A Walk with a Dog...in a Cemetary

 This week gave us some amazing weather, we were up in the teens (Celcius) Which was amazing, it felt like summer. Well, maybe not summer but we were out in just shirts and sweaters. No Jackets, it was pretty amazing. Tons of people ended up outside too, so extra bonus. Yesterday was "Family Day" here in Ontario so our P-day got moved. I also had an exchange yesterday with Elder Shaffer, and we had a riot of a day. All our plans got cancelled and we couldn't find anybody to meet with, but that didn't stop us. We where stopping by all sorts of people and talking with everybody. It seemed like to no avail, but we had dinner with one of the New Converts Beverly who invited her friend Mo over! We talked about the Book of Mormon with him and he committed to come out to church! Who would have thought, such a cool day. It was a bit tough, but it ended amazing. 

Our investigator Kathleen is going great, we went over the Book of Mormon with her again, and it's importance. She was supposed to go to Toronto for the weekend so we didn't think she would be at church on sunday but when we walked into the chapel, she was there sitting. She lives 30 minutes away and doesn't have a car, so of course we where shocked to see her there. She's doing amazing, and we are going to help her set a Baptismal date this week, exciting times! 

I also Had exchanges with Elder Carroll this week, it was awesome. We had an action packed day, the coolest miracle happened that day. We were out and about and got a text from a guy named Ray, I taught him once like 5 months ago but nothing happened and we hadn't been able to meet up since. He set an appointment and we went to see him that night. We talked about Repentence with him and he talked about how he was feeling that his past wasn't wiped away, he still felt guilt from past mistakes, so we were able to talk about and relate baptism and the Sacrament to him. The spirit filled the room so strong and we were able to help him set a Baptismal date. He's already been reading the Book of Mormon and feels like it is true, he also has had some amazing experiences that have been preparing him!

Friday was Zone Conference with President and Sister Shields. What a great day that was, as we talked about the Sacrament and the need for us to repent and become more Christlike. I really took a lot from the meeting, and I was able to have an interview with President afterwards because we get interviews every transfer now.

Sunday was really cool, Hesam got to pass the sacrament for the first time, and it was so cool to see him. After we sat down he was going on about how awesome it felt, it made me realize how much I took it for grantid each week as I passed and blessed the sacrament. It is such a sacred thing, and we should find a way to make it special every week, by repenting before we arrive. 

Last week we also took Beverly's dog for a walk and read the Book of Mormon in the Cemetery with her, it was such a nice day and made me really excited for the warm weather! 

 

Love you all so much!

-- 

Elder Adam Taylor

 

 

Ballantyne's Day! ❤️ 02/13/2017

 That's right, it's not happy Valentines day, but happy Ballantyne's day! So cool story this week, the Ballantyne's live out in Strathroy, and we've been trying to get into see them for a few weeks. Roxanne (Mom), and her son Devonte were baptized, but there are like 5 others kids over the age of 8 that can be baptized, it's like a missionary Gold Mine! We got out there on Wednesday and were able to see them, when we got inside, Roxanne introduced us to her sister Kathleen, who just moved from Toronto in with her. SCORE! Then Roxanne told us her sister wants to be baptized! What the, no way. We taught about Baptism, Faith, Repentence, and on Saturday we went back and taught the Restoration. Sunday Kathleen came out too church and loved it, we see them again on Tuesday and we have plans on setting them with a Baptismal Date! Hurrah! We're also going to start teaching all of Roxanne's kids.

I had a sweet exchange this week with Elder Olson, I was actually Elder Olson's first exchange 6 transfers ago in Barrie. Now he is one of our district leaders. It was so fun to go on another exchange with him, he's awesome, a straight stud. He's from Price. We had a super good exchange, all our appointments fell through for the evening so we decided to catch the buses for the night, so we hung up the car keys and jumped on the buses for a few hours. We were standing at a bus stop at one point and a guy came up to the bus stop, and turn around and lit a dubie, right away he turned to us and said "You boys wouldn't approve" and walked away.. We tried to talk to him but I guess he wasn't there enough to talk. On the buses though we met some super cool people, one girl named Paige who we got an appointment with who we will be seeing this week! 

 

Last P-day we got to go too meet a guy named Shawn Nelson. So Shawn Nelson is the founder and creator of Love Sak, he served his mission with one of the members of the ward here in Taiwan. So the member here, Brother Hill, is a teacher at the university and teaches Entrepreneurship, and invited us to his class where Shawn was coming to teach at and share his story on the term "Hustle", which is basically the term for working hard all the time, not wasting time with this and that but working super diligently. It was a crazy story he told about the importance of Hustle. I've taken that phrase now as my new mission phrase. It's all about The Hustle! 

I'm so grateful for all the blessings that come from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I've really come to recognize the hand of God in my life,and I'm so grateful to be able to stand as a representative of Christ! I love the Gospel, and I love the Book of Mormon!

Love ya all!

Elder Taylor

 

My Pet Peeve & Rebuked By The Spirit

I'll start off with a funny experience of the week, last week we left our phone in the living room so we didn't have our alarm so we accidentally slept in a bit. We felt pretty bad, and in Comp studies that morning we were trying to decide what song to sing. Elder Layton had the idea to sing "Should you feel inclined to Censure". I opened right to it so we figured it must be inspiration. We sand it and then read the scipture attached, this is where we got rebuked by the spirit. The scipture is Doctrine and Coventants 88:124... Read the scripture to understand. We laughed pretty hard, but realized we needed to make sure it didn't happen again. 

Last week I talked about the Missionary World-wide broadcast, it was really cool and it tied into the MLC we had this week. I'll explain how. In the Broadcast they talked a lot about using our agency for good, and how it gives us power to have freedom. With the Broadcast came some changes to the mission schedule. We now have more freedom to do things differently and chose the order of things. For example in the morning, we have planning, personal study, working out and preparing for the day. Not in any specific order, but we should accomplish those things in whatever works best. It was also very focused on the missionaries need to partake of the Sacrament, because that is our next ordinance, and will give us power and "greater power to persuade" those we teach. At MLC this last week we had the opportunity to spend the night in Brampton the night before, it's a tradition for the Zone Leaders. It's always fun, but often we come up with traditions that aren't bad, but detract from our calling as missionaries. For example, we had a challenge of eating scotch bonnet peppers. So this time the Assistants sat us down and we talked about making more spiritual traditions, which was really cool. They gave us a "Call to arms" to rise more fully to our calling. There was a lot of love in it however, and it really changed things. We all took time to write our testimony in a Book of Mormon as well as we were able to bare testimony of the Book of Mormon. It was a powerful night and set a good tone for MLC the next day. At MLC we talked a lot about our dependency on the sacrament, it was powerful and we all went away wanting to be better, and become more like Christ. That continued to our Zone Council and now is flooding the mission. As I took the Sacrament I felt the spirit very strongly, because I chose to prepare for the sacrament and repent before in advance, which is a necessary help. I really felt the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to partake of the sacrament weekly to remember and renew my covenants with him. I would encourage and invite all who read this email to stand taller, repent more, and to prepare on a weekly basis for the most important part of their week, the Sacrament. 

 

The London Zone 

We had a really cool experience this week, we were out looking for a member who is MIA and we had an address. We pulled up and got out, and went into the apartment building. While looking through the buzzer codes for her, and with no success, a man opened the door and said "Hey Elders". Turns out he use to investigate the church, he was in a hurry to leave but told us he'd reach out to us, now this was cool, but what happened next was unexpected. We went down the stairs, not really with a reason and when we got down into the basement hallway, we stood and looked down the hall trying to decide what to do. We had others close by we were going to go by, and just before we left, I turned and knocked on a door randomly. A girl named Christina opened the door wearing a black dress. She went on to tell us about how that day she had just gone to her Grandmothers funeral, and then was in car, we started to talk about the Plan of Salvation, and she couldn't believe it. She said that it was no coincidence, but she went on to talk about her doubt about God being there, we felt prompted to promise her that if she sincerely prayed she would be able to feel God's love. She accepted the invitation and said we could come back. It's amazing how the Lord truly does provide the way for us to walk our paths. 

On Saturday I got to teach Daily Dose, which was fun. I just had one student in my class, he was from China and we went over asking for directions and giving directions. It's fun to get to help in so many different ways as a missionary, not only to share of Christ, but to help others increase their skills so they can build up their lives. 

Last thing I wanted to share was from my studies this week. It was amazing, I'm reading through Ether right now and I was in Chapter 6. The connection with our lives and our challenges is really cool. Verse 3 teaches that Christ will never leave us in the Storm, but his light will always be there. You can also connect it with the Light of Christ of the Holy Ghost. The chapter continues on and talks about how the barges where "Tight like unto a dish", which is how we need to build our testimony, so that the storms do not break us down. And lastly, the Lord allowed the storms to happen for the space of 344 days so that they could be pushed and taken to the promised land by the winds and waves. Our Heavenly Father allows storms to push and become more like him, so that when our Journey is over, we can land in Eternal Life, living with God again. 

With Love from Canada,

Elder Adam Taylor

My pet peeve - crumbs in the butter! He's GUILTY!

 

A yummy lunch - Poutine & Jones Soda