HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Wow what a week! haha This week was pretty crazy but fun. Elder Taylor and I started our week out by knocking on 1000 doors just trying to find someone to teach. We legit biked so much this week! Like my legs are getting so fit haha. But after knocking out like 3 apartment complexes we found Richard. He's like 55 and he has some form of cancer. He talked to us for a while and said he was really wondering what happens after this life and so we taught him a little bit about the plan of salvation and set up an appointment to come back. So I will keep you posted on Richard because he is super solid. Then towards the end of the week is when everything just went nuts.

So our investigator Tami, in my last area, got baptized last Saturday and they invited me back for that baptism. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a sec, but Elder Taylor and I were looking at all the bus schedules so we could bus down to Portland because we don't have a car. Anyway the baptism wasn't until 2:00 so we had time in the morning to bring our investigator Jonathan go play ultimate frisbee with the priests. So we went and we were having a grand time until Elder Taylor jumped to block a pass and came down on his ankle funny. So elder Taylor went down and his ankle swelled up really big so I drove him to the ER to get an X-ray and it turns out he spiral fractured his fibula. So now Elder Taylor has to go get a hard cast tomorrow for 3 months and he's not allowed to put any pressure on it. So yeah keep Elder Taylor in your prayers. I called President to let him know what was going on and he said Elder Taylor is probably going to be transferred to an area with a car so he can get around, so I might have a new comp the next time I email. But other than that the week was great.

I went to Tami's baptism and the spirit was so strong. It was so good to see her surrounded by the ward making her first covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ. It definitely got me in a good mood going into Easter Sunday! We should always remember Jesus Christ and it's something we covenant to do each week when we partake of the sacrament but it's nice to have a specific day to remember that our Savior completed the Father's preordained plan to redeem us from our fallen state. Knowing that Jesus Christ rose again and overcame death brings me so much peace and joy. Like it says in 2 Nephi 9:10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit."

I don't know about you but death and hell doesn't sound very fun to me haha. I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world and I love this Easter season that reminds us to keep our Savior in our thoughts and actions at all times. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Taysom

Hey everyone!

Hope you had a good week! Elder Taylor and I have been working hard in our new area. The work is a little slow here so we prayed and asked that we would find some new people to teach. We then knocked out like 2 apartment complexes and found 3 new people to teach and have return appointments with all of them.

We are also teaching a pair of twins that are doing awesome! The missionaries have been teaching them before I got here and they are on date for baptism for the 29th of this month. So we are so stoked for that as well! Oh and the weather here is just awesome! The sun finally started to show up here. We did have a crazy wind storm earlier in the week that blew a bunch of trees down, but other than that, the weather was great.

Oh so crazy story time...Elder Taylor and I were just knocking doors and this guy answered the door and started cussing us out, then he open the door and all of his little kids ran out the door at us and they were all naked! Elder Taylor and I just ran because we didn't wanna touch any of these naked kids and look like pedophiles! haha Then the guy called the cops and so Elder Taylor and I just biked back to the apartment as fast as we could.

Well that's all I got for this week the church it true and I love serving in the red white and blue!

Yo Yo Yo What's up everybody?

This is my new companion, Elder Taylor. He's from San Diego, California, so he's not perfect (he's not from Utah), but he's aight...JUST KIDDING, HE'S AWESOME! We've been hitting the pavement in Parker's Landing and this week was good.

We got a big challenge from our mission president to get a 20 percent increase in the work from last year and so we had some pretty big goals this week, but so far we've been hitting them! It's been really good. We found 5 new investigators, 5 Elder? ("7" says Elder Taylor), 7 new investigators here! The works really picking up. We're not sure how many of those 7 are solid, but we've met with a couple of them and one of them, Tiffany, is super awesome! She let us teach her the first lesson and we gave her an assignment in the book of mormon and she's got a young family so we're excited to teacher her! We've got Jonathon. We've been teaching Jonathon since before I got here, but he's awesome. How long have you been teaching him Elder Taylor? ("3 months" says Elder Taylor). And he's going good. How old is he? ("17) So we're excited for Jonathon. We invited him to watch the priesthood session and we're gonna follow up to see if he did because he had family over so he couldn't attend with us.

But Conference was the bomb! It's like the super bowl for missionaries! And Tommy Monson's like the quarterback! hahaha I'm just throwing out analogies here left and right. But conference was awesome! We had a lot of those investigators watch conference and we were really texting them and pushing them to watch it and so we've got to follow up this week and see if they did and what they got out of it. I always love conference! They focus a lot on missionary work so it definitely pumped us up.

We sent you a video of us on a hike today. We were on a raft. That was a real raft. We didn't fake it. We got permission from president. (smiling face, big eyes;) Anyway, this week was the bomb! I love you family. We're gonna get back to pday and hope you have a good week!

* videos won't open in safari, but should work great in Google, Explorer, Firefox, or any of the other internet browsers. Enjoy the goofiness of Elder Taysom!

These crazy elders sat on rocks next to the river to film this award worthy reenactment of river rafting!

Elder Taysom found this costume in the lost and found at the church.

Hey everyone! 

It's me Elder Taysom. Hope y'all had another great week, I know I did. So transfers were this week and I am now balling it up in the Parker's Landing Ward. I love it here already mostly because we have the 2nd nicest apartment in the entire mission, but also because we already have 2 new investigator and 2 twins on date. I'm super excited to get things moving again in this ward. 

Anyway we have 2 new investigators! We met them at the skate park down the hill from our apartment and that's how we met Austen and Dillan. They are best friends and came over and started talking to us and started asking us a bunch of deep questions. We said we would love to answer all of their questions but we had an appointment to get to so we set up an appointment with them to meet up and go over the discussions. So we are super pumped for that next week. 

It's really funny because our area is really small so we get to know like everyone in our town. Oh and something cool about our ward is we have president Anderson in our ward! He's a member of the mission presidency and he is so good at motivating us and hooking us up with a bunch of food. 

Well that's all I got for this week. Sorry it's not long but I'll send a bunch of pics to make up for it. 

Love Elder Taysom 

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