July 25, 2011

Hello everybody! How are you all doing? I am doing very good and having a blast out here. We have seen many miracles and know that the Lord is the reason for any measure of success we are having.

  

So on Monday we were able to have dinner with a less active family. It was really cool to be able to eat with them. I think the husband is a convert. We had never met them before so we were surprised that they invited us over to their house for dinner. On Tuesday we were able to have a really good day. We taught a couple of people including the family that was to get baptized on Saturday. It went very good, we just went over the baptismal interview questions. We then went to teach Lloyd and Kim. We just met them on the street and they were very nice and invited us to come over and teach them. They gave us water and opened up our house to them.

On Wednesday we went on exchanges and switched cars with Emporia. They are getting a new car and we are closer to Independence so when it come there will be less miles driven. I went down to Emporia with Elder Meisenheimer. It was really fun we got to see a couple of people. One was named James and he was really funny. We then went to dinner and taught their recent convert. Thursday we switched back and then we were able to see the family that was to be baptized on Saturday. We also were able to go to our recent convert's house and help them. I love it when what you study comes up in  your discussions with people. We also had a member referral and we went to see him and when we got there it was really cool. We were able to invite him to be baptized and he accepted. We found out that he isn't in our area though so we contacted the missionaries that are suppose to be teaching him and we told them about him. They are going to start teaching him now.

Friday was good. We had district meeting in Lawrence and it was really fun. We had an appointment with someone at 9 in the morning but she wasn't there. We went on exchanges with Hiawatha and I was here in Colly Creek with elder Stevens. It was really hot that day! We had lots of fun though. We were able to see Cliff and it was good that we were able to see him because he was down a little bit. Saturday we went to a couple of the wards parties here in Topeka. It was really fun. We then switched back and had 3 appointments then we had to go fill up the font for the baptism. We did the baptisms and everyone's went good. Elder Harmon's person he was baptizing wasn't too keen on going under water so she resisted a little bit and he forced her under because she said she wanted to be baptized so it went well. The person I baptized had 5 names so I was worried about forgetting that stuff.

Sunday was really good! We had 3 investigators at church and then we were able to go and teach the investigator that was going to the other elders. They called us over so we went and he believe Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God! We were so excited! We then were able to teach our retired baptist minister investigator with his son and daughter in law. It went well and he is praying about Joseph Smith. We then had dinner at the Jones' house and that was a blast! We had a ping pong tournament afterwards and we, the elders, were victorious a couple of times.

So we are just being blessed as missionaries here in the Independence Missouri Mission. Many miracles are coming to pass. I love you all and hope to hear from you!

Your Friend,
Elder Zachary Taylor

  

Shawnnicka, ShawnTavia, and Ja-amavian at their baptism
 

Ja-amavian and I

 

Jones family

July 18, 2011

Hello everybody! It has been one full week since I have written and I cannot believe it. I really feel like my mission is flying by. Like for example I have been out for....  21 months and I still feel like a greenie, like I am brand new. I cannot believe it has been that long since I began this journey. I am so thankful that I have been able to be out here - I have seen so many miracles and have learned a TON! One big thing that I have learned is that miracles are truly preceded by faithful living. We cannot expect to see a miracle from God if we do not show Him that we are willing to do his work. It is like expecting a store to give you your shopping cart without paying. Now I realize just how stupid it is. As missionaries we are praying all the time for miracles and people to teach. Sometimes we go out and then we don't talk with anybody and we come home and complain about not having success. We must pray as though everything relies on God then act as though everything relies on us but not lose our faith in God. While we put in our work the Lord will put in His and then miracles are brought to pass.

I don't want to go through day by day this time - I would just like to tell you of some miracles that we have seen thus far. So one of the days this week we felt like we were going to get a lot accomplished and we were working to do so. Everybody we saw was either busy or wasn't home and it was HOT outside. I was beginning to get a little discouraged and my companion and I started snapping at each other. I was just praying in my heart that we would find someone who needed God in their life, that was struggling and needed some love. As we were walking we saw a lady sitting under a tree on the side of the road, crying. We went over and talked with her and sat on the ground with her. She was having a very bad day. Her boyfriend and her were in a fight and he had been cheating on her. She felt lost and that she had nowhere to go. We just listened to her and then told her what we do. She said she had been praying to God that he would send someone to help her. We testified that he had sent us and that if she would do the things we invited her to do she would feel happy and find purpose in life. Then one of her friends drove by and saw her. He stopped to pick her up and help her feel better. She said we could stop over later that day and teach her. We immediately started thinking of people to bring with us that would relate. Riece (our recent convert) came to mind and we called her. She said she felt honored we even thought of her. She was super excited to come that night. So we met her on the corner and she followed us and we parked behind what we thought were her apartments. They weren't the right ones so we walked around trying to find the right building. As we were walking it was sprinkling then it began to POUR. I mean not like a storm out west but a mid-west down pour. So it is basically a Tsunami. So needless to say we all got soaking wet and we couldn't find the apartment so we called it a night and apologized to Riece for getting her into that. She was fine with it and said she rather enjoyed it. We then left and she texted us and said as she was driving just a little further down the street she found the building. Elder Harmon and I felt that we needed to go back so we did. We found the building but we were not able to find the apartment. We normally are not this retarded so we didn't know what was going on. We ran into a young woman walking out of her apartment and we asked her for directions. She pointed us to the apartment and then we asked if we could give her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. She accepted it and immediately started reading it. She was very interested and we found out she didn't have much of a background in religion. She said we could come over that next day! So I look at that and see that we were becoming weak but we had been praying for miracles and we were out trying to do the Lord's will. He placed the crying lady in our path who invited us back. We then were there trying to see her but the Lord had a rain storm stop us from finding her. We were then prompted to go back and we ran into that young woman that hadn't heard much about God. We are now trying to teach her about who God is.

I know that our Heavenly Father is watching us all and is mindful of all His children. He has a plan of how all of us can come back and live with Him again. We are given our choice in this plan to follow the prompting of the Holy Ghost or we can live according to the weakness of the flesh. As we strive to listen to the Holy Ghost and do uplifting things we are able to feel those promptings more clearly and are able to change not only our own lives but the lives of all those around. As we have faith in God He will bless us and show us miracles. We do not receive a witness until the trial of our faith which means we must show the Lord we are willing to submit our will to His in order to see His hand in our own lives and others. I love the Lord with all my heart and I love that He knows each and every one of us. He love us and will do what is best of our eternal future. He doesn't see the temporary or the unworthy things as even an option for His children. He has restored His church to the earth in order to bring His children back home into His presence. I love you all and I know that I will be with my family forever because of the restoration of the Lord's one true church on this earth. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

We are seeing many miracles like that in our work. We are having a family be baptized either this Saturday or next and they are seeing the gospel change them and they are changing for the Lord. I have had no better opportunity in my life and will continue to further the Lord's Kingdom as long as I can. Until next week keep your head up!


Your Friend,
Elder Zachary Taylor

July 11, 2011

Hello everybody! It hasn't been too long since I last emailed you but it is that time again.

Last week I emailed on Wednesday morning so I would like to start with the rest of my Wednesday. We had an appointment with an investigator but it fell through. She set up for the next day though. We then were able to see our recent convert and she is doing ok. She is just struggling with coming to church. We then were able to see Donnie at the Dawson's house. It was good; we have him scheduled to be  baptized this month. We then had a dinner with a young man who was waiting for his mission call. He also came out with us on t-ups. It went really well and we were able to find lots of new potential investigators with him. He is going to Barzil!

Thursday was good. We drove to Independence because we had an appointment there. We got home and went to see Shawnnicka and Nia. We planned to teach them about the Plan of Salvation but the Spirit prompted E. Harmon to take it another direction. It went well and they now will be baptized on July 23rd! Way cool to see the Spirit work. We were able to see our RLDS investigator and she is doing well. We were able to see a part-member family and teach them about family prayer. We then had a dinner and that was SWEET! Then we had a team-up with the high priests. We were able to see an investigator that we haven't see in a long time and a less active member. It was a sweet night!

Friday we saw Cliff who just had surgery. He is doing well and recoving pretty good. We then were trying to challenge people to see who could find the most investigators that day. It took a while to find someone to challenge us but we found 2 companionships. One we tied with 3 investigators found and we beat another one. So they owe us a milkshake. We are trying different ways to get our missionaries to find and to be successful. We had a great week this week as a zone. We talked with a recent convert's, from another ward, parents. He was a Baptist minister so it should be fun. We also got to have dinner with an investigator and we taught her BF and now he is interested.

Saturday was SO HOT! I went on exchanges with someone who had to bike all day. We were able to see 4 people but I was sweaty! It has been a long time since I have sweated that much! I felt nasty. We came home and we showered before our dinner. We then got to go see some less actives from that ward.

Sunday was sweet! We had 7 investigators at church! They all had to leave before the 3 hours were up but they still came. It was a heat index of 108 degrees on Sunday with 90% humidity.... yuck. We still had a good day. We were able to see an elderly lady and have dinner and teach Anna. It was good! We also ran into a Jehovah's Witness that actually talked to us and was nice. She also took a pamphlet from us and invited us over.... it was very different than normal.

Well we are doing great and seeing miracles! I love the Lord and his plan he has for all of us. He is able to put us into places where we are most needed if we are just willing to listen to the Holy Ghost. I love it! Thank you all for your support. It really does mean a lot to hear from you all and it really helps me! Love you all!
Your Friend,
Elder Zachary Taylor

July 6, 2011

Hello everybody! I am sending this email out late because of the holiday we had on Monday and then we had a meeting Tuesday so we couldn't email then.

We will start off with Monday the 27th. It was a pretty good day. It started off with us picking up the Sherwood elders and taking them with us to Sis. Yomner's place. She is in a retirement home and she needed help watering some flowers so we told her we would come over and do it for her. She is really nice, she acts like our grandmother. Whenever we leave it is with goodies in hand. This time she made a chocolate pie for us. It was BOMB! We then had our normal p-day activity of basketball nothing spectacular happened. We were going on exchanges afterwards and I was going to be with Elder Combs, who is from Henderson, NV. It was pretty fun. Our dinner wasn't prepared so we ended up spending a long time there and only had time to walk home after. We then planned and played "Hand and Foot" with the members they live with. It was fun.

Tuesday we switched back after zoo service. This time I was with Elder Kamalu and we planted this grass stuff in a flower bed. It was exhilarating.... NOT. It was fun though because Elder Kamalu is cool. We then went to lunch at B-dubs [NOTE - Buffalo Wild Wings]. It is the perfect time to go because it is all you can eat wings and fries from 11 to 2. My stomach wasn't happy with me afterwards. We went up to Auburn that day and taught some cool people. We found a friend for one of our investigators so that was exciting! We then had a good dinner. We taught a guy afterwards and we think he was listening to us out of courtesy but would keep an open mind. Come to find out that he just has a social conversion to his current church. We have come to know that most other people don't go to a church because they believe their doctrine to be true but because they have friends there. That is why friends are important to have in our church at first then they are able to gain a testimony.

Wednesday was good. We had a district meeting and that was alright. We then had an appointment with the Dawson's. They invited a friend over to be taught. It was really cool! He has been to church before and we invited him to be baptized and he said he wanted to be but we didn't set a day. We taught him about baptism and the blessings that come from following the example of Jesus Christ in all things, including baptism. Our dinner then gave us money to go out to eat and we had a coupon so we saved some of the money. We also had an appointment with our recent converts mom and she is going to be baptized at the end of this month.

Thursday was busy too. We had to have the other district have their district meeting on Thursday because we had a zone leader council on Friday. The meeting was good and I learned something from it. We had to be home by 2 30 because of some appointment of the other elders. We walked around a long and it was HOT! I mean 95 degrees and 90% humidity. It was like swimming in a jacuzzi! It was horrible and on top of that we were fasting that day. We had a good dinner with a recently widowed woman in our ward. It was homemade orange chicken mmmmmmmm delicioso! We then went over to the Davis, recently baptized, because Bro. Davis invited his sister over to meet with us. She is super legit and so are the Davis'. They basically gave her an overview of the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ and told her what it could do for her for about 1.5 hours. We sat there and didn't say much and we were in awe at how well they taught. I know it was the Holy Ghost because they spoke nothing but truth and doctrine.

Friday we had zone leader council and we were excited to meet the new mission president and his wife. Their names are Pres. and Sis. Keyes (pronounced Kize). They are so awesome! I love them! I felt just as connected with them instantly as I did to Pres and Sis Van Komen when they left. He is someone special and has a great spirit about him. We got interviewed while we were there because they are trying to interview all of the missionaries as soon as possible. On our way home we ran into some traffic. We took some dirt roads to get back to Lawrence and then we went on exchanges with the University elders. I went with Elder Larsen in our area. He is really funny! We had a good exchange. We helped move some new people in from Spokanne Washington. They are really cool and said we could bring people to their house any time to teach. We then had to go find dinner that night because ours got sick. We also had a good lesson with our recent convert's mother.

Saturday we switched back early in the day because of something we had going on. We were able to see Cliff who just had surgery. Then we got to see Moi and he had a friend onver so we were able to teach him as well.  He works at Rib Crib and said he would hook us up if we went there.  We had a correlation with Bro. Parrish and it was really effective. We then had to go find dinner I can't remember what we did. We had a team up that night with a young man who has his papers in and should be recieving his mission call anytime now. He taught Bro. Davis' sister with us and she wants to be baptized on July 16th! We are super excited! She wants her 4 boy that are at home to be baptized too! Our team up was great! We then went to the store to get cinnamon disks for our investigator who is trying to quite smoking and pop rocks. They don't sell pop rocks as much any more.

Sunday was alright. It was a good testimony meeting and one of our recent converts got to stay for all the meeting for the first time. She usually has to work. I wasn't feeling very good and one of our member's, Sis. Jones made a comment about it so we went to take a nap. As I woke up I felt much better. We then put in numbers and got those off. While we were doing numbers we got a call from Sis. Jones that said she was worried about me and had made some soup and was wondering if I wanted some. So we went to dinner and had some really good steaks. We also tried to visit some people afterwards but had no luck. We then went to the Jones house and their kids were outside playing basketball so we figured it was a trap for us to play ball with them but it wasn't. Sis. Jones came outside and made sure I didn't play anything but HORSE. She also gave me some really good advice. They are really cool and love missionaries and they really like us. I love their family and they help us out a lot. Mom you would be proud of them and would like them.

Monday we had planned to get together as a zone and go bowling and play soccer. I did alright in bowling and got a 136 and a 159. For soccer we played on a artifical field and it was SUPER DUPER HOT! We played for a couple of hours but then got too tired. We then came back to Topeka and washed our car and went to dinner. Our dinner also fed the Sherwood elders because they didn't have a dinner.

Tuesday we had zone conference. It was Elder Harmon and myself's responsibility to conduct and run it and neither of us had ever done it before. It went pretty well though. We gave a training to our zone and as I was up there training I felt the Holy Spirit with me. I know others felt the Spirit because elders who usually don't care even participated! It was exciting! We then went on exchanges with the assisitants. I went with Elder Nicholes, who I came out with, and it was really cool. We went to the Dawson's and taught their friend. He is now set to be baptized on July 24th! Elder Harmon and Elder Lesuma had a cool miracle and found a lady who wants to be baptized as well!

I know that the Lord is here with all His missionaries. He wants us to succeed and not only the missionaries but each and every one of His children. He loves us all more deeply than we will ever be able to understand. I love you all as well!

Your Friend,
Elder Zachary Taylor