Baptisms, Road Trips & The Smallest Parking Lot Ever 12/12/16

This week was one for the books indeed, perhaps one of the busiest weeks of my whole mission! It started with an exchange with Elder Strong, he's from Alberta! He was here in London with me, we had a great day, were able to meet with Aggie as well as we were able to do some service for her. We exchanged back and Elder Certonio and I had to plan our Zone Council.

We had an awesome lesson with Kim on Wednesday, where we finished teaching her the rest of the Lessons she needed to know for Baptism! We had a dinner with Bethany, and she made a Shepherd's Pie that was made with Normal potatoes and sweet potatoes. It was amazing, you should all try it! After Dinner we had to travel to Brampton for MLC the next day! The night before MLC all the Zone Leaders and the Assistants stay together in the Assistants and the Brampton Zone Leaders house. We were all in the living room when the assistants and the Brampton Zone Leaders came in with 2 packages of Scotch Bonnet Peppers. Apparently the assistants lost a bet so we all watched them eat them, they looked miserable. Unfortunately someone had the bright idea that we should all do it, so we did.... I've never seen so many people drinking so much milk so fast before. That was one of the hottest peppers I've ever had. Still wasn't hotter than the Dadd-Dowlat's hot sauce in Barrie though. 

MLC was awesome on Thursday, we had Brother Gonzales and Brother Littlefield come and visit. They are employed by the church to help train mission presidents. They both served as mission presidents so they travel all over and share training on how to train missionaries. The big focus we had was on working with members to do missionary work and the big one was how to achieve goals. Basically he talked about how to achieve goals one must 1)Set a specific, achievable goal 2)Make specific plans of achieving it, the how, and specifics 3)Scheduling out when it will all take place. It's very simple but he helped us learn a lot, which we took back to our zones to train on. After MLC we also had to pick up the Mission truck and trailer, bucause we had to clean out a missionary apartment. 

 

Friday Morning we woke up bright and early and with our 2015 Chevy Silverado hit the road and headed to Windsor, after quite a trip we got there, got the apartment cleaned out with the other Windsor elders, and then, after 20 minutes of trying to get the truck and trailer out of the world's smallest parking lot, we were on the road again headed to London. We got back to London, had to rush to Kim's baptismal interview, all went well there, then we had to finish planning Zone Council. 

Zone Council on Saturday morning went well, but Elder Certonio got sick at the very beginning. I felt super bad for him, we were getting everything ready that morning and he started to get a migraine, it came on in full swing and put him out for the meeting. I felt so bad for him! He just slept on one of the benches in the chapel while we had the meeting. After the meeting we went to the apartment so Elder Certonio could take a nap, then we had to head to Brampton to take the truck back, we did that, then we got dinner with Elder Wolfley, one of the Senor missionaries, and we were back to London.

Sunday went awesome! We had church and right after church we had Kim's baptism! She asked me to baptize her, and what a sweet experience that was! Along with her Christine was baptized, and Bishop baptized her! Then, we had the London Stake Nativity, which was amazing. The stake puts it on every year, and there were tons of members and non-members there! The spirit there was oh so strong!

 

 

I'm so grateful for this Christmas Season, for the time to remember my Savior! He lives, and he knows us, and he harkens to us to come to him, and follow him! Let us do so this Christmas season!

 

Love, Elder Adam Taylor

Buckle Up! It's Christmas Time 12/05/16

Whelp, this week is the last of the transfer! This transfer is a short one only being 5 weeks long because of Christmas! Can't believe it's 20 days till Christmas, we're full out in the Season now! Buckle up, it's CHRISTMAS TIME! The First Presidency Devotional yesterday was so amazing, I loved how there was such a great focus on the Spirit bringing peace to our lives, That's what stood out to me so much at least. 

This week is going to be awesome, we have a ton that's going on this week! Here's what we're looking at for this upcoming week. Exchanges, MLC, Zone Council, Christmas Nativity, Kim's Baptism, and Transfers. It's going to be a crazy one for sure. Looking forward to it!

I got to go on 2 exchanges this last week, the first was with Elder Smith, he is from Ogden, and he is going home in a week. He is awesome, he is actually a Zone Leader out in Kitchener. We went on exchanges with them because the Assistants didn't have time to go with us or them this transfer because it was a short one so we went together. It was so fun, Elder Smith is perhaps the greatest story teller of all time, and I heard some crazy stories from him. We had a fun experience, that can be a regular thing that happens. We were stopping by a Christian Family from Iraq to give them a Book of Mormon in Arabic, The man, Who's name is George, opened the door and told us to come it. This is a normal thing for their culture. He took us to his living room and sat us down, brought us out some refreshments and went and got his bibles. He spoke about 4 words in English, so as you can imagine it was a short lesson. We read the introduction with him and he told us to come back when his son was home so we could teach him. His son speaks English and Arabic, so we're headed back this week to see them again!

I also went on Exchanges with Elder Prettyman, he's from Taylor Arizona! He's been out for about 6 months, it was fun! We were able to see Kim and have an awesome Word of Wisdom lesson, and then see Fadi! Both Lessons were great! 

It's amazing to see the spirit work as a missionary, for those who have served, but for those who haven't, I want to expain how amazing it is. When teaching, sometimes you literally have a random question come to your head, it's not a booming question, usually it just presses. These questions can change the entire lesson and help you to discover what they are in need of. Here's an example, last week we were in a lesson, planning on talking about Baptism, we were following up on her Book of Mormon reading when the question, "Do you Believe Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God" came to my head. We talked a bit more and then asked, she went on to say how she was still a little confused on Joseph Smith's story. The lesson changed, questions were answered, and we all left edified. Follow the spirit of the Lord, if there is anything I can say, it is that. Remember, it invites to serve, love, guide, uplift and encourage!

Sunday was quite the day, after a great day at church we had to head out to Newbury, which is like an hour away to see an investigator. We got out there, had a not so great lesson, and stopped by a few other people there with no visible results.. we then worked our way back into town stopping by different areas and talking with different people. We went out on "The Rez" to stop by a less-active member. We knocked on the door and hear this super loud growing, and what sounded like a drunken roar. The door opens and this huge man with no shirt on opens the door, looks over us and mumbled a few strange things. He proceeded to shut the door and left us standing on his porch. So there you have it, our short adventure on sunday afternoon full of driving and bad lessons.

I sure love you all so much, and I'm so grateful for Christmas. Christ lives, he was born a humble birth, lived a humble life. He is the King of all, the Alpha and the Omega, and I'm grateful to stand as his emissary. 

 

 

 

Love you all!

-Elder Adam Taylor

Birthday Wishes & BWW 11/28/16

Thank you all so much for the Birthday Wishes! The Birthday was great, we went out and got Buffalo Wild Wings in order to celebrate the day! It was a throw back to the days back home where we'd go get BWW's. 

 

 

It was a great Birthday, we also had an awesome experience! We recieved a call from a guy that lives in Draper, he told us about his Mother in Law who was sick, lives here in London, and she wanted a blessing! Her name is Lorna, and she met with the missionaries in Utah when she was there visiting their family. So we went and saw her, she's awesome! Such a nice lady, with such a strong desire to do what's right. Her husband who we didn't meet is a Professional Martial Arts instructor, so we're excited to meet him too. We're looking forward to letting you know what all happens with Lorna! 

On Tuesday we had Brother Woofenden out teaching with us for the evening, he's an awesome guy! He is from Windsor, and grew up in the church! He knows the Book of Mormon like nobody else I've ever met in my whole life. It's insane! He could quote almost anything from it, besides that he's like a walking encyclopedia, he knows so many random things, we call him Trivial Pursuit. :)

Kim is doing awesome! She is working towards Dec. 10th to be baptized, we had an awesome lesson with her this last week where we went over what all needs to happen for her baptism! She's doing really  well and getting super excited! We also have a man named Hesam who just moved to London, he was baptized about  a month ago in Toronto, he is from Iran. He's super cool. The Farsi Elders Worked with him, he walked into the church one day already knowing the Book of Mormon was true! So amazing!

We did some service for an Investigator this week where we took helped move some things to her Daughters house, when we got there we knocked on the door and they opened the door and a plume of smoke the wreaked of Weed flowed out of the room. Inside was everybody in perhaps the messiest/ dirtiest apartment I've every seen, smoking weed out of a Coke Bottle... I didn't even know you could do that but it was so gross.. haha, oh man, the life as a missionary!

I had exchanges with Elder Chu this week, he is from Hong Kong and has been on a mission for 2 months! 

 

He is in chinese work here in London, so I went with him for the day. We spent the whole day on Buses, which was tons of fun, but I have to give it to all those missionaries who only have buses, I was so tired at the end of the day, and it's hard to contact people on buses. I hope I get to be in a Bus area at some point so that I can learn how to work buses more! We had such a good time, and I learned what it's like to try to teach a lesson in a language you don't speak. I felt useless in the lesson! It was a fun day though, I want to go to Hong Kong someday though, it sounds like such a sweet city!

Because it's the end of the Month, we had to spend our day yesterday doing MCC's which is a terrible monthly report that takes ages to fill out. Glad that's over with, and now I get another month of peace. Hallelujah!

 

The Church's Christmas Initiative this #LightTheWorld It is focused on following the Savior's example and serving others and has some awesome ways to serve each day of this Holiday season. We're so excited to share it with all of London, and I look forward to hearing about how you all can use it as well. There is an advent calendar on mormon.org along with the featured video!

I love my Savior, and his example is far beyond any other. I'm grateful to him and his Atoning Sacrifice. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to serve him, in ways that I never imagined, and I pray that you can all feel his love in the way he truly loves you! 

Merry Christmas

Love, Elder Taylor

Lunch on a P-day

A Bit of Davis High in Ontario 11/21/16

Whelp, we knew summer wouldn't last forever! It's been a long one, so we were blessed with what we got. Friday was warm, 18 C. Saturday Cooled down, and by that night we were in a flurry of Snow. We got about 3 inches here in London, and now it feels like straight winter. It's about -1 C today, so not horrible, that's about 30 F.  

I had exchanges with Elder Payne this last week, he's from Taber Alberta, it's got like 8,000 people, and apparently it's half Mormon and half Mennonite. Quite the town in you ask me just thinking about it. We had a good time, they split the ward with us so it was just like being in the same area. We were tracting in this one area, I think he was getting a bit spooked out because he's been out for like 2 weeks and people kept saying "This is a bad part of town, you shouldn't be here". We kept knocking doors and met this really cool Korean couple. She said "Oh Momon!" and we were like yes, then she said "Ummm... Ooootah? We talked for a bit, that's about all she knew but they invited us to come back, so the Elders are going back with a Korean Book of Mormon for them!

Kim is doing very well, we have been meeting with her and she is working towards the first of December for Baptism! We had a couple amazing lessons with her last week, we were teaching her on Tuesday and while teaching her I felt like talking about Tithing, so I was looking for a way to teach that and move into that, the lessons never really let me, so after I was wondering if I had failed to follow the spirit, as the next lesson with her came around, again, I felt the need to teach her tithing, it was amazing that the lesson went from talking about he Book of Mormon directly into Tithing with such ease, and she accepted the principle right off the bat! She's awesome, doing so well, she's been out to church for the last 4 weeks in a row now. We're really excited for her!

Aggie is doing really well also, she is working towards baptism in March, she has a few things we're working on with her right now, she's awesome though. Such a nice Lady! She is Polish so last week she was teaching us about Slovak languages, so languages such as Polish, Slovenian, Ukrainian, and Russian. Apparently, if you place people that speak those languages in the same room they can communicate with each other knowing up to 90% of what the others are saying. Fun fact of the day.

We had dinner with the Young Family this week and we had Russian and Ukrainian cuisine. We had Perogies with Kielbasa and Sour Cream. Perogies are a Ukrainian food, kind of like a dumpling. And Kielbasa is a Russian Sausage, they were delicious. Along with that we had a Russian Mushroom soup which was perhaps some of the best soup I've ever had!

Another interesting food I tried this week is called Ayran, it's a fermented milk drink. Literally it's made of Yogurt, water and Salt. It's nasty, I'm never drinking it again. I got it while we were getting Shawarma the other day.

 

We went out to the Bridges last Friday to do some service and ended up stacking firewood for 2 hours. Our backs were a bit sore afterwards, but they needed the help! They have Italian Mastiffs and breed them, and they currently have 21 puppies. They are less than a week old now, so when they get a bit older hopefully I'll be able to send you a picture of them. The Mom looks just like Hagrid's dog on Harry Potter.

We were out in Strathroy on Saturday when the snow storm kicked in, and we met Sister Pestana, her family is from Portugal, and she was baptized in the summer of 2014, she is so awesome! Such an amazing women, we are going to be able to see her once a week now and she wants to go back to the temple so we are helping her to work towards that now! After Sister Pestana we went and saw Brother Quaife, he's an older member, who use to be a Stake Seventy, he is obsessed with Rocks and Minerals and started pulling all these rocks out. We had to fight our way out of his apartment practically. Haha :)

 

Yesterday we were out with Alan, one of the Young Men, teaching in a small town called Newbury. We were praying right before the lesson and Alan was saying it, all of the sudden the town siren starts to go off! (Like the Tornado Sirens in the midwest, or when there is a natural disaster) Elder Certonio and I looked at each other cause we were both freaked out a bit and Alan kept praying. After Alan finished praying we asked him if that freaked him out at all and he just told us that it was the firestation notifying the firefighters they were needed? Weird... 

For dinner last night we had dinner with the Mitchell's, brother Mitchell went to Davis High! In his basement he has the Old Davis High Auditorium seating as well! I got to sit in them and snap a few pics! They're way cool, Dad, Maybe you even sat in those seats. 

 

 

In the spirit of Thanksgiving...

I'm grateful for the Gospel, the Bible, The Book of Mormon, a Modern Day Prophet, cars, warm coats, wool socks, Christmas Sweaters, technology, good food, telephones, pens, hot water, ovens, running water, and so so much more! 

Above all, I'm most greatful for all of you!

I love you all and miss you!

Elder Taylor

One Stake Conference to Rule Them All! 11/14/16

 

 We had the Best Stake Conference I've ever been too this week, man, it was so sweet! I'll give you the run down with the highlights! We had President Sandor (Stake President and future General Authority), President Shields (Mission President) and the Toronto and Detroit Temple Presidents. It was a power house!

We got a call from President Shields on Friday telling us he wanted us to go to all the sessions of Conference, so that included a Leadership, Adult, and General Session. It was tons of fun to be able to go to all and meet with the different leaders and discuss different topics. For the Leadership one we were taken with the Bishops, WML, and Stake President to discuss a few different things. We talked about for one of the topics being called, or being chosen. Basically, when one is called, it is simple and not always from God. But when one is Chosen, it is based on desire, the heart, and is truly Chosen from God, therefore the scripture "many are called but few are chosen" makes more sense. Here are some cool strictures to check out that talk more about it. D&C 3; 4; 105; 50: 13-14 al well as Abraham 3:22-23 and the Articles of Faith.

On Sunday President Sandor gave a talk to all those who lived in homes were there were non-members, less-active members, and split families. He talked about the need to love those who have harmed us, or caused trials to come into our lives and live judgement up to God. He was very bold and blunt in it, and even said "If you can't love those that have harmed you, you are not fit for the Kingdom of God."

President Shields talked about Living in the Fullness of Times, while living in these Perilous times. Often we focus so much on all that's going bad, that we forget we are living in the times just before Christ comes again, where the fullness of the Gospel is available. 1800 years passed by without the fullness of the Gospel and in these Latter-Days we have it!

After The sunday session, President Shields grabbed us and told us to stick around because he was having a YSA fireside and wanted us to stay, so we stuck around. President talked about the Parable of the Good Samaritan and compared the parable to the Plan of Salvation, I'll explain how by sending some notes.

Luke Chapter 10

 30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went downfrom Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, whichstripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.- This is like the Fall of Adam and Eve, being cast from The garden to Earch, Jericho is a lot lower altitude then Jerusalem. Now we are in a Fallen state, suceptible to death and sin.

 31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the otherside.

 32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him,and passed by on the other side. -The Two bypassers are like other churches, who don't hold the authority to be able to administer the saving ordinances of the Gospel.

33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came wherehe was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,-The Samaritan is Jesus Christ

 34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouringin oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. -Christ Heals us, and the Oil and Wine is his Blood which he shed for us, he heals our spiritual wounds, the beast are the missionaries who carry those who are wounded to the church, which is the inn.

 35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out twopence, and gave themto the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when Icome again, I will repay thee. -The Inn Keeper is a representative for the members of the church, and the coming of the Samaritan, and when he repays, will be the second coming of the Lord, when all will be made fair, and the just will be rewarded.

The Parable took on a whole new meaning to me as I read this, I love this. 

Kim is doing really well, she came to Stake Conference and Loved it so much! She's going awesome, and she should be getting baptized in the next few weeks! 

Aggie is also doing well, she is working towards baptism in March, march because she is committed to her church as one of the head chairman until march. She was telling us about her friend who she was talking too about her meeting with us, and her friend asked if she would leave their church when the time came, and she told her that if that's what the Lord wanted her to do, she would. And that is what she feels needs to happen. I'm hoping I get to stay around long enough to see her baptized!

Last P-day we went to Brother LaFrance's house, he is a Ninjitsu trainer, and he taught us a few self defense moves, it was tons of fun. We'll probably end up going again. We also went to a chinese market by our house, enjoy the pictures. I felt Like I was in Hong Kong.

 

 

Well, I love you all, have a great week. Don't forget to read your scriptures and pray as a family! 

Hillary or Donald? 11/14/2016

 

I'm so excited for this Election to be over, you'd never guess how many times a day we hear about it up here in Canada. It's ridiculous! Hopefully it will die down in a reasonable amount of time. Transfers have come and gone now, I'm staying here for another with Elder Certonio, this will be 3 transfers together, awesome! We will only have a 5 week transfer this transfer however in order to make it so that the flights for returning missionaries isn't so expensive because of the Christmas Season! This week was a crazy busy one, last week of the Transfer, along with MLC and Zone Council. The time flew by, so here's a quick rundown of the week.

We have been meeting with our investigator Aggie, she is a Mennonite, but loves the Book of Mormon and knows the Church is true. She basically runs the church she attends so it's a bit complicated there, but we're working on that right now. She is always inviting friends for us to come teach, this week we started to teach 2 of her friends, Dale and Bonnie, and we started to teach her as well. It's been crazy there, different people there every time we show up. It's always the best when others find people for us to teach, I'm sure for all those missionaries and Return missionaries out there they can atest to that. 

Tuesday night we drove down to Brampton to spend the Night for MLC, it was fun. We had our Zone Leader Olympics going on and the Closing ceremony was that night, we talked all about the funny things that had happened and all the awesome miracles that had taken place, we talked about how when we put focuses on things, it helps us to improve and grow as missionaries. It applies to everybody, it's really easy to just go with the same things over and over again, but when one truly tries to change, God helps them to make the Focus a normal part of life, it all works through the Atonement, and is this magical principle called "Repentence". :)

 

We had MLC all day on Wednesday, we talked about some things like Daily Dose (ESL), Teaching the importance of following up, passing investigators to the correct missionaries (Not "Poaching" investigators), and effective planning. It was an awesome meeting, as most MLC's are! I got called on the night before to be a part of the musical Number, we didn't even practice but it turned out alright!

Thursday wasn't too eventful because we had to plan Zone Council, but we had a couple lessons, one of which was with our New Convert Beverly, and her Boyfriend "Traveling Travis" He's a musician, so we got there and he whipped out the Guitar to show us his "Jams" He gave us a CD with his signiture, it'll be worth Millions someday. We had a good lesson, he told us that he was really starting to consider baptism, which is a huge step since last time he said he isn't going to convert!  

Zone Council went  really well on Friday! We went out afterwards and got Sushi, it's like a tradition to get sushi after we put on a Zone Council. After that we had exchanges, I was with Elder Brand here in London, we had a great time! We saw Aggie, she invited a friend over again, and then we got to go by our investigator Chuck. We hadn't been able to see him in a week, but when we got there he told us that he's been reading the Book of Mormon over Skype with his girlfriend, and that he now believes that this is the true church, and that the Book of Mormon is true. It was a bit of a shocker, but If I know anything, it's that the Book of Mormon is a very powerful tool in bringing other unto Christ! While on Exchanges we went by a Less-active member and ended up finding a neighborhood full of so many Middle-Eastern families. It was super fun, we met people form Iraq, Syria, and Iran. My Arabic and Persian aren't too good so we got a ton of families to take Book of Mormon's in Arabic and Persian too. 

Saturday we went out to Strathroy, which is a small town in our area. We went out with one of the Young Men getting ready to go on a mission, his name is Alan. His brother is serving in Tooele right now. He's awesome, but we saw some members out in Strathroy, it's a beautiful town out there!

Sunday was a great day, it was actually really warm! We had some investigators at church, Kim came out, she's doing really well. She has a Date set for the end of November so we are excited to stay and continue teaching her! For dinner we got to the Hill's. They have a big family, 7 kids. It was crazy, but we had the best steaks I've had since I've been in Canada! Also, on the side note, Kerra came up to the YSA branch on Sunday so we got to see her at church!
 

I'm grateful this week for modern day prophets and apostles, we are so blessed to have them and to have the restored Priesthood here on the Earth today. I testify that it's true, it is the power of God. Miracles still exist, I've seen them.

Love Elder Taylor

Happy Halloween 10/31/2016

💀The End of October is here, November is tomorrow! Another month has come an gone! This last week was one for the books, I got to see lots of amazing things this week. We had a dinner out at the Kelly's last week, they are from Birmingham England (Same City as Elder Jones), they served a mission in Samoa, and they now live on Fanshaw lake, it's BEAUTIFUL, Such an amazing piece of property. 

 

 

They even finished off the meal with cheese and grapes, I felt like I was back with Elder Jones. Last week we got a call from a member who wanted us to go see his sister in the Hospital, so we made our way to the Hospital, and ended up in the Oncology Unit. It was a powerful opportunity, it ended up being a less-active sister who was in the Hospital, as we gave the blessing you could see the gratitude in her eyes. I'm very grateful to be a Priesthood holder, such an amazing opportunity I have, and how grateful I am! Last week while emailing we got a phone call from a lady asking us if we were a "HillBilly Church" We had no Idea what that was but we invited her to come check out the church, so she caught a bus down to the chapel where we gave her a chapel tour, she was super interested, so we met with her again last week and then she came to church on Sunday! Her name is Kim, and we were even able to set her with a Baptism Date! She's doing awesome! 

I got to go out to Windsor on Exchanges this last week with Elder Brown, he's from Cedar City. We graduated the same year, he has been out for about 8 months on his mission! Before the mission he played Water Polo, and he is super talented with music. He also worked installing solar fields prior to his mission. While in Windsor I got to see Detroit accross the river, "Oh Say can you see"! Beautiful sight.

 

 While we were down there I got to do the Baptismal Interview for their investigator Kenny, it went awesome! Kenny is from China and has been in Canada for 6 weeks, he met the missionaries his 2nd week here and is being baptized next week, He's doing great! I also got to see Ryan Obrian, who I got to interview for his baptism way back 8 months ago! It was cool to be able to see how well he is doing. 

After District meeting in Chatham, we got to go have lunch with Kerra and a bunch of the members in Chatham. It was fun to see everybody there, Kerra hit her 6 month mark last week which is so amazing to see!

I'm so grateful to be a missionary, to be able to share the glorious gospel with all of our Heavenly Father's children. The Scriptures have taught me a ton, and I am so grateful for them! 

Last week as a zone we all had a pumpkin carving contest too! 

 

 

 

Love, Elder Taylor

The Ancient Chinese Said "Sing Gong Xui Fu Gong"

As the Ancient Chinese once said, Sing Gong Xui Fu Gong. Here's my saying of the week that the Hong Kong Elders taugh me in Cantonese. It basically means that in order to be rich you have to have a rich dad, now they laugh every time I say it. Haha, anyhow this week was really really cool! We had tons of cool experiences, let me first start by talking about 2 Nephi chapter 1-5 however, I read through these and really thought about some of the amazing things it teaches. In chp. 1 verse 5 and 6 it tells of how all those that came to the America's were lead by the Hand of the Lord, as well it talks of how there is punishment affixed with the use of our agency, we are free to choose, but not to choose the eternal punishment. Chapter 3 is amazing as it shows and prophesies of the Coming of the Prophet Joseph Smith, really amazing how many prophsies there actually are of him, so many don't even see them in the scriptures.


 
We had some great things happen this week and met some awesome people, I want to tell you a bit about all of them! First off, we met this guy named John, his brother is a bishop and his knowledge of the church is amazing for a non-member! He was telling all of these things and he mentioned how the church really amazes him because most churches on the Earth right now are dying but the LDS church is growing at an amazing rate, he said he's definately keeping his eye on the church. We were joking with him and told him he was what we called a "dry Mormon" because he wasn't baptized and he laughed and said maybe someday we would be able to meet with him. We were walking down the street right after that, it was a pretty busy street so we were talking with quite a few people, when we met a girl named Jo-Jo. As we talked I had a thought to pray with her, I pushed it off because it was a super noisy road, hard to hear... anyhow, God taught me a lesson, she ended up asking us to pray with her, so we did and as we walked a way I learned not to disregard even the smallest of promptings.

This week we started teaching Fadi, he is Lebanese, and was being taught a few months ago but went back to Lebanon for a few months, so now he's back and we're working with him again. The one thing that makes it really unique is the fact that Fadi is Deaf. He is amazing at reading lips, so he reads our lips as we speak in order to communicate! It's been quite the experience to say the least! Also, we started to teach a lady named Fiori, she is from Eritrea, which is a country in Africa near Sudan and Ethiopia, they speak a language called Tigrina there. It's been fun to start working with her, hopefully we can get her out to church this next week :)

The weather sure cooled down this week, on Saturday we went up to a place called Corbette to do some service for a member by stacking some wood. We had to stop on the way up to use the washroom so we stopped at a little rest stop near this small lake, it was BEAUTIFUL!         wish the pictures of the trees here actually did it justice, it's unbelievable how beautiful it's been. We got to the Irvines and helped them stack wood for their fireplace for the winter, it took us a long time, I'll send you the picture of the wood pile. We had pretty sore backs the next day! :)
 
We had a member named the Baetz as well call us up, they were moving and had tons of boxes of food they were getting rid of, so we picked it up and found all sorts of expired food in it. For example, some 9 year expired baking chocolate, let's just say the cookies we made with them weren't very good.....

Now, the reason for the name of the email is this, last week the Assistants all texted us and told us about a 2 week competition between all the Zone Leaders. It's called the Mission Olympics and it's been so crazy! We've had challenges such as inviting as many people to be baptized as possible to asking everybody for referrals. It's been tons of fun, we aren't in first right now but we're going to take it. Right now we have a Gold Medal and a Bronze. It ends next week!

This week was great, I love the Gospel and I'm so grateful for it. It's an amazing opportunity to be a missionary! I love you all and wish you the best of week!

Love, Elder Taylor

 

Thuggin On The Sunday Drive 10/17/16

 What can I say, we had a great week! Derek Livingstone, who I worked with in Burlington was baptized this weekend! I'm super excited about that, and Stef up in Barrie is doing really well, sounds like he'll be baptized in 2 weeks! So excited for him! So many amazing things going on here in Canada indeed. It's fun to see so many people i've worked with continue to grow so much.

On Tuesday night we had exchanges with the Assistants, and Elder Carroll came to London with me, and Elder Certonio went off to Brampton with Elder Holt. I learned something really cool from Elder Carroll, as we prayed before our nightly planning session he prayed that the will of the Lord be done, even if that involved our lessons falling through. I thought it was such a cool prayer and made me really look at things differently. I've been trying to think of things in that sense now. We had an awesome exchange, started off with a District meeting and then it just went crazy from there, we were all over the place running around from lesson to lesson. We had to run and get some medication for one of the missionaries who was sick and then we went over to one of our investigators named Aggie. Aggie was an investigator here when I was in Chatham and she sounded so awesome, but when I got here they were no longer teaching her. She called us a few weeks ago and asked if we could come by and read the Book of Mormon with one of her friends. So, on exchanges we went by, sat down with her and Miles. Miles is in his 20's, and grew up with out a belief in Christ, but after a series of amazing yet difficult events in his life, he came to know that God is real. As we taught him of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation the spirit filled the room, he accepted the invitation to be baptized, along with Aggie, who knows that she must be baptized by the proper authority. Following that, we went to get some lunch at Soprano's Pizza, it's a super cheap yet super good pizza shop here that all the missionaries love. We then went to see Brother Woofenden, a member here who is so amazing, he's basically a walking encyclopedia, Elder Certonio calls him Trivia Pursuit. :) We then rushed over to the WML for Coordination, and then it was off to the LaFrance's for Dinner! Brother LaFrance is awesome, in fact he is a Ninja. Legit, he's a Ninja! He is a Ninjitsu trainer and even trains people becoming US Marshalls. He was telling us about this time where he was training this huge MMA fighter, and the guy came to him one day and told him he wanted his Black Belt and he would give him $1000 if he signed the certificate, Brother LaFrance told him no way, that if he wanted it he would have to work for it! The guy didn't like that and tried to attack Brother LaFrance, which didn't end too well for that guy, Brother LaFrance knocked him out. Anyways, eventually the Cops showed up and told him that this guy was a convicted felon who had been involved in a Murder and had served time. Crazy story!

The next day we got to have some awesome lessons, but the best part of the day was we had dinner with Brother Cromwell he is a convert of about 7 years, such a great guy, in fact after we went to see Bethany, and had an amazing lesson where we talked about Baptism and the Book of Mormon, after the lesson Brother Cromwell was commenting on the power of the lesson, and how strong he felt the spirit.  The next Morning Bethany texted us and told us that she was grateful for our visit, because she felt like the reason she had been invited to be baptized in the past was to join the church, but after our lesson she realized we were there to help her work towards making a sacred covenant with God!

Friday, I finally got back to Chatham for a district meeting, it was so weird to be back in an old area, it felt almost like I had never left. When we got Back from that we went to the Palladino's who are an Italian family, and helped them roof their house. We had like 35 men from the ward up there and Got things done so fast! It was cool to see so many helping hands, and plus, we got some fresh Italian Pasta and Bread! Soooooo Good!

Sunday came around, and finished our week off with a great time! I love Sundays, it's so nice to be able to go to church and partake of the Sacrament! After Church we got to go to the Bridge's home for a late Lunch, they are from Alberta but also lived up in Cache Valley for a few years, at the End of lunch they brought out "The Snakes" They have 6 Ball Pythons, we definitely got pictures that I'll attach! They also have 70 rats that they breed to feed the snakes, really cool, we even got to feed one of the snakes. Mom, all I could think was how much you would have hated it.

 

I'm so grateful to be a missionary, I'm so grateful for both the Redeeming power and the Enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It's amazing to see how much our Heavenly Father Loves us. I've seen the Book of Mormon Speak to me, and I know it can speak to all of you. I love this Gospel, and would give anything for it.

Love you all, have a great week!

 

Roofing Project

 

 

A Perk for Canada....another Thanksgiving!

​The best part of serving a mission in Canada is that you get 2 thanksgivings a year. Maybe not the best part, but it's definitely a perk. This week was so good, many great things happening! One of the Sisters in the Ward we see every week is Sister Antoinette, she is an old Italian lady, so so funny! Anyhow, it was really funny because she gave us Cookies and Chocolate milk, we started to eat the cookies and dipped them in the milk, all I though at first was "These Cookies taste super weird..." Then I took a sip of the milk and realized the chocolate milk was bad.. really really bad, it was nasty. I looked over at Elder Certonio, and he started to giggle a bit. After a while Elder Certonio took his chocolate milk off the table and said he had to use the washroom and rushed to dump his, I started to laugh, but luckily Sister Antionette thought we were laughing about her story so she started to laugh too. It was hilarious, all 3 of us were cracking up, the best part is, she never even found out the milk was bad. :)

On Wednesday we had skills and interviews with President and Sister Shields, it's always fun to be able to have interviews with the Shields, for lunch we went to a place called "Boss Hogs"

 

which is a really good BBQ place, following the meeting we had dinner with our investigator Bethany, we also have been talking about Temples a lot with Bethany, she is awesome. She has been investigating the church for quite a while now, I taught her when I was in Chatham on exchanges here in London, she's doing so great now though, she comes to church and loves it. We also waxed her car for her this week, first time I've every hand waxed a car, luckily it was the simple spray on stuff. Hopefully she'll be getting baptized soon. Also, Chatham had a baptism last weekend, so awesome to see that Branch growing, Kerra is doing awesome there as well!

The YSA sisters met this awesome guy named Shakuur this last week, he is from Somalia, such a cool guy. He is a Muslim, but we got to start teaching him, he basically really wants us to join Islam, but he started to read the Book of Mormon, so we'll let that perform it's magic and let the spirit take it's course, we'll see him again at the end of this week!

 We got a call on Saturday from a Sister who served here but has been home for about Nine months, she was in town and we were supposed to see one of her New Converts that day so she asked if she could come with us, We went over to see him and helped him set a date for going to the Temple! So cool! We finished our lesson and her mom asked if we had dinner plans, we didn't so she told us to follow them and they took us out to this sweet restaurant! It's called Burrito Boyz, I got a super good Quesadilla, not real Mexican food but still good! We also stopped by our New Convert Beverly and met her son and daughter in Law, the picture below is of her dog Compton, he's like 120lbs, he's huge and he thinks he's a lap dog. 

 

Church was a blast, it was weird to be in a big ward again (Still not a Utah Ward, but really big for Ontario) Close to 230 people! For Thanksgiving, it was a great day! We started off by seeing Sister Antoinette, no bad milk this time, then we had lunch. We went to see a member in the Hospital named Brother Angus, then we went to see one of the Members, Anjel, he's from Mexico, such an awesome guy! We showed up expecting to share a short message but he had made a late lunch for us, so after eating Juevos con Salsa rojo, super good! We then went and had thanksgiving with the Young Family, they are brilliant, they speak like 8 languages. Within their family they speak Spanish, French, English, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Crazy eh!? Anyhow, after an awesome dinner we went to help the Baetz family move a few things. Overall, a great week! 

We also slept out on the Balcony the other night, it was super cold! Holy Cow

That's about it for this week, I love you all!

Elder Taylor

We found a castle. 

 

The Other London 10/03/2016

 

What a crazy week, so busy, we were all over the place, rushing trying to get things done, glad the week is over, that's for sure! I'm here in the London first ward now, which is crazy big compared to everywhere else I've been the ward has 235 active members, looking forward to working with so many members! London has about 400,000 people, it has a lot of cultural diversity, there are a lot of people from the Middle East as well as many from China and Hong Kong. Basically, there are people here from all over the world. The road system is super hard to learn, it seems like the roads run every which direction, I don't think they planned the roads here. There are quite a few missionaries in London itself, we split the London 1st ward with another set of Elders, they are in a Tripan. The London 2nd ward has some sisters in it, the London YSA has a set of Sisters, and there is a tripan on Hermana's for the Spanish Branch along with 2 Hong Kongis Elders in Mandarin Work. We live in the same apartment building as the Elders, which is lots of Fun! The Mandarin Elders don't have a car so we drive them around a lot, we made a rule this morning that they aren't aloud to speak Mandarin or Cantonese in the car because we think they are talking behind our backs :)

 

I got to London on Tuesday and that night I ended up coming down with a Cold, then Elder Certonio got it so we have been fighting off a cold all this week, we've been pounding cough drops and Advil all week, we're finally starting to get on top of all of it. Thank Goodness.

We had quite a bit of excitement on Friday, Thursday night we drove down to Bradford and spent the night with the Kitchener Zone Leaders. We got to wake up at 4:30am to drive to Brampton to go to the temple! 

 

Wahoo! It was awesome, I actually found some family names on Grandpa Paul's side of the family, so I got to do one and had Elder Certonio do one. It was on the Pools line. Following our temple trip we had MLC, where we had a meeting all afternoon, talked a lot about applying some of the things our mission has been focused on, after dealing with some administration things we drove home and didn't get home until 9pm. It was a long day to say the least!

General Conference was AMAZING! I loved it so much, it was such an amazing meeting. It was awesome to hear from President Monson, he said so little but it ment so much. We were surprised to Hear President Monson speak on the Word of Wisdom in Priesthood session. That was quite the surprise. I really enjoyed Elder Bednar's talk, I thought it was very inspiring! There was also a lot of focus on members doing missionary work. I loved it! 

This week we are going to go out and find tons of people to teach, we have a few that I haven't been able to teach yet because of last week's craziness. 

I'm so grateful for the Gospel! It's so amazing, as I listened to General Conference, I truly felt the spirit testify of the truthfulness of this gospel once again! I love the Gospel so much, and I'm so grateful for it in my life!

 

Love, Elder Taylor