Christmas Call.... (with the more personal stuff edited out....)

Taylor:  Hi guys!!!

Everyone:  Hi… Hello…. Hi buddy!  Merry Christmas!

Taylor:  Why do you sound like you’re on the other side of the room?

Eric:  We put you on speakerphone, is that okay?

Taylor:  Yeah.

Christy: Ok, otherwise it will take too long for all of us to talk to you.

Taylor:  Okay.

Eric:  It’s your first Christmas away and you’re missing Brayden’s fabulous morning hair-do.

Taylor:  Sweeeet…. I wanna a picture next week.

Christy:  Okay, we’ll send some.

Brayden:  No.. NO. NOOO!

Christy:  Did you get your package from the post office?

Taylor:  I did. 

Christy:  Oh good, I’m glad… I was worried you weren’t going to get it.

Taylor:  We went to the post office, but apparently it was already on the truck and they were going to redeliver it or something.  And….

Christy:  But did it get to you?

Taylor:  Yeah, it did.

Christy:  Did you open everything already?

Taylor:  Yeah!  J

Christy:  How did we do?

Taylor:  You guys did good.  The beef jerky, that was great. 

(Insert image of 2 bags Duck Dynasty brand beef jerky)

Eric:  Hopefully it’s not all gone already!

Taylor:  It’s not!

Christy:  Ration it out!

Taylor:  I will! 

Eric:  So my biggest question is… what are you eatin’?

Taylor:  Right now, BBQ…..

Eric:  Chicken or brisket or ribs?

Taylor:  Let’s see… uhh….

Eric:  We saw your picture with the Rudy’s… that look liked some healthy brisket right there…

Taylor:  Oh yeah…

Christy:  You like it now?  (meaning BBQ style food)

Taylor:  Yeah.

Eric:  Hear that kids?  We can actually go out for BBQ now…

Christy: Yay, when Taylor gets back we get to go to Rudy’s!

Taylor:  Let’s go to Red Robin…

Brayden:  Red Robin, yummmm……(sung in the jingle style from the commercial)

Christy:  How are things going today?

Taylor:  It’s going good.

Christy:  Do you have a lot planned?

Taylor:  Right now we are just hanging with our district at the church building… we’re just playing board games, eating, shooting the basketball around…. And later tonight we have this big dinner with a family, here at the church again.

Christy:  Wow, it must be a huge family if they reserved the church!

Taylor:  It is.  J

Christy:  So how’s your new ward?  Do you like it?

Taylor:  I do.

Christy:  Do you speak Spanish with people or is it more English?

Taylor:  It’s more English.

Christy:  But your companion speaks Spanish right?  He’s Mexican?

Taylor:  Uh hum.

Christy:  Do you speak a lot of Spanish with each other?

Taylor:  Uh…. Sometimes…

Christy:  I’m assuming he’s fluent in both English and Spanish?

Taylor: Yeah.

Christy:  How long has he lived in Utah?

Taylor:  He’s lived there since he was seven, so….

Christy:  That’s good!  Are you in a car area again or are you on a bike?

Taylor:  I’m in a car area again… I’m getting fat!

Christy:  You’re getting fat?

Taylor:  Not FAT, fat, but yeah….

Christy:  You’re new companion doesn’t like to get up and go running every morning?

Taylor:  Not during the winter, no.

Christy:  Has it been super cold?

Taylor:  It hasn’t been too bad.

Eric:  How were you faring it up with Elder Morrin, running?  Were you able to keep up with him?

(Elder Morrin ran BYU track before his mission.)

Taylor:  Okay.  He injured himself about a year ago, so he hasn’t been able to do any exercise until recently.

Christy:  Dad looked up his bio on the BYU website.

Taylor:  Wow… okay…

Eric:  Yeah, they have a picture of him on the BYU website.  All the athletes have a bio on the BYU website.

Taylor:  Awkward?

Christy:  Yeah, Dad’s stalking your companion!  You don’t give us a whole lot of details about them, so we gotta get them on our own.

Taylor:  Sorry!

Christy:  You do take good pictures, though!  Make sure you send your full memory cards back to me so we can back them on a our computer.

Taylor:  I’m going to send you some stuff this week in a package.

Christy:  Do you know how to mail a package at the post office?

Taylor:  I can figure it out.

Eric:  We didn’t train him up for that before he left!

  

Eric:  So you live in an apartment with other elders, then?

Taylor:  Yeah, there’s two other elders with us.

Eric:  Are they English speaking?  Are you technically English or Spanish speaking right now?

Taylor:  Kinda both, we have some investigators that are Spanish.

Eric:  You’ll have to make sure you take advantage of your companions Spanish speaking abilities.

Taylor:  I know.

Eric:  Do you ride your bike at all?

Taylor:  So far, no. 

Christy:  So how are you liking Texas now that you’ve been there a while?

Taylor:  I love it.  It’s nice up here. 

Christy:  So do you have any super awesome experiences you want to share with us before we have to get off the phone?

Taylor:  Uh, let’s see…. Before I left Round Rock, I was telling you guys about Elena and how she wants to be baptized, but we’ve noticed that Satan’s been working on her really hard and she feels bad about everything even though it’s not big stuff at all.  The morning that I was leaving to come down to Boerne (pronounced like Bernie), before I left I was able to give her a blessing in Spanish.

Megan:  That’s awesome, Taylor.

Eric:  Wow!

Christy:  Is there a baptism today in Round Rock that was supposed to be happening?

Taylor:  Um, I’m not sure.  That’s supposed to be Elena, but when I texted the elders up there last week, they said they don’t know because Elena’s not sure based on what’s been going on.  Like she wants to, but she doesn’t feel prepared or worthy right now.  But she totally is!  I need to find out if she got baptized or not.

Christy: Oh, okay, so how many missionaries are serving in Boerne right now?

Taylor:  There’s six of us.  Four elders and and 2 sisters.  Our district has two other sisters from another ward.  There’s three wards here.

Christy:  What do most people do for a living that live there?  Do you know?

Taylor:  Um… let’s see… I don’t know… in our ward there’s a lot of old people, so they’re retired.  J  Like half the ward is old people.  Ha ha….

Christy:  Do you have dinner appointments every night?

Taylor:  We have quite a few… but not every night.

Christy:  Do you cook on the other nights?

Taylor:  I make chicken sometimes.  I like to make orange chicken. 

Christy:  Did you get orange chicken sauce from Grandma?  I asked her to send it to you. 

Taylor:  Yeah, I actually opened that box like two weeks ago.

Christy:  I knew you wouldn’t be able to wait!!

Taylor:  No, it was because when I got transferred to Boerne, I had no food to eat.  So I opened their box, because I figured there was food in there.  I didn’t open the card!

Christy:  Was there any food besides the Orange Sauce?

Taylor:  There was Pringles, beef jerky, red vines…

Christy:  Well that’s awesome that you were able to live off it!

Eric:  A much needed survival kit!  How long did you live off that?

Taylor:  I got there Saturday, so I just had to wait until Monday.

Christy:  So do you guys share food, or all get your own?

Taylor:  In my last area, we started the law of conservation, I mean, consecration, (ha ha ha!) so we shared everything.  But here, everyone just buys their own food, which is fine too.

Christy:  What’s the weirdest thing you’ve been fed at a home?

Taylor:  Let me think… I don’t know if I could say weird… but just different.  Our ward mission leader in Round Rock, they fed us this soup that has meat and corn in it.  Dad might know what it is….

Eric:  Menudo?

Taylor:  No, I haven’t had that yet.  I think the strangest thing was having cow tongue in Mexico City.

Christy:  Did you know what you were eating when they gave it to you?

Taylor:  No.  It just looked like a very thin slice of steak.  It was salty, and then I found out later what it was.  It wasn’t bad, so….

Christy:  You were probably really hungry, right?

Taylor:  kinda. Yeah.....

Christy:  Do people feed you BBQ more or Mexican more?

Taylor:  I’d probably say Mexican more.  As of right now….

Christy:  What’s your favorite Mexican food that you’ve had?  You can’t say rice.

Taylor:  I know!  Hmmm, let’s see, we’ve had some Chimichangas that were pretty good the other night.

Everyone:  WOW!!! J

Eric:  We’re having our local elders over for dinner today.  Gonna make some ham, mashed potatoes, Megan’s making scones….

Taylor:  You should get some of that creamy corn from Rudy’s….

Christy:  Isn’t that stuff amazing?

Taylor:  It is!

Christy:  Crack-corn… that’s what we call it.

Taylor:  It is crack corn! 

Christy:  You didn’t believe us how good it was!

Christy:  So are you having fun?  Are you glad you’re out there?

Taylor:  I am.  I love the mission.  Isn’t it crazy?  In about eight weeks, I’ll have been out for six months!

Eric and Christy:  That is crazy!

Christy:  Brayden wants to know what you do on your p-day.

Taylor:  Well we get up, have breakfast, we have two hours of study, which isn’t that long , (good thing he couldn’t see out astonished faces at this comment!) then we shop, then we’ll play a sport (basketball, or volleyball).  Our zone is too spread out for zone p-days, so we go to another zone’s p-day that’s closer.  Yeah, p-days are fun!

Christy:  Are you getting ipads in your mission any time soon?

Taylor:  We were told next December. 

Taylor:  Tell everyone thank you for the cards and packages. 

Brayden:  I love you!  I MISS yoooouuuuu…..

Megan: I love you, Taylor!

Eric:  We are super proud of you Taylor.  Makes missionary work easier for me.  Friends don’t understand how we can let you go away for two whole years!  

Christy:  We love you!! Ian and I figured out that we could drive to Boerne in a day…. It’s only 930 miles from Chandler on the I-10.  Crazy, right?

Taylor:  It is?  Really? Wow!

Christy:  Yeah, but don’t worry, we won’t come!  We want to, but we won’t! 

Ian:  LOVE YOU!

Everyone:  LOVE you…. Bye!