THIS EMAIL IS ALL ABOUT OUR INVESTIGATORS

the old nametag finally gave up the ghost.
The church name was worn off and they
told me I couldn't wear it anymore...

I realized that people keep asking me about how our investigators are doing, and I never really mention them.  I promise, they do exist.  And they all are pretty awesome. 

Not that we got to go visit them very much this week...

We had a couple typhoons hit our little side of the island this week, and they have the cutest names!  Glenda and Henry:)  I could definitely give my kids names like that.  The Weather Forecasting Center picks very classy typhoon names.

Monday night after our P-day, we started getting all sorts of texts from the mission about being safe, 72 hr. kits, and the whatnot.  Last typhoon season, no one made a very big deal about any of the storms or sent us texts about hiding under tables if anything gets really bad.  So, I was a little worried.  Tuesday, Glenda came and knocked out our electricity, water, and part of our roof.  There wasn't a lot of rain (but I guess that's all relative here...), but the winds came full force for the entire day and we found out that wind does a lot of damage.  I've lived without running water here, I've lived without electricity for even a couple days here, but this week was the first time we lost it all.  Haha 

The power actually just came back on on Saturday (just in time for church!) so we didn't have much work this week, especially at night.  The entire city was closed down too for a couple days, no one came outside and the clouds hung over us, staying a kind of deep greyish, greenish color.  

Sister Taylor and Sister Snow

The whole no water thing was a little harder, we aren't allowed to drink anything here but bottled water or filtered water from our apartment.  Also, the whole showering, toilet, doing laundry thing was kind of hard too haha.  The times that we did have water for a little bit, we filled up all the washing bins, buckets, and bowls we had.  And then the times we had no water, we left all those buckets outside to catch the rain.  Thankfully we had stocked up drinking water and didn't die of thirst this week.  

Sounds a little dramatic, right?:)

I 100% love all these storms that come, getting to experience all sorts of things like this that would never, ever happen in America. I get to just laugh at times that we're not sure if our apartment is going to make it or play cards in our apartment with candlelight, taking bets on when the power will come back.   

The days after the typhoons came were a little bit harder though.  Almost all we did was visit members and check up on them, their food supplies, and homes.  There wasn't any clean drinking water, and people were starting to get sick.  Most of the members we went to had lost part of their houses but weren't able to do anything yet to fix it.  My heart hurt so bad for them, I thought those things only happened in movies, things that I only saw in pictures.  It's just different to actually be a part of things like this.  It changes your life.  

one of our areas here in guagua

But typhoon or not, our investigators still came to church!  And the GARCIA FAMILY!!! Back to the whole 'talking about investigators,' we actually have people to teach right now!  I got here, and usually all we did all day was walk around letting people reject us.  But we found the people willing to let us in, and it includes a drunk man, a college student, and 2 entire families!  

Edgar: He's the drunk man that we found one day, about ready to pass out he was so drunk, all by himself on the side of the street.  But we taught him (although he was drunk half the time), he read the Book of Mormon, and is now a former drunk man. Every time we went to him, he would have been drinking and I was about ready to give up because all we were doing was teaching a brick wall.  Then we had a lesson with him about the Holy Ghost.  He said he wanted to finally change his life, we promised it would happen if he would be baptized, and then that Sunday was the first time he came to church (and there have been many more).

Garcia Family: I like to call them my miracle family.  They are the biggest, bestest miracle so far on my mission.  There are 10 of them.  They are the first families we've found and all of them are going to be baptized on August 9.  They had no problem accepting everything we taught them, the sons stopped doing drugs and drinking the week we taught them the word of wisdom.  Every lesson is a spiritual bomb with them.  When I get home, they will be the first family I tell you about.  Their stories could fill an entire book.  Their favorite part this week was when we gave them a hymn book so we could sing before we taught.

reunited with one of my children on the mission!

Clarence:  She is actually getting baptized this week!  She waited ever since she was in primary to be baptized and this month she finally turned 18!  I just got so lucky to be here and to be able to teach her.  The first lesson, the first thing she told us was that she knew the church was true before she met the missionaries.  WhaAT?  Her aunts and uncles are members but because her grandma wouldn't let here be baptized, she had to wait until now.  But it's finally going to happen!!!!

Those are the best of our investigators right now.  The other's stories aren't quite as awesome as that.  More times than usually, we end up dropping our investigators, the drop us, or they just won't do the things we ask them to do.  Most people here are stubborn, and their time isn't here yet.  But we've found the ones that are ready.  

Funny story: We had FHE with a recent convert and her son on Monday and watched Finding Faith in Christ.  I love a good ole' church movie, it always reminds me of when I was little and that's all that was allowed to watch on Sundays.  We get to the part of the movie when Jesus is carrying his cross, and then all the sudden I see Uncle Marshall in the background!  I couldn't control myself, and told them in the middle of the movie that that guy was my uncle.  They think I'm pretty famous now.  So, shout out to him this week:)

LOVE,

(the still very alive) SISTER TAYLOR