August 2, 2015

Tuesday: was uneventful. It was preparation day. 

Wednesday: Sister Wright went on the departing temple trip with all the missionaries going home this transfer, so I was with Sister Wheeler from the Warrenton 1st Ward. She is an amazing missionary. When she was 28, she got a very strong prompting to go on a mission, so she put her career as a 1st grade teacher on hold and came out on a mission. She is so much older than the rest of us and has so much more life experience, but she is super humble and doesn't treat the younger missionaries like they are any less capable than she is. I thought  I would feel intimidated all day, but Sister Wheeler was awesome. I would love to actually be her companion someday. 

We went to visit Connie, our investigator. She has been super excited to get baptized. She has had to give up smoking, and was really struggling when we showed up. She said she had been irritable all day and had snapped at her granddaughters a few times. We talked with her about reading daily from the Book of Mormon. She said she had been reading a few times a week, but we promised her that if she read daily, she would feel more peace and have the strength she needed to quit smoking for good. She said she would and thanked us for coming. She told of us that having us come over helped her to feel much better.

We also went to visit a woman in the ward named Angel.. She has fibromyalgia and has a hard time getting anywhere, including church. We talked with her about 1 Nephi 3. She really loved verse 7, "...I  will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." We talked about how God not only provides a way for us to keep His commandments, He also provides a way for us to overcome our trials. We talked a lot about the Atonement and it was one of those lessons where I felt like I learned more from the person I taught than she learned from me. It was amazing. On Saturday I talked to the sister who was in Warrenton before me, and she told me that Angel had messaged her on Facebook and told her how much she loved me. I loved hearing that. 

Thursday: Also pretty uneventful. Sister Wright had her departing interview in Burke, so that took up a large chunk of our day. In the evening we went to the Woodsens. Jordan (12) and Mason (10) are the sons of a less active member. The sisters here have been teaching them for a while, and they are getting close to baptism. The mom, who is a member, is getting closer to coming back to church, and her non-member husband has started asking questions. We're excited for them! It was a fun visit. Mason wasn't there, but we showed Jordan and his mom a Mormon Message and talked about obedience to God's commandments. 

Also! On our way back from dinner, we saved a turtle that was walking across the road. It was fast! I couldn't catch it. Sister Wright had to do it. 

Friday: In the afternoon we went with the Elders to do service for Sister Norris. We pulled lawn furniture out of a sketchy garage and washed it off, raked leaves out from under her porch, and painted a little bird cage thing that she puts candles in. First of all- SO MANY SPIDERS. They were everywhere! There were all these clumps of web stuff hanging from the ceiling of the garage and from the bottoms of the lawn furniture. You could see the big spider crawling around on it, and when you looked closely, you could see hundreds of little baby spiders crawling all over the web clump. They were cute. In a disgustingly disturbing kind of way. I killed a lot of them....

Later, once we got to the painting, we learned a very important lesson--paint creates too much power for 20 and 21 year olds to handle. Even if they are missionaries. Elder Massey was holding the ruler we used as a stirring stick and that was now covered in red paint. He looked at the ruler, then at his companion, Elder Sanders, then back at the ruler, then back at Elder Sanders. Elder Sanders just shook his head and said, "don't even think about it." Elder Massey shrugged his shoulders and then looked at the ruler, looked down at his own shirt, back at the ruler, back at his shirt, and proceeded to draw an "M" on his chest. Sister Norris came over in her wheelchair and offered to decorate his back. She drew a heart with an arrow through it and wrote "MASSEY." He thanked her and then stuck his hand into the can of paint. He looked at his hand, looked at me, looked at his hand, looked at me, and asked, "how much do you care about that shirt?" I said, "More than you care about yours." Somehow, though, I ended up with paint on my shirt and my jeans. Some was self-inflicted, some was from Sister Wright, and some was from Elder Massey. Elder Sanders was just appalled that his companion would actually put paint on a sister. (I suspect Elder Massey may have a crush on me. He's always doing stuff like this to me. Thank goodness he's going home in a few days!) 

Saturday: CONNIE GOT BAPTIZED!!!! She was so so happy! Her whole face just glowed all day. About 15 of her non-member family members came to the baptism. It was so great. She said she felt all warm, but also like there was a cool breeze. She couldn't stop smiling. It was so sweet. Her sister, who introduced her to the Church, gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and Sister Wright gave a talk on Baptism. Both were wonderful. I gave the closing prayer. It was such a happy day! 

That evening, we were driving to meet someone (who ended up not being home) and a truck full of teenaged boys drove past us. They stuck their heads out the windows and waved and and cat-called and made the "call me" sign. I dug through my bag for a minute, then looked back up at them totally dead pan, and held up a picture of Jesus. It was pretty funny to see their looks of bewilderment before Sister Wright slammed on her brakes and got behind the people driving behind them. 

Later, we went to visit a less active older woman in the ward named Sister Barlow in the hospital. We sang some hymns and read some Book of Mormon to her. She told us that being in the hospital had given her new perspective. She told us she wanted to talk to the bishop and come back to church. We were so happy to hear that, even though we were sorry she was in the hospital. 

Sunday: went to church. It was good! After church and dinner, we had about an hour before we were going to visit the Prices. I started contemplating what we needed to be doing during that time, since we didn't have any set plans, and a name jumped to my mind. Cherokee is a high school girl who is the step-daughter of some less active members in the ward, but isn't a member herself. We helped her and her brother break down a fence last week. She is super sweet and also plays the trumpet. Her name popped into my head, so we went to visit her and she came out to meet us as soon as we pulled up. We had no idea what we were going to say, but we knew we needed to be there. We talked for a few minutes and suddenly she told us that she found her grandma's scriptures. Her grandma (who passed away last year) was a member, and Cherokee had found her quad (Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price). She told us she had been looking through it. We asked her if she would read from the Book of Mormon, and she said she would. She told us she had thought a little about being baptized before. We asked her to read Alma 32 and set up an appointment for this Wednesday. She was very willing and excited to have us come talk to her about the Book of Mormon and the Gospel. We're super excited! 

Today: We went to DC! We went to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Then we went to the Library of Congress and saw the Thomas Jefferson library and got official library cards. :) Super cool. Be jealous. 

Anyway, I love you all! The Church is true!!! 

Sister Taylor

Library of Congress:

Library Card!

1-2. Hey!

3-5. More DC!

Connie's baptism!

Two Sister Taylors!?

Connie's sister's dogs and us.

Sister Wright and the Anguiano's son, Caleb. So cute!

1. Sooo....yeah....this happened. Sister Wright and I have too much fun.

2. Just a cool picture 

3. Chasing the speedy turtle!

4-5. Paint aftermath.

Sorry for so many pictures! I'm not so good at journaling, so I take
lots and lots of pictures instead. They're more fun anyway. ;)

July 28, 2015

What a week! Our regular schedule has been practically non-existent this past week. It hasn't been normal at all! We've also had plenty of crazy adventures lately, too. 

Tuesday:

We had district meeting. At district meetings we generally practice teach, which we did, but first we played hide and seek. If you and your companion were hiding, you would be the "investigators" for practice teach. The last companionship to find them got to be the missionaries teaching. Sister Wright I were the missionaries twice and the investigators once. (We're not very good at hide and seek, clearly.) It was a fun way to mix up the normal district meeting routine. While Sister Wright and I were looking for a place to hide, we found a hidden ladder to the mechanical room in the attic. During our lunch our after district meeting, we went back to check it out. We couldn't really get to the ladder thing to climb it, because the door with access to the front of the ladder was locked. So I reached through the steps on the back side of it to open the door from the opposite side. (We did take pictures.) Sadly, the door to the mechanical room was locked, so we didn't get to eat lunch in the attic. We ate on ground level instead. 

Also on Tuesday we met up with a former investigator that Sister Wright and her last companion started teaching a few months ago before she randomly disappeared off the face of the earth. They found her again at Walmart right before I got here, but then went out of town, so we haven't been able to see her again until this week. Francesca is this cute girl who just graduated from high school and is starting college in a few weeks. She was friends with one of the members in the ward and started to get interested in the Church. We're going to start teaching her the lessons soon, but on Tuesday we mostly just talked about prayer and scripture study. She has had a really rough life lately (which is why she disappeared), and shared with us that wants to rebuild her foundation for her life. After she said that, a scripture, Helaman 5:12, popped into my head. I shared it with her and she LOVED it. She wrote it down and then committed to read from the Book of Mormon. I'm so grateful that I was guided to share that. We were at a busy ice cream place, but the Spirit was strong. 

Oh. Another thing that happened on Tuesday. Ha. Yeah. In the afternoon we went to visit Sister Norris (the woman in our ward who has MS and is confined to either her bed or wheelchair). We visited with her for a while and shared a spiritual thought, and then left. As we did, we happened to catch her caretaker smoking....something.....in the car of some random lady in Sister Norris's drive way. We drove away, but then felt like we needed to go back and check to see if Sister Norris was okay. We did, and as soon as we walked through the door, the caretaker (who was inside by this point) started accusing us of "video recording" him on our "kindles." We denied it, and walked back into the room where Sister Norris was to check on her and let her know what we saw. As we left, the caretaker started chewing us out again about recording him and telling us that he didn't appreciate it (clearly he was nervous because we had seen him doing something he shouldn't have been doing). As we left, I may have possibly made a snide comment, (bad idea) and he ran out after us screaming at me telling me I was a liar and a fraud and not a real missionary and we were never going to be allowed back again (as if it was his house) and that I was going to burn in hell. Luckily, he didn't chase us past the porch and we got away safely. We called Sister Norris's visiting teacher (who is a social worker) right away after we left so she could know what happened. She agreed with us that he was acting guilty. Later that night, we learned that the caretaker had also called the visiting teacher (after we did), to rat us out. She told us not to go over there again unless we were sure he wasn't going to be there. That was already the plan.

Wednesday: We took our investigator, Connie, to the temple visitor center! She absolutely LOVED it. She is SO EXCITED to get baptized. :)  She brought her two granddaughters that live with her as well. One is 2 and is just adorable, and the other is 7. She asked us a ton of questions and watched intensely during the Joseph Smith video we watched. She is SO interested in learning about the gospel. They are planning to ask her mom (who also lives with Connie) if she can take the lessons from us too. Her 8th birthday is in November, so she could get baptized in a few months if her mom gives the okay.

Thursday: We picked green beans in the morning for a woman in the ward for FOUR HOURS. We found giant beetles, too. Yuck. 

We also had two lessons on Thursday, one with a woman who can't get to church because of crippling fibromyalgia, and one in the evening with a less active who has two sons (10 and 12) who are taking the lessons and will probably get baptized in the next month or so. Her sons weren't home, but we had a really neat discussion on recognizing the Spirit with her. She's making progress. :) 

Friday: We weeded for FOUR HOURS. There is a less active man and his non-member wife that the elders have been visiting for a little while, and they needed help weeding their yard, so the elders asked us to come help, too. They fed us breakfast and lunch while we were there, and it was great. They are such a sweet couple, and they absolutely love us missionaries. I really hope he comes back to church and she starts investigating. 

Saturday: We knocked down an old wooden fence! (It only took and hour and a half.) There are some less actives that the sisters have been working with, and Sister Wright and I went over a couple of weeks ago. We talked to one of the sons, who is in his mid-twenties, and asked if there was anything we could help out with. He mentioned the fence, so we told him we would bring the elders and help out. A few days later, we met his half-sister (not a member), Cherokee. She is 17 and so awesome! She plays the trumpet too! We talked with her for about 45 minutes. She helped with the fence as well on Saturday. We invited her to come to church, and she said she would. Unfortunately, she called us right before church on Sunday and said she couldn't make it. We'll keep working on her. She and I hit it off immediately, so I think if we asked her if we could teach her, she would say yes. 

We also went back to see Sister Norris. Her caretaker only works weekdays, so he wasn't there. She was so upset about what had happened on Tuesday. She said he is always verbally abusing her, and she had just been putting up with it, but when he started screaming at us on Tuesday, she couldn't handle it. She called the company he works for and fired him. 

She already had been considering it, but was nervous about change. She had another caretaker linked up already, but hadn't actually finalized anything. She told us she hated he had yelled at "her girls," so she finally actually fired him. It was amazing how different it felt in her house with him gone. He always felt dark and unsettling, and it was so noticeably different without him in the house. The Spirit is much stronger there now.  

Another thing that we did on Saturday was visit a young adult woman named Caroline who is a less active member of the ward returning to activity. She left the Church when she was 16, and only came back last year. She texted us on Saturday and asked us to come teach her the missionary lessons as if she was a nonmember. When we asked her why, she told us that she felt like she had been slipping away from the Church and the gospel again, and didn't want that. She wanted us to help her to strengthen her testimony. We were very happy to do it. She made us lunch and we taught her the Restoration. She was so humble and asked questions, even though she had grown up in the Church, and the Spirit was so strong. It was wonderful. 

Sunday: We went to church! It was great! We also taught a very brief lesson with a new investigator. He was actually a former investigator that we are beginning to teach again. We invited him to read from the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it was true. He said he would. We're going back in two weeks. 

Monday: We had a zone service activity! We went to (wait for it) Manassas (!!!) to help out an elderly couple from my old ward. The whole zone came. We weeded and mulched and sanded off paint and raked and painted and dug and hoed and organized and played with lizards and toads and frogs and inchworms. It was so fun! We started at 9am and ended at 2:30pm, including a break for lunch. After we left, the property looked AMAZING. Its incredible what an army of 30ish missionaries can do! I caught a frog and a couple of slugs and found an inchworm on my hand. My district leader found a lizard and put it on my shoulder. His companion took a picture of me posing with my new friend. Once I get the picture from him, I'll send it. I also held a toad that he caught, but it didn't want to stay on my shoulder for the picture. Sister Orr's (remember her?) companion told me I was the bravest person she knows for letting a little lizard sit on my shoulder. ;)

So...that's my week! Its been all kinds of crazy. In between all this we visited with the Prices some more and contacted some potential investigators. It was a great week! I'm so SO tired, but its a good tired.

I hope you all had a great week too! The Church is true!

Sister Taylor

1. Temple trip!

 2-4. Tuesday stair adventure

 5.Giant flower!

 6. We seriously didn't mean to match! It just happened! 

July 20, 2015 Pictures #3

19-20. I actually made noise come out of these. 

21-22. We're just goofy :)

23.We had exchanges this week. This is Sister Savage!

24. We found this wizard in someone's yard. How could I resist taking a picture with him?

25. LHS? In Virginia? (Its actually Liberty High School, not Lehi, but...)

SO! Lots and lots of pictures! In other news this week, Brother Price was taken to the ER on Thursday to get his gallbladder removed. The elders were visiting them when it happened. He was in a ton of pain, so one of the elders made them call an ambulance. They then called us, and both sets of missionaries followed the ambulance to the hospital and sat with Sister Price while she waited to find out what would happen. She said she looked out the back window of the ambulance and saw the two missionary cars following behind and knew it would all be okay. Brother Price had a successful surgery and came home from the hospital yesterday. Sister Wright and I and the elders have been tag-teaming to help out and provide support for them for the past few days. I'm sorry for Brother Price, but I'm grateful we've had the opportunity to help the Prices feel some peace in the past few days. I love being a missionary! I love all the people I've gotten to know, both members and non-members, and I love that Heavenly Father allows me to be in a position to help them. It is so wonderful to serve!

Anyway, I love you all! The Church is true!!!  

July 20, 2015 Pictures #2

7. We were out tracting and found some wild blackberry bushes. 

 8. So we ate some! 

 9. We found a creepy semi-truck graveyard in someone's yard. One of them said, "Delivering your future." How could we resist?

10. We went to antique stores last Monday. This was just too cute not to take a picture of.

Antique Hats!

July 20, 2015 Pictures #1

So I'm super behind in sending pictures, so that will be the bulk of this email. Actually, it will probably be several emails because they won't fit in just one email. I think looking at pictures is usually more fun than reading a long email anyway, so....hopefully you agree!

1. This is Maggie. She is a great dane that belongs to a member family. Kelsey is the girl in the background. She is a member about our age and loves the sister missionaries. She comes to the church building on Tuesdays after district meetings so she can chat with us while we eat lunch and sometimes goes shopping with us on p-days. She likes coming on splits with us, too. And yes, Maggie is sitting on Sister Wright. She thinks she's a lap dog....

2.This is Mr. Tree. He is a giant paper mâché tree in the library.

3. This is Ernie, the library cat. He hangs out in the back room or wanders around in the library. He has thumbs!

4. SO MANY weird bugs in Warrenton! 

5. We had a few extra minutes before our appointment, so we had an impromptu corn field picture-session. So fun!!! 

6. Me in the corn!