Olympics In the Zone

Well it feels like it has been like 12 minutes since I wrote last week. Time has been flying lately, and especially this transfer has absolutely flown by. I can't believe it is week five of the transfer already. 

Our zone this week did zone Olympics. It was super fun and we saw lots of cool miracles. There are weekly challenges where we get points and there are also daily challenges to get points. 

Monday was Family Day in Canada which is basically just an excuse to have a day off. But the challenge for that day was to hand out Family Proclamation pamphlets. We handed out quite a bit and got a cool potential investigator. The guy was just walking out for a smoke and had a beer. He wasn't religious at all but his wife was so he told us she might be interested. It was super cool. Then we went to FHE at the hatches and played some pong with scriptures. It was a party.

Tuesday was P day and no challenges.

Wednesday was a baptism challenge or something. We dropped off a lot of cookies to some families in need. That was one of the challenges for the Olympics. We dropped off some cookies to our recent converts, they have been pretty sick recently and we haven't been able to see them. But we stopped by and visited with them for a while and then they told us to come back. It was really cool. 

Thursday we had a lot of meetings and there wasn't a daily challenge but we were able to meet with a part member family that is super awesome. She is probably going to get baptized eventually. They live out in the middle of the bush though. It is pretty cool.  

Friday was a fun day. The challenge was to talk to as many extra people as we can. It was really fun. I just had our area book in the car and called all the formers while we drove to Balderson. We were able to set up an appointment for the next day. In Balderson we only had like two minutes to tract and so we prayed and decided to try this house with a dog in the front of it. This lady that answered the door had a friend that was LDS and she is interested in learning more! It was super cool.  

Saturdays challenge was to do as much unplanned service as we could. We got the text about the challenge right as we walked in the church and saw a family cleaning the church. We helped them clean and it was really cool. Then we met with the former investigator. He was really old and crazy. And that was about it. But the Hatches had us over for pizza so it was all better in the end.

Sunday was church. And the challenge was to compliment as much people we could besides church. We decided to walk around a park and compliment people. I complimented this guy's hat and he said he has 20 just like it and he is going to give both of us one. Then we went to the Hatches for dinner. It is amazing food.

Deuteronomy 30:8 is the most wonderful Elder Beddes favourite scripture and it is very good. 

And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the Lord, 

and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.

Loves
Elder Talbot

One Year Older and Wiser, too!

Hello people. Smiths Falls felt like having crazy snowy, icy weather was boring, so it decided to get really hot. And by hot I mean 8 degrees (46 F). But it was comparatively really warm and felt really good to be outside. The weather was nice which was good cause we spent about three different mornings in the last week emptying that trailer full of wood that we loaded last week. There is a ton of wood in that trailer and we aren't even done. 

I don't know what it is about Elder Shepherd but people really like feeding him. We have had dinner appointments almost every day the last two weeks. It's been nice not having to cook for a while. I don't know if I mentioned earlier, but lunchtime got changed to 30 minutes. Which really isn't that big of a deal, we just don't have too much time to take naps now.

We finally got to meet with Lisa this week! It has probably been 3 months since we last saw her. She has had the flu almost the entire time of that 3 months. It was rough but she is doing good now. We taught about the Plan of Salvation. She really liked it and it really helped comfort her. We are praying that she stays not sick so we can continue to meet with her.

My birthday was Thursday, and it was a party all day. One of our older members took us out to a Chinese buffet for lunch. He is super cool and has tons of cool stories. He can just talk and talk and talk. It is pretty cool listening to him and hearing all his experiences. A lot of members in our Branch can talk non stop. 

The middle of my birthday we went to this weird town called Lanark. We stopped by a former investigator and he had moved but thankfully this random guy outside of his house knew where he lived. The bonus of small towns. Everyone knows everyone.

The end of my birthday we had a party/dinner with the Hatches and the McKeevers. All the food was super good. and I love both of those families so it was great. They made one of my mother's recipes and it was pretty good. But it is just really hard to compare to my mom's cooking. 

On Friday we met with a less active that I have been trying to meet with since I got to Smiths Falls. But it was really good to meet with him. And he came to church and it seemed like he had a good time. 

Spiritual thought. I just really like the Plan of Salvation. I am so glad I am able to be with my family Eternally. I know that because of Jesus Christ I could see everyone again even if they died.

Love,
Elder Talbot 

Trailer full of wood they are moving for the family that had their home burn down.

Birthday dinner with Hatches and McKeevers

A Week of Service, Snow, Sleet, And More Freezing Rain

This morning we were going to go start our laundry, but it snowed about a foot in the last 24 hours. And we live on the main street of Smiths Falls. Which the road is small and has no shoulder so when it is plowed it just gets plowed onto our driveway. So we had this massive speed bump at the end of the driveway. I had started to shovel the bump but Elder Shepherd thought we could make it over so I got in the car. Well long story short we got stuck. And there wasn't anything we could do. Thankfully our wonderful landlord came to the rescue with his snowblower. He snow blowed most of the bump away while I shoveled the wheels out. We were able to get the car out thanks to Bob's heroics. 

Anyways. This week went by really fast and it was all over the place. We didn't do much Tuesday or Wednesday because we had Zone conference in Oshawa which is about a 3 and a 1/2 hour drive. It was a really good meeting but it just took a really long time getting there. Getting down there took us almost six hours, we got stuck behind plows for a long time and then we got stuck in this mass group of about 200-300 semi trucks. They were all moving really slow. Oh and and on top of it all it was snowing really hard and then it started to sleet, then it started freezing raining, then it started to dump regular rain. It was probably the weirdest drive I have ever seen. Pretty much everything that could have happened, happened.  

There was a less active family whose house had burned down. They weren't home so everyone was okay and there insurance covered everything but it was still pretty hard for them. We went over the other day and helped them pack all their wood into a trailer. It was pretty long but they had some friends over that helped. All 8 people helped fill a 20 foot long covered trailer full of wood. It was super heavy, then they got it stuck in the snow. They had to strap two trucks together so they could get it unstuck. It was quite the eventful day. 

One more quick story.  We were sitting in church. And about ten minutes left a lady walked in. She isn't a member, and no one really knows who she is but she is interested in getting to know about our church. It was a super cool miracle. Some good things have been happening in this area and it is really exciting.

Thought for the week. We were reading the Book of Mormon together Friday night and we read about how Nephi and his family knew about Jeremiah and other Prophets in their time. We didn't really realize that all of these things were going on at the same time. It was really cool to put that together, and how both the Bible and the Book of Mormon support each other. 

Love youuuu allll

Elder Talbot

Elders Talbot, Shepherd, Woolstenhulme and Sayers

That is a huge pile of snow!

Families are Forever

Well last week was transfers. It was a super crazy day last week so I didn't have very much time. I had to drive to Brampton Monday night which is a five hour drive. It was all good though. Elder Leyton got transferred to Leamington. Which I have been told is the armpit of the mission. It should be good for him cause I heard it is a lot warmer. Elder Leyton was seriously cold all the time. I got a new companion named Elder Shepherd. He grew up in Gilbert, Arizona but he currently lives in American Fork. Which is cool cause he is my first companion that isn't Canadian. He played in AF's marching band and marched all over the country. He is a super good missionary. He really loves working hard and being obedient so it should be a super good transfer. We get a long really well. We are super pumped for this transfer.

We cover a ton of tiny little towns as well as a few not as tiny little towns. But the not as tiny ones have been tracted out by missionaries around 40 times. So we thought we would try to go to some of the smaller towns and try to find people there cause they haven't met the missionaries as much. We didn't get much of a chance to try it out but we did a little bit. On our way to Kingston one night we stopped in a town called Portland. It was super freezing and late at night and not very many people were home so we didn't tract very much but we met one family that is pretty interested. They are super busy so we weren't able to meet with them yet but they seemed very open. Their dog also ran away while we were talking to them so we spent like 20 minutes helping them catch the dog.
We had a dinner last night with the Hatches and the McKeevers and Jon and Adina. Jon and Adina are non members but they are super good friends with the McKeevers. They are seriously some of the nicest people I have ever met. We go over to Jon and Adinas about once a week to do service. Then they feed us. Which is good. They are super friendly and super nice. So yesterday we had a dinner with all of them. The Hatches made the meal and it was super amazing. It was roast dinner with Yorkshire pudding. It was the most beautiful way to end a fast. It was wonderful. At the end we shared a message about eternal families and had the Hatches and McKeevers talk about how they feel about it. They bore some beautiful testimonies about it. The spirit was so strong there. I loved it.
I am so grateful that I get to be with my family forever. I know that this church is true and that through Jesus Christ we get to be with our families forever. That always keeps me going when I have a hard day or something. Just knowing that it will be better in the end. I am so grateful to be a missionary and be able to let people know that they can also be with their family forever. 

I love all of you guys

Elder Talbot​​

P.s. The biggest thing in Smiths Falls, I'm pretty sure is the Tweed Factory. Which is this absolutely massive "medical" marijuana plant. And it just happens to be owned by Snoop Dog. That is all. ​

Elder Shepherd