I want to be a missionary now!!!: July 21, 2014

Querida familia mía,

How are yall doing? Are yall melting there in Texas? That is a bummer about Rob´s foot. I hope it gets better soon.

This week was absolutely FANTASTIC!!!!! I am kind of in heaven here in Apoquindo because we live on the side of the mountain so we climb hills at least twice a day and we get good workouts. There are lots of apartments here too so we get great workouts going up and down stairs multiple times everyday. It is fantastic!!!!

I am still getting to know everything here and everyone, but i am learning fast. The people here are really open. In my last sector, we talked to EVERYONE in the street and did not have much success. Hermana Ekins and I talk to people here AND THEY LISTEN TO US!!!!!!!!!!!!! If they are not interested, they kindly decline, but people listen to us here!!!! Really, i am a little dumbfounded here. I absolutely LOVE it!!!

Tuesday we visited a new investigator, Ingrid, with her two little girls. She asked us why there were so many churches, and we answered her with the story of Joseph Smith and shared a condensed version of the Restoration. It is quite awesome. She had plans for this weekend, but said that maybe she can come to church the next week. We are very excited and very hopeful for her. We also visited with the Grandma of a teenage investigator. Isidora (the teenager) almost got baptized a year ago but her parents last minute said that she couldnt and she got discouraged because no one else in her family supported her. We taught her Grandma, Maria Ignacia, the Restoration and she liked it. She came to church with Isidora this week!!!!! We are also teaching Isidora´s older brother, Nicolas, and he is progressing too. Isidora said that she has seen a change in him in this little time that we have taught him English and the Gospel. They are great!

We visited a less active family, the Chiffelle family (yes they are descended from French), Wednesday with our ward mission leader. The dad listened to us and his 22 year old son, Jean Paul. They told us that they would come to church this week and Jean paul really does want to know if it is true. They are progressing well. The same day we went to visit the Vargas family, the dad is not a member, and the spirit was strong in the lesson. He came to church on Sunday but he is very slow about making his decisions and a little stubborn and still has not prayed to know if it is true. I think he is just scared that the Lord might really answer him. I shared a little bit of dad´s conversion story with him and I think it helped.

Friday we did splits with a sister in the ward and with a teenager. We were able to cover a lot more ground and it really helped the teenager to get used to sharing her testimony and see how awesome the mission really is. I love doing splits!

Saturday was a crazy day. All of our plans fell through so we decided to go and contact in the rich part of our sector. Our ward has some people that are EXTREMELY rich (we went to the bishop´s house to get to know them and I easily could have gotten lost in his house.). At the bottom of the mountain are the normal middle class people, but as you climb the hill the people go from normal to super rich. We decided to go and try to contact in the rich part because missionaries hardly ever go there. It is literally climbing a mountain basically and there are not quite as many people in the street, but the Bishop suggested that we try so we went. IT WAS AWESOME!!! The three or four people that we found in the street listened to us, and one said that we could come back another day. We also tracted (i have never tracted in my mission, but there is not other way in the rich part of town). You have to ring the doorbell speaker thing and then they talk to you. We do not ever yell ALOH in the rich part. Most of the time they said no, but we tried another tactic and spoke in English. The rich people almost always know English, and a few people left their houses to talk to us, but in the end did not want anything. We did find some great people in the rich people and i know that people there are prepared too just like the other normal part of town. We decided that we would try one more house and then we had to go back down to our last appointment of the day in the normal part of town. A little kid pressed the bottom that unlocks the gate when he saw us and opened his front door. We asked him if his mom was home (it was kind of awkward because the gate was wide open and we did not know what to do) but he got his mom and she came out to talk to us. She asked us to pray for a friend´s baby that was in the hospital so we did. She said that we could pass by any other day and she was soooo nice! It is almost always the last door, last contact that is great.

Saturday night the first counselor called me to ask me to give a talk the next day over whatever i wanted. I have gone my ENTIRE mission without giving a single talk and only sharing my testimony a handful of times in church. Of course when i only have a little over a month left they ask me haha. I shared about LOVE and the importance of just loving people instead of criticizing them. Basically, it was just an extended testimony because i just shared what i had learned from my mission. The Lord definitely helped me and i shared a talk in Spanish. It was pretty fun. Sunday night we went out with another young woman from the ward, Tatiana, but we had to go an dpick her up in another member´s house because her mom was in a meeting. Our appointment fell through and none of our back up plans were home and we walked lots and climbed lots of stairs. We took her the other family´s house and my companion went to the bathroom. While Hermana Ekins was in the bathroom, the son of this family, Israel, started talking to us. I did not see him in church, but it was my first sunday so i do not know who are normal active members and who are less active. He started talking about his mission. He offered us juice and brownies (the brownies i turned down of course) and my companion came out. She flat out asked him why she had never seen him in church before (she has been here 6 weeks in our ward) and he said that he was inactive. She said, "what?!?!" in a shocked voice and in English because he was just talking about his mission. He just said that things happened, but he let us share a message with him. We shared about the love of God, that God loves him soooooo much. We would not have sat down and talked to him if we had not returned Tatiana 10 minutes early and if my companion had not gone to the bathroom. The Lord works in mysterious ways and we are going to try to work with him.

Also, we had a meeting with President Wright and he only talked about the Atonement. It was absolutely amazing!!!! Really we do not understand the Atonement. He talked about how the Atonement truly heals people from the scars of life. The Atonement also strengthens us (grace in the scriptures we can replace with the strengthening power of the Atonement) and much much more. I have a renewed desire to learn all i can about the atonement.

I absolutely love being a missionary and i love being here in Apoquindo with Hermana Ekins!!!! We are seeing miracles and it is awesome! I know that the Lord has people prepared if we will just be open enough to follow the impressions of the Spirit. I know that the Lord lives and loves us. I KNOW that He loves me, and every one of us! Have a great week!!! I love yall a ton!

con much amor,

Hermana Taylor