Always Changing...Week 12

¿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" in a suit.

This past week I had the oppurtunity to be with Elder Dotson for 4 days. Our companions had to go to Saltillo for a meeting, and we were left on our own. Two news barely halfway through their training, preaching the gospel. ¿Poderoso, no?

This really helped us grow in our communicating with the people of Mexico. At times we didn't understand, but we're both alive and well. It was dificult to work in two different areas, but we did our best and good came out of that hard work!

So it's been six weeks, so I am going through a change. I am changing companions, but not areas. I will stay in Acuña, Rama Centro, but my companion in from California, so it will be different. We have some progressing investigators that we took to the church last night to watch the Cara a Cara (face to face). They said they really enjoyed it! Their names are Pablo, Karla, and Alejondra. Pablo and Karla are bf/gf, but we invited Karla to be baptized cause she appears to be the central part of the family. She accepted, but Pablo said he attends a different church, but is not active. He said that they worship images...? I'm not sure what that means, but he is kind of just a "whatever" guy.

I also had the oppurtunity to go on a split with another elder. His name is Elder Garcia. He has about 14 months in the mission and is an awesome missionary! I told him about my stress with our "standards of success" as a misson. Based on statistics, we need to find 16 new investigators per week to get 2 baptisms per month. I told him my stress about not being able to find 16 this past week in my area because I was over 2 areas, but he gave me some good advice: "What is the commandment?" Yes, we need to find investigators, but the commandment is to baptize people.

This is my challenge for you all this week. Yes, there seems to be a lot of "rules" that we need to follow in our everyday lives, but what have we truly been commanded to do. Entonces, when you are reading the scriptures, or reading conference talks, or doing things your boss, parents, siblings, or God needs you to do, think what can help you grow, and don't stress :)

That's all I have for this week, but I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving!

¡Nos Vemos!

Elder Taylor

I found random cows roaming around. Sadly, I can't have pets.