Columbus = first sailor?

Hellooo everyone! How was your week? As usual, my week was terrific! We saw so many miracles this week and made lots of breakthroughs! The first was our miracle with a lady we are teaching. She has had a difficult life and was angry at God for a long time. Well, we hadn't met with her in two weeks and before that we had asked her to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon. We didn't think she had read until we got to the lesson. We were chatting with her and then she says..."So I had a conversation with God yesterday." Sister Foulger and I were both floored!! It was amazing. She had also read and  taken notes on the Book of Mormon scripture we had left her and asked us for another one. After that, we went out to dinner with a lady we have been trying to meet with for weeks. She is so sweet! Another miracle that happened is that one of the ladies we have been trying to build trust with finally opened up to us! It was great! 

   So we went to visit some members and we stopped by the Evans. As we were talking, their 4 yr old little girl looks at my belly and then looked up at me,and says "Are you gonna have a baby?" I laughed and said "No..." Sister Evans then says "It takes 2 to make a baby, hun" Her husband laughs and looks at us and says "Didn't think you would be having the birds and the bees talk when you cam over did ya?" 

 Another funny story, we were walking to the store at dinner, and on our way back to the car, we ended up talking this guy who, to make a long story short, believed that our beliefs were confusing because no on was here on the American continent before Columbus...and that no one sailed before Columbus....hmmm...

Anyways, something we talked a lot this week is about faith. Something I have learned since being on my mission is that God is so aware of each of His children. He loves us so much. There is nothing He loves more than you. He loves us so much that He sent His Only Begotten Son to die for us. When we are in times of trouble, the Savior will always be there to help us. I know that He is aware of each and every one of us. He has felt our worries, our fears, our doubts, and He knows what we need. He will take us unto His arms and He will always be with us. No matter what we have done in our lives, His grace and mercy protects us and provides the way to return to our Heavenly Father. In April 2012, Henry B. Eyering gave a talk called Mountains to Climb and he says something I really love; "The Savior has promised angels on our left and our right to bear us up.And He always keeps His word."  I know that even when it's hard to believe, the Savior is with us and He is walking with us through life. He has never left us alone. We will never be alone, in this life and in the next. I love you all and I hope you have a blessed week! 

Love, 

Sister Talbot

P.s. I'm at 9 months!! So insane!!! 

Forget Me Not

Hello everyone! How was your week? Ours was great!! We have been pretty busy with transfers and a district meetings but that's okay, we've had fun! Not too many stories to tell this week. We did a lip sync video to "Send Me On My Way", that song from ice age, so that was funny! 

So this week we did lots of stop bys and found a few potentials. So that was pretty cool also. Anyways, that is pretty much all the fun stuff we did. I listened to a talk by Elder Ucthdorf called "Forget Me Not"  and it talks about how God Knows us and loves us. He was talking to the Relief Society sisters of the Church but I think it applies to anyone. In his talk, he asks us to remember these 5 things.

1. Forget not to be patient with yourself.

    "Dear [saints], many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself."

2. Forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a foolish sacrifice.

     "Every person and situation is different, and a good sacrifice in one instance might be a foolish sacrifice in another.

How can we tell the difference for our own situation? We can ask ourselves, “Am I committing my time and energies to the things that matter most?” There are so many good things to do, but we can’t do all of them. Our Heavenly Father is most pleased when we sacrifice something good for something far greater with an eternal perspective."

3. Forget not to be happy now.

"Never stop striving for the best that is within you. Never stop hoping for all of the righteous desires of your heart. But don’t close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day’s ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life."

4. Forget not the "why" of the gospel.

"Let us not walk the path of discipleship with our eyes on the ground, thinking only of the tasks and obligations before us. Let us not walk unaware of the beauty of the glorious earthly and spiritual landscapes that surround us."

5. Forget not that the Lord loves you.

"...wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you with an infinite love.

Just think of it: You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious Being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time!

He who created and knows the stars knows you and your name—you are the [children] of His kingdom."

I love this talk and I love you all. I hope you have a great week! I know that God loves you and that Jesus Christ loves you. I have to go, I am sorry that this email is sooo short, but we have to go. Anyways, I love you, bye! 

Love, Sister Talbot

Adam Levine, Post Malone, and lots of miracles!

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had a good week! Our week has been kind of slow but so full of little miracles and even some big ones! I'm sorry I didn't email last week, I ran out of time. Anyways, this week, we went to go finding, and we stopped by someone who had been taught a long time ago. A man answered the door and said we couldn't come in because his wife was dog-sitting for a lady across the street, but he said we could come back another time. (He looked like George Clooney, it was kinda cool). So we went to another house across the street and the woman that answered was the wife of the guy we just talked to! It was so funny!

   I don't know why but I always see people that look like the dollar store brand of celebs! It's weird. Anways, we were going to Walmart last week and we saw this van pass and in the next van that passed, the guy driving waved at us, and I SWEAR it looked like Adam Levine! So I was like "....wait! Was THAT ADAM LEVINE?!" Sister Foulger laughed at me and was like "No."  It looked like him, I swear. Then later that day, I saw a guy that looked like Post Malone, so all I have to say is that Selkirk is full of celebs  We also went to Fisher Branch this weekend, which is a small town north of Selkirk, and taught a part member family. We met them at a member's house and we all had lunch and did some activities, it was really fun! On our way back, when we got to Selkirk, we saw this couple working out in front of their house, trying to shovel dirt. The lady had her baby on her hip and a shovel in her other hand, so we decided to go help them. So Sister Foulger parked the car and we went  to their house and asked how we could help. They were super nice and even bought us pizza! We talked with them for a while about church and what we do as missionaries. It was really cool! Hopefully they will have a desire to learn more about the gospel!

This week, Sister Foulger and I got to help teach a youth sunday school class, and we split it up so that each of us were teaching different points. My point was about temptation and how God helps us overcome it. Now, because they're teenagers, it was obviously a bit of a distracted class, and they are very funny! As the conversation kept getting way off track, I felt prompted to share my testimony about overcoming temptations. As I shared, the Spirit became very strong. It was amazing. I want to share a little bit of that testimony with you all. 

  When I was in high school, I thought I knew everything. I didn't think my mom was right about anything. After all, her advice was for her teenage days, there was no way she could understand, right? She was completely right! I wasn't living the gospel, nor was I listening to the Spirit at all. As a result, my spirituality was weakened. I knew the gospel was true, but I didn't have spiritual strength. So when faced with temptation, I was more prone to give in. It wasn't until my senior year that I realized that I was about to be living in the real world. So I decided that if didn't want to struggle, I better start listening to my mom, my seminary teacher, and most importantly, the Spirit. As I read the Book of Mormon all the way through, prayed sincerely, repented, and made the changes necessary to be in tune with the Spirit, I saw a difference in my life. My desire to good was stronger, and it slowly became easier to resist temptations. Like it says in 1 Corinthians 10:13, God will not allow us to be tempted above what we can handle. He will always make a way for us to escape temptation. You can overcome. It just takes listening to the Spirit, and trusting in God enough to know what you have to do. I encourage and invite you all to ask Heavenly Father what you can do every day this week to strengthen yourself spiritually! I promise that as you do, you will see that it becomes easier to spot temptations and choose to resist them!

 I love you all and I hope you're doing great! Keep being amazing and I'll talk to you next week!

Love, 

Sister Talbot

Ya boi,fancy man, and other such things!

  Hellloo my people! How are you all doing? This week has been all sorts of crazy. We have seen some pretty strange things here in Selkirk. First and foremost, they are filming a Hallmark Channel movie called Christmas Club, so if you see a hallmark movie that has a place called Riverside Grill in it, that place is just down the street from us! Fun fact, Julia Roberts was here like a week ago at McDonald's! We did not see her unfortunately, so I can't confirm the news, but that's what I heard! 

   

  So some funny things that happened this week are first, Sister Foulger got locked in the bathroom because our doorknob is weird and it locked her in hahaha so we had to take the doorknob off the bathroom door to get her out and leave it off so we can not have that happen again! Second, we have been playing monopoly a lot lately in our supper time and at night before bed! Well, we got a little competitive and I ended up running out of money so I ended up being $526 dollars in debt to Sister Foulger with no way to get money  it was a great game, but we have come to the conclusion that if you want to win the game, the hat is the key. Whoever plays with it just has so much luck for some reason! And for the final and probably best story, the story of  ya boi, fancy man! This guy came to the soup kitchen we were volunteering at and he was wearing a fedora with a pheasant feather in it, and lots of big rings, and chunks of crystals and stuff around his neck. I thought he was pretty cool but didn't think much of it. AND THEN a day or two later, we saw him, walking down the street! Since then, we have seen him all over the place so we decided to talk to him! Well one day we did. We saw him and we were like "Hey its fancy man!" so sister Foulger did a u-turn and parked then we walked down the street to talk to him. He said he would be okay with talking to us about the gospel, but he is kind of shy. So we went our ways and then the next day we were walking and he had missed the appt we set with him, so we did another u-turn, parked again, and then went to invite him to church. He never came, but it turned out that he lived on the same street we had just been tracting on! It was wild. 

 This week has been full of tender mercies and trials, but I am so grateful for the things that I am learning. I love that no matter where we are in life and what we are going through, the Lord is aware of us. As we study the Book of Mormon as a mission, we have been asked to mark certain things and so far, it has really helped me learn more than I ever have about the Book of Mormon. One thing I love is seeing Nephi's conversion. Sister Foulger pointed out yesterday that you can see him grow from his parent's testimony, into his own, and how he becomes more and more spiritually independent. The Book of Mormon truly is the word of God and I am so thankful we have it. I love you all and I hope you get the chance to read Nephi's conversion this week. Have a great one!

Love,

Sister Talbot

Welcome to Selkirk!

  Hellooo! So I am officially in Selkirk! It has so far been an adventure since the beginning!  My new companion is Sister Foulger, and she is awesome! We are already friends because we served around each other in Regina, so it's great to already know her! While on the transfer train and at transfers, I got to see almost all 6 of the elders I came out with! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see Elder Steele yet, but I saw Elder Holden, so that was fun! I also saw Sister Barrott who I haven't seen since Bergland! I love transfers!

  Sooo when we got to our apartment building, Sister Foulger looks at me and goes "soooo....our apartment is really really dirty...." I said "okay..." she continued,"because....it was fumigated..." I go "okay...?...wait, why was it fumigated??" And she stares at me with such a dismayed look and goes "because we had cockroaches...but not real cockroaches, they're oriental cockroaches" Sooo  in other words, the apartment below us had the "fake roaches" so they had to fumigate the surrounding apartments as well, including ours. What I didn't know, is that when they fumigate stuff, it get's chemicals everywhere so I opened the fridge before we had wiped it down, and then my arm started to itch and get hives, but it looked more like bubbles heh....0.o so I was like "Hey, why is my arm so itchy and broken out?!" Long story short, I touched chemicals which were bad so it made me break out! Haha welcome to Selkirk!!! BUT I actually love this area, it is beautiful, the branch is super  awesome, and the people are great! I am so excited to see what lies ahead for the next few weeks! 

 My first day here, we had a really spiritual lesson with a lady as she was asking us questions about the Book of Mormon and why it was so important. As I bore my testimony to her, I thought about the truths I know. I know the Book of Mormon was written for us to learn. The prophets who wrote in the Book of Mormon saw our day and gave us advice from the Lord and from their time! Tell me the Lord doesn't care and that He doesn't talk to His children anymore! God loves us, and through Joseph Smith, we have been given proof that God cares for all of His children, and that there is a living prophet today. I know that this is Jesus Christ's only true and living church on the earth today. I know that through study and prayer, we can all receive a witness of the Book of Mormon, and the truth it contains. I encourage each of you to read it, and pray about it, and as Nephi says, " ...If they are not the words of Christ, judge ye-for Christ will show unto you, with glory, that they are His words..." (2 Nephi 33:11) Read it and judge for yourselves and you will know that the words are true. I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love you all, I hope you have a wonderful week!

Sister Talbot

Goodbye Regina!

  Well, that is all folks...I am leaving Regina and going to Selkirk, Manitoba!! I am so excited! My new companion will be Sister Foulger! I love her to death, she is great! I am so sad to leave Lewvan though! I am going to miss so many people here, including Sister Martin!

  This week has been fairly uneventful! Minus the time we went to help someone move...let's just say their house was ridiculously nasty. We had to take boxes of dirty dishes outside to wash them so they could be packed up and stuff....yuck! It was pretty fun though lol I also made pancakes that turned out to be really nice! I was surprised and proud of myself. We had 10 baptisms this past Saturday in the mission! 10!!! That is huge! We had 5 baptisms in our zone, which is also huge. The power of prayer is real!! I am so grateful I have had the chance to be here in Regina. The people are wonderful and so is the ward! I am so thankful for Sister Martin and all the fun we have had, and the lessons learned! She is a wonderful missionary. I hope all of you know how much I love you as well, and how grateful I am for your support, love, and prayers! 

   In my studies recently, I have come across something that I would like to share with you all. In Jesus The Christ,it talks about when the Savior was teaching about how we need to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Many of His disciples shortly thereafter left Him because they couldn't understand the Savior. As was the custom of the time among teachers, he used food as a way tot help people understand, but they didn't. When His apostles stood among the leaving crowd, He asked them if they too would leave His side. Peter was the first to speak up, and said "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.”

  Without pausing, the apostles stood by the Savior and truly knew that He was the only way to receive eternal life. They may not have understood everything He said, but they knew what they felt when He said it, and that was enough. They continually sought to understand, and they opened their hearts so the Spirit could testify to them of the truth. It really made me think about how long I would follow the Savior. Would I stay with Him because he could heal, raise, and give me an abundance of food? Or would I stay with Him because I understood that by "eating His flesh and drinking His blood"  I would be taking upon me His name,following His commandments, following Him with all my heart, might, mind, and strength? When we seek for understanding and trust in the Savior, we will receive the truth through the Holy Spirit. That has always been a promise given to God's children. So when you find yourself not being able to understand why we have to follow a certain commandment, or why we have to do hard things, ask, trust, and move forward to the Savior's side. As Peter said, Jesus  is the Christ, and He is the only one with the words of eternal life. I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, I love you!

For the last time from Regina, SK,

Sister Talbot