Saturday, June 29, 2019
Yesterday Sister Majeran called and told me the ‘CLOSED’ sign is on our ‘Canada Halifax Mission’ door! Reality has really set in and the second half of our Adventure,…now in the newly merged ‘Canada Montreal Mission’ has begun!! Our whirlwind week began on Monday with movers boxing and packing in eight short hours our beloved 23 Brookdale Crescent, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. And then Tuesday, Nick (who has won Allied team captain Canada-wide three years running!!) and his crew were back and had their massive orange truck efficiently and compactly loaded by noon, (and all our stuff only filled about 1/5 of the truck!!) We kept thinking….what have we got ourselves into? Our ‘slow paced’ mission as we knew it was going to morph into something much much larger with three times as many missionaries!
I was so very sad to bid farewell to my dear friend Joanne who has served right by my side preparing meal after meal for arriving and departing groups, and washed and vacuumed every corner of our Mission Home every week. How I wish she could have moved here too!! She has
served for over 15 years, and now doesn’t know where she will work…oh how I miss her!!
Thursday our flight from Halifax to Montreal was a quick little hour jaunt, and since we will be doing that every six weeks it was great to see how very do-able it is! Elders Marsh and Holman, our CHM assistants, along with their two - fifty pound suitcases each joined us on the flight.
President and Sister Phillips and our two new CMM assistants…Elders Newman and Wilson were in the terminal waiting for us. Orientation at our new mission home was wonderful and overwhelming at the same time. Oh, how we pray to help motivate, inspire and love all our missionaries!! The Phillips have been just incredible!!!
Friday morning we got to begin our interviewing (and visiting) with our awesome, hard-working Office missionaries, including Sister Myrna Puzey from Champion (my old weight-watcher coach!!), as well as Elder and Sister Evans, Elder and Sister Bowler, and Elder and Sister Penner, and the Boyle’s arrived late Friday afternoon just in time for our meal with this crew!
Quebec is stunningly beautiful; hardwood forests with stately oak and towering sugar maple trees, mixed forests including pines, birch and even weeping willows make for verdant green landscape. Big billowy, lacy sumac meadows line the roadways, interspersed with wildflowers - daisies, lupine and yellow buttercups. “Look at the view!!!” And then driving from Montreal to Ottawa, we get the occasional glimpse of the St. Lawrence River
We’ve slept at our lovely 85 Henley Avenue home two nights…and I am so excited to get unpacked, and reorganized!!! Rolls and rolls of underlay and new carpet were delivered yesterday, and we think the installation will begin Tuesday…we will be glad to have the worn minty green rug gone!!
What a thrill to sing all four verses of ‘Oh Canada’ right here in the nations capital!! We attended meetings in the Chapel Hills Ward, which is the Stake Centre for the Ottawa Stake, and half way through Sacrament Meeting the Bishop invited us to come sit on the stand and bear our testimonies. It was an emotional testimony bearing for both of us…let me share the jist of what we spoke about….My Uncle - Allen Hicks was an active member of the Church from Ottawa, and in about 1949 met and fell in love with Mary McCormack - who was my Mom (Patricia McCormack’s sister). Allen told Mary he would marry her if she would join the church which she did. His influence along with the teaching of many missionaries affected the entire family … my Mom, Alice, Nancy, cousin Jane Morrow, as well as my Grandpa and Granny all joined the Church. So we all are grateful for his good influence on the McCormack clan. I should actually count the number of posterity that are covenant keepers because of Uncle Allen.
Richard has Ottawa memories too….his Grandpa Solon served as an MP and then as National leader of the Social Credit Party so lived in Ottawa for about 10-12 years, and then when Richard came on his Mission he served in Ottawa for about 4 months. When he tracked the street where his Grandpa and Grandma had lived, several long time residents still lived on the very street, and they welcomed the missionaries with open arms, and said because of the goodness of Solon Low as a member of the Church, anytime missionaries knocked on their doors, they were welcomed in for a glass of lemonade or a cup of hot chocolate!
With the merge we have inherited 120 outstanding missionaries..seriously they are top shelf…all of them speak two languages and many speak three or four languages…in fact one sister speaks five languages!! The mission is in tiptop shape…but of course they have their challenges just like we did in Canada Halifax!! We each have our ‘interview’ time….while the Elders and Sisters are waiting to interview with the President, I have my interview time, and actually it is more just chatting, getting to know you conversation!! I think next time I will have a little interview book to jot down little facts I want to remember!! So far all my chatting has been in English…but I am ready for maybe a two minute French visit!!
We met our senior Ottawa missionaries, Elder and Sister Mikkelsen (who serve with the YSA and Sisters Wells and Munsell who are archive missionaries, and the Mikkelsen’s invited us for dinner this afternoon…yummy food and fun visiting! Maybe we raved to you about our MTC training couple - Brother and Sister Kenneth Boyd Packer who served as Mission President and companion in the Kiev, Ukraine Mission…well the Mikkelsen’s served their first mission with the Packer’s!! And we were so excited this week when we got word that in September, Brother Packer is coming to work with us, and our young missionaries!!
This upcoming week we will spend two days interviewing the rest of our Montreal missionaries, and then head to Drummondville Trois Rivieres, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Mont St. Hilaire, and Lemoyne to finish off the interviews for this transfer cycle! While we are away the carpeting will be started and completed, and then our big orange moving truck will arrive and the unpacking and organizing will begin!! I know we brought too much stuff from Dartmouth so the purging will continue!! I wish you could all come shopping in our garage!
And now it is too late to ramble on any more!!
We continue to LOVE this wonderful experience being on His errand. We are grateful for covenants that inspire, and motivate us to be better, and help us love, and change. We are grateful for you, and your examples of consecrated covenant keeping.
with our love
Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma, and Richard and Gayle
CTR and Keep Smiling!!!!
Happy Canada Day!!! - I’m finally getting this posted and it is July 1st!!
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