Sister Courtnee Wood - A Solid Week

Sister Wood and her companion designed these t-shirts for their district. She was pretty proud of how they turned out

Sister Wood playing basketball with her district. She gets frustrated because the Sisters can only guard sisters. She's toooo competitive. hahaha.

 

 

Hello all. :)

This week has been pretty solid. I have loved every second of it and am so grateful for all of the little miracles that Heavenly Father has put in our path. I started a Miracle Journal and I love updating it every night and reflecting on even the smallest little miracles that happened!

 

So the photo at the fabric shop. So hilarious. I couldn't believe it when I walked in. Well you know we are having one of the Less-active ladies we teach make us a couple of skirts, so we got to go pick out the fabric. It was so crazy inside of that store, as you can see. Haha it was so chaotic, and that is why I loved it so much. :) It will be exciting to see the product at the end of the week! If they are cute, AWESOME. If not, that's okay. It will be a fun thing to remember. :) 

 this is a fabric shop in the philippines. there is no organization whatsoever. no board for cutting, they just eye ball it. fabric on the floor you just walk on. this is their best seller fabric. dollar signs. the guy said they like to make sheets out of this on their bed so that people can feel like they are sleeping in money. i bought fabric for p55 a yard. a dollar and twenty cents hahaha. 

 

 

Oh my, I was so excited to tell you about the other day when we were sitting in the jeepney waiting to leave to La Paz. A lady climbs in and is wearing this familiar bright blue shirt thing. She sits down, and I get a better look. She is wearing a blue nike penny just like we wear at practice. Hahaha I just sat and laughed! She had this tiny little shirt under it and then just was wearing it as a fashionable shirt or something! I am telling you, everything gets dumped here in the Philippines!

Last monday on our way home we were riding in the tricycle and sister fuchs was on the back. I was inside the little metal box haha and for some reason the driver drove too close to the gutter. Well the gutters here are like canals. Not like the ones at home! Well, the tricey wheel went inside the canal, so we tilted sideways because the wheel wouldn't come out of course! so i was in the contraption sideways, and I went to climb out and the driver said no its okay i will get it out! So he starts reving the engine like he is going to be able to drive out of it!!! Yeah it was going nowhere. Haha everyone was driving passed laughing, and finally I just got out and he lifted it up out of the canal. Oh man. 

One of our lessons this week was hilarious. We were teaching the family in their family room, and just to the side of it, their dad was passed out drunk. On the floor. It was really strange and awkward, and then I just kept thinking to myself haha I would only experience this here! During the lesson he kept making the gargaling noises and at one point tried sitting himself up, and then he would just fall backward again. He tried a few times, but it wasn't happenin! It was funny to watch, but I feel really bad for his family. 

We got a new schedule for church for the new year! We have 8:00 church now! At home this is a big deal, but as a missionary you have to wake up at 6:30 am no matter what, so no big deal! We got to church at 8:00 and NO ONE WAS there. Okay, 2 people were there, but still. We knew this would happen! Haha after about 30 minutes people started rolling in slowly but surely. But also from ward 1. So we were confused because why were they coming too? Well for some reason they thought it would be a brilliant idea to have ward 2 start at 8:00 am and ward 1 at 8:30 am. Ward 1 has sacrament first, and we don't. But still. The timing of things here is always off so I am sure that we will have some issues with scheduling! haha. 

Our solid week contained 34 miles total of walking! YAY! Haha we walked a ton, but it is always more fun to walk a lot because then you get time to just sit and talk to your companion. We have been on the quest to flood the world with the Book of Mormon, just like everyone should be! This week I have really come to fully understand the power inside of that book. I know that just as Joseph Smith said, that it is the most correct book on earth. This week we met a lady named Sister Sebastian, and she was 85 years old. Her son was a preacher for some other church, but she let us share a message with her. We quickly found out that she could not speak any tagalog and only knew ilocano. And a tiny bit of english. Like a tiny bit. The lesson started and she just kept saying she didn't understand us. I was throwing out any and every bit of ilocano that I knew, but it just wasn't cutting it. Finally I just said get out the ilocano book of mormon, it is all she will understand. We read some of the paragraphs to her in ilocano and then told her that it is for her to read. She lit up and was so happy. She grabbed the book and held it to her chest and said "I love this book!" I don't even know if she knows it is true yet, but I know that the Book of Mormon speaks to people way better than we ever could.

Sister Sebastian

 

Next, Papa Erman Javier that we have been teaching forever. He is now on page 103 of the Book of Mormon. He loves reading it. He knows it is true. We had bishop give him a blessing the last time we were there teaching because he has bad health issues and can hardly walk, so he can't go to church. The Spirit was so strong. The room was filled. All of his kids could feel it. It was amazing. The book of mormon has changed their life and is the biggest instrument (along with the spirit), in their conversion. :) This week I met someone that I will never forget the rest of my life. Her name is Joylyn Antonio. She is 17 years old. We were up in her neck of the woods finding people to teaching because less active families live up there. We were on the road and a group of kids had been following us everywhere. We had stopped to decide what to do, and she came out of nowhere. This one kid I could tell had been teasing her cause she was trying to chase him. (I will send pics of her next week). I told her not to listen to whatever they were saying. Somehow she asked us if we were mormons. She told us that she had a Book of mormon! I asked her if she could show us and she leaded us to her house. Her mom and sister were there and she went and grabbed it. Her mom was so happy to see us and told us that SIster Joylyn was autistic. Of course that made me fall in even more love with her. She grabs her book of mormon, and we find out that the sister missionaries taught her back in 2011-2012. Taught her and her mother. They went to church every week! But for some reason, one day, the missionaries never went back to their house. At this point, Sister Joylyn couldn't get the smile off of her face. We got to know her a little bit and she showed us pictures of the missionaries and all of the things that they wrote to her. She never was baptized of course, and I asked her if she wanted to be baptized. She said yes! I don't know why the missionaries just never went back to this special daughter of our heavenly father, but i know that i was supposed to meet her. It kills me to know that there is a chance that I won't be able to be there to see her baptized. Her mother told us that in her free time when she has nothing to do, she just picks up the book of mormon and tries her best to read it! There is SO MUCH power in that book. I have a very strong testimony of it. I am not a book of mormon scholar,and I don't know it from front to back, but I know that it is true, and I know that I can feel the spirit when I read it. I have a goal of reading the standard works before I go home. So reading the bible, and the book of mormon and doctrine and covenants again, and the pearl of great price. I know that these are the words of god. We get closer to him by reading them. As we CPR every day/week, we won't fall away. We will continue on our path of enduring to the end. :) I am so grateful for God's plan for us, and his love he has for us. I am grateful that he has given us the scriptures as evidence of the gospel and his plan. My testimony is growing every day and I want you all to know that this church is so true! Even when two wards are scheduled to have church at the same time! Haha it is still true! God loves all of us. Ay-ayaten na tayo ni Apo Dios. Have an amazing week. :) 

Love, Sister Wood

xoxo. 

Elder Zach Taylor - New Area

Heeeyy..

This week.. Its been.. strange. As I said last week, I got moved to a new area. They sent out the email to all the zone leaders last Monday around 6 telling them I'd leave, and I had to be in the terminal by 10:30 that night. I'm now in an area in the more southern part of Paraguay called Obligado.. It's a weird little town. And its full of Germans. And everyones rich. And… we've been whitewashed. That's probably been the hardest part about this week. We arrived Tuesday morning and my companion and I had no idea what to do.. so we called the branch president. He told us to go to the church around 3 and someone named Hermano Foltz would show us around. So we did as the branch president said. We went there at 3 and waited around for this guy that was supposed to come. A couple cars pulled up and we thought it might be him.. but none of them were. My companion saw this Amish-looking guy walking down the street and said half as a joke ¨Hey I bet it's that guy..¨ turns out he was right. It was kind of funny, the one person that wasn't super rich in the town was the one that was actually a member. But I guess you could expect that.. haha. He showed us a few houses that the missionaries before were teaching. We went home that night not really knowing what to think. We barely could remember where we had just gone.. let's just say these past couple days have been a little disappointing, with not really knowing what to do. We did look in the area book, but the directions to the houses are no help because we don't know where anything is. I'm hoping we'll get to know the place a lot better this week and actually have people to teach.

I got a new companion too. His name is Elder Hemenway, and he's from California. He's 21 and is about to finish his mission in March.. so I could be his last companion. He's pretty funny and really nice.

Here they have these cool garbage cans that look like people holding a basket. They're pretty sweet.

We were hoping to meet a bunch of new members that we hadn't met yet on Sunday in church. We had already met the branch president and his family and another family that are super active. Oh I forgot to say, my area covers like 3 different cities, and both those families live in a city called Trinidad, which isn't even part of Obligado. My area is HUGE.. but anyway, we went to church at 8 when it starts, and we were the first ones there. A couple minutes later the branch president came with his family, and later the other family we met. And that was all. We had 13 people in the meeting, including us. The crazy thing is is that there are over 350 members in this area.. and 13 go to church. I'd say we've got some serious reactivating to do.. once we find their houses.

Our branch president is really nice, but I don't understand him hardly at all. He mumbles when he talks and his words are all mushed together. He's from Chile. Hes a nice guy though, when I can understand. 

There are a couple conveniences to being here.. one is that the supermarket is right across the street from where we live. And the apartment is bigger than my other one. Trying to find a place to email was hard though.. there was a cyber right down the street, but it closed. Know why? Because apparently the people in this town are all so rich that they all have their own computers and the people that run the cybers dont make any money. So as of the end of last year, they closed them down. We had to go to the church and use their computer today.. but writing is kind of a pain. The website keeps kicking me off.. 

Through all this I'm trying really hard to remain excited and happy about the work I'm doing. I did learn quite a bit of patience in CDE.. I guess this area is my test. We'll see how things go this week. Talk to you all later!

Elder Taylor 

Elder Almen Thorpe - January 5, 2014

Hey Family! 

 

Everything is going great! The days get hotter and hotter and the people keep coming and coming. Loving it! Transfers happened this week and only three of us stayed in the flat and we go three new Elders in the flat. One of them is companions with the zone leader under Dunica and the other two new Elders are Elder Wilson and Elder Tuna. Both of them, well all four of them are in the Samoan speaking language which is great because my companion and I get to learn some Samoan language everyday. We have six Elders in the flat and believe it or not we keep the flat spotless, cleaner than anything you have every seen, well maybe not that clean but clean enough that we keep the flat from smelling. We are all having a good time and starting our new year in the right direction which is up, many events have happened to my companion and I over the past week going into the new year.

First of all new years is a little different, how different, well I'd be more than happy to explain it to you! its different. My new year started off going to bed before midnight. Never happened to me before but it felt weird going to bed at ten at night even thought I do it everyday. But the good news is the ward families during new year do not feed you heaps and heaps of food YEAAAHHHH!!! Finally I'm one happy camper.

Anyways I had some miracles happen to me over the past week!! I don't know what it is but The Lord sure does now how to put people in our path. The couple that I told you about in the last email, their names are Danny and Bionca, well my companion and I had a feeling that we should go over and see if they were home. Danny was outside in his yard and Bionca was inside the house. We both talked to them and Danny was telling us that he needed help with a project that he was going to be doing, and that project involves us using nails and hammers. I'm glad I did a little bit of framing back home as a job and helping dad at home doing little projects because this can show Danny and Bionca that missionaries are normal people too. We told Danny we would have to get approval with our Zone leaders if we can help him out with the project and I have a feeling that it wouldn't be a problem.

As we were about to leave, Bionca just out of nowhere asked us if we wanted to come over for dinner the next day, my companion and I just looked at each other shocked because neither of us have ever had an investigator of ours invite us to dinner. We accepted the invention and the next day we went over the their place and ate dinner, it went great! We all visited after we were done eating and we taught Danny and Bionca the Plan of salvation because during dinner they were asking us question like where we came from and where would we go after life ended for us. The feeling we felt teaching them the plan of salvation was unbelievable. Afterwards we could tell that they both were. happy and understood what we just told them. We also said that getting married is the key point between them because right now they are not married and one of the laws is that we have to keep the law of chastity. Marriage is key to Heavenly Fathers plan because he blessed is with the gift of putting us together in families and that is how he wants it done the right way. Our message to both of them about marriage came across well and they have been talking about getting married a couple of times. 

We got done with dinner and asked Danny and Bionca if they could come and meet us at the church the next day for a chapel tour, all went well because the next day they showed up at the church. The Lord works in many ways and I have seen that while on my mission. We took both of them around the church showing them each of the classes and were their daughter Jade who is 13 would go to class. The final place we showed them was the sacrament room. WOW! Is all I can say because as soon as we moved into the room my companion and I could tell that we just ran into a big wall of the spirit! It was just incredible how we felt. Bionca told us as we walked in she said "There's something special about this room, I have a feeling that is just, I don't know, it is just peacful". Hearing those words come out her mouth was something we both knew at that moment she had felt the spirit because Danny felt the spirit too. 

I have so many miracles happen to me that I will never forget, The Lord does work in many ways as long as you keep that strong faith in him. I love what I, do saving souls weekly and being the mouth peace for the Lord.

Patience is the key to success in this life! We all may think he is not giving us the answers right away but then again he is. But we cannot go on l in life just thinking about ourselves and the answers we need, instead we need to start thinking, "How could I pray to help my brothers and sisters out there in the world that are lost? How can I help in his work? How can I be that mouth peace he needs me to be?" He is happy when we are not prideful and He is helpful when we don't think of ourselves. He will help but he can't help if we don't do our part and that even doing the little things in life like praying, paying tithing, or other things. We have to do our part in life, He's already done his part, now its up to us and I know that I haven't been the best at it but now I'm realizing it everyday.

We told Bionca and Danny that they have to do their part as well, we can only do so much but in order for them to know the truth for themselves they have to read the Book of Mormon. That book holds everything they need to know. If you want know how to get help, the answer is in the Book of Mormon. If you are lost, the answer is in the Book of Mormon. If  you want to change, the answer is in the Book of Mormon! Elder Holland once said "no man could write such things unless it was from God", something like that. 

At the end of the day Danny and Bionca felt happy and could not wait for our next visit, The Lord is working on them to come back into his family and kingdom. I want to share my testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, it is from God our Father and it is our key back to Him. He truly is there on our left and right shoulder everyday, he loves every single one of us and all he is asking is that we be obedient. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.    

Love you all from Elder Thorpe. 

Elder Kaden Barlow - January 2, 2014

 

Kaden with Elder Shimomato

 

recent baptisms

Christmas Eve dinner with the Mejias family

 

 

Tranquilo, tranquilo tu sabe.

Yes, this week has been really good. Sadly, not as productive as I would have liked. The work here is really slow actually during Christmas time. You would think it would be a lot better but because everyone and their dog is out drinking and doing bad things it’s kinda tough. But I have really enjoyed being able to work every day. I feel like a missionary so much more.

 

Lets see... We had a zone Christmas present exchange and I got a new tie! How original right? Also we went to a hospital here and sang carols to all the sick people. Remind me never to go to a hospital here for anything medical.... wow it was just... I don't even know.. I’m grateful for the health care in the states that’s for sure.

We went to a baptism Friday night of some of Elder Shimamoto's old investigators that moved to the sisters area and he got to baptize them so that was really cool. It’s always great to see people entering into the waters of baptism.  I’m just really hoping to do it in my own area now :)

Christmas Eve was insane... everyone drinking and going crazy. Apparently it’s even worse over the 31st... so I’m a little scared to see the Dominicans even crazier haha. At 5 o’clock in the morning some great lovely son or daughter of God threw a bottle of beer through the bars around our house and it hit our house/door and shattered everywhere. We both bolted out of bed and he asks me, “Is that our house?” and I’m like yep. And we both ran to the front to see what the heck was going on... kinda crazy.

 

Christmas was good because yeah we got to Skype and talk. It was really cool to see you guys and talk for real. It’s a great blessing that even though I’m like 4000 miles away we can talk and see each other like we were together. I admit I was definitely a little trunky afterwards but I’m almost back to normal. :)

Umm... As for investigators we are working with this girl named Yamile. We contacted her and when we asked if she wanted to go to church she was like umm... well... I don't know but then her Mom was like “YAMILE WILL YOU ACCOMPANY THESE NICE YOUNG MEN TO CHURCH OR NOT!”  Anyway now we are teaching them and I’m pretty excited. She came to church and really liked it and we are going to give her a Book of Mormon this week! :)

Also we were walking in the street this week and we heard someone call us and this lady came up to us introduced herself and said, “I’m less active but I’m ready to return to the church. Will you help me?” haha of course... she was at church on Sunday. The combined lesson actually happened to be on going after the lost sheep so really the Lord is working on the less actives and the members here right now. Besides the lady I just talked about we had one or two other less active families there and for the first time we had 6 investigators!!! Whoo! Now maybe our hard work is going to be paying off :)

 

Oh and as to Spanky´s appearance this week, [the lizard that lives with them] I was getting a sack from under the sink and he was on it. He jumped on to me and ran down my leg and that was pretty funny. I didn´t scream or anything... no really I didn´t. I did jump a little though.

 

Elder Kaden Barlow

Sister Courtnee Wood - Seeing The Stars In Our Lives

Christmas Day in the Philippines with the Javier Family

 

Sista's

Sister Fuch's and Sister Wood

Christmas Day!!

Cow's usually pull these

 

Ouch!!!

 

 

I will just start out by saying that the elders told me the other day that an old lady that lives across from the basketball asked them a question. They were talking about how we all play basketball in the morning there and she noticed that there were girls there too. She asked them, "Is that tall one a tomboy?" Tomboy here means lesbian. She went on to say because only girls who are good at basketball are tomboys. So that was a big diss/compliment at the same time haha. Anyways, mornings are my favorite. Kind of a little getaway. We balled this morning too, and other Filipinos joined in too! My companion wasn't too happy that I made her wake up at 5:45 am on a P-Day, but I didn't feel too bad haha. Oh and in case you were wondering. Only girls can guard girls. So we guard each other every time haha.  

I feel like we have kind of hit a bump in the road with our area and the work. We have people coming to church, and people we teach, but no one really really committed to a certain date that they are working towards. The Javier Family is still ready, and they came to church, but we are waiting on her husband to be ready. Which I am happy that she wants to wait. They came to church together yesterday, and I hope they continue to have good experiences. The whole family is reading the Book Of Mormon and it makes me so happy. There truly is power in the Book of Mormon. It changes people's lives. No wonder why they are wanting us to flood the earth with the Book of Mormon. Haha so this week in La Paz we sat down to teach some ladies, there ends up being like 30-40 people that gather in to listen to our message. It went really well, but before we started, just for kicks and giggles, I told Sister Fuchs we were going to sing for them hahaha. Don't ask why I did this, because neither of us like singing. I just thought it would be hilarious. Because Filipinos like music. Haha we sang families can be together forever. Surprisingly it turned out pretty decent, and everyone was silent, so you could feel the Spirit. So just to everyone out there, even when you have a bad voice, the spirit can be felt through singing! haha. I am so grateful for our Heavenly Father because now when we teach, or when I specifically testify and bear my testimony, I can feel the Spirit. Even though it is in a different language. When I first got here it was really hard for me because when I bore my repetitious simple testimony in tagalog, i just didn't feel the same as when I did it in english. But it wasn't fair, because the people didn't understand it in english! As little time has gone by, I can feel the spirit as I bear testimony of our savior, and I know they can too. 

Christmas was absolutely fabulous here. Definitely the most different things in my whole life. But the simplicity of it was amazing. On Christmas Eve we visited all of the less active families. Of course for a bit I got distracted with some kids playing basketball, so I asked if we could join them. So yes, we played a game for about 20 minutes in our skirts haha. By far the most fun thing we did that day. All of the young little girls were sitting on the side watching, because here, girls don't play sports haha. Haha the other team didn't score a point. They were younger boys so literally half my size. No advantage there or anything haha! The next day when we walked passed the same court, there were girls out shooting the basketball. I mean I don't know if it was cause they saw us playing, but I hope they know girls can do anything boys can. :) Christmas was the best because it was a time where we got to know the people so much better and be one of them! We shared the same message with everyone we visited and I want to share a bit with you too! Stars, as I have talked about a lot, have become something big for sister fuchs and I! We love them so much. So we wanted to talk to the people about how the star was the sign of christ's birth. We talked about that and then told them about when we go out to La Paz, there are no lights out there. Wala ilau. So when you look up at the sky there are so many stars! So bright! Maraming maliwanag bituin! These represent all of the many blessings we have in our lives because of our savior jesus christ. As we walk closer and closer to centro, wala sa sky!! Why? Because there are so many other lights! Or, worldly lights. This could be things that are distracting us from being able to see the many things we have been given, but are focusing on the things that don't matter. But as we step outside of those lights, 'into the bukid,' we see all of the many stars and blessings that we have because of our loving father in heaven and savior jesus christ. I know that this is true. As I have been a missionary, I see all of the things that distracted me from the true blessings of the gospel. So many things that occupied my time that weren't important. I know that if we focus on things that truly matter, those stars will always be in our lives, even when the storms roll in. I am grateful to be a missionary. This work is hard. It was never meant to be easy, but I am thankful for who I am becoming. Thank you for all of your continued love and support!

Love, 

Sister Courtnee Wood

xoxox

 

Sister Wood's Zone

Missionaries in the Laoag Philippines Mission

Flower wreath - Sister Wood getting crafty

F. Family - Sister Wood gave all the boys ties for Christmas

Elder Zach Taylor - December 30, 2013

Elder Taylor's first baptism

Elder Taylor

 

Hello!

So I´ll start with the most exciting news this week.. we had our first baptism!! I´m pretty dang excited. This week was awesome preparing for that day.. 

We´ve been teaching Sally, the one who got baptized, for about a month now. It was kind of weird how fast it went by, and that she had basically no doubts or problems with anything. On Monday night of last week, our district leader came to have the interview. There was just one thing that she had to resolve this week to be fully repented and ready for baptism. Her husband is a member that was less active when we found him, and he´s helped in everything. He actually did most of the teaching. We´d come to a visit and Sally would already know about it. I´d love to find more people like that. 

The actual baptism was great. As I watched her get baptized, I could feel the spirit and all my worries that I have in the mission seemed to disappear. I was seeing the fruits of my labors. It´s a pretty amazing experience to see someone you taught get baptized. It´s something I hope we can do again really soon.

I got to call my family this week, and that was super fun. Pretty weird to see my family again, but nice to talk to them. And it didn´t make me too homesick, either. And we had a super good dinner Christmas eve with a lady from Brazil. I¨ve got to say, those Brazilians have some pretty dang good food.

On Thursday I saw the biggest spider I´ve seen while being here... about as long as a pencil.. probably about an inch shorter. It was scary too. We were helping a family move a mattress into  their house, and when we picked it up, there was this huge spider just sitting on the other side. Of course one of the Paraguayan boys trapped it in his shoe, smacked it a few times with it, and then picked it up and threw it away. So if anyone wants a good spider killer, you should look here. 

One of my zone leaders that´s lived next to me my whole time here went to his house this weekend.. it´s pretty weird not having him here, but good because I don´t have to hear about his feelings about going home anymore ;)

I´d say this week has been pretty successful. I also heard that I´m getting transferred to a city close to Encarnacion this week, and my new companion´s a little bit weird. Not sure how I feel about it, but looks like I´m going whether I want to or not. There´s life in the mission for ya haha. 

Anyway.. hope you all have a good week and one less crazy than mine´s going to be. Talk to you later!

Elder Taylor

Elder Zach Taylor - December 23, 2013

Elder Taylor

 

It´s Christmas Adam!! pahaha..ha.haha.. ok I had to make that joke at least one more time.
But anyway..... this week has been reeeeaal fun. This week we´ve been doing a bunch of stuff that isn´t the normal stuff. Like.. I went on splits with one of my zone leaders, Elder Balmaceda, on Wednesday. It was pretty good.. although he´s finishing up his mission on the 30th of this month, and I could tell he wasn´t completely focused. But it was fun. He´s one of the Elders I look up to here and can enjoy my time with. That night, we went to the church to practice a song with some of the men in the ward that we sang Thursday night in the ward Christmas party. I played the piano. It was kind of funny because the one who was directing, Hno  Gomez, is pretty decent with music stuff and wanted everyone to sing a two part harmony, but no one really knows how to do it.. it turned out alright though, so that´s the good part.

Thursday like I said was the ward dinner. It was pretty fun! There were quite a few people there.. I´d say over 120. We ate some delicious rice and noodles and some other stuff and afterwards had Ice cream. I love being with the members of the ward here.. it wasn´t until that night that I really realized how much I love the people here.

On Friday, we had a Christmas devotional from President LaPierre with our zone and two others. President and his wife gave everyone a bag with some Christmas gifts in it: a Book of Mormon in our native language, a study journal, a cd with some songs from the Tabernacle Choir, a red pencil, and a picture thing to help us explain better the plan of salvation. Although thanks to Aunt Jill, I already have something way cooler. ;) It was an awesome devotional. President talked a lot about Christ and challenged us to read the Book of Mormon he  gave us looking only for things about Christ and his eternal mission. I felt the spirit pretty strongly when he spoke and I´ve already started reading. Our president is a very inspired man, and I can feel it every time he speaks to us.
On Saturday, we were with Jorge the whole day helping him prepare for his wedding that night! HIm and Sally got married that day finally and it was pretty awesome to be there. I´m excited for them! The only bad part about that day was that we spent all day setting up outside, and then it poured rain just about an hour before it started.. so we had to do it in the bishops house instead. But it was still pretty great.

Yesterday one of the youth in the ward accompanied us all afternoon.

He´s a pretty cool kid, and also the son of our stake president. I enjoyed myself that day.

So that´s pretty much my week for ya.. I´m excited for this week, especially because I get to talk with my family! Well, have a nice day everyone. Chao!

Elder Taylor