CITY LIFE

Hey FAM!!!! :)

So i know you're all DYING to know where I am serving!!! I am in the HUGE town of BOWLING GREEN Ohio. It is packed to the max of miles and miles of corn and wheat fields with the occasional house. I know! Talk about the hustle and bustle of city life!! :)

Welcome to my mission!!! :)

So in my mission there are 5 stakes. I'm in the Toledo Stake, and serving in the BG ward. There are 6 sisters that serve in the BG ward, just simply because our ward is so geographically LARGE. Our area takes about 2-2.5 hours to drive to some parts and its crazy. 

My companion!!! :) I love her so much!! Her name is Sister Caldwell and she's pretty much the best ever! :) She is from PG, Utah and she came out to the field 3 months ago. so yah she went from being trained to being a trainer in one day. hahah :) But i dont have a pic of her, but she looks like macee. She probs is no taller than my shoulder and has long blonde hair and blue blue eyes. super skinny, soccer player. But her personality is more like corbin. SHE IS SOOO FUNNY! I love her, we immediately clicked and we have so much fun on our daily 2 hour drives around our area its fine :) 

It IS SO HOT. I think i may shrivel up and die because it is so hot and humid. Yah we sweat a ton. but its great! 

That's where you can send letters to, and i'm not sure about pkgs... but send letters to that address, not the mission office or i wont see them for forever :) But it's so fun we live right next to a  golf course and a park. talk about torture :) hehe i was tempted to run out and say "hey if i beat you on this hole, can we share with you a message?" ahah just kidding :) But we run laps in the park. This morning we ran a good little 3 miles. Gahhhh mtc food got me so fat. ahha but sister caldwell will whip me into shape real fast.

this is historic kirtland. so gorgeous!

Okay now onto real missionary type stuff... Kirtland- amazing. I'm going to live here for the rest of my life. Sorry don't mind me if i never come home ;) We toured Kirtland and it was incredible. The details, the sacrifice, the spirit, all of it I just couldn't help but cry. We then went up to Joseph's office on the 3rd floor where we read D&C 137- the exact place where that vision took place. To stand in the the same room where God the Father and Jesus Christ and many other ancient prophets had visited. It was beyond belief. I know my Heavenly Father and my Savior live. My testimony has grown so much.

KIRTLAND!! You guys would die if you came here. This is my favorite church history site now :)

We then went to the...store? Oh goodness i can't remember the stores name. i know you know what i'm talking about- with the school of the prophets in it. We went up to that room, sat down and President Vellinga talked about where the Savior stood and Joseph Smith. Then he asked us to offer up a prayer to our Heavenly Father and tell him what kind of missionary we want to be, and before we come home, we'll go back to that room, sit in the exact same spot and report to our Heavenly Father. I will not fail him :) 

my mission pres and his wife are the couple right behind me, and these are all the missionaries who came in with me. 

President Vellinga is amazing. So kind, So funny, so smart, so strong and he is so obedient and works so hard. I love his sweet wife. She cares about us so much. She called me Saturday night to jsut see how i was doing and asked if there was anything she could do. I love them.: )

On Saturday we went and taught our 3rd lesson to B. she has read about a 1/3 of the BOM and knows it to be true. We committed her to be baptized on August 24th and she said yes!! She wants to so bad!! Her soon to be husband is taking lessons from us too, and it looks like he may be baptized a few weeks later. they have 2 cute daughters. The issue with them is obviously that they're not married yet. It is so hard to see them go through this. They have been trying to save up for 5 years to get married, and something crazy always happens whether they lose their job and stuff. We've asked them to come to church for 3 weeks and each week they say they'll come but the first week T. fell of the roof sunday morning and broke some ribs- there goes their wedding money. The next week they were on their way to church (1 hour away) and somehting in their car broke down- more of their wedding money. Yesterday they were on their way to church and their tire popped- more of their wedding money. It is so sad and frustrating. They want the bishop to marry them in the church. But in order to be baptized they need to attend church for 3 sundays... so its hard. PLEASE PLEASE pray for B. and T. for me? Yesterday i got up to speak in sacrament meeting and just gave a 20 second notice talk, (awkward..) and asked the ward to pray for them in their prayers. Read Alma 6:6 if you can. :)

I know power comes when a large group prays for the same purpose :)

The work here those is mostly reactivating the ward is so slow. in the sense that only 1/4 of the ward is active. its hard. so we're working in trying to find a lot of the less actives. but it seems like they're all hiding in the corn or something. hehe :) The area im in is super poor. Each little town consists of a little trailer park. but i love it. and there's no place in the world i'd rather be! :)

I love you all so much and thank you for you love and support!! You're all so amazing!!!! :) I sent out letters on Saturday, so maybe you'll get them today or tomorrow :)

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Love,

Sister Taylor Byers

yah turns out we have more time on the comp. than i thought. which is a good thing. but it's almost over. But yesterday we were out tracting (cuz our ward is a struggle- we have no mission leader and the ward isn't too anxious to give referrals.so we do a lot of tracting.  But we've been doing a lot of service this week because i guess on Tuesday and Wednesday there were 2 tornadoes that touched down in my area, it wasn't too huge- like didn't kill anyone or anything, but ripped roofs off of homes and ripped 4-5feet in diameter trees right out of the ground. SO CRAZY. so we've been doing a lot of service for ward members and less actives. So hopefully we can gain their trust. They love feeding us, and we only try to stay for less than 45 minutes so we have more time to tract, but hopefully we can get referrals. so pray for that :) )

but we were tracting yesterday and we were walking through this little town and this lady just came out of nowhere. i immediately just felt like i knew her. i knew her from somewhere- although that's impossible- so i was like Sister we need to talk to her! and so we ran up to T. and started talking. turns out she and her husband and daughter S. went to their baptist church today and they didn't like it. S. is at reading school and is almost done reading the bible, so we gave them the book of mormon and they're super interested. We're going back on Friday to teach them. so pray for them as well! :) 

We were able to get a less-active family to church yesterday! it was so neat to see everyone include them so much! pretty much they were celebrities ;) and the daughter J. is going to girls camp next week! so excited!! we're working with the Beehives to keep her excited about going. because lets face it, girls camp is pretty much the best thing ever and it's the bomb! :) and it'll help her so much! :)

I know that there's so much that has happened and i wish i could share it all with you :) that's the hardest part. but know that i absolutely love the BG area and that I know Heavenly Father loves us all and He's preparing people for me to meet. I'm being obedient and working so hard. and sweating like a dog. I love this work and i wouldn't be any where else on the planet! :) I love you all so much!!!

love,

Sister Taylor Byers