Additional letter

 

 

Tayler sent us a separate letter and these are some of the stories she included and I wanted to share them with everyone:

 

 

1. I learned that there are tons of amish people in my area! There's even a sign on the way to one of our investigators' houses that has a horse and buggy on it. It's a yellow caution sign like deer crossing, or ped xing, etc. But it has a horse and buggy instead! I'm just looking forward to getting my hands on some amish food. I hear it's amazing. Sis Johnson happened to have some amish starter in the fridge that she made crepes with. So yummy! Maybe if I find some while I'm here I'll send it to you. And you totally see amish people here and there around town in their buggies with their pilgrim children and it's so fun! Maybe I'll try and sneak a picture next time I see them because it's crazy weird to see a horse and buggy just driving around town.

 

2. My first mission miracle. So these two boys showed up to church a couple weeks ago before I got here and they were just there checking it out because one of them is dating a less active member. But sis Johnson set up an appointment with them and they didn't get his address for whatever reason. So we couldn't go to our appointment. But they happened to run in to Dusty (one of the boys) at the restaurant where he works. So we stopped by when we were near there eating at a member's home and asked him for Brandon's address. He of course didn't know his address but he knew kind of how to get there. So he gave us these crazy directions that made no sense and when we walked out we both kind of hoped the other one understood how to get there. But of course neither of us did. So we did our best to follow the directions he gave us, did A TON of guessing, and honestly I think we both assumed we would end up in some random neighborhood and get stuck tracting. But eventually by some miracle we made it to the street he lived on. But it was out in the country and the houses were spread out. Dusty said it was the 9th house but we didn't know if it was on the right or the left or if we were even starting at the right point to begin counting. So we pulled over and prayed that we would find it. And then decided to count the houses on the left. We made it to what we thought was the 9th house (we later realized we miscounted). We pulled up the long driveway and knocked on the door. It wasn't his house, although we did find a potential investigator there. A family from Oklahoma (also he knew where Wagner was, crazy!) who said we could call and set up a return appointment. But the NEXT house was totally Brandon's!!! Crazy! God does answer prayers! And when we're on His errand He is always with us! 

3.

Also quick story. So while we were emailing from the conference room in our apartment complex this lady came in and was wondering if she could use the computers. There was another lady with her who works at the apartment complex and she knows that this is the only time we can email home, so she was super sweet and told the other lady that she could use her computer so she didn't have to kick us off. I guess she had an online class at 11 this morning and usually goes to the library for it but her car wouldn't start this morning. So I felt kinda bad but I figured they had it figured out now. So anyways right after we got done emailing we walked over to Dollar Tree to get some stuff for the YM/YW activity we are doing tonight. And we ran into her again! And she told us all about how her car wouldn't start and her class and all of that. She was super nice about it and kind of laughed the whole thing off, then we got to talking about how that's our time to email home but if we had known how urgent it was we totally would have gotten off. So she was like "Oh, that's fine!" and wanted to know more about our missions. Because we live in the same complex, our mission president said to keep conversations casual so religion didn't become an issue later on. you know, since we see these people pretty much every week. So we didn't bring up religion, but since SHE wanted to know more, of course we shared as much as we could! Haha. It was so cool because she was really interested. Once we told her about our beliefs, she was like "ok. So where is this book?" Sister Johnson and I looked at each other a little surprised and we were like "right over here in our car. We'll get you one!" So we got her one and she opened it up to the introduction (without us even telling her to - we usually have people read the last two paragraphs of the introduction page when we talk about the BOM) and she started skimming a little bit. Then she got down to the last two paragraphs and started reading them out loud! Again, without us asking her to. We did none of the work. We just stood there while she read it and then she kind of paused for a minute and went "Hmm." Then she turned to 1 Nephi...without us asking her to. I mean it was like she read our minds. And then she goes "Well thank you ladies! I will read this!" What the heck?!? That doesn't happen. Only problem is she was kinda not interested in us coming over and teaching her, and didn't want our phone number either. Because she said "well, we live in the same complex. I'm sure I'll see you. Plus now I know you email every Wednesday so I'll find you if I have any questions." So it's kind of in the Lord's hands now. But man, we talked for a long time about a lot of things. And it was funny because before we brought up our religion, she was talking about how crazy her day has been, and she said kind of half-joking that there was something divine going on. And then she started to walk away but came back to talk to us a little more, and that's when we got onto the subject of religion. God really works hard to prepare people. I know that without a doubt. I mean, what are the odds of this whole situation? Crazy right? And it happened less than an hour ago. You're hearing this FRESH! Haha. Well I better go. We've got lots to do. Really the only reason I got back on was to mail those pics because I forgot my sd card this morning so we had to go back and get it. But I have lots to do right now so I gots to go! Love you!!

Tayler