February 3, 2014

Hola familia!

How are yall doing? I hope you are all staying warm up there! Here, it is basically perfect weather, no humidity, a little hot but we have gotten used to it. I love it! Chile is awesome!

This week was great! No one came to church, but we did see miracles in our contacting efforts and in our lessons. One cool story happened when a couple of appointments fell through and we had some time to spare before our last appointment, so we went tracting (I hardly tract in the mission, more street contacting, but every now and then we like to do it). We went to a street that we have never walked before and knocked some doors. THe people were abnormally rejective, but we kept going. Hermana Escobar turned to me and said, "even though everyone rejects us, I really like this street." I agreed with her and we both agreed that he next house would have someone to listen to us. Well, it was going to be the last house before we had to go to our next appointment, and we found someone really great named Lia. We did not talk to her too much, but we offered and prayer in which the spirit was really strong, abnormally strong for a prayer in the street with someone we just met. We walked away really amazed and went to offer a prayer of gratitude. Then, we were waiting for a member to meet us so that we could go to our appointment, but he was running late so we just started contacting in the street. It is a busier street, so there were a lot of people, but we gave a pass along card to someone and he said, "I am not too interested, but you can visit my mom, she always listens." So, we took down his address and it was the street that we just tracted. When we asked the name of his mom he said, "Lia." We had said before that we had to find her again, and it was like the Lord confirmed our thoughts and said, "yep, yall have got to visit her." It is amazing how many "coincidences" there are in the mission, because they are not really coincidences at all. The Lord is soooooooooooo smart and knows how to place us where people are ready, or place the people in our path. It is really cool! It is also noteworthy that it is almost always the last house, the last street contact, the last whatever that we find those miracles. Literally, almost always the last one.

Something else that I learned this week, is a little more about how to love. Sometimes I get so caught up in obeying all the rules, that I miss people around me that need a little bit of help and a little bit of love. Following rules is good and necessary, but people are more important than some of the little rules. Christ always went after the one, stopped what he was doing in a crowd of people in order to help the one struggling (like the woman that touched his clothes with a birth disorder, when they lowered a man from the ceiling, when he blessed the little children, etc.) Here in the mission, we do not teach lessons, we teach people. We serve people according to their needs like the Savior would do. No, we mess up a lot and forget and dont understand when the Spirit talks to us, but we try and we learn. The mission is an unforgettable experience!!

I love yall a lot and hope that you all are feeling the Savior´s love in your lives. He cares about you, notices you, and knows what is best for you.

Love

hermana taylor

oh, just so that people know. They told us to send this by us mail and not fedex or dhl because the other two ask for additional charges when it gets here and they do not want to pay for all those packages. I do not think anyone is sending packages, but for future reference.