Goodbye to St. Catharines, Hello Peterborough

So the weather was beautiful all week! There has been almost 0 clouds and It was just nice. Hopefully the whole snow thing is done haha.

Well it was transfers yesterday. I am getting transferred to Peterborough, which is north or Oshawa which is on the way to Kingston. So east northish. I haven't heard a ton about it but I know some people that have served there so I am excited. I am going to be serving with Elder Ernest. He was trained by Elder Lowry in Heartlake after I left there. It will be cool.

My last week in St Catharine's was really good. We were working pretty hard and we were able to talk to a lot of people! We tracted a ton and we got some potentials so hopefully they will be able to go back and teach them. We dropped by one lady who has a member friend and she called her friend after and was asking some questions.

The youth activity this week was a selfie scavenger hunt at the mall. It was really funny. The youth here are all super cool. It was pretty interesting just wandering a mall taking selfies but it was good.
Thursday I went on an exchange with Elder Johnson again. He is an okay missionary, has lots to work on. Just kidding he is fantastic. Super awesome, I really like him haha. We tracted a lot. We had some pretty funny conversations with people. We accidentally knocked on a families back door and then they didn't come so we went to the front door and they almost let us in thinking we were there for the birthday party haha. We had dinner at the Bonfield's and they are hilarious! They were cracking jokes the whole time. For companionship study we went out to the back yard and had a fire for it. It was really cool.

Emily is still doing really good. She is definitely going to be one of the people I will miss. There really was a lot of amazing people in St.Catharine's. This place will hold a special place in my heart. I will miss it a lot but I am excited for the future. 

Well, I think that's all I have time for today. Transfers are crazy. Spiritual moment is our hike with Brother Hardt today. He is amazing. I love that guy. This hike was insanely peaceful. At his favorite spot he pulled out these two perfectly white marbles. He related that to us and challenged us to stay as obedient and pure as the marble. It was super spiritual, I probably can't convey the feelings that were there but it was awesome.

Don't Get Discouraged!

It snowed for about the first 3 days this week, but it was one degree the whole time so none of it stuck. It was about the same temperature the entire last two weeks, until yesterday and it was a super nice 5 degrees. I am pretty ready for it to be Springtime weather now. 

Basketball this week went super well. We had 14 people there and 5 non members showed up. It was a lot of fun, all the guys that came are really good and good sports about everything. Basketball here has been a great way to get people into the building and get to know some of them. 

We went on exchanges this week. I was with Elder Martin again. He is super cool. He showed me where he lived and it is like the Timmins of Scotland. We didn't have any appointments that day so we had a lot of opportunities to share the Gospel.  We found some cool potentials, one had just moved to Canada and likes going to church. At the end of the day we went on splits with Brother Hardt and Brother Nieciecki. They are great people. Both splits of people were able to hand out a Book of Mormon and seeing the members testify of things was awesome! 

We went on Tuesday to a gelato place with Kaleigh. It's this cool old fashioned looking place. It was really good. I got coconut and chocolate brownie. She is really cool. She is a hair dresser. It was fun to talk to her and get gelato. 

We had Stake Conference this week in Hamilton. It was really good. The speakers all did a very good job. My favorite one from the Saturday night session was a talk on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She talked about how amazing it is and all the blessings that come from it.  My favorite talk from the Sunday session was about repentance. He told the story of the guy that made the Dyson vacuum and how when he was building it he made 5000 or so different prototypes. He would make one small change at a time and see what worked and what made a difference. He likened that to repentance because it is often small and simple changes in your life that creates a wonderful change.

The Bishop had us over for pizza and wings. That was super good. They are a really funny family that are super loud which makes it all the better and reminds of family parties back home. 

Spiritual thought comes from Alma 52ish to 53ish. Lamanites had used one of the strengths of the Nephites to their advantage and had taken a city but the Nephites didn't get discouraged by that. They took what Satan was doing and used it to make themselves stronger. We can do that with ourselves as well. The trials that we are going through are so that we can get stronger through them and get that much closer to Heavenly Father. Sometimes in the moment it seems hard or rough but looking back and seeing how much you have grown through the experience makes it all worthwhile.

Love
Elder Talbot 

Elder Lee Junhyeon and Elder Talbot

Elder Martin

Beautiful Niagara Falls

Hope

The weather was pretty well the same all week. Just about 1 or 2 the entire time. With the exception of when we went to London for zone conference. Lucky for us it snowed while we were driving there and driving back. Pretty fun Hahaha.

A few really cool things happened this week, to finish P-Day we got to go on a hike with the District. That was pretty fun. We walked along the river beneath Niagara Falls. The water was really cool looking and this district is really cool. We got a little lost at the end and ended up on a private road but that's alright hahah. We met with Emily at the end of the day. She is cool to meet with. She is doing pretty well. We talked about hope. Hope is really cool. For me, hope is everything is going to get better as long as you do what you can. It makes life so much more happier knowing that the Lord is keeping His end of the deal. 

Basketball Saturday was pretty good, the people that came are really good and really fun to play with, but it got cut short because of Jack's baptism which was awesome. Jack is the Bishop's kid that was getting baptized. He is a stud. Super nice and friendly with everyone. Baptisms are awesome to watch and to see people make the covenant with our Heavenly Father. He was so excited about the whole thing which was awesome. He got a new suit and shoes for it which was awesome. 

Zone conference was fantastic. We went to London which is about two hours away.  Driving still seems like nothing for me since I came down from Timmins. The conference was really good. Since we were approved to use Facebook they talked a lot about following the safeguards and building spiritual protections for ourselves. It was an amazing spirit filled conference. I am very excited for the new tools that we have been given to use and help people come closer to Jesus Christ. With Facebook, they didn't give us a lot of straight forward rules but they want us to keep our focus on our missionary purpose with it and sharing the Gospel. 

Church this Sunday was super good. I surprised myself and stayed awake even with daylight savings haha. I have been getting up at 6 for the last 3 months or so, so I was expecting to be just about dead with daylight savings but I lived. The talks this week were great. A youth spoke first and she talked about standards and living them and staying strong. Another talk was about not judging and that was a solid talk as well. That is something I have been trying to work on this year so it was good to hear. 

I also hit my 18 month mark this week. It is absolutely crazy how fast time flies. I seriously can't believe it. 

This is one of the things President Shields talked about at Zone Conference that he typed up for everyone. 

This is my ten (10) point summary of the nexus between Safeguards and Book of Mormon (Alma 46-50): 

(1) Amalickiah (Satan) is after you!! He wants to administer poison (social media filth) to you by degrees and kill you (spiritually) just like he secretly killed Lehonti.

(2) Amalickiah's fraud and deception has no bounds. Satan desperately wants to take your liberty and bring you into slavery and bondage to him. Satan wants to spiritually massacre you, and your family, spouse, and children. 

(3) If you alter the management of your (social media) affairs, you will disappoint and utterly and exceedingly astonish Satan and his army. 

(4) Use your device after the manner of instructions of Moroni (modern day prophets)--which have never been known before (Safeguards). 

(5) Compliance with Safeguards will make your former (pre-mission) weak social media practices become strong. 

(6) Safeguards will force Satan to come at you by the entrance (no secrets or deception) and if Satan tries to climb up to enter your places of safety by any other way, you can cast stones and arrows of truth and maintain "all power" over your enemies through full disclosure. 

(7) Expect a few non-mortal wounds, but know that a single soul need not be lost. 

(8) Righteous armies will increase daily because of the "assurance of protection" which Safeguards will provide. 

(9) Compliance with Safeguards will cut off the strength and power of Satan such that he will have "no power" over you. 

(10) Even in times of difficult and dangerous spiritual wars, you can say, "there never was a happier time." 

I love the connection that he made. The Book of Mormon is such an amazing book. I am so grateful that I have it and it has been able to change my life for the better. This week reading the book it was calming me a lot and it is such a powerful book.

Love
Elder Talbot 

Jack and Elder Talbot

District hike in the Niagara gorge

Hear the Voice

Weather was unusual as usual. The first half of the week was a precursor for Spring but then on Friday it snowed 6 inches of the heaviest snow I have seen and has been moderately cold since then.

Monday we had a P-Day district activity. We went bowling, first time my whole mission, I didn't put a ton of effort into it. I think I scored somewhere around 50 and got beat by almost 100. We had dinner and FHE at the Curry's. They are an awesome family. Definitely one of my favorites here. 

Tuesday we went out to sushi with Emily and Anthony. It really surprises me that I actually like sushi. The raw fish thing was a big deterrent for me but it's super good. After sushi, Anthony felt like doing missionary work so he came with us contacting and putting up ESL flyers. We found a few potentials and it was really cool. Anthony is super solid. That night we had ESL, and we actually had a student! He was really cool and came to Saturday's class too. 

Wednesday Elder Olson did a baptismal interview for Welland. We went to young men's, they were doing an Iron Chef challenge with the theme ingredient of hot-dogs. We were graciously chosen to be the judges/Guinea pigs. Hot-dog nachos were probably my favorite. Some of the stuff was pretty weird. They threw a square of cheese over some vegetables and called it a hot salad... 

Thursday we had interviews in Hamilton with President and Sister Shields. They are awesome. Had really good interviews with both of them, President is one of my best friends. 

Friday We had a finding focus district meeting and went on a district blitz in St. Catharines. We got a few potentials out of it and Elder Olson with Elder Johnson were able to talk to a guy that was pretty interested and got an appointment with him for this week. I went on exchanges with Elder Nakamoto from Japan, he is super cool. He is a really good missionary and pretty funny. We had dinner at the Harding's and they like Japan a lot so they were really excited. We had FHE with them too and it was a lot of fun. For the opening song everyone has to play an instrument for the song and it was hilarious. Also it snowed Friday and the dang snow was the heaviest snow I have ever had to shovel. It felt like it weighed 50 million pounds. 

Saturday We had ESL and then basketball. It was a lot of fun. After that we went to Welland for a baptism which was really nice. Really good program. Always cool to see someone enter into that covenant. For dinner, the Elliotts had us over, and we had Cafe Rio. It was sooo good. She talked to my mother and got the recipe and got a really good Cinnamon rolls recipe from Elder Olson's mom. Cafe Rio is so good. The Elliotts are a super sweet couple. 

Sunday we had church which was super good. The testimonies were really good. After church we were able to teach a lesson to a guy that had called Saturday night and wanted to meet up. He is really awesome. He met with missionaries 18 months ago or so and has a testimony of the Book of Mormon. He accepted April 21st for a baptismal date which is awesome. That night we went to a youth fireside at the bishop's house. they talked about temples and the youth here are super solid. Really fun to hang out with all of them and talk with the Bishopric. They had sundaes after for dessert. Bishops kids are pretty wild, but they are super cool.


Spiritual thought comes from 3 Nephi 11 (Here's v 3-5)


3 And it came to pass that while they were thus conversing one with another, they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; and they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.

4 And it came to pass that again they heard the voice, and they understood it not.

5 And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came.


That is such an amazing chapter. I've read it a few times in the last week or so and it is such a powerful chapter. The part I focus on a bit was in the beginning of the chapter and how they couldn't hear the voice at first. It relates to the Holy Ghost really well and if we aren't in a place in our lives to be able to hear it we won't be able to hear the still small voice. It was powerful to them but not loud. It was very good thing for me to evaluate on how I am doing with that and set goals on how to follow that better.


Love
Elder Talbot

Heavy, wet snow

Elder Nakamoto

Elder Nakamoto

Elder Johnson and Elder Martin

Elder Coffey and his companion