Sept 28 2015

Hey familia!

I think that right there is a perfect representation of my spánglish.

haha well to start out I better say HAPPY CUMPLEAÑOS ABBY! Feliz birthday and stuff. Hope it's a good one!

This week has been great! My legs hurt so that shows I'm working haha!

So the service project yes I was there. To explain that, we had planned it for Saturday, but the zone had planned an activity Friday.  Our zone leaders call us Thursday night and asked if we could move the project to Friday so we said yes. The amount of painting wasn't very big, like four little walls. So we show up at the church Friday morning expecting like 8 missionaries but we had like 23 missionaries! IT WAS REDICULOUS! There were some people across the street as well painting a house so like 5 missionaries helped there but I took 3 other missionaries and went to the familia Loor's house.  They had asked us a few weeks ago to help out with something but we didn't have the tools. But we found some and ran over. Basically we build a part of a bed frame that had broken. Also installed a few more locks on a few of their doors. But that is why I'm not in the picture, I was at another members house haha.

Well I'm glad to hear all is well in the Taylor house, now time for funny stories. Basically I live for the funny stuff. Today a 92 year old man tried to speak english with us, then gave us his resume.

Later, some weird, very likely homeless man came up and kissed my companion's hand. Me and Elder Reyes were dying it was soo funny!! Btw this was at the parque de las iguanas. Also, a lady selling water comes up going, agua. I said, no gracias. She says AGUA. I Say no GRACIAS. She says it is hot and this is cold. AGUA! So I gave her a pass along card.  This was all this morning...

Also today in the grocery store a lady comes up and says God bless you. Then she proceded to bless us while we shopped for like 3 minutes.

Haha i'm not done, it's been a wierd week.

We went to an investigators house because we heard that her grandpa passed away. She's like 17 and had told us she had an operation coming up, but wow... we barely recognised her. She got a nose job..

more like a face job. It was soo strange!

The other one that was just strange was the street actors. We see them all over, in busses, on the streets but one was so weird. Two teenage boys get on a bus. One in a dress carrying a wig. The first explains their sad story, then they proceed. One puts on the wig. One is in the back and the other in the front of the bus. Basically the guy pretended to be a father and the girl a daughter. The story was that the dad wanted the girl to leave her room and they fake argued for 5 minutes. It was so strange..

But like I said, we went to the Iguana Park!! I have a ton of photos of iguanas!! I'll send them. Sadly my camera died when we got there, so I don't have many with me but my comp took a few for me, he will send them and I will forward them.

Well I love you guys, gotta get off

Elder Taylor 

The taxi drivers name, I just called him Hermano haha. The first thing you see in the iguana park.

  Iguanas

In one of these, there is indeed a pigeon riding an iguana.

 There are lots of iguanas in the tree. Also, in the pool there are turtles. The camera died, so its not a good picture...

Sept 21 2015

Hey familia!

I don't know how you guys find enough stories to write about, I'm always scraping the dirt to find stuff. Haha I try to write stuff down but that doesn't usually work. It comes to Monday and my mind is blank. Today has been a pretty good day though. We were able to visit San Marino, a big mall, and eat Burger King. It was delicious. I have decided the first thing I want when I return is definitely Taco Bell.  Oh how I miss the American tacos. And the Mexican tacos for that sake haha. 

So tomorrow is the beginning of my 6th month in the mission!  Which means in 1 month I get to burn a tie!! Random side not, I think I might buy a machete.

So last week, Saturday, our Elders quorum had a movie night. We went to see if our investigators showed up. We got there at 5:30, half hour late, and no one was there. About 10 minutes later, the Elders president showed up and two other guys. The elders pres, me and Brother G left to go get the movie. Basically we walked 10 minutes to the movie store, shopped for another 20, they bought Unbreakable, then went to Supermaxi to buy food for another 10 minutes, then walked another 10 minutes. At this point we were an hour and a half late. They started the movie, no one came for us so we left. But it was pretty great. haha  He was a terrible missionary. Apparently when stuff fell through, they went to the theater. I can't even imaging going in a theater with a name tag that says Jesus Christ. I felt akward enough in the movie store haha. But it was good.  I basically kept them on at least a pg-13 rating level haha.

So we got this guy in our ward who is a little special now. People here say his brain exploded which I guess means he had a stroke. Due to this, he has to live alone. He asks us every week for law of chastity and word of wisdom pamphlets haha! He also had his garments on backwards last week. We were sitting behind him, and my companion pointed it out. Basically his eternal smiley face was on his back.

Also yesterday, the Diaz family gave us nutella cheesecake with oreo crust! Soo good!!

In ecuador, there are lots of pigeons. There are also lots of dead pigeons. My companion last week almost stepped in one and what he said was super funny to me.. ''Oh, almost stepped in pigeon...'' I thought it was soo funny.

Last night, we were at a families house knocking. Here we yell to knock.. We yell, buenas noches.. And this druggie kid (we think he was high, probably like 18) goes, Buenas noches! Super loud! It was really wierd. He was holding a bag with glass bottles in it and suddenly turns around and starts going, ''Oh no. This can't happen..'' He starts to pace rapidly, ''MY BAG CAN'T RIP!'' And then takes off down the street talking to himself very angirly. It was so great.

Well I am out of time, and stuff to write. Love you guys

Elder Taylor

PS I GOT MY PACKAGE!! Last Tuesday! The candy is great, and the music is awesome. Thank you guys so much! It made my day and or week. Love you guys! 

 This is our friday lunch now. The lady is home alone so she cooks to go haha.

The juice is tomate de arbol. Basically tree tomato. It is gross.

 I dont remember the sandwich picture, but its strawberry nutella haha, my breakfast. Also, basically my christmas picture! Oh andwhat the crap is with the chicken poop?? (lip balm)

Sept 14 2015

Hey Familia!

Haha you finally watched Freetown? Well, so far there's nobody here running around with guns and stuff so I don't think you have to worry haha!

 Well first, to answer the lizard question, I haven't seen any in this house other than the 3 in the bucket... It was really weird. My last house there were a couple though living in the cupboards. Elder Wursten would always throw them out the window but after he left we kinda coexisted. Other than that though, we still get a few mosquitos in our room at night but not often and we live with ants. It is very normal to find ants in your cupboard here, or in the sink and stuff so we keep our dishes in the freezer haha.

 Now to begin a story...

   A few weeks ago, we had probably 30 minutes to bed time so we were playing uno. Out of nowhere, this THING appears right next to my hand.  In a very calm manner, I stood up, so fast my chair flipped closed and collapsed, and ran out of the room screaming, ''WHAT THE CRAP IS THAT?!?!?'' I was so fast, the chair fell to the ground after I had left the room... The thing looked like a beetle, with spider legs, and arms like a crab that were pinching. It wasn't any bigger than a wolf spider, but as you can imagine, we pulled out the ''Dragon'' bug killer. With one spray, the entire house smells terrible. I SPRAYED HALF THE CAN!! We didn't see it again till last week while I was cleaning. I moved a little table and saw it but assumed it was dead and being the baby I am, I left it there. Great move. Today while cleaning, I found it again. It was moving and it was soo gross!! I literally just got chills thinking about it. I finally did kill it but it was soo gross. I got a picture, but you can't really see it well.

 Other than that, these weeks go by too fast! It feels like yesterday that I last wrote. This week we saw a dog that was at least 2 feet WIDE! It was the fattest dog I've ever seen! haha But most the people we visit have dogs. They love me. I get to play with dogs at ever house we go to! The gonzales family has a pug and I think I decided that's my future dog. So funny! Oh and the way dogs lay here is flat on their stomachs because it is so hot! They are trying to cool down. They kick their legs open, and lay down.

 Oh last week we talked to like 3 crazy ladies. one couldn't hear us very well. I was on splits and we went to a house to find hno German. We asked, hey is he here. She says no. We say ok, remind me your name please? She says I can't call him he's not here. We say ok What's your name? She says he's not here. After one more time she finally gets it, and goes WHY? What's your names? I say Elder Taylor.. she says Ricardo? Ya whatever I'm Ricardo. She points to Elder Lund what's your name? Elder Lund. Ricardo? Yes we are both Ricardo. And with that we left. It was great. 

Oh last week we did two exchanges with the zone leaders, I went with Elder Lund, and then another day we were with on of the traveling assistants named Elder Salcedo. It was pretty great.

I also bought a new tie for a dollar. It will be my homecoming tie.

 Last, I bought the tools to cut my hair today! And I cut my own hair today! It'll be a lot cheaper in the future haha.

Well, gotta go, Love you guys

 Élder Taylor

Sept 7 2015

Hola Familia!

Wow you guys are really living the farm life up!! I can't wait to come home haha! But 19.25 months isn't that far away. I've been out for almost 5 months!! Isn't that nuts?! Time flies when your having fun!

So anyways, my watch isn't too flashy it is a very obvious fake haha.  But I like it, and so far, it hasn't started counting backwards so that is good!! My last watch was way flashier and didn't even last a month! That's ecuador for you. I'm hoping to get permission next week to stroll on down to the black market haha Apparently it's pretty cool. We also gotta go to the Iguana park soon.

 So one tradition de this mission is that they have libro de recuerdos or like memory books. Other missionaries write in your book and put in pictures. It's pretty cool. I just got one, it is a notebook with the golfing minion on it!! Right now I'm kinda going minion crazy. I got a minion key chain on my backpack and I got a minion chocolate milk thing. I'll take a picture cuz I don't know how to explain that haha!

 So like two weeks ago, we had a double funeral (missionaries going home) and before they gave their testimonies, we were singing a hymn. The sister playing the piano starts freaking out while we are singing. Two other missionaries go up and start searching the piano. Super weird, but turns out there was a mouse in the piano. They never found it so he is still living in the stake center piano but it was pretty funny..

 I don't know if I told you about the activities last week, but we were celebrating the 50 years of the church in Ecuador in a park. The kids of the stake had drawn a whole bunch of pictures. At the end of everything we had some juice boxes and some colas and some homeless guy comes in, steals a juice box then leaves. It was super funny.

 I told you I write down random stuff during the week to write about so my letter is a little jumpy. Yesterday, I participated in my first visiting teaching ever! We have an hermana in our ward that asked for our help. So we set up the appointments and grabbed her and her companion, and went visiting teaching. We didn't teach but I thought it was funny.

 Also, last week there were some elderes in the mission home that had a day to kill, so they asked us to take them with us. We didn't ask why they were there, just knew that they had an appointment the next day.  Turns out one had an ingrown toenail which was really bad because I make my comp walk fast and we don't take breaks so it was hard on him apparently haha. But while we were with them, we turned a corner, and my comp goes ''fetch'' I go what?  He says look everybody, an apostasy!

haha We look over and there's like 20 JW's proselyting. Nothing happened, but my companion's reaction was priceless. 

Anyways, I gotta get off so I'll send some pictures. Oh remember the dog in our garage?  They have 3 and the other two just had puppies! They are super cute, 10 days old. I got a good pic i'll send you.

Elder Taylor

 One with a puppy and the other we had like 30 minutes to kill Sunday morning before stake conference cuz we didn't have ward counsel haha

This is that we use here, the golden dollar. This is also a representation of tithing. If you look, theres 9 dollars for you, and 1 for the Lord.