Some pictures from p-day...

Elder Taylor went to Virginia City on his preparation day - here are some of the pictures from the day!

Elder Taylor and the traffic manager

Lunch with the other Elderos and an investigator - the waitress took the picture

Elder "Racoony" Taylor and Elder "Moosey" Dixon

Sorry for the lateness...today was just way cool....

Hey Everybody,
Sorry that this is coming in so late, but we had a really fun day. We went with the Zone Leaders and one of their investigators to Virginia City. It was so cool. It is a really small little tourist town up in the mountains outside of Reno. Some of you may have heard of it before, but I really hadn’t. It was originally a mining town for silver. It was such cool trip and nice to just get out of the city and go and walk around a little tourist spot. Normally I hated when my parents made me do it, but this time it was really fun.

This week was an eventful one. First, I will start something I forgot to mention. Last Sunday I was given the chance to give a convert the Aaronic priesthood. His name is Conan, and he is a really cool kid. I was shocked when he asked me to do it. Now I know how nervous Grandpa Siple was when he gave me the Priesthood. It was a very special opportunity that I had.

Next we had Zone Conference. That is always a pleasure, a chance to hear from our mission president, and also sit down and talk with him about life and other missionary things. It was a nice, spiritually uplifting day. We learned a lot. Our mission has set a goal of having 1000 baptisms this year, and our AP’s talked with us and told us that if we keep going at the rate we are, we will hit that goal. Last year there were 738 baptisms - so that is a pretty good goal . We know that we can get it. We just have to work really hard and keep and doing the things that we know the Lord would have us do.

Well the was some more stuff that happened, but in this short time I can't think of it all. I will just close and say that I love all of you. I hope that everyone is having a good week and that your weather is better then ours. It has dropped like 30 degrees in like a week and it is hard to get used to right away. Well, anyway, I love you.

Love,
Elder Taylor

{blogmistress note: this week marks seven months in the mission for Elder Taylor - and this is the 50th post! HOORAY!}

The Race is on....

Hello All,

Well this week was a pretty fun week. We had some fun this past weekend. We had a chance to go and watch the Reno National Championship Air Races. It was so cool. They were flying low and fast. They are fun to watch, only when there are two planes battling it out for the win. You know it is hard to race cars and pass each other…now imagine doing that in a plane…it was really fun to watch. Then the Canadian SnowBirds were there too. They are like the Blue Angels, for those who have no idea what I’m talking about….I didn’t until Saturday either…..so don’t feel bad. They did some amazing tricks, and plane stunt things….it was really amazing to watch. We got in for free, because some other missionaries were doing service and let us in for free, so we sat and watched for a little bit and had some good times. I hope to send some video and pics home soon so you can all see the amazing stuff.

On the missionary front, we were at church yesterday and it was toward the end of the day….like hour 8 of church….and a member told us that they had brought some investigators to church…..they want to meet with missionaries, but they are going out of town…actually to Portland….small world! They didn’t want us to forget about them so they wanted to set up an appointment with us right then….It was so cool to just have people come to us…As a missionary that doesn’t happen all to often. So that was really cool too. It is a mom and daughter that want to take the lessons. They are really nice people that have been going to a different ward for a while now, and now want to take the lessons. It made me really excited.

We had a good week overall…..it is really weird to think that zone conference is coming up this Friday and that is also my 7 month mark…time goes by so fast. And to have so many missionaries from the two wards back home and to see all of them go out and also get ready to come home...it is cool to be right in the middle of it all. I love the letter that Bishop Wilson send out…I look forward to it every week. It is nice to hear that all of the other missionaries are having fun and good success helping bring souls unto Christ. I love this work so much and can't think of anything else I would rather be doing right now. I’m really looking forward to this week and can't wait to tell all of you about it. I hope that all have a good week and can't wait to hear from you soon.

Love,
Elder Taylor

The book is blue, The church is true, and I love you…….

In the mail...

Just Rolling Along...Singing A Song

Hey everyone,
Well here we are again...another week...one that seemed to move by very slow. Some very interesting things happened too. It still just seemed like the week dragged on and on and on. I had a really cool chance this week to see someone I know. Well, let me set the stage. Elder Dixon and I were tracting and we really weren’t having much success and so we just kept knocking. Then to my surprise a door opens and a familiar face opened it up. No, it wasn’t a ward member, but a member of the Church. It was Dave Boland! Now I hadn’t seen Dave in quite some time. But I still remembered him and after telling him who I was and where I had met him, he knew who I was…."the kid who ate all the little smokies." Hey, I still hold the record…38 baby! Anyway he had just gotten back from a trip and was not at his home either. But he did give me his number and told me to call and set up a time to come by and have dinner. So that was the highlight of the day for sure. Also about tracting: we have started to try an spice up a bit. We got scooters and we "scooter tract" from door to door. It is a lot of fun and we can cover more ground much faster...and really, it is a lot of fun. Then the other night we went to dinner and the mom make the elders sing to get dessert, and we did, it was a fun tradition to be apart of and it didn't sound too bad!

Well we did find out that one of our best investigators is moving out of our ward and into another ward in south Reno. That’s ok though, the Lord always blesses us when things seem dim. I think that's true in real life too, not just as missionaries. When life seems to getting you down and you really think that all is lost, we are blessed and things seem to turn around for the better. God won't ever leave you out hangin as long as you are trying to do your best.

Yesterday, being Sunday, we got to teach a Sunday school class during one of our wards. It was fun and it was only going to like a 6 kids which then turned into 14 as two other teachers had to help with the Primary program practice. So we had a class full of kids and it was fun to teach kids. The lesson was on how God it no respecter of persons, meaning he doesn’t think highly of anyone over anyone else, he loves all of us equally.

Well I love all of you very much and hope that this week goes well, for people starting school or having an interview for a new job, or just going through the motions. Know I think about all of you often and hope you are well and happy. I love you.

Love,
Elder Taylor

Crisis Averted....Oh, and some good stuff too...

Hello Family and Friends,
This week has been a little up and down. It was a Good week in the End. Well, the worst part of the week was that on Tuesday afternoon we got a call from our Zone Leaders. They called to let us know that a companionship in our district was being split up because they couldn’t get along…that’s a whole other story I won’t tell…anyway as you may have read in past letters we just had transfers and they weren’t going to get split. They then told the Zone Leaders there feelings about the situation, and the ZL’s said they would talk to the AP’s and President Andrus to see what they could do. Well, we got the call that they were indeed going to get split up now, the only problem was that they were going to split up our companionship as well. I was a little upset, to say the least. Well, we ended up not being transferred, because after I talked to the ZL’s, I called president Andrus and talked with him about the whole thing and he was willing to keep things the same. We talked with the missionaries involved and worked out the situation. So that crisis was averted.

Now for the cool news that brought the week back up. We got a new car….well a new car to us…it is a 2006 Mazda 3.…it is silver and really nice. We talked with the vehicle coordinator and asked if we could have the car the AP’s were bringing up to Reno. He asked why we wanted it and we told him because it was cool. Then he asked if Elder Dixon was the District Leader, he said yes, so he told us we could have the car and it was way cool. So now we have nice car….oh, and it’s pretty fast too- but I’ve just heard that-I don’t know for sure…

We also had a cool missionary experience this past Friday, actually we had two. First came with a lady named Devi. You may remember the name because I’ve talked about her before. Anyway, she has had two baptism dates. We went by and visited her and she was doing well, and then she said needed to be baptized, which as a missionary is always nice to hear. Then we went by and visited a part member family. The husband is not a member. His name is Larry. He is really nice and we had a good chat with him. He had somewhere to be at 5:30 and that’s when we showed up, but he let us come and talk until about 6:00. It was such a cool talk. He got to know us better and as he did so he said, “”You are the missionaries that I have been waiting for.” Now, again, as a missionary you really love to hear that. It was a really good day and we had some really good success.

That conversation with Larry really got me thinking. How many people are waiting for the right missionaries? And how will we know we’re the right one? Well, as you have the chance to serve a mission, you know that there are those people you just need to talk to and they are waiting for you to say something. It is so cool to know that you are in the right place at the right time. We just need to keep on talking to people and hope that they will be ready to hear our message. I love being a missionary and all the blessings that come from it. I want to let everyone know that I love them. I hope that you all have good a week. I hope that all goes well and can’t wait to hear from you next week.

Love
Elder Taylor