December 6, 2015

Sorry my email from last week didn't send! Here it is!

Monday: It was preparation day. We had a zone activity where we tie-dyed t-shirts. Sister Walton and I did I ♥️ DC shirts. They look awesome. Monday evening we had a mini exchange with the STLs. I went with Sister Kelly, who is basically the most hilarious human on the planet.  We went to check on an online referral named Jerry Bishop (when we got there we learned that she is actually Terry Bishop.) Terry was super friendly and said she had met with sisters in the past and wanted to meet with us again. She was a little...off. Talked a lot and didn't totally make sense. Was covered in cat hair which also got all over us when she hugged us. But super sweet lady anyway.

Tuesday:
We had district meeting in the morning and spent the whole rest of the day street contacting and knocking on doors. Those we talked to on the street were generally nice and open to talking, but not interested in learning more. One door we knocked on turned out to be a miracle. We were looking for a former investigator, but got confused and knocked on the wrong door. The man who answered at first tried to nicely tell us he wasn't interested and go away, but we kept talking, so he gave up and deferred to his wife to talk to us instead. We introduced ourselves as Sister Taylor and Sister Walton, and she introduced herself as Sister Lola Lewis. She let us right in and told us that she had always wanted to to check out our church. So we set up an appointment at the chapel for a lesson an a church tour! It was awesome.

In the evening we were supposed to go to the Temple Visitors Center with a less active and her fiancé who is investigating. However, something came up and they weren't able to make it, so we kept talking to strangers. We were on our way to check on a former investigator
when we decided to stop and ask a lady if she needed help carrying in her groceries. She accepted our offer and we found out that she was actually a member! We've only been to church with our ward once (the first week was stake conference) since we've gotten to the area, so we didn't recognize her. She let us in and we talked for a few minutes. She is currently going through a divorce and her baby is with his dad half of the time, which is hard on her. We didn't stay long, but she seemed to be in better spirits when we left. Afterward we went to check on the person we were originally going to see, but it turned out she didn't even live there anymore.

Wednesday: We went to visit Grandma Lillian in the afternoon. She is this cute little old lady in the ward who is semi active. She mostly just told stories about all of her old "mission kids," who had served in this area in the past. She's pretty adorable. (Also, her birthday
was on Saturday and we totally forgot, and she isn't happy with us. So if you feel so inclined so send a short video singing happy birthday to Grandma Lillian, that would probably help.)
After visiting her, we went to check on some potential investigators that past missionaries had met. Their names are Ronaldo and Enos and they are an elderly Italian couple. When we got there, a woman named Saundra answered the door. She said the couple we were looking for were her parents, but that her mom had had a stroke and could no longer speak or really understand anything. But Saundra was super nice and we really hit it off with her. She said we could come back, because she was sure her mom would like the visit even if her mind was mostly gone.


In the evening we went to visit a less active named Connie. She's actually pretty active,  but there is some room for improvement. We asked her if she would come with us to our lesson later in the week with Lola, and she said she would love to.

Thursday: In the morning we went to try to find some people in the ward that the bishop had asked us to visit. We knocked on the door of a woman named Pamela Sederholm. She let us in and was super happy to see us. We talked with her for a while and she was so nice. At the end she gave us her phone number and email address and asked us to come back again!

In the evening we went to visit Ronaldo and Enos and their daughter Saundra. They let us in and we talked for a while. They aren't really interested in learning about the church right now, but they loved us and wanted us to come back anyway. Enos was laying in a bed in the
middle of their living room and mostly just stared off into space while we were there. At the end we patted her hand and smiled at her and waved goodbye. She broke into a grin and waved back at us. Saundra gasped and squealed. "She hasn't ever done that for anyone! Oh my gosh! You just made my day!" It was amazing.

Friday:
We had a super awesome zone conference in the morning. In the evening we street contacted on King Street, which is the most adorable old historic Main Street ever. And there are tons of people walking around every night. The elders in another ward (we are the only set of missionaries in our ward, which is pretty cool) needed to borrow our car to get to a doctors appointment, so we just walked around all evening and talked to people.

Saturday:
In the morning we were supposed to get picked up by the elders in our car and then ride together to a furniture moving service thing. However, they called us fifteen minutes before they were supposed to get there to tell us that the car wouldn't start. Someone had left the
dim lights on and the battery had died. So the elders had to call the Chinese elders and borrow their car and come pick us up. They dropped us off and left again to go take the Chinese elders to their appointment. We moved some furniture around and then the moving truck left to go to the next stop. However, because the elders had left, we didn't have a ride to follow them. The elders were planning on coming back, but we had to wait, and we didn't know how long it would be. We had on service clothes instead of proselyting clothes, so we couldn't knock doors to kill time. We decided to just walk up and down the street while we waited, mostly to stay warm, because it was windy and chilly. As we got to the end of the street, to women and a teenage boy approached us. One woman introduced herself as Jeanette and the boy as her son, Troy. She said, "you guys are the Mormon elders! I've been
looking for you!" She told us that she used to meet with missionaries before, and she wanted her son to go to our church on Sundays and to Wednesday night youth activities to keep him out of trouble. He is 14 and had had some trouble with the law in the past. He just stood there silently and hid inside his hoodie while his mom talked. We got her number and said we would work on getting him a ride. After that, we turned around and kept walking down the street.

Another furniture service truck came and we offered to help. They immediately recognized
us "You guys are the Mormons!" They were excited to get more help. After helping them, we were still waiting for the elders to come back. An elderly lady came out of her house with trash bags to start bagging up piles of leaves, so we offered to help her. As we did, we talked
with her about her life and about who we were. Her name was Maggie and she was 94 years old, but was in great shape! We also met the man she had hired to help her with her yard, named Ronny. As we worked, we asked them if they would be interested in learning more about what we believe. Both of them said yes. Maggie even gave us some pound cake.


During this experience I kept thinking about how the Savior "went about doing good," and how we are to follow that example. As we did, people recognized that there was something different about us, and they became curious and wanted to know why. It was a great morning. Eventually, the elders came and got us, and we went to finish helping with the furniture move thing. 

After the service, we drove back to where our car was parked and attempted to jump it. Unfortunately, the jumper cables weren't long enough to reach the hood of the working car. Finally someone offered to help, and we hooked two sets of jumper cables together, which made it lo enough for us to jump the car. Sister Walton and I hurried back to our apartment to change and then to the apartment complex where Lola lives to meet her and Connie, who would be picking her up. Then we all drove to the church for the tour. Connie is very charismatic and she and Lola immediately hit it off. Connie basically gave the whole tour herself and we just followed. She kept telling Lola how amazing the Church is and how it would change her life. We ended in the chapel and Sister Walton and I taught the Restoration. It went SO WELL. Lola told us that she felt super peaceful and comfortable in the church. We showed her the five minute First Vision video, and she said she felt wonderful and wished the video was longer! We invited her to be baptized when she came to know for herself if it was true, and she said yes! Miracle lesson. Friday was one of the best days of my mission so far.

Sunday:
We had church! Like we promised Jeanette, we got a ride for Troy. When we first met him, I didn't think he would actually come, but he did! He started out looking kinda surly, but by the end of sacrament meeting, he was happy and smiling. He said he liked it better than any
of the other churches he has been to because everyone is so friendly and so many people came up to meet him. We only have one young man (named Michael) in this ward, but after sacrament meeting, he came and got Troy and took him to Sunday school. When we saw them after church, Troy had a Book of Mormon and he and Michael were talking and smiling and had clearly become fast friends. Troy told us he loved church. We found out later from his ride (a ward missionary names Casey) that he wants to go to the young men's activity this week. However, the activity is to do baptisms at the temple, which he can't do because he isn't a member (yet), so Casey offered to take him and his mom to the temple visitors center at the same time. So we're probably doing that on Tuesday night! So awesome. After church we decided to stop by to visit Lola, since we were planning on being in the area. She hadn't been able to come to church because she was singing in the choir of her current church, but she asked us how church was for us today and told us she wished she could have come. She told us about her grandchildren and said that next time they visit she wants to take them to the Mormon church. She seriously is amazing.

So that is my long email (sorry) all about my totally fantastic week. Seriously it was incredible. I LOVE being a missionary and LOVE this area. Plus my companion rocks. I love the gospel and I know the Church is true. It truly brings me so much happiness and I love to share it. I hope you all have a great week. Love you!


Sister Taylor


This week's hi lights because I'm short on time:

Tuesday: We went to the temple visitors center with Troy. He LOVED it. He asked so many great questions and really understood everything we taught. He is such an awesome kid. He's had a hard life because of where he's grown up, but he's super smart and hard working. We're going to have FHE with him tonight.

Saturday: we had three people that were in our area book that we had planned to go visit. Two were people missionaries had met before and one was someone Sister Walton had met during an exchange. All three answered their doors and wanted us to come back!!! As we were leaving the neighborhood of the third person, we stopped a teenager and started talking to him. He walked us back to his house to talk to his great aunt. She wasn't super interested, but his uncle (Johnny) and his twin (Treshaun) were SUPER interested. We gave them both copies of the Book of Mormon and taught the Restorarion. It was SO incredible.


Johnny told us he felt like Joseph Smith, and he was trying to find the rig church, and that our church sounded like it was probably it. Treshaun, who is 13, sat quietly and hung on to every word we said. While Sister Walton was talking to Johnny, I came and sat by Treshaun
and explained the pictures in front of the Book of Mormon. He seems a lot like Troy. He said he loves to read and that he really likes what we were saying. It was a great night.

Have a great Thanksgiving!!!