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

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

First Week at the MTC...Check!

What a week it has been!

Here it is, the classic photo by the map pointing to my mission.

These are the Davieses. They're the ones who took my picture in the front of the map, the very first missionaries I met at the MTC. It turns out that I was with Elder Davies' cousin in the MTC 39 years ago! Uncanny? Or is it the hand of God making me feel comfortable here on my very first day?

I love these two people, Elder and Sister Larson. We spent quite a bit of time "teaching" each other this week. We are convinced that it was no mistake we were paired together, especially when we discovered that I know Sister Larson's uncle! Uncanny? Nope. God's hand at work in our lives.

These sandbags were diverting water away from my house which is 3 doors from the corner. I went home on Saturday (preparation day) to get some medication I had forgotten. I knew there had been flooding on my street last week, but it was another thing to see the aftermath. People were texting to ask if my home was OK. It was almost 24 hours before I heard that I had dodged a bullet, but I wasn't worried because before I left for my mission I received a blessing that my home and possessions would be protected. I was at peace the whole time and knew everything would be fine.

The BIGGEST blessing for me this week, however, is the new understanding of my assignment which I have received. Every single day at the Missionary Training Center, God taught me that my mission is not to capture digital copies of historical documents, my mission is to bring others to Christ. I have struggled ever since I received my mission call thinking that I would be in front of a machine for two years. It sounded monotonous. But now I understand that I need to be working with people to bring them to Christ...and by the way, I'll be copying a few historical documents as well.