Elder T 07/11/16

Hope you all had a fantastic week, we did for Sure! I'm sure you are all curious about Elder T! I'll give you a rundown on him. Elder T's dad is from New Caledonia, but his ancestors are from Tihiti, and his mom is from France. Elder T was born in France and when he was 5 moved to Tihiti. His first language is French and he has learned English since he has been out. He has 6 months left and has been serving up North for the last year of his mission. In fact, if you watch the mormon message "Temples are a Beacon" it is of Elder T's family! Really really cool story! Anyways, he has been telling me all about Island life and teaching me bits and pieces of French! I love Elder T so far, he is super funny and we are having a really good time together!

This week was really cool, Elder T even put his French to use, the first person he talked to in Barrie was inside our apartment building, turns out they are from Montreal, originally from the Kongo, but hey speak French. His name is Rick and he is a Pastor at his church, but we were able to teach him the restoration and he is curious about learning more! Also, we met with our Investigator Roderique who is from Cameroon, and brought Brother Thompson who served his mission in Paris. So the entire lesson was in French and I got a taste of the frustration that it would be like to serve in another country and not be able to understand the language. For all those missionaries learning another language, good luck! So I didn't know this, but a lot of Africa speaks French because it was settled by France, so a lot of the African people we meet all speak French.

On Wednesday we got to Meet President and Sister Shields! They are doing great, we love them already! They are from Salt Lake City and were just released as the Pioneer Stake President. They have 7 children and President was a Bankruptcy Attorney!

We had a lesson and dinner with one of the Filipino members and her non-member son! It went really well, unfortunately they just moved out of our area so we can't teach him anymore... for dinner we had BBQ bacon, it was like huge chunks of Bacon roasted over the barbecue... it was as good as it sounds!

We have been working with Garnett, who is our Jamaican, he is in a really hard place right now and really struggling with feeling like he has a purpose. He has gone through some really difficult times and is prepared now! He is really starting to dive into the Book of Mormon now and said he wants to be baptized last night!

We got to take a trip up to Midland this week for a Baptismal interview! I love giving interviews because the spirit is strong, and it's cool to see how much the gospel can change people in such a short period of time!

That's about it for this week, all is well here!

This gospel is true, what can I say more!

Je T'aime

Elder Taylor