Happy Saint Patrick's day everyone! 

Hope y'all were wearing green. This week was awesome, we had a bunch of appointments with our investigators. Not much has changed with all of them since last week but keep praying for Robyn, Sarah, Tami, Donald, and Ieda. They could all really use your prayers right now. But other than that it was just another great week as a missionary. 

Oh we got transfer news this week, I will be leaving sunnyside and heading over to Parkers Landing in the Vancouver East Stake and my companion will be Elder Taylor. Elder Taylor is awesome! He was in my district a couple transfers ago and we are going to do some great things in Parkers landing. I'm going to miss sunnyside though. The ward here is just awesome! There are so many families I have grown to love and I will miss them so much. I have tried to take as many pictures with the families and investigators we have been working with as possible. I have seen my testimony grow so much here in these last 4 transfers and I know the sunnyside ward is where the Lord needed me at this time. 

I just hope I did all I could to build his kingdom in the short 6 months I've been here. At times I've have felt overwhelmed with all the work I see that has need to be done but as always my spirits are lifted as I turn to the scriptures. As I was reading in Alma 37:6 when Alma is talking to his son Helaman about keeping a record of his people, he said (6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.) This scripture hit me so hard. I know and have a true testimony that our best is enough, but only our best. I think President Uchtdorf said it best when he said, "May we always remember this profound lesson: that we are banner bearers of the Lord Jesus Christ, upheld by the Holy Spirit of God, faithful and true to the end, each one devoted to give our all to the cause of Zion and bound by covenant to stand close together and lift where we stand." I read this talk and that scripture in Alma the same day that I was questioning my effectiveness as a missionary. I know God answers prayers and he did so to me through his appointed mouthpieces. This gospel has eternal consequences and there is no greater work over bringing salvation to God's children. 

I feel like I'm preaching to the choir but I do know this is where I'm supposed to be and if we all "lift where we stand" and give our all through small acts of faith, there will be "great things brought to pass". 

I love you all and hope you have a good week! 
Love Elder Taysom

Hey Family!

It's me and Elder Read here. We're just getting ready in the apartment to go proselyting, but we've got a few minutes so I thought I'd send you a video letter. This week was good. We had Robin on date but we've got to work with her a little more before she's ready for the promise of baptism so that will be a little bit. Tammy has moved her date back, for a good reason, but we're excited for Tammy. We're about ready to go to a lesson with Sara! We're gonna go out with the Zabaldo family. We're gonna go get some food and then have like a family home evening with her and so that will be super exciting.

Elder Read, what else?

"Why is he so good at basketball? He broke my ankles."

(Tanner dabs:) What can I say ya know? I thought it ran in the family, but then I watch my older brother Carter play basketball....hmhm (shaking his head). I think Dal's got it, but not Carter. hahaha Just wanted to roast ya!

This week we did a lot of service like we went and chopped some branches when I was on exchanges with Elder Packer, we went to the bishop's storehouse and do a lot of work there every week...a lot of walking. Sara, her apartment is on this side of the area, and we're over here on this side of the area. Here's our map of the area. Point where Sara lives, now point where we live. Yeah so it's a long ways, and we make that walk like twice a week. But that's ok its good for us! It's getting me thinner and I need to lose some weight, but...

Donald, he's awesome! We're still working with him and I love Donald! He invite us to a Blazers basketball game and I asked president if we could go, but that one got shut down quick...pquoo! haha

Umm I don't know...we're just having fun out here! Transfers are coming up and I'm probably getting transferred. I talked to president in my last interview and I was like, do you think I could slip you a twenty dollar bill and I could stay in Sunnyside for another transfer, and he was like, "How long have you been in Sunnyside?" And I was like, "six months" and he said, "Oh no you're leaving". So it's not a guarantee, but I guarantee I'm leaving, so that will be super sad, but I guess it will be good. I love a lot of families here! But anyway, that's our week! I love you all!

Bye

Hey fam! 

Hope all is well back home! This week was just awesome! We got 2 full days of sunshine and it's finally starting to warm up a little. We also did a lot of work with our investigators. Some updates on our investigators.... Sarah our investigator on date for baptism for March 8th is still awesome. She is progressing so well but she doesn't feel like she's ready for baptism which sound like a bummer, but I'm glad she's honestly seeking truth and wants to know more of the doctrine before she promises to live and keep it. Our other investigator Robyn (that we have been working with for a long time) finally decided to come to church! She loved it and said she felt peace while she was there. She now wants to be baptized on March 18th because that's her 3 year anniversary of the day she decided to be drug and alcohol free. 

The last investigator I wanna talk about is a new investigator we got this week. Her name is Tami and she is just awesome! She got introduced to the church by her husband who is a member, Brother Harris. They got married about a year ago and when they got married she knew he was a Mormon and she told him "I don't want you to push your religion on me, I go to the Catholic Church and you go to the Mormon church, that's it" Well obviously that didn't really work out because over the past year brother Harris taught Tami little by little about the church through his example. Well finally brother Harris invited her to church and she had a great time! She has been coming for the past 5 weeks and when Elder Read and I gave our talks in church last week about member missionary work, she felt like she needed to be a member missionary by inviting herself to take the discussions haha. So she came up to us in church and said " Hi I'm sister Harris. I'm not a member of the church but I would love to learn more. I signed up on the dinner calendar to feed you this Wednesday. Would you be willing to teach me more after we eat?"  Elder Read and I almost didn't believe it because that like never ever ever ever happens haha. I wish that's how missionary work went haha! Anyway, the lesson was awesome and the spirit was so strong as brother Harris bore his testimony to his wife. She is now preparing herself to be baptized on March 25th. I'm so excited for them and would love to see them sealed in the temple one day. I will probably be leaving Sunnyside on the 22nd, but it will be nice to come back with my new companion for the baptism. 

Well that's all I got for this week. I would like to bare my testimony that I know the Book of Mormon is true! I had no idea of the importance of the Book of Mormon and what roll it plays in testifying that Jesus is the Christ. It wasn't until recently, that I discovered why Joseph Smith proclaimed it to be the key stone of our religion. It is physical proof that we have modern prophets, that the first vision did happen, and that priesthood authority has been restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. Anyone who fulfills Moroni's promise can know of the same truth. 

Well that's all from Elder Taysom this week. Tune in next week for more ....... if you want I guess 

Hey family!

Sorry I'm writing so late. We went on a hike today as a zone (it was more of a nature walk). haha So we are on our drive back from our pday. Elder Read's asleep. Wake up! haha

Anyway, this week was awesome! What did we do this week Elder Read? ("Uh, we had zone conference"). We had zone conference. We had a new investigator at church yesterday. We spoke in church and we did a boss job. We were spitting fire from the pulpit. Especially Elder Read! I thought we were going to have to call the fire department.

We did a lot of service this week, especially for Toni. She's always calling us for service. What else happened? Oh yeah, ET happened this week, (emergency transfer) so Elder Packer has a new companion. ("Hi") Don't look back! He's driving so he can't look back. And there's Elder Packer ("Hey!") Yeah this week was really fun. We had some good sunshine this week so that was nice! ("Amen to that!") Yeah we had like 2 days of sunshine! And look at my skin! I'm getting pasty white and it's not good! My tan is gone! We've got to answer this call so we're leaving. Bye

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Hey Family!

Whats going on? I'm at the stake center playing some basketball. This week was awesome! This week we started out with Valentine's Day. That was interesting! We got flashed, that wasn't fun, haha but we had a lot of solid lessons with our investigators. Sara is progressing well toward her baptismal date, and we're starting to reserve the church for that, so we're getting excited for that! On Wednesday we went down and baptized one of Elder Read's converts he had in his last area, so we took the train down to Vancouver, so that was super fun. Other than that it was a really regular week. We've just been walking our tails off.

I'll show everybody what we do on P-days. We just come around and play basketball. Here's the zone. Let's go introduce you to some people...Say whats up ("He's a baller") You hear that? I'm a baller. We've got my Elder Hall here. This is the zone. We've got ping pong players, the zone leader Elder Davenport. Everybody's having fun. I'll go interview some more people. There's my dad, Elder Packer. Say hi to the family. ("Hi family"). We've got Elder Busiaca, Elder Block, and we've got the gaming crew. Then we've got Elder Astle. We've got Elder Brownly and that's pretty much the whole zone. Then we've got the sisters. You want to say hi? None of the sisters like to be in the videos. Anyway, don't do drugs, the church is true, and I love you all!

Tell Carter to get engaged. ("Who's Carter?") He's my older brother. He's got a girlfriend, and I don't think he realizes that he's probably not going to find another one. haha J/K Yeah put a ring on it quick! haha Um that's all we got. Thanks fam!

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Hey everyone!

 Happy Valentine's Day...... Well tomorrow but close enough! This week was crazy fun. Our Stake decided to change the Ward boundaries around and our mission president had told us of the changes that were going to happen like 2 weeks before they announced them to the ward members. We knew the changes were going to be really minor but for some reason all the member thought they were going to count off 1 2 1 2 on every other house just to break up the ward haha. So that made fast and testimony meeting pretty interesting last week, haha Everyone was going up to the pulpit to say goodbye because all of them thought they were going to be moved to a different ward when in all reality they only cut 2 streets out of the entire area. My favorite testimony by far was by Brother Madjeski. He realized how ridiculous everyone was being so he got up and said: " brothers and sisters this is ridiculous, the church is like McDonald’s, if you go get a Big Mac at the McDonald’s on 82nd and you go get a Big Mac at the McDonald’s on Division...... the Big Macs will be the exact same. Trust me, I've had them both"  haha I've never heard of that analogy before but it's so true!

Oh and Elder Packer got transferred back to Portland and he is now my District Leader! So we will be seeing each other at least twice a week now. He is in the Cherry Park Ward and because of the ward boundary changes, his area is now a little bigger than ours so we had to give him the car and we are back to walking! But it's all good. I love walking! We get to talk to a lot more people and get to know the area better.

Oh some people to be praying for are Sarah, Wayne, Idea and Luis. They are our main investigators right now and they are all trying to gain a relationship with our Father in Heaven so please be fasting and praying for them. Other than some solid lessons with those investors, nothing else really happened this week. Just a lot of finding and going to visit a lot of perspective elders.

Oh something crazy that happened at church yesterday, this guy came in the building like 10 min before sacrament meeting started and he started clapping his hands really loud to get everyone’s attention and then he yelled " I have been sent here by God to tell you all the Joseph Smith was a pervert" He was standing right in front of me when he yelled this so Brother Took and I, ( by the laying on of hands) showed him the door. Haha so that was a little different. Sorry I don't really have a miracle story this week but just know the church is true.

Love Elder Taysom  

Hey Everybody!

It Elder Taysom here. We are doing laundry right now in the apartment right now. This week was awesome. I'm sending a video again cuz I've got Taysom thumbs and I hate typing. This week was awesome! What would you say, Elder Read, was the best thing first?

"Um Zone Conference" says Elder Read.

Oh yeah, we had Zone Conference. President McAteer did an awesome job in coordinating that. It was a really good conference. He's doing Zone Conferences once a transfer, so we're going to have those a lot more often. And I REALLY like Zone Conferences.

Our investigators, Sara, Wayne, Donald, Rebecca, Kris, and Luis are all doing really good. They're all  of our investigators on date so keep them in your prayers cuz they need help. Sara moved her date up an entire month cuz she really wants to be baptized so she's shooting for March 8th now and she is doing awesome! We're really excited for her!

I never really talked about our temple trip. That was my bad. But we went to the temple. It's a BEAUTIFUL temple. It's awesome. We had a really good day. We went as a zone and it was a really good time. I definitely miss going to the temple. It was really fun.

One of the elders in our zone, a spanish elder, Elder Grasinger, is going home tomorrow. He's served his full 2 years and I'm going to miss him a lot!

We got transfer letters yesterday and I'm staying here for another 6 weeks. So me and Elder Read are going to be balling it up here in Sunnyside! My dad, Elder Packer, he's coming back to Portland. He's coming to area that's kind of close to our's. It's called Cherry Park, so I'll get to see him this Wednesday! So I'm excited to see Elder Packer again.

Oh yeah, we killed a cat. We were moving some hoarder guy, throwing away a bunch of crap, and we found a cat in his house and it ended up dying. We put it in a cage and then left it at a member's house. We were going to come pick it up the next day, but it died and all of his daughters went to go look and see the cat and it died an hour later, so all his daughters were crying. I felt really bad haha. Anyway, I've got to end the video cuz they can only be like 3 minutes long, so I'll see you guys later. Bye!