Letter from April 2nd, 2012

Taylor is doing well and has spent much of his email time helping me to figure out his fall schedule.  Here is today's email and a short part of last week's email about the 7.2 earthquake that hit last Sunday.  For those of you who are thinking that his are always short, you are right; this is even shorter :).  Thank you for all of your support for Taylor.

So, the earthquake was actually quite fun. We were in a cita with the couple missionaries when it happened. It lasted about a minute and I found it really cool. We actually thought that it was going to get worse, but it didn´t. Oh, and we just kept going on with our lesson right after. All in all, pretty fun.

Random story from today, we were robbed by somebody while we were playing soccer. They took the backpacks of 2 missionaries and stole our phone. The thing that stinks about it is that we lost all of our numbers of people in the sector. But, oh well, that is how Chile is.

We have also seen how the gospel has started helping a family we found. One day a 14 year old flyte (roughly translated: gangster, but it isn´t the same) contacted us in the street--which doesn´t usually result in anything. Long story short is that his whole family is now listening to us. They are really humble people and have all started participating in the lessons. Hopefully it will turn out well.

Well, I hope everybody has a great week!

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from March 13th, 2012

Taylor's zone had their P-day today so they could go to a museum.  In our letter to him, we asked several questions about his investigators and his responses are below.

I have attached a voice recording from today. Also, I will have fotos the next week from our trip to the museum. As for the part-member family, we had a visit with the Fuentealbas (the senior couple). We talked pretty clearly about the need for marriage and it was a really spiritual lesson. Also this week we have been trying to find complete families to teach and we were able to find two whole families. It is a complete miracle, because I have never had this happen in the mission. It is generally really hard to find a family in which all of the integrants of the family want to listen. Also, we had a really cool experience where we couldn´t decide what to teach a reactivating member that we were going to visit with the Fuentealbas last night. So we planned to teach about Teaching and Learning in the Church, and when we got there, he told us that he had been called as the teacher for the youth. Totally cool how the spirit guided us to know exactly what to teach him 24 hours before we even passed by.

Well, I think that is all for today. You have a great week.

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from March 5th, 2012

This week a new senior couple arrived to the mission and they are working with us in the ward. The Elder was a Patriarch and a temple Sealer and the both of them are pure spiritual power. We have already visited several people with them and it has been cool.

The spiritual story of the week is that we had a really good lesson with a part member family. The dad is the only one who is not baptized and has been attending church for 20 years. We had a good spiritual moment with him when his wife talked about her desires to have an eternal family. We were able to testify and leave him the commitment to read and pray. Hopefully he does it.

Well, that is about all for today.

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from February 27th, 2012

So, this week was a little difficult. We found some really cool people to teach and we were going to set baptismal dates the next visit. However, when we returned they were not there, and we have had trouble finding them again. I am really excited to work with the Fuentealbas, a new senior missionary couple from Chile, I think they are going to be a great addition to the ward I am serving in. Elder Fuentealba served as a Stake President and a temple sealer. So he is going to bring spiritual power to the ward. We are still waiting for a bishop. The ward has not had one for a year and really needs one.

As for a good spiritual story this week, I have one. Yesterday we really saw the Lord guiding us. We were knocking doors in several parts of the sector and we had the idea to go follow up on some old contacts that we did. The people who we passed by initially seemed OK. People that might let us in, but who wouldn´t progress towards baptism. When we passed by them, they both let us in and are both really receptive. One is a man who wants more unity in his family and wants to follow God. It was amazing how the Lord changed his heart over the 4-ish weeks we have been trying to pass by and get into his house. He obviously had been prepared by the Lord over the past few weeks to be ready to hear the gospel. Hopefully all turns out well with him.

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well this week. Have a great time!

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from February 13th, 2012

Well, as for changes, I will be staying here in the sector. Elder Silva is going. They are splitting the Zones of Maipú and Olimpo. I will be staying with Zona Maipú. .Elder Lewis is going to be one of the new zone leaders of Zona Olimpo :)

We also had a cool miracle the other day. We had invited one of our investigators who had been going to church and who is living with a reactivating family to baptism again. He answered with a firm "no" when we were almost certain that he was going to say yes. When we had a FHE on Saturday with him, he said, "Elders, I have made a decision. I want to get baptized." We were really surprised and we saw the hand of the Lord in this miracle.

Also, I have attached a picture of our entire Zone, the last Zone picture of Maipú and Olimpo together. The other one is of our adventure today. Love you all!

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from February 6th, 2012

This week in the work has been good and very busy. We had stuff to do every day of the week. One of the highlights we had this week was that we helped clean the Catholic Cementary of Maipú. I have attached the foto for everyone to see. It was a really fun project.

The other cool thing is that we are probably going to have a baptism this weekend. Pedro is doing really well and has a lot of faith. Now I say probably because his baptismal interview is today, which should go well. I am really excited for it and I hope everything goes well. It is amazing to see the changes that people make in their lives to follow Jesus Christ. That is my favorite thing to see as a missionary.

We have also heard from the rumor mill that they will be dividing the zone next change. This zone is a zone with 2 stakes in it, while all of the other zones are only one stake. I will also find out what is happening this week with changes.

Well, I hope you all have a great day!

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas

Letter from January 30th, 2012

We had our Zone activity today and so we are short on time. We went to Buin Zoo, which is a zoo to the south right outside of Santiago. I have attached fotos. 

So, we have one investigator progressing towards baptism in the middle of February. His name is Pedro and he is 83 almost 84 years old. He is very receptive and is learning really fast. Hopefully there will be some more good news with that next week.

We did have a cool experience this week. A member in a taxi told someone that we give health blessings and that she should listen to us. We arrived within 1 or 2 days at her house by knocking doors and now we have her and her husband who are listening to the message of the Gospel.

Well, that is all for today. Hope you all enjoy the pictures :)

Love-

Elder Taylor Thomas