For Me, It's All About PEOPLE

Our janitor may be getting a new job elsewhere soon so we made sure we got a picture with him (far left in the dark shirt.) We really enjoy seeing him every day at 2 pm when he comes to empty the garbage in our room. The other 3 are the missionaries I work with at the national arcives every day. We have a great team! Often we listen to audiobooks or music while we capture photos, but lately since we're all in the same room now, we just end up chatting while we work.

I ran across these two darlings and their mama one day when I was walking home. It was a particularly difficult day and these two golden retrievers were like healing salve for my heart. And their owner could not have been more friendly! Now I watch for them every day when I walk home. They'll be moving in a few months but they're only moving a few blocks. I said they have to be sure and put the yellow potted flowers in front of their new home so I know where to find them. The owner said, "Heck, I'll give you the address!" Woohoo! These two dogs are snugglers and help relieve my longing for my own Indie.

When we moved into our new room at the national archives, I organized the closet and labeled each shelf. They include labels such as "office supplies" and "capture supplies." Do you like the label for this shelf? 

Here's a project I recently completed. Each box represents about 3 hours of work. There are 37 boxes. You do the math. You have a real sense of accomplishment when you finish a project. 

One of our "archive missionaries" finished a humongous project last week. It contained 90 boxes! And it took nearly 8 months to complete! I decided we needed to start a traditional celebration when each of us finishes a project. Click on the link to see the inagural celebration. It's pretty hilarious!

Celebrating completion of a HUGE project!

Yep. This is what every Sunday is like for me. . .bewilderment. I attend a Mandarin Chinese speaking branch. Actually, it's not really this bad. Someone translates in sacrament for a few of us English speakers and we wear headphones. And the branch takes very good care of me. Someone always sits next to me in the 2nd hour and translates for me. But the Mandarin I studied in college a million years ago is starting to come back to me! Not quickly enough, but I have begun studying it again too. Line upon line, right? Be patient with the process. BUT I'm speaking in sacrament meeting this coming Sunday so the roles will be reversed. I'll speak English and many in the congregation will need the headphones. It's such a blessing that there are many who can translate and I'm grateful for their kindness.

We had transfers recently and got two new elders in our Chinese branch. I feel like this is a solid set of missinaries. I truly love these young men. I admire them for putting their young lives on hold to serve their Father and His children.

These missionary shoes will be going home next transfer. I love missionary shoes. They are a testament to hard work and diligence of young people. . .wearing out their lives, and their shoes, in the service of God.

Admit it. You want this vintage furniture in your living room. I found these in the national archives building where I serve every day. I was exploring and ran across them. It's such a fun building to explore! And because I have an employee level access badge, I can go just about anywhere.

Another picture from the national archives building in Montreal.

Our mission office just lost two senior missionaries and the office is frighteningly understaffed for the myriad of responsibilites that need taking care of. Therefore, I've been going into the misson office twice a week for a few hours to help take up the slack. Here are some of the lovely people I am getting to know in the mission office. Not pictured: a senior elder who has been nicknamed "Casper". . . he's always taking off to attend to some task and no one ever knows where he is, not even his wife. Soon after this picture was taken, a little frivolity broke out in the office. It may, or may not, have involved Nerf guns. Hehe. I love serving in fun, happy environments!

HERE'S A SHAMELSS PLEA FOR MORE SENIOR MISSIONARIES! Every mission in the world needs them! Two mission leaders simply cannot do it all! Have any of you been toying with the idea of serving a senior mission? **hint, hint** Seiously think about it!

One evening while walking home from the mission office, Avenue Du Mount Royal lured me onto it. There are several streets that are blocked off during the summer and this is one of them. They become pedestrian streets only and have a very festive atmosphere.

I ran across these fun and entertaining drummers. Click to see the video.

Montreal Drummers

This may well be one of the most joyous human beings I've ever met. A few of our missionaries take the bus home every day and for weeks they kept telling us about "the singing bus driver." This guy plays his music while driving and belts out the tunes. And he's a good singer! He warmly greets everyone who gets on the bus and seems to genuinely care about each rider. This man is a legend! OK, at least with four missionaries who serve in the national archives in Montreal. 

I was curious, so I rode the bus home with my fellow missionaries one day so I could meet him. Just a few days before that, someone had broken into his car and stolen his device that he uses to play his music. So I didn't get to hear him sing, but at least I got to meet this spectacular human! He asked why I decided to ride the bus that day since he hadn't seen me with the other missionaries before. I said, "Oh, I'm not going anywhere in particular. I just wanted to have a ride on your  bus." Really, I was going home with the other missionaries because we all live in the same apartment building.

He told us that once a week a woman gets on his bus with a bunch of flowers. One time he jokingly said, "Oh! Are those for me?" She told him that she visits her godmother every week and takes flowers with her. Lo and behold, last week the woman brought some flowers for him! I wasn't surprised to hear that at all.

He also told us that one time he had a whole group of teenage girls singing with him on the bus to a Justin Beiber song. He said the bus was really crowded that day so the girls had to stand at the front of the bus near him. He was singing along and one of the girls started to sing with him. Then one by one, all of her friends joined in.

But we got some sad news today. His schedule has been changed. He'll drive a different route most days and will only be on our route on Sundays. I'm thinking about going for a bus ride occassionally on Sunday mornings just to hear his happy singing. 

Here is a picture of the famous singing bus driver. I think that sunshine just shoots out of his face. What if every single person in the world was like this man?? Wouldn't we have a fabulous world?!?

The sun setting on Montreal. . .     What's with the string and the Ziploc bag, you ask? Why, that's the "orange line." Our metro has an orange line, a green line, and a yellow line. So the name is a nod to the Montreal metro. This string runs between my apartment and some of my senior missionary friends who live a floor above me. Sometimes we send things to each other on "the orange line."

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Can I tell you of a beautiful tender mercy from my loving Father in Heaven? For four long months I've been looking for the other purpose of my mission here in Montreal and it finally came the other day. All missionaries know that their purpose is to bring others to Christ. And my specific assignment is to capture historical documents to help people find their ancestors. But I've had this "divine discontent" for 4 months knowing that I had not yet found my personal ministry for this mission, something that only I can do with the unique combination of gifts and talents that I have been given. It came to me in a very powerful way and was very  specific. I recorded the directions that flowed from heaven and I have four written pages of notes. I'm so grateful that I finally understand my complete  purpose here in Montreal. Now I can go after it with zeal! I'm very excited! And I'm extremely grateful to Father.

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Running total of captures: 84,053

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