It's All About The Book of Mormon

I'm sure these two pictures won't look very different to most of you, but it feels VASTLY different to me! I've switched from taking photos of documents to doing the prep work getting them ready to be captured. 

Camera captures

Prep work involves making sure you account for every numbered document, taking out oversized documents that don't fit in our camera range, removing fasteners (staples, ribbons, brads, rivets, straight pins, etc.), unfolding creases and dog eared pages. . .basically, trying to make everything perfect so the people at the cameras won't find anything to slow them down.

Prep work

My brother and his wife came to visit for a week. They celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in Montreal. It was fun to have them here. They stayed at my apartment with me.

A very kind family invited the senior missionaries to their house for lunch. They do it every year. I couldn't go last year for some reason. It's SUCH a beautiful setting about an hour away from Montreal. This is the little tea house in their lovely garden where we had lunch.

One of the senior missionaries and I may or may not have SPLURGED at a Belgian chocolate shop. We're blaming it on our mission president's wife. SHE'S the one who told us about it and said we HAD to go there!

We had the most amazing zone conference last week. It was all about using the Book of Mormon in teaching others about the Church. President and Sister Sorensen teach with the power of the Spirit! I was spell-bound the whole 3 hours! Sister Sorensen challenged us to read the Book of Mormon before General Conference on October 5...in our mission language. No big deal for me, but our Mandarin speaking elders nearly choked on this challenge. The two in our district did not just dismiss this mountain-of-a-challenge. One plans to read the Chinese alongside the English, which will take much longer, and the other one said he'd read it in the picture form. I admire the faith of these elders!

Sister Sorensen also asked us to mark all references we find to the Savior. I have done this once before but I'm doing it again. It is truly stunning to see how many markings you have on just about every page. There is also a "life problem" I'm looking for answers for as I read this time. Hence, the two colors of pens.

As great as zone conference was, the district council we had right after was even better! We've never had a district council right after zone conference but president wanted us to discuss what we heard and felt in zone conference and make some goals in connection with that. Our young missionaries talked about how the Book of Mormon has changed their lives and how much they love it. Several of them shared some very tender things. The Spirit attended in a powerful way!! 

My love for these young missionaries grew that day. Remember the Grinch's heart? Yep. About like that. I already loved them but now I love and admire them even more. Missionaries are powerful young people because of their obedience, sacrifice, and devotion to God and the people they serve. Sometimes I pinch myself when I think that I get a front row seat to all that they are doing.

I told my district that I love, love, love the Book of Mormon. We had a member of a previous stake presidency in Salt Lake who used to stand at the pulpit in stake conference and say with tons of enthusiasm, "I LOVE the Book of Mormon!" I remember thinking, "I don't love it, I just read it because I know we're supposed to." But when I finally chose to engage with that book in a serious way, my feelings toward it have changed. Now I can say with Pres. Barney, "I LOVE the Book of Mormon!!" Remember when Pres. Nelson said if you don't love the temple yet, go more often? Same thing with the Book of Mormon. If you don't love it yet, read it more and more and more! Look for answers to life's questions in its pages. Feel the power between its covers!

If you felt prompted to also take this challenge while I was describing it, come join us! You'll need to read about 8 pages a day.

Running total of captures: 375,753

Running total of docs prepped: 1700

Flooding

We have a new baby in our family! It feels strange missing weddings and new babies. But it happens to all missionaries.

This is CANADIAN Coca Cola. See the maple leaf on the door of the truck? I see this with a lot of American products in Canada, that they were produced in Canada.

My missionary had his first transfer last week. I'm anxious to hear about how he likes his new area. I got transferred this week too...to another district. My former district was dissolved so they moved me to another district. We meet in the room next to the one where our former district met so not too big of a change. The weird thing is that no one tells seniors things. I happened to notice it on the transfer board while I was in the office on transfer day. If not for that, I wouldn't have known and would have gone to meet with my old district, which no longer exists.

These were a glorious find...chocolate fillled croissants. I've heard about them. I found these in the Jean Talon Market in frozen packages. Yummy!

Here's one of our TWENTY-ONE departing missionaries this week. We don't usually have that many leaving at once. I didn't know many of the departing missionaries this time.

The night that our new missionaries flew in, we had a HUGE rainstorm left over from Hurricane Beryl. Our assistants to the president who were supposed to pick up the new missionaries were stuck on an onramp to the freeway for over 3 hours. They never did make it to the airport. They contacted the missionaries and told them to take taxis to the mission home.

Photo credit: The Montreal Gazette

Running total of captures: 375,712

Keyboard Class

The archives was closed on July 1 for Canada Day so after senior district council one of the newest senior missionaries and I went to Jean Talon Market. She hadn't been there yet.

While we did celebrate Canada Day, the 4th of July was largely ignored since we were working at the archives that day.

Oops! Somebody is in the wrong season!

After listening to our new mission leaders at district council and the things they taught us, I know that we are blessed to have them as our new leaders. I look forward to the great things that are coming for this mission! They have already invited us to ACT on three invitations. This is the kind of thing that brings individual growth.

In other exciting news, we recently finished a music conducting class and started a keyboarding class this week. As everyone in the class received a brand new keyboard that they get to take home to practice with, the feeling was a bit like Christmas. There was lots of excitement! Wish me luck in teaching eight people at a time how to play the keyboard...in Chinese! Luckily, some of the students speak excellent English so they can translate for me.

This class is made possible by a grant from the Harman family (think KFC.) They provide the keyboards so that people can learn to play. It's possible for each individual to keep the keyboard permanently if they commit to 1) teaching someone else how to play after they have learned and, 2) playing at church. The grant program is set up so that everyone who is interested can participate in the music conducting class. Then the most diligent students move onto the keyboarding class. 

One of our boredom relievers at the archives is to announce to the entire room each time we finish capturing a box of documents by playing a song. One of the missionaries purchased these programmable buttons. We have each chosen a song to play when we hit the button. My song is the theme song from the movie "The Magnificent Seven." Whenever someone hits their button, we call it the sound of progress. One of the devious missionaries sneaks around and changes the song on someone else's button when he/she is out of the room.

Oh, and I captured some historical documents as well this week. 😂

The gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth! Because of the Savior's Atonement, we can be perfect...eventually! We can change. We can grow. We are connected to our Heavenly Father through our covenants that we make with Him. Just felt like throwing this in.

Running total of captures: 369,587