Sharks

Hey there my lovely friends and family! Long time no see! You want to know how I know this? Because today I have officially been out for 8 months! I love it. It has absolutely flown by.

 

So here's some awesome tidbits of my last week. Tuesday we taught this recently moved in, less-active family by the name of Kalarsarinis. They are pretty cool and pretty wild. They've got a couple of little boys that just bounce of the walls. I'm totally wanting them to come back to church because they are awesome and deserve it. I also had Red Robin for the first time that night. Their spicy burger wasn't even spicy. My tongue didn't hurt at all!

 

On Thursday we just tried to see a bunch of less-actives that I've never met before. We didn't actually talk to any of them, but in front of one woman's house there were a ton of police cars and fire trucks. I went back on Saturday and everything seemed to be fine, but I wonder what was up then. For dinner that night we went over to this awesome family's house by the last name of Johnson. They are probably top 2 of my favorite families in this ward. Before actually eating Kyle Johnson took us to a thrift store and while we were there he told us to choose a some cups to drink out of during dinner. So Elder Searle and I each got a stein with our respective birth year on it for the Breeder's Cup, and Kyle got a big glass chalice. We were drinking soda in style that night. I love my stein!

 

We went on exchanges on Saturday with the Lucerne Valley Elders. I stayed in Sunset Hills and Elder Thorpe was my companion for a day. That guy was super awesome! He and I got along great and he treated me as if we have been friends forever. We had tons of fun and even found a new investigator!

 

Last week we got a text from Salt Lake telling us that this woman named Sarah needs a blessing and it had her address on it. The thing is is that we didn't have the apartment number. so Elder Thorpe and I knocked on about 5 doors in that place just asking if Sarah lived there. We eventually found her and gave her a blessing. She was just diagnosed with thyroid cancer, so she's been feeling pretty bad. We spent about an hour just talking with them about things and we are going over there tomorrow to have lunch with her and her family and also teach them something. That was way exciting!

 

We spent 6 hours in the church on Sunday. That was a long day. Then we had dinner with the Fox family. Then I fell asleep for the night. Sunday was good.

 

Yesterday was great because it was Zone Conference! We spent 8 hours sitting in hard chairs listening to the Zone Leaders, the Assistants and President Godwin instruct us. It was pretty good. It was long, but good. For dinner we went to In-n-Out. That was super yummo! Then after dinner we went and helped a couple of Priests from the ward learn how to teach the Restoration from Preach My Gospel. Tonight for mutual they are going to be teaching the rest of the Priests' Quorum, so it was cool teaching somebody how to teach. Normally I just teach people, it was a cool and different experience.

 

Now today was great because I was able to go to the temple and also to Cafe Rio. So far it's been a good day.

 

Now you might be wondering why my subject line says Sharks. That is because about 2 months ago I adopted the San Jose Sharks as my NHL team, and they are currently 6-0. Just so you know, I was a fan of them before the season started, and now I'm glad that they are winning. Yay.

 

You know what's cool about having P-Day on a Wednesday? The next P-day is in only 5 days! So you don't have to wait that long to hear from me. I love all of you guys, but I'm starting to forget what most of you look like since no one ever writes me. You should change that. I wanna hear what's going on in your guys' lives. Anyway, stay awesome. You guys are the greatest.

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Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

 

 

with Elder Searle at Redlands Temple

Elders Buttars, Grill and Schmidt and me on our 8th mission birthday. Yay!

Elder Thorpe and me after exchanges on Saturday

A mine-cart in front of somebody's house

Elder Searle & me on the couch. One he looks ticked....

...the other one he is happy. Funny guy.

 

The Start of the Shortest Transfer

I'm pretty tired right now and we've got a dinner appointment in 30 minutes, so I'm going to try to make this email the best I can.

My new companion is Elder Searle. He's a pretty cool guy. He likes sports a ton. And I mean a ton. He's from Burly, Idaho. That makes it two companions in a row from Idaho. He's  been out for 16 months today. He's a little guy and he's pretty funny. I think this transfer is going to be pretty good.

Not a lot actually happened this week. Wanna know why? It was because Elder Searle got sick, like super sick, and we were stuck inside on Friday and Saturday ALL DAY. We had to cancel or dinners and everything. So I listened to some great churchy CDs and played Solitaire for those two days. If I didn't have legit members in this ward who texted me and brought me McDonald's I probably would have gone insane.

Earlier in the week we went to teach a less-active family. They are pretty neat and we found out that they stopped going to church because when they were baptized their ward was pretty messed up and they felt totally like outsiders. I don't blame them for not wanting to go to church after that. After, we met with them they took us to their son's Mexican restaurant in a little place called Silver Lakes. I got a burrito that was as big as my head, and it was delicious.

We've taught Jesus and Leah a couple more times. They are so awesome! I love those cats. I just want them to get married so Jesus can get baptized. They are planning to be married in the middle of March, which is way too long to wait. I'm hoping they somehow plan on getting married sooner.

There was a time when we went tracting for a little while. We only talked to 1 person that entire time. I just thought that I should mention we went tracting. I do do that some times.

Yesterday, being Sunday, was pretty great. I freaking love the members in the Sunset Hills ward. They are so awesome and I love knowing all of them. Jesus and Leah didn't show up because their kids were sick, but some miraculous things happened, nonetheless. Some non-members came to church with their member friends and we have a couple of appointments set up for this week with them. I'll let you know if anything comes of those because I am super excited about that.

Today our zone played football and Ultimate Frisbee on an actual football field! It was tons of fun. A member in the ward I'm serving in is the superintendent of a  prep-school around here so he let us go play on the field, seeing as it is a holiday today. And I am super pooped because of it.

Other than that, my mission is awesome. With transfers we got moved to a different district. Elder Searle is the district leader and we have the Elders in Lucerne Valley and the Sisters in Big Bear, which are both SUPER far away. That's really weird because we don't have a car...

One last thing, 4 of the 8 Elders that came out with me are in the same zone as me. Elders Taylor, (me!), Grill, Buttars and Schmidt. I'm super excited to serve around these guys. Also, these are all of our second areas, which I think is kind of interesting.

I'll write to you all next week. Have fun this great January week!

Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

January 14, 2013

Due to Elder Jackson getting transferred and getting ready for that, we only taught Jesus and Leah a couple of times, so here are some pictures. Remember: A picture tells a 1000 words. So here's a novel for this week!

--

Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

This one is of a dart gun that Grill bought. If you look at the numbering it goes 1,2,3,2.

Funny stuff.

Needs no explanation

First, you should know that an awesome family bought me a jacket that looks like Deadpool's costume. I don't know why they did this, but they are super awesome and they know I love Deadpool, and their son has the same jacket. Those could all be contributing factors.
Anyway, here I'm in a jacket that looks like Deadpool, I thought it would be funny also reading Deadpool comic. Get it?

This was taken on the day it snowed in Apple Valley. The location is our front yard/ the Smithson's back yard. It was neat

So, here we are again...

This week has been a pretty smashing week. Probably one of the coolest things that happened is that Jesus and Leah came to Church yesterday, and they stayed for all 3 hours! That is magnificent. They and both of their kids seemed to enjoy it, so what more could you ask for?

Here's some more of the wonderful highlights. On Wednesday we were planning on going over to another area and help them tract because their numbers for the week were all zeroes, which shows that they aren't doing anything. So, right as we were getting ready to go on over there we got a call from our zone leaders telling us that we can't go over there. They brought over a missionary that broke some rules and we chilled at our place for an hour and half before they came back to pick him up to have an interview with the mission president. That was weird. That day we ended up not doing that much.

Well, the next morning we got a call telling us that this missionary, Elder Ronneburg, was going to spend the day with us because the ZLs had to go to a meeting down the hill. I pretty much knew at that moment that the day would pretty much be a waste. But, as luck would have it, one of our district mates, Elder Grill, called up and said that his companion had been sick the past 3 days and had some appointments he had to make, so his companion and I switched! I went with Elder Grill and two of the appointments fell through. We went to some thrift stores and Grill bought himself a typewriter. Anyway, it was nice to get out and try to do some missionary work, even though nothing really happened.

Saturday was pretty intense. I was on exchanges with Elder Norton, my Canadian zone leader. He is a very strict obedient hard working missionary. That day we saw a less-active and taught a lesson and talked to every single person we saw on our way to their place, which was kinda cool. Then we had a lesson with Jesus & Leah, the third of the week, and Elder Norton was on target the entire time. Then we tracted for nearly two and a half hours solid. Icky. That. as usual, wasn't a very successful time, but it sure was interesting. We sat and talked to this guy named Michael for 30 minutes. Actually, Michael did all the talking. We just sat and listened about why he only believes in science and not God. That was super weird. We ended exchanges early because we had dinner with a totally legit family, and it was probably Elder Jackson's last time being able to eat with them, so he wanted to be there for that.

Yesterday was kinda long. Since it is the New Year, the ward's time slot got changed to 1 pm. So in the morning we tried to see some less-actives to try to get them to church. No luck. Church was cool. Like I said, Jesus and Leah came, which is the bee's knees. The testimonies were all very good and the lessons in Gospel Principles and Elder's Quorum were smashing. What more could you ask for, seriously?

Now after church we went over to Bishop Lacey's for dinner. That was a super fun time. The Lacey family is pretty darn cool. I wish that we ate over at their place more often. I have tons of fun when we are over there.
Today we went thrifting for some new ties. I didn't get anything, because nothing screamed my name. I also ate two McRibs. Man, I love those things!

Well, there you have it. My life in a nutshell. Next week I hope something amazing happens so that I can tell all of you and have it be awesome and amazing!

--

Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

Can Anyone Say Twenty-Thirteen?

Happy freaking New Year, my loyal fan club! How's the good ol' two-zero-one-three going for ya'll?

This week has been a pretty interesting one, if I do say so myself. I can't believe a week has already passed since Christmas. Speaking of which, I will recount my Christmas tale to you now.

So, Christmas morning we got picked up to go over to our zone leaders' apartment. There were some pretty unpopular missionaries there as well, but our zone leaders are nice guys so they invited them to open presents with us. It was a pretty enjoyable morning. My folks gave me some really neat presents, because they are fairly nice people.

After that we went over to this family's house for breakfast, the Cornet/Talmadges. They are some really cool people. We ate some delicious pancakes with strawberries and vanilla ice cream on top. We played some Clue and had fun with them for a couple of hours. Good times were had for sure.

After that we went back home for a little bit to just chill. Then we went the Berg's house for dinner/lunch. They are a nice older couple who invited their family from the ward next door to eat with us. They made one of the best hams I have ever had.

When we were done there Elder Jackson and I went to the Smithson's, whose house we are living in, to call our dear old families! That was totally awesome. The highlight of the day for sure. The rest of the day we just hung out with some missionaries at our place. That's pretty much Christmas for ya.

So, the rest of the week:

We have actually started teaching Jesus and Leah again! Since last time I wrote home we have actually taught them three times! They are so awesome. We just barely taught them a few hours ago, and I've got to say that they are super prepared. I love teaching them, because whatever commitment we leave with them they accept and actually do. It is so rare to find people this prepared through tracting. We have reset his baptism date for the 19th, so I'm praying that he will get baptized then.

Recently my companion and I have started to try to get 5 contacts a day from tracting. We haven't gotten it once, but it hasn't been for the lack of trying. Tracting here is pretty not fun. Like people tell us that we don't believe in Jesus Christ and tell us some not nice things, but other than that I love tracting!

Yesterday was kinda neat. Our mission had a goal of getting 500 baptisms in 2012, and we reached it! We actually passed it and got somewhere around 525. So because of that we had a mission party. It was kind of a lame party, but it was cool seeing missionaries that I don't get to see all the time. 

Well there's pretty much my last week of 2012. I bet mine was better than yours. I'll see all you guys next year!

-- 

Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

Santa Claus at our Christmas devotional

Santa is really President Godwin

Here are of cookies I made with the Smithson's

I didn't get to frost them, that's why they look funny. Brother Smithson did it for me

Christmas morning at the ZL's place

Here are pictures of my dear companion with his Arkansas hat

He loves it!

Here's a picture of the tree you made for us. Right before we came over here it fell off the wall. Sad day

Elder Taylor's Fan Club

These pictures are of the 8 year old girl fan club I've got going on. Two of them have their brothers in them, but they are great nonetheless