Letter from January 9th, 2012

Hey friends-

So, this week there isn`t much to tell because I don`t know much myself. I was changed to Maipú and I am with Elder Silva from Temuco, Chile. We whitewashed (missionary term for 2 missionaries entering in a sector at the same time with no knowledge of the sector) a ward called Monumento whose boundries go until Plaza de Maipú. We are still getting used to the sector, but it is pretty cool, and there are jovenes this time! Anyway, I have run out of time because there was lots to do today. Hopefully I will be able to write more and share some cool spiritual experiences. Maybe I will even send a voice recording....maybe. Have a great week!

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Christmas and Letter from January 2nd, 2012

We were able to speak with Taylor on Christmas Day and it was great to talk to him.  He is so concerned about getting everything done on his mission that the Lord would have him do.  He has spent six months in San Miguel and has enjoyed his time there.  Now, he is off to another adventure.  Here is his letter from this week with photos from Christmas as well.  The first pictures are of the ward Christmas party and you all know how much he likes to take pictures of meat!  Thanks to everyone for your support of Taylor.

Hey everybody-

I am a little short on time, but I will explain why in just a second.

Investigators

Finally we have some really good investigators. A week ago we found a single mom with 6 year old fraternal twins (boy and girl). She is really interested in the gospel, especially for her family. The other is Manuel and Catalina, who have a baptismal date for the 4th of February along with their 9 year old daughter. Catalina was the person who we contacted the 18 de Septiembre (the big party day) who just loved the Book of Mormon. She is really smart and I think they will make it to baptism. We also have a member who recently reactivated and moved back to the ward. His wife isn´t a member and had been listening to the missionaries in their old ward. She also looks really promising.

Changes

At last, the information at least some of you have been waiting for. Yes, after 6 months here I have changes! It also looks like a ton of people have changes because President King is preparing the mission for a huge influx of missionaries. Our mission is going to be at full capacity (180 missionaries) for quite a while longer. Every companionship in Zona San Miguel has changes, which I have never seen before. Anyway, for guesses as to what Zone I might go to, I am thinking that it will be Maipú, Ochagavia, or Cinco de Abril.

Pictures!

Ok, so an explanation of the pictures. So we went to the mission home as a Zone for our Zone activity. We had BBQ chicken sandwiches and played games out back with President and Hermana King. I also am pretty sure that President King killed the missionaries that he was playing Rummikub (is that how you spell it?) with. These are the pictures we took while we were there. It was super fun!

Have a great week!

Love-

Elder Thomas

                  Ward Christmas Party -- Taylor picked the menu (big surprise!!!)

                    President and Sister King at the mission Christmas get-together

                                               Christmas Day

                                 Zone activity with the Kings!

Letter from December 19, 2011

Hey friends-

So, here is yet another short email because I am going to talk with my family next week. They will share all the details of the call with you.......I hope.

Ward activity

Since we are low on progressing investigators, I thought I would share a little bit about our ward party. So, this week we are going to have it and the ward is buying 24 kilos of meat :D and yours truly is the one who is going to cook it!!! Yay for asados. However, the activity does have a spiritual purpose and we have invited almost everyone we know to the activity, so it should be great.

Cool new finding method

Elder Shaum and I have started going through the old contacts that other missionaries have done. We divided the sector into 4 parts and whenever our citas fall through, we go and re-contact these people. The idea came after we were really frustrated about not finding anybody. So far it has worked out really well.

Anyways, I will have more details that I will give to my parents in the phone call home.

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from December 5th, 2011

Hey everybody-

So, I actually have a funny story this week to tell, but first the cool stuff.

Zone Council

So the entire mission had its fast this week and then we had a Zone Council. It was a really spiritual experience for all of us and we were able to understand better the potential we actually have. We are going to have to do a lot of work, but all of us felt the Spirit confirming to us that this is the course we need to take. We were able to set baptismal goals for January and February, which was the most spiritual part of the Council.

Investigators

We have several good investigators right now and we were able to set 2 more baptismal dates. I am hoping that they will get there, but right now we are really focusing on inviting everybody to be baptized.

Food with a funny name

So, my mom sent me a spicy (meaning hot) spice mix (sorry for the redundancy) for meat. All 4 of us in the pension didn´t have lunch for the day so we decided to make "spicy as" (pronounced like the swear word). Tee hee... Of course we realized the funniness of the name. But they were incredible. I just thought that since I haven´t told an "as" story in a while, that all of you would appreciate this :D

Well, have a great week!

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

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