former investigators and potential investigators homes trying to see if they were interested and none of them were but I'm pretty sure they thought we were all crazy because we were out!

     Wednesday we got a new investigator!! His name is Mark.  He is a friend of a recent convert in our ward (Sarah) and after they talked earlier in the week, Mark felt like what we had to share was what he needed in his life so that's pretty perfect! He is really receptive and feels like this really is what he wants in his life! We had another lesson with him on Saturday and that went well too.  He said a few times throughout the lesson something along the lines of "I think this is what I'm looking for" and he even said he would get baptized if he came to know it was true! Yay!

     Thursday was pretty great hahaha.  In the morning we visited a member of the ward, Sister Galloway who is 80 and has a lot of health problems but is one of the sweetest ladies EVER!! She made my day.  You can just tell she's really sensitive to the spirit and she would start crying when she would talk about the gospel.  We read a scripture with her and she is pretty much blind and she grabs her "glasses"  (you know those things that welders use to put over their faces? So her glasses pretty much looked like those-without the thing that covers your whole face) but it's a whole head peace that she slipped over her head.  It was so cute, I had to take a picture.  People like Sister Galloway give everyone else no excuses for not reading their scriptures! Later that night, we were having dinner with the Hansons and they have just been married for a year and they have Guinea Pigs and I was holding one of them while we were talking and all of a sudden I feel my leg get really warm and it went to the bathroom on me! Sister Hanson got up and told me to follow her so I go into her room and she goes in her drawer and gets some tights out and then goes into her closet and comes out with THE DEFINITION of a sister missionary skirt.  I was like "no really, I'm fine! I can just wait for it to dry!" And she was like "No, let me do this - it will make me feel better.  This was my all time favorite skirt on my mission and the best part - it has POCKETS!" (ohhh good...).  Haha so I put her skirt on and I just looked great! Haha the whole thing just makes me laugh, she was so sweet though.

     Friday we did service at a baptist food pantry and it was really fun! Everyone was probably like 70 or older but they were all really friendly. 

     Yesterday after church, we did a church service at an old folks home! A member of our ward  owns an old folks home or sSunday, we switch off with the Elders and just teach for like 10 minutes each and sing some hymns and just have like a little church service!

     That was pretty much my week! It's kinda hard finding investigators here but we are trying.  We got another member referral earlier this week and have a lesson with the referral on Tuesday so hopefully that goes well!

     Anyway, I think that's about it! I hope you all have a super fabulous day and week!  I MISS YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Taylor

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