To Blessed To Be Tired 5/8/17

 

(Last time with Elder Layton - he is going home.) 

I think this last week has been one of the busiest weeks of my whole mission. We were running all over the place trying to get things figured out and put together, meet with people, find people, everything. We had to take care of a lot of business stuff, and cram lessons into the time we had open. We barely had time to eat, we had dinner at 10pm a lot because we didn't have time for dinner throughout the day. We're too blessed to be tired though.

Early Tuesday morning we had to travel to Brampton to get the truck and trailer because we had to clean out and close down an apartment. That took up a huge chunk of the day, for some reason missionaries have to hand like a million pictures up with push pins so I had to fill all the wholes in the wall. That took forever, I felt like I was working in construction. Later on we had to head to St. Catherines and had dinner with Emily and the Chinese Elders. We went to a Doughnut shop owned by this little chinese couple, and this place has the best Wonton Soup.

Early Wednesday morning we had to wake up to go into Brampton, unload the whole trailer and be at a meeting for 7:30am... Craziness, basically that meeting went all day. It was way good though, we don't have Zone council's anymore. The Area Authorities have gotten rid of them, which is sad because we don't get to do those meetings anymore, but there are plenty of other meetings. By the time we got home, and saw a few people, or day was over!

One of the Burlington members called us and told us she had a YSA living in her basement who's been through a hard time recently, his name is Brett so we went over to meet with him this week. He is so unbelievable prepared, as we met with him we felt very strongly to leave 2 specific commitments with him, first to ask God for forgiveness of his past mistakes, and second, to read Alma 32. It was cool because after our lesson we were talking and we both had the idea to leave the same exact 2 commitments. It's cool to see how the Lord can help us work together so well. Elder Toly and I have been having an awesome time together, it's been absolutely amazing! 

We had such a cool lesson with Jaspreet this week. We met with her at the Chapel and the Hornburgers joined us for the lesson. Jaspreet had been asking us why bad things happen to people when they are doing things like worshipping God or helping others. She has really struggled a lot with that question. We taught the Plan of Salvation, the Hornbergers told of their experiences with the Plan of Salvation, the Spirit was so unbelievably strong, and at the end of the lesson we turned to her and asked the question she had asked us, and she responded by saying something along the lines of "So that we can learn and become better, and also so that we can show God we will make the right choices." All I have to say is that the Spirit taught her, it wasn't us at all. 

Earlier this week we had to stop in at Walmart to get some ink for our printer, while we were there Elder Toly had to use the Washroom so I was sitting on a bench waiting and this old man named Mike sat next to me. I began to talk to him, and without realizing our conversation went on for 45 minutes. I think Elder Toly was ready to die by the end of my conversation with him, but he told me about his life story. Something cool he shared was how he came to know Christ, and as he did that he wanted to help somebody else somehow. He rented out his basement to what he referred to as a "Druggie". Anyhow, Mike ended up having a stroke and this "Druggie" saved his life. He then had a good friend die of a stroke. He asked why was he still alive, and his friend die. He said he hadn't been able to find the answer yet for himself. I testified of the Plan of Salvation and he gave us his contact info, and said we could come by. Too bad he isn't YSA, but we're going to try to get him to meet with the Sisters. 

Sunday was a special broadcast for the North American North East Area. We got to hear from Elder Oaks, Elder Perkins, and our Stake President. One of my favorite quotes was this "Your phone should be a slave not your master". Elder Oaks also went off on members and the need for them to invite their friends to learn of the Gospel. We love whenever missionary work is brought up. 

A very cool things we learned at MLC, was this, when we pray we should ask the Lord for a miracle, and commit to him that if we don't, it won't be before we didn't try. I know that the Lord does send miracles and helps us in every aspect of our lives!

Love you all, Elder Taylor

 

 

 

Hamilton Hog Roast 5/1/17

I'll start off his week with a story to show the excitement of Hamilton. We had a lesson early one morning that we got back from our appointment at around 9am. When we parked out front there was this little asian man in a panic. He started to point at his tires and then proceeded to point at the cars all around him on the street. As we looked, every cars tires were flat. Someone slashed all the car tires parked on the street. There were like 6 cars that had knife wholes in all their tires. I guess we lucked out by having a garage. Thank goodness we didn't park on the street! That's not even the end of the story. The asian man got in his car and started to drive away on his rims!! His rims were bending and his tires were coming off, his car hardly moved but he put on the hazards and proceeded down the street! What the Flip?

What a great start to a transfer eh? Let me tell you all a bit about my companion, man have we had an awesome time together so far! His name is Elder Toly, he is from Lethbridge, Alberta. So my very first Canadian companion. He's been out 1 transfer less than me and he just came from Oshawa YSA(He says the Niagara YSA is already better). He's big into sports, loves basketball, he has 3 siblings, he also likes the outdoors (We'll be friends). The other Elder that moved in with us is Elder Dardon, from Penn Valley, California. His parents are both Latino, but he looks straight while. We all make jokes about how we have an American, a Mexican, an African and a Canadian living in the same house.

 

Last monday we had a HAMILTON HOG ROAST! That was the best way to end the transfer, Elder Stone and I were in charge of butchering, so we butchered this roasted pig for close to an hour. Man was that meat delicious! 

 

 

We had an awesome lesson this week with Belen, she is doing awesome. She came to church, our YSA activity. She's really diving into the Book of Mormon right now, so we're excited to see how she feels about Baptism more this week. It's been cool to see her fellowshipped into the Branch here, it seems like she knows so many of the members! 

 

We met with Jaspreet and her friend Harpreet this week and she took us to her Sikh temple! It was interesting, you have to take your shoes off when you go in, and then we went into this big room where they worship their God, we just sat back and watched, and then they give you this weird stuff, that is similar to bread dough, but it is more moist and not as stick, it's sweet, and oily. Basically it turns out it's like their sacrament. We then went into the basement where they give free meals to anybody so we had dinner down there. It was really cool to get to talk about their beliefs and see how they worshiped, and helped us to know a lot better about what we can do to help her understand the organization of the Church as well as our beliefs. It always amazes me to see commonalities between different religions. 

We started to teach this girl named Michelle, We found her tracting 2 weeks ago and were able to teach her the restoration this week. At the end of the lesson she didn't feel comfortable praying so Elder Toly said the prayer. After the prayer she asked if we believed in Aura, we told her about the Holy Ghost, and explained it's role, and asked her why she asked? She proceeded to tell us that we were both glowing while we were praying. It was pretty shocking, I didn't know what to say really. While we were teaching her she seemed very shy and we weren't sure how much intent she had, but this experience changed our minds on that!

Saturday we had a Branch activity, the Elders Quorum put on a dinner for the Relief Society, we got picked as the entertainment/Spritual thought. We ended up doing a pretty long skit of Book of Mormon stories. Everybody was laughing, not sure if it was at us or with us... 

We were down in St. Cats for District meeting, afterwards we went and met Emily for Beechwood doughnuts and a lesson, I think I'm addicted to them now. They're so good! Emily actually was in charge of the lesson so we all sat in the park with our doughnuts and Emily taught us about God's hand being in our lives.

We got a referral for a guy named Ryan, who's mom is a member, he is reading the Book of Mormon, and we have a lesson with him tomorrow... It's amazing how the Lord prepares so many people, we've been blessed recently with so many miracles just like this.

Yesterday during the sacrament, I had a very strong witness of the reality of Christ's love and forgiveness. I'm so grateful for Christ and his willingness to forgive all things and the example he had given unto all of us. He lives, and he will come again in all his Glory! The Gospel brings joy and rest, and I'm grateful that I know of it, how lucky I am to have been born into the Gospel, and how lucky I am to have the opportunity to share it with those who were not born into it. 

Love you all!

Elder Adam Taylor