10.06.2014

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING GREAT?

Did you know Tagalog is the 4th most spoken language of the church?

Did you know we ate chocolate cake for breakfast this morning because my companion hit her halfway mark this week?

Did you know?  I love being a missionary:)

Elder and Sister Winters with Sister Taylor and sister Bautista
I am 101% aware of the fact that sooner that I'd like to think, I'm getting shipped back home to America (yiiiiiiiikes).  Actually, we got flight plans at the mission home last week.  But for right now, I love my calling.  We watched a movie with a less-active last week about John Moyle, you've probably seen it before, where he works on the Salt Lake temple as a stonemason?  Anyway, we watch it with eeeeveryone, member and non-member.

And in the 50+ times I've watched it, there's one sentence that never fails to widen my smile. John Moyle has lost his leg, made himself a new one, and his wife asks him why he would ever even think about trying to walk again to Salt Lake to work on the temple.

 "It's my calling, and callings are seldom convenient."  

Sister Taylor has been called to the Philippines for almost a year and a half, and there is no way that year and a half has in any way been convenient.  I've never found it convenient to talk to strangers that don't like me, walk around when it feels like I'm actually just swimming in humidity, or have to figure out what these strange people are talking.  But in those times, I have never been more certain that this is my calling.  Heavenly Father has helped me to realize that in a couple really special ways, and sometimes my heart just wants to burst right out with the definite, infinite knowledge that I've gained.  

our investigator made us stools with our names on them!

Again, I love my calling.

We were going to Gary's house one day (investigator) and so excited because he is so so progressing.  He's made us stools to sit on (we rarely ever teach people here that have actually tables and chairs in their homes) with our names painted on them, and waits for us to come every TuesdayThursday, and Saturday.  And the Thursday afternoon that we went to him, we found him drunk.  Halfway through us trying to figure out what was going on, he started crying (just picture that in a grown man who does construction for a living) and was angry at us (in a kind of funny, drunk way) because all the sudden he felt bad for drinking.  But you know what, I loved being able to explain the influence of the Holy Ghost and need for repentance in our lives.  "Repent is perhaps that most hopeful and encouraging word in the Christian vocabulary."  It's been a long process of repentance for him, but he's done it and is finally getting baptized this week!  Can you see the greatness of my calling?

squid!
We get to watch conference this week too!  I'm so jealous that you all get to watch it early, but all the things I've heard makes me even more excited to listen.  I spent the last couple of weeks re-reading last conference, and my binder of church talks just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  I wish I realized back then how great an opportunity conference is.  Next April, I want tickets to actually be in the conference center:)

Funny Story:  Okay, so back to Gary.  At the end of our (very short) lesson, we made him a little banner to tape on his table that said "gary will not drink anymore" and we asked him to borrow some tape to stick it on.  He was gone a really long time, and Sister Bautista and I just kept looking at each other with a big question mark.  He finally came back and told us it took him forever to finally "the small tape."  We looked at what he had brought out and it was correction tape!  No matter how many times we explained, he didn't get that you couldn't use it to stick the paper to the table:).  Oh, Gary when he's drunk.  But he didn't really remember it the next time we went back to him.

LOVE,
SISTER TAYLOR