Dec 15 2010

Got my hair cut today by this Venezualen its short but awesome looking and she said I have a perfect nose. She was awesome and pretty cute!  I am sending the cd with pictures home today when i go to the post office. love you

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Taylor Jolly <taylor.jolly@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Hola, ok so apparently if family is ever in my mission I am allowed to go to lunch or dinner with them, it just cant be parents or girlfriends, so if any of the family besides you mom and dad are in the mission they can take me to lunch. Christmas morning I will probably call in the morning around 9-11 your time, somewhere in that time span. Sweet thanks, the money will go to good use. The church doesn't cover the cost of extra supplies beyond pamphlets and book of mormons so we have had to buy our investigators and new converts gospel principles, because the ward doesn't cover the cost of those either. Most people we are teaching now are on the brink of poverty. We are teaching a family who is living on $20 a day to pay for everything including bills, this is a family of 8. 

     Well it was a good week, although we had to say goodbye to our visa waiter companion. He got his visa to mexico and left last sat. He was awesome and we had so many connections with people we knew. B our recent convert got confirmed on sunday and his little brother now wants to be taught so we are going to begin teaching him this week. The mom has a job now and is working like 12 hrs a day, they have a house (basement) in salt lake that they will be moving into in the spring and things are just looking up for them. We are teaching a mom and her child, C and A. They are awesome and super receptive, they just have a hard time keeping commitments although they are reading the book of mormon and they really like church. They have a baptismal date set for dec 26th but it will probably have to be moved back about 2 weeks so we will have time to teach them all the lessons because her work schedule is crazy. She gave us a reference to her friend I, who wanted to meet with missionaries. We have taught him once but it was more like us answering questions because he was already like halfway through with the book of mormon when we met with him the first time. He said it seems like he has read this book because all the stuff sounds so familiar. He loves reading church stuff and has gone to Deseret book and bought several books by apostles and read them. He is excited about the church and wants to get baptized.  He pretty much knows all the lessons and doesnt have any really big doubts. E and his wife d are another one of our investigators. They had a baptismal date but we are going to push it back to jan 16th because all he does is agree with us but then wont keep commitements. M is tough to get a hold of because she has like 4 little kids and is always out at their activities but we are hoping to get her on date for jan 16th too. Then there is the R family, they are super awesome. We taught them the first lesson and invited them to ward activities and they went to some. They didnt come to church on sunday but they said they would come this sunday. This is a family of 8 that we got as a reference. Turns out the dad and the dads brother are memebers but inactive. They got baptized in mexico like 25 years ago but went inactive. They have 4 kids ages 11 to 15 and the mom and the grandma. They all are very receptive and the kids were reading the book of mormon before we even left. The next time when we came the kids brought out all the book of mormons we gave them, so there were 8 book of mormons on the table lol it was a cool sight. The dads brother has been looking for work for about a year and we hooked him up with a member who is high up in the business that this man want s to work in (granite and other materials) and so this member is going to contact all his friends to try and find him a job. We are trying to help them in everyway we can. The mom has an appt with pres. H to see what kind of help the branch can give. All 6 unbaptized members of the family are on date to be baptized jan 16th. 

    I have learned that missionary work is a lot more than just teaching lessons. We are invited into peoples homes not to teach lessons but to change lives. We offer what help we can and try to help them spiritually and physically. They become like family as we sit and learn together. Lol last night we were at R and A's and yep all of a sudden a huge plate of food was in front of me, and we had a dinner appt with an english family in like 20 min. I chowed down and was stuffed but decided to be a man and try a jalepeno. I took the whole jalepeno and stuck it all in my mouth. WOW mistake! it was hott, I downed my glass of soda and then opened my water bottle and drank the whole thing and my mouth was burning for about 15 min after that. We then drove to our other appt. ate pizza and brownies and rushed off to our teaching appt which was 30min after our dinner appt began. I decided i never want to eat again. Lol but being missionaries we get fed a lot of junk food, so yes mom I have been taking vitamins and I ate tuna fish, apple and a yogurt for lunch the other day. I have been trying to eat healthier. lol on sunday this Hawiian couple came by our house and gave us a huge tray of chicken turkey potatos and carrots and a whole beautiful apple pie that was hott!!! SOOOO good!!! Elder Holland is tomorrow and we have 8 more appts this week with people we will be teaching for the first time and referals to contact tonight. Although a lot of the referals we get from the english missionaries are just doors they knocked on where a spanish speaking person answered and the missionaries had no idea what the person said because they spoke spanish so they turn it to us as a referal. Work is busy, always tired but happy. Love you all and merry christmas

 

Love,

Elder Jolly