Introducing.....Elder Jones

Elder Jones, Pumpkin Honey & Crazy Kevin

Well, I'm sure you are all wondering who my new companion is, and it is Elder Jones! He is from Birmingham England, he has been a member of the Church for 23 months and is 24 years old! He is an amazing Missionary, with such a strong testimony, we are going to have lots of fun together, and he's helping me work on my British Accent, also I never realized American's have accents, but it's hilarious to hear him make fun of us :) Fun fact about him is he use to work on Movie sets for BBC so he scouted out locations and then he would be on set for filming shows like Top Gear and Dr. Who. Really cool eh?

We had a really great lesson with Alanso and Mercedes, we talked about the Holy Ghost and Mercedes says she isn't quite ready for Baptism but she is getting closer to being ready!! They are still reading out of the Book of Mormon for an hour each day! I'm so excited for when she finally feels like she is ready! They also gave us this super interesting dessert, which is Pumpkin soaked in Boiled Sugar Cane, it tastes super similar to pumpkin pie, but it isn't quite as sweet! I can't remember what it is called exactly but Im pretty sure it translates from spanish as "Pumpkin Honey" I should have taken spanish class more seriously... ;)

The other Night we were out contacting on the street and we met these 2 guys and a girl and they had this weird looking Cane. Turns out the end of it was a million-volt tazer!! He started to tell us about how he had just bought it because he got attacked by a pack of coyotes while he was walking his dog the other night! Crazy eh?! We kept talking to them about some things and the one guy was Buddhist and was talking about how the Bible taught evil things? He was quite the guy let me tell you, his name was Kevin, and he would always say something and then clasp his hands in front of his face and like bow. I love people here :)

I felt so bad for Elder Jones, he ended up getting sick on Thursday so we had to spend the day in the apartment, luckily I had a bunch of records we had to update and some planning I needed to do so I was able to get all of that done in that time! He's doing a lot better now, but he now has a cold, poor guy, just can't get well! 

Yesterday on our way to church we saw this absolutely amazing rainbow that seemed to be shooting out of the Ground and it was right over the church! As we got to church the sun was shining on the church so brightly! Talk about Brightly Beams :) When we got inside we realized it was the Primary program! Even better, you know primary programs, they are the BEST!!

Today Elder Jones, Scofield, Vang and I are headed to get all you can eat sushi for lunch! We are so pumped :) Then it's back to the apartment for some deep cleaning and organization, we still have to get all of Elder Jones stuff put away! 

Alma 34:32 is my ponderize scripture for the Week! It is so simple, but it helps us to remember the purpose of our life here on earth! We are here to learn, grow, and prepare! I've learned a lot about true joy while I've been here! I'm so grateful for all of you and your influence to me!

Anyways, I love you all!

Elder Taylor

Hanging Downtown

Elder Taylor with Elders McKinnon, Rodriguez & Winn at the downtown Hamilton apartment. 

Something BIG is Going Down!

Hello Everybody! I hope all is going well this wonderful morning! Last night we got a phone call from President Clayton, and you know something big is going down when you get a call from President! So we answered and he said, "Well Elder Taylor, you wore your companion out, so you'll be training a new missionary in Burlington" Oh man, I was so shocked! I couldn't even believe what I heard! He then went on to say that Elder McKinnon was getting shipped up north to be a Zone Leader in Sudbury! We are both super excited, but also super sad to be leaving each other, but It is the Lord's will, and that is exactly what we are supposed to be doing! 

On Monday evening after our Thanksgiving feast, we made our way over to McDonalds where we met with Dwayne, he is from Guayana and has a huge knowledge of the Bible! He has a real desire to know more about the Book of Mormon and he is so much fun to teach because of his knowledge of the Bible! We texted him about Church and got no reply, but lone behold, he was there! It was so good to see him sitting there in church! 

I went on 2 exchanges this last week with Elder Turner and Elder Winn! Both times I stayed in Burlington with them and learned so much from them that I'm excited to apply to the area. Elder Winn served here last year so he told me about some people to stop by so that is this weeks goal to go by all of them. One of my focus' I wanted to learn more about was finding Less-Active members and helping them return. So Elder Turner gave me some ideas and in planning that night we planned to randomly stop by a Less-Active who we had helped move my 2nd day here. The next day once I was back with Elder McKinnon we stopped by and got into her apartment building, but it had turned out she had moved, so we found her phone number and called her and she said she had a few minutes to talk so we ran over to her new apartment and shared a message about Faith with her, she even invited us to come back next week for cake on her birthday! It's cool to see how when we have Faith and follow the spirit, we are guided to those who need our help! 

I know I'm suppose to write about the food I've eaten, which is weird because coming to Canada I never thought I would eat weird food, but lone behold, yesterday we went to one of the Filipino members home's for lunch and had what they like to call "Blood Pudding". Yes, it is as bad as it sounds but they love it! When we got it they were like, "you have to eat it before we tell you what it is". Basically it looked like a bunch of meat in black sauce. After getting it down with some rice and sweet chili sauce she went on to tell us that it was pork cooked in it's own blood. If you have anemia it is a really good food for ya. ;)

My Ponderize scripture of the Week is Mosiah 4:20! It's such an amazing scripture and I know that as we turn to the Lord we WILL find peace and joy!

I hope everything Is going well for all of you! I'm sending a picture of Elder McKinnon, Elder Rodriguez, Elder Winn, and I in the Hamilton Downtown apartment!

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

Holy Guacamole that's ALOT of H20!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!! Today has been so good so far! Today is still preparation day even though it is Thanksgiving! So, you will never imagine where we traveled to today! Well, the Georges talked to us yesterday and invited us to Niagara Falls!! It was soooo amazing! The Canadian side and Canadian falls are so much better, from the New York side you can barely see the Canadian Falls! The falls are absolutely huge, and can't even compare to anything I've ever seen, and there were soooo many people there! So that was a riot! 

This week is the last week of the transfer and we aren't sure what will happen exactly, but we are guessing that Elder McKinnon will be transfered because he has been here for 6 months already and in the Zone for 9 and a half months! So Sunday we will find out what is happening, who will stay, who will leave. It's sad that I'm almost done with training, I won't be able to use the "I'm still in training" excuse.

We started teaching a man named Dilip this week, he is Hindu and from India! He is super humble and a referal from a member out west! We gave him a Book of Mormon and are going by again this week to meet with hime! Super excited to really begin teaching him about the Restored Gospel! A few days ago we got a text from a guy that we don't even know who had met the missionaries last August, so we are meeting with him tonight at McDonalds, should be super awesome because when people come to us they are actually really interested! As missionaries we are suppose to be in the apartments at 9:00pm, not before or after that. So as we were doing our "obedient walk" which is when we walk around and talk to people at like 8:55, we met a man named Syed. He was super kind and gave us his phone number! We also met a man named Sergey, from Ukraine! He had met missionaries back in Ukraine and wanted to learn more so we are hopefully going to pay him a visit this week and start teaching him also! Alanso and Mercedes are doing really well, they are reading the Book of Mormon for an hour a day and working towards Baptism, they don't have a date yet but I know that they will be Baptized eventually! Unfortunately our Baptism we had scheduled for this upcoming weekend had to get postponed due to some unexpected difficulties! We are still working with Dave to get him ready for Baptism! We have a Baptism scheduled for November 7th which is still looking promising, super excited for that! 

There is the basic rundown of how our Investigators are doing! Did you all notice how in Conference almost every talk talked about the Sabbath day and the Sacrament? It just goes to show how important it is to keep the Sabbath day Holy! My challenge for everybody this upcoming Sunday is to change something you do on the Sabbath with something better! For example: Instead of watching television, you would do Family History! :)

 Looking forward to this week! It's looking super promising! Sorry my email isn't super long this week, we ran a little short on time due to Niagara Falls! We are headed out now to Thanksgiving Dinner with Brother Neame and Sister Anne! Sounds like there is a whole turkey for the 4 of us, I hope I don't die from over eating!

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

The Potato Farmer Elder

Elder Taylor's companion Elder McKinnon and his potato plant. And yes...I believe he is brushing his teeth. 

Halet Chet O Re 10/05/2015

Good Morning Everybody! Halet Chet O Re means How are you doing in Farsi! I met a Persian man named Muhammed on the street the other night and he taught us that! :) I hope you enjoyed Conference as much as I did! We had the opportunity to watch at the Church and it was so cool to see and sustain the New Apostles, Elder Renlund, Elder Stevenson, and Elder Rasband! I loved their testimonies, they were so sweet and the Spirit was so strong as they did so! I loved how Devin G. Durrant talked about Ponderize, I thought that was so cool! So this morning I chose Ether 12:27 to Ponderize! Basically it talks about how we all have different struggles and trials and weaknesses, but through faith in Jesus Christ, and through repentance, we can over come them and make them strong! It's so cool and It's something that we should all remember day to day, because repentance and change comes over time, it is not immediate.We are downloading all of the Conference Talks onto our Jump Drives so we can relisten to all of them in the car when we are driving, that's one of the blessings to having a car :)

Last week we got the opportunity to go do some service for a Single Sister in our ward, it was quite the adventure, let me tell you. Hahah! It was so much fun though! We were out of Kilometers to drive for the month so we decided that we were going to bike it, not realizing quite how far it really was. Turned out to be about a 16 Kilometer round trip, which equates to approximately 10 miles. Woops :) So here we are in our jeans and t-shirts going to mow this lady's lawn and it starts to rain on us.. We finished cutting the grass and she was at work but she left us some sandwiches to have for lunch, so we sat on her back porch and had lunch in the rain, I can honestly say it was way fun! I never thought that as a missionary I would be doing that, but hey, it's so different out here than I ever expected! 

On Friday we had an awesome Zone Council where we learned a lot of awesome things! Elder McKinnon and I had the opportunity to give a short instruction on Extending Commitments to people and I learned a lot about it as we taught! Right near the end of the meeting President and Sister Clayton showed up! They talked about how every area can see a Baptism every transfer! We really began pondering on that and tried to think about what we could do in order to achieve that with our investigators, having only 2 weeks left in the transfer it seemed kinda crazy, but we went forward in faith. As we got back to our apartment that night, we got a text from one of our investigators who we had invited to Pray about a Baptismal date, he said he wanted to be baptized on Oct. 17th!! Ah man! MIRACLES! It was an answer to much prayer and now we are working really hard with Dave to help him be ready for baptism that day!

We have been having a really hard time finding new people to teach, we have been trying to meet with a lady named Pam, but our appointments with her keep falling through! Hopefully she we can meet with her in the next few days, she is really prepared, but she keeps having super random things come up. We stopped by another man named John who we have been trying to get a return appointment with, he is super excited about getting back into religion which he has been out of for so long. He hasn't been able to meet because his wife is super against us meeting, but It was a blessing to get his phone number and set up a time to meet with him! He is super prepared, the Lord really does prepare people for us to meet with!

It's been super rainy and windy the last few days because of Hurricane Joaquin. The waves on Lake Ontario the other day were huge!! Like, you could of surfed them huge!

Elder McKinnon decided to grow a lovely potato plant a few months ago and here is the fruit of his labors, there is a tiny potato growing in the soil, typical Idaho Boy.

Well, That is about all for this Week! I hope everything is going fabulous for everybody!

Love, Elder Taylor