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That’s the only word that I can describe for right now. It’s not so much the mission that’s got me feeling that way, but all the stuff that I just read in a bunch of emails… I had a record 17 new emails this week… Crazy, eh?

Sadly, Cinny, my dog, died this week. There isn’t too much to say in regard to that, except that I’m very sad, and I know that my Mom is as well. Let’s all have a moment of silence for her………………..

Other than that, the mission news is pretty interesting. We got the news this week that my companion is being transferred tomorrow. He’s heading off to Mesa, and he should have a good time there. His companion is going to be a Brazilian who is pretty new, and he doesn’t really speak English at all, and his Spanish is mostly just adapted Portuguese. It’s also kind of hard for him, because this is his first area, but he seems to be doing pretty well.

My new companion is a guy from good ‘ole Idaho Falls. Apparently he’s a pretty neat guy, and I’m pretty excited because it turns out that he has a quesadilla maker, which should be fun. (For those of you who don’t know, I’m a big fan of quesadillas, and the quesadilla makers just make making them easier)

But yeah, apart from all of that, not too much has happened this week. We’ve been plenty busy with lots of stuff, and I was sick for two days, but other than that, there’s not much more to say. Plus, I spent so much time reading all of my other emails that I’m running out of time.

Pretty much, I don’t know exactly what to say because my mind is a jumble of random stuff right now… I’m currently thinking about a ton of stuff, and it’s kind of hard to organize my thoughts…

So, to make it easier for myself and all of you, I’ll just go ahead and finish up right now… Oh, yeah… We saw the First Presidency Christmas Devotional yesterday, too. That was good fun.

Anyway, everybody have a great week!

I don’t know how many of you know this, but last year my Mom sent me a Christmas tree that is inflatable. As you may have figured out, we put it up this past week. It took about 30 minutes of our time on Friday, which was considerably less time than it took me to do the same thing last year. (I guess it wasn’t packed as tight the second time around). We also took a lovely little 1 1/2 foot-tall tree out of the little shed by our apartment, and decided to use it. I spent about an hour taking all the lights off of it, because someone had wrapped 5 strings of lights around it…. To make a long story short, he did a very, very thorough job of it.

Anyway, this week has been extremely exciting. First off, we called our little news hot line (1-800-555-TELL) on Saturday night to find out that BYU had won. At that time, we had two other missionaries over at our apartment, and we were all pretty happy about that. (Sorry to all of you U-of-U fans…)

In other news, we also had a baptism this week. Josefina Gaytan was baptized on Saturday night. That was a great service, except for the fact that our loverly Branch Mission Leader didn’t tell us that he wanted to play a video while they were changing back into normal clothes… And he seemed rather annoyed that we hadn’t gotten something ready. That was interesting. I suppose that he expected us to read his mind. Apart from that, though, it was amazing.

On Friday night they turned on the Christmas lights at the temple, and we were assigned to work. So, we got to see them turn them on for the first time this year. That was pretty much amazing. There were just about a billion people there (with a slight exaggeration) Anyway, that means that for the next month we will be taking frequent trips to the Visitors’ Center, talking with many people. We’ve also been handing out fliers for it like candy (well, even more than candy, I suppose… Usually I greedily hoard candy for myself).

The other thing that happened was a lovely Thanksgiving dinner in Mesa. There were about 16 missionaries there in a very small apartment, and though it was completely packed, it was very fun. Plus, they had very good food. But yeah, Thanksgiving was good fun, and I certainly can’t complain.

Anyway, I’ve talked about a ton of exciting things, and I don’t believe that I’ve done any of them justice, but I don’t have more time to just keep on blabbing, so I’ll just go ahead and close now. Oh, wait… One more thing… Yesterday in our Sacrament meeting one of our Recent Converts gave her testimony and the story of her conversion. It was absolutely amazing. I wish that I could have recorded it. As a matter of fact, I may just record her this week, translate it, and include it in my next week’s email.

But yeah, that’s about it. I hope that all of you had and have an awesome week! Oh, and please pray for snow in Arizona. It’s finally cooled down a bit… I don’t think that it even hit 70 yesterday… that was amazing.. So, maybe with prayer, we’ll get some snow!

This week has been undeniably incredible. We didn’t teach as many lessons as last week, nor did we find so many new investigators, but we’ve had some great experiences. First off, this morning we went to hike Camelback mountain, which is in our area. It was rather exciting, though I have decided that when you are an overweight, out-of-shape missionary with asthma (especially when you forget your inhaler), it is a very humbling experience. It’s only 1.2 flat miles, but it’s like climbing stairs the whole way up.

Last night we had a Mission President’s Fireside, where we were invited to sing. We went on Saturday morning to practice for a TTBB arrangement of “I Need Thee Every Hour.” It had a solo part at the beginning, and they all decided that I should sing it. Anyway, it turned out to be pretty good. Also, on Saturday morning, I stopped for a second to talk to a Sister Missionary who works in the Visitors’ Center, Hermana Polund, who was in one of my districts before. I asked her about a picture that she was supposed to print off for me, and she said, “I’ll give it to you at Thanksgiving. I’m seeing you on Thanksgiving, right?”

When I returned her question with a completely blank stare, she proceeded to tell me that I was invited to Thanksgiving Dinner at some Recent Converts’ house, where they’ve invited just about all of the missionaries that taught them. Anyway, I called and got permission to go, and then last night I talked to the Recent Converts themselves, and they seem very excited.

Apart from all of that jolly fun stuff, we’ve been keeping plenty busy with lots of work, random trips out of the mission, etc. And no, we did NOT intentionally leave the mission. How were we supposed to know that the street we were on would randomly turn into a highway with no exits? Anyway, that was exciting, too. My still-green companion had an interesting time with that.

Here’s a random picture of something that I’ve been enjoying lately… You know the English Dictionary? Yeah, this here is the Spanish version, put out by everyone’s favorite Reader’s Digest. It’s got a ton of some of the greatest words ever. Oh, and the random Spanish word of the week? Expugnar. It means ‘to take by storm.’ Pretty great, eh? I doubt that many Mexicans know it, but I think it’s fun to know anyway.

But yeah, all is well here in Arizona. The weather is still up around 85, though when I last checked the forcast, it said something about it being 66 on Friday… That could be exciting. Well, rather, I’m excited. I hope that it’s right. Everybody enjoy!

Wowee… This was a great week. We’re not sure exactly what happened, but this week was very, very successful. We taught a total of 19 lessons to investigators, which is the most that I’ve taught in a very, very long time.

We also had the baptism of Manuel and Susana Garcia, who were just about the most golden investigators that anyone could imagine. They were found a couple of weeks before I got here, and instantly knew that they had found the true church. They have a very interesting story, too. He was a banker and she an accountant back in Mexico. She gave up working as an accountant to care for her children, and when they had grown, no one would hire her, because in Mexico they don’t like to hire people after they turn 40 or so. He had been working at a bank, and had lost his job. He turned 40 that year, and couldn’t find anyone to hire him, either.

So, without work, they were forced to come to the US. Now, he works in construction while she works at McDonald’s, during the night shift. They’re both extremely educated, and it’s always great fun to have a conversation with them. It’s hard, though, because we hear that Arizona is going to pass a law soon that will make it nearly impossible for people to employ illegal immigrants. We’re not completely sure that it will go into effect, but it is supposed to in January. If such is the case, we’re going to see a huge decrease in the number of hispanics in Arizona.

Anyway, it’s interesting. We’ll have to see what happens. Until then, though, this area is doing very well. We did meet some drunk guys that was pretty interesting. On Friday afternoon we went to an appointment with a new investigator, and we talked to him for awhile. We didn’t end up teaching him because he and his other friend were both drunk. It was sad while at the same time entertaining. We told them at least four times that church started at 9:00, but they kept on asking us…

Oh, and we also had an exciting experience with the Branch Mission Leader here… He used to be the Branch President, and he seems to think that tracting (knocking doors) is the ONLY effective way of finding new people to teach. He served a mission something like 35 years ago in Mexico, and he’s trying to tell us that we shouldn’t go visit our Recent Converts, because it’s a waste of our time, which we should instead spend knocking doors. Anyway, it’s pretty funny, while at the same time very, very difficult.

Anyway, that’s exciting. We have our interviews this week, and I intend to talk to Pres. Bassett about that… It will be interesting to see what happens.

I think that should do it… So, I’ll close up with a little spiritual thought. Helaman 3:27-30. I was reading it the other day and thought that is was pretty awesome. It’s even cooler in Spanish, so if you read Spanish, do that.

Anyway, have a great week!

Well, that is directed to all of you people not currently situated in the lovely, hot state of Arizona. I wouldn’t have even noticed that the time had switched, except that on Sunday morning, as we were getting ready to go to church, I looked at the clock and thought, “That’s weird… We shouldn’t have an extra hour to get to church…” Then I looked at the clock and realized that my other clock still said that time that I expected it to be. So, I looked back at the atomic clock and told it to change time zones, and it did.

Anyway, this week has been chock-full of tons of exciting stuff. We had the baptism of the Garrobo family on Saturday, which was amazing. We also had Zone Conference yesterday (the reason for switching our P-day to Tuesday), went to the temple this morning, visited my old area this morning, and a bunch of other great stuff.

Zone Conference was amazing, as always, except for some rather unhappy news regarding Sis. Bassett, our mission president’s wife… The informed us yesterday that she has (luckily one of the most treatable types of) cancer. She goes into surgery on Thursday morning, so everybody please keep her in your prayers. She’ll be out of the loop of things for several months, which will be hard.

The Temple this morning was amazing, as always. I’ve been realizing that I need to make some changes in how I do things. Lots of time I lose focus of the most important things, and through a mixture of Zone Conference and the Temple, I’ve come to realize how I can best make the changes.

In other news, we’ve got another baptism coming up, that of the Garcia family. They had their interviews yesterday and are very excited to take the step. Oh, and Adriana Garrobo, the mother in the family that we baptized last week, gave us a referral for one of her good friends, who we taught last night. That was awesome. Her testimony is amazing, and she was a great help in the lesson.

Also, Freddie (a man from my last area) is getting married to his girlfriend this Thursday, and they have requested that I be there. So, we’ll see what I can do about that. I sincerely hope that I can make it.

But I think that just about does it. Sorry, the thoughts are really kind of spuradic this week, but I think that you understand. There’s a lot going on, and I’ve got quite a bit of stuff running through my head.

I don’t know how many of you have experienced this phenomenon before, but here in the mission, we call it the ‘Phantom Cell Phone Ring.’ It involves thinking that your cell phone is vibrating, thus indicating a ring. This is shortly followed by a sudden realization that you have no cell phone. As you may have already guessed, I experienced such an occurence this week.

Apart from missing the cell phone in the last area, this week has been interesting. I’ve been going between missing the old area and being excited for the new area. I’ve already made some big changes to the apartment, the first of which was taking the blanket off from the bedroom window. It made an eerie orange color all over, and it’s much brighter now that we’ve removed it. I’ve also been working on cleaning up the huge stains in the carpet. It’s tricky, but it’s possible.

Yesterday we had something very interesting happen in church. Right after Sacrament Meeting, one of the members approached us and said, “Hey, that lady over there said that she decided to be baptized.” She was pointing to one of the investigators who has been such for about 9 months. So, we approached her and talked to her. We had had a lesson with her about baptism round about 2 days earlier, and she told us, “I need to be baptized before I change my mind.” So, we set up a date with her for this upcoming Saturday. One of her daughters has also decided to be baptized.

We also have 3 other people preparing for baptism in the month of November. It’s pretty exciting, and we’ll have qutie a bit going on in the near future.

My new companion, Elder Hellewell, is from Indiana, and he’s been in the field for about 3 months. He’s a pretty neat guy, though he still has some greenie habits, so I’ll need to break him of those. It’s what we call ‘greenie-breaking.’ Anyway, not too much else is going on. Oh, yeah… I don’t know if I told you about the awesome new apartment complex where some Elders were moved in. Anyway, they’re in my district, and we’re doing email there right now. They have a big lounge area, and you can check out laptops to use. So, currently, my companion and another Elder from the District are playing pool behind me, whilst I and another missionary do our email. It’s pretty much amazing. Plus, there’s no time-limit. That’s nice.

Anyway, I’m excited for the new area. There’s a lot going on here right now, we’ll just have to work to keep it up. We’ll need to do a lot of finding of new people to teach come the end of November.

But yeah, that’s what’s been going on. I hope that you all enjoy your week!

I did have a really fitting, witty title all ready for this week, but it needs a picture to go with it, and I just so happened to forget to bring my camera to the library today… Maybe I’ll use it some other time.

To expound on this week’s title, I need to tell you all that here in Arizona, people paint their rocks. They paint them orange. You see, instead of grass, they have rocks. Instead of cutting their lawn, they paint it. I just thought that you might all like that little bit of Arizona trivia.

This week brings with it some very interesting news. But before I tell you what that news is, I have to inform you that this week they were kind enough to give us a cellular telephone. It is a beautiful thing. The one problem that I see with it is that it brought some bittersweet news. You see, we were given the cell phone on Friday morning. Friday night is when we start getting transfer news, continuing through Saturday night.

In short, on Saturday morning we were on our way to a lesson when that cell phone started vibrating away on my belt. I looked at the number, which I did not recognize. After answering the phone, the voice of Pres. Bassett exploded out of the speaker (It appears that I accidentally hit the speaker button in the act of opening the phone), saying “Elder Taylor… This is President Bassett.” By that time I turned off the speaker. He continued, and invited me to be transferred to the Camelback District, which covers a portions of Scottsdale, Phoenix, Tempe, and Paradise Valley.

So, I’m taking off tomorrow. It’s really bittersweet. While I’m excited to be heading off to Scottsdale, I’m really going to miss the people here in East Mesa. I’ve had a great time here.

As I think about it, this week has been very, very eventful. On Thursday night, we had quite the exciting experience. We returned to our apartment after dinner, planning to stay but a few minutes. (To make a few phone calls) I went in to the bathroom, where we found random, undesirable substances in our bathtub. Now, this kind of worried us, as you might imagine. Soon, we heard sounds of water coming from above. This doesn’t normally worry us, as per the fact that people live above us. But then, our bathtub made some noise and started filling (from the drain up) with water and more undesirable substances. An absolutely horrid smell also proceeded to spew forth from the drain.

To make a very long story short, the plumber came, we went to an appointment, came back, and he was still there. He stayed until about 10:30ish before he finished clearing out the main pipe. It was very exciting. I did also learn to make Flan that night, in a completely unrelated experience.

That should just about do it for the news, I do believe. I’ll let you all know how the new area turns out. I hear that they’re expecting six baptisms within the next little while, so that will be glorious. Oh, also, the Valles family is just about firmly set on being married and baptized on the 10th of November. Hopefully they’ll let me come back for that.

Everyone have a superb week!

This has been a jolly good week. Actually, there hasn’t been much worthy of report, except that we had one of the most entertaining dinner appointments ever yesterday.

You see, we recently had a family with six daughters move in to one of our branches. We had dinner scheduled with them. Anyway, we showed up and not much interesting was going on. Not a word was said for awhile, except for one question… “Would you like to wash your hands?” Anyway, after washing our hands, we sat down to eat. Still, the awkward silence continued.

At this point, my companion and I both decided that we needed to put some life into this dinner. It was clear that we needed to do something. Anyway, we started asking some questions. Not really random ones, but ones that got them involved. Anyway, we ended up playing a good game of twenty questions that eventually turned into a ‘guess Elder Taylor’s favorite scripture’ game. So, that was the spiritual thought that we shared. Anyway, it was good stuff. Oh, and just in case you’re thinking that it was just a large flirtingfest, the oldest daughter is in 9th grade, so such was not the case.

We taught a good amount of lessons this week, and we’ve continued our quest of walking in the name of saving miles. We also took yet another hike this morning. Actually, it was exactly the same hike that we took two weeks ago. It was just about the same this time, so I won’t say much more.

Oh, we also had the coveted opportunity of speaking in Church yesterday, with no more than a couple hours’ notice. (I hope that apostrophe is in the right place. If it’s not, well, darn. I need to go back to English class…) It wasn’t bad, though, as per the fact that we only had to do so for 7-8 minutes.

Other than that, we ate flan, crazy cake with M&Ms on it, fish sticks, and other various things. All very enjoyable. Oh, and there weren’t any more instances of mistaking Epsom salt for Sea salt, thankfully.

I sincerely hope that all of you have an incredible week, free of undesirable things, such as falling rocks, charging elephants, etc. Oh, and I’m trying to be more creative in my weekly reports. They were beginning to bore me. Please, let me know how I’m doing. Oh, and the title had nothing to do with the content, just in case you didn’t notice.

I learned one very important thing this week, apart from everything that was said at conference. That one very important thing is that it is not good to use random salty-looking substances for cooking, even if you were told at one point that it was sea salt.

You see, my companion decided to make a recipe that we had for Sea Salt Potatoes, and I was pretty sure that this stuff that we had in a bag was sea salt. So, he used it to cook up his potatoes. The thing is, it turned out to be salt. Just the wrong type of salt. It was Epsom salt. Anyway, just so that all of you know, Potatoes cooked with Epsom salt are not the best things. But hey, it all worked out in the end.

Anyway, apart from that, the week was really good. Of course, there was General Conference. That was pretty much amazing. From all that I’ve read so far, everybody else loved it, too. I loved all of the talks, and it would be impossible to pick any favorite one. But I will say this, everything about it was amazing.

We ended up watching all of the sessions in English, because my companion wanted to see it all in English. He didn’t want to take a chance of not understanding something. Anyway, it turned out just great. We switched between the two Stake Centers that we cover, and on Sunday between the sessions we had an activity in one of the branches, with food and everything. We even made a cake.

Apart from all of that, it was a pretty normal week. We had our interviews with Pres. Bassett, which were plenty good. They’re always enjoyable.

But yeah, that was about it for the week. Oh, yeah. We also went to the temple this morning, which was good stuff. We went early this morning and met up with Elder King, my last companion. He came down from Payson, and then we went to Pete’s “famous” Fish & Chips. It was pretty good, though I think that I may have burned my tongue. Mostly, it was good, but I’m not sure that it was quite worth it for all the deep-fat-friedness.

But yeah, I think that just about does it for the week’s news. Enjoy!

Yeah, we really did take a hike. This morning. Up a small mountain. It was good fun.

Anyway, this week has been pretty good. It wasn’t quite as amazing as last week, but still rather enjoyable. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday, which was very enjoyable, even though we did get a little rebuking (for not talking to enough people on the street…). But yeah, good stuff has been happening.

For instance, we found three new investigators this week! That’s a big thing in this area. It was pretty neat. So, yeah… Now we’ve got some more stuff to do. Oh, that, and we decided to take up walking. We took a five mile walk on Tuesday morning in the name of saving miles. It worked out pretty well, and I was able to work on my tan a little bit. It was especially nice because the temperature has been coming down, and it’s usually only hitting 95 or so now.

Oh, yeah… Also, Elder Machuca came home this week. For those of you who didn’t know (which would include most of you), when I was home I went out with the Spanish missionaries covering my area quite a bit. Well, one of them just came home. I happen to be serving in his home ward. Anyway, it’s pretty neat. He’s willing to help us a ton, too.

Apart from that, not too much has happened. Oh, yeah… One of the members just got married, so we went to the wedding. That was fun.

But, yeah… I’m just about out of stuff to say right now. Everything is going well, the shoulder is holding in there and not hurting anywhere near as much anymore, and… Well, yeah… Good stuff is going on.

Everybody have an awesome week!