Open House in Malvin--A Huge Success!

Hey guys,

How are you guys doing? This last weekend we had the open house in the Church in Malvín (where we are). It was very exciting! 

We have a Missionary couple that go from ward to ward doing open houses. It was awesome! We spent these last three weeks inviting everyone we came in contact with to come. Many of the members did a lot to help. 

Everyone starts in the Chapel where we have a giant cutout of the "Christus" statue. Some of the teachings of Christ are played in the background and everyone listens to them for about 4-5 min. 

Later the Sister missionaries (3 companionship's) took everyone on a tour through the gym where we had various poster boards teaching pretty much all the lessons starting with The Restoration, The Plan of Salvation, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and also about other things like the Temple and Eternal Families. 

The Sisters did an awesome job, were super prepared and taught super well. After the Sisters presentation, were Elder Muñoz and I at the reference table. We shared some scriptures then asked them to fill out the cards. It was really awesome! We received almost 50 referrals with address that live close, and another 15 with just phone numbers. 

After our stand, the Ward Mission Leader took them to the baptismal font, where Elder Gardner and Elder Eraso taught about Baptism more in depth. They also invited all that passed throughout the presentation to be baptized. There were over 10 people who have accepted the challenge to prepare themselves to be baptized by someone who possesses the authority of God in the Church of Jesus Christ.

After that, they all went to the other rooms where the various leaders of each auxiliary and quorum presented something for a few minutes. It was great to have so much participation from all the members. 

I was thinking of how this is something that someone could totally do in our ward, with so many missionaries, awesome members, and great youth. It was super successful down here. It might be something that someone could do as a value project (hint, hint...). I have been serving as a YW leader on a ward and stake level for a number of years. It is funny to see Ben look at things that would be a great goal for Personal Progress. I guess I got him trained well.  It required a lot of organization, hanging posters, and handing out invitations, and coordination from the ward and missionaries, but it was great!

We changed P-Day various times because of the open house, then because there was so much to do yesterday, and now we´ll still be running (quite literally) to the bank after I send this. I loved Skyping with you guys the other day. Thanks for the letters (mom and dad). We read ours today. It was super fun--my companion loved it. We sent Ben and his companion letters in the mail with a favorite talk from conference. Ben's companion doesn't speak much English, so we wrote letters in English and then used Google Translate to convert them to Spanish. We don't know how well it worked, but I it sounds like they got some laughs out of it.

His letter ended there and then a few minutes latter we got this email:

Ps. Love you 

Élder Benjamin Taylor

A Quick Note (in Spanish)--thank goodness for Google Translate!

Saturday came and went with no letter from Ben. We thought that since we got to Skype with him on Mother's Day the week before, that perhaps his P-Day had been moved or that we would not hear from him that week at all. About the time that we were accepting the fact that there might not be a letter, this arrived in our email on Tuesday.

Les escribo mas tarde hoy. Disculpes por haberles esperado.

I had to go to Google Translate to find out what he was saying. Loosely translated it says:  "I will write later today. Sorry for the delay." 

I think that Ben forgot who he was sending this quick note off to and just did what came naturally--he typed it in Spanish. We got a good laugh out of this and were happy to know that his letter would be arriving later that day. I will post his letter next.

Mothers Day and paying rent

This week was probably one of the weirdest I'm gonna have in the mission. 

So, the plumber came this last week and we had to empty the house for a week. We couldn't find any other houses close by where other elders lived to stay at, so we ended up staying in the mission home with President and Hermana Cook. We also went from having several showers for all 6 of us in the morning to having only one.  

It was so nice of the Cook's to receive us into their home. Hermana Cook bought us breakfast foods for the mornings. She made us pancakes for a late dinner (because she knew we had a long day), and just has gone out of her way to help us in so many ways. I felt very comforted to know that I was being cared for  so far away from my family. I also know how thankful my Mother and Grandmother would feel knowing that I am being taken care of. 

This last week I learned a lot. It was the week of rents. Right now we are trying to convert all of the rents that we are paying for the missionaries to be payed  electronically and automatically.  We have to be in contact basically all day with the landlords and the renting companies. I am trying to learn as fast as I can so I can continue being more help in the office and carry my fair share of the work load.

On the non office note:

This week we didn't have as many opportunities to leave as this last week. We had been getting a little down about that. It's been a little harder this week, but fortunately were able to see a few more miracles. We have been preparing for an open house in our chapel (put on by the local stake missionares and the Senior Couple Hermana and Elder Burnett). Any opportunity we have we are inviting people to come, we're putting up flyers all over the town, and putting passalong card invitations on every door. We're hoping for a big turn out. All the members are really excited!

I  don't have much time and I'll tell you more tomorrow...we will get to Skype with Ben for Mothers Day and we are very excited to see his face and hear his voice at the same time. We are hoping for a great connection like we had for the call last Christmas. 

Thank you so much for writing with my companion. His companion does not have much support from his family since he joined the church three years ago. We are attempting to write him in Spanish which I am sure gives them lots of laughs. I love you so much!!!

Élder Benjamin Taylor

Life at the Mission Office & Miracles

So great to hear from you! It's so fun to be here in the offices. It's a lot of work, a little stressful, but way worth it. I feel I've learned so much just in these few short weeks. 

We work a lot of times as one big companionship between us and the secretaries. We still have our proselyting commitments and lots of times we will have to go on splits between the two companionship's. I've gotten to know pretty well the other two missionaries that work here. Elder Gallagher (California) and Elder Hansen (Utah). They´re both super awesome, super intelligent and spiritual people.

Something funny actually happened this morning. We found out that in our apartment (where 6 missionaries live) something went wrong with the pipes and now the land lord had to turn off our water until the plumber can fix it. That could be in 12 days or more! So right now, we are trying to find a place to bathe ourselves in the morning. It's sorta a crazy situation.

Congrats Lily for being the first of us to be good at sports. (Lily loves playing basketball and hopes to try out for the 7th grade team next year. She also has been setting records regularly on the rowing machine at school for 6th grade girls. She is getting to be very strong. We have always joked about how uncoordinated Ben is--he has the height and size to play basketball but not the coordination to do it well. He can blame dear old mom for the that, but hopefully he can blame me for his musical skill as well. It is a good trade off.)

And William: I´m already counting down the days, haha! Happy early birthday! (William typed a few lines in the letter we sent to Ben and the main focus was his 7th birthday which will be on June 4th. He expects that everyone else is counting down the days like he is.)

So you asked me what my normal schedule is like:

6.30 awake and exercise

7.00 breakfast and bathe

8.00 Personal Study (I am basing my studies on the Gospel Principles book, daily scripture study, and Preach my Gospel; I study exclusively in Spanish)

9.00 Companion Study (Hymn {all 6 missionaries}, white hand book, back cover of Preach my Gospel ("Remember This:"). We also share what we studied, coordinate plans and lessons for the day, practice teaching)

10.00-4.00 Work at the Office and lunch

4.00 We leave if everything goes well and we don't need to finish anything else

9.00 in the house

Ben's desk

The office where Ben spends so much of his time

These last two week we only got to leave a few times. Sunday we always get to leave because we don't do office work Sundays.

This last week I went to the airport two times on interchanges with the secretaries. It's super weird to be there. I didn't have any desires or thoughts of going home, but to see people going was super weird. It has gotten me thinking that in 18 months, the same thing would be happening to me. I also found out that more likely than not, I will be arriving home the 23rd or 24th of October 2015 because of the transfer schedule. (Just a fun fact)

This week we also had intercambios (exchanges-companionship's get switched around just for that time period) as a zone. It was super stressful because there was a lot of work to be done at the offices. I knew that we had already given it all we could that day and that we needed to do the intercambio. 

So I left the desk, with a pile of stuff to do, but I just left it. I left my area (called Malvín by the way). I sent you a picture of the chapel a while ago. It's super big and pretty. That is where the offices are located, by the way. 

I went to Barrio 9 with Elder Hobbs. He is from Idaho. I couldn't help but keep thinking of all the work sitting on my desk, but I eventually got over it and just tried to have a good time. And the truth is, I had a blast! We saw a lot of miracles! 

One was a woman that I contacted by giving her a pass along card. She was not interested at first. We eventually taught her all about the restoration of the Gospel. She listened to all of it! and really wanted to know more. We set up another charla (appointment or discussion) for Elder Hobbs to go to. I think she will be awesome, and she said that her family and her have been looking for a church to attend for a while.. 

Another experience happened this morning. I went with Elder Gallagher and Elder Eraso to get our hair cut and the lady that owns the hair shop has had a lot of contact with missionaries and the church before. Her parents were investigators years ago, but it just never called her attention. She told us that she's very interested right now in her life and that she has been waiting to get in contact with us. She asked for a Book of Mormon and now wants us to pas by Monday.

So many miracles every day!

I love you guys so much!

Love you

Élder Benjamin Taylor

Transferred to the Mission Office-Big Changes!

As you know from the last post, we did not hear from Ben on his regular P-Day and the following day, we got an email saying that Ben had been transferred to the Mission Office to serve as an assistant to the Financial Secretary and that he would email us on Saturday. Needless to say, Saturday came and went and we got another email saying that the elders in the office had to switch their P-Day from Saturday to Monday due to the transfers that occurred. We emailed Ben all kinds of questions about what happened and he has answered some of them below. Hopefully we will find out more in his next letter.

Hey family, 

Sorry it took so long for me to write to you guys. Here is what has happened since the last email.

Last Saturday night (the 19th of April) at 10 pm, I got a call from the Assistants to the President of the Mission. They called me and told me that I had been chosen as one of the new financial secretaries and that I needed to pack my things as soon as possible. They wanted me to arrive Sunday night to receive some training and to help a little with the normal "Transfers" that would be coming the following Wednesday. 

I packed that night because we had church the next day and I wanted to say goodbyes to a few people. I finished packing completely and was able to say goodbye the next day. Then, later Sunday, we got another call saying that my companion was also going to be leaving the area, to go to another area as a zone leader; that´s when things got complicated. Elder Aguilera had about 3 hours to pack everything while I prepared the area book and our records for the next missionaries that were going to come. 

This is who Ben is replacing:
Elder Oliveira
From São Paulo Brasil

After all that craziness, we finally left. It´s sort of fun to have a desk job where I go in at 10 till 9 some days. Haha! I arrived to the church where the mission offices are at about 8 that night. I was given a small introduction as to what I was going to be doing. 

We (the financiers) are in charge of managing: 

• Rent of all 88 apartments in the mission 
• Buying and preparing for apartments to be sold 
• Coordinating contracts with the landlords 
• Water bills, light bills & phone bills 
• Missionary Debit Cards/Monthly Allowance 
• Reimbursement of bus tickets used for proselyting activities 
• Managing the mission related finances of the President, his Spouse, and Senior Missionaries. 
• Paying for transportation related expenses during transfers and conferences 
• Catering/Buying Food for conferences 
• Paying other random things such as Airline baggage and the furnishing of houses 

This is a photo Elder Muñoz and I took for a presentation we gave to introduce ourselves. We thought it was pretty funny. We had to make an enormous purchase that day (we don't normally handle that much money at at time). Elder Muñoz is my companion. He is from Panama and has been a member for 3 years and serving a mission for 1 year and 2 months. He does not speak any English.

The goal is to leave the offices at 16:00 hrs. So far, because of transfers and other circumstances and conferences that are coming up, we have only been able to leave once on time. 

It's really fun! There is always something super crazy we need to do...always something pressing. I am really enjoying it. The missionaries in the offices are normally here for 4 changes so I should be here for a while (up to 6 months). 

It´s was so fun to hear so much news from back home. Congrats to Trent and Rob! They´ll do great. There are several YM in our Ward who have either gotten their mission calls or are submitting their papers. Rob leaves for his mission the beginning of May and Trent will be going in August or September. We currently have 9 missionaries serving from our ward with several more leaving before any come home. I think we will have at least 11 out by the end of the summer. The wall in the entry way with all of the plaques is quite impressive. I think they will be adding another row for the missionaries who will be leaving this summer. 

My Pdays from now on will be Saturdays, if nothing goes crazy again. I love you guys so much, I miss you but I´m super happy to be here doing what I´m doing. 

Love You!

Elder Taylor

This is Familia De Maria--we did not get any explanation from Ben, but I think this is the same family that has Mateo (8 or 9 years old) and Edgardo,the young man who just had a birthday from Ben's previous letter.

Natalia just recently started going back to church, she quit about 6 yrs ago or so, then she lost her sight because of her diabetes. The missionaries passed by one day and now she is one of the strongest members we had in Lomas. She relied on us a lot to help her get to the church and some activities but now she´s learning to use a cane to be able to get around more independently

Transferred to Mission Office

We got no email from Ben on Monday and were starting to get worried (as you can imagine).

We just got this message and now we have tons of questions.

When we get his message on Saturday, we will post it.

 Hello John and Shawna,

 

Elder Benjamin Taylor has recently been moved to the Uruguay Montevideo Mission Offices as one of the Financial Secretaries and has had to miss his original preparation day. This coming Saturday he will be able to respond to your emails. ¡He sends his love!

 

Elder Oliveira

Financial Secretary

Uruguay Montevideo Mission

It's Getting Cold in Uruguay!

Below is the letter from Ben this week. I would also like to encourage you to go to Because of Him, a 2 minute video posted by our church for Easter. It is amazing and I know Ben would love to see it, if he could. Enjoy the video and his letter!

Well,

It's cold here all of a sudden. I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden everything just got cold! I can see my breath almost all day from when I wake up to when I go to sleep. We'll break out the space heater when it's more necessary, including in the house. 

It's pretty funny actually. In the summer I was dying of heat. We had like two weeks that were comfortable, then bam. Cold. I broke out the quilt that mom made me and the two other blankets I received from the mission when I arrived. Now when we shower in the morning the entire house fills up with steam. 

I have been thinking of how blessed I was to have a house with heating, carpet, and a clothes dryer. With this cold weather, it is almost impossible to dry our clothes. Elder Aguilera and I put our clothes outside when it's not raining (and its raining a lot more now) and then bring them back in as soon as possible. 

We had a good week, but the rain and cold wind yesterday destroyed our church attendance. Remember, everyone walks 30 min more or less to get to church and almost no one has a car and few have motorcycles. We had two people who had dates to get baptized this next Sunday but didn't come to church this week, along with half of the congregation. We'll just keep working with them and try even harder to make sure they'll attend church.

Yesterday we had a birthday with Familia De Maria. They are our recent converts from a few weeks ago. Yesterday was the birthday of Edgardo and they invited us over for lunch to celebrate. We don't have much to give as a gift as missionaries, so we made a packet. 

It had an autographed tie, a tie tack of one of the sons of Helaman soldier with an explanation to the story, a For the Strength of Youth, some photos, and some American candies. 

Edgardo reading about Helaman--and enjoying his presents from us

It was an awesome time! They are still following firm in the gospel; and we're planning on teaching the brother of Ana Laura. 

We ate Asado. Elder Aguilera, Edgardo (Bday boy) and Ana Laura (la mama)

Birthday party of Edgardo--behind me is his grandma (Olga) and brother (Mateo)

What I Learned This Week!!!:  

• As a companionship I really felt that we have grown in our teaching.
•  Something that I have really struggled with since the beginning of my mission has been simply opening my mouth. I've always been a quite person and always struggled to open up to people I wasn't already very close with. Then in another language that I've only spoken for 5 months, it makes it even worse--at least that has been my excuse for staying so quiet. 
• We're very different personality-wise, me and my companion. This is a good thing, in my opinion. He is, in his own palabras (words), "Bien Chileno," (he is from Chile and like many from this country, has a very outgoing personality, according to previous letters from Ben). He loves to talk to everyone and just has this natural gift of befriending everyone. 
• This week he decided to help me more with this; and put my talking as one of our companionship goals. 
• To have this small constant push to keep talking in the charlas, with members and with our investigators, I really feel like I am starting to develop a relationship with them. They trust me more and I'm actually participating a lot more in the charlas, instead of just testifying of the teachings of my companion.

Anyways, that's what I learned this week. Recently, the idea of my companion being transferred out of this area has really stressed me out; before I had any relationship with the people. Now, I am still a little nervous as to how I would react, but now I feel better and am planning on continuing this throughout the rest of my mission.

List of things to send next time, no rush.

Things that are big it might just be easier to buy here, like thermal socks and stuff like that.

I would like one of those pink gel things that we bought in Utah where you flex the metal chip and it makes heat.

A couple thumb drives to save pictures

Other than that, I think I'm good

Love you guys,

I hope everything goes well at home, Don't worry about me being cold. I know you are going to. I prefer it to the hot. At least for now... haha!

Your Son,

Élder Benjamin Taylor