Boy does time fly, It seems like yesterday I was entering the MTC and now I've been out for almost a month! This week has been amazing up here in the CTM (Canada Toronto Mission)! Mom I know you like the details so I wrote down a few things about Burlington that I thought you might enjoy! First off, there are squirrels and rabbits EVERYWHERE! Apparently they even live in downtown Toronto! I probably see like 100 squirrels and rabbits a day! Also parking here is a pain because there are random no parking signs everywhere! There will be like a 30 foot area on an entire street you can park, or you can only park on a curved road (which makes absolutely no sense to me), or you can only park on one side of the road. It's all really weird!
So we've all heard about the Spirit of Elijah right, well I'm here to testify that it's so real! Elder McKinnon and I had the most incredible experience this last week! We were doing our morning studies and I had my family fan chart out on my desk when Elder McKinnon walked over and started to look at it. He ran into the name Charles McGary and said "I have McGary's on my chart too". We compared and they had different wives so we were pretty bummed. Later that week we had some time to be on familysearch.org for part of my training and we pulled them up again, and guess what, the same exact picture popped up on both of ours! We were like WHAT ON EARTH!! As we did our research we discovered that Charles McGary was actually a polygamist and turns out to be Elder McKinnon and I's 4th Great Grandfather! As we looked a little harder the most incredible part of the story happened... *drum roll* HE WAS BORN IN TORONTO!!! Craziest thing ever! He was also a Pioneer who brought his family to Utah! He served his mission in Idaho too, and that's where Elder McKinnon is from! The reason I tell you this story is because there is so much cool things in family history, and not only do we learn more, we get to do family work and bring together our families! My challenge to you all is to do family history!
Also for some reason Nana Patsy's side of the family isn't appearing on my family history chart, so hint hint, there needs to be a bit of work done there :)
This week I learned why other Christian faiths don't believe we're Christian. We were down at Spencer Smith Park, which is right on Lake Ontario in Downtown Burlington, when we met a man who is Egyptian Orthodox, he told us the reason we aren't Christians is because we don't believe in the Trinity and his explanation of the Trinity made no sense to me! He was great and we gave him a Book of Mormon to read! :) The Book of Mormon answers all questions pertaining to the church, it's the most incredible resource and without it missionary work would be impossible!
Yesterday we also met two men from Iran, their names were Fred and Sieed. They were super nice and they were both Muslim. We talked religion with them for a solid 25 minutes and basically Sieed told us the 1) We are Polygamists and he knows that cause his friends a Mormon? What? and 2)Christianity brainwashes kids into paying tithing because all Christianity is about is money. I don't get that either, but we were able to bear testimony to both of them of the power in the Book of Mormon and tried our hardest to explain Polygamy and Tithing. We even gave Fred a Book of Mormon and he told us he would study it because it's important to study all religious texts.
Saturday night I had such a cool experience! We had just finished a lesson with an investigator named Robert, who is really hard to teach because he's scientifically minded and he wants proof but won't read the Book of Mormon, but we were out tracting a street. I was feeling pretty discouraged, but I knew that If we kept pushing on we would be blessed! The last house we went to we met a guy named Marty, who has been having a lot of family troubles! He is here visiting form Calgary because his family is here, but he wants to move back here! He was drinking wine and smoking but he invited us to sit down! We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and he invited us back because he wants to know more! It's so cool to see how when us as missionaries have faith, work hard, and are strictly obedient, we are blessed and led to those who are prepared!
Because this week marks my month mark and Elder McKinnon's year mark, so we baked a cake! haha! We didn't have frosting or a recipe, so we decided to just figure it out. hahahahaha! ah man, we started with Frosting sugar and Crisco, that didn't work too well so we added cream cheese and milk! It actually worked! Who would have thought! We also put Cocoa powder in it to make it Chocolate flavored! It was seriously so good! We asked a lady in the ward here how to make frosting and she said that all you really need is water and frosting sugar? oh well, next time right!
Last thing, I was studying faith this morning and came across Alma 37! It's such a cool scripture and pertains to missionary work so much! It talks about the Liahona and how when we use faith, we are guided! You should all go read that Chapter because it's so cool!
Well, I love you all very very much!
-Elder Taylor
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