"Tiptoe Through The Tulips!!!"

Today is Sunday, May 24th, 2020!! 

and today is Kaylee’s 36th Birthday!!!

Another great springy week in the Canada Montreal Mission!! What fun it would be to be outside all day everyday, because they know how to do spring in Quebec!!! Soft breezes occasionally blow, but we don’t think they ever have Southern Albertan wind!!! Trees, and shrubs are leafed out, many in stunning blossom, early perennials like dianthus and spurge are lush, and blooming, and annuals are adding so much colour. Last night I cut all our red and orangish tulips, and delivered bouquets to neighbours, and now the annual/perennial bed looks like home!! Pink geraniums, pink petunias, sky blue lobelia, white bacopa, cone flower, spurge, daisies, astilbe, trollius, lupin, lavender, and hydrangea, have our beds looking pretty full!! Underground sprinklers keep the lawn wet, but the flower beds, and all the pots are hand watered! Soaker hoses from Canadian Tire will help with that!! Richard downloaded this amazing ap that identifies trees and shrubs and we now know the mystery tree in our back corner is a ‘horse chestnut’, and in the front, our beautiful burgundy maple is a ‘sycamore maple’!! (FYI!!) Such big, gorgeous trees are everywhere!! Yony, our head gardener is such a cheerful, kind man who basically gets anything I even suggest…Friday afternoon I suggested that maybe seven hydrangea shrubs would look pretty under a tree in the front sideyard….and yesterday when we returned from Ottawa…aabra kadabra…the shrubs appeared…along with ten bags of potting soil, and, Yony   had spread the 20 bags of sheep manure!! 

Regular Office Meetings on Monday with our new crew of young Elders were great!! These Elders are incredible how they have caught on so quickly to what needs to be done, and are keeping everything in top shape!! All are computer whizzes (of course) so we haven’t skipped a beat since our dear Seniors left.  Dearly departed returned home Seniors continue to zoom- meet once a month, and we got to pop in for a few minutes following our Office Meeting, and touch base with many of them. What wonderful, devoted missionaries they still are….in their own homes, but we are praying to have some of them return….soon!!! 

Call-ins from STL’s and zone leaders, where Key Indicators for Conversion are reported,  as well as Leadership Teachings for new STL’s, district and zone leaders kept us busy for the rest of the day.  Again, we feel so blessed to have such obedient missionaries who are trying to move the work forward…it is so challenging to do all contacting on their phones…..in their apartments.

With NEW MISSIONARIES arriving almost the same time as our Area Presidency Zoom Meeting on Tuesday evening,  we opted to listen to the meeting as we headed to the Airport. How very exciting to be greeting five new CMM missionaries - Elders Wetterstrand, Siever,(both from Lethbridge!!)Chadbolt, (from Airdrie) and Orrego, (from Victoria, BC) as well as Sister Mendoza(from Edmonton).  With each being a Canadian, they waltzed through security no problem…but challenges awaited…quite the ordeal getting some of them to their new homes…Richard recorded the tale…

“Two missionaries almost got arrested due to COVID !! This past week, we had heard that COVID requirements all around our mission were relaxing. Stores in Quebec are opening as are schools. Interprovincial travel between Quebec and Ontario is no longer an issue as it was two months ago when people were being stopped. When COVID first hit and we had our transfer in early April, I was concerned about our missionaries being able to get across provincial borders, so I drafted a letter stating that they were on official Church business and were transporting goods, services, and themselves for necessary work assignments. The letter worked like a charm on numerous occasions as missionaries came in and out of all six provinces in our great CMM. So we got five new missionaries this week, and two of them were being sent to New Brunswick. I had previously posted the Authorization letter on our mission Facebook group and made it available to all our missionaries on an as needed basis, but I neglected to give it to the two elders going to New Brunswick. So when they entered the province they were questioned at the airport by the Border Guard who was a policeman, and they explained the purpose of their entry, and the peace officer refused them entry! They called me and I told him about the letter, and he was not convinced. He said I would have to take it up with his boss in the morning (it was about midnight when this happened).He gave me the name and number of his boss. He said the Elders would have to go to a hotel that night and then we could sort it out in the morning with his boss. I told the elders that were there, to pick up the new missionaries and to also go to the same hotel and stay there and we can see what the morning brings. The next day I called the boss first thing; he never called me back; so I told the elders to go to their apartments and wait for my call after I got through to the boss. So an hour or so after, the boss man finally called me back and I told him about the letter and how it has been accepted by every other New Brunswick border guard and who should I send the letter to so we could clear up this misunderstanding?.. He gave me an email address to send the authorization letter to , which I did. He also asked where the elders were and I told him they were self isolating and gave him the addresses. He never at any time said that he was sticking by his original decision that they were not allowed into the province; he seemed to imply that all I had to do was send the letter to the health authorities; then we were good to go; if he would have told me they were for sure not welcome, I would have told him we had a back up plan to relocate the elders to other provinces. So then a half an hour later I got calls from each set of elders, telling me that they both had policemen at their doors, wanting to arrest them and take them back to the airport to fly back to Montreal.!! This was quite a shock to me! I was able to negotiate with the police so that they didn’t arrest them; they gave them a 24 hour eviction notice!! Then within a few hours we had relocated them to Nova Scotia where they are now starting their missions. Crazy that the interpretation of the regulations is so inconsistent between border guards. And I think the boss guy who wanted our Elders out was biased against them for religious reasons. So now we really don’t know if we can send missionaries into New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island, or not, due to the inconsistency. We are trying to get the Church’s lawyers involved.”

Heart strings tugged as we anticipated bidding farewell to our 13 Departing Missionaries. With no fancy goodbye party, and no Temple session, I felt like we were sending these dear friends home without adequate fanfare…just like we did with our huge group that left in March…We did have a beautiful virtual testimony meeting with our 13: Soeur Flores, Soeur McGee, and Elders Atkins, Christopherson, Davis, Hardy, Hindley, Hsu, Hubbard, Martinez, Scott, Tait and Wang.  Teary departures Friday morning…I baked buns Thursday so prepared little travel packages for each,  along with gooey puffed wheat squares..hopefully they didn’t get thrown away at security! Absolutely no one else was at the airport so just before they had to head through security we gave huge hugs…it is such an emotional experience saying goodbye…who knows when we will be reunited?? Such an amazing group of missionaries, and oh how we miss them already! 

What would we do without Zoom?? Friday afternoon we, along with all the Office staff oriented our new group of five missionaries, who all seem to be keen, obedient and excited to work hard! 

Yesterday our Senior Sisters; Sister Little, Sister Mecham, and Sister Breckenridge joined us for a road trip to Ottawa!! You might recall that last Friday, we already visited Ottawa with our Assistants; but we really felt our Senior Sisters needed a little rest and relaxation, and we also thought with the sunny weather the tulips might be a bit showier (which they were!!) Our COVID migration left us with just three seniors, so our entire group of CMM senior missionaries fit comfortably in our vehicle!! Lake, and walk the Tulip Festival trail,  which is exactly what we did.Oh my land….I’m going to be watercolouring tulips for months!! Every bed we walked by was stunning, but really my two favourite were: this incredible display of huge white traditional tulips, and also a showy bed of pastel tulips that looked more like peonies or ranuculus! Awestruck is a good way to describe our thrill of this incredible Festival!! Yearly the Netherlands send 100,000  tulip bulbs to commemorate the friendship, and gratitude to Canadians for support during the Second World War, and with 2020 marking the 75th Anniversary of the end of the War, Holland sent 300.000 breathtakingly, colourful, unique tulip bulbs!!  The National Capital Commission do a remarkable job planning, planting, and maintaining this spectacular show, and we were glad  we visited it again!!  

Travelling two hours to Ottawa, and two hours back to Montreal gave us loads of time to hear conversion stories, most embarrassing experience stories, mission experiences, a few travelogues, and even a few book reviews, and before we knew it we our road trip was complete…it truly was a delightful day with dear friends!! We are so grateful for the wonderful service of these three great missionaries …Sisters Little, Mecham and Breckenridge. 

And now the day is over…it has been a lovely relaxing Sabbath Day, and tomorrow we begin again!! Our experiences strengthen and bless our lives every day. We are so grateful for our testimonies and knowledge that our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ love each of us. We LOVE their Plan.  

Have a wonderful week! Keep Smiling! AND Look at the View!!

Much Love, Richard and Gayle, Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma XOXOXOXOXO…