Looking Ahead and Behind

#1 what do you want me to bring home? i've been meaning to ask you that for a while but keep forgetting. i'm thinking that packing light will be the way to go. i'm planning on bringing home 4 or 5 white shirts and shredding all my g's except a few pairs to wear on the trip home...they're all pretty hammered.
the bensons were moved successfully and now are hopefully in our ward...it's a long story...we helped and had a lot of help from the ward as well. we're still working with sister fry, hoping that we'll be able to teach her tonight in her son's home.
how old are the chillens that you teach? does oliver ever come to church?
how much affection can i give owen at the airport? i told merideth that i was going to take the wind from his lungs..kissy kissy...what presents am i shupposed to get him?
5 missionaries come home at the end of the transfer.
elder Mckee, myself, and our ward mission leader spoke in sacrament yesterday as well in the 3rd hour. i spoke about fasting and prayer with brother ron allen and my experience.
no big stories from this week, i'm grateful to have had a mission that was hard. it surely refined me to what the Lord needed me to be.
i love you
elder taylor call

Prayer Answered

Here is another story that was a result of a prayer being answered and the Lord’s will being accomplished through my companion and I.

The past few weeks Adam Benson and his family have been coming to church for all three hours. Adam is a non-member and is married to a member whose family attends our ward here in Salem. The Bensons live in the Cave Spring ward boundary but don’t really want to go to that ward because they don’t know anyone there and his wife’s family attends our ward. A few weeks ago we were told that Adam wants to be baptized and and his family have set a goal to be sealed in the temple. However since they don’t want to go to the ward in which boundaries they live he can’t be baptized.

Every week in correlation with our Ward Mission Leader we ask about him and they’re doing. We’ve been praying and thinking a lot about what the likely hood would be if they had any contracts with where they were currently living and joking about how they should move in with her mom for a few weeks until he is baptized. Sunday morning when Brother Deuterman (our ward mission leader) picked us up the following conversation occurred, Brother Deuterman “ have you heard about the Benson’s?” “no…..” they need raking leaves,….and moving on Saturday.” It was very unexpected to hear him say that especailly when there was no news the night before. We found out at church that they will be moving in to our boundaries on Saturday and we will begin teaching him the following week.

Salem, Mass. Is a pretty crazy place but in Salem, Va never have so many prayers been answered for the salvation of our investigators. I am so grateful for having a loving Heavenly Father who hears and answers our prayers and allows us to see His hand in our work each and every day. I’m really excited for the day in a little over a year when the Benson’s as well as the Romagnolo’s will be able to be sealed for time and all eternity in the Lord’s House. Being born and raised in the covenant has been such a wonderful blessing for me and how grateful I am to one day go to the Temple and to be sealed with my wife for time and all eternity.

A Recap

well as promised i will now recap the past events that occurred in the salem area of the roanoke stake of zion

Last saturday sister romagnolo was baptized, i'm pretty sure i sent out pics of that last week.
well all was going great until we got to the baptismal font.
#1 Brother Romagnolo didn't say the prayer the best, he struggled through it, we had to help him a few times during it to say it correctly. Then sister Romagnolo didn't go all the way under the water so we told him that he had to do it again, so he brings her up out of the water and puts her back down (like he's trying to drown her). We then tell him that he has to say the prayer and immerse her again, not just immerse her. So this time he stands in front of the wording on the font so he says the prayer perfectly and she goes under all the way. then after she comes up she says, "well just in case, i didn't go under all the way" then she goes under the water on her own and more or less starts swimming around. it was really great, its important for people to realize that it has to be done correctly and i think it was good that, that happened.

#2 On monday we were invited over to brother seitz's home for family home evening. he told us that his non-member mother was going to be there as well. Sister Fry (his mom) had been taught by the missionaries in the past around the time that brother seitz joined the church (about 6 years ago). so they had been talking and she told him that if there was really a true church that it was the mormon church. so for FHE we watched the Restoration and that was that. Mid-week we texted him and asked him if he had spoken with his mom about the church and if she wanted to learn more. he said that she did want to learn more and he gave us her phone number. we called sister fry who sounded ecstatic to talk with us and told us she had just finished her weight watchers meeting and that it was her birthday...anyway we set up a time to meet with her on sunday, yesterday to begin teaching her. she said that she would be at church and we'd talk more then. yesterday at church was amazing. her daughter inlaw sister seitz spoke in sacrament meeting which was really good then she came to the gospel principles class for sunday school. the lesson was chapter 11 about the life of christ. she was pretty quite during the lesson but then offered to give the closing prayer. in her prayer she thanked God for this church and asked that she would be able to understand what she taught. it was amazing. After church at the seitz's with our lesson she told us about her first lessons with the missionaries how she was able to feel that what they were speaking was true. she then quoted one of my favorite scriptures of all time, john 8:32 (i think) "and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." i about lost it when she said that, the spirit was soooo strong in the room. we're really excited for sister fry and her willingness to learn and to be taught. how grateful i am for people who seek the truth, for it truely sets us free.
i love you
especially owen
bye bye elder taylor call

Staying in Salem

i am doing really well, how are you? i did bring my camera but then i forgot to bring my license to give daddy my # oops...
the closest time wise is raleigh, nc but i think distance is DC.
Adam Benson is married to a member and he's come to church every week for the past while but lives in the other boundary and doesn't want to go to that ward....he wants to be baptized but needs to move wards before we can teach him.
did you meet elder arglye? he is in sister crane's ward. i was companions with him in olive hill during the first flood. he should be coming home soon or already home.
i am staying in salem with elder mckee.
i have no idea what to do about school. just make sure i have a ride every morning to mouth of the canyon. playing football sounds like a lot of fun, i also want to go to avaition school at UVU maybe or possibly go in the military. we'll figure it out when i get home.
for transfers, we all meet at the roanoke stake center then we all meet in charleston and go from there.
we found this really big apartment complex last week. yesterday the first door we knocked on no one was home then the second one a lady let us in and we taught her and have an appointment with her on thursday.
it seems like for me the biggest thing that changed me was in the 8th chapter of preach my gospel after weekly planning it talks about being accountable. that whatever we do we much be accountable for it. having that in perspective changes a lot of the decisions that you will make knowing the consequence. it's really hard to think back about the time i wasn't a missionary, it seems like this is all i've been doing. i've also covenanted with myself this last transfer to be in the world, but not of it. worrying alot about how the jazz are doing and byu. im going to focus on the work and expect to be blessed for doing all i can.
i love you
elder taylor call

Story Time

Hey I hope everything is going well. I know you like stories and this past weekend we had quite the experience so I hope you enjoy. i figure i might as well send something spiritual every now and again.

So for the past few months my companion and I have been working with an investigator named Sherry R. Her husband Frank is a recent convert who was baptized in the summer. She was raised Jewish and currently does not attend any church or have any religious affiliation. Our first lesson with her was pretty quick we weren’t able to get too deep into the message of the Restoration but she allowed us to come back. Our second visit we taught her the Restoration and everything seemed to be accepted well, (at the end of our first or second lesson with investigators we like to extend a soft baptismal commitment.) When we extended a soft baptismal commitment to her (when you come to know this is true will you be baptized by one holding the proper priesthood authority?) she accepted. It was then that she got real busy with work and we weren’t about to meet with her for about a month. When we ended that second lesson she didn’t seem too interested or really willing to change. Around Christmas time we went over and talked with her and she said that “right now I’m on the fence.” Even though it wasn’t baptism she made tremendous progress. I know her husband had been talking to her about the church and baptism and she was getting closer. In our next visit she said, “I really want to know this is true, I want to be baptized but don’t want to do something that I will regret.”

This past weekend as you know was fast Sunday, I began my fast at around 1:15 on Saturday afternoon, had an appointment with Sister R at 1:30. I fasted that she would make the decision to be baptized and join the church. When we went to their home, she greeted us, took our coats, and said that she had been thinking. She said, “last night at work I had a lot of time to think about it and I want to do it, I want to be baptized.” All of the struggles with her in lessons and helping her to understand all paid off. It was so amazing that we had received an answer to our fast that quickly.

Brother R received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday and was ordained to the office of a Priest. This Saturday the 8th of January he will be able to baptize his wife in to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Then one year from now they will be able to go to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity in the temple of our God. I love serving a mission, there is nothing I would rather be doing in all of my life than dedicating my time and talents to serving the Lord.

Yours Truly,
Elder Taylor Call