I Love Missionaries!

This is one of our security guards. He's from Senegal and I stop by to chat with him every day. He's practicing English with me and I'm practicing French with him.

I'm so glad I remembered to get this photo a week ago before transfers. I was afraid some of my Mandarin elders would be leaving...and they did. Two of them are gone now. But I'm really excited about the two who have been transferred BACK to the Mandarin branch!

We got TWENTY-EIGHT new missionaries this past week! That's a HUGE incoming group! It takes a lot of work to process that many. And poor Sister Sorensen was cooking for this small army for a few days.

I love being with the new missionaries on transfer day! I also love being there to say goodbye to our departing missionaries. One of the departing missionaries is from Star Valley and he knows I want to move there when I go home so his last words to me were, "See you in Star Valley!" He's such a good young man. He finished his mission as an AP.

And we discovered on the very last day of his mission that this missionary's grandparents lived in my ward! How did it take us THAT long to figure that out?!?

At the lunch on transfer day, one of our APs, Elder Jones, was introducing the senior missionaries. When he introduced me, he said, "Sister Jones loves missionaries!" I'm glad he knows that because it's true! I feel such a strong love for these amazing young people that I get to work with during this season of my life. I feel like they are the cream of the crop of all the young people in the world.

THIS! This is why Salt Lake says we're a "complicated mission." One of the senior misisonaries made this graphic.

OK, this will seem strange to many, but I find it fascinating. One day the edge of a paper sliced across my finger. I quickly looked at it to see if the paper cut was going to bleed. NO PAPER CUT! Then I started thinking that with the hundreds of thousands of papers that I've touched, how is it possible that I haven't had a single paper cut? When I was a teacher I got paper cuts all the time. I asked the other archive missionarie and they said they haven't had any either.

We googled it and found that because we are living in a humid climate, we're less likely to get paper cuts. Our hands aren't as dry. Dry hands get paper cuts easier. And the paper is more supple because of the humidity. On really humid days, I can feel the difference in the paper. Hence, no paper cuts for archive missionaries in Montreal!

I noticed this loose piece of skin on my thumb the other day and figured that must be the Montreal version of a paper cut. No pain. No blood. Just a hanging piece of skin.

There you go. A useless piece of information about paper cuts for you!

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Our Mission is Popping

God has surely created some beautiful things on this earth to gladden our hearts and our eyes, like these  flowers along the road. Except He didn't create the "orange trees" further down the street.

 We had a spectacular day this week, one that called to me to eat lunch in the park across the street from our archives building.

My archives team showered me with love after Elder Gong encouraged us to tell our companions something that we appreciate about them.

Look at this humongous marriage contract we found this week! I didn't take the time to stop and read it but we assume it was for some people of great prominence! Look at the scalloped upper edge of the paper!

Our mission has an incredibly lofty goal for baptisms this year! Last year our goal was 248 and we went over that by about 100. The young mission leaders along with president and his wife carefully petitioned the Lord to know what our goal should be for this year. After wrestling with it for some time they came up with 691! 😮 Because this is God's work and He is actively involved in it and because we have obedient, diligent missionaries, I think we're going to make it! Our mission leaders say that God is gathering His children to this part of the world so they can make covenants with Him. And we are just the lucky ones that get to participate in His magnificent work!!

Do you see the "1" on the end of that 690? That's going to be the man on the street who is from Ghana that spoke to me. We had 2 lessons with him this week. The sister missionaries who are teaching him are allowing me to be in the lessons with them and it is SUCH A JOY! He accepted an invitation to be baptized on May 25!

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A Spiritul FEAST!

This week just kept getting better and better as I piled spiritual layer upon spiritual layer. On Thursday we had zone conference. That is always a spiritual feast, thanks to our amazing mission leaders, the Harknesses, and our young mission leaders who put great care into preparing.

Then on Friday I went to the temple of our God and had a sublime experience there. In the evening all of the senior missionaries met for dinner. There are some seniors in this mission who I have never met in person even though I've been here over a year! After dinner we all helped assemble sack lunches for the young missionaries for Saturday. I am so blessed to work with these covenant keepers. They are serious about the covenants they made with God in the temple!

Saturday we had a very rare visit from an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Elder Gerrit W. Gong, his wife, Susan, Elder Mathias Held of the seventy, and Bishop L. Todd Budge of the presiding bishopric visited Montreal this weekend. On Saturday morning Elder Gong met with our entire mission for two hours. That is a logistical feat in and of itself because our mission is geographically so large. It takes a LOT of arrangements to bring everyone into Montreal! We were taught important things in this meeting. And our missionaries were fantastic! Respectful, reverent, receptive, joyful. I love these young people and every single chance I get to be near them. Elder Gong and those with him took the time to shake every single missionary's hand. I admire his understanding of ministering in the Savior's way.

Saturday evening I attended a baptism in our Mandarin branch. Our Mandarin missionaries are working super hard! They are having a baptism every month which is difficult when they are only assigned to work with a small population of the community!

Sunday morning we had a special stake conference with Bishop Budge presiding. We heard from him and our stake leaders. Bishop Budge shared amazing stories with us about miracles that happen in building temples, his setting apart as a general authority, and his interactions with President Nelson.

And if that wasn't enough. . . my new friend who I met on the street a few weeks ago came to church on Sunday!! I introduced him to the sister missionaries. They got his number and all 3 of us will meet with him tomorrow night on WhatsApp. They will invite him to be baptized!! He was taught by missionaries for 3 months in Ghana so I feel like he is ready. He will need a review of all the lessons.

I also attended a baptism on Sunday night. I have a small connection with this man who is from Iran. One day, a few months ago, Elder B and I were chatting in the hall before church started about the ban of the priesthood for Black people. A. overheard us from a nearby chair where he was sitting and came to ask if he could join the conversation. I erroneously thought he was a member of the Church. Come to find out later in our conversation, it was his first time to visit our church!! 

Elder B told me on Saturday that he thought that man who we talked with a few months ago either got baptized or was getting baptized soon. Elder B said, "You should go since you're the one who taught him his first lesson!" 😂 What a "first lesson"!! I texted the missionaries who are currently teaching him and found out that he was being baptized the very next day.

Have you ever felt that your joy was so full that it overflowed? Too much to take it all in? I have felt sooooooo much love, joy, and peace this weekend! And those are the fruits of the Spirit so I know that He has been present in abundance. Sometimes I am overwhelmed that I have the privilege of having a MEMBER OF THE GODHEAD with me at ALL TIMES! What did I ever do to deserve THAT?!? 

That was my weekend. 

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An Appearance by Two Fabulous Elders

Look who made it into my blog!!! These two elders have been waiting and watching for WEEKS to see if their pictures would appear on this blog. FINALLY! Today their dreams came true! It is a highly sought-after honor in this mission to appear on Sister Jones' blog, after all. 😂 I love these two hard-working elders. They are devoted to God and to helping His children. And I am lucky to be serving in the same branch with them right now.

I was with some very lovely people at our branch president's house this weekend. He cooked us some fabulous food! We celebrated his son's birthday and had a beautiful discussion about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love that our branch is led by an energetic, loving man of God. Some faces are blocked to protect their privacy since I didn't have their permission to post their pictures, not because they are in some kind of witness protection progam.

A sad thing happened this week. The general secretary in our mission lost her brother. He was only 54 years old and he died unexpectedly. When you are in God's service, He doesn't always protect you from difficult things but He DOES carry you through them. The secretary and her husband flew home to Alberta for the funeral. Our entire mission is mourning with them. She is pictured here with her husband. These two are dearly loved in this mission because of the genuine love that they show to our young missionaries and the rest of us! It's easy to give back love to someone who is so kind to you.

This was a fun little find for me! This week while I was clicking away, I saw a Chinese signature on a document! I'm really surprised I even noticed it because I generally don't look at what's on the documents because I'm moving along at such a quick pace. Some missionaries like to stop and read the documents, others of us just plow ahead as fast as we can, hastening God's work. Neither way is better, they are just different.

Speaking of plowing along, I had 10,303 "clicks"  in ONE week! That's a HUGE week of clicking for me and a number far beyond any I've ever reached in a single week! Thanks be to God for allowing me to work with Him in the vineyard. Numbers like that cannot be achieved without God's help.

I visited a small town called St. Hyacinthe this weekend and was surprised to find an African shop!

Our missionaries inspire me with their hard work and devotion to God! They are very fixed on their purpose to bring others to Jesus Christ. In the first two months of this year they have help 109 people be baptized. Our goal for the entire year is 691. If we keep going at this rate, we're going to do it! But really, GOD is going to do it and He's going to let us help Him. My goal is to find one (yes, you read that right) person for the missionaries to teach. I've found three so far, but none of them was really serious about learning more about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. But I'm going to keep trying. . .with the young missionaries as my heroic examples!!

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Ice Storms Cannot Stop the Work of God

I cannot say enough about the young missionaries in this mission! They work SO hard! Just look at what they did last week! They found over 1400 people who are willing listen to their message. Once I asked the missionaries in our district how many people they think they talk to before they find one person who is willing to listen to the message they have to share about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Their guess was that they talk to about 20 people before they find one that is interested. If this is true, then our 180-ish missionaries talked to about 28,000 people last week! That's some serious diligence! AND they were out working in freezing rain. Ohhhh, these young people are stunning, I tell you!

God's hand is over this mission. He is sending people to Canada from all over the world to be gathered into the House of Israel. We are surely blessed to be called to participate in His work.

Another thing that I love about this mission is the trust that the Lord and our mission president place in our young men and women. This missionary has been in Canada for 3 months. He just finished his own training, and this week he was called to train a brand new missionary AND be the leader of a district consisting of 8 missionaries. And he's probably all of 18 years old. When I asked him how he was feeling about these new responsibilities, he said that if God had put trust in him to do it, then he'd try his best.

And here are some of the conditions we worked in this past week...freezing rain. This is a weather phenomenon that I am largely unfamiliar with. I only remember it happening once in Salt Lake City. It's treacherous travel! The fire alarm went off in our building on Thursday morning at 5 a.m. so we trekked down the stairs which dumps us out into the alley beside our building. The short walk to the front of the building was scary! It was very slick ice. By 8:30 when I left for the archives building, the roads and sidewalks had been plowed and salted so there were only a few dicey spots.

Here I am on a cold morning walking to the archives. But it's not a SUPER cold morning or I'd have my hat on to prevent what I've dubbed a WCHFHA (procounced Whichifah.) A WCFHA is a Wind Chill Factor induced HeadAche.

It was transfer week. I love seeing the young missionaries gather at the mission office to pick up their brand new missionaries or the ones who are passing through to their new areas. Transfers are nothing short of an act of God in this mission since we have such a huge geographical mission. I've heard that ours is the largest geographical mission in operation. The one that is larger than ours is in Russia. Our missionaries travel by metro, train, and plane to get to their new areas. And other missionaries who are staying put are assigned to pick up moving missionaries, house them for the night, and drive them to the train station or airport. It is a massive, intricate dance!

They're preparing for something in this park that I walk past every day. Looks like a valentine-y something or other.

Here's a little game that we play at the archives to distract ourselves from boredom. We call it the "Haystack Hunt". It's like hunting for a needle in a haystack except we're hunting for a tiny little something in a mountain of documents. Sister W found this picture on the internet and writes the item we're looking for on it because we tend to forget what we're looking for. After someone finds the item, we rejoice and pick a new item.

Recently we looked for a heart. Do you see the tiny heart punch in the brown stamp? Right now we're looking for blood, or anything that looks like it could be blood. Haha! Whatcha gonna do when you've been assigned a mundane (albeit incredibly  important!) task?

Funny side note about captures. . .Elder W has been trying to beat my daily number of clicks on the camera ever since he arrived in November. He's been picking up some serious speed in just a few months! But he hasn't been able to catch me yet. Yesterday when I spent the day helping out at the mission office, like I do on every transfer day, he got more clicks than I did. . .because I got ZERO! So he wrote on the back window of my car "I beat you, more clicks." 

I told him he's disqualified from the competition after pulling a stunt like that and wrote this on HIS back window. I'm not sure who has more fun in this mission, the young missionaries or the "seasoned" ones. 😂

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