Hermana Taylor: The Laman to My Lemuel

Hey everyone!

I hope you are all doing well!

This week in Mexico has been the epidiomy of an emotional roller coaster.

Going to the temple here in Mexico last week was one of the best experiences of my life! After another chaotic drive in the city I was super excited to reach the temple. They gave us some time to take pictures and then we went and did a session. Wow. Sometimes it's mentally exhausting for me to be in such a forgein place so it was so nice to walk into the temple and feel like I was back home. 10 out of 10 would recommend going to the temple if you haven't been in a while.

Okay so like I said, emotional roller coaster. Last Thursday when we got back from the temple I started feeling sick again. Long story short, I ended up being sick enough to have to take some antibiotics but I am doing a lot better now. The next night Hermana Lykins and I spent our evening meeting the new girls that had arrived in our Zone the previous Tuesday. I don't know what we expected these new Hermanas to do or say but we definitely didn't expect what happened. We took the first set of 3 companionships out into the hall to visit with them and we spent the next 30 minutes trying to convince one of the Hermanas that she could do it, the next 40 minutes talking to the next companionship learning about all of the medical difficulties she is going through. Literally 30 seconds before we talked to the last companionship, one of the Hermanas fell out of her chair and sprained her ankle. So we spent the rest of my night trying to wheel the poor Hermana to the opposite end of the CCM to the infermieria so that they could help her. Ahahaha good times. Speaking of STL responsibilities, we got 2 new districts yesterday which is basically unheard of. Hermana Lykins and I are now responsible for 26 Hermanas. It's super crazy but also super fun. Also get this. Nikki Snowden, as in Timpanogos High School Nikki Snowden, is one of the new Hermanas in my Zone! I also ran into Juliann Mecham this week! #thsthebestttt

So all of us missionaries here in the Mexico CCM are completely convinced that we are in the hunger games. Usually we hear firecrackers going off during the weekend but they usually don't start until 5pm and they only happened every 30 minutes or so. Last friday was a completely different story. Last Friday morning we all woke up to these cannons going off at 5am for no apparent reason. Then throughout the day they were going off ever 10 minutes and we were all so confused. We asked one of our teachers and he said that this last Monday was a Mexican holiday but they celebrate it all weekend long. Wow it was really funny because in the middle of teaching a real investigator a really loud firecracker went off and he straight up did the hunger games salute. We've decided that the arena is the grounds of the CCM, the MTC presidency are the Capitol, our teachers are our versions of Cennia. In fact, we are District 13. Hahaha!

Like I said earlier, I got sick this week. It got so bad that at one point I couldn't even talk. When you are a missionary trying to teach people you kind of need your voice, right? Haha good times. Basically I have the best companion in the whole world. She got us through 2 lessons and even got a person to commit to baptism all while I just sat there and listened. In all reality, that was really hard for me. It's hard when you fee like you are doing a good thing and yet you are still sick. But something that I learned this week was that sometimes Heavenly Father cuts us down so that he can build us up to become who he needs us to be. We watched a mormon message called "The Will of God." If you haven't seen it before it talks about a gardener pruning a current bush. The bush asks the gardner why the gardner cut it down when it was growing so beautifully. The gardner responded that he cut the bush down so that it could be what it was meant to become. In the end the bush says, "thank you, Mr. Gardner, for loving me enough to cut me down." This past week I felt exactly like the current bush. I tried my best to be the missionary I thought I needed to become but obviously heavenly father needed me to stop and take time to listen to the people around me. I know that sometimes we feel like the bush and wonder why bad things are happening to us but I promise that in the end, God's plan is always better than our plan.

I hope that you all have a great Valentine's Day and that you enjoy watching the Olympics! I love you all and I am so grateful for your support

Con Amor,

Hermana Taylor

One of our teachers told Hermana Lykins and I that we were complaining too much about wanting to get to the mission field. He straight up called me the Laman to Hermana Lykin's Lemuel. It was super funny. But yeah, 10 more days until I'm back in the USA

Hermana Lykins, Me, Hermana Buchanan, and Hermana Sears. H Lykins, H Sears, and I are all headed to NYC

and H Buchanan is headed to Washington D.C.: