Monday, July 18, 2011 - Pday and New Comp/New Area

Hey dad!
All is going well here. Ok you are not even going to believe where I’m at right now. Dude! Ok so I’m in Iguape! That has no significance for you but basically this is the interior of our mission. We are 4hours away from the mission home by bus and there is so much forest and awesomeness here. A part of this area is an island called Isla. Just look this place up on Google and you will find it. I will describe this place as a mix of Santa Barbara, the property and Seaside Oregon. I love it here. Missionaries always say that they don’t like this place because it’s hard to work here. I got here and I said to myself’, ‘are you kidding me!!?´ I love it here. Nobody is running around and I won’t almost die in the street because of crazy drivers. It’s so beautiful here. There is a mountain here that reminds me of Mt. Si. We stopped at a rest stop on the way here and I saw some of the most beautiful birds ever! So many different colors! Crazy! I wanted to take pictures. There are some waterfalls in the forest here that tourists go to and there is a guide in our ward that will take us there. We are on the ocean! Yeah! There is a huge river that we get to cross almost every day to go to another part of our area. Our area is huge! Missionaries don’t like to work here because there aren’t very many people or because you feel lonely. But are you kidding! This place is great. Sure it may be a little hard to find people in the streets to do contacts but whatever! We have a branch here and they depend a lot on the missionaries. I gave a talk yesterday about the spirit. It went fine. Really this place has the potential to be a stake because there are so many inactive members. Over 400. Wow!! We are going to have training with the presidency and talk about home and visiting teaching. But it’s awesome here. I’ll take pictures and send them someday. On Saturday we had two baptisms. woohoo! good stuff. we have some others that are marked for baptism that we are working with. I’m so excited to be here. Ok, now my companion…his name is Elder V. Santos. He is awesome. He is from the Bahia. He has 18 months on the mission. I think the name or our Branch is Iguape. My companion is so stinking intelligent! When he talks I feel like a child and I don’t know anything. But it’s really cool! I’m learning a lot from him. He always asks questions. He is our district leader and I’m really excited to work with him. He doesn’t have the sense of humor I have so I’m still working with him but he’s awesome and we are having fun. I think Iguape is an old fishing town. Anyway…I’m glad you and mom have some time to get away. You guys deserve it. I hope that you guys are having a great time. Man it sounds like Harry Potter was awesome! my dad went to a midnight showing!? ha-ha. Man those shirts do look awesome! She is so talented. Has she told you about the ideas that I gave to her to paint? (pictures of missionaries) Dad I’m learning so much in my studies. But I can do better. I see Elder V Santos and I need to do better. ha-ha. I started reading Jesus, The Christ. Crazy stuff. I love it! I’ll have to write you later about something I learned. I don’t really have time to talk about it right now but I love the scriptures! I just finished Alma and will start Helaman. Moroni is the man! Thanks for everything dad. I’ll get there. Just work hard. That’s what I’m here to do. I can’t make excuses for myself and not do my best. The language will come but all I can do is my best right now. Thanks dad! I love you very much and I hope you and mom are having a great time. Have you guys gotten the pictures yet? Love you!

Elder Taylor Vincent Summerhays

6/20 E-Mail - Father's Day

Dad!
This week went by really fast. But yesterday we had a good day. One investigator of ours, Jucelia, came to church and enjoyed it and also watched the baptism of an investigator of ours. Luane. Woohoo! Good stuff. She has been taking the discussions for a while but it was great to see her happiness as she was baptised. So there isn't much to do here besides write and stay in our house (Referring to what he does for fun on Pday). I'm still looking. haha. I'm glad you had a good Father's day. I'm sorry that I didn't send a card. I remember when we went there (Referring to my comment about our trip to Nauvoo years ago and how the statue of Hyrum and Joseph at Carthage affected me - Tamara and the kids gave me a beautiful 18" bronzed replica). Well you just made me start crying. I love you Dad. I'm so greatfull for everything that you have done for me. You have no idea. I'm sorry that I didn't show it very much before I left. I'm very sorry. I have been thinking about how I can make it up to you one day in my life. I've got a lot to do. Thank you dad. I love you so very much. That's cool that Amber came home to see her dad. But crazy what happened! (Referring to being hit by debris at Baskin &Robbins when a car drove through the front door) what are the odds of that?! I hope that they are ok. I will write to Sis. Seader. I hope that she is ok as well (In hospital). I will pray for her. Maple Valley days. Good times. That picture (Of Lilly) is awesome. I miss my city and my trees. haha. Keno! and Kaleb! good for him. Hey you should show Josie my apartment too. She would like that. But that address doesn't sound right nor the name. I will look up the address of the building and send it next week. I think its fairly new. So Morielli is doing great. She missed church but she is still reading and is excited everytime we come over. We are excited for her. Hey dad, so I don't have a lot of time to respond to what you wrote about Alma 8 but it was great reading it. Thanks for that. I so wish I had studied more before the mission. I missed out on so much. Now i wish I had more time to study everyday. We are working hard and will keep on going. Oh quick. Elder Mota was really sick with stomach pains the other day and couldn't walk. I gave my first blessing and it was in Portuguese. woah. haha, it was really simple but it was a blessing. The next morning he was fine and ready to go. That felt great. A blessing doesn't have to beautiful. It felt great to use the priesthood to help. Anyway...I hope that all is well at home. I love you dad and thank you again for everything. You are the best. Oh have you guys gotten my pics yet? bye.

Elder summerhays

Hi Mom!
I'm doing good. This week was good and went by really fast. Things are going well with our investigators. We have some people marked for July that are really progressing well. But guess what? We had a baptism yesterday! woohoo! Luane. It was great. We are definitely being blessed in this area. We will have more in July. Everything is going great with Elder Mota and I. We just keep on going. We are having a good time. Lots of laughs at stupid things I do on accident...like slipping or tripping in the street. My upbrella flying up behind me and breaking in the rain. Eating too fast and drinking soda and burp hickuping. And lots of other stuff. We're having a good time. Yeah no more school! More time to spend with your children. Thats great for Bryce (Referring to solo he sang at the final school concert). He should continue. Yeah McKenna said something about EFY. She is excited. good for her and I hope that she has a good time. haha that's funny...they (referring to Cam's roommates that stayed the night on their way to China) stayed the night? haha good stuff. I'm glad you had fun with that. Just tell them the story when he went out in the snow naked. Haha I forgot to send dad a card! No! I will don't worry. I hope he had a good day. Eric stapely is back!? what!? He just left yesterday! haha good stuff. Don't worry mom. We are safe. I just don't bring anything valuable and have a couple bucks in my pocket to give to someone if they rob us. I love you mom and I hope the start of your summer is amazing. I love you.

Taylor

Robbed! 6/13 E-Mail

Ok dad so I have a story for you. So we were walking down the street one day last week and we stopped to look at the map. Then someone came up to us and started talking to us and he was mad. I didn't understand at first what what happening but after a minute I realized we were being robbed. He was saying that we were investigators and were suspicious and asked if we had a cellphone. So elder Mota gave our phone to him. He said he was going to call someone to see if we were actually missionaries. He said he is going to keep it to find out who we are. yeah... right. Come on! Lamest robber in the world. He knew we were missionaries. What a lame way to rob someone. He could of at least had a gun or something so I would have a better story to tell you. haha But I'm glad we were safe. But now we don't have a cellphone to call our investigators. Lame. Hey,so I don't know if you want to tell mom that story. You decide if she will worry too much. I enjoyed/hated it. My first robbing. No more cellphone. But this week was good anyway. We had a storm where we got soaked. Robbed. Marked people for baptism. Had a good investigator in church. Good stuff. I'm really enjoying my personal study right now. read Alma 8. It talks about Alma when the people of Ammonihah rejected him. The verse about praying fervently and then when the angel appears to him to be of good chear. I put above the verse with the angel a note that says PMA. Hey dad... when you were on your mission and were still learning the language and didn't understand. in the lessons - what did you do? How did you talk with them? I can teach the gospel but not a lot with reagular life stuff. Just wondering

Thanks for writing me... thanks for the advice. I'll write more to it next week. running out of time. Just sometimes I feel like i don't have a purpose because people don't understand me and my companion repeats what I say. I don't know. I know I have a purpose...I just want to help more and I need to have patience. I just want to do it now.

Love,
Taylor

Hi mom!
Dont worry about it! I'm so glad you had fun in cali! This week was good. Transfers was good. I was sad to leave Elder Dressman but that's ok. He is great. My new companions name is Elder Mota. He is Brazilian. He is from Bahia. Feria De Santana. It's above Rio. But he says he wants to live in Washington. haha. I am in the zone of Embu. Not far from Campo Limpo. It's cool here. We have a small jungle reserve here that I love looking at. I miss trees. The address is still the one at the mission home. That's how we get our letters. Portuguese is coming along slowly but surley. I'm understanding more but I'm having fun with it. oh I forgot. We are opening a new area. We don't have anyone to teach and are walking everywhere to find them. Lots of hills. It's awesome! I was built for this. If I didn't like hiking I think I would get bored. But it's cool.

I'm so glad that California was fun. I miss the fam. wow thats a lot of people. haha I love our family. Santa barbara! good stuff. Grandpa. I'm going to write him today. I'm glad that you got to spend time with him. I'll thank him today. Good for Bryce. he is so smart. Tell him I love him. Flaming geyser. I love that place. I'm glad you guys had fun in the sun. Guess what? It's cold here. weird. It's sunny but cold. I didn't think that would happen. I'm glad you enjoyed the card (Mother's Day). Thank you for writing me mom. I love you so much. Please have people pray for me and for this area. We need it. We do have a baptism on the 18th of June so were excited for that. Oh, and our house is huge and has 4 elders living there. The others are really messy. oh well. I love you mom. Have a good week.

P-Day May 23, 2011

Hey Mom!
I'm doing good today. We had a zone activity together which was pretty fun. I wish it wouldn’t have taken so long because now we don't have time to do anything else... but nothing unusual there. We played Nertz and soccer. Nertz! haha fun stuff. We weren't completely helpless. I liked working with Elder Horne because we were able to find stuff out on our own. I could try something and I wouldn't have someone to rely on but the spirit so it was cool. I love Elder Dressman and he has taught me so much but I always like learning some things on my own. So I have one experience that I will share after I write about everything else. I got my package! woo hoo! I have already eaten a lot of it so I need to slow down. Thank you so much! And yes, I have plenty of food. I'm trying not to gain weight. ha-ha. I hope I don’t...if I do I'm going to eat apples every day. Haha I love Sadie! Tell her that I said hi and that I love her! haha Tell Lilly that I love her very much and that I'm proud of her for reading her new scriptures. That will help her so much. That’s great. Oh man... I forgot that he (Fred Nelson) was getting married. tell him I love him and that I said congrats. ok here's the story that happened. So it's not very long but I have told you about our investigator Jane. She is great and she knows that baptism is the right thing to do for herself and her very young daughter when she's older. But she is like her mom Rosa. Rosa has been investigating the church for 2 years and she has told us she knows the church is true and she goes to church all the time. But they lack self confidence or they just have something holding them back. I don't know. But the last time that we talked with them was hard. The lesson was great. The spirit was so strong as we talked about how they can receive answers to their prayers and that their Heavenly Father will help them with anything if they have faith. I don’t know how they couldn't have felt the spirit. It was as strong as I have felt it. We invited them to be baptized together and to help each other to prepare themselves. But they still were scared and declined. I kept a smile on a little when I left but once they closed the door and we were walking home I felt incredibly sad. It was dead silent the whole way home. It was so hard to stop myself from crying in the street. What could be holding them back? It just makes me so sad to think that they know that these things are true but can't take that step. I don’t know. I learned so much about loving the people I teach. I love these two people. I cry over them. I just want them to make this choice that will make their lives happy forever. I always heard people say to love the people and I just learned what that actually meant. After that night I promised myself that I would do all I could to love every single person I talk to. Because when I do that I will have the same desire for them that I have for Jane and Rosa. I want the happiness that I have in my life to be with these people. I was so sad but grateful for this experience. I know that Jane and Rosa will make this decision one day. I'm going to do all that I can to help them. I know gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I know that God answers our prayers and loves us more than we will ever know. He loves us so much. I can't even imagine how hard it is for him to see his children in pain and anguish. How much that could hurt him. I love my Heavenly Father and am so grateful for all that he has blessed me with.

I love you mom. thank you for the email! I hope you have fun in Cali! say hi to the family for me and talk to Veda about my mission! I love you!

Taylor

Monday, May 16 P-day Emails

Hi Dad!
This week has been good! I’m glad that your back is feeling better! Oh the garage... haha (referring to the fact that I cleaned it up from our last camping trip, enough to get the van in ) I love it. You know what’s weird? i miss cutting the lawn. I miss the smell. So it’s been raining huh? It’s been raining a little bit here, right now it’s “cold” (haha) which is like normal temperature at home.
Man if you were getting hot at 62 degrees I don’t know how you would handle it here. It’s almost over that every day. But that’s cool that you guys had a picnic. How’s McKenna doing? I hope she’s well and happy. I’m glad she had fun at Cherises’ reception. Yeah I heard about his party. (Referring to Evan Mans’s bday party where is suddenly started raining hard) good stuff! I like rain. Oh and don’t worry about me leaving my companion. We have been talked to about this before and we know who to watch out for. Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep looking out for it. Let’s see what else? I told mom stuff already. I guess I’m trying to keep a good attitude about the language. I hate being treated like a child. I’m just the little missionary who doesn’t understand at times. I don’t know. Just a little annoying. But everyone has to go through it. I’ll learn quickly. This week has been good. I feel like I have gotten better already. This week we have a new missionary training so I’ll have to tell you about that. Elder Horne and I had a division together again. But this time we were all by ourselves. woohoo! scary but awesome! i Liked it a lot. I learn a lot more when I am on my own and try stuff. It was cool. We taught some lessons to some less active members. It went well. Fun stuff. So do you know that I have no time on the mission? I haven’t written in my journal forever! I have stuff I need to write about too. But I will get to it. Well that’s it for me. Have a good week! Love you. Thanks for everything. Thanks for your example.

Hey Mom!
Yeah this week has been great! Our investigators are good but we were kind of bummed this week. Jane didn’t make it to church this Sunday so she can’t get baptized this Saturday but she will get there. Then Danyely moved, so she will be getting the lessons from other elders. But that is still good! We have marked at least 5 others for baptism. It will be good. I got my Package!!! Thank you so much! That was great. I am trying to not eat stuff too fast. Haha It’s hard. But it’s awesome and thanks for the pictures and notes…that was great. I loved hearing from you too. Sorry about the phone connection. Next time it will be better. Yeah it may have sounded good but it was just basic stuff. (referring to Tamara’s comment about house his Portuguese sounded when he spoke with Cameron) but thanks. That was fun. But this week I have felt a little better with the language. I still feel like I’m treated like a child from people because I don’t understand very well… but I’ll just have to live with it. It’s ok. I already asked him if he knew Annie and he said he didn’t. (Referring to Tamara’s question about whether or not Elder Dressman know the Nelson family from the Alpine area…they live in the same general area.) bummer! Haha Yeah for Jessica! (Had her baby) haha that’s crazy! Tell her I said congrats. haha Preston’s not that old is he? Tell Evan congrats as well (Birthday) and that I love everyone! I did hear about your talk! I hope it went well! I love you! ok just one story that happened this week. so we were doing contacts from house to house and I did a contact with a guy who went off on us like he knew everything about our religion. I didn’t understand everything but I understood enough that he was saying that we worshiped Joseph Smith and that Christ wasn’t important to us. It was hard for me to stand there and take that and not be able to say anything because he wouldn’t let us. I was upset. I wanted to tell him as best I could that I would love to tell him that Jesus Christ is central in our lives and that you can’t tell me about my religion when I have been sent here to tell you about it. I learned about how it is hard to love when you are angry with someone or when someone doesn’t want to listen to you. But I know that I need to. I’m going to work on loving everyone even when they don’t want to listen and then help them as best I can. That’s all I have this week. Thank you so much for the package! It may have been a little big but no big deal. You could probably send the same size next time. No one said anything about it. I’m going to send pics home this week. I love you soo much! Have a good week! Love you.

Elder Taylor Summerhays

Mother's Day

Happy Mothers Day!!
I hope that you had a great day yesterday! I'm sorry about the phone. Next time for sure we will be using skype. That was ridiculous yesterday. But it was great to hear your voice. Tell Grandma that I love her and it was great to talk to her. What is her email again? So I don't have much to say today...I guess I could tell you about somthing I learned in personal study today. I have been thinking about this a lot but I'll write all my thoughts in a letter one day. Basically I studied about talents. We talked about it in church on sunday and I felt that I should study and ponder it a little bit more. So I decided that I'm going to look for the talents that I have and use and develop them during my mission. At least the ones that I can. But I read in Mathew today about how are talents can show the light of Christ or the gospel. I had never thought of it like that before. But then it makes sense because we got our talents from God. But like basketball... how could that show the gospel? But then I thought of how I played the game of basketball. Share that with others. But anyway that's something I'm going to work on. I didn't do very well at developing my talents before the misson. I was so lazy. But anyway I will write more about this later. Well I don't have much more to write. I love you. Oh tell Veda to write me about her mission. I want to see if I am serving in some of the same areas as her. I hope that you have a good week mom. Be happy. I love you. bye.

Email to Mom May 2, 2011

Hi Mom!
I'm doing great! Yeah it's been really cool working with the people here. Yes Danyely is listening to the lessons. We talked to her again and she said she read some of the Book of Mormon and she said she prayed and felt that it was true. So cool! We are going to keep working with her. She had college classes on Sunday's so she hasn't gone to church yet but that class ended yesterday so we are going to get her to church this week. Please pray for us and for her. We have been contacting those people that came and we have gotten some people to listen to lessons but we are still working with them. It's really good though. Elder Dressman is awesome! He helps me out a lot. I am eating a lot. I really hope I don't gain weight. I still like the rice and beans. I have only had one thing that i don't like. Some fruit dessert thing. I almost threw it up. haha So bad but i ate it anyway. Good times. My shoes are fine. A little dirty. No blisters. My knee has been bothering me a little bit but nothing huge. I'm looking after it and if it gets worse ill get it checked out. I can't wait for the package! I'll look at it. Oh and if you could talk to Josie about the package she sent. I think she said she sent one. If she sent it to the mtc I probably won't get it because they won't send it forward. Ok, so kind of a bummer I don't think that I can do a web cam. We are going to call from the chapel. Where we live middle class is like our lower class. It's pretty humble here. Garbage everywhere and the river is absolutely disgusting! But I still love it. haha weird. Thats sounds like it was really cool! (Referring to Time out for Women) John Bytheway is awesome! And I love that song! (Come Thou Fount) I have it in portuguese too. Sweet! So I have to write to the president right now but I will write more about my experiences in dads email. I love you so much. You are the best mom in the world. And the food is good but I really miss your cooking. haha I love you mom... miss you. Talk to you on Sunday! Bye!

Tay