One Year!!!

I took these pictures today in commemoration of me making it this far.

 

So these are just some dumb pictures of Elder Alba, my companion, Elder Bird and Elder Barrus, the Spanish Elders, and myself. We had a little fun this morning.

**So these three pictures here are something special.**

This first one is of me in my "missionary disguise." What do you think?

This next is of some hanging bananas. Elder Alba wanted to hang his bananas, so he got a string and put it on a hook in the ceiling and then put the bananas there. That's the end of the story.

This last is of a pretty shnazzy tower I built out of Jenga blocks. Yay.

Burning the Shirt! One Year Over!

San Bernardino. The one and only.

I'm not sure if my dear mother told all of you or not, but just like I guessed I am in the San Bernardino 1st ward. This place is pretty different from any other area I've served it. First off, it is obviously super ghetto. I mean, tons of poverty here and things like that. There are always people outside, more than I've seen in my whole life. There are just always people walking on the streets and things. By the way, I'm in a car. Also, this ward is comprised of mostly senior citizens. There are probably 4 young families that are active. It is super different for me.

 

Here's a little bit about my week.

 

On Tuesday I spent from 7:30 am to 2 pm sitting in meetings and things like that. It was great. I met my new companion, Elder Alba. He's a pretty cool kid from Oregon. This is just his 2nd transfer, so I'm finishing up his training. He wasn't trained that well by his previous companion, so I'm trying to help him learn how to actually be a missionary. The cool thing is that Elder Alba will be going to Brazil once his visa comes through. I might be with him only a few more days, but probably at least this whole transfer.

 

Studying is a very long process each day. Because Elder Alba is being trained, we have 2 hours of companion study each day. So it starts at 8:00am and we have personal study for 1 hour, the companion study for 2, then, because my companion is learning Portuguese, he studies for an additional hour, then we have lunch. So when that is all over it is 1:00pm. Kinda different for me.

 

What we did for most of Wednesday and Thursday is just meet our investigators. Elder Alba couldn't tell me too much about them, so we tried to meet them. I met Terry and Arty, an older black couple. We were actually going to go in to drop them because they just were not progressing. The cool thing, though, was that right then and there they told us that they would quit smoking and they even gave us their cigarettes to take away. We've even called them a couple of times and seen them, and they told us they only smoked a nubb of a cigarette each, and since then, nothing. They are a pretty cool couple.

 

We have some Spanish missionaries who cover the same area as us, but for the Spanish ward, and so they give us people to go see all the time. The weird thing is that when we try to contact them, they are never home! So we actually didn't find any new investigators this week. We tried, though. Contacting people here is totally different from any area I've been in, because a lot of the time people are willing to at least give us chance. Unlike Rancho Cucamonga which they would just shut us down as quickly as possible.

 

Yesterday at church was different as well. There aren't very many active ward members, so sacrament meeting was kinda sparse. They asked me to bear my testimony as well. A good way for people to know who I am. Most of the priesthood holders in this ward are High Priests, so other than my companion and me, there were 5 people in Elder's Quorum. What I do like about our Gospel Principles class is that nearly everyone there is a recent convert. That is cool.

 

So far I've liked everyone that I have met in the ward. They are all super nice. Our ward mission leader is a different kind of guy. He's very in your face. Not in a bad way, but he's not afraid to tell you how things are. For example, when it comes to telling people what they need to do to help us missionaries out, he calls everyone out and says they aren't doing there job very well. Kinda funny.

 

I'm still trying to get used to the whole being senior companion thing. I just want to stay junior companion! It was so much easier back then.

 

I've got to go. Almost dinner time and all. Thanks for being so great, all of you!

 

Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

A Story of a Missionary

So here's a little story of a guy named Elder Taylor.

Elder Taylor, a pretty average missionary, was serving in a ward called Highland, in the city of Rancho Cucamonga. During that week he and his companion, Elder Pyne, had no investigators. So they spent a lot of time knocking on doors, hoping that somebody, somewhere, would have an interest in learning more about the restored Church of Jesus Christ.

On Tuesday Elder Taylor sat in District Meeting, listening to his district leader train them on contacting people using the Book of Mormon.

On Wednesday Elder Taylor and Elder Pyne knocked some more doors. They met some really nice people, and some other people who said that they would never join, but like to talk to Mormons. They even met one man who said that they could come back tomorrow!

Later that day they taught a woman who is returning to activity about Church Attendance, Prayer, and Scripture Study. It went great!

So Thursday rolled around. More tracing ensued, and no luck was apparent. They stopped by that man's house, but his wife said that he was at an all-of-a-sudden doctor's appointment. "Darn it!" Exclaimed Elder Taylor, "I was afraid something like this would happen." Luckily for them, they had a good day planned for tomorrow.

On the Friday of that given week, the two young missionaries had told some great family in the Highland ward that they would help them move from one house in the ward to another within the same ward. It was a great day with a great family. Finally a much needed break from a monotonous task of finding people.

Saturday was a good day, too. It was spent fixing Elder Taylor's bike and visiting some other people in the ward. That night the companionship was expecting calls to tell them if they were being transferred. Their Zone Leaders came by to wait with them and play a few games of Monopoly Deal. It was fun, but no calls arrived that night.

So Elder Taylor fell asleep, self-assured that he would be staying in the ward he was currently serving. Sunday morning came and his companion answered the phone, it was a call from the Zone Leaders. They informed them that Elder Pyne would be staying in the area, but Elder Taylor was going to be transferred. Elder Taylor, mildly annoyed with the reception of such news, was not excited to say goodbye to the families he had only just barely become friends with.

Church came around and Elder Taylor said goodbye to some families there. He also got the opportunity to teach Sharing Time in Primary. It was great. After Church he and his companion went to someone's house to call their families. It was a great couple of hours, being able to talk to his wonderful parents and siblings was a great privilege.

After calling home and eating dinner, the companionship spent some time with the Hadad family, so that Elder Taylor could say good by to them. While there he received a phone call, informing him that the next transfer he would be serving as a District Leader. Then a little while later he got another phone call, letting him know that he would also be doing the last half of a young missionary's training.

After saying goodbye to the Hadads, Elder Taylor, through way of communication with other missionaries, found out that the only missionary who has been half-trained, is currently serving in San Bernardino. So that is where he is expecting to go come the next day.

 

Author's Notes:

I hope this was a great break from the normal way I write. I worked really hard on this entry, and I am certain that my fans will enjoy it. By the way, I hope you all had a great Mother's Day!

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Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

All illustrations and pictures added by the editor 

for the viewing public's enjoyment!

Here Be a Picture or Two (or Three)

The Lunde kids and me having fun

Taylor and Cole, some 11 year old kids, who were sad to see me go

The great Hadad family

Howdy Howdy

Not that much to report on this week, folks. I've still just not got a lot going on here in Rancho. I love the ward, a ton, though. There are so many good people and a ton of amazing little kids.

So the big thing that happened this past week was the group, Remembering Our Culture, finally came and performed for the Stake. It was great. ROC is a group from Utah, mostly students attending UVU and BYU, and they are all ethnic in some sort. There are five different cultures represented, Asian, Native American, Polynesian, African and Latin. They do all sorts of cultural dances. They performed for our stake Friday and Saturday. They did a really great job. All of the missionaries here in Rancho had the opportunity to set up chairs, take tickets and usher for the people attending. I was really glad that they could come, because the entire time I've been in the Highland ward that is what we have been promoting.

Unfortunately Elder Pyne and I still don't have any investigators. We spent a little bit of time knocking doors this week, but we weren't that successful. I'm hoping this upcoming week will be different and we might start seeing some success here.

I just want to say again how much I love this ward, though! The members here are all super nice to my companion and me. As usual the kids are super fun and love to play with us. There are super cool people who will always feed us when we don't have a dinner. And being in a bike area at this time I'm getting a pretty good tan. Me gusta.

Here's something cool, today was the first day on my mission that I've had the opportunity to use my umbrella! That's something neat. 

There you have it, forks. You are the greatest!

--

Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor

A Week is a Week is a Week

Howdy.

I'm sure you are all curious why I'm writing on Wednesday and not Monday. The answer is we had Zone Conference all of Monday, for 8 am to 4 pm. So we have the privilege of having Preparation Day today! Yay!

This past week wasn't really the best one for my companion and me. If you remember, last week I told you about our new investigator, Margret. Elder Pyne and I went back for our appointment to teach her, and she said she was no longer interested in meeting with us. Bummer.

Our other investigator, Danny, who the Sisters that were here before us started teaching, was giving us the most frustrating time ever. He texted us and set up a time to meet on Tuesday. Naturally we went to his house at the time he requested and he wasn't there, and when we called his cell phone it was off. Then later that week Danny texted us again and asked if we would go over to his house at 6 the next night. So, we go over there at 6. The same thing happens again; nobody is home, I call his cell phone, it is turned off, I call the house phone, somebody picks up the phone then hangs it up immediately. Then he texted us that night at about 8 or 8:30 and said that he waited for us and now that it's late don't worry about coming over. Ugh. After talking with our Zone Leaders about it, we ended up dropping him. So now we have a total of zero investigators. Cool, huh?

Other than that glaring concern, life here in the Highland ward is really great. Every single member I've met, including less-active ones, have been really nice to us and are in general really cool. I really do like serving in this area, even though sometimes it isn't the most productive. Just in general everybody living inside my area has been really kind.

That one less-active woman, Cassie, is still doing great. I'm really glad that I can have the opportunity to teach her. Even just in the 4 weeks I've been here I've seen a lot of improvement in her and her life, and more importantly, she sees it too and wants to keep doing better. One thing I really like is that most of the women in the ward know who Cassie is now, because she is attending church, and all of them are encouraging her to keep coming. I love it.

On Saturday I had the opportunity in helping with the Mormon Helping Hands project for the ward. I'm sure most of you know what it is, but for some reason they don't do this in Utah. My ward here got to go paint some wrought iron fences in a nearby park. Elder Pyne and I were the first ones there, then we were the last ones to leave. It only took an hour and half, which was good.

Yesterday we tracted for a couple of hours, not really the most fun thing in the world, especially when everybody who lives in Rancho is always not home. so when you knock doors on a street you are lucky to talk to 10 people. We only got 5 contacts, but nothing promising. Elder Pyne and I just really need to find people to teach. Not having investigators isn't really that fun.

There you have it. I hope it was everything you were expecting and maybe even then some. Enjoy your week, just like I will enjoy mine.

--

Now go, and be Golden,

Elder R. Sage Taylor