Mission Scripture

Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

Alma 26:12



Missionaries

Missionaries
Elder Taylor & Hermana Meryl

MTC

MTC
Goodbye at the MTC

About Me

I am a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Ohio Cincinnati Mission was dissolved and I have been reassinged to the West Virginia Charleston Mission. I am currently serving in Salem, Virginia. I am enjoying sharing the gospel. It is wonderful to watch people's lives change as they accept the gospel. I have learned that the Lord always listens to us and answers our prayers. I have enjoyed helping people. The service that I have given has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my mission.















Monday, March 30, 2009

What's Going On

hiiii
well dad didn't tell me he was getting released but grandma did, dad never emails me or writes me so i don't really know what is going on with him...
i find out if i get transfered on sunday night. i find out where i get transfered to on wednesday at transfer meeting up at the cherry grove ward or the hunington west virginia building, just where ever they tell us to meet at. we will watch general conference at the church in georgetown unless someone in the ward invites us to watch it at their house, a few of the members have byu tv.
1. for breakfast i buy this cereal that costs a dollar. its pretty much sugar cereal but its inexpensive.
2. i don't remember cooking anything new this week, i think mainly just the quesadillas
3. if we come back to the apartment it is ususally just to eat lunch or stuff like that.
4. we play uno every week but this week some of the residents of the vetrans home birthdays so they had cake and ice cream then we played some uno after that.
5.yesterday we went and visited some people that we have been teaching, their last name is p. i don't remember if i told them about you or not, they have like 300 pounds of wheat and all this food storage and he goes up to columbus to get water barrels from the bishop storehouse, so we went over to their house yesterday with the bishop and we were there for almost 3 hours, (after being at the church for 8 hours (normal church, potluck, baptism) it went really well because the bishop and danny, the father really have a lot of things in common and it was a really good lesson and the bishop taught them a lot of stuff and it was cool...
6. we didn't get a chance to see the s. family this week because she works alot and so our schedules didn't really work out. but we are seeing them tomorrow.
7. p day is pretty much just write letters and sleep, sorry im getting sick of typing...
8. yes we have a cd player in the apartment.
i hope everything is going well
elder call

Monday, March 23, 2009

Another Week

time goes by pretty fast, the days go by kinda slow but the weeks go by fast, i can't believe it is already week 5 of the transfer. Georgetown is pretty good, as the weather is warmer more people are outside in the evening. the other night we got like 5 contacts in 10 minutes. we are going to try some of those people back in the next week. thats really cool that you were able to go to the openhouse for the temple. do you know where my hankee is that i had from the nauvoo temple? it should be in one of my top droors? or in one of those rubber made tubs under my bed. the s. family were not able to make it to church this week. the wife works at taco bell and the husband doesn't work. they only have one car and the husbands license is suspended so they can only really make it to church when she isnt working.
1. every week we go to a vetrans home and we play uno with them from 1-4. this week they had a bingo thing going on so we did that then played uno.
2.this past week i mostly ate hamburgers (a lady in the ward gave us some ground beef from the cows they raise so i made some pattys from that) i also cooked some pinto beens and rice a roni and combined those and i put it on a tortilla with melted cheese.
3. i am eating fruit but not so many veggies.
4. the husband has a daughter that is 20 but we've never met her, supposedly she has a boyfriend that is 37 and her dad is 40. the son is the wife's child.
5.i don't iron my shirts, i just do wrinkle free in the dryer.
6.we are teaching a few people but currently the s. family are the people we teach the most often and most consistently and they are keeping the committments we ask of them.
7.we have taught them lesson 1 (the restortation) and are doing bits of lesson 2 (the plan of salvation) also.
8. i think there are around 5 lessons
9. we don't eat at members home very often because we only eat at their home if an investigator is present or things like that, however they did give us a bunch of leftovers yesterday (chicken alfredo, meatballs, cake, cupcakes, a bunch of good stuff)

Monday, March 16, 2009

Hi from Ohio

hiiii
yes i got the package. thanks for sending all the candy and what not. i need stuff like that to stay awake during personal study. meryl, get use to being tired every morning, its super fun...not. im glad i will have something green to wear tomorrow so someone without teethout doesn't come up and pinch me. im glad chancey gave a good farewell talk, it must run in the family. so he leaves utah in april? i wrote him a few weeks ago and he hasn't written me back yet so he better write me before he leaves.
yes we are still teaching the s. family. the mother and son who is 13 came to church yesterday. the husband is still enjoying the "party supplies" so he wasn't able to make it to church if you know what i mean. on saturday we went over to a family in the wards house and cut down trees. these trees are probably about 50+ feet high and alot of them came down in the ice storm. we filled up more than 10 trucks and trailers worth of wood. yesterday my hamstring and my right cheek were pretty sore from lifting the rounds after they cut them with a "power saw" or chain saw.
the people out here and in kentucky call their grandparents mamaw and papaw.. its a little strange. yesterday we also found out that you must live in ohio if your truck is bigger than your trailer.what am i supposed to do with the tapes that you send me? do you want me to send them back? if so on the same tape or on a new one? what do you want me to say on them if you want me to send them to you?
well im not sure what else you would like me to say soo i am going to go but i hope everyone is going good and all of that
love
elder call

Monday, March 9, 2009

Twenty Questions

1. president robbins is a nice guy, i don't really know him that well since we live about 45 minutes from the mission office.
2/3. sister robbins cooked us mexicano/ there was tortilla chips and other stuff to put on them i don't really remember now
4. we buy whatever we want at the store (milk, bread, frozen pizza, all that good stuff) we try to limit our spending to about 20 dollars per week so we wont have to use our own money at the end of the month if we run out.
5. we cook seperate and buy all of our food seperate. we just do our own thing when we eat.
6. our apartment is good, some sisters had it before us so it was in really good shape when we got there, i guess when elders live there it doesn't survive as much.
7. right now we are only in the car. pretty soon we will start to use our bikes a little so we can save our miles so they won't go by as fast.
8. the bike looks like it has been through a few missionaries, the tires are really worn down but i haven't had a chance to ride it yet since its been so chilly.
9. yes we have a few common friends, not anyone my age but he hung out with a few skyline kids when he was in school.
10. transfers are every 6 weeks (month and a half) i'll probably be here for atleast another transfer with elder lundstrom, it would make sense to be with him for 2 transfers so he can train me more.
11. the georgetown church is about 10 minutes from where we live. the ward boundaries are pretty big. i think the farthest people travel to come to church is about half an hourish.
12. its a ward
13. in the mornings we wake up 630, exercise till 7, shower and eat breakfast till 8, 8-9 personal study, 9-10 companion study, 10-12 (tracting or doing other things such as service, etc.) 12-1 lunch, 1-8 (tract, visit members, less actives, referrals, that kinda thing) 8-9 dinner, 9-930 planning. 930-1030 get ready for bed, journal, brush teeth
14. we tract almost everyday, saturday we tracted allll dayyy and it was not fun, the day goes by really slow and almost no one is home on saturdays so it is pretty draining.
15. we have had dinner at a members home and we are going to a few days this week
16. church yesterday was good, it was fast sunday so we bore our testimonies and then we talked to the bishop about the ward and the area and that kind of thing.
17. we set goals every night for what we want to accomplish for the next day (contacts, refferals, recent conver/ less active lessons)
18. the bishop in the ward is having the ward do the 90 day challenge and so right now i am in 2 nephi
19. i bought a blanket from a discount store then when i move closer to the city i'll probably but a bengals or reds or u cincinatti blanket
20. yes i am staying warm. 60 degrees seems like 90 degrees some days because it was so cold for the first few weeks.

how is tammy o. doing?

love elder taylor call

Monday, March 2, 2009

Hello

hi everyone how are you doing? i have been in georgetown for almost a week now. we have been doing a lot of tracting since the sisters that were here previously only focused on working with less active members. we have been tracting almost everyday so far, it isn't my favorite thing because being out in the cold takes a lot out of you and it makes you really tired in the morning...especially during personal study. on wednesday we went tracting and we met a family whose last name is the s. so on wednesday we talked to them and they invited us in and they reaaaalllllyyyy like their cigs. they smoked probably 10 during the time we were there. we just shared a short message with them and then we went back to their house/trailer yesterday and gave them lesson one/ the restoration (god is our loving heavenly father, the gospel blesses families, prophets, the saviors earthly ministry, the apostasy, the restoration through joseph smith, the book of mormon, and pray to know) while we were teaching them we could tell that the spirit was telling them what were teaching them was true because they only smoked probably 2 cigs in an hour and 15 minutes. i think they have a lot of potential and i hope we will be able to share with them more. Yesterday we had ward conference then after that there was a pot luck dinner which was really nice because we got to eat real food and store up on food so we won't have to spend as much each day. at the pot luck they had a lot of normal food but one family raises rabbits and brought some rabbit stew. so obviously i tried some, it didn't really have much of a taste to it and while i was eating it i could only picture a little white rabbit in my mind and its long hairs getting stuck on my tongue or in my teeth. then one of the young men came up to me and asked me how i liked it, i said it was alright then one of the men in the stake presidency asked him how old it was and what its name was and all that. they said it was born in september then they killed it in december but it didnt have a name.

Marci- will you send me some church music on cds? send me my efy cds and other stuff like that...also get merideth to send me pictures of owen...cause she hasn't and i asked her to when i was at the mtc. i hope everything is going well and look forward to talking to you soon.