Goodbye Barrie! 09/26/16

 

Well, We got the transfer call last night.. and it turns out that I'm headed to London! I'm excited, it's a pretty big city, between 300,000 and 400,000 people! Looking forward to that new adventure! I'm going to be serving with Elder Certonio yet again, so crazy how I keep getting put back with Companions! I'm so excited though, looking forward to it so stinking much! I'm going to miss Barrie so much however, this place feels like my home away from home, I love the people here so much, and I love the area. It's sad to leave, and it kills me to say goodbye, but, I'm needed elsewhere! Get this though, Elder T is coming back to Barrie! Hahaha, crazy eh? My goodness. 

This week was crazy with all sorts of different things. Stressful week in the sense that we had to do a lot of reports this week because it's the end of the month and transfer, so it was nice to get all those done. 

We had an amazing lesson with one of our Investigators Stefan, we got there and he had been drinking some and had a pack of cigarettes, so we started to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it was only our second lesson with him, and we were talking about Baptism. Then Stef said, "I have to be honest with you, I had an experience, I did what you said, I believe Joseph Smith is a prophet" I think my jaw hit the ground, it was awesome. He then asked what he needed to do to be baptized so Elder Munsey (Exchanges) brought up the word of wisdom and then looked at and passed the conversation to me so I had to teach what he couldn't do.. It was funny afterwards we laughed a lot about it, anyhow, we talked and Stef took his beer and dumped it on the ground, he then said he still needed to smoke so hit lit one and sat back, we invited him to be baptized on Oct. 29th and he leaned forward, snapped his cigarette in half, and through the pack over the fence and said "What else do I have to do". He then proceeded to come to church on sunday, loved it there! He also told us he gave all his beer to his neighbor! It was awesome! He's doing amazing!

I don't have a ton to write this week, sorry. But I'll send lots of pictures for you to enjoy. They are more fun anyhow. 

Love you,

Elder Taylor

 

 

 

 

Fun Times in Mississauga! 9/19/16

Another week has rolled by, crazy to think! It was a grand week however. We were able to see some awesome miracles! Some of the weekly highlights were that of Zone Council and Exchanges! On Thursday morning we had our Zone Council where we talked about Ward Mission plans and how they work, and then we had a big focus on how to work with the ward council and support it! It was really fun to talk about supporting the ward's and branches here! Later that evening we got to go on exchanges! 

 

Elder Bliss and I are going great, I love him. It's been such a fun week. Transfers are next week so we'll see what happens. I have no Idea what will happen, I've been here a while so i guess we'll see.

 

 
I went to Brampton with Elder Carroll and what an awesome time I had down there. Elder Carroll is from AZ and he came out one transfer before me, he is a Mandarin missionary but covers 2 areas, Churchville YSA and Mississauga Chinese. I've served around Elder Carroll a bit but never really got to know him all that well, so I really enjoyed serving along side him for a day and getting to know him. We started the exchange with the Brampton Zone Council, because of exchanges I got to go, and it went so so well. They talked a lot about the Atonement and was a very spiritual meeting! We then went into Mississauga for the day to downtown Mississauga to a huge mall complex called Square One, where we had some appointments. We taught some great people and then had to be back in Brampton for a few appointments, picked up some Panda express real fast, which I haven't had in a long time, and turns out it isn't real chinese food.. haha! But after those meetings we had to go back to Mississauga for a coordination meeting and then back to Barrie. It was a busy busy day for sure! 

Saturday decided to be super rainy, luckily we had our weekly planning, but in the middle of weekly planning we decided to go by a referral that we got from online, so we went over there and he was home. He hadn't been home for a long time, but we were finally able to talk with him! His name is Mornia, He wants to come to church, he is in College right now and is from India. He is Hindu but really wants to learn more about what Christianity is about. It was cool to see how the Lord truly guided us to go see him. The Lord truly works miracles. 

We have been so blessed recently, we are working with 4 different families, which hardly ever happens! I love teaching families, true kingdom builders. 

Callister and Natasha are doing well, we saw them again and when we got there they asked us about Baptism! We talked about it, and set them with a date for the end of October! They weren't able to come to church yesterday but will be coming out this week. They are amazing, I love them!!

John and Kathy had us over for dinner last week and a lesson and Kathy told us how the Book of Mormon and our visits always make her really excited, they are doing so well!

As for 1 Nephi 3, I loved that chapter. I love verse 7, it's so simple yet so true. The Lord always provides ways for us to achieve the commandments and things that he asks of us! Also, I don't see how Laman and Lemuel can see an angel and still murmur. Wow, It shows how important the Holy Ghost is in our lives, it burns a knowledge into our soul of spiritual things. 

Love you!

Elder Taylor

Some P Day hiking. 

 

An African Lunch 09/12/16

Good Morning to all of you! What an absolutely crazy week we had here!

On Tuesday we began with an amazing Lunch with our Investigator Fabrice, the Sisters, and a bunch of his friends. He is from Cameroon and his friends are from other countries in Africa, they spent 4 hours cooking and created a huge feast for us of baked fish with fried plantains, Granite Soup which is a mix between peanut soup and tomato soup with beef, and a bunch of other dishes! We had such a great time with them, and Fabrice is doing well. Right now we have been discussing a lot about the Sabbath day, because he is 7th day he believes the Sabbath is on Saturday so we have been doing lots of studying on Mosaic Law and the Sabbath. Really interesting. 

Right after Lunch we got a phone call from President Shields... Oh boy! He told us that Elder T was needed up North in Rouyan, Quebec. A new french missionary was coming in and he needed a trainer, so he was told that he would be going up there later and Elder Bliss would be coming with me in Barrie. Elder Bliss was one of the District Leaders so we talk a lot, I've been on 2 exchanges with him and talk with him all the time on the phone! Great Elder! He is from Tampa, Florida but his family just moved to St. George. He's a wizard when it comes to scriptural and Doctrinal knowledge. We've had a great time already! 

 
 

Wednesday was quite the day, it got super hot and humid and all our appointments fell through so we decided we were going to go out and talk with people like crazy! We ended up walking 15km over a period of 4hrs straight, we were exhausted after, but we found some awesome people! Because it was so hot we decided to get huge slurpee's after, that cooled us down for sure!

 

On Friday we had the opportunity to meet with Elder Arnold of the Quorum of the Seventy. Wow... Wow... he's amazing. I even got an interview with him! He spoke last conference on Rescueing the lost sheep. He spoke with fire, and pulled us apart with a few things, he really got the missionaries excited about missionary work though. He taught us a lot about being better missionaries. In my interview with him it was amazing the questions he asked me that answered questions I've had myself for quite a while. He answered them, he is so receptive to the spirit, and said a few things that made us realize he's had some crazy experiences. I asked him how he is able to discern the spirit so well and he told me to read D&C 138:1-10, I recommend everybody read it. Great great chapter and really interesting. 

Sunday was awesome, Fabrice and our Investigator Nigel came to church, we were able to set Nigel with a baptismal date in October, he is really excited to come! We were also asked by the primary to come to Primary to help teach about missionary work! It was tons of fun, and when one of the kids said the closing prayer he said "Please bless all the missionaries around the world that they don't get killed by the wicked" I'll take that blessing any day. We all died laughing afterwards, way funny!

The evening was the crazy miracles however, we were at the church putting together something with the ward list and we ran across name that we hadn't been by of a Part member Family. They were about 20 minutes away so we decided to rush out there and try to find them. We went out there and they weren't home, but here is where the miracles started happening. First, we talked to these guys outside who said there was a guy down the street going through a hard time, he was in an accident a while back and is still recovering, and he sent us to another house as well, we went to the other house who said to go next door where we met Marcy and her Daughter, who told us to come back next week. We then went to the other house with the man in a accident and Natasha opened the door, she invited us right in and we met with her, and her husband Callister who was in the accident, and their two kids! We taught them the Plan of Salvation and every time we mentioned families, Natasha's eyes lit up! They are so prepared, and we get to go see them again on Wednesday! Crazy how the Lord Works!

We finished the night with our investigator watching the YSA devotional with Elder Cook. He said "being sincerely christ like is more important than being authentic" I love that, it's such a cool statement that I want to put into my life even more!

1 Nephi 2- I love how Lehi has the faith to leave Jerusalem, to leave EVERYTHING except his family. And then When Laman and Lemuel start to whine, we have to look at the brightness and happiness around us, not focus on what we are missing or what we don't have!

The gospel is true, I testify. I've seen some amazing miracles as a missionary that show it more and more. God lives and loves us, the scriptures are true. We have a living Prophet and Apostles, and as we follow their advice, and our other church leaders advice, we will reap blessing and happiness!

Love Elder Taylor

Elder T & I Are Staying in Barrie! 9/6/16

Well, we got the Transfer call, but just to tell us what was happening in the Zone! Elder T and I are staying another transfer together, wahoo!! So excited! We had quite the week though, let me tell you! We've been having such a good time up here and things are going so so well! Kat was Baptized up in Midland this week! 

It went so well, we got to go up to it, and oh man. It was powerful, I love Baptisms. 

 

President Shields was there as well and he gave a short talk after the Baptism on living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was cool, he talked about how the Lord doesn't Judge us on how well we do, and how much we do. But he does on the desires of our hearts and how well we apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our life by having Faith, Repenting, being Baptized, Receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. What a wonderful day it was.

 

In 2 Nephi 4 I learned quite a few cool lessons! I loved how he speaks about his hear "groaning due to his sins" and then he rejoices in his heart because of his forgiveness! He also talks about raising his voice to the Heavens.

Earlier that day, the weather decided to turn and poor rain all day, and it just so happened to be the day all of our appointments fell through! Darn it, we got wet! Soaking wet, but luckily it was the Day of Kat's Baptism so that got us dry for a bit. Our feet were soaked so we dried our socks by hanging them out of the window while we drove. It's been really dry here this summer, apparently it's the worst drought in 75 years. So when the rains came, it flooded tons of houses, we helped pull up some members carpets because of it.

Our Investigators are doing well, the first is Kendra, she's in her 20's and requested a bible a while back, but she's doing super well! She loves reading and is really getting into the Book of Mormon! We also got a referral from a lady named Danette who lives in the middle of nowhere, and she's on vacation this week, but really interested so we are going back next week! Kathy and John are two of our investigators who are doing really well, we saw them this week and Kathy asked for a Chinese Book of Mormon because she didn't understand the English one very well, she's super funny though, they needed help removing wall paper so we went over to help them with that. Kathy told us she was putting on some music, and us thinking, it's probably going to be some like half decent music in the background we could ignore, she puts on some LOUD Emminem, Drake, and a bunch of other Rappers... oh man it was pretty awkward, but funny. They're good friends with a member who came and asked her  to change the music, in fact his exact words were "Kathy, you're polluting the missionaries".

We met this cool guy named Pino last week, he is from Italy, he was working on putting a roof rack on his car so we stopped to help him out! He was awesome, but he hates religion because of all the fraud that takes place in them and he went off on that, so unfortunately he wasn't too interested, BUT, we're going back soon to talk to him again!

 

That's about it for the Week, I love you all so much! I love this gospel, and I'm very grateful for my Saviour Jesus Christ. It's amazing how loving he is, so much as to forgive us of all our depts, depts we should have to pay for, he paid for out of Love for us! I'll never understand how he could love us that much, all I know is that he does.

Elder Taylor

 

District Meeting

 

Goodbye Elder Ryan. 

Elder Ballard Was Here! 08/22/2016

Elder Ballard put it best when he said that the Canada Toronto Mission is the only true and living mission! Wow, we had such a great week, I can't even believe it, It's amazing! He flew in with Elder Bennett (Seventy), his son-in-law who served here, and his grandson on Friday night, Saturday morning we had a special missionary conference with him, Saturday afternoon we had a ward council meeting with him that was videoed into our buildings, and then on Sunday was the General Session. As I reviewed my notes this morning, I thought about the things that I wanted to tell all of you that apply to you. So here is a brief Idea of what was shared:

Elder Bennett; 

He spoke on Priesthood power, and how a setting apart gives authority to act, but obedience brings the power, it reminded me of President Nelson's talk this last General Conference. He also shared 2 missionary experiences he has had in the last little while, one took place on an airplane where he was prompted to talk to the man next to him, he did and it turned out he was a devout Catholic, they talked about their beliefs for hours and the next day, Kevin emailed Elder Bennett and told him that he wanted to meet up and talk some more. The Next was a man named Jeff who Elder Bennett met on an airplane as well, Jeff belongs to the Jewish faith and the way that Elder Bennett introduced the Gospel was by saying, "One of our volumns of scriptures actually follows a Jewish family who leaves Jerusalem and travels to America." This got him very excited and they still email to this day.

Elder Bennett also talked about how fear and doubt block our abilities to hear the spirit, that's why Satan works so hard to bring those into our lives. 

Elder Ballard;

He talked about not memorizing the Gospel but internolizing it. Not just knowing it in our minds, but understanding it in our hearts. I love this! He also talked about Sequoia trees, which are the largest tree in the world. In fact, they can grow 150-250 feet tall and live to 1000 years old. They have a very hard bark that is resistant to insects and fungus. He went on to tell of some Sequoia's planted at BYU. One which had died, which is surprising due to the type of tree it is. After researching what had happened, it was discovered the simply, the tree had died due to a lack of water. Even with all these strengths, it was killed because of a lack of water. He talked about how important it is to have the "Living Water" in our lives and feasting upon it. We do this by continuealy living the Gospel, reading the sciptures, praying, talking the sacrament... ect. The Lord will also micromanage our lives if we are willing to listen to the spirit and live so that we can harken to it. 

Someone asked Elder Ballard when we should go to Adam-Ondi-Amen, and his response was this "When you see the quorum of the twelve and the First Presidency packing their bags, then is the time to go, As for now, plant your cherry trees, worry about now!"

Whenever we come across hardships, trials, feel burdened down, "Let our minds go to Gethsemane" Remember the Savior always, don't forget, and think of him in the Hardest times. 

Lastly, he got up and said "I love being a general authority, I can do whatever I want in meetings" He then called up his son and grandson, got them both on his side and said "This is everything" Family is everything, it should be our main focus. It was very powerful!

I could go on and on, I'm sure you can tell, but I'll leave it at that and tell you a bit about what happened this week to us. A few experiences I want to share with you in particular, The first being a new couple we began teaching, Matheos and Thamara, they are form Brazil, and walked into church 2 weeks ago! They are so awesome, and the spirit is so strong in all of our lesson's with them. I really do look forward to them continueing to progress in the gospel! Next, we recieved a referral from a member to a MIA member so we went by and met him, interesting guy indeed, but the coolest things happened, his friend was there, who we ended up meeting with, he talked about how he felt there was no purpose in his life and how God could never heal him. We talked and listened for only about 15 minutes, we gave his a few scriptures, and by the end, the spirit had changed his views, he felt Heavenly Father's love for him, and he wants to find healing through the Book of Mormon now! I'm so excited for him! We also stopped by a former investigator named Alain, but he wasn't home. His brother Fabrice was though, and we started to teach him, he was baptized Seventh Day adventist but doesn't feel it 's true. He loves talking about the Gospel, and he even came out to church on Sunday, wonderful things are going to come forward with him! 

That really is how my week went, as for Mormon 9 I learned that Miracles come based upon our Faith! That we need to do all things in worthiness for the Lord and that God shows us our imperfections to help us. I also love how He talks about how the Book of Mormon is going to be in the language of his Fathers instead of Hebrew because that's the only way to make it fit even though it won't be as descriptive. He also says that it can't be translated by anything but the power of God! So amazing!

I love you all!

Elder Taylor