A Swarm of New Missionaries

My missionary had a birthday!

I finished prepping the project I've been working on!! I'm really happy about that because it took me an entire month and now I get to go back to clicking. While neither job is very exciting, I prefer clicking. I'd love to reach 1/2 million clicks by the end of my mission but this month of prepping may have thwarted that plan. Oh well, it doesn't matter. It's all God's work after all.

Here's the BIG news of the week...

TWENTY-EIGHT incoming missionaries! We haven't had such a big group ever since I've been here. 

And a FABULOUS group of seasoned servants of God went home to greet their families and friends. It's so darn hard to let these missionaries who I love go home!

The archive missionaries went out for dinner after we finished our work on Friday. We love this restaurant near the national archives. It's calle Nelson Garden (Jardin Nelson in French), but we call it "President Nelson's Garden."

On Saturday I drove down to a tiny town called Hemmingford near the US border. No, I did not consider crossing. No, I am not getting trunky. One of our couples who left the mission a few weeks ago told me about it. They know I love to visit small towns to get away from Montreal.

They told me they crossed the border just below Hemmingford. It's a super easy crossing with no waiting because it's out in the woods, not on a main highway. I think I'll keep that in mind for future reference!

This is one of the first signs Americans see after they cross into Canada, I thought it was hilarious! Welcome to the land of metric measurements, Americans. You're not in Kansa anymore, Toto.

I saw these signs on my drive home. Look at ALL THAT ENGLISH!! It turns out I drove through the Kahnawake Indian Reserve. No, they don't call them "Native Americans" up here.

Canada culture...orange AND pink traffic cones!

Running total of captures: 375,753

Running total of docs prepped: 12,859

Is Jesus a Part of Your Life?

It was not a great work week, which was frustrating for me. I lost all of Monday to a chat with my missionary son and wicked insomnia. I lost part of Thursday at the archives because I gave it to these darling soon-to-depart missionaries.

We went to lunch together. I was blown away by their effective finding as we commuted to the restaurant! There is no fear! They talked to soooo many people on our way there...even one lady who was on the phone! One of the women they contacted was taught by missionaries in 2021 and attended church 24 times back then! She was taught all of the commandments. These sisters are SURE that 2024 is her "comeback year." There's no "dying on the vine" for these two! They are determined to be out doing missionary work the day before they catch a plane to go home. And no doubt they'll be contacting at the airport while they wait for the plane. These two are on fire for Jesus! 

I lost Friday at the archives because a water main burst in downtown Montreal, close to the archives building. I didn't wake up until late because insomnia didn't allow me to fall asleep until 4 am. As I was getting ready to go into the archives around noon, one of the other missionaries called to tell me that water to the building had been cut off so they were sending everyone home.

There was a lot of flooding caused by this incident. I'm hoping they'll spend the weekend cleaning up and getting things under control so we can be back at the archives by Monday.

                                                            Photo credit: CTV News

I was talking to this amazing couple (husband is on the right) who helped with FSY in Cameroon. He was one of my online institute students from West Africa that I taught in 2022. He became a branch president while he was in my class. 

He told me that they felt like the youth weren't paying much attention to the workshops, but were VERY focused on the fun and games. But then at the closing testimony meeting, they were shocked to find out how much the young people had absorbed. Aren't youth amazing? They surprise and delight us!

I love that our entire mission is reading the Book of Mormon simultaneously! We're barreling along so we can be done before General Conference. We're marking every reference to Jesus that we find. Pages 184 and 185 are the 3rd and 4th pages where I have nothing marked that refers to Jesus. 

I started thinking about WHY this is. I think it's because Jesus is not a part of the people's lives being mentioned. I wondered if Christ would be mentioned if people were talking about MY life! Will Christ be mentioned at my funeral? When people talk about me right now, do they ever mention our Savior in connection with me? If not, I'm probably not living my life the way I want to.

Running total of captures: 375,753

Running total of docs prepped: 8900

Carry On!

See this cute missionary? He's from Africa so he never participated in any "fun lockdowns" during Covid Days. Well, he's getting a taste of it now. He's serving in Nigeria and that county has been having protests against the government since August 1 and none of the missionaries in his mission can leave their apartments. Protests in Nigeria often turn deadly. They were instructed to buy enough food and other supplies to last for a month. The protests were scheduled from August 1-10 but they generally go longer. I'll talk to him tomorrow to see if they've found any freedom yet. He didn't even get to go to church! Well, all of us Americans and Canadians know what THAT'S like. He's being tried in the furnace of boredom. I HATE that furnace! But I learned a lot while I was in it.

I thought I was finally going to be finished prepping this project last Friday so I could go back to captures. As I finished box 22, I discovered there are REALLY 49 boxes! ARRRRRGH! The archive people just didn't bring all of them to me at once. As it turns out, I'm not even halfway through the project!! Ugh. Oh well, it's all God's work and I'll just keep plugging away.

This is one of my favorite hallways at the archives. On the wall is a panoramic view of Montreal city taken from the top of Mount Royal. Fun fact: Did you know that Montreal is just the French way of saying Mount Royal? So really our city is called Mount Royal.

Sister M and I had a big adventure on Saturday. In Quebec, we received almost 6 inches of rain on Friday from the leftovers of Hurricane Debby combined with a low pressure that met the storm over the Great Lakes. Well that storm headed up the St. Lawerence River towards us and dumped a LOT of water in 24 hours. 

The next day Sister M and I headed out to Shawinigan (about 2 hours from Montreal) and Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers in English.) We had NO CLUE that there was major flooding! 

There were roads that were closed, traffic that was crawling, we drove over 2 flooded roads. One was a dirt road that I was really hoping had gravel on it too. It was in between corn fields. Ummm, yep, we were off the beaten path. Then we hit a paved road...thank goodness! Nope. A short while later we were driving over a flooded road again. When we got to the end of that road we discovered that the road was closed from that end. The guy in the truck with the cones let us out. 

We ended up having a really fun day. We went to a military museum. . .

The tire on this monster is almost up to my shoulder!!

Ate at Holy Burgers. . .

. . .and found some fun little shops to explore. We also got lost a bunch of times because of rerouting due to closed roads that were flooded. We thought we'd be home around 3:00 or 4:00. Nope. We pulled into our building at 10:00 pm. 

Canada Culture moment: On our weekend travels we came across this truck. The sign says something like "stop here". After the oncoming traffic has passed, a person in the truck hits a switch and the arm with the orange flag goes up. Then you can drive on. Hmm, we have flaggers in the U.S. for this. If I ever want this job, I'm moving to Canada...you sit in a truck and push a button.

The world lost a great man this past week. My cousin, Charles, died of cancer at age 36. He leaves behind a wife and four very small children. It's so hard to be separated from people we love even though we know we'll see them again. 

Photo credit: MacKay Jones, the master photographer

It was really, really hard for me to be here and not be at the ranch with all of my cousins. It felt so strange because this Jones family GATHERS and SUPPORTS each other at times like this. It's a legacy that our parents left us. And it just feels so strange to me to be so far away instead of at the ranch to mourn with my cousins. But I know God is there for them. And He can comfort them in a MUCH more supreme way than I could anyway.

Running total of captures: 375,753

Running total of docs prepped: 6650

All That is Unfair About Life. . .

It's been a bit of a rough week: LOTS of insomnia, a hurt knee, wicked hot weather (104-106 the past three days.) The highlight of my week was spending time with these fabulous people at district P-day.

One of the other missionaries and I had to make a DQ run one HOOOOOT night.

And today my heart has been weighed down by the sorrow in other people's lives, people who I love. My cousin is dying of cancer any day now and leaving a wife and four very young children. People in my branch here in Montreal are suffering.

Oh how grateful I am for the Father's Plan of Happiness, a plan which includes sealing families for eternity and promises connected with temple covenants. I'm also grateful for both the healing and enabling power of the Atonement of the Holy One of Israel. 

One of my very favorite lines that can be found in Preach My Gospel is this: All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I believe that. I know that to be true. And I'm very grateful for it. God is good to us. He has not left us alone in this world.

Running total of captures: 375,753

Running total of docs prepped: 3717