Talmage Fan

In case you don't have a teenager - "sick" means cool.

Taylor sets such a good example for me and I am grateful for his insight and spiritual growth. It's a good kick in the butt for me!

Thank you for supporting him and remembering him in your prayers - Juliane

-----Original Message-----

From: Taylor Ehlers

Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 11:56 AM

Subject: Asphinctersayswhat?

Well howdy-do! Life is been CRAZY up in here! We're averaging a little over

20 lessons a week. We've got 3 maybe 4 alligators with baptismal dates. We picked up a new alligator this past week and another 2 or 3 potential alligators coming up here shortly.

This is last week the temple will be open for public display and this next Sunday it'll be dedicated. The temple has been SICK. Even without it being dedicated, going through it is still the most peaceful and comforting thing I have ever done. And we've been praying that someone upstairs will invite President Monson to personally address the mission and shake everyone's hands when he comes to visit.

I'm almost finished with "Jesus the Christ" and man that book is CRAZY. Talmage is one wild dude. For Christmas this year, I would like Talmage's "The Great Apostasy" and "The Articles of Faith" and any other books he may have written. I'll also ask Santa for some new temple clothes... my pants seem to have shrunk more than I can bear.

I've almost finished reading the Book of Mormon all the way through again. This time, however, it's been something special. Everything I stand for, everything the church claims, everything beyond our own dimension rests wholly on that book. Did Joseph Smith really do and see everything he said he did and saw? Was the priesthood taken from the earth after Christ's ascension and was there really an "apostasy"?

Was the priesthood really restored? Is Thomas S. Monson a real prophet? All those things are answered with whether the Book of Mormon is or is not true.

Well I tell you IT IS! It's a beautiful thing.

Nothing new has really happened recently. Even though we've been busy, life is pretty uneventful. I wish there was more I could say... Does anyone have any question? Maybe if we could an open forum going, I'd have a little more direction with what to talk about. Email me at taylor.ehlers@myldsmail.net

love you!

Elder Tay

Twinkies

Yeah life is good... (edited by mom) I'll just endure. I'm hanging in there.

New this last week? All of our Ammon Tractin' efforts have begun to pay off! We've picked up 3 maybe 4 new investigators over the past week or two. One of them, XX, was baptized and sealed to her family when she was 9. Shortly after that her parents split. Her dad stayed strong in the church but her mom tanked and joined some anti-Mormon Baptist garbage church and yanked her own and all of kids records from the church.

XX was inactive for 30something years and over the past year or so, she almost died or something crazy like that, and it's driven her to "find Jesus". She decided she wants to come back to church, and so she has. Come to find out though she needs to be re-baptized! This past week we taught her all the 5 lessons. It was cool. She oughta go swimming either this weekend or the next.

We've got another two investigators who I have found to be very interesting... YY and ZZ are in the late 40's and, similar to XX, they've had some CRAZY occurrences happen to them over the past year and they too want to "find Jesus". YY is a child of record and was blessed when she was a baby but never was baptized. ZZ was raised Presbyterian. What's interesting about it is they believe everything we teach them. No questions asked. I'm used to arguing and proving and being resisted when we teach nonmembers but YY and ZZ are the humble folks you only wish to find. They say "it just feels right". They've come to church the past 3 weeks and they want to be baptized! They love their Camel and Starbucks and we haven't touched the Word of Wisdom lesson yet... We'll see how that goes.

They're really good folks though.

The weather has changed a little, too. No snow yet but there's been LOTS of rain. They say this winter is going to be especially cold and wet because last winter was child's play and this past summer was unusually hot and dry. It's already getting to be pretty cold. I'm complaining too much because it gives me a good excuse to wear my sexy jacket.

Well the weight gain is up again! I only put on 5 pounds since I've been here but that puts the overall increase to 30 lbs. I entered the MTC at 135 lbs and now I'm at 165... Pass the Twinkies! Dahahaha...

New Plymouth's Finest

Ammon Tracting

I've got more or less everything I need at this point. My clothes are good. My books and scriptures and stuff are all good - speaking of which have you ever read through "Jesus the Christ" by Talmage? It's kind of like reading the dictionary and it's difficult to follow BUT in my assertive efforts it's thrown me for a loop. For one, I'm so grateful for modern revelation to clarify so many different things and also I'm grateful for the work others have done, like Talmage, so I can learn more about the Big Man of our church. I would highly recommend adding to your list. And I would recommend also reading it like you would a newspaper. It's a full blown life study if you don't because it's so complex and deep. Read through it casually and, not only will you be able to actually get through it, but you can get the gist of the book and better understand Christ. It's super sick.

Well we got that kid XX baptized last week FINALLY. It had a really good turn out and there were tons of people there. The family that was fellowshipping XX  had the whole thing under control.

The only thing my comp and I did were stand in as witnesses and turn on a movie during the intermission. It was nice to have a break!

YY will be baptized this Saturday. We finally got that all squared away and put in stone. She's been done with smoking and coffee for a couple of weeks now so she's ready. It's been a really interesting experience working with her because she's definitely converted. She doesn't know the reasons behind the things we teach except that their true. She's always been extremely hesitant about everything in life, always second guessing herself before she'd do anything but she's said she likes the gospel because that didn't happen. She said it was the funniest thing but she never questioned anything when it came to the gospel. I've had a good time with it because when we teach her something, she doesn't challenge anything. I'm used to explaining concepts and backing them with scripture and hellfire and damnation testimony. She goes right along with everything we tell her... I'm not used to being trusted like that. This has been a blessing working with her. She's a real sweetheart.

Regardless of the progress there, progress everywhere else has been super slow. Our teaching pool still yet wreaks and stinks of gratuitous quantity of SUCK right now and so we don't have a lot of folks to work with. In response to our extensively gay circumstances, we're still AMMON TRACTING! We go among members in the ward in naught but our civvies looking for service. So far we've done dang near EVERYTHING including unsticking tractors in the mud, roofing sheds and homes, - which is something I'm getting especially good at! You'll have to tell Don Adams he trained me right - various garden work, tarped and tired silage, wrangled a calf, dug 5'x5'x7' hole in the ground for a freezer, cleaned out the garage of ferocious nasty cat-people, leveled yards with jungles of weeds, burned the crap out of foliage and assorted greenery, knocked over and replanted dead trees to appease a cranky old woman's need to have a place to hang bird feeders, built steps, poured concrete, stacked a butt-ton of wood, and we're still looking for more. That's proved fruitful in that members are beginning to trust us with more referrals NOT TO MENTION Elder Nelson's heaven sent talk, "Ask the missionaries! They can HELP!" All these things should soon be amounting to our success!

Also would someone mind telling God to turn off the AC? It's starting to get COLD! I'm most thankful for the warm clothes I have, in addition to New Plymouth country folk who have wood-burning stoves.

It's been rather nostalgic and I've enjoyed the scent of burning pine in the air everywhere we go and familiar freakin' awesome warmth whenever we're near one. We watched conference with Gramma and Grampa Austin who we live with and they had a fire going in their stove... It was the coziest place I've been since Christmas of 2010.

The Giant at the Top of the Beanstalk

So that quote that dad does sometimes, "It is better to look marvelous than to feel marvelous" has been playing in my head the past couple of days and don't know where it is from. Do you?

Thank you SO much for the gifts and the letters around my birthday.

This birthday has been the best one yet. I got the G tops and they are perfect. As for the bottoms, my waist is a 32 I think which I think is a size Medium. The shirts are everything I hoped and dreamed they'd be

- I can BREATHE! Thank you! I also got the pills you sent as well as prescriptions from Sheree. I'll have to send her a thank you note.

She's awesome. But I'll be needed some money on my card to pick up the drugs because I don't think I'll have enough on my mission card to last me through the month. Could you put money on that card for me?

Thank you!

I hope Eric had a good birthday! I really, really miss him. The folks we're living with have a son and his family that live across the street from us and my time spent with them is probably one of my most favorite experiences on the mission. They are all super spiritual. We live on a small farm and they are almost 100% self-sustaining. They've got a MASSIVE garden and everything they eat is homemade. Anyway their kids across the street have got six kids ages 17, 14, 12, 10, 5, and 3. I love them all but the three youngest ones really make me miss Eric and Spencer. This is a family like I've never seen before. The youngest is the most articulate, well put together, confident, self-aware 3-year old I have EVER seen.

(Sorry, the editing might get confusing but I don't want to leave in too much identifiable info about a family when I don't have their permission. -mom)

She is a RIOT. We've got S and S, who's 5, convinced that Elder O is a giant who came from the top of a beanstalk. He doesn't have a name anymore and they call him "the giant". But S and S are the best brother and sister I've ever even heard of. S is a wild child and he's ALL boy - kicking and punching and rolling in the dirt and pushing and all the while laughing his little head off - and his primary target is his little sister. I've never seen them apart and they are always wrestling each other. The cool part is S can really put up with a beating but she can dish it right back, and even though S always comes out on top, S really makes him work for it. They NEVER stop. They're extremely close. 

Last night we were at their home giving a short lesson and hanging out and S and S are playing with pillowcases. Well S climbs into a pillowcase and Elder O picks it up like a garbage bag and then says he's going to put him in dumpster. As he's making his way to the door and while we're all laughing, S come unglued and she starts to fight him and hit him and she screams, "You can't do that to my brother! He's my brother! You let him go!" and she started to cry and threatens Elder O she'll put him in the garbage if he dares to do anything to S. It was the FUNNIEST and most touching thing I had ever seen! Holy crap I had never laughed so hard in my life! Elder O let little S go and S grabbed him and hugged him and asked him if he was ok...

hahaha darn kids. I miss my boys :(

That phone call to Eric for his birthday came back and bit me though... My companion is a lot quicker than I gave him credit for and he was upset because I called you guys. I'm not mad because of that because I know I really shouldn't be calling home but still. Elder O is a really good guy and I love him but we don't always get along. I don't let it get to me though and I'll just go with it because it's not worth the fight. We still get stuff done.

That's so cool Dallin and Kadi and Eric got the go the Brigham City Temple dedication! They'll appreciate it more as they get older.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the Boise Temple dedication is coming up and the temple open house will be from October 14 to November 10. I remember the day I got into the mission, I heard the temple was closed just one day before. They closed it to remodel and renovate it and it's FINALLY opening back up! The entire community all over the Boise Temple district is super trucking stoked too and it's been a really cool experience to see the excitement in the community. They're planning a huge cultural celebration the youth will put on right before the dedication and they've been recruiting members all over to help with the open house. They're expecting roughly 300,000 people to go through so it's gonna be big.

It's funny you mentioned genealogy in your last letter because I've been thinking a lot about it too. My patriarchal blessing tells me I've got a pantload of work to do when I get back because I've got tons of ancestors that are waiting to have their work done. That's so cool you guys got to go through and do work for folks you know! I'm glad you got to spend time with your family and all. It's interesting to see that even old fogies like Grandpa Petty - dahahahaha - are still learning and growing and progressing. Old folks I've seen tend not to do that because they're so set in their ways that they don't think there's anything else to do. I sure do like old folks who are humble!

And I want to thank you and dad for your encouragement and support recently. I'm doing good now but I got really depressed and life just sucked. I recognized the adversary giving me crap - and he did a really good job at it! - but I was still feeling really down. I gotta write dad a letter too because the letter he sent me really helped. I felt he knew exactly what I was going through and I read and reread his letter several times over. You two are my saving grace. I wish there was more I could do to tell you how grateful I am. I'm working hard and improving more and more every day. I think about you guys several, several times a day. You're both still always with me even though you're not here. Thank you. I love you and I miss you two...

sincerely,

tay

I Know Your Dad

Hello All -

We received a great phone call the other day from a guy Tal works with for his job. He recently moved to Idaho and Tal hadn't heard from him a while.

He texted Tal a picture of him with the Elders in his ward. Guess who one of his Elder's is? Tal loves that our son has run into several people who know who his dad is. (Famous in song and tale, he alleges!) He is doing well and is really happy with his new companion - a white kid from Zimbabwe with a "sic" accent.

Love -Julianne

-----Original Message-----

From: Taylor Ehlers [mailto:taylor.ehlers@myldsmail.net]

Sent: Monday, August 27, 2012 5:35 PM

Subject: I would have to say asphinctersayswhat?

Life is good! We had a baptism a couple of weeks ago. We baptized this joe by the name of XX. He's led a rough life with many ups and downs but this is a guy who's got a real testimony. He doesn't know much about the actual gospel, church history, priesthood organization, or green jello BUT he recognizes the hand of God in his life. His temporal knowledge is limited but his spiritual knowledge is super intense. One thing I love about him and his family is they keep a really clean house - no beer cans, dog leftovers, tv dinner packages, used paper plates, broken toys, or the like to be found ANYWHERE. A clean house is something I've come to appreciate after all the homes we've been in. His truck is broken but he either walks or bikes the 2 mile distance to church every sunday.

This week on Thursday we've got another baptism. Something I gotta say about baptismal candidates is they've got such an awesome spirit about them. After they know it's true, they stop questioning things. It's a lot of responsibility on our shoulders so we've careful not to feed them any "false doctrine" - like caffeine being against the word of wisdom and the Book of Mormon's authenticity was validated by Joseph Smith taking the actual gold plates to the local egyptologist to verify the ancient reformed-Egyptian characters. But there's something to be said about a totally devout coffee-worshiper who will quit on a dime because it's what she has to do to get dunked. The baptism coming up is a young single mother named XXX. She's got an 18 month old baby girl and she's ready. She's been coming to church and she's already more or less a part of the ward.

 

The members here are pretty die hard too. We have a general sense of support and everyone we ask for help is ready and willing to assist.

We cover four wards, which isn't bad but I prefer covering three. It tends to complicate things on sundays when three wards go to one building and one ward goes to another. I like being able to see everyone in one day. One to mention is dude by the name of Merrot. He told me his profession is emergency response and I told him that's what my dad does - the emergency response king for Uintah county. Then he asked me who my dad was and when I answered he said "I KNOW TAL!"

And so it was super cool to see someone who's seen my dad more recently than I have! And then he has a training this week in Salt Lake where he said he'll see dad anyway. Small world!

tay