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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It's Official, Canada is Warm

Do you see this delicious Pad Thai lunch I had on Thursday? Cute Elder B, one of the young missionaries in our Mandarin branch, cooked it and shared some with me. Wasn't that sweet of him?? He's a good cook!

Just another dose of Montreal...

Here are the newest additions to our archives team. There are 6 seasoned missionaries currently serving at the Archives Nationales du Quebec (the National Archive of Quebec.)

They made all of us these fun Montreal aprons. Wasn't that kind of them? Though I'm not a big fan of aprons, I was sold after noticing how clean it keeps my clothes from paper dust and paper crumbs...espcially when I'm wearing black. And yes, I finished a project that had 80 boxes this past week. I've been working on it since mid December. That's a really large project. But rumor has it that one of us lucky clickers will soon be working on a project with 250 boxes! 😮

I guess it's official. We're wrapping up the warmest winter on record for Canada. I suppose this means I'm not justified in any of my whining about cold temperatures for the past few months.

So this happened. . . I was doing initiatory ordinances in the temple. I had 5 family names that I'd quickly printed before leaving home. Guess where my Grandma MacKay's 3rd cousin's wife was born?!? MONTREAL!! I'm doing her ordinances FOR her in the city WHERE SHE WAS BORN!!! Coincidence? Nope! Tender mercy, both for her and for me. And you can bet that I'm going to do her other ordinances too!

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Excuses, Excuses

Sadly, my number of document captures was very low this week. There were a lot of interruptions. I know, excuses, excuses. 

Here is a list of my excuses. . .

I spent time talking to my cute, devoted missionary on Monday morning, my new favorite day of the week.

These two lovely sister missionaries came to visit us at the archives, see the building, and find out what we do. Our supervisor from Family Search also came to visit this same day. He drove up from Pittsburgh where he lives.

I went to the temple one morning.

And my most favorite/dreaded day every six weeks...transfer day where I help out in the office. This was my hardest transfer yet. Some incredibly lovely, seasoned missionaries left us this week and it nearly broke my heart.

This is a powerful missionary with a rock solid testimony. Her core is strong and her conversion is deep. I can't wait to see the ways that God will continue to use her as she serves in His kingdom!

This tiny package is a bundle of fun! We've been in the same district for quite some time. We share a love of libraries and children. She's the very first missionary to find out about my "secret" key indicator. I tell the missionaries that I'll share it with them the last day of their mission.

Everyone needs to get a hug from this adorable girl at least once in their life! It would change you, I tell you! She has so much love to offer this world.

And this one? I can't even really talk about this one. Everything is still too fresh and raw. Suffice it to say that there is something truly special about this one. Out of the ordinary in a stunningly spectacular way.

Well, there you go. My list of excuses for such a low number of captures this week.

Some shots of Montreal on my walk home from the mission office. . .

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Canoe Ride or Train Station? Or Both?

I got to talk to my darling missionary son, Elder Nana-Prempeh, on Monday. The internet network from Nigeria was really challenging. I'm convinced it was created to teach us patience. The phone log shows that we talked for an hour and 40 minutes, but in reality it was much shorter than that. There was a lot of time spent frozen and the call dropped 10 times.

He was a little nervous that they were going to travel by canoe to teach people who live on an island. The catch is that he can't swim. I'm grateful there are life jackets supplied by the mission that they keep in their apartment. 

Here's a short video of him on the water. It just feels so amazing to me that we get to serve missions at the same time!

Here's a beautiful building all lit up at night. It's right across the street from our archives building. We lovingly call it Hogwarts. For a long time we didn't know what it was but then found out it used to be a major train station with a hotel above it where travelers could stay. I've admired it many times in the day but it is truly in all its glory when it's lit up at night!

Here's a photo from back in the day. According to Wikipedia "Place Viger was both a grand hotel and railway station in Montreal, constructed in 1898 and named after Jacques Viger, the first mayor of the city."

Photo credit: https://www.vieux.montreal.qc.ca/plaque/horizon/gares/images/11_00_6b.jpg

I have a theory of why parking strips were invented. We don't have any here in Montreal. When there are puddles of water or piles of slush on the street and a car comes whizzing by. . .insta-shower. And it's not  a clean one! Also, one day I was walking near the curb on a crowded sidewalk and the side mirror of a bus passed by my shoulder within about 6 inches!

I went to the temple this week. I haven't been since before Christmas because of a series of unfortunate events. It felt soooooo good to be back! I love the House of the Lord! There's a feeling inside there that cannot be found anywhere else on earth.

Here's an interesting find this week at the archives! It's a blueprint for a bridge and it was longer than the tables we work on. Thankfully, we don't have to take a picture of this monster. One of the missionaries prepares the projects for us. She sets these aside for the archivist employees to capture because they have a setup that is larger than ours to capture huge documents like these.

Our Mandarin branch went to Chinatown for an outing on Saturday night.

At this restaurant, you build your own bowl and then they cook it all up for you. Can you spot the frog legs? The elders talked me into trying them.

I was lucky enough to end up at a table with these two.

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Halloween Night Baptism Goals

I accompanied this group of fabulous missionaries to the top of Mount Royal this week so they could make a music video to use for digital contacting. It turned out to be really good contacting for me! One man walked up and asked what they were singing. I said, "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning." Turns out he's an athiest. But these missionaries were a great conversation piece for me. I talked to 3 people about the Church that day on top of the mountain. None were interested but it was not a waste of time because it gave me more practice and confidence in contacting.

Many people whose families have been in Montreal for a long time are Catholic but many have turned away from religion and are not interested in it. Most of the people we are finding and baptizing in this mission are immigrants. Many of our recent converts are from Africa. There was even a mother and son who were baptized that are from the Middle East!

Our mission passed our yearly goal of for baptisms this week! The goal was 348 and currently we're at 352!! Our young missionaries are finding, teaching, and baptizing with righteous zeal. They inspire me so much. Many of the people who are being baptized are not from Quebec. The Harknesses, our mission leaders, say that the Lord is gathering His people here so that they can find the restored gospel. How lucky are we to be in this spot at this point in time to participate in the Lord's gathering?!?

Halloween night we had a very holy meeting on Zoom. The Harknesses challenged each companionship to set new baptismal goals for November and December. One of our APs, Elder Verdon, said a beautiful prayer. Then we went into breakout rooms by zones. We prayed again as a zone for guidance. We asked that we would set the goals that the Lord wanted, not what we wanted. Then each companionship counseled together and set their goals. When we came back together as the whole mission, we compiled those numbers. This mission has the goal of 273 more baptisms before the end of the year. Astounding! 

The next day I decided that if our young missionaries were stepping it up, then I should too. I made some personal goals: 1) talk to 5 people on the street weekly, 2) find one person for the missionaries to teach weekly, and 3) capture 6000 documents weekly during November and December. Captures are important because they can ALSO turn into baptisms in the temple...though I will never know about them. These are lofty goals for me, but I'm just following the example of my young heroes. They made lofty goals which inspired me!

It snowed the day before Halloween. That's a little early...even for Montreal! They say the snow usually starts around mid November. I love snow so I'm good with it! Nothing really stuck or stayed around, but it is getting colder.

I LOVE blanket weather! There's something so snuggly about wrapping up in a warm blanket at the beginning of the season.

One of our new branch members went to the temple for the first time this past week. I'm so excited for him! The temple is such an amazing place. I want everyone to go there!

Ohhh, how I love transfer day. When we're introduced to the new missionaries, Sister Harkness goes on about how I come into the office to help out on transfer day and they're so grateful. The real truth is that our office staff and mission leaders allow me to come and help out a little bit in the office so that I can satisfy the craving I have to interact with young missionaries. We had one fabulous assistant to the president leave at this transfer and so we now have a new one.

I knew this missionary was getting transferred but I didn't know where. I've been able to see him whenever I'm at the office. He and his companion also lived in the same apartment building that I live in. I was sad he was leaving because I thought I wouldn't see him anymore. Come to find out, he's been assigned to the Mandarin branch where I attend church AND he's in my district as well! Woohoo! Tender mercy! I dearly love this young man, and I don't even know why. I DO know that he is an impressive young missionary!

Look what happened this week. I'm not sure how it happened. A Christmas tree just grew up right out of the floor of my tiny home with no explanation. There was nothing I could do about it. And the next day it sprouted lights!

 

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