Week 9

Ni hao,

So I'm leaving to Australia in 2 hours! Couldn't be more excited. We had an awesome last week. I packed up my notebook and everything so I don't have any of the good stuff. 

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Yesterday our district had a musical number in front of the whole zone, which is packed with Mandarin speakers now. Yes, I participated. There was even a part where it was just me and Elder Andelin and like 3 other girls. I'm super pumped about that cause I would have never done that in a million years. 

We had in-field orientation and this Elder did all the Phineas and Ferb voices. That was cool. They pretty much just got us pumped to get out and taught us how to plan and work with members. 

We had our last district devotional yesterday and the Elders gave the Sisters blessings and it was super spiritual and awesome to be able to do that. We've been with each other for like 8 hours a day the past 9 weeks so it's sad to see everyone go to Taiwan (except Sister Aldous, she is going to Boston until her visa gets here).

Speaking of visas... I have no clue how in the world I got my visa on time. It's one of the biggest tender mercies I have seen. I turned it in like 4 weeks ago and they usually take like 3 months to get. So thank you for all of the prayers!

I can't wait to go speak some Chinese and spread the gospel!

Thanks for all the support!

Elder Taylor

Pictures: 

Sorry, this one is a little scandalous, don't mind Elder Young.

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Elder Perkins, my homie. 

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On his way to Brisbane!

One of Brooke's friends saw Chase at the airport and sent this to her...bless her! 

We haven't heard anything from him yet, but know his flight landed safely.

Heading to Australia!

flight around 6pm. leave salt lake to la. then la leaves at 1145. i will call around then.

CHASE MISSION ADDRESS

Australia Brisbane Mission PO Box 348 Hamilton, QLD  4007 Australia

Week 8

Howdy

The flight plans have arrived! We should leave on May 28th for Brisbane! I asked for an update on my visa and they said that if I don't hear anything, then it's good news. So I hope I don't hear anything. I saw Ally's friend Shaley Sato in the cafeteria and I guess we are on the same flight to Brisbane! I'm kind of sad to be leaving though. I love having all the other missionaries around and the sick devotionals twice a week. 

Not too many new arrivals that I knew this week. Alema Stone is the only one I can think of. I did get to talk to my buddy Payton Dastrup for a few minutes in the medical office.

Our district had the special opportunity to have a catholic priest come talk to us and see how we learn and whatnot. He was a funny guy. He asked how to say the church's name on my tag and then I forgot every Chinese word I ever learned. So I just mumbled something. It's not like he can tell the difference anyways. 

Since the gym is closed we have to go outside every morning for gym time, and it was horrible because all the volleyball games would have so many people. But this past week  we've been able to play two on two and it's probably been the highlight of my whole mission. It's so much fun. We play with Elder Okensen from China and my roomie Elder Andelin and then another kid. Super fun. 

I've been blessed with the best aunts (and Mom) in the world. I get all these super cool packages like every other day. Aunt Lizzie sent a hug bag full of chips and queso. My district is convinced it's manna from heaven. And i got this sick belt from aunt heather a couple weeks ago.

Sorry, not a ton of pictures this week. More queso.

Week Seven

Hey y'all,

So just an update on the visa and whatnot. The Medical was sent off last week, and I'm one of the first ones they have done electronically so they don't know exactly how long it will take. The rest of my district should be leaving the 28th though! Everyone is super excited. Last Monday we cleaned the temple again. Fun fact for ya, it has 28 bathrooms and we cleaned all of them. After the temple we skyped this member from Taiwan for TRC and it was very humbling. On Tuesday Elder Andersen came to speak to us, I forgot my notebook in the classroom, but I'm pretty sure it was an awesome devotional. I read this talk called the 4th missionary. It changed my whole outlook on the mission. I don't think it's an actual talk, but it's from a mission president or something. It just talks about giving up our own will for the Lord's will. It's like 25 pages long. There is an Elder Christensen that came in this week and I guess his sister is with Ally in Sweden, so that's cool. Yesterday we had a devotional in the Marriott center by Richard I. Heaton. He talked a lot about charity and how important it is to teach by the spirit. That's all I have to say about that. 

The first picture features my name tag in characters. The next is Elder Reading and me, with a can of Vienna sausages. 

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Week six

Ni Howdy,

Super cool week at the MTC. So, we were hosting again, and I'm waiting for the car to pull up and I saw Brent Collier in the passenger seat! The other new arrivals are Gabe Smith, Hansen Williams, Andrew Bartholomew (?), and Kelly Martindale! I love seeing how happy all the guys are here. Last P-day we got to clean the temple. I thought they would have us vacuum or something, but we went up to the celestial room and started tearing out the carpet and scraping the floors, so that was a fun 3 hours. So for TRC there is usually a member in the room that you share a message with. When we looked through the door this week there we two guys, and one of them was not a member! So we got to teach an actual investigator in Chinese! Such a cool experience. And yesterday during testimony meeting i was able to bear testimony in Chinese without thinking about what to say beforehand, which is such a confidence builder. I think that all of the Medical checks I did in China were for nothing because they are having me re-do it all here, but it was fun to run through all those Chinese hospitals, (right Mom?). There is no word on my Australian Visa yet, so we are praying that it gets here on time. 

Ever since Aunt Pam sent me those chips and queso my whole district has been craving it everyday, so we announced Thursday chips and queso day. The 4th of July here was super awesome. We had a couple musical numbers, and then a little devotional. After that they had us watch 17 miracles. Then we went outside to get ice cream and watch the fireworks! Just a great week overall! I miss you all!

Happy Birthday Boston, love ya kid. 

Elder Taylor

My sick 4th of July outfit. 

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Week five

Hey y'all,

So for the big Tuesday devotional we had D. Todd Christofferson come and speak about charity and the worth of souls. It was a crazy good talk. The highlight of the week was probably "Hosting" the new missionaries! It's so cool to hear all of their stories and get them started off on the right foot. As i was finishing up hosting one Elder, I walked passed Spencer Murphy! So good to see him! I also saw Taylor Slade and Michael Pace from Mountain View! 

So I just wrote down notes of all the cool stuff that happened to me this week. Here they are:

We were coming back from the district sand volleyball game and Elder Reading wanted to run down this hill like on "The Sound of Music". So he starts sprinting down the hill and then just eats it in front of everyone. It was super funny and he pulled it off like a champ. 

The missionary name tags make a sweet kazoo noise. 

We were sitting outside and then a bird pooped on Sister Grahams paper, i guess it was a warning shot because like 2 hours later she got bird poop on her arm. 

One of the newer Elders with the crazy accent has the funniest quotes. We were coming back from gym and said something along the lines of "It's hotter than a popcorn fart out here."

Elder Andelin left some milk in the room for like 2 weeks and it got super nasty and gross. We showed this kid and he started dry heaving. 

We get like half and hour extra to prepare on Thursdays because our service leader guy lets us go when we are finish early instead of sending us somewhere else. So when we get back we can take triple showers. We stand in the middle shower and turn the side showers so the water goes into the middle stall and it's super nice. 

We set a goal to speak no English for Thursday and Friday of last week. It was so difficult haha. But it helped us a ton and it was super cool to see how much chinese we know. 

I was sitting down for the devotional last night and Cannon Cowley came over to say hello! Is it bad that i was glad he had visa issues? He looks like he is doing so well! I only got to see him for like 2 seconds and then i think he went off to west campus. 

And a big shout out to Momma, Sister Meinzer, and Aunt Pam for the packages!

Sister Meinzer, the cookies were amazing! Elder Meinzer is doing awesome as well! It's so good to see him around!

Aunt Pam, the whole thing of chips and queso was gone in like a second, it was soooo good! I'm so excited to see Chase in Australia!

I'm halfway done with the MTC! Still loving it! our lessons are getting better everyday! Another District is leaving tomorrow, so that makes us the oldest Mandarin group, which is super awesome. 

That is all.

Elder Taylor

(The nasty milk in our room)

(The super delicious queso we ate from Aunt Pam)

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(My favorite Elder, Elder Andelin) 

Week four

Well hello again, 

I just had another great week at the MTC! All the new mission presidents are here and there is a rumor going around that President Monson will be speaking to us tomorrow. So we are all super pumped for that! Janice Kapp Perry came and gave the devotional last night and it was the most exciting devotional we have had here. She sang a family song and some new lyrics to As Sisters in Zion. Her husband was really fun as well. For Pday we had another Zone sand volleyball game and that was a blast. The district that left last week passed us down a ton of nerf guns so we had a crazy war with Elder Salazar and his zone. I saw McKay Meinzer! One of best buddies from Utah! He's doing great and learning some Russian I believe, so good luck to him. And i forgot to write about last week but i saw Yuri Burkinshaw  as well(I don't know how to spell his name). I'm so happy for all of my friends leaving. So I had a really cool experience at the temple this morning. We went to do an endowment session, and afterwards I said a prayer and got ready to go. Elder Reading was still praying so I was just looking around the room and I was prompted to go pick up the Book of Mormon. I opened up and started flipping to where I last read, but i got to Alma Chapter 29 and i got the strongest impression to just stop and read it. It answered almost all of the questions I had just asked in the prayer like 2 minutes before. It really strengthened my testimony on acting on the promptings i receive. I'm so grateful for the spirit that is not only at the temple, but at the MTC! Miss all you guys! 

I'm still working on making the pictures smaller.

That is Elder Larsen, who gave me the awesome tie.

Elder Reading and me after the sick Nerf war.

Elder Reading and me after the sick Nerf war.

week three

Howdy everybody!

Another great week at the MTC! My thoughts are scattered so this letter is going to be all over the place. So on Tuesday we had a devotional by Quentin L. Cook and he told us about not feeling capable and how important the spirit is in teaching investigators. The district above us leaves at 3am tomorrow morning. So sad to see them go, they are a super fun group of guys. I got a super sick nasty tie passed down to my by Elder Larsen. Ill take a picture tonight and put it up next week or something. On Saturday we had a TRC (I don't know what that stands for) where we teach an RM or a member or something about whatever they want. We got two ladies from Taiwan and one of them had a cut on her finger and asked us for a blessing. I'm so grateful that I had some experience giving blessings before that! Our Chinese is getting better and Elder Reading and I taught the best lesson ever a few days ago. I said the sacrament prayer in Mandarin so that was cool too. So Elder Otte in our zone likes to do crazy stuff with his food, this week it was Grape-milk and carrots in his Fanta. Yesterday morning for breakfast they took one bowl and then stacked it upside down over another bowl and put a spoon coming out so it looked like a turtle. Then they made another one and had a pokemon battle. He keeps us entertained. There is this kid from Logan in our district and he has the thickest cowboy accent, he is the funniest kid. We had a district sand volleyball game, that was a good time. Despite many choir practices, I still have the worst voice here! Oh yeah and I saw Todd Russell! I didn't know he was going to be here the same time as me. I'm getting really good at ironing shirts. They said they were wrinkle free, but they didn't mean it. I'm still having the best time ever here! 

The first picture is me with the rock that was handed down to us, the next is Elder Davis, Reading, and Otte doing some laundry. Sorry if the pictures are too big are something. 

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