Dont Hold Your Breath....Here It is

Well Hello To Everyone,
Sorry that this is coming to all of you a day late. But when you hear about the crazy week that it was well, then you might just get a glimpse of the week that was the craziest so far. This past week we had District meeting…this was my first as a District leader. That went pretty well and I felt pretty good. Then we had another good one today….but that is beside the point. The one last week was good and I wasn’t too nervous about being up there training other missionaries. It was kind of a fun day. Right after District meeting we got a call to go give someone a blessing. So we went to this nursing home slash horse pistol….a.k.a. hospital. We gave this very nice older lady a blessing to get better and so that was really well. It was Elder Fechser’s first time being able to do so. He was a little nervous when she asked him to give the blessing. He did just fine. Nothing to worry about.

Pretty much from there it has been crazy. I would say that my title has turned a little more from missionary to chauffeur. We have some sisters in our Zone and they don’t have a car right now. And their area is really big and so they have trouble getting around sometimes, so we have been helping out a lot and giving them rides. The cool thing is that they are two of the best sisters in our mission. The sad thing is that one of them is from Temple Square and is leaving tomorrow to go back there to finish out her mission. So it has been fun getting to know her and also being able get to know them. Anyway, back to driving people around. Our ZL’s got into a wreck yesterday, so we have been driving them around as well now, so our time is filled with a lot of driving around and then we fill in the rest of the time with teaching and other missionary work. It has been kind of tough because I want to work in our area but they do need to do work, too. It has been fun to get to know the other missionaries in the Zone.

Well to add to some of the craziness, our zone has gotten into a bit of a prank war…let's just put it this way….it has been a lot of fun and if you want to know what has gone down just send me an e-mail and I will write you back. But it has been a lot of fun the last few days….especially with the sister that is going back to Temple Square….The reason why I didn’t e-mail is because we took her and the Zone to Virginia City…and took an old western photo up there. It was a lot of fun to be up there with the Zone and still only have it be a few people. This Zone is really growing on me. Especially since we have been doing all the pranks/bonding.

Well I hope that all have had a good week and that you are doing well. I want you all to know I think and pray for you often. I love you and please keep me updated all on the goings on. I would love emails or snail mail too….your choice. Again I love you.

Love,
Elder Taylor

From last week...

One of the cool things that happened last week was an e-mail we got from a family in Elder Taylor's new area, The Simpsons. They had the missionaries to dinner last week, and took their picture and sent it to us! Awesome!! So, here is Elder Taylor and Elder Fechser - as of last week.

Update...

For those who check each Monday - with or without a reminder - we have not yet gotten an e-mail or letter from our Elder Taylor this week. I know...right? We will let you know as soon as we hear something...anything...we promise.

All I Can See Is Green

Hello To Everyone,
Well this week has been a mixture of things again. I have really enjoyed this area so far. It is a lot like my last area with a lot of older rich people….but some cool young couples-oh and some cool old ones-too. My area is in the older part of Reno, where my last area was mostly built in like the last 5 years. Some of these home are older than some shoes I own….I don’t really have old shoes so why did I say that….they are older than me I guess…yeah that will work. Well, as I said last week, my new companion is Elder Fechser. It really gets me how people can easily get my name, then they totally stare at his for a a good few seconds and still get it wrong everytime, without fail. The only lady to get his name right was this German lady, and that’s because his name is German.

Well I guess on to what we did this week. It has still been slow pickins as far as appointments go, so that gives us plenty of time to tract and street contact. I love to street contact. It is one of the greatest times to be a missionary. We talk to all kinds of people and gets all sorts of stories. One thing we can do as messengers of Jesus Christ is promise people in the parking lot of the mall or Wal-Mart or any other place, that if they pray to know about the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith that they will get an answer. The spirit you feel when you do that is like no other I have ever felt in my life. Anyway, back to the week. We met with this guy named Brian. He and his fiancé are very nice. She is a member and he is looking into the church….They are actually in Boise right now visiting family and getting married. So Connie, if you go to any weddings this week…it might be in Eagle some where…that is the guy we are teaching…his last name is Rapp……so anyway, he is a great guy and is really excited about the church.

Well some other things we did this week: We had dinner with an Area Seventy-that was scary-but not really, he was a super nice guy. His name is Elder Timothy Dyches….in case you want to look up people I have been eating with. We had a good evening with him and got some good insight into a lot of really cool things. We have really just been plugging along trying to find time to meet with our investigators and helping them progress….the nice thing is they all like to come to church so we just need to teach them more and hope that they feel the spirit. Oh, on a quick side note….really this is just for Elder Boland....I had dinner the other night with an Elder Russell who just came home from your mission about six months ago. He said he knew you and that you were in his zone when you got to the field; he even showed me a picture of you as well. That was pretty funny. You were like the tallest in your zone.

Iit really sounds like everyone back home has had a busy week. Mom, know that I am very proud of you for having a dog in the house for more than a few minutes or really even at all. I really liked that Penny would always lick your hand though…that made me laugh out loud. Sounds like Seth had his dream come true with getting the Nike grand tour….that was always my favorite thing.

So Chanel, you had a laundry list of questions you asked and here are the answers…include them in the blog or not:

What is your new address?
3300 Skyline Blvd Apt. 208
Reno NV, 89509
Did you get a cell phone?
No, but I will be checking into see how I can get one.
Will you be moving in with members soon?
Not that I have heard of, but you never really know.
As of today, what is the hardest thing about being a District Leader?
Nothing yet really...Well maybe planning what I will be doing for District meeting tomorrow.
As of today, what is the easiest thing about being a District Leader?
Calling in stats every night. My District is small and that makes it quick and easy.
What is one thing you miss about Elder Dixon?
Well he would always try and scare me by making loud noises, it stopped working after awhile.
What is your advice to Elder Fescher about being a new missionary?
BE YOURSELF.
Can you believe you've been a missionary for EIGHT months?
Yes…but more no…it doesn’t seem that long ago I was home.
How many ties do you have?
Still at about 80 or so…
How many ties does Elder Fechser have?
6…it is really so sad when greenies come in unprepared like that.
What were your meals last week? (ALL SEVEN DUDE!)
Ham and stuff. Soup and Stuff. Pasta and Stuff. Casserole thing and Stuff. Roast Beast and stuff. Had a Sandwich Saturday, we didn’t eat with members. Last night was the best….Baked Chicken and stuff. The Baked chicken had the same taste and ingredients as fried chicken…just baked…it was way good.
What is your new apartment like?
Really it feels like a summer camp cabin on the outside. There are some trees and stuff and weird glass doors. The inside is nice. We have a fireplace and that is pretty cool. Otherwise it is your standard one bedroom, one bath apartment.
How are you getting to know your new area?
It is getting better….not looking at the map that much anymore…but I still use it more then I used to.
What was the funniest thing your saw/did in the last week?
We had lunch after zone meeting with the whole zone and sat around and told funny old stories to each other. It was fun because our zone leaders were in the same stake back home so they know each other pretty well. It is way fun to be around them.
What are you reading in the scriptures right now?
Well I have slowed down but right now I'm in Exodus….it is really slow reading…I just learned how to build the old Tabernacle…problem is I don’t know how big a cubit is.
What is your new favorite spiritual message that you leave with members/investigators?
Well I left the best spiritual thought ever when we were eating with that Area Seventy. It was about the gifts of God and how we are blessed….The scriptures I used are in Malachi and then Moroni 10 where it talks about the gifts of God. It was by far my best one yet.
Please give three random facts about Elder Fescher.
His feet stink at night.
He was a wrestler.
And he is terrible at foosball…..we play during lunch at our apartment office….he STINKS.

Well, as I am running out of time and I don’t have much more to say….oh Chanel those 3 Jamba Juice water bottles were from this Jamba that closed down in my last area and I took one of each water bottle. So that’s that….I just sent that box to get rid of some stuff….I’m sending my memory card today so you will get to see a lot the craziness that was me and Dixon. Well, I love you guys and hope that this letter was much better then last week. Know that I love you and keep you all in my thoughts and prayers…..

Love,
Elder Taylor

So I got my Greenie...

Hey All,
Well, so, this week has been pretty crazy. We started with transfers on Tuesday night.....which went to Wednesday morning..... See what happened is the bus from Vegas broke down and my Greenie didn't get to Reno until 3am Wednesday morning......I was really tired and we had to go meet the bus with the Zone Leaders and it totally sucked. I know that sounds harsh but, give me a break, it was 3 in the morning! So that was a rocky start. Then we were double transferred into the area so we had to spend a few days learning the area and meeting some of the ward leadership. I cover the Skyline and Lakeside wards in the Reno stake....I'm very close to my old area....like, one ward boundary is between my new and old areas...also the members here know a lot of members in the other area. Well anyways, I just realized I wrote all of that and didn't tell you my companion's name yet. His name is Elder Fechser. So, you say it with an X for the chs, somehow it makes and x sound, I guess it is German or something.

He is from Fort Collins Colorado, and, yes, he did know Elder Thompson, my MTC companion, so that was pretty cool. He pretty cool. He is a Greenie though....and most of you know what I mean, but so was I once so I try and put myself in his shoes....it is hard though....but I guess with the Lord on my side I can do anything....right????

Well time is short this week and I know that Chanel and Mom are going to kill me for a lack of details but, again time is short. I love you guys. Send me some questions next week.....and I will try and answer them for you. I love you and hope that you all have a good week and I will keep you in my prayers.

Love,
Elder Taylor

Well I guess you want to know.....

Well Hello There,
Well - I will start first with the big news that everyone has been waiting for. So I guess that all the training of playing “Do you love your Neighbor?“ up in Cascade really helped. Why??? Because that is the game we played for transfer call on Saturday…I won the first round - so I got to find out my assignment first. Well, I guess you want to know what is happening….I am being transferred…the nice thing it isn’t too far away. I going to South Reno. Also, I will be training a new missionary, and I will be a district leader for the first time as well, so that will also make this next transfer very interesting. I’m kinda nervous because it is a lot of new things all at once, but I guess there is a reason that I have been given this challenge. So that is the big news. I’m leaving North Reno for South Reno.

Also this past weekend was general conference. It was so cool to see an new member of the First Presidency get called, and a new Apostle a well. I was so glad to hear that Elder Eyring is now President Eyring. He has really started to grow on me, and now we will get to hear from him more and more. It was so nice to have a chance to go and hear form the general authorities of the church. I can’t wait until all the talks come out in the Ensign so that we can read them, that’s really when I understand more what they were saying. It is hard to say which talk was my favorite, so don’t ask. But I did enjoy a lot of them.

One cool missionary thing that happened this week was that we started to teach this mother and daughter who have started coming to church. As a missionary if you can get people to church they have a great chance to feel the Spirit and then a greater chance to get baptized. Well they have been coming for about a month now and that hard part is over. They love the church and really have felt the Spirit. We finally were able to start teaching them: we had two lessons this week and they both went really well. And last night Elder Dixon was sick. So we showed them the movie The Restoration. It is one of my favorite church movies. They are really cool people and have talked about baptism as something they really want to do. They just have to set a date. So I’m glad that I will be in Reno still to be there for their baptism.

Well we also went to the Temple on Wednesday. That was a really a great day. Other then that we didn’t really have much else happened. Well I want everyone to know that I love you and hope that you all have a great week. Know that I will keep you all in my prayers. I hope you do the same for me. Well, have a good one. I love you.

Love,
Elder Taylor

P.S The pictures are from the Rapps.

A visit to the Reno, Nevada Temple

Well so what happened.....

Well Hey There,
This week has been an interesting one. We had it ended kind slow: our car was low on miles and we really don’t want to go over because then we have to park our car and that isn’t fun at all. Plus it makes it hard to get work done when you cover a huge area, but we ended up getting exactly 1000 miles, and that’s the number of miles that we are given by the mission! So that was pretty crazy. Then in less fun news, we were playing a little basketball at one the of the churches up here and I was playing in church shoes and...well you can all see how this is going to end...I rolled my ankle and it really hurt. Have no fear, I am walking around almost normal now. It is still a little tender and also, don’t worry - I wont be playing basketball soon. But again, for my mom, I’m doing okay and don’t worry...the members are taking care of me very well.

We had a pretty slow week, like I said, so not to much to report on this week. But I forgot about something, we did a mini mission with some priests in the Sparks stake, last Saturday. It was fun to be out with some people who have no idea what you are talking about. It was a good morning, they had some good experiences and some not so good. One kid was told while tracting, that he was being trained to kill people. As many of you know, that’s not true. It was just a very funny day. Well, we then sent them with some other missionaries because we had to do some boring district leader stuff, so they didn’t want to do that.

Well we are getting down to the end of the transfer and so that means two things…..First: Temple day on Wednesday. I’m so happy about that….always a good time to reflect on the transfer and and look ahead to next……..then we have Saturday which is transfer calls, that’s the part that I’m scared about…I have really come to love this area a lot and really want to stay here more but I have this feeling that I may be have to make a move a little farther South….but such is life and we must all move on and look to positive things that we can do to help other people be better and better ourselves at the same time. Speaking of helping people, we helped an investigator move on Saturday. She is one of the biggest pack rats I have ever seen in person. I know that my mother is one, but this lady had so much old stuff if was crazy. It worked out okay, we have to go back and help her again tomorrow and I hope that soon this whole thing will be over soon. It is just unreal how some people live these days.

Well know that I love all of you and hope that you keep the faith and have a great week. Again I love you. I feel your prayers every day and know that I love the support.

Love,
Elder Taylor

The Book is Blue, The Church is True, and I love you!