Monday, December 10, 2018
Winter is here, and Friday morning as we ran around frozen Lake Banook we saw the splendour of December in Nova Scotia!! Every corner we turned was another calendar photo....just stunning!
Just a brief synopsis of our Zone Conference Week!
Monday morning we loved hearing our Senior couples report on reactivation efforts and their 'Light the World' activities, which included booths and floats in their town or city Christmas parades. Without exception our parade entries were the only representation of the Christmas Story...unbelievable! Our seniors missionaries are such an amazing support to our young Elders and Sisters, and do everything from helping build floats, to stapling candy canes to Light the World cards, to feeding them at least once a week, to helping them with discouragement or homesickness, to sharing and teaching gospel truths in District Council Meetings or Zone Confernces.
Tuesday we were off on the three hour drive to Moncton for our interviews and New Brunswick Christmas Zone Conference which we held on Wednesday. Moncton Relief Society provided a delicious meal. Home Wednesday night
Thursday was Nova Scotia Christmas Zone Conference in Dartmouth. Cole Harbour RS provided a turkey dinner. Huge Nor'easter in Newfoundland cancelled our Thursday night flight to St. John's so....
Friday we had somewhat of a P'day. I Brasso'd (brass polished) my big brass pot and one of our activities was to go collect pinecones to fill the pot but we could not find nary a one, probably because the snow storm had hit Dartmouth and the ground was white! With all the evergreen trees around there must be a mountain of them hiding in some massive composting pile! I will probably have to head to Superstore to buy some scented ones!
Late Friday Air Canada flight had us arriving in St John's just before midnight. Glad to have a rental car rather than have Jonathan and Jordan or the the Schow's come collect us. Sheraton downtown has a gorgeous view of St. John's harbour, and we love to stay there. Great bed, but we opt out of the $30.00 breakfast buffet!! We refuse to pay that for a measly bowl of oatmeal or cereal, which is all we eat for breakfast.
Christmas Zone Conference highlights included hugging, and interacting with all our 74 missionaries, eating together, presenting each missionary with their loaded Christmas stocking, and enjoying a talent show together. (All our senior missionaries as well as RS sisters in some of the metro wards, donated homemade baked goods which filled those fuzzy red stockings to the brim!)
Our contribution to the Talent show was a clever puppet show written by Dad, and it drew tons of laughs as he roasted Elder Boyle and his Rockstar quitting with Elder Livingstone's help; and Nurse Sister Arnold suggesting vitamin D, use of a happy light, and rubbing permethrin on everything including an ingrown toenail; a spoof on Elder Holman who was stuck in our laundry chute for about 15 minutes, and a cute reenactment of Sister Swenson rescuing Sister Brennan from a dog attack, by grabbing the dogs tail and throwing him down! Sister Swenson is from Northern BC, and has wolf hunted with her Dad! You can imagine how hilarious the puppet show was! The Sister missionary puppets all had Christmas bells dingling in their hair. Oh, and the puppet assistants kept dancing not the 'I Carlton,' but the 'I Nephi,' as they came onstage.
Some of you have requested we share some of our challenges, as well as some of our spiritual experiences, and missionary success stories.
Our greatest challenges deal with missionaries being discouraged. The work is so very hard, and many days all they get is rejection. Using happy lights is a real thing, and I don't mean to make 'light' of anyone that uses one...the reports we get is that they do help. We do our best to encourage, build up, cheerlead, and love, love, love.
Loving all our missionaries is easy for us. And it is wonderful because they love us right back!
We have another Elder heading home tomorrow...he is so depressed, and not doing well at all..in fact our Medical mental health advisor called us yesterday with basically an SOS, so again we have the heartbreak of sending an Elder home...it will be an honourable health release, so we are so hopeful for him. That is an emotionally draining part of the calling. As I have stated many times: Obedience is the standard in the Canada Halifax Mission, and we feel so blessed to have an army of Elders and Sisters who strive to be 100% obedient. We are grateful for all the previous CHM Mission Presidents who set this precedent, which we are determined to have carry on.
Another very real challenge for us is taking a weekly P'day, and we are still trying to carve a play day into our week. Travel is such a major part of this expansive mission and travel days seem to sneak into what could or should be a P'day. We are working on that!
I think my biggest challenge though is feeling, and staying connected with all of you at home...especially our children, grandchildren, our siblings, our Moms, and our aunt. I hope you know how we pray for you. We love to remember our precious family times together. We pray that you are doing everything you can to strengthen your testimonies, and that you are all preparing to serve missions! The best thing you can do to prepare is to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help you.
Another suggestion to help you prepare is to learn to be charitable...Here is a sweet story from today: at the Mission Office we were visiting with Elder Pitcher and Elder Holman (laundry chute celebrity) when Elder Holman started telling us about how kind Elder Pitcher is...Elder Pitcher immediately covered his ears because he was so embarrassed..apparently they had just been to Subway to get lunch (they are in the process of moving so have to do fast food for a day or so)...anyway they see this homeless man who is begging for money so sweet Elder Pitcher gives the man his subway sandwich! Elder Pitcher has a heart of gold...and also said to me Sister Low...don't worry about Elder......(who just went home today) I will take care of him, even though they live no where near each other Elder Pitcher who returns home the first of January will minister and continue loving his fellow CHM missionary.
Be charitable, and practise on your siblings...old and young.
We can't emphasize enough how important it is to read, and study your scriptures...even memorizing scriptures will help you prepare.
Participate in Family Home Evening cheerfully..even plan and teach lessons...AND
I will give you more ideas next week!
I'll wind down this epistle with a quick story from NewfoundLAND..
Last week the Elders Musgrave and Broadhead were walking down a St. John's street when a man named Chris Fudge saw them and ran after them. Chris had joined the Church 7 years ago, and even before receiving the priesthood asked to have his name removed. Recently he has felt an urgency to have God in his life, and prayed that very day for God to help him know what he was to do in his life...and then he saw the missionaries...and so....now he is going to be retaught!! Incredible!! So Exciting!!
I will sign off because it is an hour past bedtime!
With love to all of you...
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