Elder Simon Taylor's Best Two Years

Hi everyone! To be honest, I'm feeling a little emotional writing this email right now. I have some things to say, and then a message I would like to share with you all. First: What a shock! My companion does not speak ANY english, so this is really gonna be a growing experience for me. He is very quiet, but a spiritual giant. He is from Peru! His name is Elder Adrianzen. Whenever we are out in public, I feel like extra big because he is a little guy. Someone asked me if I was his bodyguard, and I said no. Then I told him that I was his companion. The person asked me what a companion is and why I, a white guy, is with a latino. I told him that we were missionaries, then he just walked away. So... yeah.  Second: We made a goal to baptize 5 people this change. I know that we can do it. This past week we found some very promising investigators. A family, and a young girl of 16 years old. The family is a mom, two daugters above the age of 12, and three young children under the ...

¿Como les va? I hope you're all doing well! THANKSGIVING IS HERE! And guess what? A lot of the people here celebrate it! So that'll be fun.  Anyways, this week was a great week! We had our first baptism!!! His name is Cesar Alexis Cisneros Cruz. He is really good with playing cards and magic tricks. He is probably one of the coolest kids I've met. It's one thing to do baptisms for the dead, but to actually baptize someone was a great experience! His parents are not members of the church, and neither is his younger brother. However, his mom and his brother came to sacrament meeting to see him receive the Holy Ghost and they both stayed for all of the classes after and said they had a great time! I know Cesar will be a great influence to his family when he sets an example of how a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lives. He also wanted to get a suit cause he said he wanted to look "swaggy" like we do. So I guess I look "swaggy...

This week was a crazy one! This  coming Saturday  I will be companions with Elder Donson. We are both in training, but our comps have to go to Saltillo for a meeting. So we are together for a couple of days. Send prayers! But I know it will be a blast!  Also coming up  this Saturday  will be my first baptism with Cesar. He is a magician. I'll have to get a video of him doing a card trick sometime. He is really good! His family is really cool as well! We ate dinner with them last night and they asked us about why we were there, and then all of the sudden we were talking about temples and eternal families! It was wonderful! It has been really clowdy and it is getting a lot colder, so hopefully not too much rain will come, but it rained today and I got soaked after playing volleyball, but it was fun!  We have 2 new investigators. A boyfriend/girlfriend couple. They came to church with us after we had just barely met them and invited them to church!...

¡Feliz Halloweeno! Wow what a crazy week!  This week was zone conference and we had a blast! We had wonderful interviews with President Cahoon and had a blast playing volleyball! It was good to meet and be reacquainted with those people in my zone.  We have two baptisms planned. One for a woman named Yadami, and for a young man named Cesar. Both have wonderful backrounds and families! Yadami is a single mom of two children, and Cesar is the oldest in his family of 2 kids and married parents. This past  sunday  was fast suday and Cesar came with us. He said to me, "I'll go up if you go up". So we both went up and he bore a very powerful testimony.  We also had an experience to meet with a guy that was chopping wood. He and his wife are both deaf, and can't speak Spanish very well. What happened next was incredible. He started making motions with his hands and I started to understand him! The gift of tongues (or hands) is real. I took seminary with stu...

¡Hola, todos amigos (y amigas)! This week has been crazy difficult. We had to go on a little "trip" to Zaragosa and meet some of the other Elders in our zone. Elder Damuni and Elder Gordon. Elder Damuni is a stud polynesian that is probably the nicest guy you'll ever meet, but after his mission, he is going to play football at Utah State! Elder Gordon is my homie from Mapleton, Utah! We talked forever about the good things back home, and we're excited for what awaits us! But right now is the work. Speaking of the work, we weren't able to find new investigators right away because we were in Zaragosa. So when we got back we had to work really hard. He had a whole day of at least (cause I lost count) 81 doors slammed in our faces. And that's okay! Yes, this is hard. BUT WORTH IT! Because the worth of every soul is great in the sight of God. The next day (Friday) we we're able to find 2 investigators. A single father with 2 daughters. He felt like the...