MeRRy ChRiSTmAs, Everyone!!

I was asked to bear testimony of the Savior in sacrament meeting today. I said that life is pointless without Him. Without Him, there is no Atonement. Without His Atonement there is no forgiveness. There is no repentance. There is no enabling/strengthening power of His Atonement to help us through tough times. There is no resurrection. There is no priesthood which means there is no church organization, no temple ordinances, no eternal families. There is no purpose to this life. There is no returning home to live with Father. Without Him we have no perfect example to strive to become like. 

I also pointed out that one of the few things that is repeated in the sacrament prayers is to always remember Him. Do I remember Him on Tuesday morning at 10:00? What about Thursday afternoon at 2:00? What about when I'm getting ready for my day each morning? What about in my assigned task at the National Archives of Quebec? Do I remember Him when I'm irritated with people?

I love my Savior and I want to discipline myself to stay focused on Him more and more. Christmas is a natural time to give our focus to Him!   . . .THAT'S what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!  :)

Elder Byerly was one of the first young missionaries I got to know well in this mission. He spent most of his mission in the Mandarin branch. He finished his mission over a year ago. He and his whole family visited the Mandarin branch today! I was SO EXCITED to see him!! 

I'm pretty sure this was my last time to help out in the office on transfer day because I really didn't help with anything this time. They've got enough help and don't need me anymore. But that's OK because I have a big, big clicking goal that I want to reach before the end of my mission so I'll go work diligently at that instead!

I drove to the "English" side of the island to do some grocery shopping this week and was shocked to see the aisle signs in both languages. Most of the time I just have to struggle with the French which, by the way, I am getting better at.

We had a seniors Christmas party which was a lot of fun.

This elder will be the first to tell you that he doesn't ever want to grow up. He decided to wear his white elephant gift on the wrong end of his body.

The elder with the fancy Christmas socks got a fold up bucket for his white elephant. At one point he kicked it across the room. Someone said, "Oh no! One of the senior missionaries just 'kicked the bucket'!" He said, "What am I going to do with a bucket?" Someone suggested he could use it as a feeding trough for when they invite the elders to dinner.

Gifts for the young missionaries in my district

I made these little handmade ornaments for all of the senior missionaries who live near Montreal. It took me a lot longer than I anticipated! But I'm happy with the way they turned out.

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Seniors and Technology

I don't have a lot to say this week. . .

My cute nail biter

What!! I waited until after Thanksgiving. That's the rule!

I love my Mandarin elders

A funny thing happened in district council, but maybe you had to be there to get the full hilarious impact. One senior elder excused himself to take a phone call because his phone was ringing. As he walked to the door, another senior elder said, "It's me." The first elder said, "No, it's some sisters calling me." When he got to the hallway and answered the phone, we could hear the conversation in stereo, one conversation on the phone and the other in real time, simultaneously. We're not sure who called who or how it even happened. We were all laughing soooooo hard! The young missionaries get a huge kick out of seniors and technology. I'm sure they think we shouldn't be allowed to use it.

God is good to me. I needed some healing this week and He provided it...on cue...just like He always does. I would like to share the details, but this is not the correct forum.

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A Spiritul FEAST!

This week just kept getting better and better as I piled spiritual layer upon spiritual layer. On Thursday we had zone conference. That is always a spiritual feast, thanks to our amazing mission leaders, the Harknesses, and our young mission leaders who put great care into preparing.

Then on Friday I went to the temple of our God and had a sublime experience there. In the evening all of the senior missionaries met for dinner. There are some seniors in this mission who I have never met in person even though I've been here over a year! After dinner we all helped assemble sack lunches for the young missionaries for Saturday. I am so blessed to work with these covenant keepers. They are serious about the covenants they made with God in the temple!

Saturday we had a very rare visit from an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Elder Gerrit W. Gong, his wife, Susan, Elder Mathias Held of the seventy, and Bishop L. Todd Budge of the presiding bishopric visited Montreal this weekend. On Saturday morning Elder Gong met with our entire mission for two hours. That is a logistical feat in and of itself because our mission is geographically so large. It takes a LOT of arrangements to bring everyone into Montreal! We were taught important things in this meeting. And our missionaries were fantastic! Respectful, reverent, receptive, joyful. I love these young people and every single chance I get to be near them. Elder Gong and those with him took the time to shake every single missionary's hand. I admire his understanding of ministering in the Savior's way.

Saturday evening I attended a baptism in our Mandarin branch. Our Mandarin missionaries are working super hard! They are having a baptism every month which is difficult when they are only assigned to work with a small population of the community!

Sunday morning we had a special stake conference with Bishop Budge presiding. We heard from him and our stake leaders. Bishop Budge shared amazing stories with us about miracles that happen in building temples, his setting apart as a general authority, and his interactions with President Nelson.

And if that wasn't enough. . . my new friend who I met on the street a few weeks ago came to church on Sunday!! I introduced him to the sister missionaries. They got his number and all 3 of us will meet with him tomorrow night on WhatsApp. They will invite him to be baptized!! He was taught by missionaries for 3 months in Ghana so I feel like he is ready. He will need a review of all the lessons.

I also attended a baptism on Sunday night. I have a small connection with this man who is from Iran. One day, a few months ago, Elder B and I were chatting in the hall before church started about the ban of the priesthood for Black people. A. overheard us from a nearby chair where he was sitting and came to ask if he could join the conversation. I erroneously thought he was a member of the Church. Come to find out later in our conversation, it was his first time to visit our church!! 

Elder B told me on Saturday that he thought that man who we talked with a few months ago either got baptized or was getting baptized soon. Elder B said, "You should go since you're the one who taught him his first lesson!" 😂 What a "first lesson"!! I texted the missionaries who are currently teaching him and found out that he was being baptized the very next day.

Have you ever felt that your joy was so full that it overflowed? Too much to take it all in? I have felt sooooooo much love, joy, and peace this weekend! And those are the fruits of the Spirit so I know that He has been present in abundance. Sometimes I am overwhelmed that I have the privilege of having a MEMBER OF THE GODHEAD with me at ALL TIMES! What did I ever do to deserve THAT?!? 

That was my weekend. 

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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!!

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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.

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Easter Week

I think I just had the best Easter in my memory! My focused scripture study and simple Easter decorations kept my thoughts focused on Christ all week. I loved the songs, videos, and scripture suggestions from the Church's "Easter Study Plan." The videos were especially poignant for me. Here are some of my favorite decorations this week. . .

I hope my Easter celebrations become better and better every year!

One of my favorite senior missionary couples is finishing their mission in a few days. I'm going to miss them terribly. But the only constant thing in a mission is the coming and going of missionaries in and out of your life. I wrote on their car last week "Don't go!" Here was their response on my car. . .

There are many things I love about these two but I think my favorite thing is how they love our young missionaries. They have both made the office such a welcoming and comfortable place to be! They will be sorely missed by everyone, not just by me.

We had a TON of time off this weekend for the Easter celebration so we took full advantage of it. The archives were closed on Friday and Monday. On Friday, fourteen of us seniors went to the temple and then out to lunch. It was a beautiful experience to be in the temple on Good Friday after studying about the Savior all week. I love the focus on the Savior in the endowment session as well.

Saturday we drove out to the country for a "sugar shack" experience. We were too late in the season to see the maple sugar dripping from the trees but we did roll maple syrup poured on top of "snow" to make maple taffy.

We visited some farm animals on the property. This little lamb fit in perfect with my focus on Easter this week.

We went on a horse drawn carriage ride.

And ended with a lunch doused in maple syrup with some entertainment and dancing. I really do serve with some lovely people. What a fun day!

. . . remains of the day, syrup dribbles all down the front of my shirt. 

The festivities continued on into Monday with a district P-day starting with pickleball and ending with poutine for lunch. Google poutine if you don't know what it is...a famous meal created in Montreal. I love being with my young missionaries!!

HE IS RISEN! What a great Easter week I've had. What a great life and eternity I have BECAUSE OF THE SAVIOR!

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