Elder Taylor 31-Oct-2011

Hello how are you doing? It's good to hear that the trip to Washington went well. Tell Seth hello for me and that I hope he's doing well.  This week was really fun.

Monday was interesting because I never thought I’d be doing my own yard work on my mission but on the plus side we now have a huge pile of leaves to burn.

Tuesday was great because we got to talk with Danielle about the Book of Mormon and the Word of Wisdom. After that Elder Gleeve and Elder Hogan came down from the Macon Area and we went to St Louis for the new missionary training that evening. We then met up with the Elders in the Weldon Springs area and stayed the night at their apartment.

Wednesday Elder Hogan and I went tracting in the Weldon Springs area because Elder Solomon and Elder Gleeve had leadership training till five that day. Tracting was good we found four or five people for the Weldon Springs Elders to follow up with (they were also at the leadership training because they are zone leaders).

Thursday Elder Solomon and I were back up in our area and we talked with a lot of the member and less actives in Auxvasse.

Friday we spent a bunch of time tracting which was fun we met a lot of really interesting people.

Saturday was spent tracting as well because most of the people we are talking to were either sick or out of town. We did however tract into a very nice less active woman who let us in and talked with us for a while.

Sunday was excellent it was fast and testimony meeting because stake conference is next week and one of the less active members we have been teaching was there and shared a really amazing testimony of the church. We then were able to meet with Charles and Tammy and talk about the restoration and they gave a solid commitment to read the Book of Mormon.  I hope you guys have a great week and get some down time. Oh also please tell Seth to email me at some point it would be good to hear from him.

With Love

Elder Zach Taylor

Elder Taylor 24-Oct-2011

Hello Mom and Dad, how are you doing?

I'm glad to hear the trip up to Washington went well. Seth would like Brother Greiner's classes he is a really good teacher and the people there are extremely friendly. Things down here are going well.

Monday was fun the district got together for P-day and President Clark cleared us to watch Prince of Egypt and play board games, which were great. Afterwards we went and had dinner with the Prince's and they had their friend Joann who is investigating the church over as well. They invited us to participate in FHE and Joann said that she would be interested in talking with us about the Church.

Tuesday was good we talked with Justin and Daniel again and they are asking amazing questions about the doctrine and how the church works. We had dinner with the Rickmans and their family.

Wednesday was interesting we did a whole bunch of running around but most of our appointments fell through. Tracting is interesting you meet a lot of really great people but they don't want to talk about the gospel most of the time. We ate with the Parrish's that evening and talked with them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thursday was fun because we had three transfers in our district. Elder Banks is now the district leader and Elder Purcell is his companion, and Elder Humphrey, in the Jefferson City area, new companion is an Elder Jones. We talked with Daniel that evening and invited her to a dinner the Relief Society had organized at which Elder Solomon had volunteered us to act in a skit about two shipyards.

Friday we spent a good amount of time trying to meet those we had contacted during the past couple of weeks. We did have a good conversation about the restoration with some members that evening though.

Saturday we went to the Temple with the Lloyds. We helped a family in the ward do endowments for their ancestors. We tracted a street called Hassen when we got back which went really well. We met a few people who asked us to come back at a later time. Farther down the street we met a woman named Christina who we talked to and clarified some misconceptions she had about the church concerning the Bible and the Book of Mormon; she asked us to come back and talk to her family this Saturday.

Sunday after church we spent most of our afternoon in Centralia. We talked to David about coming over and teaching next week. My favorite scripture is Galatians 5:22-23:

    22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 

    23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 

Please tell Seth hi for me and that I recommend that he tries the institute classes. Have a great week.

With Love   

Elder Taylor  

Elder Taylor 17-Oct-2011

Hello, I hope you are doing well after your travels.  This week was really busy partly because we finally moved into an apartment. That took most of Monday along with shopping and laundry.

Tuesday was funny because we had a surprise visit from pest control, but that was ok we were headed out any way. We talked with Matthew some more about the restoration and we tried to visit some other people we had contacted but they were busy.

Wednesday was great we talked with a woman named Sarah at the church about the restoration with Brother Chapman. The discussion went well but Brother Chapman tended to go off on some tangent which was interesting but it was a good meeting all in all. We took care of changing the oil in the car and met Jim afterwards.

Jim said we could come by

Monday or Friday this week and talk with him and his girlfriend. We tracted at the fairground, which was sort of depressing because everyone shut the door in our face.

Thursday was more running around we had district meeting in the morning where we discussed ways to get the wards more involved with mission work. Then we had correlation meeting with Brother Saxon. After which we spent the rest of the evening talking with several families we had contacted throughout the transfer.

Saturday was fast paced we spent our time going to appointments in Mexico and then raced over to Centralia, a town twenty minutes away to visit more people. We talked with one of the less active members in the ward about the word of wisdom and he received it well. We had transfer calls, which happen every six weeks that tell us whether or not we're moving, that evening both Elder Solomon and I are staying in the Mexico area for at least another six weeks which is great because this is a great area.

Sunday was busy with church and several meetings with members afterwards. We did talk to Matthew again as well. We started talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and faith with him and his friend. It went well he said he would be going to seminary and scouts again this week. I'm glad to hear everyone up in Washington is doing well. Is Seth doing alright? It's good to hear that he's getting out with friends more. Thanks for sending some money for a bike; don't worry mom I won't ride it till I have a helmet. Hopefully I'll be sending my camera back soon. I Love you guys and you're in my prayers, have a good week.

With Love

Elder Zach J Taylor 

Elder Taylor 10-Oct-2011

Hello how are you doing? 
This week has been interesting.

Tuesday was a good day we met a woman by the name of Mary and talked with her about what she believed and the restoration.

Wednesday we did exchanges with the Elders down in Fulton and I went to Fulton for the day and worked with Elder Thacker who is the district leader over the district I'm in. Elder Thacker and I went down and tracted down in Holt Summit a smaller township about fifteen minutes south of Fulton. We met a few people who were on the way out but stopped long enough to Say that they were interested and asked us to come back later next week. That evening we had dinner with the Cowells, who are a great family, and talked about the restoration with them.

Thursday we had both district and correlation meeting which took up most of the day. District meeting was good the Zone Leaders were there this week and the Linn area was reopened by Elder and Sister Keller who are now in our district.

Friday was good we went and followed up with a few people we had contacted tracting. We talked with and man named Richard and told him about the restoration; he said we could come back so we assumed the lesson went well.

Saturday was great we talked with Matthew again and set a baptismal date with him at the end of the lesson; he is really interested in the church and is asking a lot of amazing questions.

Sunday was fun after church we went with Brother Andelin and saw Mildred again. Meeting with Mildred was odd we talked and asked if she needed any help around the house then just shared two scriptures. The first was John 3:16 which she liked and commented on. then shared Helaman 5:12 which says "remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation" and she changed the conversation not because that scripture said anything that she didn't agree with, but simply because she doesn't read the Book of Mormon. That evening we went to the Carter's for dinner and helped Brother Carter rake and burn the first pile of fall leaves. We move into our apartment today, but we have transfer calls this week so I'll hold off on sending the apartment address until I know whether I'm moving or not. Have a good week -

With Love,
Elder Zachary Taylor 

Elder Taylor 3-Oct-2011

How’s everything going?

I really enjoyed conference particularly President Monson's talk during the Sunday morning session. It’s good to hear Seth's up and moving that'll be good for him.  This week was interesting.

Tuesday we taught Donna about the Book of Mormon with Brother Sherrow. We just read the Introduction but it really helps explain the purpose of the book of Mormon clearly. Later in the evening we talked with Matthew about the importance of scripture and read Mathew 1 with him and explained it.

Wednesday was an odd day we went on exchanges with the Fulton Elders, so Elder Solomon went to Fulton and Elder Hanson came up to Mexico. Elder Hanson and I went to an appointment we had with Cary who we met out on her front porch and she told us she didn't want to hear the discussions any more. This was a downer but people have the right to choose what they want to hear and who they want to talk to, so we happily wished her a good day and said that if she needed anything to give us a call. Afterwards we tried to visit people we had contacted and less active members but none were home, so we went tracting. Tracting is always an interesting experience most people aren't interested in talking about religion, but we talk to them about what they're doing or see if we can help them in any way. We met with Brother Saxon at the church and talked about whom to visit on the ward roster and talked with Matthew after mutual.

Thursday was taken up primarily by district meeting in Fulton. After district meeting Elder Solomon and I headed to Auxvasse to see Brother Saxon to have correlation meeting with and to go see some members because we don't often get to go to Auxvasse.

Friday was another slow day although we met with David and invited him to conference.

Saturday and Sunday were primarily taken up by General Conference.

Saturday my favorite speaker was Elder Scott's talking in particular the piece about reading and studying the Old Testament because I know I need to improve on that. My favorite speaker Sunday was President Monson's talk about how moral values are clearly defined and the commandments are unchanging.  This week looks promising. We should be moving into our apartment some time in the next week. Mission work is hard, but I'd be kind of disappointed if it were easy. We have a car but because we have a limited amount of miles we can use each month we mostly just use it to get in between the towns in our area and then walk in town.  

Please continue sending you email's I really enjoy reading them. Tell Seth hello for me. Sorry you didn't get to go quilting Mom. Tell me how Waukesha is Dad. Anyway I love you guys; have a great week.

With Love

Elder Zach Taylor