Week 15

Hello! It feels like it's been an incredibly long week because last pday was 8 days ago. Plus it's been a rough week as well. But I'm getting better at staying positive, which I think I owe to my companion. I don't know how she does it, but she has the best attitude even when things get hard. It's hard to be negative around a positive person, so she's teaching me :)

So we had zone conference this last week in Kirtland, so we were at sites for an extra day last week. That always makes things feel slower. I LOVE serving there, but when it's the slow season, days are really long there. Plus our internet has been down so we couldn't get on chat or answer inbound calls. That meant that once we had taken care of tedious housekeeping things that only took about an hour, we had the rest of the day to come up with things to do. Some sisters went on mock tours or studied, but we decided to watch the Testament in the movie room, then we watched the Joseph Smith movie. I felt like I was wasting so much time sitting there for so long watching a movie. That's going to take some adjusting when I get home, because now sitting through a movie makes me anxious. I felt the whole time like there was something else we could have been doing...but there really wasn't. We took one tour, and since the sawmill and ashery are closed up for winter, it made the tour much shorter. But they are setting up nativities right now and we got to help out with that a little. That was SO fun. It's beautiful. I'll take lots of pictures and show you guys. And then when I get home we should all come back around this time so you guys can see it in person.

We spent pretty much the whole week preparing for Michael's baptism. He had his interview Wednesday, and then later that night he said he was having doubts. So we talked to him for awhile and we discussed his concerns. We said a prayer with him on the phone, and then he said he would continue to study and pray about it. But cool story with that...we were coming out of an appointment in Windham (which is about 45 minutes away from our apartment) at 8:45 when we got the text from Michael. We have to be in by 9:30, so we really had no time to talk to him, but we felt like we needed to. So we called and planned on making it a quick one, but 5 minutes eventually turned into 20 minutes, and we were freaking out. We can't drive and be on the phone at the same time so we couldn't leave till the conversation was over. We finally left at about 9:05 and we were sure we were going to miss curfew (see, we have this tattle-tell thing in our car called Tiwi and it notifies the mission office if we happen to be driving past curfew). But by some miracle we made it home in time, even though we shouldn't have been able to do that. Windham is literally on the opposite corner of our area, and it makes no sense that we made it home on time. But we did! We pulled in at 9:28. Crazy! That makes me know that we were doing what we were supposed to, and the Lord helped us out. We really needed to call Michael, although I'll be honest, we haven't been able to see why. Michael cancelled the baptism two days later. He feels like his belief isn't strong enough, so he wants to read the Book of Mormon on his own before he commits to anything. But now he won't come to church anymore. He really wants his space on this, and we don't know why. He is going to have a harder time gaining a testimony without attending church. That is something we saw with him in the past. It wasn't till he came to church that he finally started feeling something. Church attendance is so important! He is still keeping in touch with us though. He is definitely reading. He keeps asking really good questions about the Book of Mormon. So I still have hope. I don't think I ever lost it. Something about the whole situation felt okay. I know we did all we could, and now it's up to him.

One of the hardest things about a mission is respecting people's agency when they refuse to even listen. So many people turn us away at the door, but if they only knew!!! That's why there's a better way to do missionary work, and it's through the members! Talk to your friends...they listen more to you than they would to us, I promise!

We also went to dinner last night with Al and Loretta. They are so sweet, and we love them tons. We shared a short message with them at dinner last night, and we are planning on teaching them next time we visit. Loretta is coming to the Relief Society activity on Saturday, so there's going to be some good fellowship there :) I just really don't want to lose them. They are some of the nicest people we've met here. And they need the gospel!

So that's about all for this week! I see miracles daily and I'm starting to truly love my mission, even though it's the hardest thing EVER! Haha. It does take some adjusting. I'll be honest. But it's great to be so immersed in the gospel!

Love you all!!

Tayler