A Beautiful Snowstorm

I got to spend a lot of time with these lovely, lovely people this past week between church, district council, and a district P-day. I truly love being with young missionaries. They inspire and energize me. I'm so glad that I've found ways to be where they are because the first few months of my mission, it was extremely rare for me to see a young missionary...at all!

District Council

La Plateau District

I got to know these two missionaries much better at lunch on district P-day. They are stellar young men.

We had different plans for district P-day but because we woke up to over a foot of snow, we decided to go with plan B and go to lunch. This seemed to be the perfect restaurant for our "plan B". 

 

After lunch we went to a nearby chapel and played pickleball, volleyball, hockey, and whatever the elders and sisters could find to play with. It was so fun to see the kid in each of them as they played together. We could only find 3 paddles for pickleball, so I went to the kitchen and found a jelly roll pan for the 4th player. It was a challenge to play with such an awkward implement! But a fun one! We laughed a lot.

The Utah missionaries know what to do with snow! Snow angels.

I absolutely LOVE snow!! So I was very excited that our first real snowstorm in Montreal left us with a serious accumulation of white powder...at least a foot. It's been interesting to watch the progression of the city this week after the big dump. 
 
Other missionaries who were here last winter have told me fascinating stories about snow removal so I was excited to see it. They told me that snow plows move the snow to the side of the road first. Then a series of vehicles come to remove it from the street. I was told that a "Dr. Seuss-like" vehicle blows the snow into the back of huge trucks. Then the trucks take the snow to the St. Lawerence River and dump it in. Sadly, this is the only snow removal vehicle I saw this storm. But never fear! There will be many more snowstorms! I'm sure to see the process at some point.

My walk to the archives...

Back in the summer, someone gave us a ride in a rental car and I noticed a shovel in the car. I asked why there was a shovel and they laughed and said, "You haven't been here during the winter, have you." You can see in this photo that the snowplows bury parked cars and they have to dig out.

These are the stairs going down to the metro. Do you see the salt dripping down the stairs that is brought in from outside?

From what I've been able to observe, the city also clears the sidewalks but, of course, they can't get to all of them at once. So from Monday-Friday, I mostly walked on top of a thick layer of ice. They throw a mix of sand and gravel on top of that so that you don't fall. In the next photo, you can see the slush that can be created with sand and snow.

On my walk to the archives, the sidewalks became more and more cleared as each day went on and the city cleared different parts of my nearly mile-long walk. The final strip to be cleared was the block where the arcives building is. This is the shot from Friday. You can see the national archives building on the right.

Though I'm used to snow in Salt Lake City, we usually have a snowstorm and then a few days later the weather warms up and the snow begins to melt. Not in Montreal. No melting going on here all week. In fact, when I left home one morning the "feels like" temperature was -2 F. And yes, I walked to the archives that day. 

Here are two shots of the same street from close to the same place. The first picture is Monday right after the snow stopped.

And here's the same place on Friday after the snow has been cleared by the city on both the street and the sidewalk. And once again, none of the clear street or sidewalk can be attributed to melting. We haven't been above 0 degrees all week.

A frozen shot of my beloved Mount Royal.

Running total of captures: 169,289

Christmas is Coming

Just when you think Canada and the U.S. are quite similar, you open a package of cream cheese and find a blue piece of wax paper. Hmmm...

I had a few ornaments leftover that wouldn't fit on my tree so I decided to put together this wreath.

More shenanigans in the parking garage.

Worn out shoes on a hard-working missionary's feet

This guy up and left us at the archives! How dare he?!? He was the night guard and though his English was just about as good as my French, we managed to become good friends anyway because he has such a good heart. Whenever I was feeling frustrated or having a bad day, I'd get up out of my chair and go down to the front desk to say hi to him for a minute. It was always a guarantee to boost my mood. 

The whole room lights up when he smiles. I am going to miss him soooooo much!

I'm ruined. I'll never be satisfied with imitation maple syrup from now on. The real stuff is SOOO good!

Mount Royal

Welcome to my tiny home...all decked out for Christmas.

Getting tired of these pictures? I'm getting tired of LIVING it! But for the past 2 weeks I've been training myself to turn on the water in the sink to wash my hands BEFORE I flush the toilet. Well, this particular morning it paid off! It's much easier to let the waste accumulate in the toilet and then just do one flush before I leave for the day. Crikey! I'm starting to feel like I'm living in Africa again. Good thing I'm proficient at bucket showers.

The range I've had ever since I've been in Montreal has been pathetic. Three of the four burners barely heated up. And the top heating element in the oven was also very weak so the baking was VERY uneven. So they finally replaced it. Hmm, I wonder how I can find 350. The struggle with management is REAL!

A creche outside the Montreal, Quebec Temple

Here's our apartment building. Can you guess where I live? Come on, people! Where are your Christmas decorations???

It's been an incredibly busy week ending in a stake "Spirit of Christmas" music concert. Here's a link to my favorite performance. Are you surprised it's my African brothers and sisters?

My missionary work this week has been done mostly on Facebook since the digital finding young missionaries did a training for us old dogs on how to do that. The funniest exchange I had on Facebook...

Him: Are you married?

Me: Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon? It's another testament of Jesus Christ, like the Bible.

Him: You didn't answer my question.

Me: I could arrange for someone to bring you a copy of the Book of Mormon if you'd like.

...he gave up 😂

Running total of captures: 162,284

New Blood!

We got new archive missionaries this week! We took them around a little bit on Saturday to help them get the lay of the land. It's energizing to have new blood! Sadly, the new sister and I both had bad colds on Sunday so they didn't get to go to church their first week here.

There are 5 Joneses in the mission now! I joke with them that we are going to start taking over the mission.
 

This happened again. . .exactly one week after the same event last week. Both times it happened on a Wednesday. I'm taking a shower on Tuesday night this week...just in case.

Four of us missionaries went to lunch on P-day. I had to try poutine which is a local speciality at THE place to get poutine. The first time I tried it, it was a fast food version and it was awful. We didn't know it was a fast food kind of place. The second time I had it, it was a very boring version. After eating here at La Banquise, I'm never eating poutine anwhere else. Basic poutine is a bed of fries topped with squeaky cheese and gravy. But La Banquise puts all sorts of other things on it. The young sisters were so excited to introduce us to this place.

While we were eating, this young man slid into the chair near us. It turns out he was a missionary in this mission a few years back and now he's a pilot. That day he had a layover in Montreal so he had to come and get some poutine. It was fun to meet him and I'm glad he came to say hi.

This poutine had hamburger, bacon, fried pickes, and grilled onions. Yum!

I met a man in the metro last week who was handing out papers with a picture of Jesus Christ on them. I stopped and showed him my badge and to tell him that I'm all about Jesus Christ as well. He's a missionary for the 7th Day Adventist church and he's originally from Haiti. We could barely communicate because he knows about as much English as I know French. But I stayed and talked with him long enough to feel of his spirit. He is a good and warm man with a sincere heart. Then he made the mistake of giving me his card because he's a taxi driver. Well, I gave his phone number to the young missionaries who speak French so they can call him and ask if he's interested in hearing about our church and learning even more about Jesus. I had such a warm feeling for this man that when I returned from buying cupcakes at the store and saw him again, I gave him one. This is the second Hatian I've known here in Montreal and they seem to be incredibly warm, genuine people!

Running total of captures: 151,570

I'm Thankful for Water and November Holidays/Seasons

Ohhhh, how I love these men...devoted servants of the Most High God! These six are now serving in the Mandarin branch. We got 2 additional elders because a new area was opened.

We got a wicked surprise this week. One morning we woke to no water. When I left our building to walk to the archives, the reason for our building having no water quickly became apparent. Can you see the water bubbling up through the pavement behind the orange cones? My apartment building is the white one, second from the corner.

The city workers were finally able to restore running water to our building around 11 pm that same night. But it did thwart a trip to the temple because the entrance to our parking garage was blocked.

The day after I arrived in Montreal, there was no water for me to take a shower so I decided to store water in jugs so I'd never have that surprise again. Luckily, I had enough water to shower AND flush the toilet. I was pretty happy about that.

Oh how I love snow! I feel like we're bouncing between Fall and Winter right now. And so I am also bouncing between Thanksgiving and Christmas in my holiday moods.

Here's another "holiday" we're bouncing around in...Veteran's Day. I've discovered it's a tradition in Canada to wear a red poppy on your lapel for the 2 weeks prior to Veteran's Day. A young man approached me in the metro with some plastic poppies and said his fraternity was handing them out and also collecting donations. I told him I didn't have any money on me but he gave me one anyway. The poppy on the lapel is a symbol of remembering those who have fought in wars. I like this tradition! I also like that the red draws attention to my nametag.  :)

After the young man gave me the poppy, I kept going. But a few steps later I realized that I had missed an opportunity to share the gospel. I went back and told the 2 young men that I was impressed that young people of their generation are doing good things with their time. Then I told them about our young men and the good that they are doing with their lives. And with excellent timing, 2 of our young missionaries just happened by so that I could point them out! They stopped to join the conversation. It turned out that one of the fraternity brothers is from Tahiti and knows one of our sister missionaries who is also from Tahiti! He said he'll pursue faith when he gets older. I strongly encouraged him to look up his high school friend when he is ready to focus on faith and to seriously consider learning about this church. Well, at least I dropped a seed.

Here's another interesting thing about Montreal that marks the changing of the seasons, the laying down of the rugs. During winter, entryways have rugs to protect the floors from the snow and salt that are tracked in on the bottom of boots. This is the entrance to the national archives. The first day, the rugs had been laid in the entryway to our apartment building, when the elevator door opened to the lobby, I didn't recognize where I was!

Here are the first hints of Christmas that I've seen in the city.

Running total of captures: 145,449
 

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!

 

Running total of captures: 139,024