Hot Temps = More People To Teach

What a beautiful day it is out today, but boy is it hot. Not sure how hot it is supposed to get but it's already 30 C out there and it just keeps getting hotter and hotter. We had a really good week overall, it's nice when it's hot because there are so many more people to talk to. This week we went to the Mandarin with Sister Reeves and her friend Ryan, we had a really good meal and a short powerful lesson, Ryan has a really cool life story and has gone through a lot over the past few years! We are going to start to work with him, the sisters have been working with his wife Crystal. We took the bikes out on on Tuesday all day, and talked with everybody. We met this super awesome guy named Nick, who set an appointment with us for the next day. When we went over to Nick's house we walked in and the home screamed "Catholic". Pictures of the Pope, Mary, and Jesus showered the walls. We had a super amazing lesson about the Restoration with them, Nick is actually about to begin studies at Georgian college for Aboriginal Arts, so the Book of Mormon is really interesting to him! Anyways, we continued on the bikes and found ourselves on the opposite side of town at 8:35pm. We had to hoof it back across town, and made it back to our apartment at 8:59. Just in time, it was a miracle!

We were in Brampton on Thursday and Friday for Exchanges with the Assistants, Elder Holt came out with Elder McKinnon and I. We had a great day, and met a ton of awesome people! We spent some time in Toronto looking for a less-active member and then stopped by a kid who Elder McKinnon taught in Toronto when he was there. We were able to sit down and talk with him. He was never baptized because he was only 16 at the time, but he turns 18 next month and wants to get baptized! They are now working with him again!

Yesterday we had a really good day, and we had dinner with the Thompson's. We had a very interesting salad made out of Watermelon, Cucumbers, lime, feta cheese, and mint. It freaked me out looking at it but it was surprisingly good. I really enjoyed it a lot! 

Our Investigators are doing really well, Carrie is doing really well. She is working on finding out if God is there, and we are trying to help her feel of God's love for her as his daughter. Marlin came to church yesterday and really loved it! We are super excited for her, she goes back to mexico for a couple months in July so we are trying to figure out what will be best for her at the moment! David is doing really well, we won't be able to meet with him this week because he has final exams and said he is too busy, but he said if he came to know that what we shared was true he would be baptized! 

I hope all is going so well for you! Always remember the power of the Gospel, I love the Gospel. As I put my trust in the Lord, I've been able to feel of God's love and I'm so grateful to be able to share the Gospel with all those here in Ontario! 

Love you all so very much!

Elder Taylor

Barrie is Awesome 6/13/16

What a fantastic week indeed! Barrie is treating me great! 

We were blessed to see so many cool miracles this week as we went out! I got to give a Baptismal interview last Monday with Todd P. Who lives in Midland, he is an awesome kid! He was Baptized yesterday in Midland! 

Update on our Investigators, they are doing super well! We taught Marlin quite a few times this week! She is from Acapuco, Mexico. Sometimes she speaks Spanish to us, and my 2 years of high school Spanish i've realized didn't help me a lot. I think I learned more Spanish in Costa Rica then in my entire time in School. The gift of tongues is real. Anyways, she is doing really well, and wants to be baptized, she says that this actually feels right, she has been searching out truth a lot and feels that his may be it!

Taylor is doing well, she wasn't able to come to church but she is diligently searching the scriptures. She found 2 scriptures that contradicted in the Book of Mormon last week and was asking why. I had no Idea, but we had Sister Lofters with us and she was like, "That's because it is Nehor speaking, and he was and anit-christ telling false doctrine". Hallelujah for members! She saved the lesson! She should be at church this week, and we are seeing her again tonight! 

David, our other Mexican investigator who is a foreign exchange student is living with one of the members of our ward. We met with him on Friday and he basically told us the story of Joseph Smith down to Moroni appearing 3 times and then his only question was "What would Joseph Smith be tempted to do like it says in the Introduction?" He is awesome and super smart! He said he wasn't ready for church yet, but that was a cool story about what happened! We were supposed to have Marlin and Taylor at church but they both weren't able to make it, so we didn't have any investigators at church, all of the sudden, David walks in with the Jimenez family and we talked to him afterwards and he said they invited him out that morning and he decided to come! Sooooo cooool! 

I had Exchanges with Elder McDougal up in Midland last week, it was so good! I love Midland! It's a small town about 40 minutes north of Barrie! We rode the Bikes the entire day and met with all sorts of people! Elder McDougal is a straight stud, he's been out for 4 months now. He is from Peema, Arizona. We met their investigator Ed, who is Bahi, if you want to learn about an interesting religeon, look it up. They believe Christ has already come again in the form of a man named Baha-Ola.

I also had exchanges with Elder Nugent here in Barrie! He is an outstanding missionary! He is diligent, loving, obedient, everything! He keeps going and going! He is from Mapleton, Utah, and something really cool about him. His Dad and Grandpa were the first members baptized in Jamaica! I'm super grateful to have been with him. We had a cool experience, we had about 2 hours of finding time that we split up between a couple former investigators and the first one, nobody was home, so we worked the area. It seemed like nobody would talk to us, and door after door, person after person kept rejecting. After a while, we moved onto the next former, He wasn't home either, BUT we talked with all of his neigbors! And were able to find 2 new investigators, and quite a few potentials! It was cool to see that it was inspired planning, and reminded me that the without the Lord, we can't do this!

Last night we had dinner with a Member who was telling us about how she had visions, we have an investigator who has been having visions and hasn't been able to get them under control. It's a crazy situation, anyways, it's awesome because now she is coming teaching with us to help our investigator. You learn some crazy stuff about the World as a missionary.

I'm so grateful for the Gospel, I know that God Lives and his son Jesus Christ truely did come to the Earth and die for us! We have modern day prophets, the skies are open, and miracles still happen today! The Book of Mormon is true, and the Plan of Salvation is perfect, it rests upon the Atonement of our Savior, and through him, we can conquer death, because he already has!

Love you all, keep doing good!

Elder Taylor

Joshua 3:5

"And Joshua said unto the people, sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you"

Did Toby Send Ya? 6/6/15

Wow, what a great week we had this week! It was super busy, but has been so great! After emailing last P-Day we decided to go on a hike here in Barrie, so that is exactly what we did! 

We found a sweet trail here, and spend a few hours hiking around, the mosquito's were crazy however, if you stopped you would get swarmed by them! 

It was really nice to get out into Nature however and enjoy it! 

Today we are headed up to Midland with some of the Elder's in the Zone for Lunch with one of the Senior Couples and to go hiking again! The Weather is beautiful now for hiking, except the humidity and bugs, besides that though it's wonderful! We had dinner last week with with one of the New Converts, Toby McLaughlin, and had a lesson afterwards with him and his family! We taught the Plan of Salvation, and right at the end all of the sudden like 10 nerf swords came out of nowhere and it turned into a war in the midst of us! The kids were hitting Toby, and Toby was hitting the kids and their Daughter was hitting us! Everybody was laughing, it reminded me of something that would have happened back home!

Tuesday morning we met with Carrie, who we had an awesome lesson with, where she accepted a baptism date in July to work towards! She is agnostic and trying to find if God is there, but she committed to get work off on Sundays so that she can come to church so she can truely find out! She is amazing, and her two son's love when we come over, so we are going to try to teach them as well! We also met Marlin, our Mexican Investigator and talked about the Book of Mormon some more, she has been reading it and really coming to love it so much! On Tuesday night we had an awesome lesson, with "Darn it-Garnett". Now he is a referral from Toby, and Toby told us to go to the side door of this house and knock on the door and when he answered, ask him if Darn It-Garnett is home. So that is exactly what we did, and when he answered he said "Did Toby send ya?" Man, it was awesome! Garnett is from Jamaica, and we sat down with him and his girlfriend Shelley and talked about why we have trials! They both are going through some pretty big things right now, and we are meeting with them again today. When we were talking, Shelley asked us how we can be so hopeful when the world is a horrible place, and of course, we responded "Because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!" We are really excited for the two of them! After meeting with them we drove down to Brampton to spend the night for MLC the next morning!

MLC on Wednesday was outstanding! It was President Clayton's last MLC, and the spirit there was so strong. We learned a lot of things to continue to work with the Members here in Ontario. That is a big thing that our mission is focused on, because missionary work isn't about members helping missionaries, but all of us working together and us helping the members with their work! After that we had to rush home to plan Zone Council for the next day!

Zone Council on Thursday went really well! The spirit was so strong, man, I love my Zone! Such wonderful missionaries! We had Exchanges after and I was with Elder Davis for the Day in Barrie! He is from Salim, Utah! A really awesome missionary, who has been out for 18 months! He is serving in New Market which is about 45 minutes south of here on the Southern part of Lake Simcoe! It went super well, we had Dinner with Brother Slingsby who has one of the best handle-bar mustaches you'll every see! We met with the Dadd-Dowlat's on Thursday night, to teach Angel their daughter who is almost 8. Her Dad asked us to teach her the lessons so we have been doing that with their family!

After our Exchange we had some awesome lesson's with Marlin and then we had dinner with the Jiminez family where we had a Guatemalan/Filipino feast! They have a foreign exchange student living with them from Mexico who we started to teach, he is Catholic and said he will die catholic, but that's what they all say. I'm sure Nic has some experience with that one! Haha, we are excited for friday to meet with him again!

Saturday we did some Service for a Sister in the Ward and had a few people we were able to go by and meet, not too busy a day. We had to do Weekly planning as well!

On the wonderful Sabbath day, we were able to meet with our Investigator Taylor, who had ton's of questions, but is loving the Book of Mormon and loves to Pray! She should be at Church next week! 

That is a quick run through of the week! It was a great time!

Love you all!

Elder Taylor

Together Again 5/30/16

Wow, this week has been crazy busy! But me and Elder McKinnon and back together again and at it for the 3rd transfer together! It's been so fun to be back with him!

Monday was a good day that Elder Erickson and I had together for our final day together! We met with a lot of the members as well as with Mannie and Randy! They were both Baptized 2 months ago, they introduced us to something so incredibly good! It is white hot chocolate from Tim Horton's with Chai Tea! So delicious! We had a good day though overall, the members who we had dinner with had to cancel but gave us a gift card for East Side Mario's, so that's where we had dinner. :) All you can eat salad and breadsticks. You know we ate a ton!

Tuesday we had transfers so once we got back we jumped on the Bikes and had some lessons with Brother McIntee and the Giddy's!

Wednesday we had District Meeting, and I learned a valuable lesson! We have been praying for one of our Recent converts who has not been able to be Confirmed yet, his work takes up every sunday and has been super difficult! A while back I felt that we needed to teach him about tithing, but when it was brought up to him he wasn't very excited about it. I felt I had failed to present it, and in District meeting, I had a reconfirmation that we need to teach him tithing! So with that, we are going to do so! Never fail to act upon a prompting! 

Later that evening we went and saw a less-active member who has been having a hard time, he served a mission but is doubting his testimony. He is super awesome, and I am super excited to continue to work with him! His Girlfriend is a former investigator who is super solid whom we hope to begin teaching as well!

Thursday started off with another District Meeting! We also found out that one of the District Leaders in our zone was getting transfered to somewhere else and they were bringing Sister's into that area. We had to go and clean that apartment before the sisters got there, so that took a good chunk of the day unfortunately!

Friday We were out in Wasaga Beach for another District meeting! Yes, so many district meetings! We met with our investigator Taylor on Friday though, and had a great lesson on Baptism where she accepted to be baptized! She wasn't able to come to church on Sunday, but she should be able to come next week and we are going to invite her to be baptized in July this week, so we are super excited for her!

Saturday we helped our Elder's Quorum president, Brother Dadd-Dowlatt, rip out his Patio. It was a ton of work and with the sun beating down on us we got quite a bit of sun, our skin was a little pink by the end of it! We had to pull out railroad ties that were pounded into the ground with rebar, that was a lot of work for sure, but we were rewarded with some Beef Roti afterwards! Yummmmm!

Sunday was wonderful, it was Ward Conference, and the topic was keeping reverence on the Sabbath day in the home! It was really cool to hear everything that the Stake President had to say! I learned a lot about how I can improve my Sabbath day worship, and a lot about how I can help investigators understand the importance.

I've been reading a conference talk every day to remember what was said in conference and one I really have grown to love over the last few days is President Nelson's in Priesthood called "The Price of Priesthood Power". I love when President Nelson says 

"He named faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity, and diligence.10 And don’t forget humility!11 So I ask, how would our family members, friends, and coworkers say you and I are doing in developing these and other spiritual gifts?12 The more those attributes are developed, the greater will be our priesthood power.

How else can we increase our power in the priesthood? We need to pray from our hearts. Polite recitations of past and upcoming activities, punctuated with some requests for blessings, cannot constitute the kind of communing with God that brings enduring power. Are you willing to pray to know how to prayfor more power? The Lord will teach you.

Are you willing to search the scriptures and feast on the words of Christ13—to study earnestly in order to have more power? If you want to see your wife’s heart melt, let her find you on the Internet studying the doctrine of Christ14 or reading your scriptures!

Are you willing to worship in the temple regularly? The Lord loves to do His own teaching in His holy house. Imagine how pleased He would be if you asked Him to teach you about priesthood keys, authority, and power as you experience the ordinances of the Melchizedek Priesthood in the holy temple.15 Imagine the increase in priesthood power that could be yours."

The I love President Nelson, and I love this talk, it made me realize more about why I am on a mission and what I really want to take out of it, even though this talk is nothing about missionary work, I learned a lot from the Spirit on it!

This week is going to be awesome! We have MLC in Brampton, Zone Council, and Exchanges!

Love you all so much, and I'm so grateful for all of you and your support to me!

Your's Truly,

 Elder Taylor

Kerra went to the temple this week.