BE with God

We got another referral for the young missionaries! Another sister missionary and I went out to dinner and the waitress asked about our nametags. We asked if she wanted to come to church and she said yes. That threw us off guard a little. Then I asked for her phone number so missionaries who speak Spanish could call her and SHE SAID YES! That one REALLY surprised me! Usually they say, "Just give me the address to the church and I'll come sometime." This is my fourth find on my mission. Woot! Woot! That ONLY happens with God's help. He puts people in our way and all we have to do is open our mouths.

In general conference, a phrase that Bishop L. Todd Budge shared, screamed at me: "...when praying, what if we were to spend less time talking and more time just being with God?" I've spent the whole week pondering what it means to "just BE" with God. The more I learn about it, the more it seems to be a higher form of worship. When I'm "with" a person, what does that mean? I think it means I'm being present, attentive, focused on them and not distracted, as well as other things that I haven't discovered yet.

I felt SOOOO spoiled on my birthday! This sweet, sweet lady whom I've never met before in my life, was commissioned by one of my African sons to bring me flowers for my birthday. She joyfully made a difficult drive at night to bring me this BEAUTIFUL bouquet. I was VERY surprised, VERY touched, and VERY grateful!!

I also got to spend my birthday with young missionaries. . .couldn't have wished for a better gift! Zone conference had to be moved up a week so that it landed on my birthday! Can you say "tender mercy"?!? The entire zone sang to me and I was very touched by their love.

Our darling, HILARIOUS APs . . .

And here's a bonus selfie you ALWAYS get when you hand your phone to an elder to help you take a photo. I love these funny young men. They make my mission a joyful place!

Though I had many thoughtful gifts and birthday wishes, my very favorite was having these three together. I love these 3 young men and the one who couldn't join us. It was an absolute joy seeing them interacting with each other after such a long hiatus. It made my heart burst!!!

A very kind and generous couple treated us to "yam chah", a traditional Chinese brunch with lots of small dishes. It was SO nostalgic for the sister in the black jacket and me because we used to go to these kinds of meals with members on our mission in Hong Kong when we were young missionaries.

I squeezed in a quick drive to the countryside Saturday afternoon.

Oh, I almost forgot, I captured some documents too.   

Here's my new project. . . 151 boxes. I've never tried conquering something this big! And this one has some unique challenges that will make capturing difficult. Here we go! I'm up for it!!

Running total of captures: 426,964

Running total of docs prepped: 12,859

Cheap Thrills

This cute little thing popped onto the screen while I was talking to my missionary son last Monday. It was fun to see him interact with her. Makes me think he's going to be a great dad.

We had a changing of the guards in the secretary chair this week. My dear, dear sister/friend (pictured on the left) has gone home. I have so many lovely memories with her. And her husband and I love to swap teasing remarks, so he feels like a little brother to me. I wish them the best in the next chapter of their lives. There could not be a senior couple anywhere in the world that has served with more love and zeal than these two. Though I will miss them terribly, I already love our new secretary. After talking for 10 minutes the first time we met, we already knew we were kindred spirits. And her husband grew up in the same ward as me, just a block away, though we didn't know each other then. But we can both name a plethora of Yale Ward members that both of us know!

The archives was closed on Monday for the Easter holiday so I had lots of fun playing pickleball with these lovelies and going to lunch with our district. Young missionaries bring so much light and joy to my otherwise mundane mission!!

If you're going to have poutine in Montreal, you MUST go to La Banquise. It's known for having the best poutine in town. You can verify this by the crowds in the restaurant and the line of people waiting outside to get in. We thought we'd outsmart them by showing up in the middle of the afternoon, but we had to wait even at THAT time of day!

Poutine is a dish invented in Montreal. It's a bed of fries topped with curd cheese and gravy. Then you can have different kinds of meat and vegetables on top if you like.

We're sad that our cute, pregnant janitor had her last day of work this week. Her baby arrives in August but it's getting a little hard to perform all of her duties.

The sister missionary who arrived the same day that I did will finish her mission next week so we took her to dinner to celebrate her mission.

Then we went for a beaver's tail after dinner. This is an Ottawa invention, fried bread with several different choices of toppings.

Know what this is called? A booter. It's when you step in a puddle that is deeper than you think and it gets your boot and your sock all wet. I love it when I run into "Candaian culture" because the U.S. and Canada have very similar cultures. It's fun to ferret out the small differences.

We had 10 inches of snow Wednesday night into Thursday! It was wet, heavy snow, hence the possibility of a "booter" unless you watched where you stepped. There were lots of large puddles due to the heavy water content of the snow. Though I did not take this photo, I've seen Montreal parents transporting their kids around town this way. It works SO much better than a stoller in the snow! And I've seen people trying to do that too! This is a photo of our storm this past week.

And then 3 days later it's sunny and in the mid 50s. I had to get outside a few times this weekend to counteract all of the hours on the couch watching general conference.

My conference breakfast was extra special thanks to one of our friends at the archives who gifted us some homemade maple syrup. She lives over an hour away from Montreal in a lovely wooded community. She and her husband tap the maple trees on their property and make their own maple syrup. She's explained the process to us and it's pretty labor intensive. I felt like I was pouring "warm friendship" on my French toast this morning.

Have you ever wondered, "Why does this missionary only talk about fun things in her blog? Where's the missionary work?!?!?" Well, if I documented my missionary work in this blog it would go something like this. . .
Week 1-- I took pictures of documents

Week 2-- I took some more pictures

Week 3-- I didn't take quite as many pictures as last week

Week 4-- Wow! It was a really good week of taking pictures! Ten thousand of them!

Week 5-- Well, I took some more pictures this week

The archives missionaries joke about what we call our "cheap thrills." We look for tiny things that are different in our daily grind to keep us amused. Some of the missionaries like to stop and read the documents. I don't do that because most of the documents are in French. And also, my goal is to hasten God's work so I don't take time to stop. 

The senior missionaries in our mission gather every Monday morning for a meeting, some on Zoom and some in person. One of the elements of that meeting is "Joy & Success" and I've been asked to share next Monday for that portion of the meeting. MLS missionaries usually talk about a less active member they've loved back into the church or a member who received their endowment for the first time who they were instrumental in helping. Honestly, it's a tough assignment for me whenever I'm assigned to share about my joys and success. I really have to dig deep. 

But while I do not have many joys in my work, I'm eternally grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who has performed a great miracle in my life in connection with my mission. I fretted for months after receiving my mission call that I would be bored every single day for 2 years. I imagined myself clawing my way through every day and forcing myself to do the work. But I have been content working in the archives. No, it's not thrilling. Nor does it produce great stories to share in the senior district council. But I'm so grateful that I'm not miserable like I thought I might be. 

A few weeks ago on a relatively warm afternoon, an hour before the time I normally leave, I got very antsy and did NOT want to stay in that chair taking pictures! But that has been only one single hour that I had to claw my way through in an entire year. That, to me, is a miracle.

Running total of captures: 279,769

General Conference! Oh My!

This darling young lady was baptized last Sunday and is now a member of our Mandarin speaking branch. Her boyfriend is the 2nd counselor in the branch. Elder E on the left, just arrived in the mission 2 days before the baptism. What a way to start your mission!

The fall colors are starting to come on in Montréal. The missionaries who were here last Fall tell me that the whole mountain turns beautful colors. I can't wait to see that!

These are our 2 security guards at the archives currently. The one of the left, P, is a native of Montréal and the one on the right, A, is from Haiti. When A smiles, I feel like there is sunshine shooting from his face! He and I have become good friends even though we share no common language. He speaks French and Creole and I speak English. I do practice the tiny bit of French I've learned when speaking to him. But I also have a handy little app that I can speak into and it will translate my words and speak them to A. Then he speaks into the app and the translation comes back to me. I love our friendship! He has a beautiful wife with him here in Montreal and a 10 year old daughter back in Haiti. He wrote a poem for me last week! I'm so touched that he would do that. He spent a long time translating it into English for me. That poem is a treasure for me that I intend to keep for the rest of my life.

I finished another project this week.

But after digitizing box 10, I discovered that box 11 was missing. I informed the archives staff and the next day when I arrived, this is what I found. So cute! It made me laugh.

But the best part of this week, by far, was General Conference! I don't remember such a spectacular experience with conference for a long time. I was pondering about why that might be and wondered if it's because I'm a missionary. I have consecrated this time of my life to God and so He is pouring out rich blessings on me.

One of the beautiful things that happened to me at conference was because of 2 young sister missionaries. I thought Elder Rasband's talk about the importance of seniors serving missions was great. But it wasn't until these 2 sisters texted me after he finished his talk that the full impact hit. They told me that they love me, are grateful for me, and that I have changed their lives and set a beautiful example. I began crying and also received a powerful answer to a prayer I had offered this week. I find it very interesting that I needed those 2 sisters as the catalyst for the revelation to flow. I'm very grateful that they followed a prompting. And I told them so. Young missionaries are SUCH a blessing in my life!

. . . and seasoned missionaries are SUCH a blessing in every mission president's, young missionary's, and members' lives! Come join us if you can!!

Running number of captures: 115,491