Taylor: Bad News-Hey family I am on!! Text me when you are on please!
Mom-We are on. What is up?
Taylor: Well the other day Elder Giles and I were out proselyting and this man was kind of hackling us as I was getting my bike fixed and I told him we don't want any issues but he just kept yelling at me and pointing his finger in my face and we started to walk away and he followed us then people started to tell him to stop and then he pushed me from the back...thats when it got rough I turned around and basically to say the least I beat him prettty bad and we left him unconscious on the road and took off before the police could come, so I called president and him Elder Bednar and Elder Dube think they are going to have to relocate me to the San Antonio texas mission we will find out tomorrow!!
Mom: What? Are you serious? Why haven't they called us earlier than now?
Taylor: APRIL FOOLS HAHAHAHAHAAHAHH............sorrry i had to do it lol!!:)
Mom: That
was not funny!!!!! You scared us to death!!!
Taylor: Haha Im laughing my butt off
hahahaha im sorry all the boys in my apartment got together and decided to
april fools are family lol!!!:)
As you can see Taylor stills has his sense of humor. If Shaun could have he would have strangled him.
(Actual Letter)
Wow this week was great we had a ton
of miracles and a ton of success!! Thank you so much for the emails...sorry for
the April fools ;)... I have to keep my personality you know hahah:)
Anyway it sounded like you guys had a great spring break. Got some
fishing and riding in chii I miss that stuff overall though I am just grateful
that you are having fun, you're happy, safe, and healthy. I thank my
Heavenly Father every day for that! Mom, Dad, and Colby thank you for the emails and the
vids, I love hearing from you guys and I miss you all like crazy, thank you for
the support and the encouragement words can’t begin to describe how grateful I
am for my family. This month though I am very sorry I have to take a
little bit more money out to survive, I bought a bunch of supplies that should
last me my whole mission and realized that shop-rite can kill your subsistence
so I apologize for that. Thank you so much though for sacrificing so much for
me so I can have everything I need, it doesn’t go unnoticed and I am so
grateful for it!!
This week was super long but super successful
before I get to far along in my email Monday after we got done emailing we
got a free meal from a member in the church and she lives in this super nice
house, all her kids go to school in America and there family is just well off..
this definitely isn’t Oda haha but she fed us pork, chicken, jollof rice and a
ton of coke and fanta it was so dang cool, I haven't ate like that in a long
time, I was thinking and that was one of the first times on my mission I have
felt full haha it isn't easy but it was a great meal to say the least!
Tuesday we had District Council meeting and it went really well. I guess the
member and the missionaries’ don't really have a good relationship in this ward
so I have made it a goal to change that. I think the lord needed me hear as well to strengthen this ward
and get them excited about missionary work. I understand people are busy
and all and I wasn't the perfect example of this either but I have sat down and
thought of some things we can do as missionaries.
So one of the things I thought of
was to print out flyers and hang them up all over the church about Easter
caroling and so I did that and what we are going to do if no one comes is go
sing to members houses and hopefully touch their hearts to try better next
time. As well we are going to print out a bunch of papers for member to
hand out about ward conference and challenge them to hand them out to at least
one friend and try to get one friend to ward conference...I hope it works, we
did that in Oda and we had around 50 members the Sunday before and then on
conference we had around 130 so I hope it works here!
This apartment and the elders I live
with are sweet we get along really well and the apartment is really nice so I
am thrilled to work here. I went on splits with the office elders so I
went with Elder Fornaro who mom was elder Ridenours companion in that photo and
the boy in the video was Elder Schoessow or something like that haha but anyway
I went with fornaro and he mentioned I may train next transfer so we will see,
but that splits was sick, just in one day we were able to contact 16 total
people it was a great day!
Overall for some reason this week
was just dragging on for me for some reason. My companion is really a
great guy, and I can see him change too its going great I just keep building
him up and making him realize that you are still the same person on a mission,
you don't need to be anybody different, overall just let this mission convert
you fully...anyway he is changing and I love to see the change in him! But the
week yeah it was just dragging on and we were having a ton of success we found
16 new investigators, 35 contacts with like 24 total other lessons taught it
was great but it was just boring, I was really feeling missionary work this
week. I just felt no one was serious, and we needed to find more people
so we working very hard and chii it was hard, but I just kept praying to the
lord to help me get through this week and to help us find some serious people
then Sunday came and I didn't think any of our investigators would come and
bang three came it was so SICK I was so dang happy!! One of them we will
baptize this Saturday and I'm so happy about that but this woman we were
teaching named F was just glowing with the spirit there she said she loved it,
she was participating and everything, I was so happy!!
This week though a spiritual
experience Elder Giles and I had was during a lesson with Sister F. We
really just needed to get her to pray, we were having some great lessons and
she just wasn’t praying. So we both decided it was best to have a prayer
right then, then after to listen very carefully to the way we felt after.
Well we had her prayer and it was one of the most moving prayers I have heard,
then after we all just sat there in silence for about 5 minutes literally that
long and she began to cry...the spirit was so dang strong there. Then we
explained to her that, that is what the spirit feels like, is not when you
dance or sing but that is spirit and then a miracle happened and she came to
church...I was the happiest man on the planet, she was just glowing, I
pray nothing will happen and she will continue to come. There is no
greater happiness on this earth than to see someone take a step of faith and
put our experiment to the test and come to church. The spirit and joy
that you feel is why you do missionary work and that is what I needed to
help myself carry on! Not only did we help sister F work her way on this
straight and narrow path but she was also an answer to my prayers!!
Family thank you so much for everything as I email and think
of my wonderful family back home I am overwhelmed with love and
happiness. I love you three more than any words I can type on here but I
am so grateful and I love you three tons!! This week is general
conference if you would please send me your favorite talks all of you please!!
I love you guys so dang much!!
Love you all Tons!
Elder Duke
