Gladys Knight in Tucker, Georgia

Hello Hello,

Things are going well here in Loganville/Monroe. We rescheduled the S family baptism on December 10th. This family is awesome! They really want to be baptized, however Jimmy Sr is still having health problems and has been in and out of the hospital the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, he is too weak to make it to church with walking. We are working on finding him a wheelchair to use. But until then we are continuing to meet with them. We have one more lesson to teach and then they should be ready.

Nothing new with the K family. Scott and Anny are doing well, and progressing towards baptism. We are going to set a date with them this week when we can get in to teach them again. Because of their work schedules it is hard to find a time that works to teach them, but they continue to come to church when they can. Anny even got work off yesterday so she could come to church. I am happy with the progress they are making.

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving here. The ward is great and everyone loves to sign up to feed the missionaries. We had about five families ask if they could have us for Thanksgiving, but of course our belly's would not be able to handle that. So we only said yes to two. The Elders also had two. So I figure with four families getting the chance, that's pretty good. The food was good. It was interesting to see how different Thanksgivings in the South are compared to the dinner I am used to having. Here they have a lot more, and none of it was super healthy. No simple vegetables! They had turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese (that's new for me), green bean casserole, bread, sweet potato pie, banana pudding, and of course pumpkin pie. I am positive there are some other kinds of food that I'm forgetting that were unusual to me. In the South they LOVE to fry their turkey in peanut oil. This time I was smart enough to ask before eating, and it's a very good thing I did. No allergic reactions for me :) :) :) At our dinner appointment we had a nice SMALL bit of leftovers from their big Thanksgiving meal. It was quite nice. No weight gain for me :) I conquered a Southern Thanksgiving!!!

Last Friday-Sunday Gladys Knight came with a group called SUV (Saints Unified Voices) and did a fireside/concert in Tucker for the Atlanta area. Our mission was given some tickets to pass out (to members and non-members), but most I think went to the Atlanta Mission. The Stake I am in did not get very many, so I was not expecting to get any referrals from it. But to my surprise we got 3. The Elders serving in the ward got 6 and our district all together had 12. That was more than even President Wolfert was expecting. Overall the number of referrals received was 1020, our mission received about 250 of those. Some are members just wanting the gift packet, but most were non-members. This is very exciting for our mission because in areas where they have done this in the past they have received a lot of referrals (about the same as we did) and they had about 60 baptisms from it, with more coming. That is fantastic! We were able to go and contact our referrals with the gift packet (a sample Gladys Knight cd, Book of Mormon, and Restoration DVD) this week. Two out of our three were not interested in learning more, but we do have one that wants to meet with us. I am excited for that. We may end up getting a couple of the Elders referrals as well, because they are actually in our part of the area. They cover Monroe, and we cover both but mainly Loganville.

Don't forget to read the Book of Mormon. It IS another testament of Jesus Christ, and it WILL bring you closer to him and our Father in Heaven. It has brought me closer to them and it continues to do so.



I love y'all,

Sister Taylor