I FINALLY Feel Like a Missionary

My BEST news this week is an amazing miracle! I GOT TO DO SOME MISSIONARY WORK!! Here's the scoop. I was walking home from the archives on Monday and I see someone catching up to me from behind. He says to me, "Are you going for a walk?" I'm thinking, "Who wants to know? And what's your motive for asking this question?" I cautiously told him that yes, I'm going for a walk. Then he saw my nametag and asked if I was a latter-day saint. He said that he came to our church for about 3 months in Ghana and because of the help of the missionaries he stopped smoking and improved other things in his life. I got a lot more friendly in the conversation after that. 😂

We talked for a while and I learned that he came to Montreal for a professional conference last week and stayed on because he has a 6 month visa. He is hoping to immigrate to Canada. I was able to TESTIFY to him that his life is already better because of the knowledge he gained from the missionaries in Ghana and the changes he chose to make. I TAUGHT HIM A PRINCIPLE that this is God's church on the earth. Other churches are good but they were started by men. This church was restored to the earth by our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I INVITED him to come to church on Sunday and he said he'd come! It turns out he couldn't come today because of some unpredictable circumstances, but he's coming next week. I also sent him an electronic copy of the Book of Mormon and INVITED him to read it along with the Bible.

After we had been talking for a bit, I asked why he even spoke to me on the street. I asked if it was because he saw my nametag. He said that he couldn't see it because he was behind me. He just had this thought that he should talk to that lady. I TESTIFIED to him that that was a message from God in his thoughts. 

The young elders in my district, the elders in my  branch, and my missionary son would be so proud of me! I testified, taught a principle, and gave an invitation! What a huge blessing it was to me that this man stopped me. I yearn to have chances as I serve a mission to be able to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  This was a cherished tender mercy for me. We'll see what the future brings for him. I have a goal to find one person for the missionaries to teach. I don't even have an expectation of baptism for that person, just that they will be willing to listen to lessons. I wonder if he will be the one. And then if I ever achieve that goal, maybe I'll go for something bigger.

This is the beautiful chapel where I go to church, right across the street from the Villa-Maria metro stop. And, yes, it's very common for a Montreal sky to look like it did that day.

The National Archives of Quebec where we work installed a new sign outside of our room! The last one we had said The Genealogical Society of Utah...a little outdated.

I have to get out of my chair every hour at the archives and take a walk or my legs stiffen up and I get too bored sitting in one spot. On one of my excursions, I found this great book with historical photos of places around Montreal. It has "then and now" shots. This park is across the street from the archives building.

We had a little outing on the weekend with the senior missionaries to Old Port.

This is so cool! You could squat down and look through these huge glasses at the sun on the day of the eclipse if you didn't have a pair of your own protective glasses! Brilliant!

At one point I was walking past this funny lady hoping to get ahead of everyone so I could have a clear shot of the cityscape. She, at the same time, had other plans for the group and wanted to get a casual shot of everyone walking along. As I tried to pass her up, she stuck out her palm and planted it on my chin to stop me. 🤣 We took this hilarious photo to commemorate that moment.

As I finished another reading of the Book of Mormon today, I was struck with a profoundly deep gratitude for all of the men and women who have labored, protected, cared for, translated, scribed, printed, donated money for, and put their lives at risk so that it could be safely brought down to our day where we SO DESPERATELEY need it! I LOOOOOOVE this book! I love the teachings of Jesus Christ that I find inside. They make my life better. I love the peace and the power that I find from this book. I need the hope that this book teaches me about my Savior. I need the healing and comfort that come from this book. I need the peace that I find in this book. I love how this book compels me to continuously strive to be a better person. Where would I be without this book?!? I NEED this book!!

Running total of captures: 307,176

BEST DAY OF MY MISSION!!

If Heavenly Father let me design a perfect day while on this mission I probably would have chosen to do the things I got to do last Friday. One of the office couples went to their son's wedding this week so the office was short-handed. Sister C and I offered to go help (even though we have no idea what we're doing) because the archives was closed on Friday in observance of the Canada Day holiday.

I was in charge of checking in the departing missionaries for their flights home and getting boarding passes for them. Pressure! You can't really mess up something this big! It turned out the other senior couple who usually works in the office had to leave to set up a new apartment. Thank heavens for the technology elders! They saved my bacon! They were so helpful and patient. They never seemed bothered by my myriad of pleas for help, starting with, "What's the PIN to unlock the computer?" And I loved getting to know both of them better. We saw a fair amount of the assistants to the president that day as well. There are some stellar young missionaries in the Canada Montreal Mission!!

My favorite part of the day was the afternoon when the departing missionaries arrived for their final interviews with president. I loved talking with them as we worked together in the office and finding out about how their missions have affected them. I loved hearing about the growth they have experienced and their plans of maintaining their spiritual growth when they return home.

One unassuming elder asked after lunch if he could help do anything in the office. What an incredible young man! The other departing missionaries followed suit and all of a sudden we had 8 helpers that we put to work. I told the elder who started all of this that there is some young lady out there who is going to be excited to meet a kind, thoughtful man like him. This elder is not the kind of man that the world admires or holds in esteem, but in God's kingdom, he is a giant! He reminded me of what was said of the Savior: ...He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)

It was SO great to be around young missionaries all day long! And it was transfer day so not only were there lots of young missionaries in the office, but it was also the first day for new missionaries coming to our mission and I got to meet some of them! I met a Sister Jones from Rexburg, Idaho. I also found out later that there is an Elder Jones who just arrived too. In talking to my brother, I found out that Elder Jones is from my brother's stake in San Antonio and my brother met him at his interview with the stake president. I wanted to track down those two Joneses at lunch and do "relatives around me" on the Family Search app to see if we are related but my app wasn't cooperating.

My one sadness from the day is that I forgot to take any photos at the mission office. 😔

I work with these two fabulous missionaries in the Mount Royal Branch which is the Mandarin Chinese speaking branch and yesterday they texted me asking if I wanted to meet them to help teach a friend of the Church. Oh my! YEEEEES, please!!! It was such a pleasure to be teaching and inviting our friend to come unto Christ. I wasn't sure I'd ever have the chance to do that on this mission because of my records preservation assignment. I hope it happens again in the future! By the way, these two hard-working missionaries had ELEVEN friends at church today!!

I went home exhausted (a 12 hour day) and sweating like crazy because the humidity was off the charts on Friday, but so, SO happy! If Heavenly Father has a better day in store for me on the mission than this one, He'd better be planning a humdinger because I was so INCREDIBLY HAPPY all day long!

We also moved to a new room at the national archives this week. I've been working on the 3rd floor in a room by myself with no windows and a very loud ventilation fan and the other 3 missionaries have been working on the 5th floor. We were all moved into a new room on the 3rd floor. It's a spacious room with large windows. I'm so happy about our new setup!

I've gotten to know two of our security guards pretty well and am sad they have been transferred to other locations. This was their last week with us at the archives. Here's one of them that I played a joke on.

One day I was walking down these stairs. His desk is just at the bottom of the stairs so he saw me coming. I said, "These are Cinderella stairs!" I jokingly told him that I was going to leave a shoe on the stairs one day for him to find. Well...guess what I did? He thought it was hilarious.

Running total of captures: ?? (the internet isn't set up in our new room yet so we couldn't send in our reports this week)