January 25, 2010

Hello everybody!

We had a district P-day last week. It was really fun! We all went bowling in the Zone Leader's area. I didn't do very well but thats ok cause nobody else did either. We have a great district! I would be friends with all of them if I met them before the mission and hope to be friends after as well. We are very unified. We will probably lose a lot of them this transfer and its kinda sad but its needed.

We went up to Warrensburg (the ZL's place) for P-day and stayed the night there because we had interviews the next day. We had 10 missionaries in one apartment! It was madness! i got practically no sleep at all!

For interviews I was extremely tired! There were some great trainings about Joseph Smith! He is an amazing person and was truly inspired of God! I got to know Pres. and Sis. Van Komen a lot better! They really are cool and I will look them up when I get home. Sister Van Komen really wants to meet my mom cause she said they seem similar. They have such love for all of us.

I've gone on two exchanges this week which has kept me really busy! My first exchange was with E. Neilson. He served here about a year ago so he had a lot of people he wanted to see. It was great because I got to meet a lot of cool people here. I passed off lesson 4 so now I only have to pass off one more lesson then I will be able to drive! At the end of the the exchange I got to go with the ZL's to see their new car they are getting because their old car had 60 thousand miles. I also went on an exchange on Friday with E. Calquin. He is really really cool. He is from Chile but has lived in Utah for 7 years. I will definitely be friends with him when I am done. He only goes home 4 months before me so we'll keep in touch. I hope I get to be his companion. While he was here we got to go see our investigator's bike. He has a Honda 600 its really cool!


David A. Bednar is coming on Feb. 6th! I am so excited for that. I hope I get to talk to him personally.

We had a lesson with a part-member family and the father is the non-member. He is an amazing man. He told us of this miracle that he experienced. I hope to keep visits with him so he will get baptized soon.

Well hope you are all doing great! Love you all!

Love,
Elder Zachary Taylor

Letter from Elder Taylor's Zone Leader

The following is from Elder Taylor's dad, Kurt:

I am attaching a PDF of a letter we received last Friday from Elder Ephraim Nielson, who is Zach's zone leader. You may recall that Zach has written about going on exchanges with Elder Nielson and has told us how great Elder Nielson is and how much he admires him. We were taking our family out of town on Friday and happened to see the mailman at our neighborhood mailbox. We waited for the mail and one of the letters was this letter from Elder Nielson. So, Rene'e tried to read it to our family as we drove out of town. She eventually made it through the letter, but shed many tears of joy while reading it aloud.

We are so impressed with Elder Nielson and his thoughtfulness in taking time to write to the parents of one of the missionaries in his zone. We are also so very grateful to receive such a wonderful commentary on Zach. I truly believe that our family is being blessed as a result of Zach's service. I love Mondays now, because I know we will get an email or 2 from Zach. I thank each one of you for the influence you have had on Zach (and his sister and brothers).

Love,

Kurt


Here is the letter:

Dear Brother & Sister Taylor,

My name is Elder Ephraim Nielsen and I just wanted to write you and tell you of what a great blessing it is to serve around your son, Elder Taylor.

He hasn't been around for too long but he is already making an impact here in this zone. I got to go on exchanges with him last week and I can tell you that he definitely doesn't seem like a "greenie." I was just writing my parents and told them how it seems that we just keep getting better and better missionaries. They don't need people like us when they keep sending out missionaries who keep getting better that the last ones. Haha. I don't think I could do half of what your son can do when I first came out on my mission. It was a great experience. He definitely has a love for the gospel.

One thing that I like and admire about Elder Taylor is the way he can connect with people. You can just tell that he doesn't teach the gospel for the honors of men, but because he wants the people to have those same blessings. He is genuine and sincere. He knows how to communicate with others in such a way that they can tell that this isn't just something he is doing just because he has to. If all missionaries were like him, it would be a different place. If all the members were like him, man, I think our 11 stakes would double in no time! :)

So I just wanted to write and thank you for raising such a great son. He talks a lot about you and I know that he wasn't this way "just because." Thank you for your faith and diligence. I hope you also have a Merry Christmas.

Love,
Elder Ephraim Nielsen

January 18, 2010

Hey everybody!

I hope everything is going well! Last Monday I ordered two DVDs that will be amazing teaching helpers. They are the Reflections of Christ DVDs. You can order them off Deseret Book. They are a bunch of pictures taken by this man named Mark Mabry and he is a return missionary that served in Russia. They carry a great spirit when you watch the slide shows.

On Tuesday we got to meet with a return investigator Cliff Allen. He is a single man that seems really cool! We have a weekly lesson set up with him on Tuesdays.

We also done lots of less active work this week. Which paid off on Sunday we had 2 or 3 less active families at church! It was great! We gave a blessing to one of them because the wife was having complications with her pregnancy. It was great to be able to to.

We had to prepare for another district meeting. We were worried that this one wouldn't be as much fun as the last one but it was! We all watched the slide show on Another Testament of Jesus Christ (one of the DVDs I ordered). It was great and there was such a good spirit. I'm excited to use it throughout my whole mission.

So Sunday we had all those less active members at church and we had Cliff Allen, our investigator, come to church too. He had to leave after sacrament to go to work but he still came! He said he wants to keep coming back and moving forward! I'm so excited!

This Monday we are doing another district p-day. Tomorrow we have interviews which are the BEST! So we have a great start to our week!

I hope everyone is doing well! I love you all and thank you all for the part you played in making me who I am today.

Love,
Elder Zachary Taylor

Snow!

"This is of me having a tropical experience in the snow."

"Look how hard it was snowing."

"This pic is of E. Terrasas, E. Nam, E. Shepherd, and me at Zone Conference."

January 11, 2010

Hey everyone!

How is everybody doing? I'm doing pretty good. Its hard out here but I feel like I'm learning a lot. I'm glad my subject for my last talk was adversity because I refer back to it often.

So last Monday we had a district P-day. All the missionaries in our district met in Odessa. When this has happened before we all just played volleyball and basketball. So that was what I was expecting but when we got there our Zone Leader told us he wanted to make a movie. I thought that it didn't sound like much fun, specially more fun that a sport. I went along with it though. The movie was about how the mail doesn't get forwarded anymore. The post office was the bad guy. I was one of 4 superheros, weird huh? We all had these weird powers, mine was super strength that I used to open jars, I don't know where it came from. I however, got everyone to laugh so that's fine with me. It was really weird in the end though.

Right after district P-day we went on exchanges. I went with Elder Esplin, our new Zone Leader, to my area. This was my first time running it so I was a little nervous. It went ok but I wish it would've gone better. I better get use to running the area though because Elder Owens, my companion, is leaving in like 25 days. Back to Elder Esplin her is a really cool guy. He is in the National Guard and has been through basic training. 3 weeks after he gets back he is going to Iraq to be a body guard for non-combat troops. That would be hard for me to do. He also almost has his BA and he is only 19. He has been really busy before his mission.

We were suppose to go to the Visitor's Center with a recent convert family and some people of another faith but the plans fell through. I was really bummed because it would've been a great teaching moment. The weather has been crazy over the past week. It snowed another 8" inches or so. The temperature dropped, someone told me it got below zero plus wind chill. My nose hairs freeze as soon as I take a breath outside. Our mission president sent out a message warning us about the weather and to not do anything stupid. So, we spent a lot of time inside our house just cleaning and organizing stuff. Now our house is clean!

We also had Zone Conference this past Friday. It was GREAT! Better than the last one. I got to see some old MTC district members, Elder Shepherd and Elder Terrasas. It was really good to see them and hear about their experiences in the field so far. Our president and his wife spoke very bluntly to us. I liked it because there could be no misinterpretation. I also got up and bore my testimony at the end of it. I felt great and Sister Van Komen said she was proud of me because its scary up there lol. I only have 15 Zone Conferences left. That's weird to think about. I feel like the last one was only a week ago. Time is flying by.

Our old bishop's wife told us she has a referral coming our way. Its one of her daughter's friends. I'm excited to receive that.

Well that's it for the week. I love you all and hope things are going wonderfully for you. Remember to keep up a positive attitude. I learned at Zone Conference to not get so down on yourself. Just do your best and that's all you can do!

Love,
Elder Zachary Taylor

January 4, 2010

Hey everyone!

Sorry I wrote late last week. We've had so much snow and its affected a lot. As soon as the snow is compressed here it turns to ice which makes the road virtually impossible to drive on and to walk on. I haven't fallen yet but I'm bound to sometime soon.

We had dinner with a cool family again! I wrote about them earlier he has two boys and believes that the world should go back to old family values. This time his girlfriend came to dinner. Which was a surprise because she is into a different religion and we just didn't expect it at all. It was really cool. The boys are very excited whenever they see us and he and she both seem to like us. We had a lesson with them and showed them the Reflections of Christ video and taught about faith and prayer. It went really well and they want to hear more. The boys also asked if they could come to church; which didn't work out because the weather was very bad, but I think they'll come next week.

I got the package with the space bags, thank you very much. I will try to use them as much as I can. I've been feeling a little sick lately. I've had a sore throat and a cough. I've also been congested. Sister Teo gave me some medicine though that helped me a lot.

Cindy and Trey, our recent baptisms, haven't been confirmed yet. Her mom has been in the hospital pretty much on her death bed so she has been spending as much time as possible with her. She called us and told us she hadn't woken up since she was admitted and asked us to pray for her, because she believes good things happen whenever we pray. We did pray and she called us back a couple of days later and said that her mom had woken up and was talking to them. She says its such a blessing in her life to be able to talk to her before she passes. It was a great reminder of the power of prayer for me.

Elder Owens' first district meeting went very good. We spent all New Years Eve preparing for it. We planned for our Zone Leader, Elder Nielson, to wear an old white shirt, with the "Title of Liberty" (click here and read verse 12) written on it, over an new white shirt. Elder Owens was talking about how this transfer we are going to strive for excellence and then Elder Nielson ripped off the old shirt and gave Capt. Moroni's speech. It was great! All the sister freaked out cause they didn't know what was going on but it was cool. We did this self introduction thing and it was cool. We had some fun questions but on serious question that really got people to open up. It was really cool and I feel like I know people a lot better. Our new members are really cool. One elder is from Chile, another is from somewhere in Utah and he was in the Army, and one sister is from Murray Utah and she was Ms. Murray.

We had somebody offer us a new apartment and I hope it works out. The one we are in now is full of kids. So its always loud and hectic.

We have had a nice new year. Thank you for all your wonderful letters and packages. It really does help to get stuff from our ward. Our home ward is the BEST!!!

Love,
Elder Zachary Taylor