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