| Here comes July! 1 message |
| Brian L Taylor <bjt087@gmail.com> | Sun, Jun 30, 2013 at 6:30 PM | |
| To: Wilford Scott <scott.wilford@gmail.com> | ||
| ||
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Brian & David (Brian's son) Taylor letters, June 24 & 26, 2013
Inspiratio
Inbox
x
Inbox
Dear Elder and Sister Scott,
Sorry to be behind schedule with the weekly letter. Long ago I heard the saying that the hurrier I go, the behinder I get. That seems to be my story this past weekend.
My live-in grandson and his wife went on a camping trip up by East Canyon Dam for four days this past week. It surely was quiet here without all the sound effects of a one-year-old every day. She is such a loving little tyke that I surely missed her. The mother came home with a bad case of laryngitis. I guess the little one senses the problem, because she is more quiet than usual.
I am hoping that all of my correspondents were able to hear the special broadcast presented by the Church yesterday. The participants were ideally suited for the messages they gave. I am still feeling the wonderful spirit of that meeting, and I feel the importance of the messages that were given us. It is thrilling to reflect upon the responsibility of us church members in helping to find opportunities for our missionaries to keep busy teaching, as well as reclaiming many of the members that we never see in church. After the meeting I was thinking of the best way to approach an inactive neighbor living just two doors north of me, and Dave mentioned a family that has
"fallen away" in our neighborhood. Both families are friendly, so I must pray for the best approach to warm them up to the Church.
In reflecting back over that special meeting, I have been impressed about how each participant was ideally suited to present the message that he was assigned. I am always "revved up" when each one speaks on any occasion. I especially enjoy hearing President Monson relate his experiences as president of the mission in Montreal. Then I realize that every mission president is entitled to that same brand of revelation. I am sure that any person who has worked in or near a mission office has observed how the spirit of revelation operates there.
A long time ago I heard the saying that we should pray every day as if everything depended upon the Lord, then we should get up off our knees and go to work as if everything depended upon US. I get in the frame of mind that I am no longer able to get in the ring as a vigorous participant in the Lord's work. Yet I CAN give a 92-year-old's effort each day, rather than hunting an excuse for doing nothing.
My note to you is shorter than usual, but it still brings my love and good wishes for your having given the right answer about accepting a mission call.
God bless you in your loving service. I love you.
Grandpa Taylor
Letter from Farr West
Inbox
x |
| ||||||||||||||||||
Friday, June 21, 2013
June 21, 2013, updated
June 21, 2013:
I served in the Pendleton Log Home and School today with Sister Pixler and Sister Sanders. It's been a while since Sister Sanders and I have served together so it was fun. We spent the afternoon "solving most of life's problems".
A man and two women (they said they were sisters) came in this afternoon. One of the women was a Mormon and the other man and woman weren't. So I presented the quest card and he took it and said they new quite a bit about Mormonism. So I told him if they knew a lot then there was just one more step to take. We had been talking some about religion and Sister Sanders and the two women were talking about something else. So they are leaving and I told him to remember that "one last step". Sister Sanders, thinking I meant the step going out of the building, told him that last step"s a killer. (She hadn't heard what we were talking about.) So I leaned out the door and told him it (meaning the "last step") wasn't a killer, it would bring them exaltation. It was perfect! Of course, I explained the whole thing to Sister Sanders after. I pray that the spirit touched his heart and mind and they will take that "last step".
I find it hard to write up these experiences. Somehow, they never sound the same as they felt when they were happening. But I tried and there it is. Hopefully, the Holy Ghost will bring the feeling to my remembrance when I read it again and fill in the blanks.
I served in the Pendleton Log Home and School today with Sister Pixler and Sister Sanders. It's been a while since Sister Sanders and I have served together so it was fun. We spent the afternoon "solving most of life's problems".
A man and two women (they said they were sisters) came in this afternoon. One of the women was a Mormon and the other man and woman weren't. So I presented the quest card and he took it and said they new quite a bit about Mormonism. So I told him if they knew a lot then there was just one more step to take. We had been talking some about religion and Sister Sanders and the two women were talking about something else. So they are leaving and I told him to remember that "one last step". Sister Sanders, thinking I meant the step going out of the building, told him that last step"s a killer. (She hadn't heard what we were talking about.) So I leaned out the door and told him it (meaning the "last step") wasn't a killer, it would bring them exaltation. It was perfect! Of course, I explained the whole thing to Sister Sanders after. I pray that the spirit touched his heart and mind and they will take that "last step".
I find it hard to write up these experiences. Somehow, they never sound the same as they felt when they were happening. But I tried and there it is. Hopefully, the Holy Ghost will bring the feeling to my remembrance when I read it again and fill in the blanks.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Brian Taylor letter, 6/16,2013
Happy Father's Day!
Inbox
x
Inbox
This has been a wonderful Father's Day. I just hope that your activities have been just as rewarding in their way as mine have been. I welcomed an opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting (sound weird to you?) It wasn't that it was just a chance to speak--I felt that the subject offered me an opportunity to share some of my Dad's rather spiritual experiences. Brother Dennis White asked me to relate some experiences which showed that my father listened to the promptings of the Spirit. And benefited from doing so. I am not going to share my whole talk with you, but I feel that a part of it might be of benefit to you--and help you to appreciate your great-grandfather just a little more.
My father, Riley Edmund Taylor, was born in 1886, the 9th of 11 children of the first bishop of Farr West, William Andrew Taylor, and his wife Philomela Lake. When Riley was just under 6 years of age, his father died of a ruptured appendix, leaving an overwhelmed 39-year-old widow to care for and direct the lives of eight children. One of her youngest daughters has described in family reunions how her mother would occasionally have crying spells for days at a time. I can understand why.
Riley's only brother, Will, was married just a month after his father died--at his mother's encouragement, and even though HE was good to help with the heavier work, Riley had to become the man of the family--again at age 6--a rather challenging assignment in pioneer life. He learned to do some of the difficult chores by using his ingenuity. For example, in order to get the harness up onto the work horse's back, he tied a rope to one hame of the harness, throw the rope up over the horse's neck, and pull on the other end of the rope until he could get the hames latched into the leather groove on the collar.
I feel sure that because my Dad loved his widowed mother very much, he was spiritually attuned to his mother's needs, and he found ways to support her all the rest of her days. And he honored her all the rest of HIS days.
In about 1906, Riley's oldest sister Mary and her husband moved to Lewisville, Idaho with their young family. I like to think that the Spirit directed Riley to accompany them While he was in Lewisville, he attended an MIA dance one night, where a friend from Harrisville introduced him to Bishop David Kinghorn's daughter Bessie. They were both attracted to one another. When Riley came back to Utah, he and his girl friend were already making plans for a future marriage in the temple. It could not be right away; he had no 'nest egg" set aside, I am sure. However, both had chosen an eternal partner wisely.
Then it happened. A letter from "Box B" in Salt Lake City contained a call for Riley to serve in the Northwestern States Mission with headquarters in Portland. An uncle opined that Riley was needed more at home than in the mission field, but Riley's mother urged him to accept the call, saying it would be easier for her to support him than it was for her to support her husband when he had been called to serve in the Northwestern States Mission in 1877. Riley wisely listened to his mother (how grateful I am! because of what it meant to our home life at a later date!) My mother, too, encouraged him to accept the call.
Heeding the call from the Lord, Riley was a changed young man two years later when he took his bride-to-be to the Salt Lake Temple to be united in the Lord's way. I'm so grateful that they both listened to the Spirit! I am the recipient of the choicest blessings in eternity because my parents made intelligent choices to follow the Spirit.
I am so grateful that my parents made it a habit to follow the promptings of the Spirit. It was good training for me. We can all profit from that example. God bless you as you endeavor to follow this example! Love, Brian
| ||||||||
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Letter from Danny Taylor, 14 Jun 2013
Fwd: Letter from Danny
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Taylor <taylord123@myldsmail.net> Date: Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 2:27 PM Subject: Letter from Danny To: tdvdbtylr@gmail.com
Hola mi familia,
How's everybody doing? It has only been like a few days, but it has been pretty good here at the MTC. So by the end of this email, I will try and send some pictures with what time I have left, but I can't make any promises at the moment. So without further dilly dallying, my MTC mailbox stuff I believe is:
Elder Daniel Thomas Taylor
JUL23 GUA-RET
2011 N 900 E Unit 244
Provo, UT 84602
I hope that is all the information you need. I am not sure what Jeremy or Mike sent if it had more because I am still pretty new here and don't know much about what is going on. But hopefully that should do it for my mailing address because those 2 pairs of levi's that are at home, I need them ASAP. Tomorrow is my service project and I am going to have to borrow someone else's jeans or something because I don't have any. I will definitely need them for next week though because my companion had to wear his missionary clothes all today because both companions have to be dressed kind of similar and since I was just going to wear my church clothes today, he had to do the same. He is a really great guy though and has a lot of patience. My senior companion's name is Elder Vasquez and he is a really cool dude. He is from Kaysville Utah but he was born in Lima, Peru. His father moved here to America first probably right when he was born so that he could earn the money to bring his family over with him. So he has had a lot of Spanish when he was little, but he tells me and my district that he forgot most of it because as he was growing up, English took hold as a major part of his life and he didn't use his Spanish much. That is why he is in the Intermediate Spanish class here at the MTC instead of the Advanced class.
So my first day after you guys dropped me off wasn't what I expected. I remained pretty calm about everything and it was a lot more easy going that first day which helped me to get adjusted a little bit to the type of MTC life that I am going to be living for a little while. There are a whole bunch of guys in my District, most are from Utah and Elder Graham is from Gainsville, Florida which I thought that Mike would love to know haha. The others are: Elder McCrea who is a crazy guy, Elder Cook who is just plain awesome, Elder McCord is a beast of a person that is really nice but got in trouble for dunking it during basketball yesterday haha, Elder Stepan (like step-un) is our district leader and he is such a humble person to be around and is friendly all the time. There are others, but these are the guys that are in the same room as me.
After getting to know these guys and putting my stuff in my room, we had an awesome opening devotional where I got to get that awesome missionary feel of being in the midst of many awesome Elders and Sisters who have been called to serve our Lord Jesus Christ and to sing the missionary songs and replace the words like "and we will be the Lord's missionaries" with "and we are the Lord's missionaries." But anyways, it was a pretty good devotional. Following it, we went to class and my teacher, Brother Call, did not speak any English at all and I was felt alright because I understood the stuff he was saying.
On Wednesday, I got to meet a missionary celebrity haha. We did this really cool lesson thing that was designed to get us to feel the Spirit and receive revelation on how we could help these "investigators" who were acting out actual investigators that people have had. Anyways, Elder Christiansen (don't know how to spell it haha) from the District videos was our teacher and his skill at what he does is just amazing. He helped bring the Spirit into the room so strong and I was so glad that I got to have him as our guide and help us to listen closely for the Spirit. I would like to say more about it, but I am running out of time. After this activity, I got to meet my zone leaders, Elder Hay You and Elder Stocks. I also got to briefly meet my Branch President, Elder Tyler.
Yesterday, was an ok day. I really loved the time I got to do personal study and to write down the things I learned from my study in a notebook made all the difference. I did get a little discouraged though in my language class because even though I understand a lot of what Bro. Call said, it was frustrating because I could not say what I really wanted to say. But, I managed to get myself in check and push on through that class and ultimately learned how to pray in Spanish. That was really awesome because that is something that I have to use quite often haha. It was this day at gym that Elder McCord dunked a hoop because he was a basketball player in school and he had hoped that he would at least get a warning. But no, they stopped him and it was hilarious. To skip ahead to the end of the day, we had our official meeting with Pres. Tyler and he is so awesome. I loved my interview with him because he is super humble. In the lesson, he was quoting scriptures and quotes left and right and it blew my mind away. I feel lucky to have him as my branch leader.
Well I better stop at that right now if I want to send you guys some pictures. Love you all and can't wait to hear from you soon and get my levis haha. Adios!
Love,
Danny
| ||||||||
Friday, June 14, 2013
June 9, 2013 Zone Conference, Nauvoo Illinois Mission
When it is hot, and you are tired, please remember that everyone else is, too. So be
flexible and adjustable with each other. Err on the side of compassion, rather than
criticism.
When the going gets tough, there is great counsel in the words of the hymn, “When
Upon Life’s Billows”. Counting blessings is a great antidote for negative feelings
which would otherwise rob you of the spirit and even your physical strength.
Please receive changes, schedules, cast assignments and the like with flexibility
and adaptability. If you are asked to mop the green room floor rather than be on
stage where you would love to be, please make it the cleanest, holiest place,
sanctified by your faithful, obedient service. If you are replaced in a part or a site you love, so someone else can have a chance
to grow, please joy in their opportunity and be their best supporter.
Learn to roll with the punches -- let things roll off you like water off a duck’s back!
If you go into a new situation with your mind already made up that you are going
to be miserable, you are right – you will be! To be flexible and adaptable opens
the door for new discovery, enlightenment, and joys you would have never known.
Don’t take ownership of a part, assignment, or stewardship and forget whose
service we are in. It is not about us, it is about Him and what He has done for us.
There is one who opposes this work every day
He will work on your attitude
He wants you to be hard hearted and stiffnecked
He wants you to murmur
He wants you to second guess everything
He wants to move your focus from the things that matter the most
When we are flexible, able to adjust easily to change, and
when we are adaptable, able to change easily to meet new circumstances,
then our hearts are wide open and ready to receive that which God has in store for
us, through the manifestations of His Spirit.
flexible and adjustable with each other. Err on the side of compassion, rather than
criticism.
When the going gets tough, there is great counsel in the words of the hymn, “When
Upon Life’s Billows”. Counting blessings is a great antidote for negative feelings
which would otherwise rob you of the spirit and even your physical strength.
Please receive changes, schedules, cast assignments and the like with flexibility
and adaptability. If you are asked to mop the green room floor rather than be on
stage where you would love to be, please make it the cleanest, holiest place,
sanctified by your faithful, obedient service. If you are replaced in a part or a site you love, so someone else can have a chance
to grow, please joy in their opportunity and be their best supporter.
Learn to roll with the punches -- let things roll off you like water off a duck’s back!
If you go into a new situation with your mind already made up that you are going
to be miserable, you are right – you will be! To be flexible and adaptable opens
the door for new discovery, enlightenment, and joys you would have never known.
Don’t take ownership of a part, assignment, or stewardship and forget whose
service we are in. It is not about us, it is about Him and what He has done for us.
There is one who opposes this work every day
He will work on your attitude
He wants you to be hard hearted and stiffnecked
He wants you to murmur
He wants you to second guess everything
He wants to move your focus from the things that matter the most
When we are flexible, able to adjust easily to change, and
when we are adaptable, able to change easily to meet new circumstances,
then our hearts are wide open and ready to receive that which God has in store for
us, through the manifestations of His Spirit.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
Brian Taylor's letter, May 26, 2013
Rememberin
Inbox
x
Inbox
Dear Elder Willie and Sister Judy,
Today and tomorrow our people will be flocking to the cemeteries to place flowers on the graves of loved ones. At the same time many of us will be taking some time to reflect upon the lives of those we hold dear. We may be recalling fond memories of the lessons we have learned from them. Or we will bow our heads in gratitude for the service they have provided for us. I own a cemetery lot on which my great-grandfather Joseph Taylor is buried. I remember his life particularly because he served in the Mormon Battalion, which led to his having a special military recognition on his grave each year. He also served in the Utah War during he led a contingent of sixty men up Weber Canyon to do everything they could to hinder members of Johnston's Army from coming into the Salt Lake Valley. He was captured by that army and on at least two occasions they tried to take his life--once by building a smoking fire at the entrance to his tent, and another by feeding him and his companion poisoned soup. When threatened by the smoke, he instructed his companion to scoop some soil out of the ground and breathe into that hole. Joseph later suspected the soup of being poisoned, so he instructed his companion not to eat it. The companion just tasted the soup and became deathly sick. Later Joseph told his companion that he was going to try to escape. He pretended to be cold and asked his captors to throw more wood on the fire. They did so. He took off his shoes--I suppose to make the army think he would stay close to the fire to stay warm. Then as two guards came together and turned to walk in opposite directions, Joseph dashed between them and into a herd of cattle, trying to stampede them. His captors shot at him, but he escaped and was able to return to Salt Lake City and give valuable information to the commander, Daniel H. Wells. Joseph later became the first settler in our home town of Farr West. I shall never forget his sacrifices to make it possible for me to enjoy this home in which I have raised our family, including some missionaries.
| ||||||||
Brian Taylor's letter, June 2, 2013
My best to you
Inbox
x
Inbox
Dear Elder and Sister Scott,
I believe I have mentioned in some previous letters that some of my grandsons have been coming to my home on Saturdays to record my remembrances of different members of my ancestry. This little exercise causes me to reflect upon their tribulations and wonder how they ever endured their trials and emerged as stronger individuals. Just like the saints of old, they did not get to choose the time of their adversity so they could never plan for it. And a number of my ancestors experienced all of the major persecution that we read about in church history. When we read in 2 Timothy 3:12, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," we know that a wise Father is not allowing such a pattern for entertainment.
Consider the words of Elder Orson F. Whiney: "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God. . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we came here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven."
I suppose we all understand that we somehow benefit from the "rough waters" that we encounter in our voyage through life, but this does not make the suffering any less intense. Yet we can rest assured that the Lord never abandons us during our periods of adversity. In fact, just the opposite is true; I love Elder Neal A. Maxwell's expression on the subject: "(God's) grace will cover us like a cloak--enough to provide for survival but too thin to keep out all the cold."
I have often referred to the history of the Martin and Willie handcart companies of 1856. Late in leaving England, they arrived in Iowa City to find supplies severely depleted by other immigrants heading westward at an earlier date. To make matters worse for them, Brigham Young, not knowing of these late arrivals from England, had called in the resupply wagons that had been meeting the other companies in eastern Wyoming with needed assistance.
One delay after another forced the two handcart companies to leave Iowa City about July 15th, knowing that the high terrain through which they would be forced to travel was known to have some early severe weather. But would they be safe because they had exerted their faith already in an effort to come to Zion? Not so.
I know I have cited their experience in previous letters, but I would like you to remember one thing today: their exhibition of faith did not exempt them from trials beyond their imagination. Those who survived were much stronger because of their experiences, and those who were unable to complete the journey certainly inherited a great reward because they demonstrated their being willing to accept the will of the Lord.
Isn't life wonderful! Each day brings a new experience (even for a retired person like me.) I just had a funny thought--has anyone come to an understanding of what specific plans a person can make for post-retirement years? I can still chuckle about it, even though I am approaching that era. But I am still young at age 92.
Have a wonderful week. I'm praying for you. Love, EldER Taylor
| ||||||||
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
