Note from Taylor’s family:

We in Taylor’s family were lucky enough this morning to gather together and talk with him on his first opportunity to call home (the next one will be on Mother’s Day).  He was calling from Chicago O’Hare, where they (he and his 7 companions who are going to Rome) had just landed  at 11:00 a.m. on their flight from Salt Lake City.  Their flight for Rome leaves at 4:45 p.m., so they have a pretty nice layover, with plenty of time to relax, get some food, and get ready for the 10 hour non-stop flight from Chicago to Rome. 

It was great to hear his voice, have him share a few stories from this week to catch us up, and have everyone have the opportunity to talk, catch him up on what they’ve been up to, and ask him questions.  We put him on speaker, so everyone could hear and ask questions.  He was feeding lots of quarters into the phone, but it was a great 45 minutes or so and it was wonderful to speak with him again.  They are enthused, excited, and nervous about beginning their time in Italy.  I think they feel less than adquate with their language skills at this point, but it’ll be much easier to progress on that when they are immersed in the culture and speaking Italian all the time. 

Over the coming weeks they’ll be working with their trainers and becoming increasingly confident in their abilities as missionaries and in their ability to speak and understand Italian.  We wish them the best on the rest of their journey and look forward to seeing Sister Waddoups’ blog tomorrow when we can see photos of them on their first day as missionaries in Italy.

Taylor is on speaker. The first mission phone call.

Ciao!!

This week was a lot of fun and we were busy as usual.  So I can’t remember if I ever mentioned that after our temple time a few weeks ago we ran into an investigator that comes to the MTC and she is so cool!  We talked to her because she saw our name tags and saw “Anziano.”  She was being taught by some other missionaries that were going to Italy when they were here at the MTC and she loved them, so that was really cool.  We kept talking to her and got to know her a little better and shared a few things with her.  The next week we ran into her before dinner and we talked to her for around an hour and got to share a lot of cool spiritual insights with her.  It was so cool.  We gave her some scriptures to read and a video to watch on the mormonchannel.com called The Hope of God’s Light.  That is one of my favorite mormon messages of all time.  I love that one and I thought that she would really enjoy that too.

Well we ran into her on the way back from the temple again and talked to her for around 45 minutes and got to know her even better.  I was so thankful for that opportunity and we really care for her and she followed up on the commitments we extended so that was really awesome.  We get to talk to her again today so I am excited about that!  She just talked about how much she liked being here at the MTC and felt good here and how she knows that she needs to start reading the Book of Mormon.  She is so awesome.  She really does believe that God is helping her in her life and she shared an experience she had with her son that truly did testify that God’s hand has been in her life continually.   He never leaves us through what we are going through and we need to do as Alma directed his son Helaman in Alma 37:36-37:

36 Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.

37 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day. [Read more…]

This week was another awesome one and we really just did the same old routine.  We are very used to the schedule now and they keep us super busy here.  We don’t have any down time to do nothing.  None at all really, and thats how it should be.  Any free time I get I am either studying the language or picking up the Book of Mormon.  I love how much time I have to really study the Book of Mormon and throw myself into it.

The rest of last week went by really nicely.  It’s really weird being on a mission because one moment in the day you can be so up and the very next hour you can be freaking out.  I just get really worried sometimes but I have to know that this is where I am supposed to be right now and this is what the Lord is wanting me to do.  I just have to diligently use all my time to prepare myself to the best I can for those people that the Lord has prepared for me in Italy.

Class is going really well.  We are getting to know our teachers better and I love them all.  They are all so nice and really funny.  They keep class fun while we continue to learn Italian and also the spirtual sides of things we need to know.  Its really crazy what we already know in italian.  Its pretty wild.  I am more confident with the 4 weeks and 1 day of Italian I have then I am with Spanish [after 4 years of it in high school].  I can converse a lot more and keep conversations going, for the most part.  I am really excited to continue to learn more these last two weeks. [Read more…]