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