What's good y'all! 

Sorry I didn't write last week, we were out like all day as a zone so we didn't have any time to email, so I'll try and make up for the last two weeks in this email. 

Well we started our first week out by finding Penelope. She is 10 years old and she lives with her grandma sister Ruff, but we just call her mom because sister Ruff doesn't like when we call her grandma haha. Sister Ruff has been a member of the church for most of her life, but she has been less active for a number of years now. Elder Brown and I decided to pay them a visit and we sat down and talked for a while and Sister Ruff just went on and on about how much she loves the church and the impact it has for the youth. We asked her if she would like to get Penelope involved in the church and she instantly said yes and explained that she would like her to be baptized as well. We wanted to say yes right then and there, and discuss a date for baptism, but we had been instructed 2 months earlier my our mission president in one of our zone conferences that we should not baptize a minor unless their parents are active. So elder brown and I explained to her that we would love for Penelope to be baptized but that she would have to become an active member of the church first. She actually took it really well and said she had been wanting to come back to church but just never had the push necessary to do so. Well long story short sister Ruff and Penelope have come to church these last 3 week and Penelope will be entering the waters of baptism July 15th!!!!! We are so stoked for Penelope! She has loved coming too and has made a lot of friends in primary. She was a little scared when we mentioned she was going to go all the way under the water but once we took her to another baptism in the zone, and she saw how quick it was, she got excited and hasn't stopped talking about her baptism this Saturday haha. So I will let you know how that goes next week:) 

Then we had the 4th of July and it was so fun! President said it was an all day P-Day from 9:00 AM to 11:00 PM., so Elder Brown and I lived it up. We started the day out by going to Walmart and buying some sweet USA T- Shirts so we would look good for the Zone BBQ at 1:00. Then after the Zone BBQ we went around to a bunch of members and ate at their BBQs and just messed around and played basketball. Then to finish off the night we got a super rich member from my last area to come pick us up and watch fire works from his house. He lives on the top of a mountain that looks over most of Portland, so we saw a lot of fireworks. 

The Next day we had our Zone Temple trip! I love the temple so much! It was so nice to just feel of the peace in the house of the Lord. Our mission president challenged us to go to the temple with questions and promised they would get answered if they were sincere. It was such a cool experience to have all my questions answered and to just feel of the calmness that comes with the temple. 

Then at the end of the week we had a fun zone activity where we put up this huge sign on the front of this freeway overpass that said "FREE BOOK OF MORMON AT NEXT EXIT". We had the rest of the zone handing out copyies of the Book of Mormon to all the cars stopped at the next exit. It was so fun and we handed out like 50 copies. 

Well, that's a wrap on my week. I love it out here and I can feel my Savior's love stronger and stronger every day as we strive to bring others unto him. I know that he lives! I know he wants to help us! I know that he can help us, as soon as we are willing to change. Jesus Christ challenges all men to be better, so that they can feel true happiness. I love you all and hope you have a great week. 

Love Elder Taysom

HAPPY FATHERS DAY EVERYONE! 

Shout out to my dad for always being there for me and getting me out on a mission. I love you pops and just want to thank you for putting up with my crap for 19 years haha! 

So this week was transfers! I will forever miss the Parker's Landing Ward! On Monday and Tuesday we went around and said goodbye to all the members and investigators. There are so many awesome people in that ward that I am really going to miss! 

BUT...... I LOVE MY NEW WARD. THEY ARE SO MISSIONARY MINDED!! Oh and my new comp Elder Brown is awesome! He's 20 years old. He's from Idaho and he's been out on his mission for 20 months now. I have already learned a lot from each him and he's just a stud. Elder brown and I have had a full week going around to all the members and investigators just introducing the new missionary in the ward.....AKA me haha. 

I like the new zone I'm in. There's not many hikes or lakes to go fishing in here but  hey we can always just ball it up at the stake center. Oh so things about my zone, Elder Cook (my MTC comp) is my new zone leader and he lives in a 4 man apartment with Elder Finley (my other MTC comp) so when I go on exchanges with the zone leaders I could be rooming with both of my old MTC companions haha! It's a long shot but it would be so fun. 

My new apartment is pretty nice. It's not as nice as my last apartment but it's still one of the better ones in the mission. Elder Brown and I live with 2 other Elders, Elder Glover and Elder Smith. They are awesome and Elder Smith is a brand new missionary. He's been out for 5 days now. We have been playing pranks on him all week haha. Like on Wednesday (his first day out in the field) I called all the missionaries into the kitchen and then I said "I'll say the prayer" and Elder Smith asked why we were saying a prayer. So we explained to him that we pray over all the food in the whole kitchen once a week because we don't have time to bless every single meal. We have been doing little things like that all week haha! He's a cool kid and is a good sport about the whole thing. 

Oh and the pictures I sent are of me and some members in the Parker's Landing Ward when I was saying goodbye to them all. The cool picture with the car is Elder Brown and I. We were just walking to this lady's house and I saw that cool old Packard in the driveway so I said to Elder Brown "let's go ask him if we can take a picture with his car and then see if he wants the gospel" haha Well, he didn't want anything to do with the gospel but he sure was happy to take pictures of us in his car. 


Well that's all I got for this week. I know this church is true and I know I say that a lot but my testimony just keeps growing and growing on the truthfulness of this gospel. I know that our loving Heavenly Father, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are 3 separate and distinct beings. I know that god has always worked through prophets and always will. I know this great gospel brings peace and happiness and it is our job as missionaries and members to bring others unto Christ to help them feel of the great peace and joy this gospel brings. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love elder Taysom

What's up y'all!

This week was interesting. We had a lot of service again and had a lot of member lessons with the ward. We are trying to get around to every member of the ward and just share a quick 5 minute spiritual thought because of our last zone conference. Elder Lawrence from the 70 came to our mission and taught us how to reach our goal of 50 baptisms per month as a mission. It's a pretty lofty goal because we normally only get about 25, but when Elder Anderson of the 12 came to our mission about 2 months ago he said we could double our baptisms per month and get 50! So Elder Lawrence pretty much just told us how and he said it's going to be through the members. He challenged us to visit every member of our ward and ask them to pray for 2 things, number 1: pray for missionary opportunities, and number 2: pray for the mission to reach their goal of 50 baptisms per month. He also wanted us to challenge our friends and family at home to do the same....... so JUST DO IT ✔️ haha I know with everyone asking for missionary opportunities and praying for our mission to get to 50 baptisms, we will see miracles. We just started visiting members to give them this challenge this week and we already have 5 new referrals. It works and I know this is an inspired plan and if we can get everyone behind it, we will have no problem with reaching our baptismal goal of 50. 

Oh and I almost forgot, we got TRANSFER news this week. I got transferred and will be leaving Parker's Landing and heading over to the McLoughlin Ward. I'm really going to miss a lot of people here in the Parkers Landing Ward! I honestly wasn't expecting to get transferred but hey if the Lord needs me somewhere else then I just need to accept that everything happens for a reason and go with a smile. So next week I will be in my new area and my new comp will be Elder Brown. I'll tell you all about it next Monday, love you all and have a great week. 

Love Elder Taysom

Elders Valentine, Taylor, Cook, Packer, and Taysom

(all of Tanner's comps so far in chronological order right to left)

Transfers

Hey y'all it's yo boy Elder Taysom here!

This week was the bomb, we started our week out by going mountain biking and fishing on P-day. It was so fun to get out and enjoy the nice weather and catch some fish. Oh some updates on our investigators, Richard True CAME TO CHURCH!!! He said it was the spiritual boost he needed and loved it. David was out of town this week for his grandmother's 100th birthday so we are meeting with him next Wednesday. Please keep them in your prayers, we are going to try and put both of them on date this week.

Something cool that happened this week, Elder Valentine and I met with a guy named Wilber and he's 89 years old and he is just awesome! We talked to him for a long time and went over the restoration with him and he seemed really receptive to the first vision account. We invited him to church but he said he was pretty grounded in his church (southern baptist). So I asked him if we could go to church with him this Sunday and if we came that he would come to our church the following Sunday. Well we went and its was..... well interesting, I definitely had a lot of fun haha. Pastor Tim welcomed us with open arms and prayed over us, it was a pretty cool experience haha.

Well sorry that all I got for this week, I know the church is true! I know that God has always worked through prophets and he always will. I know that the priesthood is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. Love you all and have a great week.

Love Elder Taysom

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Hey y'all! 

Hope everyone is having a bomb Memorial Day, GO USA ! 

This week was just awesome! Elder Valentine and I started out our week stopping by every one of our new investigators and just setting up a time we would come back and do service for them. Well it went great, Jerry invited us back for a BBQ and to help him set up a pool he just bought for his kids and it was awesome! He asked us a bunch of questions about the temple while we were helping him set up the pool, and now we have a temple tour set up for him and his family in 2 weeks. 

We also got together as a district this last Saturday and went around to members and just random people outside doing yard work and offered to mow their lawns or just do anything that they needed. Well it worked a lot better than we thought because we spent the whole day in service clothes haha. 

We raked some lady's leaves, we helped 2 people move, we painted someone's barn and stacked a lot of wood. It is so rewarding to go around and offer small acts of service and see the joy it brings people to do something as small as bringing the garbage can in or doing there dishes. 

Our savior is our perfect example and all he ever did was serve others. I know that not all people are receptive to the gospel until they have been shown love, and that through your service, you care about them outside of a church setting. I know this church is true and I know that "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." - Mosiah 2:17   

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love Elder Taysom

Hey everyone, it was so good to see all your faces last week for Mother's Day!

  This week was pretty awesome! We had a lot of miracles. So we started the week out by visiting a bunch of less actives in the ward. We stopped by Virginia, she's in her 70s and lives alone with her pet bird. She has the biggest John Wayne movie collection I've ever seen because she said he reminds her of her dad. Virginia hasn't come to church in over a year and we prayed to be able to get through to her to know why. Well prayer always works but I didn't expect it to work that fast because when we walked in she said "boys I want to go to church but I don't want to take the buses". So we called up a member nearby and now she has a ride to church every Sunday. So that was definitely a miracle for the week and we had another one that happened just two days ago on Saturday. 

We got a new investigator named David. Elder Valentine and I were walking past the library in our area and stopped to listen to some homeless people that had formed a band and were playing music for spare change. Well we sat there for about 5 min just listening to these guys play and just started talking to people about the gospel because there was a small crowed gathered around. We talked to David and he recognized we were missionaries and asked if he could come to church with us. He from Tennessee he's in his low 30s and is a pro bass fisher and he actually came to church this Sunday!!!!! It was so sweet! He had a bunch of questions that we answered during the whole meeting and then during one the the hymns, he asked us about baptism. We asked him if he would like to be baptized and he said YES! So keep David in your prayers as he works towards baptism these next couple of weeks. 

Well that's about it from me for this week.  I know this church is true and miracles still happen today. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that the message we as missionaries and members share is a message of hope and love. I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Love Elder Taysom

Oh and the video is me and Elder Valentine playing some high schoolers in some B-ball.... We kicked their butts haha We were just walking by and asked them if they wanted to play us and then we beat them and now we're like super good friends with a bunch of them! We are starting up a basketball night at the church so they don't have to play on the sucky asphalt!

                                               

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Hey y'all 

Hope everyone had a great week. It's finally starting to warm up here in Washington so that probably means it's about 100 degress in St.George haha. 

Well I loved this week! Elder Valentine and I started out our week by having a lesson with the twins. We ran into a road block with them. We went over the law of tithing and their mom did not like the idea of the girls giving up 10% of their money even though they don't have jobs. So we are hoping to study up and try and address their mom's concern in our next lesson. We also had a lesson with Richard this week. We went over the Plan of Salvation and the spirit was so strong. We are now working on getting him to church this next week. And we picked up this new family named the Stricklands. They are super solid and we have a lesson set up next week with them so just keep them in your prayers. 

So that was just a quick update on all the people we are working with right now. The work in our area is picking up and I'm supper excited for the Parker's Landing Ward! Oh and last Saturday, Neil L. Anderson visited our mission and he gave us some great council. It was so awesome to hear a prophet of the Lord encourage us to do better and complement us at the same time. So that was definitely a highlight of the week! Oh and I went fishing last Monday. Sorry to let you down dad. We didn't catch anything, but it was still way fun. 

Well that's really all I've got for this week. I can't wait to see you all on Mother's Day and I love and miss you all. 

Love Elder Taysom