HAT PARADE!!

 We have had a lot of fun having Elder Jensen in the Mission home the past few days.

I had promised him that we would have a "Hat Parade" while he was with us to find the perfect hat for him to wear to cover his stapled head and then until his hair grows out enough to cover the scar.

In the Taylor Family, there is a fun tradition of getting together a bunch of interesting hats and having everyone at a family reunion or family gathering wear different hats in a parade of sorts.

So here goes Elder Jensens SOLO HAT PARADE!!!

We start with the FIREFIGHTER LOOK!  Red is his color, so this may be a good option.  Putting out fires is something we all do at times, right?

For sure the STRIPLING WARRIOR look is appropriate!

I tell Elder Jensen that he survived battle as one of the valiant warriors!  So glad that his Mother taught him well!  He was wounded, but lived to tell the tale!  And he is an obedient servant of the Lord.

Alright...this HARD HAT may be what I want him to wear when he is in a car.  Maybe it would protect his skull in the future.

 POLICE HAT?  Well, officer or not, he does try to uphold the law.

How about SANTA?  or in this case...GRUMPY SANTA!

WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY???  Must be a RED FOX for Elder Jensen!

OK, we don't actually know what this hat is supposed to be...CAT???
WOOKIE???

whatever it is, he wears it well!

Down to some serious business.

Here are the two hats that we chose especially for Elder Jensen.


The first, a nice Levi's reversible BEANIE from gray to stripe.  It looks good with a suit or dressed down.

And my personal favorite, the NEWSIES HAT.  A nice gray tweed hat that he looks really good in!  It suits his style and may be one he chooses to use even after the mission.  Thank you Penneys for having decent hats for sale!


HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU ELDER JENSEN!  YOU WEAR THEM WELL!

Just for fun...a picture of what he found inside of his sidebag when he went through it.

And today he got a packet of letters from his Mom's 3rd grade class that brightened his day!

Think of all the hats that we wear in our lives...mother, father, sister, brother, companion, missionary, teacher, worker, nurse, psychologist...the list goes on and on!

...son, daughter, child of God.

Let's hope that we can wear all our hats well!

W MARICOPA/BUCKEYE GOODYEAR ZONE CONFERENCE 2/14

 PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINE FOR ALL PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT
Our last day of Zone Conferences...it went really fast and we have loved every day of it!
We were way out in Buckeye for this day of conference.  The stake center is in a rural farming area and always smells like a farm!  Sort of fun!
The day started with President Taylor teaching about the Godhead, then about being a consecrated missionary.  We learned how important it is to give our will to the Lord, to lay distractions or fear or pride or anything else on the altar that could hold us back from being the missionaries that the Lord wants us to be.
We learned that the difference between hot water and boiling water is only 1/2 a degree...yet that 1/2 a degree increases the power of that water by 1720 times!
We want to be the CONSECRATED MISSIONARIES!  We want to be like Ammon or Alma!

My first discussion was about PLANNING.
I illustrate how we can fit in all the things that we need to do if we start with the BIG ROCKS FIRST and then the smaller rocks, then the gravel and then we can even fit in the fluff...or water to fill the gaps.

If we start with the small stuff...there is not room for the big stuff.  A good lesson for life!
We also learned how to use the DOCTRINE OF CHRIST in our planning.  This means that as we plan for investigators or anyone else we are teaching, we look to increase their FAITH their REPENTANCE/CHANGE their DESIRE TO MAKE PROMISES WITH GOD, their EXPERIENCES WITH THE HOLY GHOST and to know how we can help them ENDURE WELL.





As we plan this way, and then evaluate how we do, we can really be SPECIFIC in our planning and the Spirit will definitely guide us.  Planning is a process of revelation.

"The more specific our plans, the more angels we will have to help us fulfill them!"  (Elder Kevin Duncan)












We practiced using what we call our VGPTA
Vision
Goals
Plans
Tasks
            using the Doctrine of Christ.
            Then we also evaluated, or used our
Accountability to report how each person was doing using the same Doctrine of Christ.  "How did this persons FAITH increase?"




We were so grateful to have Elders Linkogle and Z Jensen with us after their stay in the hospital!  What a miracle and blessing that they could be with us to feel the Spirit and learn what they needed to learn!

Lunch as usual is a highlight.  Time to visit with old friends and make new ones.  The local wards and stakes put on the lunch for us so I do not have to stress about feeding hundreds of missionaries every month.  It is a huge blessing to the mission!

 After lunch we sing Army of Helaman as a thank you song, then bring it in to sing our Mission Fight Song!  It is an amazing thing to behold!

 We celebrated February and March birthdays.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO:
Elder Kellett
Elder Gapinski
Sister Carrigan
Sister Lechner
Sister Riches
Elder Parry
Sister Carter
Sister Barnett (her birthday was that day!)
Elder Gerritsen
Elder Madsen
Elder T Peterson

 And as traditional...we sang in all languages we knew.
English by all
Spanish by our Spanish assigned missionaries

Samoan by Sister Hunt

Portuguese by Elder Cecena

 And French by Elder and Sister King!

Front: Sisters Hixson, Dayton, Carter, Millett, Lechner, Carrigan. Summerhays,  Messick, Barnett, Hansen, Santana, Welch, Jenson, Ratto and Beazer.   Standing on floor:  Sister Riches, Elders Dodd, Ramos, Longhurst, Cecena, Dart, Farnsworth, Yoxtheimer, Timm, Gerritsen, Okelberry, Z Jensen, Linkogle, Sisters Harris, Hunt, Sister and President Taylor.  Sitting on Stage:  Elders Andrus, Reid, Soper, Kellett Gapinski, Parry, Blake, Rusk, Nokes, Madsen, Clay, T Peterson.  Back row:  Elders W Larsen, Schultz, Busick, E Jones, Ja Weeks, Wolfgramm, Giron, Jo Weeks, Lundgren, Pemberton.


 Music is an integral part of our zone conferences.  Today was no exception.  Elder Farnsworth sang accompanied by Sister Santana and it was beautiful!

 There was one of my favorite medleys...
As Sisters In Zion/Army of Helaman also performed.

 My health presentation was on "Unproven Health Practices" so our Assistants poked some good fun at missionaries in general by pretending that our mission is the "APM...Arizona Protein Mission."  If you can blend it, it must be good for you.  Ok, we encouraged them to follow the Word of Wisdom and use moderation in all things and to let good nutrition be their source for most of their needs.  I love that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and latter-day prophets have given us guidance on pretty much every aspect of our lives!

The Assistants are great sports to help with these skits!  We all look forward to them very much!

 Later in the day we had break out sessions with each zone and their Zone Leaders.

Elders Andrus and Dart in W. Maricopa and





Elders W Larsen and E Jones in Buckeye Goodyear.

 They both taught how to help teach to baptism and how to use the Doctrine of Christ in planning and helping people see that they know enough as they use progress records/Baptism calendars to mark off the things they are progressing in.
It is important for all of us to celebrate the things we are doing well and are learning as well as to see what we are needing to work on.
We are ALL works in progress!
It was a fabulous day with these two great zones.  They are amazing people that have made great commitments to live, love and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others.  As they do this, their own understanding increases and they become the deepest converts of all.  It is all just so good!

SURPRISE/GLENDALE NORTH ZONE CONFERENCE 2/14

 PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINE FOR ALL PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT

We had two Zone Conferences this week.
The first was with the SURPRISE and GLENDALE NORTH ZONES.
One Zone got the wrong time announced to their zone, so I filled in while they arrived with my health presentation earlier in the day than anticipated.
My health presentation was on "Unproven Health Practices" so our Assistants poked some good fun at missionaries in general by pretending that our mission is the "APM...Arizona Protein Mission."  If you can blend it, it must be good for you.  Ok, we encouraged them to follow the Word of Wisdom and use moderation in all things and to let good nutrition be their source for most of their needs.  I love that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and latter-day prophets have given us guidance on pretty much every aspect of our lives!
The Assistants are great sports to help with these skits!  We all look forward to them very much!

President Taylor then was able to give us the REAL START to our conference by teaching about the Godhead, then about being a consecrated missionary.  We learned how important it is to give our will to the Lord, to lay distractions or fear or pride or anything else on the altar that could hold us back from being the missionaries that the Lord wants us to be.
We learned that the difference between hot water and boiling water is only 1/2 a degree...yet that 1/2 a degree increases the power of that water by 1720 times!
We want to be the CONSECRATED MISSIONARIES!  We want to be like Ammon or Alma!

 Lunch as usual is a highlight.  Time to visit with old friends and make new ones.  The local wards and stakes put on the lunch for us so I do not have to stress about feeding hundreds of missionaries every month.  It is a huge blessing to the mission!

 We love to look at the Mission Flag and see how full it is of signatures at this point.  Very fun to try to find your name on it!

















We sing a thank you song to the wonderful ward members who fed us and then we sing our MISSION FIGHT SONG!

We celebrated FEBRUARY and MARCH BIRTHDAYS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO:
Elder N Christensen
Elder Pratt
Elder Crane
Elder Mason
Elder Van Kampen
Elder T. Jones
Elder Johnston
Elder Nield
Elder Lindsay

Another fun tradition is to sing Happy Birthday in as many languages as we have native missionaries...So, we always do English and Spanish...


Today we had Elder Stulen lead us in Swedish

We had Sister Gacutan in Tagalog (Philippines)

Elder and Sister King in French (they served in Canada a couple years ago)

And Elders McMillan and Kwock in Hawaiian!

Front:  Sisters Taylor, Merrill, DeMille, Collett, Gacutan, McAllister, Franz, McCoard, Elders Wheelhouse, B Nelson and President Juchau.  Standing on floor:  President Taylor, Elders Nielsen, Pratt, N Christensen, Ogden, Fackrell, Van Kampen, T Jones, A Smith, Davies, Lindsey, Scharf, Johnston, Castro, Skalka, Bolinger.  Sitting on Stage:  Elders Crane, O Neal, Pettingill, Shurtleff, Mason, Lane, Lovstedt,  H Peterson, Moore.   Standing on Stage:  Elders Kwock, Parsons, McCuch, Safford, Nield, Stulen, Burton, Boyce, Weiler, Leonhardt, Fife, Bangerter, Hancock and McMillan.

Musical numbers are always a highlight of our conferences!  They bring the Spirit back and help us prepare for even more revelation.
The surprise zone all performed together.

And Sister McAllister represented the Glendale North Zone by accompanying herself, it was amazing!  We are blessed with much musical talent in this mission!

 The Assistants taught a great lesson today on OBEDIENCE vs PRINCIPLES that was really great.  We practiced explaining beliefs based on principles instead of rules.
Many times members want to question missionaries about things like dinner policy or why we dress a certain way, or why we cannot do certain things.  You know how that is with non-members questioning beliefs like the Word of Wisdom.
How much better is it to direct them to the principle instead of just saying "WE CAN'T..."

My next discussion was about PLANNING.
I illustrate how we can fit in all the things that we need to do if we start with the BIG ROCKS FIRST and then the smaller rocks, then the gravel and then we can even fit in the fluff...or water to fill the gaps.

If we start with the small stuff...there is not room for the big stuff.  A good lesson for life!
We also learned how to use the DOCTRINE OF CHRIST in our planning.  This means that as we plan for investigators or anyone else we are teaching, we look to increase their FAITH their REPENTANCE/CHANGE their DESIRE TO MAKE PROMISES WITH GOD, their EXPERIENCES WITH THE HOLY GHOST and to know how we can help them ENDURE WELL.
As we plan this way, and then evaluate how we do, we can really be SPECIFIC in our planning and the Spirit will definitely guide us.  Planning is a process of revelation.

We practiced using what we call our VGPTA
Vision
Goals
Plans
Tasks
            using the Doctrine of Christ.
            Then we also evaluated, or used our
Accountability to report how each person was doing using the same Doctrine of Christ.  "How did this persons FAITH increase?"
"What evidence is there that this person is changing?"  What evidence of a desire to make promises with God?"  What evidence that they recognize and follow the Spirit?"  "What evidence that this is enduring?"

In the late afternoon, we had breakout sessions with each zone and their leaders.


Elders Leonhardt and O Neal with Glendale North.


Elders Parsons and Fackrell with Surprise.

They both taught how to help teach to baptism and how to use the Doctrine of Christ in planning and helping people see that they know enough as they use progress records/Baptism calendars to mark off the things they are progressing in.
It is important for all of us to celebrate the things we are doing well and are learning as well as to see what we are needing to work on.
We are ALL works in progress!
It was a fabulous day with these two great zones.  They are amazing people that have made great commitments to live, love and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others.  As they do this, their own understanding increases and they become the deepest converts of all.  It is all just so good!

TENDER MERCIES

 Last Thursday night we had one of those experiences that we never wanted to have on our mission.
We had gone our whole mission with only a couple colonoscopies and one same day shoulder surgery.


And then...

We had just been home a little while from Thursday's Zone Conference when we got a call from an LDS Emergency Medical Technician who "happened to be" on the scene of a car crash involving two of our elders.
We rushed over to the Emergency Room to meet Elders Linkogle and Z Jensen.
On our way there, President "missed" the exit we should have taken, which then led us a different route to the hospital where we actually came upon the scene of the accident and saw the vehicle itself getting ready to be towed.  We saw the passenger side was hit pretty good, and later learned that the elders had been t-boned first on the driver side and spun into the opposite lanes where they were T boned on the passenger side.

 We met with the LDS doctor caring for them ( who just "happened" to be in my cousins stake over in Mesa) and the 2 LDS nurses who "just happened" to be working the ER that night.

Are you noticing a pattern here?  There are not that many LDS people in Phoenix that the odds would have 4 of them right there helping our Elders.

Elder Rodgers, our vehicle coordinator had come to meet us and assist President Taylor in giving both elders a blessing that first night...it was wonderful and both were promised speedy recoveries.  The Lord blesses missionaries!  We felt very calm and were able to reassure worried parents that their missionary sons were really going to be OK.  The faith of their families was so inspiring!

 Anyways, these 2 Elders were absolutely blessed by numerous angels.  There is no way that they sustained only concussions after seeing the condition of the car.  We expected to see some beat up young men and were so grateful to see them looking about as normal as could be!

Both sustained concussions.  Elder Linkogles brain was jostled so seriously that he could not remember anything that he had just talked about seconds earlier.  His long term memory was fine, but he had no idea what had happened or how anything was really going.

Elder Jensen had somehow hit his head or jostled it bad enough that he had a couple hairline fractures in the R fontal skull area and a small one above his nose in the sinus cavity.  To look at him, you would never suspect.  The bones were not displaced at all.  They will just heal on their own.

The hospital found a small epidermal bleed between the skull and brain for Elder Jensen and watched it the next 15 hours to see if it increased enough to merit surgery.

 By about 9 the next morning, it was decided that the bleed was enough to not take the risk of leaving it to care for itself.


This meant a sweet haircut for Elder Jensen...that beautiful red hair that we love so much!

Yay!  Free haircut!!!  (well...you know)

Elder Jensen, although having a more serious internal injury, had very good memory and still a great sense of humor!  He humored me in allowing photos of the haircut...





I told him he aged about 30 years right before my eyes in this picture!

(He will be very handsome someday if he actually loses his hair on top!!)

This side view was pretty funny...
it looks like a modified mohawk!

And Elder Jensen went for surgery!!!









Meanwhile, I was back and forth between Elder Linkogle and Elder Jensen...I memorized the tests they would give head injury patients by the end of the day!


While Elder Jensen was in surgery, I went to do one of my Zone Conference presentations...

...and while I was at the second presentation, Elder Linkogle was released!  He waited for me back in Elder Jensens room in the ICU.

 We had a fun couple of days after that between taking Elder Linkogle home with us and taking turns to come back to be with Elder Jensen as much as we could.


We teased Elder Linkogle about his memory.
The first night when he kept asking us the same questions over and over, we would just smile and tell him "It's all OK"
What was sweet was that he was so concerned about everyone else!  He constantly asked if there were other injuries in the other cars...and how Elder Jensen was doing.  Really, he only cared about others!
Elder Rodgers finally wrote on a cup
"IT'S ALL OK"


He was so happy and was just Elder Linkogle with a scrambled brain!
He is still suffering from some memory loss, which is totally normal for his injury, and needs to rest and be on a modified schedule, but all around doing incredible!


Here are Elders McFarland (Elder Jensens companion) and Elder Sharon (Elder Linkogle's companion) visiting Elder Jensen.

And how did 2 elders who are not companions (and who do not even speak the same language) end up being together in a car the Thursday before???  Well, the companions were both sick so the other two were working together...it is just what works!  We work hard at our PURPOSE!  And we trust in the Lord that there is purpose in everything that happens.
We have already seen miracle upon miracle in this difficult situation.

We have also had a lot of fun with things...
When Elder Jensen got back from surgery, we counted 24 staples in his head...and we noticed that they left the staple gun in the room.





Not the brightest thing to leave with missionaries!!! Believe me, I know!  They would be stapling EVERYTHING AND POSSIBLY EVERYONE!


So we had fun with a few photos and Elder Jensen gave me the gun as a gift when we got home Tuesday!

He had a small tube draining blood for a day and when it was removed, he got his final staple to close that little hole...a total of 25!

Elder Jensen is now at home with us in the Mission Home.  Elder Linkogle is on a modified schedule in his own area.
Both came with us to the final day of Zone Conferences today so they could participate in that.

We love that we are in an area where we are close to our missionaries and can help care for them as needed.


 We love the support of family and friends who have rallied to care for the needs of both Elders.  Many local relatives and ward members came to the hospital to offer support and love!

It will be an opportunity for the ward here to drive these missionaries around and be with them on splits as needed so they can rest when they are back together.
They are excited to help out!  THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL WHO HAVE REACHED OUT!

I testify of the power of God in healing the sick.
I know that these Elders had angels bearing them up at the scene of the accident and that all the right people were in place to care for them that night and during their stay.

This has been a very spiritual experience for them both and powerful witnesses have taken place that we know we are not alone.  We know we have a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior Jesus Christ.  They want us to be happy.   I am grateful for the plan of salvation and the part the Savior plays in that!  We have seen so many people at the hospital that need the comfort that the Gospel brings.  We are more committed than ever to Preach the Gospel!  Elders Linkogle and Jensen were great missionaries while in the hospital too!  They were talking with everyone!


Here is our young man before we brought him home.  He looks GREAT! (And he looked even better when he finally got to shave!)

I will post about HATS maybe sometime tomorrow:)

With Love,  Sister Cheryl Taylor



POST SCRIPT FROM PRES. TAYLOR (4 MAY 2014): In a recent weekly email from one of our missionaries serving in the Daisy Mountain/North Valley areas of the Deer Valley Zone, it read: "Also in Daisy Mountain, we have a new investigator, Louise Juliano, who came to church yesterday and loved it! We found her by way of contacting a media referral, her grandson Daniel was referred by Elder Jenson and his companion a couple months ago when those elders got into their serious car accident. Daniel happened to be in the same hospital room with one of the missionaries (Elder Linkogle) because of a recent motorcycle accident and was interested in learning more. Now we're teaching him and his Grandmother!" 

Also, Elder Jensen went back recently to the same ICU hospital room he was for several days in to give a priesthood blessing to someone else hospitalized in that room.