Congratulations Elder Seguine-Ben's cousin reports to MTC

My cousin Elder Seguine is leaving on his mission to Kiribati. He`s an awesome guy, and will work so hard and be so successful. I wish him the best on his awesome adventure.
Ben

I thought in honor of Elder Dallin Seguine and Elder Ben Taylor, I would include some pictures from their early years together as cousins. They are only about 6 months apart in age and spent lots of time together until the Seguines moved to the east coast. It is only fitting that they should be serving missions at the same time.

Ben pushing Dallin

Dallin helping Ben celebrate his birthday

The Taylor cousin's--Dallin is on the left in the green shirt and Ben is on the right in the blue shirt. I am not sure what Justin (red tank top) and Taylor (Dallin's sister in the purple pants) are doing, but they sure make me laugh.

Dallin (in back) and from L-R: Justin, Reid Taylor (oldest Taylor cousin, who served a mission to Denver North Mission) and Ben in the summer of 2012

Ben, Justin, Dallin & Reid at the beach this summer

Ben leaving on 11/7/13 for his mission

Dallin leaving on 12/18/13 for his mission

Ben's First P-Day in Uruguay!

Here is the latest letter from Ben. He also sent several pictures I will put at the end of the letter. Hope all of you have a Merry Christmas!

So, today is my first P-Day. It is so exciting to be here! 

Well, so we live in a house in the ward boundaries of the Libia ward, in the Maroñas Stake. We have a fairly good size ward, about 130 people attend. 

My companion Elder Gardner (St. George UT) is a very hard worker. When he first got here the ward had about 90 people in attendance and since then has increased dramatically. 

Ben and his companion Elder Gardner

We try to work smart--we visit members to get references, set up appointments and FHE`s with less actives and get them to come to church, and try to contact our investigators close to baptism at least once every two days. 

The missionary lunch coordinator is very helpful (we have lunches here, not dinners as the main meal). We have had a great lunch every day with leftovers enough for a small dinner. 

We are in a house with the missionaries from the town over and live about a block from the stake center. I am loving the mission! We have one of the largest areas in the mission, because it was merged at one point from two areas, so we do a lot of walking.

There are so many dogs here.  Seriously, they are everywhere. Maybe that means he won't be missing Spike quite as much since he will get to have lots of interaction with other dogs. I know that Spike does miss Ben.

Well it's Christmas down here, even without the snow. We sent a picture to Ben this last week that had a picture of William with the giant snowman named Big Will he made (with the help of Dad) when Indiana got blessed with lots of snow. No chance of snow where he is now, but that seems to be fine.

William with Big Will

I want everyone to know how thankful I am for my Savior and the life that He lived. The sacrifice He made, so I can be saved from my faults. 

Don`t forget the true purpose of Christmas, to remember our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

I wish everyone back home Happy Holidays! Love you all!

Feliz Navidad!

Élder Taylor

P.S. 
Cant wait to Skype with you guys!  We will get to Skype with Ben on Christmas Day. I think we have all of the accounts set up and things will hopefully go smoothly. Even if we don't get a clear picture, it will just be nice to hear his voice and be able to ask him questions and just have fun talking to him.

This was taken the day before Ben left the CCM in Argentina

Watch Out Uruguay--Here Come's Elder Taylor

EXCITING NEWS!!! Ben is now in Uruguay and here is his first letter to us. Now he can get to the business of spreading the joy of the gospel to all those in Uruguay!


Hola Familia,

I just made it to Uruguay yesterday. Yesterday was nice, we arived in Uruguay at about 10 am local time. We went to the mission home and had some orientation. 

I met my companion. His name is Elder Gardner; He is an inch or two taller than me, skinny, white, blue eyes, blonde hair. He has been out for 14 months. I cannot believe that Ben got put with someone taller than him--they will probably stand out in a crowd.

I only have a few minutes. In order to skype with me on Christmas, I need you to send me an account with password for me to log onto here, and you need to tell me the account I should contact you at. Make sure you test it at home so you know it works. We will skype at around 1PM local (Uruguay) time. Make sure the account works and you send me the right password. Ben is putting a lot of faith in us. You know what we will be working on this weekend--anyone want to test Skype with us?? I am excited that we will get to see him as well as talk to him. I hope the connection is good.

Uruguay is beautiful. The people so far have been nice. Our house (not apartment) is nice, especially for Uruguay. I will email about this next Monday and that will be my P-day from now on. Now we will be on the same PDay schedule as other missionaries. That will be nice.

So here they call all Greenies, "Oros". It means Gold or Golden in Spanish. So I am Elder Gardner's Oro. 

Well, gotta go. 

Chau,

Elder Taylor

P.S. don`t forget to send me the Skype info before I email on Monday. I think this reminder is payback for the 10 times I have reminded him to let me know about his travel plans and Christmas call or he is worried about our memory in our 'old age' now that we have a son old enough to serve a mission :)

p.s. I love you guys!!!!!!!

Going to Uruguay!

We just got this email from Ben today. He was able to let us know about his travel plans. Looks like he will be in Uruguay on December 17th.

Hey Family,

So we just got the travel info. I leave the CCM at 4 in the morning to catch my flight at 6:50. 

I´m so excited to get to Uruguay.They say the flight is only half an hour. 

Chances are after my interveiw with Pres. Newsome I´ll probably get my first companion!!!

¡Nos Vemos!

Elder Taylor

MTC Update-Week 5 Letter

Can you believe that it has been 5 weeks? Here is Ben's weekly email to the family. I can hardly wait to read his email on Thursday mornings and love hearing from him. His time at the CCM is winding down and it sounds like he is ready to get to work in Uruguay. Enjoy!

¡Hola Familia!

It's so great to hear from you guys. So, this week was rather pretty fun. 

I'll start with proselyting. My companion Elder Johnson and I received a new area for proselyting this week. The houses aren't nearly as huge in this area. I was actually sort of grateful. We had the opportunity to talk to far more at their doors instead of through an intercom. 

One strange thing about proselyting this week is my companion and I tried to go in with an attitude of talking to as many people as possible. When you think of the importance of what you're saying, you can't wait to share it with everyone. We didn't have as many lessons or place as many materials, but I would like to think we planted a lot of seeds and I personally ended the day with a far better feeling of I really gave it my all.

After proselyting I couldn't help but think about getting to my first area, with my first companion, my first investigators.... I love the people in my small 12sq block area, but it´s a little difficult to feel like I am contributing much to the work there, since I just hand over my referrals to the missionaries that actually are assigned to serve there. 

I can't wait to get in my area and just share the message that me and my companion have; to be the one responsible for keeping up with our investigators, teaching prepared lessons, and seeing the full process of someone completely changing their life. The fact that the Lord lets me be a part of this grand work is something that I´m thankful for everyday. 

I'm thankful for my time in the Argentina CCM, but 6 weeks is a long time to go to the same class and sit for 12 hours everyday, ¡¡¡¡I just can't wait to be in Uruguay!!!!

When I'm on the computer every night (for the Technology Assisted Language Learning, or TALL; It´s essentially like a churchy Rosetta Stone), I put in the weather for Plainfield IN on the desktop widget and see snow, sleet, ice, rain, cold... I´m not gonna lie, I miss it. I have a hard time with this sentence--any of us in the states who have had the pleasure of experiencing this early 'Arctic Draft' that has been causing all sorts of troubles and frigid weather, would have to wonder how you would actually miss it. I guess this is his way of letting us know he misses us :)

It's just always the same here. It rains like once a week then the rest of the week is 75-83 all day. Again, I am so jealous. I wouldn't mind this kind of weather on a regular basis. So... the odds of a white Christmas, nada. I am excited for Christmas down here because the people spend a lot of money on fireworks, and hopeful we´ll get invited to a Uruguayan BBQ that day.

I still don´t know travel plans yet, but I´ll let you know if they let me email home again before I leave. Poor Ben, we have been asking about when he will arrive in Uruguay (probably a lot), so he was nicely trying to let us know that he doesn't know anything yet. I will have to stop reminding him to give us his travel plans. It sounds like he won't forget to mention it in his next letter home. 

I don´t have any new pictures since we can only take them every other Sunday, so here´s some old ones I don´t think I shared.

The Argentina CCM, or to us, the Argentina MTC, where Ben has spent the last 5 weeks

p.s. I love you, Everything is fantastic. 

¡Nos Vemos, Les Amo!

Elder Taylor

MTC Update- Week 4 Letter

Here is the letter from Ben this week.

Great to hear from all of you guys!

The CCM is still chugging along. One thing I´ve been worried about this last week has been topping my last email. So, we ended up getting some kind of pasta dish on thanksgiving; "Not my usual, But nice." We had asked Ben if they would feed him anything like he might have on Thanksgiving—I guess not.

Funny story, I saw Sister Megan Passey on this devotional with Elder L. Tom Perry we watched from the Provo MTC. The camera zoomed in on her for about 3 seconds while the congregation was singing. I got an email from Megan Passey last week and she told me this “Don't believe him if he says that he saw me singing on a taped Provo MTC devotional. You know me, I don't sing :) Much less look happy all the time :) “ I bet it was neat seeing someone you know show up on the screen when you weren’t expecting it.

Congratulations to Dallin, one step closer to leaving for Kiribati. Dallin is Ben’s cousin and received his mission call to the Marshall Islands. He went home from BYU over the Thanksgiving break and did his endowments at the Manhattan temple in preparation for serving his mission. He reports to the Provo MTC on Dec 18^th.

So, not much happens at the CCM on the weekly basis. We had another group of Latinos leave this Tuesday. This next group coming in will actually be going to the same mission as me. It´s getting more and more real. I have a picture of my district with my Teacher Hno. Cristeche. He is going to miss the last two weeks of our stay at the CCM because he´s getting married. He was a great teacher and I've learned so much. The picture of his district will be below this letter.

It´s so weird that were starting to finish up at the CCM and in less than two weeks I´ll be in Uruguay, missing my family at Christmas time. We have sent Ben a couple of care packages—we will be missing him at Christmas time as well.

We are going out proselyting again this weekend in a new area, wish me luck!

I love you guys so much. It was absolutely fantastic seeing pictures of you. I love the one of Will. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We took some pictures on Thanksgiving. One of the pictures was a plate of our Thanksgiving meal with desserts that we made in honor of Ben (Justin ended up eating it the next day—what a great sacrifice on his part). The other picture we sent was of William eating the drumstick like a barbarian.

Ben's Thanksgiving plates

William eating his drumstick YUM!!

Oh almost forgot; my district organized a Turkey Bowl on Thanksgiving, and we won against the other American Districts. I even played for a play (I think that´s what it's called). The fact that Ben even attempted to play football makes me smile. He was not the athletic type and got his coordination from me. His junior year of high school, Ben had to take gym class since they had stopped offering it in the summer and it was a required course. He was the only upperclassman in with Freshmen and of course he stands out because of how tall he is. When teams were getting picked for basketball, they grabbed him up first, not realizing that Ben does not do sports. As the year went on, poor Ben ended up being one of the last ones picked on a team because of his lack of skill in the various games.  I am happy that he played with his district and even enjoyed it. The Latino districts eventually kicked us off the field so they could play soccer.

Love you all so much, I wish you all the best. I´ll try to have some better stories for the next email, haha.

Nos Vemos, Les Extraño, Les Amo...

This came as a separate email—it was a PS

Also, I love all of you soooooo much.

I happened to  be awake when Ben started sending his string of emails and pictures, so I quickly sent him an email that  just said “Hi Ben—I love you!” I got this back in response:

Love you too so much! I´ve got to get off in 4 min.

Let everyone know that they mean the world to me.

Don’t forget Shai is getting baptized in a few days. Shai is one of Ben’s friends from school and she had been investigating the church on her own for a while before sharing the wonderful news with Ben and Jordan right before Ben left on his mission. I am so happy to hear that she is getting baptized. I imagine that this news has made Ben very happy.  Give her and Jordan a huge hug for me. If there are other friends at the baptism or at church ask Jordan if you should hug them for me. If she answers yes, give them a large hug and say it´s from Elder Taylor. I guess you guys are being warned that I will be handing out hugs from Ben when I see you.

Me with my District at the CCM

Me with Presidente and Hna. Openshaw, my CCM Mission President and his wife. They are great people. Presidente is a scriptorian and can tell you any citation with just reading the first 5 words of any verse. Hna. Openshaw is a sweet lady and bears one of the strongest testimonies on Joseph Smith I´ve ever heard. So glad to have them.

Ben in front of his new favorite temple in Argentina

MTC Update-Week 3 Letter

Here is the letter that was waiting on me this morning, Thanksgiving Day. Ben has a request at the bottom of this letter. I hope you enjoy what he has shared this time. 

It is Thanksgiving at the CCM. Spanish for MTC--it is Centro de Capacitacion Misional.  At least for the 35 North Americans that are here, haha. 

This last Saturday my district got to go proselyting for the first time. It was horrifying. We were in a super rich part of Buenos Aires (This was rich even by American standards). The houses were beautiful, the dogs were beautiful, the cars were beautiful, and the people were not receptive. 

Every house in Argentina has a giant fence around their 40 sq. ft. yard. So for every house we would ring this intercom thing, wait 20 seconds for them to answer, say a few words, and wait for them to say in a muffled, staticy voice "No, no, no... Soy Católico." (That means that they are Catholic) Then you go on your way to the next mansion. 

The day wasn´t a complete loss. We talked to two people about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. One was simply curious and gave us his phone # and address to have other missionaries come back.

Another lady was far more receptive, she had just been kicked out of her home and was walking down the street crying. (in English, thankfully). She came up to us and asked if we could give her directions. I thought she was simply lost in Buenos Aries, but she meant direction in her life. We prayed with her and she eventually poured out her whole life story to us. Her main question was "Does God hear my prayers" we were able to talk with her for about 25 min about God´s love for us, his plan, and the empathetic nature of Jesus (how he understands everything we go through in life. She gave us a phone number and we gave her the address to mormon.org and told her to order a Book of Mormon in her own language (some eastern European language), and also gave her a Spanish copy of the Book of Mormon. She was the only real discussion with a person face to face after 4 and a half hours of ringing intercoms. She was an answer to my and my companion´s prayers (she spoke english, she wanted to learn about the gospel, and I know she can realy benefit from having Christ in her life. So, if you have the chance, pray for this sister down in Argentina struggling with her family.

So I thought it might be nice to think of all the things I´m thankful for today.

I´m thankful for Christ´s atonement, His willingness to suffer every affliction and sin on my behalf.

I´m thankful for my family; how much they love me, support me, and that we can be an eternal family.

I´m thankful for my Mom; she taught me to be the person I am, she showed me love, and will always be my best friend.

I´m thankful for my Dad; He taught me to honor my priesthood, my callings, and my Mother.

I´m thankful for my Grandparents; They are what I want to be like when I'm a grandparent. I know they will always love me no matter what.

I´m thankful for my Gram; she practically raised me, and I hope my wife is half as sweet, loving and perfect as my Gram.

I´m thankful for my brothers and sister;Justin for his comedy, Lily for her pure kindness, and William for his cuteness.

I´m thankful for my friends over this last year; you gave me a place where I felt loved and included. I will never forget those nights; watching Firefly and Serenity (for the 7th time over), belting out Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog and Les Mis (*aggressively humming all 9 parts of ´Do You Hear the People Sing´*), going to the Art Museum, taking me to my first Gen Con, teaching me to D&D (more or less) I think he means Dungeons & Dragons, blogging, band, drumline, getting icee´s when it´s 20° outside. So many great memories.

 I´m thankful for my extended family; getting to see them one last time this summer was such a blessing.

I´m thankful for some of my friends making the choice to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives. Just no matter what you choose, your desire to test it out in your life has really impacted me.

I´m thankful for the opportunity to serve the people of Uruguay and I hope to share the happy news of Christ´s Atonement

If you would like, send me what you´re thankful for. I would love to hear from you. Don´t forget to look for the hand of God in your life.  

You can email Ben at benjamint@myldsmail.net  

His P-Day is Thursday and his letter arrives by 5:30 am, so if you want him to read your email, send it by Wednesday night. After he leaves the MTC in a few weeks, his P-Day may change. I will keep you updated.

¡Nos Vemos! ¡Los Queremos Mucho!  I think this means "See you later! I love you lots!" but I do not speak Spanish, so it may not be exactly right.

Elder Taylor

Elder Ben Taylor standing by the sign for the Argentina MTC or CCM as he refers to it in his letters

MTC Update-Week 2 Letter

Just got this letter from Ben this morning and we got some pictures as well. It was so exciting! My extra comments are in BLUE

Buen Dia

I got my email time changed today. It´s so fantastic to hear from everyone throughout the week. I am sorry to hear about the adoption though, the Hammonds are in my prayers. 

I´m trying to attach some pictures, its just very difficult and it takes a long time for each picture. We requested some pictures, but since it took so long to upload them, he did not have as much time to write--this letter is still full of a lot of information.

So... Elder Holland. (Ben mentioned in his email last week that Elder Holland was coming to the area for some conferences and was going to be at the MTC) It was such a privilege to hear from him. He spoke about the sacred nature of a missionary. Eventually I will send you a copy of the notes I took.

I´m sorry this response is so short, but there were many technical difficulties. Lets just say power in Argentina is great only 90% of the time.

So what is different about Argentina:

• The food is fantastic!
• People drive like Mario Cart
• The temperature is almost perfect (as of now) They are at the end of spring and the beginning of summer, so not cold weather for Ben for a while
• Everyone speaks Spanish except for my district
• All the cars are round and tiny.
• There is an invisible lane for motorcycle riders (in between the cars driving on the highway)
• The power surges all the time, so all the computers are backed up on batteries
• The birds are huge (even the plain small ones are twice as big as the ones back home)
• The birds are LOUD!!! (one makes the sound of a person being killed.) It has decided to nest right outside of my window
• The toilet flushes backwards--This was one of Lily's questions
• We need a bidet
• There are dogs everywhere, We always end up with like 3 in the back yard of the CCM every morning and the staff sends out the Elders to go coral them out of the fence.
• Every other car is a Fiat

So the Latino elders in our room have already left on their missions. We still have 4 weeks and will have at least 2 more sets of missionaries in our room.

I am doing fine, learning the language faster than I was expecting. Talking to the Latinos at night and meals has helped so much.

The Buenos Aries Temple is beautiful, its like a Chicago temple (6 spire style) with two additional buildings built off to the side. Its so nice being across the street from the temple.

Tell Will I am so proud of him for dressing like a missionary. The primary program as last Sunday, so William put on his suit jacket & tie. He thought he looked like a prophet and we told him he looked like a missionary.

I appreciate all your prayers and kind notes and thoughts throughout the week. Just know that I love all of you guys.

"God be with you..."

Elder Taylor

Ben at the temple in Argentina

Ben with his companion, Elder Johnson, from South Carolina. Elder Johnson is going to the Paraguay Asuncion Mission

We asked for a picture of his name tag--I guess it is official now that he wears a name tage. He is Elder Taylor!

Letter From MTC-Week 1 Update

We got this letter from Ben on Thursday morning, his P-Day. It was so great to get a real letter from him with real information. This is his first week completed at the MTC.  Enjoy!

¡Hola!

So today is my first p-day. I have been sooooooo busy this last week, I honestly never knew there were so many hours in a day.

I love my Companion Elder Johnson (Paraguay Asunción mission). He is a strong spirit and it´s great to see him learning Spanish so quickly. I was not paired up with another elder who knew Spanish like the guy on the phone said. But that’s ok, it´s really fun to help him learn the language.

The American (English) Districts are split up into separate rooms from the Latinos (Spanish speaking) Districts. So I end up learning the most Spanish in the evenings while I talk with the Latinos. I have one roommate from Peru, Elder "G"; and one from Brazil. a little town outside of Sau Paulo. The one from Brazil is learning Spanish too but it will only take him two weeks. 

I have 3 different teachers. Hermano Mirosnikov (born and raised in Argentina, son of Russian parents), Hermano Pederson (born and raised in Argentina, son of Danish Parents), and Hermano Christeche (born and raised in Argentina, Italian in descent). All of them have been really helpful with the language. Half of our district (5) is going to Uruguay, and half (6) are going to Paraguay Asunción.

My main goal for this last week was to learn all of the gospel terms I would need to effectively teach, since I already know how to conjugate in the present tense. Another goal was to only think in Spanish. That has been quite difficult, since no one else in my district knows how to speak any Spanish, other than how to introduce themselves and ask someone to be baptized.

When I go a long period of time were I don´t speak English, I have a really hard time forming basic thoughts in English. Since I can only speak in basic, non-compounded sentences in Spanish, I have been simplifying my thoughts to make them easier to translate. If someone asks me a question in English and it requires more than one sentence, I get completely tongue-tied. 

¡The Latinos are amazing! They are all so nice and helpful when I am speaking to them. They always say to me in English that "You're so good at Espanish, Elder."

We have been teaching a fake investigator, His name is Alejandro. He´s 21, his family is going through a divorce, didn´t have a background in religion, and he "parties hard." We have been teaching him completely in Spanish. It´s so exciting to share our knowledge with him, even if he is a fake investigator.

I´m sorry I´m not sending any pictures, we are only allowed to take pictures every other Sunday, I don´t know why, but that’s the rule. So hopefully next week I should have some pictures for you.

We went to the temple today, it’s literally across the street from the CCM, and everything is on a beautiful gated campus.

Oh, and Elder Holland is going to be here. In the CCM, the same building as me, we might shake hands; he might sit in on our class. He is coming to meet with all of the local authorities, and then he is going to address all of us at a local stake center with 800 more missionaries from the Argentina Buenos Aires Mission. Words don´t even describe how excited I am!!!

It´s nice to hear about the family, I hope everyone is doing well and Justin isn´t terrorizing everyone. It´s so great to hear from you.

Just know I am doing well, I´m busy, I´m learning, and I´m feeling so closer to God than I ever have.

P.s. I haven’t received any physical letters from dear elder, I´m sure they´ll show up soon!

P.s. Don´t worry about me, I´m fine.

P.s. Forgive any spelling, the keyboards are different and there is no autocorrect.

¡¡¡¡¡Love You!!!!!

2013 Beach Vacation

This is from our Taylor Family Beach Vacation last summer. We were in the Corolla, NC area on the Outer Banks

Airport Farewells--Saying our Last Good Byes!

We got the kids out of school early on Wednesday to take Ben to the airport.

First, he got checked in, paid for his two bags and got his boarding pass.

Next, he talked with a very nice Delta employee. She had us all smiling and laughing with her comments about how good he looked in his new suit, amazed that he was going to be gone for 2 years and reassuring him that Delta would not lose any of his bags (they are #1 in the last 6 months for bags making it to their destination).

William wanted to be a helper for his big brother, so he assisted with his bag as we made our way to the food court, outside of the security checkpoint.

We found an area where all of the final hugging should begin. William immediately grabbed a hold of Ben and hugged for all he was worth.

That wasn't quite good enough, so Ben picked him up and gave him and even better hug and kiss.

Lily got the next hug. She will really miss her big brother.

It is hard to tell from this angle, but Justin was the next one to hug Ben. This is not something I have seen since they boys were quite a bit younger. They have always been close since they are just 2 years apart in age. They have been much closer since high school, because of marching band and drumline. Ben would drive Justin everywhere, even if it was someplace he did not want to go. Justin will probably not see Ben until Justin comes home from his mission, so this hug had to last them 4 years.

Grandpa Taylor got the next hug. He told Ben to work hard. I know he will.

Grandma Taylor got the next hug. I imagine she was probably promising to make him some amazing meal when he gets home after his mission. 

I got the next hug--what can I say? I will miss my son so much. I am so happy that he has decided to serve a mission and know that he is going to be a great missionary.

Dad got the last hug. I am sure this brought back memories of when he was leaving to serve his mission. 

 As you can see, William is going to miss Ben. He just couldn't stop hugging him and standing by him. Ben has been an awesome big brother!

Ben was anxious to get through Security and to his gate, so he did not prolong his goodbyes. William ran after him to hold his hand as long as possible before Ben left.

If you look real close, William has tears running down his cheeks. He will miss his big brother, Ben. At this point, our whole group was pretty emotional (except for Justin who doesn't like to cry). 

Here is my missionary son, Elder Taylor, ready to go to Argentina for 6 weeks of training at the MTC and then on to Uruguay, Montevideo for 24 months. We love you Ben!

UPDATE!!!  UPDATE!!!

We just got our first email from Ben. It came the next morning after he had left Indiana, once he arrived in Argentina. It was extremely short, but we were not expecting any contact until he had been there for a little while. Here is his message:

Hey Mom and Dad, I just got to the MTC (Argentina is beautiful). Just a quick update: Everything worked out with the flight and I'm safe. My P-Day is Thursday, so email me on or before if you want a response to any questions.

I made the font bigger so you could appreciate the short message even more