Christmas is Coming

Just when you think Canada and the U.S. are quite similar, you open a package of cream cheese and find a blue piece of wax paper. Hmmm...

I had a few ornaments leftover that wouldn't fit on my tree so I decided to put together this wreath.

More shenanigans in the parking garage.

Worn out shoes on a hard-working missionary's feet

This guy up and left us at the archives! How dare he?!? He was the night guard and though his English was just about as good as my French, we managed to become good friends anyway because he has such a good heart. Whenever I was feeling frustrated or having a bad day, I'd get up out of my chair and go down to the front desk to say hi to him for a minute. It was always a guarantee to boost my mood. 

The whole room lights up when he smiles. I am going to miss him soooooo much!

I'm ruined. I'll never be satisfied with imitation maple syrup from now on. The real stuff is SOOO good!

Mount Royal

Welcome to my tiny home...all decked out for Christmas.

Getting tired of these pictures? I'm getting tired of LIVING it! But for the past 2 weeks I've been training myself to turn on the water in the sink to wash my hands BEFORE I flush the toilet. Well, this particular morning it paid off! It's much easier to let the waste accumulate in the toilet and then just do one flush before I leave for the day. Crikey! I'm starting to feel like I'm living in Africa again. Good thing I'm proficient at bucket showers.

The range I've had ever since I've been in Montreal has been pathetic. Three of the four burners barely heated up. And the top heating element in the oven was also very weak so the baking was VERY uneven. So they finally replaced it. Hmm, I wonder how I can find 350. The struggle with management is REAL!

A creche outside the Montreal, Quebec Temple

Here's our apartment building. Can you guess where I live? Come on, people! Where are your Christmas decorations???

It's been an incredibly busy week ending in a stake "Spirit of Christmas" music concert. Here's a link to my favorite performance. Are you surprised it's my African brothers and sisters?

My missionary work this week has been done mostly on Facebook since the digital finding young missionaries did a training for us old dogs on how to do that. The funniest exchange I had on Facebook...

Him: Are you married?

Me: Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon? It's another testament of Jesus Christ, like the Bible.

Him: You didn't answer my question.

Me: I could arrange for someone to bring you a copy of the Book of Mormon if you'd like.

...he gave up 😂

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I'm Thankful for Water and November Holidays/Seasons

Ohhhh, how I love these men...devoted servants of the Most High God! These six are now serving in the Mandarin branch. We got 2 additional elders because a new area was opened.

We got a wicked surprise this week. One morning we woke to no water. When I left our building to walk to the archives, the reason for our building having no water quickly became apparent. Can you see the water bubbling up through the pavement behind the orange cones? My apartment building is the white one, second from the corner.

The city workers were finally able to restore running water to our building around 11 pm that same night. But it did thwart a trip to the temple because the entrance to our parking garage was blocked.

The day after I arrived in Montreal, there was no water for me to take a shower so I decided to store water in jugs so I'd never have that surprise again. Luckily, I had enough water to shower AND flush the toilet. I was pretty happy about that.

Oh how I love snow! I feel like we're bouncing between Fall and Winter right now. And so I am also bouncing between Thanksgiving and Christmas in my holiday moods.

Here's another "holiday" we're bouncing around in...Veteran's Day. I've discovered it's a tradition in Canada to wear a red poppy on your lapel for the 2 weeks prior to Veteran's Day. A young man approached me in the metro with some plastic poppies and said his fraternity was handing them out and also collecting donations. I told him I didn't have any money on me but he gave me one anyway. The poppy on the lapel is a symbol of remembering those who have fought in wars. I like this tradition! I also like that the red draws attention to my nametag.  :)

After the young man gave me the poppy, I kept going. But a few steps later I realized that I had missed an opportunity to share the gospel. I went back and told the 2 young men that I was impressed that young people of their generation are doing good things with their time. Then I told them about our young men and the good that they are doing with their lives. And with excellent timing, 2 of our young missionaries just happened by so that I could point them out! They stopped to join the conversation. It turned out that one of the fraternity brothers is from Tahiti and knows one of our sister missionaries who is also from Tahiti! He said he'll pursue faith when he gets older. I strongly encouraged him to look up his high school friend when he is ready to focus on faith and to seriously consider learning about this church. Well, at least I dropped a seed.

Here's another interesting thing about Montreal that marks the changing of the seasons, the laying down of the rugs. During winter, entryways have rugs to protect the floors from the snow and salt that are tracked in on the bottom of boots. This is the entrance to the national archives. The first day, the rugs had been laid in the entryway to our apartment building, when the elevator door opened to the lobby, I didn't recognize where I was!

Here are the first hints of Christmas that I've seen in the city.

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