Gotta Love A Free Guitar

Let's meet for JUICE 01/24/2016

Another Great week here in Chatham! Our Investigator Dorian is doing very well, he was even able to make it out to Church on Sunday! He is awesome, and a really fun guy to work with, we meet again with him on Wednesday, and we are excited to keep meeting with him and helping him to find truth for himself!

I've become very familiar with this town over the past couple weeks! Something I've learned is that there are train tracks all over here, they run right through the center of town, so there are always people waiting for trains! Also, something else I've found very strange, nobody uses their front doors, and they all use side doors and back doors as their front doors, I don't get it, but there are signs on a ton of doors that say "Use side door".

On Wednesday we had a world wide Mission Broadcast that came in from SLC. They spoke, and by they I mean a bunch of general authorities, on the importance of member missionary work, teaching simply, and relying on the spirit. It was such a wonderful meeting! I also got to give a talk yesterday in church on "Teaching Children" Ummmmm... wierd topic for a missionary, so I decided to focus on teaching Children to do Missionary work by setting examples... :) It went super well, and I was able to use some awesome examples from the scriptures like the 2000 stripling warriors and King Benjamin's address!

Friday was a great day as well, it started off with my first district meeting, which went way better that I was expecting it to go, we talked about Inviting people to Baptism, and we all learned some awesome things about the importance of the invitation to Baptism! We then had the first of many exchanges. Elder Morby came to Chatham with me, Elder Morby is from Liberty Utah, he is 21 and has been out on his mission for a little over a year! He is a solid missionary, he taught me a lot about teaching by the spirit, you can tell whenever he speaks how sincere he is about the things he says, sometimes I think I just blabber, so that's something that I want to work on that I learned from him! For some reason we kept having people open doors not wearing pants or in robes while on exchanges, so everybody, please never open the door without being fully dressed, it is awkward. :)

While Contacting downtown a few nights ago, we had a guy come running down the street yelling at us, his name is Jake and he actually wanted to speak with us, he had met with missionaries years ago and had some questions! We answered some of his questions and talked for a bit and invited him out to church! He even came to church and when he asked if we wanted to meet over "Coffee" we told him we don't drink Coffee and Tea so he said, "Fine, how about we meet over "Juice". Hahaha, he has quite the sense of humor, so we are meeting with him this week to teach him about the Word of Wisdom! It's going to be a sweet lesson! 

While traveling back from Windsor after exchanges we stopped in a town called Pain Court to do some tracting. Pain court is a tiny town with a really big Catholic church which you can see form every part of the town, it reminded me of the great and spacious building :)

Well, that's about it for this week, because Preparation day here we don't get together with other missionaries, we are headed to the Native Reserve to carve fish with Brother Smith, haha, basically all we do on p-days is carve fish and play guitar :)

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

Me & Ditty

A New Adventure in Chatham

My goodness! My first week in Chatham was fantastic! It's quite the place, it was hard to leave Burlington, but It was time for me to move on, and I'm glad that I get to be here in Chatham now! Chatham is a small town about 45,000 people live here, and it surrounded by a bunch of tiny towns, such as Wallisburg, Dresden, and Tilbury. There are a bunch more, so basically Chatham-Kent County has about 110,000 people. The Branch here is small, it was weird to be in a congregation of only 80 people, basically the same people run everything. But the Branch is super awesome with missionary work, they love to come out teaching with us, and love to help us out.

Brother Hunter is one of the Members here who is awesome, we met him the first night we got here and he said "Me Casa es su Casa" My house is your house. He loves to come out teaching with us, and because he works from home, he can come out most of the time. He is a horticulturalist, and sells seeds online.

One of my favorite parts about the area is Walpole Island First Nations Reservation. It is a Native American Reservation in our area that has a few members out on it! We went by Brother Smith, who is a world famous fish carver, sounds weird but it's really cool! He is actually going to teach us how to carve fish, so next week we are headed up that way to carve us some fish! All of the stop signs there are in some other Language, I don't even know how to pronounce anything up there, but it's a fun place to go. Brother Smith was telling us about the Traditionalists on the Island, they believe in the "Great Spirit", which is super interesting because in the Book of Mormon, Lamoni's father also believes in a "Great Spirit" interesting how that's been passed down eh?

The very first door we knocked on in Chatham was a girl named Kelsey, she is in her 20's, and because the closest YSA is 1 hr 15 min away, we get to teach her! She seems super solid however, and we are meeting with her tomorrow! We are excited to get to meet with her! 

Last week we also met Dorian, who is 30. He was in a car accident 10 years ago and he has a strong testimony of the power of prayer. He saw how it saved his life, and he wants to do whatever he can to grow closer with Christ. We met with him again yesterday, and invited him to be Baptized on Feb. 13th, and he said he would! So exciting! We are going back again to meet with him on Wednesday!

We also stopped by a Less-Active family in the ward and then worked around them and found a bunch of people there were interested! One of which we were able to teach was Brandi, she is in her 20's and her family is religious but she has never found it for herself, she is excited to read the Book of Mormon, and I'm excited to meet with her tomorrow as well! Tomorrow is going to be a wonderful day!

We decided we were going to go by another Less-Active member as well, and we didn't realized he lived like 10km in the middle of nowhere. Turns out he wasn't home, so we walked down the street to his neighbor, like 200 yards Where we met Al, who was an older gentleman who owns 180 acres and farms it! He let us into his home to escape the cold weather, and listened to us for a bit. He said he wasn't going to convert to our religion, but we all know that you don't say that to missionaries! :) CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Whelp, a few things about Chatham, there are crows everywhere, and they are huge here! They seriously are in every tree and on every building! The river that runs through Chatham is called the Thames river, and it is partially frozen, but it kinda looks like Chocolate milk right now! There are cops everywhere here, and I never see them doing anything but driving around. 

I hope everybody at home is doing well! 

My Ponderize scripture this week is 3 Nephi 18:20

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

Going To Miss My Friends In Burlington...Here are a Few

Flying South for the Winter

Whelp, we got the transfer news! I'm being Whitewashed into Chatham with Elder Ditty!! Chatham is down near Detroit, so it's a small town there! On the Map it looks like just a bunch for farm land so should be great! I also just found out that it's just a branch down there right now, so I'm excited to serve in a Branch for my first time! There is a ton of work to be done there, so I'm super pumped! Elder Ditty came out with me, he is from Medford, Oregon, crazy eh! Not too far away from the Case's! Along with going to Chatham I've been called as a District Leader! I'm super excited, but super nervous as well! Elder Jones is going to be staying here in the Blessed Land of Burlington with Elder Carrulo who is from the Philippians! That's going to be sweet for them because we have Rocky, MJ, and Setti we are working with, so they will be able to teach the family a lot easier! We transfer tomorrow in Brampton at 9:00am and make the 3 hr drive down afterwards! It's going to be a good transfer, I can feel it! :)

This last week seemed to fly by however, it was a bit of a slower week for some reason, not sure why? It was good overall however, Alanso and Mercedes are looking good for the Baptism on the 30th of January, so it's bitter-sweet to be moving, but the Lord needs me in Chatham, so I'm excited to head that way! I've been here a while so it'll be nice to see some other sights as well :)

On Sunday we saw such an amazing Miracle! We had SOOOO many different people at church It was awesome! On Saturday we did a Car fast and it really worked out! As we were walking down the street we saw a less-active sister biking down the street! So we decided to text here and invite her out the Church this week! She ended up coming and LOVED IT! Miracles! 

We have also been working with Another Sister in the Ward that Hasn't been out for close like 7 years! We had dinner with her on Saturday and Talked with her about it, she expressed how the reason she didn't want to come out is because she didn't want people wondering where she had been and judging her, but we got her to come on Sunday and she LOVED it as well, the members welcomed her back with open arms and the Sacrament Talks were based on The Parable of the Lost Sheep, it was awesome!

Our Gospel Principles class was packed! I've never seen such a full class, it was amazing to see how many people were there! There were seriously close to 25 people in there!

We had dinner with the Frasures last night and had the best Cheeseburger, they are so good and he taught us how to make them, so someday y'all can have some "Dan Fraser's World Famous Cheeseburgers". 

Ponderize this week is 2 Timothy 4:7

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith"

It's Elder Jone's Favorite scripture and reminds us to always keep pressing forward!

Well, I Love all of you, and I'm excited to tell you all about my First week in Chatham!

Love, Elder Taylor

The Picture is with Brother Neame and Sister Anne

Hello 2016!

Well, we started 2016 off with a bang this week! It was a great week! We saw some mighty miracles!

The Weather here is finally starting to drop, it went from about -2C to -14C from last night unto today, but it still isn't horribly cold! 

 As a mission we started off the New Year by fasting that we would be able to reach our mission goals of having a Baptism in each area each transfer, and by having Sacrament attendance go up to 40%! After having a fantastic fast and testimony meeting, we made our way into the Foyer, where Alanso came right up to us and told us that He and Mercedes had decided that they wanted to be Baptized on January 29th! They are super prepared, I almost started dancing with joy when Alanso told us that at Church! 

Sandy also came to church yesterday for her first time yesterday, and she loved it! She said she felt welcomed with open arms as well, which is always a relief to hear as missionaries! She even gave her friend, who is a member, a ride to church because here car broke down. I never thought that I would see an investigator give a member a ride to church, but I did! 

For New Years Dinner we went to Brother Neame and Sister Anne's home (They are a mother and a son) and we had bacon wrapped quail! I thought it was good, and we had shrimp for an appetizer! Elder Jones isn't a huge fan of seafood or meat on the bone, so I don't think he enjoyed it as much as me! If you've never had quail, basically imagine a full chicken, shrunk down to like a tiny 6 inch bird. It really is tiny, not a lot of meat on them.

Transfers are next week, so I may be leaving Burlington, It'll be weird if I do because Burlington is the only thing I know. It will seem like starting over whenever I leave here. 

I really don't have much more to say than all of this, It was a good week, but not a ton to write about! 

Ponderize Scripture

"Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works."

Jacob 4:10

Love you all so much! Hope you have a wonderful week and a blessed 2016

Elder Taylor