Just a note from MOM.  I am not so quick at posting this stuff from Dakota.  I have been keeping up with writing him, just not doing the fastest posting on this blog.  So I am posting a bunch of stuff this weekend.  I am starting with this Thanksgiving email he sent because I love it so much!  And because that is the next one in order.  So watch this weekend, cuz I am getting it all up to date.  Only 18 more days until he goes to Neuquen to enjoy the 70+ degree weather in Argentina!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today has been kinda stressful because I don't really get a p-day.  It's all Thanksgiving stuff.  I woke up at 5:30 to do laundy and stuff.  Gay.  But, it was well worth it.  We just had this devotional from Elder Jeffery R. Holland.  It was... amazing. I wish you could hear the words he spoke to us today.  I just wanna mention a few things:

We know that WE love the Savior with all our hearts, but, do you know how much the Lord loves you? He knows you. He knows you by your first names. He knows every problem you've had and every one you're going to have.  When He was in the garden, suffering for our sins, He took upon himself the pains and afflictions and temptations and EVERYTHING we would EVER have.  Not just your spiritual pains. your mental pains. your PHYSICAL pains. Any tear you ever cry, he felt it in the garden.   He knows you by your FIRST name.  I have a testimony of that. Read Luke 12:8.   It's a good scripture. 

And read Alma 34 before you ask for things in your prayers.  It says that when you ask for things in prayer, and yet in life you ignore those of less fortune than you have, the needy, the poor, etc., your cries unto the Lord are in vain.   For why should He help you, when you don't help anyone else?   Just remember that.   Always think of others.   Have with you the love and charity of Christ.

I miss you like crazy.  But this is where I want to be.   I am so excited for everything in the next 2 years to happen.

Anyways, I just wanna say life is good. Sometimes frustrating, but we just need to remember that our afflictions shall be but a small moment (D&C 121).

God is always here for us. you just have to open your dang eyes and ears and hear what it is he is saying to you!

I love you so much. Tell the family I love them. Tell all my friends I love them.  Because I do.

I want you Mom, Dad, Jessica, anyone who will ever read this, to know that anything I've ever been given,  I can trace to another person giving it to me. Thank you. Thank you for playing the role you played in my life that helped me become who I am today.  I'm not perfect.  But I know that through the Lord I can be.  Yes, even ME.  Because He has the power to do anything, and I will rejoice in my God for all eternity.  Remember to thank those people in your life who have given you something.   And remember that you've given me something I'll never forget.  I love you.  I love you so much.

May God bless you as you go about doing good for others.

Elder Dakota E. Taylor