God's Beautiful World

Sorry, long post today since I missed doing a post last week.

My Mother's Day was spectacular! The best part was that I got to talk to my missionary son and watch him in action at the church, interacting with members, getting a free meal from one sister (who I wanted to kiss!), and making arrangements for lessons later that day. On my mission I've had the most excellent Christmas, Easter, and now Mother's Day. Does a mission enhance your holidays? It kind of feels that way!

Here's another beautiful thing that happened on Mother's Day. Both of these men are members of the branch where I attend church. The man on the right lives with and is caring for his aged mother. The man on the left painted a picture of the mother and presented it to this brother on Mother's Day. It was all very touching. And the artistry is amazing!

This persisent friend of mine invited me to her graduation. She has been training for a year to be an LPN. She's a single mom and an immigrant from Nigeria. She's worked SO HARD this year, going to LPN classes in the day and French classes at night! I was so proud of her at graduation that I felt like I could have been her mother!

Here's a beatiful little spot in the archives building where I work that has been created JUST for me to have a quiet place where I can join a Zoom call twice a week at 2 pm to teach our friend from Ghana...the man who approached me on the street. I sit on the red couch on the right for the lessons. Our friend is very diligent about being at lessons and wants to be baptized but he's having a hard time making it to church. Part of the difficulty is that he has now lived in 3 different places since coming to Montreal: a hotel, a friend's place, and now his own apartment. Hopefully, now that he has a permanent spot, things will calm down and he can figure out public transport in order to get there.

THE FISH ARE BACK!! I've been waiting and waiting for these guys ever since the weather started warming up. This fish pond is along the street that I trek daily going to and coming home from the archives. I love to stop here and watch the fish. It's a peaceful spot in a very busy, noisy city. My three favorite fish from last year were the yellow ones. I'm pretty sure that two of them are back, but they are NOT yellow. They're kind of a pale, almost translucent color. I wonder if they go pale in the winter when they're indoors and then their color returns eventually as they spend time outside. More to come on this developing situation. 

Here's one of the fish that used to be yellow. Now it's as pale as the twirly seeds that have fallen into the pond. This fish's name is June. The word for yellow in French is "jaune". See the connection?

The Montreal seniors drove 2.5 hours to Ottawa for the Tulip Festival. We saw some beautiful tulips.

This was my favorite bed of flowers because of the color combination.

But most of the tulips we saw looked like this. . .

and this. . .   
There was even an entire bed that was only stems. All of the petals had dropped off.

One of the senior couples went a week earlier than the rest of us. They came back with some incredible photos. But they warned us that by the time we got there, there wouldn't be much left. Oh well! We were with great people and the Ottawa seniors provided us with a scrumptious lunch.

Here's one of my favorite missionaries explaining the history of the Tulip Festival. During World War II, Canada sheltered the Dutch royal family. The queen was pregnant and it's important for royalty to be born on native soil so the maternity wing of the hospital was temporarily declared Dutch until after the birth of the baby. As a show of gratitude, the Netherlands sent Canada 100,000 tulip bulbs. They continue to send 10,000 bulbs per year ever since then. Cool story, eh? (Can you tell I'm picking up a Canadian accent? 😂 Actually, the only times I've ever heard anyone say eh? in Canada, it's come out of an American's mouth.)

Parliament Hill in Ottawa was stunning! This where the national government buildings are in Canada. I felt like I was walking among castles and fortresses! 

The buildings have been under renovation for many years and will be for many more years. They are adding things like air conditioning and updating internet access. They're redoing the plumbing and electrical systems and making the buildings earthquake safe. It's a huge overhaul!

A nearby hotel. . .

I got to spend lots of time with these people during my weekend in Ottawa. I love both of them dearly. They are fabulous human beings. 💕

We saw and smelled about 50 different varieties of lilacs! I had NO IDEA there were so many kinds!

I had to get this shot just because of my matching shirt. Haha

Luckily, I made it home JUST in time to go to dinner with these lovely people. This young man is one of our former APs who finished his mission last December. I knew he'd be in town but didn't know his plans. On my drive home from Ottawa he texted and asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him and his parents. They were taking an early flight the next morning! I FINALLY GOT TO GIVE HIM A HUG!!! It kills me that I can't hug these young elders that I love so dearly.

Pause for a little "Canada culture" moment. These two products do NOT taste the same in Canada as they do in the U.S. The Wheat Thins are much worse but the Kit Kats are MUCH better! The chocolate is superior.

The archives seniors went out for dinner and pie last Friday night. We ran into this beautiful feast for the eyes as well.

Here's a newspaper I found left on the table at the pie place. What we know as CMM is the Canada Montreal Mission. Apparently the greater Montreal is also known as the CMM. Haha

We will definitely  be visiting this pie place again!! The young missionaries told us about it. I've decided if you want to know the good places to eat in town...ask the young missionaries.

They're ripping up the sidewalk next to our archives building. Apparently, if you move to Montreal and you want to have job security, get a job as a construction worker!

This week our mission leaders asked the senior missionaries to assist in funneling electronic requests to the young missionaries. The office staff has been doing this but it has become overwhelming in the recent past. Just more evidence of God gathering his children in Eastern Canada! I'm thrilled to be able to help with this! It will only take me about 15 minutes each day. I go into the referral board and match the person's address to the missionaries in that area. Then I send off the referral to the correct missionaries so they can follow up with a contact. One of the sets of elders in my district had a baptism recently from a woman who requested a visit electronically!

I took a quick trip to the Insectarium this weekend. I am continually blown away by the HUGE variety of creatures and plants that God has created for us to live among!  They are spectacular!

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Would You Go For a Four Hour Church Experience?

We had a bit of an adventure at 4:45 am this morning...the fire alarm went off. I dutifully put on some clothes and went outside into the rain. All of the missionaries from the building meet on the corner whenever we evacuate the building. There are 11 senior missionaries and 6 young elders in our building. Only 4 of us met on the corner. Wonder what happened to the rest of them?

Mount Royal...again. I know you've seen a bunch of pictures of this "mountain" but it changes all the time!

Missionary shoes...the top two are the exact same kind of shoe. Can you tell which is the seasoned missionary and which one is his greenie?

What on earth is this mess on my sliding glass door, you ask? Self preservation. That's what it is. Our building management in all their wisdom shut off the AC about a month ago. This week we had a 3 day streak of tempteratures in the 80s. This was my attempt to keep my apartment cooler by blocking the direct sun. I also hung a gray sheet in the window and pulled the curtains.I'd leave the door open all night and then trap the cool air in the morning. All to no avail. Every day when I arrived home, it was 80 degrees inside and there was no way to cool it down. On top of that, my fan broke the 2nd day. I had to resort to evaporation techniques that I learned while living in Africa in order to sleep. I put on a t-shirt and shorts to sleep in then got in the shower to get them drenched. All night as they evaporated, it cooled me off. And then the GLORIOUS rain came on Saturday and saved me!

See the yellow note on the bathroom mirror? It's a quote from Elder Gary E. Stevenson's conference talk. I decided every missionary in my zone needed one on their bathroom mirror so I printed it for them. You should have seen their faces when I told them that Elder Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve wanted them to put it on their mirror and say it every day. 

Here's the quote in case you don't have it on YOUR mirror yet: “Wow, look at me! I am awesome! I am a child of God! He knows me! He loves me! I am gifted—gifted with the Holy Ghost as my constant companion!”

Here's a lovely fish pond that I stop by twice a day, to and from my walk to the national archives. It's such a peaceful setting. I've noticed as it's getting colder that the fish are sticking to the bottom of the tank. It's probably warmer down there. This week on one of my visits, a man stopped to talk to me. It gave me a chance to ask him where HE finds peace. He said he finds it because he is an artist. I asked him if he'd like to find even more peace by learning more about Jesus Christ. He declined, but I have a new friend. We even walked several blocks down the street together after our chat at the fish pond.

These lovely people visited us at the national archives this week. The two on the left are office missionaries and the others are their friends who came to visit them.

We had another stunning zone conference with the Harknesses this past week. I've been to two now and I'm pretty sure that every single one is going to be a spiritual feast. Sister Harkness teaches like a professionally trained educator. What a gift!

I love that some archivist, somewhere, put a little human touch on this label by making a flower out of the "i" in Mai (May.) It's the little things that amuse us at the archives. The really little things.

I finished a project that Elder F started before he was asked to work on a special project building a contraption for capturing books.

These are the boxes that I captured in the project.

Look at this charming streetlamp in front of the archives building. I've been listening to The Chronicles of Narnia as I capture documents and this lampost feels like it could come right out of Narnia itself.

Our tech elders love to Prank Sister C who works in the office because she's so fun. Here she is featured over and over again in a brochure.

I knew about this charming little park which is a block from our apartment but only visited it for the first time on conference Sunday. I needed to get out of the house after so much indoor time.

A new group was formed in our mission today in a small town called Thetford Mines! The members are on FIRE! After the meeting they swarmed the missionaries telling them of friends they have that they want to introduce to the missionaries so they can be taught. The missionaries also received several invitations to dinner so that they can meet other friends to be taught. They're so excited to grow this group into a branch! I was so touched when I learned of the faithfulness of these members of the Church. Many of them have been traveling one hour to church each week and then another hour home. Several don't have cars so they'd carpool. It's just too easy for me to go to church in Salt Lake City. Would I go if it would cost me 2 hours of travel time and 2 hours at church? Here's a photo of the group that met in Thetford Mines for the first time today.

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