6 MONTHS!

Hello hello

I'm doing alright. Knee is doing okay. Wish I could describe what happened it was weird... just walking and it gave out. Sometimes when I run or jump it loosens the patellar tendon and then in turn makes it really easy to dislocate. I didn't injure anything however, pretty used to this injury now so I can tell. But like I was saying there is a surgery where you can get the tendon tightened so it fixes the problem. Maybe after the mish.

We are teaching a few people, no one really solid. Problem with Baytown is we can get a lot of return appointments, but then they always fall through. We have a set appointment this Thursday for a lady named Nicole, pray that it'll happen!!

I wished dad happy birthday, but tell him again. He's getting old!

Well this week was interesting... it went by super super fast! So yesterday we met this guy named Spencer. We were out contacting and I was limping pretty bad, really obvious. So he walks up to us and says he's a power evangelist. And told us Jesus told him one of us had a bad knee and needed to be healed. (he obviously saw me limping) So he asked me if he could try something so I said sure. He then put his foot on my foot and was like you're healed. Then he asked if I was feeling better. I told him nope still hurting and he said he was surprised because he has healed thousands and I was the first to not be healed. That man was crazy!

Wednesday nights we play basketball at the church with the English. It's super fun, everyone comes.

Not much is new this week. It was too exciting!
Love you guys

Asay and I! Small world. (Elder Asay is our brother-in-law's cousin!)

"It's been a good 6 months folks." (Elder Fraley burned a tie in celebration)

Delos

Hello mom! 

Things are great around here. Me and Elder Riches are having a real good time! Being in the Bible Belt is hard at times, I have to be on my toes and know my bible. So that's difficult, but easy at the same time because people think they know what they are talking about, but we regularly prove them wrong, using the Bible so that's funny haha. We dropped the crazy guy. Can't be wasting our time. 

Apologize to my siblings. I get busy on pdays, and distracted. We just have too much fun out here! 

So here is the story with Delos. We were tracting while in some intense rain while we see this little old puppy come follow us around. He was wet and shivering, so I got a rain fly a dried him off a bit got him warm. We had to leave though, so we biked to our apartment and he followed us all the way there. We fed him some hot dogs and built him the house haha. But we let him go that night. The next day we were out tracting again, same place and found him. He came up to us and was suuuper happy to see us so we took him with us haha. Put him in our car and went to chipotle. He was good in the car, actually fell asleep in it. Then we took him to our apartment and chilled with him. He slept out on our back patio. He loves us. But Sunday we let him go again. So I wonder where he is, but when we find him we will feed him some more hot dogs!

When Elder Riches was in the shower on Valentine's Day, I quickly sprang into action. There was a Christmas tree in the closet, bam I began to set it up. I was so fast, threw on ornaments, fluffed it, and set up some presents under the tree. I also set up other Christmas-esque items around the apartment. I then hid in the closet and waited for Riches to get out. When he did I hit the beats. Turned on it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas from my Christmas playlist. It was funny because it was a total surprise. Long story short we are a few months behind on our holidays.

You have seen the video, but I have a thing called the cat counter. It is where I throw a cat on a roof and tally it. When we go to trailer parks I try and find cats that will let be pick them up, and then up they go on the roof. It is super fun, and obviously brightens up our day. And the cats seem to like it, one cat let me do it to him twice haha. 

Elder Riches was really sick this week, so that wasn't too good. But he's better now! 

Thursday is my six month mark as a missionary! We are going to celebrate, and burn a tie to commemorate. Y'all should have a giant party back home in my honor! 

When you next send a package you should send some gift cards too!

I would like to get some things dry cleaned so if maybe I could get some extra money for that, it would be great. I don't know how expensive that is though. 

We are working with a couple people right now, no one is really that solid, but hopefully we can get some progressing. This last week was really good, can't believe this transfer is already week three! It is going by really quick. I hope you guys are well. Have a great week!

The Book of Mormon is TRUE!

Hello mom. Baytown is not too shabby at all. My companion is Elder Riches, he's from California, San Jose. We get along super well. He's super cool and we work real hard here. Baytown is neat, lots of hispanics but they mostly live in the hermanas area so that sucks. Have a car but still bike a lot because we have little miles.

Spending time with family is good, glad to hear it. Dad needs to send me the recipe for the fettuccine Alfredo. I miss it.

This week was a lot of fun. Except there's this one guy that we taught twice. The first time was fine and the second...wow, that was something. So we taught the plan of salvation, and afterwards, extended a baptismal date. When he heard it, he basically said no. He wasn't going to change and then he actually invited us to be baptized in his church. We continued to talk and I felt the impression to say something pretty bold. I was straight up with him and said that I knew that God wanted him to be baptized, and I told him that he could feel it right at that moment. I knew he felt it, because the spirit was extremely strong when I was testifying. But he just would not change. We left sharing our last testimonies and dropped him. But last night he told us that the BOM was a lie and Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet. Called it the grand deception of the world. Or something along those lines. Again, we were super bod and told him he knew our message was true, and could feel it. We knew it, he knew it, and God knew it and that he would be held accountable for denying it. I'm grateful because I learned the importance of listening to promptings and being bold.

Some people just are crazy. No mere man could have written the Book of Mormon. It is another testament of Jesus Christ and I know of its truthfulness. And I will never deny it.

Have a good week! Hopefully next week I will have more updates. Love y'all

Aaron and Taylor or Elder Riches and I?

Below are the pics of Aaron for comparison. Haha

Squirrel huntin

Doing Service at a basketball tournament and riches got to Ref!

Fancy Mexican parties do exist

Transfers

Well it's official I'm getting transferred! And even more interesting...I'm getting in-field transferred (which means I won't go to transfer meeting because I'm going pretty close to where I am already.) I'm going to Baytown. I found out last night and my new companion will be Elder Riches. He trained my MTC companion Elder Burdsal. I leave for Baytown at 1 today! I'm excited! I heard good things about Baytown. It's a really Spanish dense area too so I will be speaking more Spanish than I have here.

I'm going to miss all the friends I have made here. Especially my recent convert Nahum, and his family, and the Keffers/ Montemayors. Francisco, Arely, and Ivonne are like best friends to me. And
Dulce,Nahum, and Anahi feel like my siblings! They all treated me so well! I bore my departing testimony in sacrament and made people cry because I'm leaving haha I felt bad. I'm going to miss them!

Tennis is fun I'm getting all right at it actually! Doesn't bother my knee either! I heard about the super bowl. That's a shame. I hate the patriots! But oh well. This week was alright and went by fast. This next transfer is seven weeks long! Ugh.

When I teach the plan of salvation, especially when I teach with kids, I keep it really simple and easy to understand. We use a white board and draw pictures and explain as we go. Easiest way is to teach using scripture. I'll insert a picture of one of my plan of salvation drawings(it is in Spanish however so have Nate or someone translate haha) and if you would like I can send you scriptures later that are
used to explain each step in the plan of salvation. It's in my journal though and that is packed away at the apartment!

Michael Keffer is leaving on his mission today. Haha Graciela calls me I'm her adopted son so she will have two kids leaving today. Sad time. He's going to Spain!

Glad to hear things are good. I'm going to miss Beaumont. I miss you guys and love you.