July 20, 2009

Yeah, I don´t know how well that 30 minutes is going to go, I´m at 25 1/2 right now! I don't even know what to write. Last Monday was running and running and running my brain so when we got back to our area at 5 o'clock and then started working I had no break. We've been overly blessed with success and personal development in this last week, and I do have one cool story that happened last Sunday through yesterday. It has to do with listening to the Spirit. I didn´t sleep last Sunday night and then Monday didn´t sleep well, woke up Wednesday morning with a strange emergency fire siren case of diarrhea that´s lasted until the standing day. The positive side... well... it´s positive with a few effects. Remember those Vans shorts we bought in Oregon at Ross? They completely do not fit me. Not even in the slightest! So I´ve lost weight, to the extent that I don´t have fitting clothes anymore. I´m sitting here now in my Mario Team shirt you got me and those shorts. Elder Harding's in missionary clothes though, which makes me feel like a bum, we shouldn't´t dress down, but every Monday our district leader dresses down and I got out of the groove. But what´s right is right. I somehow managed to get sunburned or something on my shoulders, cause they were peeling, even though I haven´t got with out a shirt except in the shower... so i´m a little confused on that one. I didn´t sleep very well in this week until last night, which was exceptionally well received. We picked our mattresses up and threw em outside, we sleep outside now and then we have extension cords for the fans, every day the clouds go away, and it´s 35 degrees (celcius, not sure what that is in Farenheit) and humid all day, and then right at 10 between nine and ten the clouds come rolling in, it doesn´t rain, oh no, it just holds all the heat in, then at X o´clock in the morning they go. It´s so weird too cause we both wake up in the morning and I´m not hot...I´m really not, but if... IF.... I put on a blanket, I feel exactly the same.. with the exception that I can now sleep. Weird. Anyway, it´s story time children, sit down. Remember last week when i told you that we had to drop an investigator? We left and I saw this guy sitting there, jut looking at us like he had a longing face to know our message...or something? I was so grieved by that moment, it was such a direct ´talk to that guy´ feeling, and i didn´t. Later that night we were walking to the bus station, days over already, but i saw this family of four... all four of´em sitting on their door step, and a few 15 paces off, i felt again, that´s somebody I need to talk too, that´s somebody I need to talk too. So i went and contacted them. Hi we´re missionaries we share a message about Christ. What day would you like us to come by? Set up a cita (appointment) for Tuesday night and left. We went Tuesday night and for the first time forever they were promptly there. The full family came over and listened to us. We taught lesson 1, The Restoration, and then afterwards, Elder Harding asked ¨If you come to know that this message is true, will you be baptized in the church...?¨They said, Jorge first ´I will´ then his wife Maricsa ´Me, yes´We visited them again on Thursday and taught the Book of Mormon, and read 3rd Nefi 11 with them right there. Then invited them to read and pray. One of our appointments on Sat. night fell through and we had two places we could have potentially gone, them and another call named Noeli. I wanted to do both, Elder Harding wanted the other. We had an hour. Why not both? I convinced him about both and we went with Jorge and Maricsa and just invited them to church and they both promptly said yes. Then we went with the other. Noeli´s friend has just died the day before and we´re going there tonight to talk about the Plan of Salvation. We invited her to pray and read, we´ll see if she did it. Well, at 8:20 we headed over to Jorge and Maricsa´s house get there at 8:30 make sure they´re ready and then head to church by 9. We got one block from the house and their there were... walking around looking for us. They had somehow found themselves one block from our house without any feasible clue of where we lived... incredible. We went and they enjoyed it. We went again in the evening just to kind of visit them and they had read 3rd Nefi. He read it I don´t know how many, maybe one, not sure. But she read it 3 or 4 times just to get in her head. He got home from work one day and walked up to her and asked ¨would you get baptized?¨ She thought about it for a second and then replied ¨Yeah I would¨ Then he responded ¨Yeah I would too¨. This story just makes me reflect on how it all came down. Well that´s my story I should go, but I really love you.This is bad, but I just read my comps screen and he wrote to his parents ¨my comp and I really work well together¨ which makes me feel a lot better. Anyway. Thank you for your everything. I´m really looking forward to helping out dad on all... ALL of his little projects and especially the business. Elder Harding works for his dad in a restoration company up in Utah. Swan´s restoration. Reminds me of a few o the moments I had with Dad before the mission, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Especially in that Awatukee school that flooded when the giant ac unit smashed through the roof. Good stuff. I love the picture that Josh gave me, of him and I before I left again. Tell him I genuinely love him and hope he´s willing to hang out with me when I get back! T-shirt company! A few bits of business. If you put Zippy in the pond, I´ll give him 2 days before he´s gone. His one purpose in this life is to escape.The cords, I haven´t the foggiest. We´ll find out if it´s either. I think it´s black though. I do have the money, but speaking of the matter. I have 20 to last me on food and transportation til the first of August so I think I´m going to pull out a little stock hold today, sorry = ( ...And ... where are my pictures?? You said you were going to send me pictures???Lastly...dad... here´s a gentle friendly reminder to get your toosh into gear on that armored car and call trick my truck. get some good pictures, take out the insides and show em what they get to work with! Anyway. That´s it.If anything new or cool happens be sure to tell me!-Elder Jake Taylor-----Original Message-----