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

It's All About The Book of Mormon

I'm sure these two pictures won't look very different to most of you, but it feels VASTLY different to me! I've switched from taking photos of documents to doing the prep work getting them ready to be captured. 

Camera captures

Prep work involves making sure you account for every numbered document, taking out oversized documents that don't fit in our camera range, removing fasteners (staples, ribbons, brads, rivets, straight pins, etc.), unfolding creases and dog eared pages. . .basically, trying to make everything perfect so the people at the cameras won't find anything to slow them down.

Prep work

My brother and his wife came to visit for a week. They celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in Montreal. It was fun to have them here. They stayed at my apartment with me.

A very kind family invited the senior missionaries to their house for lunch. They do it every year. I couldn't go last year for some reason. It's SUCH a beautiful setting about an hour away from Montreal. This is the little tea house in their lovely garden where we had lunch.

One of the senior missionaries and I may or may not have SPLURGED at a Belgian chocolate shop. We're blaming it on our mission president's wife. SHE'S the one who told us about it and said we HAD to go there!

We had the most amazing zone conference last week. It was all about using the Book of Mormon in teaching others about the Church. President and Sister Sorensen teach with the power of the Spirit! I was spell-bound the whole 3 hours! Sister Sorensen challenged us to read the Book of Mormon before General Conference on October 5...in our mission language. No big deal for me, but our Mandarin speaking elders nearly choked on this challenge. The two in our district did not just dismiss this mountain-of-a-challenge. One plans to read the Chinese alongside the English, which will take much longer, and the other one said he'd read it in the picture form. I admire the faith of these elders!

Sister Sorensen also asked us to mark all references we find to the Savior. I have done this once before but I'm doing it again. It is truly stunning to see how many markings you have on just about every page. There is also a "life problem" I'm looking for answers for as I read this time. Hence, the two colors of pens.

As great as zone conference was, the district council we had right after was even better! We've never had a district council right after zone conference but president wanted us to discuss what we heard and felt in zone conference and make some goals in connection with that. Our young missionaries talked about how the Book of Mormon has changed their lives and how much they love it. Several of them shared some very tender things. The Spirit attended in a powerful way!! 

My love for these young missionaries grew that day. Remember the Grinch's heart? Yep. About like that. I already loved them but now I love and admire them even more. Missionaries are powerful young people because of their obedience, sacrifice, and devotion to God and the people they serve. Sometimes I pinch myself when I think that I get a front row seat to all that they are doing.

I told my district that I love, love, love the Book of Mormon. We had a member of a previous stake presidency in Salt Lake who used to stand at the pulpit in stake conference and say with tons of enthusiasm, "I LOVE the Book of Mormon!" I remember thinking, "I don't love it, I just read it because I know we're supposed to." But when I finally chose to engage with that book in a serious way, my feelings toward it have changed. Now I can say with Pres. Barney, "I LOVE the Book of Mormon!!" Remember when Pres. Nelson said if you don't love the temple yet, go more often? Same thing with the Book of Mormon. If you don't love it yet, read it more and more and more! Look for answers to life's questions in its pages. Feel the power between its covers!

If you felt prompted to also take this challenge while I was describing it, come join us! You'll need to read about 8 pages a day.

Running total of captures: 375,753

Running total of docs prepped: 1700