Letter from November 28th, 2011

Hey Everybody-

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. It doesn`t exist here in Chile and I almost forgot about it when we got to the day. Oh well.

Why the Lord works in councils

So, we had an awesome experience in Zone Leader Council this last week. We all were counciling (key word) with President King about how we feel that the mission in general is only getting mediocre results and we are not reaching our full potencial. As we talked we really felt that we could overcome the limit we have placed on ourselves of baptisms. We kept talking and decided that we were going to fast as a mission this Thursday to Friday, culminating in a Zone Council in every zone in the mission to decide how many baptisms we really can get. The Spirit was really strong and we all felt it confirmed to us that this is the course we should take. It was a big testimony for me of why the Lord has us work in councils.

Changes :)

So, my new companion is Elder Shaum from Rexburg, Idaho. He has about 8 months in the mission and is sooooo cool. He is a really hard working Elder and is really smart. Should be a fun change :) I am still living with Elder Barrett and Elder Tialavea. The picture attached is of all 4 of us in our Lavalavas (from Elder Tialavea`s family).

Investigators

We are having problems finding our investigators in their houses, so nothing happened with them this week. We have found some good people to teach, but we will find out how that goes.

Well, that is about it. Sorry for the slow news week. Hopefully there will be more to report next week.

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from November 14th, 2011

Dear friendly email/blog/other media or writing format follower-

This email should be pretty good...maybe....we´ll see.

Contacting miracle

We had cool contacting miracles this week. Our favorite was from yesterday when a cita fell through at an apartment building. For some reason we decided to wait to see if the hermano would show up. As we were waiting, my companion starting talking to a young couple sitting next to us. It turned out that it was a reference that a member had given us that we never had been able to find. The husband is a member and his wife is not. It was really interesting to see how the spirit guided us to them.

Investigators

Patricio couldn´t come to church because he was sick, but when we stopped by to see him, we met the family he lives with. They were really receptive as well. As for Patricio, we will be trying to help him get a testimony of the Book of Mormon in the next couple of weeks. As for Felix, we haven´t been able to teach him for about 2 weeks and he hasn´t been able to come to church. Luckily, the ward is really concerned about him as well and is helping us out. Hopefully we will get in this week. We have several other complete families we are teaching (which is a miracle in and of itself) but they haven´t started progressing yet. One is a family who we are also helping with English. They have a 12 year old who is really tall and looks like he is almost 16 and a 9 (I think) year old daughter. I am hoping to have good news next week about them

The smell of change is in the air

It is highly probable that either me or my companion has changes. We will find out on Saturday night, but we have been together for 3 months. The big question is who....The bishop here in the ward thinks it is me. I guess you will all know by next week.

Well, that is all for now. I hope everyone is doing well back home!

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from November 7, 2011

Hey everybody-

This week has been a long one, this could up being a long email, or it could be normal. Guess we will find out.

Investigators

So, to tell the truth, I don´t know what happened with Felix. We called him 30 minutes before church to confirm and then he didn´t show up. The other baptismal date we set with Patricio (the 60 year old who looks really young) fell through because he left on vacation and didn´t come back until Sunday. However, he still looks like he will get baptized, we will just have to change his date.

Meetings, meetings, and just in case, a few more meetings

So, I had a lot of meetings this week. I was sooooooo tired. Thursday we had to go to the center of Santiago, Friday I had to go to the Northeast side of Santiago, and Saturday we had to go to the West-Center side of Santiago. Really busy. On Saturday we had Elder Snow of the Presidency of the 70 come and speak to our mission. We also found out that Elder Cook and also Bishop McMullin are also here in Chile. Elder Snow talked about the Holy Ghost and how we feel it. He also talked about the role it has in conversion.

Well, I ran out of good ideas. Guess I´ll see if I have more funny stories next week.

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas