Cheap Thrills

This cute little thing popped onto the screen while I was talking to my missionary son last Monday. It was fun to see him interact with her. Makes me think he's going to be a great dad.

We had a changing of the guards in the secretary chair this week. My dear, dear sister/friend (pictured on the left) has gone home. I have so many lovely memories with her. And her husband and I love to swap teasing remarks, so he feels like a little brother to me. I wish them the best in the next chapter of their lives. There could not be a senior couple anywhere in the world that has served with more love and zeal than these two. Though I will miss them terribly, I already love our new secretary. After talking for 10 minutes the first time we met, we already knew we were kindred spirits. And her husband grew up in the same ward as me, just a block away, though we didn't know each other then. But we can both name a plethora of Yale Ward members that both of us know!

The archives was closed on Monday for the Easter holiday so I had lots of fun playing pickleball with these lovelies and going to lunch with our district. Young missionaries bring so much light and joy to my otherwise mundane mission!!

If you're going to have poutine in Montreal, you MUST go to La Banquise. It's known for having the best poutine in town. You can verify this by the crowds in the restaurant and the line of people waiting outside to get in. We thought we'd outsmart them by showing up in the middle of the afternoon, but we had to wait even at THAT time of day!

Poutine is a dish invented in Montreal. It's a bed of fries topped with curd cheese and gravy. Then you can have different kinds of meat and vegetables on top if you like.

We're sad that our cute, pregnant janitor had her last day of work this week. Her baby arrives in August but it's getting a little hard to perform all of her duties.

The sister missionary who arrived the same day that I did will finish her mission next week so we took her to dinner to celebrate her mission.

Then we went for a beaver's tail after dinner. This is an Ottawa invention, fried bread with several different choices of toppings.

Know what this is called? A booter. It's when you step in a puddle that is deeper than you think and it gets your boot and your sock all wet. I love it when I run into "Candaian culture" because the U.S. and Canada have very similar cultures. It's fun to ferret out the small differences.

We had 10 inches of snow Wednesday night into Thursday! It was wet, heavy snow, hence the possibility of a "booter" unless you watched where you stepped. There were lots of large puddles due to the heavy water content of the snow. Though I did not take this photo, I've seen Montreal parents transporting their kids around town this way. It works SO much better than a stoller in the snow! And I've seen people trying to do that too! This is a photo of our storm this past week.

And then 3 days later it's sunny and in the mid 50s. I had to get outside a few times this weekend to counteract all of the hours on the couch watching general conference.

My conference breakfast was extra special thanks to one of our friends at the archives who gifted us some homemade maple syrup. She lives over an hour away from Montreal in a lovely wooded community. She and her husband tap the maple trees on their property and make their own maple syrup. She's explained the process to us and it's pretty labor intensive. I felt like I was pouring "warm friendship" on my French toast this morning.

Have you ever wondered, "Why does this missionary only talk about fun things in her blog? Where's the missionary work?!?!?" Well, if I documented my missionary work in this blog it would go something like this. . .
Week 1-- I took pictures of documents

Week 2-- I took some more pictures

Week 3-- I didn't take quite as many pictures as last week

Week 4-- Wow! It was a really good week of taking pictures! Ten thousand of them!

Week 5-- Well, I took some more pictures this week

The archives missionaries joke about what we call our "cheap thrills." We look for tiny things that are different in our daily grind to keep us amused. Some of the missionaries like to stop and read the documents. I don't do that because most of the documents are in French. And also, my goal is to hasten God's work so I don't take time to stop. 

The senior missionaries in our mission gather every Monday morning for a meeting, some on Zoom and some in person. One of the elements of that meeting is "Joy & Success" and I've been asked to share next Monday for that portion of the meeting. MLS missionaries usually talk about a less active member they've loved back into the church or a member who received their endowment for the first time who they were instrumental in helping. Honestly, it's a tough assignment for me whenever I'm assigned to share about my joys and success. I really have to dig deep. 

But while I do not have many joys in my work, I'm eternally grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who has performed a great miracle in my life in connection with my mission. I fretted for months after receiving my mission call that I would be bored every single day for 2 years. I imagined myself clawing my way through every day and forcing myself to do the work. But I have been content working in the archives. No, it's not thrilling. Nor does it produce great stories to share in the senior district council. But I'm so grateful that I'm not miserable like I thought I might be. 

A few weeks ago on a relatively warm afternoon, an hour before the time I normally leave, I got very antsy and did NOT want to stay in that chair taking pictures! But that has been only one single hour that I had to claw my way through in an entire year. That, to me, is a miracle.

Running total of captures: 279,769