Elder Scott Taylor: Quatro Mesas!

January 13, 2014

Holy Cow! This past Saturday marked exactly four months since I left home. I can't believe it's really been four months. I know that isn't long, but it still seems so crazy. Cause it really is long!

So yesterday we got our transfer doctrine for this Wednesday...I am staying here! I am staying here in Casa Grande, BUT Elder Fenton has received a special assignment and will not be staying here, so I will be getting a new companion. I'm already done training! Crazy huh? The even crazier thing is that I will have to do it all over again in a whole other language. It's insane! I can't believe this visa thing. Of the 5 visa waiters in our mission, 3 of them got their visas this past transfer. 2 to Brazil, and they left this morning, and 1 to New Zealand, and he leaves in a couple of weeks. I'm excited to continue on here in Casa Grande. I like it here, reminds me a lot of home. It's like a mix between Kaysville and Layton. exccept everything is brown and there's a lot more Spanish!

This past week was CRAZY with meetings. Wednesday, we had zone meeting. Thursday, weekly planning(usually on Friday). Friday, Zone Conference with the Maricopa zone, and Saturday, not with Elder Holland. So, Elder Holland was suppose to speak at ASU Friday night, and was suppose to speak with us Saturday morning. Well, guess what. On Friday morning he got an urgent assignment from the First Presidency and had to cancel with us and ASU. We still had the meeting, and it was incredible. Elder Wright, of the Seventy spoke to us instead. The Mission Presidents of the Tuscon, Phoenix, and Tempe missions and their wives all spoke as well. It was awesome!!

Zone meeting and Zone Conference were incredible. A lot was talked about. In zone meeting, our zone leaders asked what the culture of our zone is toward obedience. Someone responded, "striving for obedience". So the Zone leaders said "Exactly. And that's not going to cut it." They talked about how we are not being obedient. We are doing the big things, but not the little ones. they had us do an anonymous survey of 7 things. Waking up on time, exercising 30 minutes, studies on time, home at the right time, effective daily planning, going to be on time, and not going over time on Facebook. there was not a single 100% in the zone. I am sorry to say. My biggest weakness....exercising. I just have no desire in the mornings, so I exercise for like 15 minutes. But we talked about the miracles of exact obedience. Well, I will be exactly obedient form now on. "Obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles."

Did I tell you about Joann? Well, we put her on date for baptism on Friday for February 15. It was awesome. it was the first time this transfer that we have even gotten someone on date. I just had the feelling to look at the upcoming Saturdays before the lesson. She is a really heavy smoker and hasn't yet been to church, but her husband is a smoking less active, and has come the last few weeks. I knew that if we gave her a date she would really work to stop smoking for it and after.

Well familia, no crazy adventures this week. We continue to work with Sherman. We are trying to sit down and read the book of Mormon with him and as we do that we feel a lot of opposition.

I love you all!!!! Thank you for your wonderful examples Eu te amo voces muito!!

Con amor, Elder Scott Jackson Taylor

Hey! Also, my address is going to change this week. We are moving to a house. There are currently sisters in that house and they are switching. We may also be splitting an area, so there will probably be 6 Elders in that house - Crazy! So I will have a new address, so don't send any more letters until I can get you the address.

Love you!

I forgot to tell you about our new Facebook stuff. We had to unfollow everyone not in our area. It is now specifically for the work and people in our area. So fi someone is disappointed that I didn't see their thing about me on Facebook, tell them that is why.