Totally Awesome DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!

Well Hi There,
Why, hello there everybody. I hope that all is continuing to go well for everyone. This week was a little long, but it is crazy to think that I’m here typing away again. I hope that Chanél’s Birthday wasn’t too boring without me there. It is weird that Dad’s birthday is the only one I haven’t missed yet. Well anyway, this week was way awesome. We did have Zone Conference and I will talk a little more about that towards the end of my letter.
I do however have a great story I would like to share with all of you. It happened just yesterday. Well, is starts Saturday. We were at dinner with one of our ward mission leaders and he gave us a referral. It had a little background about the lady and that is always nice. We went by yesterday after church and tried to talk to her. She was home, but she is legally blind. It’s ok though-we were told before hand in the background. She is able to see our shapes but that is as far as it goes. Any who, she was talking about how her yard is a mess and that she can’t do it on her own. Well, we’ve been looking for service to do during the day, so we offered to come back and mow her lawn and gather leaves. She was so happy that she started to cry. And she then told us that she had been praying for help to come along for a few days and she thought that her prayers weren’t being answered at all. And then, Knock, Knock, Knock. Here are to handsome young men to clean her yard. I know, I said Handsome. So we set up a time to go back and clean her yard and she started to cry again. Let’s just say that God doesn’t leave us hanging out to dry when we really need him most. We also need to realize that people and things get put in our way to really help us out, like Missionaries.

So we had Zone Conference Friday morning and afternoon. It was awesome as always. We learned a lot of cool things and I’m really excited to start to put them into good use. We also learned about the passing of President Faust and that was truly sad to hear. The great thing about it though, is that our church is set up in a way that there is no need to panic or fret over who will be called next. We know that God has a plan and that the Prophet and Apostles will call the right man. No voting or anything-its God’s will and we have to understand that. But back to what we learned, we were talking a lot about being ourselves-not missionary robots. I started to look back and see that I was kinda doing that. I wasn’t being me. I realized that there are skills that I have, and that is why I was sent to this area. I’ve been sent to help the people in the areas I serve, that I’m supposed to touch someone, and help them accept the gospel, and to do that I need to be ME. This is great because my companion is really helping me do that. Right out of the MTC you have to do everything by the book, and sometimes the book is good. But as it says in Pirates of the Caribbean, “They’re more Guidelines then Rules.” We do need to follow them, but have fun while doing so. If you can’t have fun as a missionary, then that’s just too bad for you. This is the best thing I could have ever done to help me later in life. You learn so many life skills, and with Sister Andrus talking about the importance of Eternal Marriage every Zone Conference you really do get to develop skills for life. Anyway, we also got to go to an Investigator Fireside by President Andrus after Zone Conference. It was in our area, because we have all the big houses in our ward. It is kinda like the houses up Weir Road. They are nice and really, really big. So we went and had a great time doing so. We took Kyle with us; he is getting baptized on the 25th, so not too far off. He had a great time. The whole thing was way cool. All the missionaries there sang Called to Serve and it was totally awesome. Then he taught a first lesson, as always, and it was great too.

All in all this was a great week. Next week will be sweet too. I will have been out 6 months next Tuesday and then My Birthday is the Day before. How much better can it get???? I don’t know. I want all of you to know I love you very much. Hope everyone has a great week and can’t wait to here about it next week.

Love
Elder Taylor

(Note: Miss Five is out on the Deschutes River, so I am posting Elder Taylor's letter...sorry, no frills this week...just makes you appreciate her style, doesn't it??)