A Few Funnies to Distract Us From Our Mundane Task

I scared myself when I walked into the archives Monday morning and saw my desk piled high with boxes. I forgot that I had piled them on top of wavy documents in hopes that they would be flattened out with the weight over the weekend. Alas, the results were only marginal. I ended up using magnets as weights on the corners of the documents. I'm so worried that these captures just might be my very first ones to be rejected by Salt Lake City. 😕 I might have to do them all over again. Stay tuned for the drama. 

I think the cross looks like a t-shirt right now in the evenings. Not sure what's going on. Elder F cracked me up when he said it's probably the "summer look" for the cross. 😂

I joke with our janitor when he comes every day to empty our cans. Everyone else in our room is producing garbage except for me. So I apologize that I've "got nothing for him." This week I left this surprise for him. It got a huge grin out of him. I've never seen him smile, much less grin! He's generally rather stoic.

And can we talk about dandelions that are tall enough to brush your cheek? We're paranoid about dandelions in Utah. The people of Montreal don't seem bothered by them at all.

Montreal really is a beautiful city.

I attended a zoom meeting on Saturday morning where Sister Harkness, one of our mission leaders, guided a discussion about the new Preach My Gospel manual. Though I don't use it a lot because I don't teach lessons like the young missionaries do, it's a fabulous book and I love studying it with my mission. I've also found it to apply to my life in other general ways besides teaching friends of the Church.

The tech elders live in our apartment building and the washing machines were not kind to them this week...no spin cycle. They barely had enough 2 dollar coins, "toonies", to run their loads so they needed to borrow some from another senior missionary. When I saw these chocolate toonies at the dollar store, I couldn't resist. You should have seen their faces when I told them I'd heard they ran out of toonies for their laundry so I'd brought them some...and then produced these monstrosities from behind my back. I love these two elders. And I love making them laugh. Don't judge the wrinkled shirt. It's a gift from the washing machine monster.

Running total of captures: 64,174

Nothing Better Than the Temple With My Zone

It's a long post this time...3 weeks worth!

We work in such an amazing building! It was originally the École des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (School of Commercial High Studies...for you non-French speakers) founded in 1907. It was the first school of management in Canada.

Our work site is now a complex of what was originally two buildings that have  been connected with an annex and houses the BAnQ Vieux-Montreal – Bibliothèque et Québec, or the Library and National Archives of Québec. The original building for the school was called the Gilles Hocquart building.

The second building, the Jodoin House built in 1871, was the residence of a wealthy couple. During that time period, our part of town was where the bourgeoisie lived. This is one of the only houses of its kind that still exists in this neighborhood.

Here's what it looks like today.

But when I look at this historical picture of the same room, the history of the house seems to come alive for me and I imagine what it was like in its glory days. It's so great having an employee  access badge that can get me almost anywhere in the building! And no one seems to mind that I explore. I've run into several employees while exploring and they just greet me and go on with their work. 

One evening when I was leaving a little later than most of the employees, I got off the elevator and found two teenage girls in the safe! They said they turned the handle and it just opened. Why didn't I think of that?? There wasn't really anything interesting in there. Only boxes.

On July 13th, Sister C and I were working at the archives and she got a text from her sister in Utah saying there was a threat of a tornado in Montréal. It always cracks me up when we get our information from people in other parts of the world. Soon after, both of our phones started going off with alerts of a possible tornado along with a huge storm headed our way. A tornado had touched down in Ottawa which is about 2 hours from us. We started dashing around the building so we could see out the windows from all four directions. The rain was torrential! I checked a radar app that Elder F. had told me about and saw that there was a very short break in the thunderstorms. We decided to wait by the front door and as soon as we saw the rain letting up, we made a dash to the metro station which is 3 blocks away. We hurried along in very light rain to the metro and just before we arrived, the rain started picking up again. Check out this link to see how heavy the storm was.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LUgY7toobzQygajp7 

We had 90 cm (3.5 inches) of rain in 2 hours! But no tornadoes ever developed in Montréal. When I got home, I just pulled my recliner up to the sliding glass door to watch the fantastic show put on by Mother Nature! And, yes, it was very dark as the picture shows.

But as in life, after the storm passes, there is beauty and peace again...the law of opposition at play.

The senior ("seasoned" as Pres. Harkness likes to call us) missionaries in our apartment building like to get together a lot. We recently had a progressive dinner with 12 missionaries where we moved from apartment to apartment for each course of the dinner. While we were together, I had the idea that we should do "relatives around me." Guess what? We're all related! Even the Canadians! I love serving with these people. They are the covenant keepers. They have all made covenants with God to consecrate themselves to God and to sacrifice to serve Him. And they are DOING IT! They don't just SAY they will, they DO it! They are fun, pleasant, hard-working servants of God and I truly enjoy being with them.

If you lived here, wouldn't you just want to have breakfast every morning out on the balcony at 9 am?

I had to take myself for an excursion out of the big city. I find that I have to do that from time to time up here. I just need a little "country peace" and the countryside of Canada is absolutely beautiful!

My greatest moment BY FAR in the past 3 weeks was being with these people in the temple. Our young missionaries all had a chance to go to the temple during the month of July. This is my zone and they were the last to attend the temple. Some of these missionaries cried when they heard they would have the privilege of attending the temple because it's been so long since they've been inside a temple. 

While I don't have many interactions with the young missionaries in my zone at all because my assignment at the archives doesn't cross over with theirs hardly at all, I am working my way into this zone because I love young people so much. I am finding ways to be with them. I asked for special permission to be at the temple with them because "my Mandarin elders", who I attend church with every week would be there. I knew it would be a very special experience for me to be inside the temple with them. I was right. The entire experience, with its many facets, was among my top 10 experiences in the temple during my lifetime. There were many special moments for me. And I had chance to ask my Mandarin elders at church today what that temple experience meant to them. Their answers were beautiful. The future of the Church is in good hands!

I challenge you to find THIS flavor in the lower 48!  HAHA!

I invited our former security guard to come and see what our church is like. He didn't say yes. But he also didn't say no. He's working for the next 3 weekends. Stay tuned! My goal is to find ONE PERSON for the young missionaries to teach. I know, it's a tiny goal. And if I achieve it, I may branch out to something bigger. 

Running total of captures:  58,032

A HUGE Acte, A Happy Cookie, and a Happy Story

A picture is worth a thousand words...unless it takes a thousand words to explain the picture.  This is one of those pictures. Here's one of the missionaries I work with at the national archives and she is an absolute hoot! Her role is to prep the documents that we will be photographing.

The legal profession in Canada is divided into lawyers, who handle legal disputes, and notaries, who prepare acts and contracts such as marriages, wills, division of property among heirs, and lists of household assets after someone dies. We've been capturing thousands of "actes" created by notaries mainly from the late 1800s. An acte can be anywhere from one to several pages. The large ones have around 50 pages. Sister F. ran across this 200+ page acte last week and we were all dumbfounded at the size of it. You can see that it is bound by a ribbon at the corner to hold it all together. As soon as she cuts the ribbon, we'll be able to handle the pages one by one which makes it a LOT easier for captures. The three of us working on the cameras really appreciate what Sister F. does to get things ready for us!

My setup in our "new home".  I love that I get to work next to a window considering that the last room I worked in for the first 2 months of my mission had no windows at all. I never knew what the weather was like until I walked out the door to go home.

Click on the link below to see how we celebrated the 4th of July in Montreal.

One Heck of a Rainstorm!

Guess where I was last Thursday...and every Thursday?

Try as I might, this was the lowest temperature I could achieve in my tiny home for a few days last week. And the humidity! Ohhhh, the humidity! I picked up a new vocabulary word, and no, it wasn't a French one. Humidex. I'm assuming it means the humidity index and is comparable to a wind chill factor. Think "feels like" temperature. July 6 was 90.5° with a humidex number around 104°! This desert girl does NOT do well with this extreme humidity! It was pretty miserable all week long, but we lived to tell about it. So no harm, no foul.

A Canadian bonus

Sometimes at church I ask the young elders to tell me about a time during the week that they have been led by the Spirit because I think of my mission as devoid of those kinds of experiences. But after thinking about it, I had a very spiritual experience this week. I was talking to one of my friends who was very discouraged about a current situation in his/her life. All of a sudden, ideas started popping around in my head. I knew exactly what to do! I needed to find specific scriptures and read them aloud to my friend. As I read the verses aloud, the feeling of our conversation became one of hope and faith in the future instead of despair and discouragement. The Spirit was strong and I knew that I had had the privilege of being used as an instrument in God's hand to bless my friend's life!

Running total of captures: 39,283

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)

Choking

What a difference seven days makes! Today I can barely make out Mount Royal from my apartment because of all the smoke from the wildfires. There are 80 wildfires burning just north of us. And that's just Quebec Province! Other provinces are having a devastating fire season as well. Depending on which direction the wind and the weather patterns are flowing, some days we are choking on the smoke and other days are just fine. I feel a little guilty when I pray that the smoky air will be cleared from Montreal because that means it will just move to another city to choke my brothers and sisters elsewhere. And I don't wish this nasty air on anyone! Our young missionaries were even told to do no street contacting today...to stay indoors!

Last Sunday this was the same shot from my balcony.

I sure do love this House of the Lord! I love that He lets me come inside to visit whenever I want to. When I walked in these doors on Friday I was very concerned about something. I cried and prayed for the first 15 minutes. And then a beautiful peace descended on me. I felt like everything was going to be okay and that I didn't need to worry. I was in SUCH a different mental place when I came out than when I entered God's holy house. I feel very blessed to serve in a mission where there is a temple nearby and that my assignment allows a TON of flexibility.

I needed a break from the big city so after I left the temple I just drove and drove until I found a quiet place. 

Not really ideal to be trekking through the forest dressed in my Sunday clothes and shoes, but it worked.

Here's a thought I had while capturing documents this week. When I held and read this letter written by my great grandfather about a year ago, it was a very emotional experience for me because I was holding a piece of paper that he had touched. I was looking at his handwriting. I could see the folds in the paper. It felt personal to me. 

     

As I was looking at the signatures on this document that I had just captured, I thought to myself that perhaps when a descendent of one of these people sees these signatures, she or he could possibly have a similar experience to mine because a signature is a very personal thing, unique to each person.

It's the little, tiny things that keep archive missionaries going! 🙌😄

On the fun side of things...

A week ago I was invited to a Nigerian barbeque which turned out to be more like a wedding without a bride and groom. Lots and LOTS of yummy Nigerian food with fun dancing!

This weekend Sister C and I explored a huge market with fresh produce and flowers in abundance. I was kind of excited to find mangoes. Hehe. They were nowhere as scrumptious as my African freshly-picked mangoes, but they were good.

Missionary moments:

• The young elders in our Mandarin speaking branch brought a new friend to church a few weeks ago. I could hear them speaking English to him while I was playing prelude music for sacrament meeting. I felt prompted to pop down off the stand and introduce myself. Last week the elders said they were teaching him a lesson right after church and asked if I'd like to attend the lesson. I was so disappointed that I couldn't because I had to attend branch council meeting at the request of the branch president. Our friend wasn't at church today. The missionaries told me that he is suffering with allergies so I texted him letting him know I noticed he wasn't there. Though my role is tiny, I'm thankful to have any role in helping others come unto Christ! I have a feeling this man will be baptized and be a leader in the branch in about a year's time.

Running total of captures: 32, 146

Truly Inspired By Our Missionaries and One Courageous Woman

All of the senior missionaries in our mission are asked to do apartment checks with the young missionaries. We met four of the young elders this week as we visited them in their apartments. I took the chance to leave them with a super short doctrinal message as well. They said it was strange being on the other side of the teaching. I loved getting to know these four elders a bit. Check out this bathroom in one of their apartments! Oh my!

God's hand is moving over the Canada Montreal Mission. The number of people that our young missionaries have been finding in the past few months is astronomical! Check out the numbers in this graphic. The number on the left is how many new friends were found, followed by the goal for that week.

Our exploring this weekend took us to the Old Port. It's where the community of Montreal began back in 1642. We were fascinated by the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel. It was started by a woman named Marguerite Bourgeoys. She focused on educating girls and women. She made a conscious decision to not become a nun because she wanted to do God’s work among His children, not be isolated from them. She pointed out that the Virgin Mary was not “cloistered” and so she followed that path as well. What a hard worker! What determination she had! I was so inspired after learning about her life.

Here are some photos from the chapel:

Missionary moments:

• A young woman who worked at the chapel was passionate about the historical stories she was telling us. When I found out she was just as excited about her own family history, I sent her to FamilySearch.org.
• A young man who gave us a tour of the foundation of the church that burned down said he knew of our church. When I asked how, he said he's just curious about a lot of things so he's looked it up online. I said if he was really curious, he was invited to come to church with us and see what it is like. He declined.

Running total of captures: 19,469

Senior Missionaries...WHAT rules?

Our supervisor came to visit from Pittsburgh last week and informed us that in a few weeks all four of us missionaries will be moving into the same room. The first 2 weeks of my mission, there were 5 work stations and 6 missionaries. Since I was the last one who arrived, I was just doing supporting work and getting good advice from the veterans. Then one of the couples went home and I have a spot now. I work in a room by myself on the third floor which I call "the cave". The other 3 missionaries are on the 5th floor.  I'm looking forward to being in a room together.

You can see my work station in "the cave" on the left.

It was 94° last Wednesday! Wow! That was a new record high for the 1st of June in Montreal. What happened to all of those cautions of "You're going to freeze" when people found out where I'd be serving?!?

This cute missionary is going home this week. So last week she wanted to go to the top of the Ferris wheel and watch the lights change on the Jacque Cartier Bridge at 10 pm. Two other sister missionaries went with us but only Sister C and I went on the Ferris wheel. It was so fun! And we had a brilliant view!

I also learned that Cirque du Soleil was started in Montreal. Gotta go catch a show one of these days! There are SO many fun things to see and do in this city!

Senior missionaries arriving home at 11:00 pm! Whatcha gonna do?

Last week the young missionaries in our mission found FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY new people to teach! Astounding! I was so inspired by them that I decided I wanted to find just one person for them to teach. I've been getting to know the security guards at the archives building where we serve every day. Last Friday I invited one of them to come to a stake activity with us on Saturday night. It gave us the chance to talk to him about his religious beliefs and show him around the chapel where the activity was held. We've been asked by those in charge at the archives to not talk about religion while we're inside the archives building. It was fun to be with this man in another setting so we could discuss religion with him. It seems that he might be open to talking with the missionaries. Stay tuned!

Running total of captures: no idea, I forgot to send in my report on Friday...Yikes! It will give you something to look forward to next week.