Sleep over with missionaries!

Today is Sunday, January 27, 2019

Our one hour and forty-five minute flight home from Newfoundland is the perfect chance to compose a quick update!! 

Zone Conferences in Moncton, N.B., Dartmouth, N.S., and St. John’s Nfld, as well as a fireside in Bay Roberts, and Branch Conference in St. John’s made for an exciting, eventful week, and now, we are heading home to Dartmouth to our beloved mission home! Zone Conferences were inspirational and motivational, and included trainings on ‘Finding the Elect,’ ‘Hastening the Work,’

‘Sacrament Strategy,’ and ‘Friendship.’ A little snippet of our schedule:  9:30am, all are seated, and listening to prelude music while reading and studying until 10:00am when the Zone leader(s) begin the meeting. We sing a rousing hymn; and lately ‘Brightly Beams,’ and ‘High  on a Mountain Top’ have been the hymns of choice..in case you were wondering!  After Mission Business, our trainings begin. All young Elders and Sisters, as well as our Senior missionaries from each of our three zones attend, and all participate and share incredible wisdom, knowledge and testimony. This week our seniors loved their own little half hour breakout session, and discussed ideas for furthering the work. Our MLS, and CES seniors have amazing work ethic and seem to be tireless in their energy, creativity, and efforts….it is totally inspiring!! Break for a lunch and until 3pm we train, and are trained by zone leaders and our assistants who travel with us every other zone conference. Conclusion of the conference has our upcoming departing missionaries bear their final testimonies. This week we heard from Sister Nelson, Sister Gillett, Sister Crowley, Sister Arnold, Elder Bringhurst, and Elder Willoughby - all outstanding missionaries and we will be so sad to let them go!

Amazing how we love them all so dearly!!

Miracle story of the week occurred while we were seated in Moncton ZC. A senior couple came marching into the gym where we hold zone conferences, and made a b-line for Dad and I…we both wondered who this couple was, and when they pulled back their coats we read their mission nametags - Elder and Sister Myrer (from Provo, Utah.) Listen to this…he is a retired BYU professor (27 yrs), but early on in his career had taught at UNB in Fredericton so they had actually requested to come to our mission. They were a bit concerned crossing the border but had not a worry because her landed immigrant status was still valid after all these years. Actually they did have a worry…their Toyota Tundra truck had summer tires, and they were sliding all over the place.  Since they were heading to NFLD., they knew winter tires were a must. Moncton NB was the next exit on their journey so they exited. Oh, and their American phones were not working. They truly were guided because about two minutes after exiting the highway, they saw the Moncton Chapel with about 16 vehicles parked…Tuesday afternoon with a bunch of cars in the parking lot gave them hope for finding a tire place!! It was a bonus for us to meet, and we knew Canadian Tire was just down the road! After a quick call they were booked in to have 4 new tires mounted immediately!  I loaned one of my phones so they could map quest the route to the Mission Home where they stayed the night before the trek via ferry to NFLD. Certainly a sweet miracle for the Myrer’s! We were thrilled to have them attend Zone Conference yesterday, as well as meetings today!! 

Several weeks ago Elder Williams and Elder Broadhead sent a formal invitation for Dad to sleep over at the missionaries apartment while we were in NFLD, which of course meant that I was invited to sleep over at the Sisters place!!! SOOOO, that is just what we did!!! The sisters live upstairs in a darling town house…great kitchen, two full bathrooms, a cozy living room, a spare room, and a big room that has four twin beds lined up from wall to wall so it was not a floor sleepover which is what I had geared up for!! We both had a wonderful time…I actually slept..I think Dad slept for two hours!! Too much pillow talk, and I think with 9 missionaries he might have been a bit claustrophobic!!

Crystal, who has been investigating the church for several months in St. John’s, Newfoundland was baptized yesterday afternoon and we along with our missionaries were thrilled to witness the happy event, and today she was confirmed and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She has had such a hard life, and now the gospel has helped transform her…isn’t that what the gospel does?…as we stay on the covenant path as President Nelson admonishes….we are transformed into more Christlike, more charitable saints. Crystal has begun that amazing process!! Exciting!!!

Thursday after our Dartmouth Zone conference we had a little ‘Pday' evening activity and it was to Beacon House, our favourite thrift store where we found 

‘new to us’ skates! My white figure skates were $5.00, and Richard’s CCM Tacks were $5.00!!! Laces and liners are bleached….now we have to wait for our Lake Banook to refreeze…it has been so lovely and mild that our ice is pretty soupy!!

Hope you are all well…

Thanks for your love and prayers!

We still are waiting to hear the name of our Mission!! We’ve been thinking

Canada Montreal Maritime Mission has a nice ring..it would be CMMM!!! Don’t you like that?!

Have a wonderful week!!! We have Bed and Breakfast for three groups this week, MLC is Thursday, and I have three French tutoring lessons, so we will be busy!!!

Love to all

Shubenacadie Stroll

Today is Sunday, January 20,2019!!

Well it happened today..our Church was cancelled due to a huge storm , which actually didn’t look like much except a light snowfall! We wondered why cancel church, and then about one o’clock this afternoon it began pouring rain, and we realized what a nightmare the driving would be!! Staying home writing and enjoying turkey soup with biscuits was fun, although we did miss attending our meetings. 

French tutoring is on our minds, and this past week I had three hours with Brooke Smith, my MTC tutor. My biggest feat so far is that I can actually offer a simple prayer that both Brooke and Richard say is good. I know they are just giving me positive reinforcement, but it is enough for me to carry on. The first prayer I offered on Tuesday it was funny because I was just saying Merci pour______, ma famille, les missionaries, l’evangile, and le soleil - the few nouns I knew..and only because of the star post-it notes everywhere.  I meant the sun….and she thought I was meaning the Son, which I should have been expressing gratitude for but my sticky note was referring to the sun outside my desk window!! Anyway Brooke helped me with that!! Dad had two very productive hours and is progressing like a 19 year old at the MTC!! Like I mentioned last week he will be graduating well before our move to Montreal!!

We had an exciting baptism of Promise on Monday. Originally from Nigeria, and here working and hoping to go to school. Totally converted…because of the storm will be confirmed next week. 

Our dear Schow’s (from Cardston) who have served in St. John’s, Nfld. for a year, arrived Tuesday afternoon for a farewell party with our office team. It is fun to pull out all the stops for these departing missionaries who have served so well, and made such a difference in the Branches here, and the Schow’s have certainly done that. We are grateful we will pretty much be next door neighbours when we go home!!! 

Two young missionaries also left to go home…one new Elder had some major emotional problems, so Elder Boyle flew with him to SLC where he was met by his family.  Another pretty new sister who was dealing with similar issues flew home and is so excited to start one of the new ‘service’ missions… hoping to serve in the Temple!!!  Service missions will be so wonderful for the young missionaries, and they will hopefully eliminate the challenges we have had with manic depression, and other emotional issues. Of course our goal is to help these returnees to stay on the covenant path. 

Beacon House - our new favourite thrift store was closed every time we were available to go, so skating did not make it to our P day activity list. We did go down to Lake Banook edge and saw hundreds of skaters twirling, speed skating, and playing hockey. Several ice-fishing tents also dotted the ice. Berkely and Walker…what could they be catching??

The old Shubenacadie Canal system (circa 1829)is bordered by picturesque parkland and woodlots, and yesterday we loved our little hike along the old canal. Our buffs, down jackets, and warm mittens (thanks Jan!!) kept us from freezing!! Trails are maintained year round with little bobcats who scrape and sprinkle a salt/sand mixture that keeps the trails in great shape! We loved the fresh air and sunshine, and loved seeing the chickadees, and squirrels share the bird feeders! Oh, speaking of birds..I forgot to rave about our resident cardinal…actually he probably isn’t a resident, but we have seen him a lot…I want like him to be a resident;  his brilliant red feathers are stunning!!

Tomorrow begins Week 3, which this month is Zone Conference Week, and we are excited to get to see our missionaries!! With our new call to move to Montreal, we realized that District meetings that we have been attending every month are no longer going to be something we can do, so our travelling has really been condensed. Tomorrow we have our office meeting, and then we get to travel to Moncton for interviews, and then New Brunswick Zone Conference on Tuesday. We have been on a ‘finding blitz,’ and our Assistants came up with a shopping cart as a sort of mascot for our finding!! We bought three cute Melissa and Doug shopping carts from Toys r Us, and filled them with all sorts of treats - one cart for each of our three Zones, and ziplock bags with cute thank you notes for each companionship!! Tuesday night we will return home for Wednesday interviews, and Dartmouth Zone conference on Thursday. Friday we fly to the rock -St. John’s, Nfld. for Zone Conference on Saturday, and Sunday we speak in St. John’s Branch Conference - another whirlwind week!! 

Time is a ticking…we are trying to prepare for our big move…the biggest thing we are working on is our French. We got word that anything we need in Montreal that we have here in Dartmouth, we are allowed to take, which means our china and our china cabinet and our couch, and living room furniture.!!

And that is the report from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and the Canada Halifax Mission.

Signing off with love to all

Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma, and Richard and Gayle

Keep Smiling and we will too!!!

Parlez-vous français?

aujourd’hui est:

lundi, Janvier 14, 2019.

Bonjour tout le monde,

Our French is coming!! Actually Richard’s French is really coming and he is already jabbering away like a native Frenchman… his two tutoring lessons along with lots of online practising has him progressing so well!!! In fact I think he will probably graduate in a month or so!! 

My French on the other hand is very slow…Brooke Smith my MTC tutor returned from her mission to Paris last year and is a motivating teacher who makes me think I really can do it, in fact on Friday she was already helping me learn to pray.  My main goals are to be able to pray, to bear my testimony, and to have simple conversations with the people we meet.  Also, Theresa who is going to try and replace our Joanne (my cleaning and cooking helper, and dear friend here)only speaks French and Spanish, so I need to learn some basic cleaning and cooking words!! 

French ‘r’s’ are so tricky, and after about the 50th practise, on my second tutoring session, my tongue was literally tied in knots…Brooke had me set another goal to learn five new words each day;  so I have cute star ‘post-it’ word cards stuck on items around our home, and, I have a little black notebook that I write my new French words in. I’m giving it my best!!

Highlights this week in The Canada Halifax Mission included our first three Baptisms of 2019:

Ramon in Fredericton, and Megan, and Promise in Halifax 

One of our Miracles this week ( recorded by Elder Pierson) 

We had a French miracle today 😊 we were focusing on trying to find our 3 new people by making sure to talk with everyone. There was the guy standing at someone's door as if he was waiting for someone. So from the street we started talking to him and he didn't seem to want to have a conversation. I noticed he had an accent and asked where he was from, turns out he is from Montréal! We began speaking in French and he totally opened up! He invited us to warm up in his car (cause it was FREEZING!) as he was just trying to visit a friend while on vacation. He wanted to know about the Book of Mormon and to go to church when he gets back home. He wanted to meet the missionaries there so we got his info and referred him! He also made it very clear that he felt we should come back and visit the woman he was trying to visit there so we got a referral. It is crazy how God knows his kids needs exactly and fulfills them ☝️ little French miracle for the day!

Skaters of all ages..little kids, families, and even older folks on our Lake Banook have made it look so fun that we are heading to our favourite thrift store to buy some new to us skates…we can’t leave here without going on that inviting ice…never thought I’d say that!!! I am also looking for a giant pylon, or I might just use Richard!!  Countdown is on for cramming in as many Nova Scotia/Atlantic Canada activities on our Pdays!! In the spring we will be renting kayaks or canoes to paddle around in! 

One BIG suggestion for the week:

Teach your children to be emotionally and spiritually self reliant. Read on:  provident living.org ways to help prepare your children. These are absolutely the most important keys in helping our pre-missionaries prepare!! Oh how we wish all our young missionaries had learned how to be emotionally and spiritually self-reliant..

And now it is time to say good night…or I mean bonne nuit!!!

amour: Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma, and Richard and Gayle

Oh by the way…we didn’t see anything in the Church News about our mission merger so we still don’t know the name?…maybe it will be announced this weekend!!

Happy New Year!!

Today is Sunday, December 30th, 2018

What an incredible year 2018 has been!!! And 2019 is looking like it is going to be just as incredible!!

We have happy and sort of sad news….

Happy news ….this afternoon in Truro, Nova Scotia Trisha Eldershaw was baptized…our 100th Baptism of the year!!!!!

Sort of Sad news….we are leaving Atlantic Canada, our beloved Mission Home, and all our new friends here because we are moving to Montreal, Quebec where Richard will serve as the new Mission President of the combined Canada Halifax Mission and the Canada Montreal Mission, effective July 1, 2019.  You know that as a young missionary back in 1973-1975 he served in the Canada Montreal Mission so we are excited to return there together, and know we will find friends from long ago!

and now, it is a week later….and

Today is Sunday, January 6, 2019

Happy New Year to all!! 

Our big transfer news to Montreal, Quebec, and our added responsibilities are looming in our minds constantly. Elder Kevin Hamilton of our Area Presidency told us that the Church News will announce the boundaries, as well as the name of the mission January 12th, so if you are interested in that, check the Church News on Saturday!! We will too!!  President and Sister Phillips, the current President and companion, have been so wonderful and have answered many of our questions, but we have a bazillion more and will call them again soon.

Currently we have 65 young missionaries, and when we arrive in Montreal our complement will increase to 200, and they will reside from Cornwall, Ontario, to Cornerbrook, Newfoundland to Edmundston, New Brunswick, to Chicoutimi, Quebec, and everywhere in between!!  Montreal is a great hub for our travel, and there are wonderful direct flights everywhere..except to Cornerbrook, and Gander Newfoundland where we will fly first to St. John’s. Our road tripping  days are going to be limited now since we are no longer travelling out to District Meetings, and will not attend district meetings in our new Mission either. 

For the next almost six months, for two weeks of each month we are going to be focussed on learning (or brushing up for Richard) on FRENCH!!  Last year, Elder Uchtdorf told me the research they did,  had my French as a level one….I have no idea if they talked to Madame Glacier (my French 30 teacher)and she remembered that I just barely passed, but I know I have my work cut out. I am praying for the Gift of Tongues.  MTC tutoring begins Thursday. We are also looking for local tutors who will come to help. I can have a translator when we speak in Stake Conferences, but my goal is to speak French… Technology is amazing, and the other day when Sister Silvannoinen came for her final night before heading home to Finland, she gave me her iPad which is equipped with bilingual scriptures, and Preach My Gospel. It is amazing..divided into two columns…with one side in English, and the other in Finnish, but we changed it to be French. So after our tutoring begins, I will start the adventure of reading  the Book of Mormon in French, which will probably take me two years to get through!!

OK that is probably enough information about our transfer!!!  One kind of funny comment Richard made: he said “we really are a demolition crew”…”Think back to what happened after he was released as Stake President…our beloved Lethbridge West Stake was reconfigured and renamed, and now… the same thing is happening …our beloved Canada Halifax Mission  is being reconfigured and we think..renamed…”

Planning Zone Conferences,  Mission Leadership Councils, and transfers continue to occupy our days as well as counselling missionaries, supervising our Office missionaries, and visiting Branches on Sundays. We are pretty overwhelmed thinking about supervising almost three times the number of missionaries we currently serve with, so we are also planning how we can most effectively do this. 

Christmas in the Mission Field was wonderful, and we avoided homesickness by keeping busy, and having Jonathan and Jordan join us for a whole week; December 19-26! And we were grateful to include our Metro, and our Senior missionaries for parties here at the Mission Home Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve. With lots of food preparation, game planning and music, it almost felt like home!! All the handbell charts I made back in the spring were a big hit, and literally bells were ringing non-stop!! We loved it!! We also loved having Jonathan and Elder Pierson perform several amazing piano/organ duets..Hark the Herald, Joy to the World, and Angels We Have Heard on High.  Dartmouth and Cole Harbour Wards were thrilled to have some guest performers!! I wanted them to keep performing!!

Other December highlights included: teary farewells to Elder Miller, and Sisters Wood, Barlow, Hawkins, Soucie and Rodrigues who returned home December 14th, attending the Cole Harbour Ward Christmas party, helping at Beacon House - a thrift store and food bank, serving at another food bank, and attending our Live Stake Nativity (with our familiar Bruce Seely recording from home!!) complete with live donkeys!! 

Of course our conversations with each of our dear Moms, our children, and their spouses, and our grandchildren: Isabelle, Luke, Max, Charlotte, Jane, Peter, Claire, Lucy, Berkley, Walker, Hudson, Sadey, Porter, Tait, Solon, Haysten, Preese, Briar, Dottie, Vimy, and Macie, Aunt Nancy, and our brothers, and sisters were high highlights as well. 

As we evaluated all that needs to be done before we move to Montreal we realized we have 17 little branches that we haven’t visited yet, and we are determined to meet the wonderful saints in these far off places. Greenwood, which is only a two hour drive was our destination this morning, and we loved spending our first two hour block with the wonderful saints there. Elder and Sister Butler - the first senior couple ever to serve in Greenwood, are loving it there and are making a difference.  They are so loved!! Travelling back to Saskatchewan twice for medical tests wasn’t in their plan, and they were so happy to get back to their new people in Greenwood. After Church, we loved joining them, and our sweet sisters Advincula and Cobb for a delicious roast beef dinner. Wonderful, optimistic, hard-working, happy people.

16 more branches we get to visit!! To be equally yoked with these saints, they need to see us, and know that we love them. Attending their Sunday block sends that message. We also feel it sends a powerful message to our missionaries who are serving out in the nethermost parts of our vineyard!!

I know I promised I’d try and send suggestions for parents of future missionaries: 

1. Each Week prepare and complete the weekly ‘Come Follow Me’ assignments.

2. Use ‘Preach My Gospel’ as a supplementary FHE manual…there are amazing ideas that you could adapt for younger children.

3. Attend convert baptisms, and baptisms of children in your stake…help them remember their baptism.

4. Attend the Temple to do Baptisms. 

5. Teach your children to work hard, and to be finishers… (quitting shouldn’t be an option)

(I know I have suggested this before, but it is vital!!)

6. Teach them to say to themselves:  “I CAN do hard things”

7. Read the Friend/New Era stories to them or challenge them to read. 

8. Invite a Friend to a Primary or YW or YM activity. 

9. Get some passalong cards from your ward missionaries. 

10. Show by your own example that you are being a missionary now, and share experiences!! 

11. Teach your children to communicate with you and with everyone..people at church, at the seniors centre, at the grocery store etc. etc. Teach them to be friendly and look people in the eye. 

12. Teach your children to SMILE, and to be Happy!!

I should have saved some of these suggestions for the next letter..but I’ll probably forget!!

I must share a few recent miracles we have had in the Canada Halifax Mission. (as related by our missionaries!)

Miracle #9

“We found an investigator this last week! It was so cool because we were on exchanges and while the other elders were going to a potential lesson and then to do some finding, we decided to just go with them and find in an area close by so we could follow up on some potentials. We followed up with this one potential named Jeremy, and he was super excited, open, and curious about our message, and his girlfriend in the future might be interested as well! It was yet another testimony builder to me that #WeWorkGodBlesses, because as we do what we are supposed to and follow the culture (culture point 9 in this case) we will see the blessings!!”

Miracle #10

We also picked up a man named Fred this last week. His story was a miracle! He had been a potential a while back, but said he was too busy to meet up. On the 5th of December his wife passed, and we had no idea. It was a Friday afternoon and we had planned to do our weekly planning in the morning, but there was a parade going on that night, so we figured lets go street contact and look for a place to put our booth! As we were out this lady pulled up in her car, and said, "I've been out this morning driving and looking for you, I prayed to find you and here you are!" So we chatted and she was the lady's sister, and she had been told by the family that they wanted us at the funeral. So we went to the 1 hour service, and Fred, the husband stopped us after, and said, "You are welcome to come at anytime to teach me, but give me a few weeks" So we dropped in last Wednesday maybe, and we taught him God's Plan, and he committed himself to Baptism. he said, "As soon as I get over this Pneumonia, we will get that baptism done" We hadn't even invited him yet. But he's on board with it all! We didn't have the chance to meet with Mike or Terry but we will tonight possibly! That's all from Miramichi!!

Miracle #11;

Anyways, there have been a few miracles this week. We have 2 sisters in Summerside,PEI Antonia(15) and Olivia(13). We had the opportunity to teach them last night. Olivia was asking a lot of questions that she was really curious about. Some of them were really deep doctrine like 'what was my name before this life?' Honestly, we were all a little surprised at the questions she was asking. She genuinely wants to know the answers. The best part? Before we had started teaching her, she said she wanted to be baptized. Both her and her sister have come to church before too. They both really want to know the truth. The spirit was so strong in that room as we taught and testified. It was awesome!

The second one is a woman named Caroline. The Elders found her while we were in a lesson after we went carolling and taught her and got a return appointment. She is coming to church on Sunday too! #weworkgodblesses🛒 So in the last 24 hours, we have picked up 3 investigators. How awesome is that?????

,
Missionaries include these kind of miracle  stories in their letters to the President (LTP),  and he has now started compiling them and including them in a general letter back to the Mission.  They love to hear the great success happening around the mission.
We know the Lord himself is in charge of this marvellous work and a wonder!! 

We are so grateful for this incredible opportunity to watch His Kingdom roll forth, as we serve!  Hopefully  you can feel the joy and excitement of our missionary life!!!  

Thank you for your love, concern and prayers. 

We send this off with love for you too.

Grandpa and Grandma, Dad and Mom, Richard and Gayle