Week 7

hello my beautiful fam!!

i miss you guys so so much.

ahh i can't believe another week has come and gone! this week went by way fast.

transfers were on Tuesday and it was really hard to say goodbye to sis. Tabin. she is the best and was such a great example to me. The 2 elders in our ward also left- one went home and the other is now the a.p. Which means Sis. Stigen and I have their old area now too. This week was crazy because we were white washing our new area and trying to meet with the elders investigators. But we have already started to see so much success from this new area so we are really excited! 

Sister Stigen- my trainer- is a visa waiter too, but for Australia and has only been out 4 months so we are both still trying to get the hang of everything. But we are making it through and the Lord is always with us.

Since I came a week before transfers the official "new missionary training" was this week. When i walked in i saw this girl who was waving at me and I looked at her for a second and then realized that it was a girl from my zone at the mtc! 2 other sisters from my zone at the mtc got re-assigned to Long Beach! They came out on their missions a week after us so we were really close with them at the mtc and it's so great to have them here. Most of the missionaries at the new missionary training were visa waiters. Half of the elders were waiting for their visas for Taiwan and one of them was Zach Boyce from Timpview! I couldn't believe I as seeing all of these people i knew! But Zach was only here for 4 days and then his visa came so all the visa waiters for taiwan left today. 

The training meeting was super helpful. It focused mainly on teaching clearly and simply and making sure that the investigators talks more than you do. It's not about just teaching a lesson but making sure that the people we are teaching actually understand the doctrine and feel the spirit. The spirit is what converts people. Not us.

I love our investigators but it's hard to get them to keep commitments. We had six investigators who were going to come to church on Sunday and only one showed up. Ah it broke my heart. Michael, the guy I wrote about last time whose dad has cancer. Well i never thought i would see him again after we taught him on the street but then we were walking in the area where he lives and he drove by and said he wanted to meet with us! so we taught him more about the plan of salvation and he said he wanted to go to church on Sunday! he didn't come.. however, i am really hopeful for Michael. He's just not sure if God is really there for him because he has experienced a lot of hard times where he feels like God was not there.  But we are working with him and I know that he will come to know that God is there and does love him and care specifically for him. please pray for him and his family.

On Thursday we went on splits with the sister training leaders. I was with Sis. Le and Sis. Amalanga. they are so great. i just love them. I learned so much from and it was such a great experience. I was really struggling for a little bit because my comp. and I have different ways of teaching and I felt like I had to teach the way that my companion teaches. But Sis. Le really helped me realize that it is okay for me to teach differently than my companion. I can still be me. 

I love sis. Le. she goes home at the end of this transfer and i will miss her so much. She is the most organized, bold, confident, beautiful, missionary I have ever seen. I am so grateful for her.

In our mission, one of the rules is for exercise in the morning we have to run for 20 minutes. I love it and sometimes really hate it. but we do it because exact obedience. We were talking about it at the missionary training meeting and one senior companion raised his hand and said,

 "I just get up every morning and tell myself that, I am fat. so I have to run."  it was the funniest thing ever. haha

well i think that's it. i love you all and miss you like crazy. California is great.

love, Sister Taylor

stay safe and put the Lord first! always. blessings will come.