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