My Homecoming Video

My cute sister Kenzie made this video of my homecoming... I guess a month later I'll watch it again.  Tomorrow or Saturday I'll throw up a video of my mission in review. 

XXo, 

Mo

Just Call Me Lucy or Allie

After going on a Valentine's Day chick-flick binge, I'm noticing a trend.

Do all chick-flicks require a main character to lose their memory? Come on!  At least all the movies I was force-fed this week did.

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50 First Dates

People relate this movie to my life all the time.  Last week at work a co-worker pulled a Ten-Second Tom reference that I did appreciate.  He has good tastes in movies. Thankfully my memory lasts longer than ten seconds!  That would make life quite difficult. 

Take this story that came from the New Yorker: "In March of 1985, Clive Wearing, an eminent English musician and musicologist in his mid-forties, was struck by a brain infection – a herpes encephalitis – affecting especially the parts of his brain concerned with memory. He was left with a memory span of only seconds – the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded."  

50 First Dates is adorable though!  . . . in a very sad, slightly creepy way. . .  Adam Sandler tries to make Drew Barrymore fall in love with him every single day because she can't remember.  Is this love or is this just plain creepy?

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The Notebook. 

Ranked the Best Chick Flick of All Time by multiple sources.

This entire movie is based of an adorable Old Couple's "story time."  This story is a Romeo and Juliet type plot:  Boy and Girl meet.  Boy and Girl are from different worlds.  Boy and Girl fall in love.  Father bans Boy and Girl from being together.  Boy and Girl are heart broken,  

*SPOILER, I'm giving away the end of this movie... If you haven't seen it I suggest turning off the 

laptop/phone/tablet and watching it before continuing.  This has one of the best movie endings of all time.*

The Old Couple is Boy and Girl!!  Girl lost her memory and Boy is trying to help her get it back.  What?!  Plot twist! 

The next time you're living in a nursing home and a man is reading to you, think twice.  Then again,  you wouldn't even remember reading this. . . 

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Now, I haven't seen this one, but it sounds like a pretty spot-on movie.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  The couple decides to erase their memory of each other, but throwing your memories in the black beauty trash can is not what it's all cracked up to be.  Also, it's rated R.  I just avoid all movies with that rating.  No thanks! There's no need to watch it, I got the whole plot line in IMBD's summary of it. 

> > 

Is my life a chick-flick? Hmmmm.... This is an interesting theory...

I'll stick with my action-packed suspense movies.  Why can't I be a character in one of those?  Throw the flowers out the window and give me some action!

 I'd rather be a fighter than a lover. 

XXo, 

Mo

"Look Not Behind Thee"

Looking back is an interesting thing. 

We’re going to crack open our Bibles here.  Go find it.  Wipe off the dust.  Can’t find it?  Goodness, download this app for apple or for android and then you will never lose it again, and you’ll be free of allergies because the chances of your phone getting as dusty as that book over there are pretty slim.  open, or click, to Genesis 19.

AH, the story of Lot.  What’s going down here?  Lot is living in Sodom, it’s a pretty wicked place.  (No, not wicked in the “that’s so awesome” sense of the word.  Wicked as in evil.)  Wicked to the point The Lord says, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”  If he could find fifty people the city would be spared, but fifty righteous people were not to be found. He says, forty-five.  No.  Forty.  No.  Twenty-five.  No.  Twenty.  No.  There were not even twenty people in the whole city who were righteous in the Lord’s eyes.  Because of the wickedness of the citizens Lot receives this advice:

“Escape for they life… look not behind thee…”

Okay, the Lord is telling them to get out of the city or they’re going to be a part of a nice barbeque.   Lot and his family do not want to be rotisserie-d so they start leaving.  The Lord specifically says not to look back (key phrase here people, do not look back), but Lot’s wife must have been feeling hungry, and she looked back. 

Um.  Why didn't she listen to Him and keep her head straight towards her end goal: safety?  Why didn't she keep walking forward?

 She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.  She looked back.  She wanted to go back.  She wished her family had not of left all of her gold, jewels, and precious things.  Moving onward to a land she does not know, to a place where she is’t comfortable is scary.  Lot’s wife was scared.  What would happen to her when she didn't have all her girlfriends around to sip herbal tea, discuss the latest Kardashian scandal, and cry over chick flicks with?  How would she make do without her favorite little restaurant?  She did not want to move away from these things, even though the Lord told her it was time.

That is the key to this infamous Bible story.  Like all Biblical stories there is a lesson to be learned and we need to implement it into our lives.  We cannot look back at the past and long for it.  I do that.  I will stand on top of a mountain and yell it to the world I am Lot’s wife occasionally.  It is simple for me to look back and WISH I hadn't of done this, WISH I could remember this, and a million other WISHES.

I wish I hadn't have left my house December 13, 2013.  I wish I would have stayed at the chapel that night.  It stretched as far as the point of wishing I had never served a mission. All of these thoughts came in the darkest moments of the recovery of my accident.

How did these thoughts change the situation I was in? They don't.  Wishing I hadn't of been a victim of a hit-and-run did not change the fact that it had already happened. No amount of wishing would bring my memory back.  No amount of wishing will make anyone feel better, in fact, it makes one feel worse.

Wishing is another form of regret.  When we wish we would have, could have, or we should have, we are Lot’s wife.  We are longingly looking back to a time we cannot change.  The only thing we can change is the present.  By our actions here in the present, we are then able to control our future.  We are able to have a future free of the could/would/should haves.  I am moving on with my life.  I still have a life, I am still alive, and God is letting me do whatever I want to do with my life.  I am free.  Here, I am not known as the “Miraculous of Tahiti” and surrounded by people asking for my autograph.  Here I can move on.

I am at a point in my post-accident life where I can sit back and: “Remember Lot’s wife.”   She longingly looked back to her old life and did not look forward to the better life God had prepared for her. Looking back and wishing for the past to change is easy.  Looking forward and seeing a better future God has prepared because of the past is hard.  This is hands down one of the hardest things someone can do.  It takes a lot of faith.  That is what Lot’s wife lacked, faith.  She could not see God; she could not see where He was going to take her and her faith vanished. She looked back.  I am done looking back.  That was yesterday.

Today I choose to have faith.

XXo,

Mo

How About Dem Patriots?

Hello Sunny Beaches of California!

Last P-Day

It has finally come...

I refuse to cry anymore today, so this will be very short. 

I love my mission.  I am going to miss the people here so much. (this is when the tears start) All will be well.  That's what I keep telling myself.  All will be well. 

I love you!

Oh, my homecoming is on Jan 18th at 11am.  Come see me!

Love, 

Mo

p.s.  I TAUGHT 10 LESSONS ON SATURDAY!!!  That's a record.  Be proud of us. :) :)

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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Soeur Taylor, Morgan

 

B.P. 93

Papeete, Tahiti

98713

French Polynesia.

 

Merry Christmas from the Land of Sun and Surf

I really wish our ward parties would look like this. . . Because when we have ward parties on the beach "Soeur Mo" (yeah, that's what everyone calls me) gets to play "Follow Mo" with all the little kids.  Follow Soeur Mo looks a bit like this: 

We did the beach dance together.  I had way too much fun.  Granted I couldn't go surfing, but that didn't stop the members from trying really hard to get me into the water.  BUT! I did follow the mission rule and I only went in up to my knees.

 

I also took a much needed nap on the beach.  I got a bit a sun. One day I won't be completely pasty white.

 

This week is McCall's birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CRAZY CHICKEN! It is also Soeur Anzi's birthday so I made a speculoos cheesecake.  We, in the United States, miss out on some of the greatest food ever.  I love speculoos.  It's a bit like gingerbread, but a million times better.  I used the cookies to make a cheesecake!

 

 

So, this is where I almost died.  As I was making the cheesecake I asked my dear companion to go turn on the oven so it can warm up.  She went and "turned" it on.  I asked if is she lit it with a match.  Nope.  I went over, turned off the gas to let it air out so I could actually light it and went back to stirring my cheesecake.

 





I told Soeur Anzi to turn on the gas a bit and light a match.  I went to demonstrate how to light the oven and BOOM.  Yes. . . We had a slight explosion in our house.  I no longer have hair on my right forearm/hand.  Soeur Anzi started screaming and I sat there laughing.  I probably should not have been laughing, we almost dies, but it was so funny.  That's always my first reaction, to laugh.  Of course this would happen to me.  It was funny.

 

Do you like my shades?  I've been wearing them 24/7 because guess what? The Chikungunya affects the eyes too!  My poor eyes are much better now, don't worry.  I'm not even wearing my shades today.

 

I have something important to tell all of you. . .

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

 

I'll be home in 23 days.

 

Don't do anything crazy like this, at least not until I'm home and can do it with you...

 

I was so tempted to jump in with them.  It looked so fun. . . But I restrained myself.  When I come back on vacation I will be coming to this tree.

 

This is my Christmas Present.  I SAW SOEUR MOLI!!! I haven't seen her since our accident.  I played a pretty mean trick.  I was invited to go to a christmas program in Punaauia so I sent Sr Moli a text asking her if she was going.  She said yes and asked if I was.  I told her I didn't think so because I have an eye infection.  Let's just say, she was not very pleased with me when I showed up and surprised her. We sat there hugging and crying. 

 

I love you all!!  Have a fantastic Christmas! Hug someone you love!! Watch this! Yes, click me. :) 

Love, 

Mo



 

 

 

 

Chikungunya...She got it...

One upon a time in a jungle in a far away land lived a swarm of evil flying insects.  These flying insects love praying on the delicious liquid found in the veins of the human race. Unfortunately for the human race, the flying insects this year have an interesting disease. 

Who go this disease?

 

house for two out of the last four weeks of my mission. 

It's a good thing I didn't get hit has hard as everyone else.  Why? Because I am the EMT for the sister missionaries. At least, that's what I feel like. 

Last night at 9pm Soeur Anzi ran and sad, "Soeur Taylor! Come look at Sister JJJJJ what's wrong with her?"  I ran out of my room, into the other room.  The Sister was laying on her bed with an ice bag on her head, I yelled her name.  Nothing.  She didn't move.  I went up and touched her.  No movement.  I checked her pulse, her heart still worked.  I checked to see if she was breathing.  Yes. She was.  I looked down at the ground, saw a cup of water, scooped up a handful of water and threw it on her.  Nothing. 

I called the Ambulance, Soeur W the mission nurse, and our zone leaders.   

I helped load the sister onto the stretcher with the EMTs (one of whom is a recent convert) and I got into my car with the other sister's companion and drove to the hospital while Soeur Anzi went with the sick sister in the ambulance. 

It was an interesting night. 

 

Hopefully in these next thirty days nothing too exciting will happen. I will be back in the United States in 30 days.  

I had my last fireside last night.  It was in PAEA, where I had my accident.  There were over 350 people at this fireside.  I didn't even know that many people lived in Paea!  It was a fantastic way to celebrate the anniversary of my accident and to say goodbye to my family in Paea.  I was also able to see one of my miracles!

 

Ryan was one of my recent converts when I had my accident.  He had been baptized for one week when that happened.  We are still as thick as thieves. I love him to death! 

 

Also a shout out to the coolest girl on Tahiti. MALLORI!!  I love you girl! Here's to our future parties eating delicious Einstein's Bagels and drinking Jamba Juice!  

Here's to YOU!!  Have a fantastic "The Last Full Week Before Christmas!"  May your days be merry and bright, and I hope all your Christmases will be white!

XXo, 

Mo

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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Soeur Taylor, Morgan

 

B.P. 93

Papeete, Tahiti

98713

French Polynesia.