June 8, 2015

Can you believe it is June already? I can't! These four months have FLOWN by. I had a dream last week that I had served all 18 months and I was about to go home and it was TERRIBLE! I kept telling everyone I just got here and they couldn't send me home already. I probably had that dream because I had been thinking about how quickly these 4 months have gone by. This transfer is already more than half-way over! I LOVE Manassas and I'll be sad to leave it in a few weeks.

On Tuesdays we visit a woman in the ward from Cambodia named Suwanna. She understands English and can speak it fairly well, but she can only barely read and write it, so we go to read from the Book of Mormon with her and help her learn to read and write. She hasn't made much progress in the time I have been here, but she really loves us coming to help. Now we have started to give her actual spelling lists (with words like cat, hat, bat, etc. or thing, the, path, etc.) to practice throughout the week, and she suddenly began to make progress! We're so excited for her! 

On Wednesday we went back to visit Charlie. (He's the one that we had dinner with last week with his mom).  He actually read a chapter from the Book of Mormon this week!!! And he loved it! he had a lot to say about how hard-hearted Laman and Lemuel were. He said he had to read it (well, listen to it. He did the audio-book thing while driving) a few times to really get it, and we are so glad he did! He even committed to read more than one chapter this week! It is so wonderful to see investigators progress, but I would say it is just as wonderful to see less-actives progress. Deep down they know it is true, and it is a huge privilege to help them remember and reignite that testimony. The more they act on the little faith they still have, the more their faith grows, and it is so exciting to see people re-discover the beauty and perfection of the gospel.

Thursday morning we went for our return appointment with the woman, Crystal, that we met last week. She apologized profusely and said that a doctor's appointment for her baby had just come up, and asked us if we could reschedule. We did, and we'll go to see her this coming Wednesday evening. She didn't have time for a lesson, but she let us in for a few minutes to see her baby. He was to tiny!!! She told us that the scripture we shared with her when we met her (Ether 12:27) has really stuck with her and she has read it over and over to herself and to Blake, the baby. We're so excited to start teaching her next week. 

Thursday was also my four month mark. Sister Davis made me muffins for breakfast while I was in the shower and wrote me a card that was super sweet. She is awesome!

On Friday night we had dinner with a family in the ward and some of their friends. Brother Kadarusman invited one of his coworkers and his family over for dinner, so we ate with all of them and they we were asked by Sister Shimada (she kept her maiden name) to share a message. We hadn't prepared one, because Brother Kadarusman had told us we would just be there to give their friends a good experience with the church, but we came up with one really fast! We shared Ether 12:27 with them, and they really loved it. (Ether 12 is probably one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. Its just so full of awesome!) After we shared that scripture and talked about it, the friend family started to ask a lot of questions. They asked about the difference between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, where the Book of Mormon came from, what is different about our church compared to other churches, etc. We ended up teaching the whole first lesson and it was awesome! When we left, they all got up to tell us goodbye, and the wife hugged me and said, "Thank you so much for teaching us!" It was such a cool experience! Sadly, they don't live in our area, but we hope the missionaries in the area where they live will get the opportunity to teach them. 

Saturday was exciting. We went over to Sister Morris's house. I've mentioned her before, but she is a woman in the ward who suffers from very severe depression that we visit almost daily and read the Book of Mormon with. She is on Ether 12 today!!! She has a really bad back problem, so she can't move around very much, so we helped her clean her kitchen and living room before reading with her. We get to wear jeans when we do service, so that was pretty exciting.

 More exciting things than just wearing jeans happened on Saturday. We went tracting! (Not my favorite activity, but I hate it a lot less these days.) The first few houses that we knocked did not go well. The people were polite, but not interested, and it takes me a few doors to get "warmed up," so my door approaches were super duper awkward. We decided to go try to check on a part member family instead. They weren't home, but we met a guy named Jerry in the parking lot. He was cleaning his truck and we went to talk to him. We told him about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy. We showed him the footnotes in the Book of Mormon and how they correspond with the Bible and he said, "Oh. I get it. The Book of Mormon and the Bible compliment each other to help you learn the doctrine." Pretty much the most awesome response ever. He told us where he lives and gave us his phone number, and we have a return appointment set up for Saturday. 

We then went tracting in and apartment building. We met Erick, who lives with his wife and 4 year old son, and who was amazing and intrigued by the story of the First Vision. We have a return appointment with him on Tuesday. On the next level down we met Amber, who asked us if we could leave her with a pamphlet and tell us where we met for church, because she wanted to know more. We talked to her about he Atonement and about the Book of Mormon, and told her that, no, Mormon's do not practice polygamy. She asked a ton of really great questions, and we have a return appointment set up with her for Tuesday as well. 

On the bottom floor (we started from the top and moved down), we met Jamal. He just moved here with his wife from New Jersey and said he had been looking for a church to attend. We told him about the Book of Mormon and about how Christ's original church has been restored and set up a return appointment for Wednesday afternoon. 

FOUR new investigators in the space of two hours. We are so happy!!!! 

On Sunday we had dinner with three families in the ward. One family had put their name on the meal calendar, and then texted us to tell us that there would be two other families there. It was really fun. There were 15 kids there, and all but 3 were under the age of 11, so it was pretty wild, but we taught a short lesson about Nephi and his faith in going to get the plates, and everyone loved it. I just absolutely love the ward here. It is amazing to see things from such a different perspective here. Sister Davis and I started out at the kid table yesterday, but they called us in to sit with the grown ups (yipee!), and it was such an interesting conversation. They were all talking about the crazy things their kids did, and the whole time I was thinking, "I used to do that. And that. And that. Aaaand that. I think I probably still do that. Ohhhh my poor parents." So, thank you Mom and Dad for putting up with me all these years. I'm sorry I was probably a terror sometimes. Maybe a lot of the time. 

I've also realized how different life is outside of college. When people grow up and get married and have kids, they have such different priorities. A lot less selfish priorities. In college, I feel like we are often very narrow minded. Sometimes we think we are "open-minded" because we are willing to look into lots of different things and we see a bigger part of the world than we ever have before, but I've realized how much tunnel vision I had before this. Life has a lot more to it than just me and just what I thought was right or acceptable. My previous mindset has very little to do with going to BYU before this, which is a "bubble" of sorts in some ways. I think it doesn't matter where you go to college that influences that selfish, limited world-view mindset. It's just lack of experience in a real-world setting. Being a missionary is very different from being a "regular" person, but this is definitely the most real-world experience I've ever had and I realize how limited my knowledge of the world was before this. When I go home in 14 months, I won't be "returning to real life." This is the most real-life I've ever seen, and I am so grateful for the chance to be here and to be doing the work of the Lord. 

Sorry for such a long email! I hope it didn't bore you to death. If you got this far, congratulations! And thanks for persevering. I love you all. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is absolutely the true church. It is Christ's church. The people are far from perfect, but the gospel itself is. I know it with my whole heart and soul. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and I absolutely love it. It makes my life better and it makes my spirit stronger each time I read it. I love to be a missionary!!! 

Love,

Sister Taylor 

Only two pictures this week. Sorry!

1) I made food! Its a chicken salad type deal. I even cooked the chicken myself. And Sister Davis loved it!!!! Her face just says it all. (See!!! I can cook!!!)

2)This wheel-chair dude has an afro.

June 1, 2015

Hello! Its only been a few days since my last preparation day, since we took p-day on Wednesday last week, but it still seems like its been a whole week! We've been working hard! And I was tired. I just took a nap for about an hour and a half and now I feel really good. Some p-days we go fun places and do fun things and other weeks we are too tired to do much other than shop, write letters, and take a nap. Hopefully we'll go to DC in a week or two on our p-day. We just have to plan it out. 

On Wednesday night after our p-day we went over to the house of a less-active named Charlie. The Sisters here have been working with him since they came to the area almost two years ago, and he has made very small progress in that time. Recently his mom was visiting from Alabama for a month, and I think that helped things a ton. They invited us over for dinner and we had a great time! They are some serious talkers! But so funny!!!! Lela (Charlie's mom) has this awesome southern accent and the two of them did 98% of the talking, but we did just as much of the laughing as they did. I'm trying to think of a way to accurately describe how hilarious these two are, especially when they get together, or to explain one of the stories they told, but I just don't know how. They alternated between telling hilarious stories, telling us about weird southern food (did anyone know they ate raccoon and "chitlins" aka pig intestine in Alabama? I didn't!), and Lela telling us about awesome spiritual experiences she has had. She is a very active member of the Church, which was great for us! She told us that she spent years and years searching for the right church to join. She started out baptist, but could tell that something was missing, so she went through lots of other Churches trying to find the right one. One day she was at a yard sale and found some old scripture study manuals, and the lady gave them to her for free. As she started reading them along with the Bible, she realized that it was talking about some names that weren't in the Bible, such as Nephi and Helaman, but she studied it the best she could, and told us that as she did, she just KNEW that what it was teaching was true. Later on in her life (a few years or months later. She didn't say), she saw a commercial on tv for a book that was Another Testament of Jesus Christ, called The Book of Mormon. She ordered a copy and the missionaries showed up soon afterward with a copy. As they talked, she started telling them about the things she had come to believe from the study manuals she had read. Before too long, she showed them said manuals, and discovered that they came from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She quit smoking and drinking coffee, married her live-in boyfriend, and got baptized. So cool, right?! We love Lela!
She is going home tomorrow, so we stopped by to bring them cupcakes and a thank-you note last night, and had another great visit. We have built up a lot of trust with Charlie in the few weeks that Lela has been here, and he even agreed to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon!!! He told us that he wants to have us over for dinner again, and he started to think of girls he is friends with that can come too, because we can't come unless there is a woman home. He said he could invite his friend Teresa, who came over a few weeks ago just as we started reading form the Book of Mormon with him, and who read with us. Lela told us last night that after we left that night, Teresa asked Lela and Charlie a TON of questions about the Book of Mormon and the Church. Involving Charlie in missionary work with Teresa will be a great way to re-activate him. We're so happy for him that he's been making progress lately. :) 

On Thursday we had a visit with another less-active man named David. David is....weird. He interprets dreams he's had and scriptures he reads in all kinds of strange ways, so we never quite know what he will get out of the lessons we do with him. We usually read from the Book of Mormon or read a conference talk with him and then discuss it. Or we try. He spends a lot of time rambling about who knows what, so we have to fight to get a word in! On Thursday we read 3 Nephi 11 with him, and he talked a lot about repentance. We aren't really quite sure what happened, but he told us he had been thinking and praying a lot lately, and that the chapter we read with him was very timely. Towards the end of the visit, I said to him, "Okay, David. You've been feeling the Spirit tonight. What do you think you need to do about it?" And he said, "Come to church. I have a suit coat and trousers and everything." I made him pinkie promise me that he would come on Sunday, and he promised he would. Just that commitment was HUGE for him, even if he didn't follow through. But! Lo and behold, come Sunday morning, there was David, sitting in the very back row of hard metal chairs. He hasn't been to Church in YEARS. But somehow the Spirit worked on his heart and there he was. The members were very friendly and a lot of the brothers in the ward, including his home teacher, who was finally able to set up an appointment with him, came up to him to welcome him back. I feel like we did very little but be persistent in visiting him and bringing the Spirit into his home. Heavenly Father, who understands him even when we don't, knew exactly what he needed and worked through us and through other experiences he has had and got David to Church. And he said he's coming again next week!  

While we were tracting on Friday, we went to check on a family of former investigators. We discovered that they had moved, and a woman named Crystal lived there instead. We started talking to her about who we were and what we did, and we asked her about her faith in Christ. She told us about her baby boy, Blake, who was supposed to be born in June, but was born in March. She told us that doctors had told her that she would never be able to have children at all, but she still was able to have Blake, and he was still alive. They had just recently returned home from being at the hospital with him almost constantly. She told us that she knew he was an absolute miracle, and Sister Davis and I had to try not to cry while she told her story. Sister Davis shared Ether12:27 with her about how weak things can become strong through Christ, and talked about how Crystal's body had been "weak" and unable to have children, but it became "strong" and she had Blake. We also talked to her about how Christ helps us with our every-day weaknesses and makes them strong. Watching Crystal's face while we talked to her about that scripture was an amazing experience. She just lit up and looked so surprised at us relating it to her, and was clearly very touched. She said that she was thinking of Blake as we read it, and was amazed when we related it to her. She said about us coming, "God is good today," and it was clear that she recognized that there was something different about us. She invited us back before we even asked if we could come back. We're so excited to teach her and her husband! 

Anyway, it has been an awesome week. I love you all. The Church is true!!!

 

P.S. I ran over a nail this week. 

Pictures!

1) Sister Kinner, who is from the Philippines (and her photo-bombing daughter.) She is so cute and awesome! Her husband died of cancer last year, and she is now raising 3 cute (and hyper-active) children on her own.

2) I ran over a nail.

3) Sister Davis, Lela, me

4) Sister Davis, me, Lela, Charlie