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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Sadly Disappointed

Well, this is actually the first week of my mission in Montreal where I can honestly say I did NOT capture one, single historical document. My computer software has been broken for two weeks. The week after it happened, I moved to another computer so I could keep working. At the end of that week everything shut down at that computer as well. And so last week I was just on vacation. While the vacation has been fun, it's not what I came to Canada to do. I came here to work for my Master to help prepare the world for His Second Coming. But I have no control over an inoperable computer. I'm disappointed. I've notified my supervisor numerous times and nothing is being done about it.

I'm having a hard time understanding why it takes two weeks to repair a glitch in software. I can do nothing but wait. Patience is not my strong suit but I've had plenty of opportunity to practice it this past week. I've been studying about patience and long-suffering during my gospel study this week. One of the definitions that I found for long-suffering which seems very applicable here is "patience in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people." I have no control over this situation, other people do.

This has been a symbol I look at every day to remind me of the importance of my work in linking families to their ancestors.

Now this is what it feels like to me...completely broken down.

God continues to tutor and refine me on this mission. . .

In happier news, here are some of the things I did to fill my time this week.

I decked my halls and I'm READY for Christmas! The MOST WONDERFUL time of the year!

On Transfer Eve I went to the Papineau chapel to see the "transfer circus." I knew that many missionaries meet up at this chapel to hook up with their new companions or to get a ride to the airport or train station at 5 pm. I've never seen it before and wanted to experience it once on my misson. I was the only female there. Hehe. It was so heartwarming to see how much these elders care about each other. I loved hearing the expressions of love they shared with each other and watching the enthusiastic hugs and back slapping.

I helped in the office on transfer day and said goodbye to our lovely departing missionaries.

Here's one I'm REALLY going to miss! Since we're both Sister Jones, we've joked her whole mission that she is my niece. We've sucked in a lot of the young missionaries with our prank! Haha! I love my Sister Jones dearly.

I wrote this note in her passport on the first day she arrived in the mission. Several months later she shared with me that it helped to lift her spirits during hard times.

I visited la grande bibliothèque, the big library, which is just down the street from my apartment building.

I inventoried the keyboards so that they're ready to hand off to another ward or branch who wants to run the keyboarding classes in their unit.

I also explored a charming town which is an hour and 45 minutes west of Montreal called Montebello. It's got a log mansion which is now a hotel.

The lobby reminded me a bit of Old Faithful Inn.

Check out this awesome sundial!

They're gearing up for a Christmas market in a few weeks. Looks fun!

Let's see what surprises this coming week brings! "Stay flexible and be calm" is my new mantra!

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I Love Missionaries!

This is one of our security guards. He's from Senegal and I stop by to chat with him every day. He's practicing English with me and I'm practicing French with him.

I'm so glad I remembered to get this photo a week ago before transfers. I was afraid some of my Mandarin elders would be leaving...and they did. Two of them are gone now. But I'm really excited about the two who have been transferred BACK to the Mandarin branch!

We got TWENTY-EIGHT new missionaries this past week! That's a HUGE incoming group! It takes a lot of work to process that many. And poor Sister Sorensen was cooking for this small army for a few days.

I love being with the new missionaries on transfer day! I also love being there to say goodbye to our departing missionaries. One of the departing missionaries is from Star Valley and he knows I want to move there when I go home so his last words to me were, "See you in Star Valley!" He's such a good young man. He finished his mission as an AP.

And we discovered on the very last day of his mission that this missionary's grandparents lived in my ward! How did it take us THAT long to figure that out?!?

At the lunch on transfer day, one of our APs, Elder Jones, was introducing the senior missionaries. When he introduced me, he said, "Sister Jones loves missionaries!" I'm glad he knows that because it's true! I feel such a strong love for these amazing young people that I get to work with during this season of my life. I feel like they are the cream of the crop of all the young people in the world.

THIS! This is why Salt Lake says we're a "complicated mission." One of the senior misisonaries made this graphic.

OK, this will seem strange to many, but I find it fascinating. One day the edge of a paper sliced across my finger. I quickly looked at it to see if the paper cut was going to bleed. NO PAPER CUT! Then I started thinking that with the hundreds of thousands of papers that I've touched, how is it possible that I haven't had a single paper cut? When I was a teacher I got paper cuts all the time. I asked the other archive missionarie and they said they haven't had any either.

We googled it and found that because we are living in a humid climate, we're less likely to get paper cuts. Our hands aren't as dry. Dry hands get paper cuts easier. And the paper is more supple because of the humidity. On really humid days, I can feel the difference in the paper. Hence, no paper cuts for archive missionaries in Montreal!

I noticed this loose piece of skin on my thumb the other day and figured that must be the Montreal version of a paper cut. No pain. No blood. Just a hanging piece of skin.

There you go. A useless piece of information about paper cuts for you!

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A Swarm of New Missionaries

My missionary had a birthday!

I finished prepping the project I've been working on!! I'm really happy about that because it took me an entire month and now I get to go back to clicking. While neither job is very exciting, I prefer clicking. I'd love to reach 1/2 million clicks by the end of my mission but this month of prepping may have thwarted that plan. Oh well, it doesn't matter. It's all God's work after all.

Here's the BIG news of the week...

TWENTY-EIGHT incoming missionaries! We haven't had such a big group ever since I've been here. 

And a FABULOUS group of seasoned servants of God went home to greet their families and friends. It's so darn hard to let these missionaries who I love go home!

The archive missionaries went out for dinner after we finished our work on Friday. We love this restaurant near the national archives. It's calle Nelson Garden (Jardin Nelson in French), but we call it "President Nelson's Garden."

On Saturday I drove down to a tiny town called Hemmingford near the US border. No, I did not consider crossing. No, I am not getting trunky. One of our couples who left the mission a few weeks ago told me about it. They know I love to visit small towns to get away from Montreal.

They told me they crossed the border just below Hemmingford. It's a super easy crossing with no waiting because it's out in the woods, not on a main highway. I think I'll keep that in mind for future reference!

This is one of the first signs Americans see after they cross into Canada, I thought it was hilarious! Welcome to the land of metric measurements, Americans. You're not in Kansa anymore, Toto.

I saw these signs on my drive home. Look at ALL THAT ENGLISH!! It turns out I drove through the Kahnawake Indian Reserve. No, they don't call them "Native Americans" up here.

Canada culture...orange AND pink traffic cones!

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Flooding

We have a new baby in our family! It feels strange missing weddings and new babies. But it happens to all missionaries.

This is CANADIAN Coca Cola. See the maple leaf on the door of the truck? I see this with a lot of American products in Canada, that they were produced in Canada.

My missionary had his first transfer last week. I'm anxious to hear about how he likes his new area. I got transferred this week too...to another district. My former district was dissolved so they moved me to another district. We meet in the room next to the one where our former district met so not too big of a change. The weird thing is that no one tells seniors things. I happened to notice it on the transfer board while I was in the office on transfer day. If not for that, I wouldn't have known and would have gone to meet with my old district, which no longer exists.

These were a glorious find...chocolate fillled croissants. I've heard about them. I found these in the Jean Talon Market in frozen packages. Yummy!

Here's one of our TWENTY-ONE departing missionaries this week. We don't usually have that many leaving at once. I didn't know many of the departing missionaries this time.

The night that our new missionaries flew in, we had a HUGE rainstorm left over from Hurricane Beryl. Our assistants to the president who were supposed to pick up the new missionaries were stuck on an onramp to the freeway for over 3 hours. They never did make it to the airport. They contacted the missionaries and told them to take taxis to the mission home.

Photo credit: The Montreal Gazette

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