'Let YOUR Light so Shine'

Today is Sunday, January 31, 2021.

Highlights of our last week of January 2021 included…

Office Meetings on Monday which are always delightful! Visiting with our Office team, and every missionary that happens to pop in is wonderful!! There is cheerful synergism amongst our consecrated Seniors, and our young missionaries. We are continually inspired and are so grateful to serve with them all! 

Senior Missionaries that were swept away last March 2020 have invited us to join their once a month zoom call, and when we are available, we love getting caught up with those dear friends!! This past Monday Sister Little and I were delighted to hear reports from many of our returned CMMissionaries. Another miracle of our missionary service is how quickly lasting ‘golden’ friendships are forged!!  ‘Because we know YOU, we have been changed for good!’ (adapted from ‘Wicked.’)

Getting reports from our Zone Leaders, and Sister Training leaders is so fun!!

They are always full of life and excited to share their Zones weeks work! 

Although we definitely do not define ourselves, or our missionaries, by our 

‘Key Indicators for Conversion;’ we were thrilled when we tallied our numbers and realized we have 24 friends on date to be baptized!!! That is a record high for us, and we all celebrate!! We should also report that since our challenge about a month ago, for missionary teams to set teaching goals of 20 lessons a week….many of our teams are meeting that challenge. It requires tons of planning, and is most effectively done when the Ward or Branch Mission Leader does the calendaring..he is the one that sets up the appointments. Ward and Branch Mission Leaders are key in the success of ‘finding, teaching and baptizing!’ Ward and branch missionaries are also key in moving the work forward, so if you feel like you aren’t as engaged in your ward or branch; volunteer to be a ward missionary, and then go to work!! It is MINISTERING and DISCIPLESHIP at its best!!

Monday night we welcomed Sister Paisley Wilson, to the CMM. Because her home internet (near Ponoka,) is not stable, she did much of her online MTC training at Neil and Patti(Richard’s sister) Harker’s home in Lacombe!! We loved seeing the photo of the three of them together!! Small world!!! Excited to have Sister Wilson join us!! 

Yesterday at 4pm we had both our iPads set up for two of those 24 baptisms; 9 year old Kendra Shaw in Ottawa, and Patrice Ngantchia in Laval. We get so excited for these Baptisms…..BUT our missionaries are over the moon!!! We all feel so fulfilled!

Sister Driesen, from Devon, Alberta originally was serving in the Ascension, Paraguay Mission, was sent home in March, and after spending some time at home was reassigned here, so for 8 months she served so faithfully, and then we received word from Missionary Travel that she was to return to Paraguay…so last night we had to say a tearful ‘au revoir' to her. She was happy and sad….so it goes.. we get so attached to these young friends, and it is hard to let them go..

BUT..this week we are excited to welcome five new CMM missionaries: 

Sister Ellissa Gibb - Edmonton

Sister Katia Van Duyse - Bohicon, Benin/ Cardston

Elder Zach Bagley - Thunder Bay

Elder Blake Gibb - Lethbridge

Elder Justin Schortinghuis - Barnwell 

Friday five of our finest - (they are ALL the finest!!) return to their homes and families, and we are bracing ourselves for more teary farewells. Saying goodbye is definitely the hardest part of this service…..

Leaving us this week are:

Sister Marshalyn Moosman

Elder Justin Brown

Elder Tyler Clifford

Elder Jeremy Crofts

Elder Zach D’Eon

So the Transfer Cycle goes…and it does seem to be going faster …

We spoke in St. Laurent YSA Branch today, and tuned into Sister Lydia Hall’s homecoming in Sandy, Utah, as well as watched D’Arcey and Jan’s grandson Jaxon West’s farewell in Welling, Alberta, and tonight we have our Mission Devotional. And tomorrow we flip the calendar over…to February!! Oh my!!

Tomorrow is my last MTC French tutoring day….we get to plan my ‘going forward with French plan.’ Our time is ticking by too quickly. 

Have a wonderful week! We send our love and prayers to all.

Grandpa and Grandma, Dad and Mom, Richard and Gayle

Keep Smiling!!! 

 

Miracles abounded this week….oh how blessed we feel. Read on!!

January 31st, 2021 Missionary Miracles

Kirkland Elders:

« Charles is progressing quite a bit. We took your invitation to invite to be baptized more often and it led to a great and honest discussion on his beliefs. He didn't say what was holding him back out right, but we were able to pick up on the needs. Now we are able to send him videos and scriptures to help him out! We actually had a wonderful miracle. We wanted to send him Alma 42, which would answer his questions beautifully. But, there was so many topics he didn't know about in the chapter that we were worried it would raise more questions than it answers. We held off on sending the scripture for now, and then he texted us that he "was lead by the spirit to Alma 42, which answered his questions". What a miracle! I learned then to never be afraid to send scriptures that answer a question. If he continues this path, I know he will be baptized in February! Maintaining my goal! »

Sisters in Saint Hyacinthe:

« This week was pretty good. We were able to deliver a lot of Bibles and we were able to start teaching one of them. We got a super cool self referral. He requested for a BofM, he is Catholic but he believes that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are 3 separate beings so when he found out that we believed in that, he wanted to learn more. We were able to meet him the other day when we delivered the BofM and he seemed really cool. We are still trying to set up a lesson with him. Our friend Francis is also doing well! He is progressing so quickly and we set a baptismal date with him for the 28th of February. We've only been teaching him for 3 weeks and he has already learned so much. He tells us that it all just makes sense to him and he feels like he knew it all along. I am so grateful that God gave me the opportunity to be a part of His journey. He is truly a miracle and I am so so excited for him.« 

Sydney, Nova Scotia Elders who also cover Cornerbrook Newfoundland:

« A few weeks ago we met with Danessa a recent convert to the church in Cornerbrook (I don't know if you know her or not) over zoom. She was struggling a lot because the church is so small in Newfoundland and the missionaries are no longer there. She has been contemplating leaving the church for a little while and stopped going to church for a few weeks. In our lesson we felt inspired to ask her if she had a favourite story in the BoM. She told us she loved the story of Nephi breaking his bow. We centered our lesson around this story and she told us this was her favourite story because it was the the first part in the BofM that she really understood. She said I like this story because "Nephi isn't a quitter" he stayed hopeful and built another bow out of a stick even though everyone else murmured. At the end of the lesson she bore a beautiful testimony to us and told us that the reason it has been so hard for her to leave the church is because she knew it was true. It seemed so small just feeling prompted to ask a simple question, but it led to a very spiritual and uplifting experience. When she told us this story was her favourite I instantly knew exactly where it was and what verses it would be found in. I'm not sure if before that lesson I could have actually recalled exactly where that scripture was, but it was cool to have been able to remember with such clarity in our lesson. When she bore her testimony I could feel the spirit very strongly and I knew that she knew it was true. It seems like small things now that I say them, but at the time it felt nothing short of a miracle. Miracles can be easy to over look and miss, but as I've tried to keep my eyes open for them, I can see them everywhere.« 

Sydney Elders also:

« This week has been decently busy. We had a cool experience the other day while visiting a member. Me and Elder Schmidt decided we wanted to drop off some cookies to a lady in our ward who is home living alone. When we got there she wasn't home so we decided we would come back another day. She called us that night and asked if we had been there which i thought was odd because I knew she wasn't home. Turns out that her neighbour had gone and talked to her about us because he had been watching us. which led to a full on conversation about us missionaries. it just really showed me that people are always watching us as missionaries and every chance is to be an example to someone. « 

Assistants:

« Remember when i said we had some ambitious goals? Well once again, the Lord DID help us with them. We wanted to find 7 people this last week, and so just like previous weeks we put our minds to it, and did everything we could to accomplish that goal, and but then end of the night on Sunday, we had 6 of the 7 people found. Many of which are SO solid to to teach! I not that is 1 less than 7, but then we peeped into areabook and looked at the district key indicators, and the Sisters had planned to find 4 people that week, plus the other Elders had planned to find 3 people. Which is a total of 13 people as the districts finding goal. The Sisters actually ended up finding 7 people, making it a grand total of 13/13 people found! It was incredible! I know it is not all about the numbers, but these people are actually really solid potential to progress! Now this week we have raised our ‘at church goal’ and lowered the finding goal. We are striving to have 8 people attend church this Sunday, hopefully all 7 of those that were found will be among those 8. That would be a miracle because it is travel planning time. I believe in miracles though!! I tell you all of this because i wanted to thank you for teaching me the importance of goal setting and planning these last few transfers. It is such an valuable lesson, and I am hoping to apply it to my life after the mission! « 

Quebec Sisters:

« We saw a fun finding miracle this week! Actually, two! We have been helping the Quebec Elders contact people who have reacted to the advertisements on the Spanish FB page. We started talking with a man who ended up being the most humble, genuine seeker of Christ. We referred him back to the Quebec Elders because he lives in a remote reservation that is included in the Chicoutimi/Alma area, and they were able to have a super spiritual lesson with him. I love that the miracles we see give us so much joy even if they don't directly impact our area. The second miracle we saw was with our friend that I mentioned last week, who we put on baptismal date after finding her through the Ottawa page. We were teaching her about the restoration, and her mom walked into the room and started talking to us! We said hi, introduced ourselves, and told her how much we loved and appreciated her daughter. Well, she was so happy that she asked us if she could participate in our next lesson, and then she sat down and listened as we finished teaching about the Book of Mormon and praying to find truth. We were able to deliver her a Book of Mormon as well as her daughter, and we are now teaching them both! « 

Laval Elders:

« Our social media efforts have been doing really well this last little bit, we have seen success with the content that we have made and has been blessing the page with more traffic, with the intention of finding others to teach. It brings me joy to hear the stories of members watching our videos and them telling us that it brought a smile to their face. The facebook pages have blessed us with opportunities that I never thought would happen on my mission. We were able to get in contact with someone from Bukina Faso, he said he found the gospel through our page. He is now in contact with Sisters near him, and when we talked to him, he asked how he could prepare to serve a mission. Not only that, but in his area there is no church. So this last Sunday he drove 2 hours by motorbike to find a group of members. « 

Halifax Elders:

« Wow! I have a cool experience that you can share with Sister Low if you would like. I was on exchanges with Sister Pedersen and we were teaching our friend Erin. I told Sister Pedersen that I had a strong feeling to extend a soft baptismal invitation but we were only going to have 10 minutes. I didn't know how it was going to work but I just couldn't ignore the prompting. I wanted to be able to say that I gave her an opportunity to be on date. We ended up having more than 10 minutes which was great and she had mentioned that something she wanted was to have her future family be raised in the faith. I knew that was my chance to ask her if she could see herself raising her family in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She said that she had thought about it and still wanted to know more about what we believe. It wasn't a yes but it was an answer and I was just overflowed with the spirit. I wasn't sad or disappointed or anything because I  just went in with no expectations. I was saying to myself "Just Send it!" I was so at peace and honestly so happy because I did it and it wasn't this big scary thing that you needed to set up so perfectly. It was natural and we now know where she is at. It was amazing. Also another miracle you can share is that on our way to pick up Sister Wilson the snow was really bad. There were about 4 cars within 100ft of each other that had been driven into a ditch. The car would slide a few times but I was insanely calm. I don't understand it because I didn't know what I was doing but I just knew that Heavenly Father was guiding my hands and that He was going to protect us. I wasn't worried or scared, I was completely at peace. Wow! I love the spirit! Wait I thought of another miracle you can share! I was on marketplace and I saw that I needed to renew my ads. So I did and then I went to bed and in the morning I woke up and I saw that I got 10 responses! Wild! I've still been getting more responses. People are being prepared for us I swear! I love Halifax! « 

Have a WONDERFUL WEEK!!  “Let your light so shine..” 

The LIGHT in their EYES

Today is Sunday, January 24, 2021,

                            and in four days we get to wish our Megan...Happy 29th Birthday!!

With our 'baby' Megan’s Birthday this week, we find ourselves very melancholy reminiscing about the arrival of each of our wonderful seven children; the intense years of parenting; and now the incredible JOY of watching each of them, with their spouses parenting our 24 grandchildren!!! We have come full circle, and although our parenting now is totally different than it was when we all lived under the same roof, we still feel the responsibility of caring about, supporting, teaching, advising (if asked), and LOVING….all 38 of our dear family - almost 6 times our original number!! Our family are our MOST  prized possessions….how grateful we are for each of you!! 

A little trip down memory lane for some of you…When Megan started Kindergarten, her teacher Mrs. Liska noticed she only coloured with green and gold…she was a true LCI fan….loving going to every sports activity Aaron, David, Bradley, Michael, Mark and Jonathan participated in;…and now she continues to be such a loyal fan for Brendan, her brothers and her nephews!

The Montreal snow blanket continues to keep us ooohing and aaahing, especially as we drive around the city and see how these hardy folks embrace the cold; walking, cycling, sledding, snowshoeing, skating and cross-country skiing! Our temperatures have dipped, and today the thermometer reads -16 with humidity making it feel like -23. After bundling, and layering up, we love our delightful evening walks down to the Mount Royal town square! The lawn bowling pitch has been flooded and throngs of families with toddlers, and all ages of kids happily skate until the big flood lights get turned off right before eight. Richard was crosscountry skiing on Mount Royal yesterday, and reported hundreds of folks loving the activities on the mountain; someone had even set up rentals for skiing, skating and snowshoeing!! These Quebecois are happy, resilient folk who have not let covid slow them down with distanced socializing, relaxation, or fitness, and we are inspired!!

Perhaps you tire reading about our wonderful weeks that zip by on record speed! A brief review of this past week includes stimulating Office Meetings on Monday, and the rest of the week our time was filled with Montreal Zone interviews, Montreal Zone Conference, as well as Mount Royal Zone Conference. My teaching was based on a wonderful President James E. Faust October 2005 General Conference address entitled ‘The Light in Their Eyes,’ which is such a timely message for all of us now, as we go everywhere wearing masks, with only our eyes shining!! He shared the story of when President Ezra Taft Benson accompanied by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland then President of BYU Provo, were in Jerusalem making arrangements to lease the land for the Jerusalem Centre. In the details of the lease, it was written that there was/is to be absolutely no proselyting. He records that “after the lease had been signed, one of their friends insightfully remarked,” “Oh, we know that you are not going to proselyte, but what are you going to do about the light that is in their eyes?” “He was referring to students who were studying in Israel.” “What was that light in their eyes which was so obvious to our friend?  The Lord Himself gives the answer: ‘And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings.’ Where did that light come from? Again the Lord gives the answer: ‘I am the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’ The Lord is the true light.”

I love teaching and discussing the Gospel with our little band of believers, and we glean so much from our discussions. Another great nugget from President Faust’s talk: “Once when President Brigham Young was asked why we are sometimes left alone, and often sad, his response was that man has to learn to ‘act as an independent being…..to see what he will do…and try his independency - to be righteous in the dark.’ That becomes easier to do when we see the ‘gospel glow….radiating from….illuminating individuals.’ ”

The application of this great message applies to all of us…I am motivated just thinking about always living to illuminate the gospel glow!!  What a master teacher President Faust was! 

Monday evening Alexa Fowers, my MTC French tutor announced that with all the new French students, my tutoring will conclude February 1st. Tomorrow we are making a ‘Language Plan,’ so I’m excited about planning a way to remember what I have learned!! I’m hoping all my French connections at home will continue tutoring me!! Sister Lisa Harkness gets to learn French from Alexa. After French, we spent another delightful hour or so with President and Sister Harkness, who we are confident will serve so well here. We already feel like old friends!!! 

We have been waiting for months to get our teeth clean, and Tuesday morning we visited Dr. Abadi’s office where when we left, our mouths felt squeaky clean! When we heard that Dr. Abadi teaches at McGill Dental School, we knew we were almost in as good a hands, as our son Brad!!  Dr. Abadi herself cleaned my teeth…she knew it had been a while since they had been done, when she announced she was doing a ‘deep cleaning!!’

Last night we participated in our first virtual party with our Senior Missionaries, organized by Elder and Sister Bingham! I made puffed wheat treats as the ‘token refreshments,’ and will share them at the Office tomorrow. Sister Bingham had cute ‘conversation starters,’ where we shared info about our families, funny mission experiences, and favourite Pday memories. After an hour and a half of delightful visiting, and getting to know each other, we had to get on to our next Saturday activity, but it was so fun to hear about these remarkable, inspiring, consecrated Senior Elders and Sisters who are so happy to serve. How we pray they can soon physically come to us!!

We are still on partial lock down….until February 8th, although Quebec provincial government yesterday announced opening Churches for baptisms, and for maximum of ten to attend Sacrament Meetings. I’ll rave again about being so grateful for Zoom technology, where today we got to hear Kaylee speak in Sacrament Meeting, as well as attend Fredericton, New Brunswick Sacrament Meeting. Tuesday night we also attended Michael Tait Low’s ordination to the office of a deacon. We feel so blessed to be able to participate in these milestone events.

Your prayers for missionaries around the world are being answered right here in the ‘Canada Montreal Mission’….Thank you for both your faith and your prayers…We feel that power, and continue to be grateful for the power those prayers bring. 

Our service continues to bring us so much JOY. How thankful we are for this incredible opportunity! It continues to change our lives, and our hearts. 

Sending this to all of you with much love

Grandpa and Grandma, Dad and Mom, Richard and Gayle

All our outstanding teams of Missionaries also continue to amaze us with their obedient, diligent, cheerful, service….and love sharing their weekly miracles! Read on…

Miracles Week of January 24, 2021

Mandarin Central Elders:

«  This week has been great! I was able to put into practice a lot of lessons that I have learned the earlier week. I felt that Heavenly Father answered my prayers more as I tried to pray with more intent and sincerity. An example of this is we invited a friend to fast with us that he might know that God exists and loves him. A couple days later he experienced the "most peace [he] has ever felt" we were able to explain this came from Heavenly Father. Another amazing answer to prayer is we were praying to find ways to help our friend nina, because things have slowed down quite a bit with her, we found ways to offer service and her excitement for learning the gospel took new heights than ever before. Heavenly Father knows our hearts and is ready to respond as we are diligently seeking him. « 

Granby Elders:

« One cool experience that we had, is that we had a lesson with our friend Sylvia and the gift of Tongues decided to show off a little bit! Elder May testified of the commandments, and he spoke flawless french. It was really amazing to see how much he's improved over the last few weeks. He's dedicated, and i believe he'll be fluent in no time. 

We also are going hard at EdApp sessions! I wish I had these when i was trained.

Bible and Book of Mormon ads have been blowing up! We've now 3 or 4 people who ordered a book of mormon and we're now in contact with. 

One of which was an entire family who just moved from Cote D'Ivoire. They want to attend the church broadcast on Sunday so we'll see how that goes!!! 

We may see a primary being built up over here!

Halifax Elders:

« We ended up putting one person on date this week, Samuel Robinson, and he has such a strong desire to know the truth! I am really excited for him! Jalen continues to meet with us twice a week, and we have set up two of our members reading with him on a weekly basis of the Book of Mormon. He has started to say "our church" which really gets me excited. Jalen is someone who has been taught in the past, and he is here for schooling. We asked him about Baptism this past week and he said that it has been something on his mind a lot. The lessons we have with him always have the spirit so strong, and I feel like that really just shows the desire he has. »

Saint Hyacinthe Sisters:

« This week we found a guy name Ronald and he is so cool ! We've had 2 lessons with him and he has asked really good questions. One of the questions he asked was 'how he can come to know the truth for himself' ! We weren't able to answer his question right then and there because we had a another lesson right after but we told him in our next video call that we would answer his question. We are so excited about that!! I also put up a bible ad this week and with a day I got 9 responses which was so cool. I ended up having to take my ad down because they just kept on coming and we only have 4 bibles. One of them actually started asking me about my beliefs and we set up a video call to explain more about the church. 

Dartmouth Elders:

« I am here for him and I myself have found amazing faith and confidence in the Lord as I forget myself. I was even blessed in seeing a miracle during our exchange with Elder Drover. We were teaching a man who did not want to attend church because his daughter had passed away and it was extremely painful for him to revisit the chapel where they shared so many precious memories. As Elder Drover shared the closing prayer I prayed in my heart that he would receive a vision or message straight from his passed daughter letting him know that it was his desire that he attends church. I prayed letting heavenly father I had faith that he would work miracles and that I wanted it for no reason more than to bring this man peace and joy. As soon as Elder Drover closed the Prayer the man told us that he was actually reading from his daughters scriptures and that the Book had fallen to a page containing a note with his daughters testimony on it. I shared my testimony of miracles and angels and that I knew without a doubt that his daughters will for him was that he attended church and that he could do so in peace. I am so grateful Heavenly Father has gifted me with this opportunity to witness his love for his Children. »

Dows Lake Chinese Elders:

« Social media finding has also taken a new high this week. I have started 12 conversations in the last two days on Instagram. We have found one new friend on Facebook, and look to find two likely friends on Instagram as I follow up with them again later this week. On Facebook, a post I made on the worldwide unified group generated over 2,900 likes and over 500 comments. We were able to set up a weekly recurring video call with an inactive member from this, and reach out to many other friends and family of members in the Riverside Ward, and other members and friends across the mission and the world. It was amazing to see the ripple effect one simple action of sharing my testimony had on literally the entire world. « 

Quebec Sisters:

« We received a message from the Champlain Spanish sisters saying they had been messaging someone from their Facebook page who was interested in studying the Bible with us. We contacted her right away and set up an appointment within a few minutes! That was the first miracle. The second came when we were able to study the Bible with her and we had such a quick, spiritually powerful lesson. We really focused in on the commitment, which was to learn more about our message of the Restoration and keep studying with us. We found a new friend! When we scheduled a return appointment, our member presence fell through right beforehand, which was disappointing, but that didn't stop the miracles! We decided to study another passage from the Bible and teach about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She loved the study! And when we started talking about baptism, we studied about how Jesus didn't just go to any random person to be baptized, he went to John, who had authority from God. She thought that was really interesting, and then asked us if she could be baptized by someone with authority from God! Of course we then extended the invitation to her to be baptized into the true church of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  She accepted! It was only the second time we've met with her! She was so emotional and thanked us, saying she'd actually prayed that very day to know where to go to be baptized. It was so incredible. I am excited to help her on her path to discovering the Restored gospel.« 

Laurier YSA Sisters:

« I have a testimony that fasting works. In my last three areas, when I have fasted to find people, we get a flood of referrals. God blesses me more than I deserve. Its just been really cool to see a direct answer to my prayers. We haven't had as much finding time as would be ideal, but I have been obedient and God is providing a way for us to find people. « 

Lasalle Sisters:

« We also have a new person on date! Her name is Angela, she is very sweet. She is related  to a member and she's so elect. At the beginning of the month, we set a goal to have a new person on date, and even though the chances were very few, we accomplished yet another one of goals. Faith truly is important in this work. We wouldn't have been able to do all of this if we didn't trust in the Lord and all that we do everyday. He's always with us because this is His work! « 

Laval Elders:

« This week, we met a man who was very thankful for the church and its family history records, he said that he isn't a man of faith, but he loves doing his family history. It's so fun being able to serve with other missionaries and get to know those who have been called to serve the Lord at the same time as me. 

This week we have put more thought into our social media efforts, and we filmed another video that will be up on Saturday. Our last video brought many people to the page and that encourages me to keep making content people will want to watch and will inspire them to learn more about the things that makes me happy. « 

Montreal Est Sisters:

« After we delivered cookies and del la Rosas to the Elders we got in the car and Sister Irazoqui noticed two guys behind us trying to dig out their car from the snow. Side note, when it snows here in Québec people will shovel out their driveways and trucks clear out the streets about a day after it snows so if your car has not been driven in than it's probably buried deep in an 8 foot snow pile. ... Back to the story, one of the guys we were helping had noticed us there visiting the elders before and he was curious about who were were and recognized my collègue's French, pas Québécoise accent. He had lived in Salt Lake, knew where Provo was, and was happy to hear that we were missionaries. We did not get his information to contact him, but it was a great unplanned opportunity to connect and serve! 

 

Trois Rivieres Elders:

«  This was an another great week here! We invited three people to be baptized, and all three of them accepted! One has selected a date, one is praying to choose a date, and one is deciding how she will tell her parents. It was almost unreal how great it was, every several lessons we couldn't help but just lie down and be amazed. I should say I really want to stay in this area. So much of our efforts are really showing fruit right now! One of the people who said she wants to be baptized has three children and a husband, but the husband isn't very religious. We are going to try to involve him as much as possible in the lessons so they enter the church as a family. »

Quebec Sisters:

« We had a busy week! We are teaching and talking to a lot of people, so we stay very busy!

We had our second lesson with one of our new friends this week, her name is Nathasha. We taught her the whole gospel of Jesus Christ and how we have the proper authority to baptize and she loved it and asked if she could get baptized! It brought her to tears saying that she had been praying to find the right church, she knew the scriptures said to be baptized but really wanted to find the right one and we were the answer to her prayers! Such a miracle!

Another miracle, we were talking to someone on fb this week who we found out had been taught and baptized by my sister when she was here and then went inactive rather fast, we were hoping to help her! « 

Greenwood Elders:

«  This week we saw some miracles! On Friday we had our first lesson with Audra and it went really well! We taught the first few principles of the restoration. She said she had taken the discussions before but just didn’t feel it was right at the time. So near the end of our call she was very straightforward and said she wanted to be baptized and sealed to her husband as soon as possible. « 

Sackville Elders:

« So On Sunday after church we returned to our apartment and then we got a call from our ward Clerk Brother Kang and he told us there's a man who just walk into the Chapel and told them he wants to learn more about our church and join our church!  And so Brother Kang hand the phone to him and we were able to set up a lesson that night and we taught him the restoration and

How to pray, and  then we gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to start reading it and start praying on his own. Lastly we invited him to come to church on Sunday and have a lesson before church! He is so cool and awesome! Really down to earth, sincerely want to learn more! So we are so happy that God guided him to the church! We are excited to ‘walk him home!’ 

Have a wonderful week!!! Keep Smiling!!!

A Heart Like His

Today is Sunday, January 17, 2021

and 

We wish Walker Benjamin Low Happy 13th Birthday!!!

Thursday, the 21st, Haysten Victoria Low celebrates her 7th Birthday!!

Winter has officially arrived here in Montreal, and this morning the spectacular view from our bedroom window overlooking our Darling Park literally took our breaths away, as we observed the nighttime snowfall had added to yesterdays dump; about 15 inches of accumulated heavy wet snow blanketed the ground; with every tree and shrub enshrouded in their own brilliant white heavenly robes!! Truly it was a ‘heavenly’ snowscape, and we longed to have a bunch of family come build a family of snowmen, make snow angels, have a massive snowball fight and build a huge quince to sleep in!!! The wonder of this weather is that the temperature has hovered around -1, -2, or 0, with no wind, so it is very pleasant to be outside. Our 8pm province wide curfew has city streets absolutely dead…except for snow removal crews…see photos below!!

Someday I would love to write a Dr. Seuss ‘snow book,’ and have one of our talented mission artists illustrate it!! I already do have two snow removal machine illustrations that Sister DeBarcellos drew last year…and maybe next year I will write the book!! 

Another great week here in the Canada Montreal Mission!! Office Meetings on Monday were productive, and efficient. We start our day out zooming and hearing highlights of our Seniors weeks. Here is a brief rundown on our Seniors…Elder and Sister Bingham from Calgary moved from CornerBrook, over to Bay Roberts, Newfoundland where Elder Bingham is serving as Branch President, and Sister Bingham is the queen of ministering; Elder and Sister Stonehocker serve as MLS missionaries in Greenwood, Nova Scotia from their home in Red Deer; Elder and Sister Kellis are CES missionaries teaching Montreal Institute from their home in Meza, Arizona; Elder and Sister Stearman are CES missionaries teaching Ottawa Institute from their home in Palm Deseret, California; Elder and Sister Kennett are from Edmonton, living in Ottawa, and serving remotely in the National Archives, Elder and Sister Opper are serving remotely from Brantford, Ontario, and when they arrive Dr. Opper will serve as our Mission Medical advisor with Sister Opper assisting, as well as taking over some of Sister Little’s responsibilities when she leaves us next month; Elder and Sister Roberts, from Magrath, arrived just before Christmas, and have taken over Housing responsibilities from our young Elders Baird and Garside, who were amazing, organized and hard-working…we will miss them in the Office.  Sister Little our wonderful Queen Bee (calls herself Soeur Petite!!), Sister Mecham and Sister Breckenridge, along with Elder Sutherland, and Elder Alley,  continue to hold the Office together with their amazing service. What a power team!! Following our senior missionary reports we meet as an office staff, have a social media meeting, sometimes a car meeting, once a month a Health Council, and call-ins from our Zone leaders and Sister training leaders where they report on their key indicators, and finally a meeting with our Assistants to plan upcoming meetings, transfers etc. We usually are on our way home by 5. French tutoring is at 7, and my final MTC date is February 1st.  Next week Alexa Fowers, my tutor said we are going to come up with a going forth Language plan, so my French study will continue….FYI..today (Tuesday, January 19) I celebrated my 200th day of DuoLingo!!!  

Rest of our week report included;  Interviews and visits,  Longueuil Zone Conference and MLC which occupied most of our waking hours. Exercised daily, did a bit of baking, some snow shovelling, relaxed as we watercoloured, and we laughed and laughed watching the classic movie “Anne of Green Gables!!” don’t you love Anne’s heart?! We know that little spurts of diversion has been good for our minds!!   

Speaking of hearts…everyday this week, I have read, and read and thought about HEARTS. I love thinking about the process of changing our hearts to be more like His. In fact next week at our Mission Wide Learning Conference going along with my Preach My Gospel teaching I’m excited to talk about ‘A Change of Heart,’ and ‘A Heart Like His…’ Stay tuned!! 

January 17th, 2021 Mission Miracles:

New Glasgow Sisters:

« Hello President! This week has gone well! We had a cool miracle happen to us on Pday! We were waiting in the parking lot for the store to open, and all of a sudden this lady comes up to our window and told us to roll the window down. So we did and she pulled out her flip phone and said "do you like my phone? Its probably the oldest one you've seen!" It was very random haha but we laughed, and she kept talking to us for awhile. Then she told us she was Catholic but didn’t believe in it. So then of course we started telling her that we were missionaries and explained all of that! She asked what made our church different from the rest and we explained to her the Book of Mormon and how we have a Prophet, she said it was interesting, so we gave her a Book of Mormon and she asked for a large print one so she could read it better! She didn’t want to give us her number so we gave her ours and she said she would reach out to us! She also told us she works at a cafe in town and said we could go there whenever! It was pretty random but really cool how she literally came up to our car and just started a conversation. Its like we were the ones that got street contacted! Haha, anyways, I just wanted to share that with you and Sister Low because it was a cool experience for us! « 

Montreal Elders:

« One of the reasons I have needed to stay here I feel is to see the Lords hand in the Montreal ward missionary work. Last year (10 months ago) Sister Nabrotzky was still in the ward, and they were very busy of course,  and so they didn't have time to re-teach the lessons to Sophie Koestner (recent convert). She always felt bad about that. Turns out it was inspired and divine that they did not get to teach her those, because God needed to use those to teach someone that we recently found named Miguel who is the boyfriend of Sophie Koestner. I started talking to this man when my Facebook got hacked and sent a video to Sophie. Miguel messaged me asking why I sent that video to his girlfriend (haha). So I explained and then I thought... well this is no coincidence, this man needs the gospel! So I started to talk to him more about common interests and things like that, and slowly over the course of 3 transfers here with Elder Calabuig, we began to talk about the Church and then connected that Sophie was his girlfriend. We asked if he’d be interested in learning about the church his girlfriend went to, and to our great joy and surprise he said yes! He was a little weary of meeting with us though because he doesn’t want us to expect anything from him; he us just curious. Well long story short..we had a lesson, not very deep or long, but briefly talking about the church and its purpose, and what we are all about. That ended and we were left unsatisfied with that. He needed more, but we didn’t know how we could reach out again with out him getting the vibes that we are pouncing on him. Like a light from heaven the thought came to us..."Sophie has not been retaught the missionary discussions". So we reached out to her and asked if we could teach those (a year later..haha) and have Miguel just sit in and listen to them! They both agreed emphatically! God knew last year that these lessons were going to be the key to teaching Miguel. To make the story even better, we reached out to the sisters because we are trying to get Sophie to the YSA, even though she is dating someone;  and have them connect with Sophie. It just so happens that one of the YSA sisters is Sister Nabrotzky! We are passing off the new member lessons/missionary lessons with Miguel  to these sisters to teach.  Sister Nabrotsky will in fact get to teach her, and also this man Miguel! Miracles are in store, and God has not withdrawn his power or influence from the Canada Montreal Mission. I’m excited to see how Miguel progresses! »

Greenwood Elders:

« This week we hit our 20 lesson goal! We were able to contact most of the members in both branches to hit it. We had really good lessons with them and invited some to invite others to Church this month. A few invitations to church have already gone out to a few of their friends! There’s a recently married couple in Annapolis, Frank and Audra Foley; Frank is an inactive member and has a condition that will probably be fatal in the near future. So they are determined to be sealed in the temple and Audra has been to church in previous places but never met with the missionaries. We had contacted them awhile ago but they wanted to hold out until we could meet in person. The Branch Presidents wife had the idea to have them join them in their home to meet with us over zoom. They accepted the invitation and we will be zooming with them on Friday! We had one person that I had been messaging with who came to church over youtube and now we are just figuring out how interested she is in learning more.

Champlain Spanish Sisters:

« Last week was pretty dry, it was difficult to meet new people and difficult because people kept bailing on lessons. This week Sister Thomson and I fasted for the opportunity to meet someone who truly was interested in hearing our message, with patience of course. Last night we had an answer to our prayers! This wonderful lady living in Gatineau, from Ethiopia was so ready and so excited to hear our message. The spirit was so strong in that lesson and when we told her we could be an answer to her prayers she broke down. I know that Missionary work is really important and it really works to bring people home. « 

Sherbrooke Elders:

« One of the things we sometimes have trouble doing is requesting referrals from everyone and this week we made a special effort to do it and a miracle happened! One of the less actives that we have never met we set up a lesson with her and made an effort to get to know her and bam! Right Before we asked her she said, I know someone in Vancouver that could really use a message from the missionaries! It's amazing what the lord can do for you After the effort is put in! I really know that God really is with us in this work and that if we honestly put in our part and with diligent prayer and faith, miracles will happen! « 

Chapel Hill Sisters:

« Also random miracle from last night: our bishop called us and said a new family moved into the ward; the husband contacted the bishop saying that her wife wants to be baptized ASAP! Apparently they had met with missionaries before, but she wanted to take some time to study and ponder on everything that she had been taught. But now it sounds like she's ready to go! We don't want to jump to things too quick though; we haven't been able to get in contact with her husband yet, so we'll see how things go from there. »

Mont St. Hilaire Sisters:

« We had a super cool miracle yesterday! We had a lesson with one of the people that replied to Sister McLeod's BOM ad and I have never had a lesson quite like this one. He is so open to learning more and has a sincere desire to really learn for himself the truth. He is looking to join a church organization. I asked him if he was able to read in the Book Of Mormon and he said yeah but just a little bit but then he proceeds to tell us that he is up to page 60!! My mouth literally dropped. It was such a good lesson and at the end, he was like 'well I guess the next thing I have to do is to accept the Book of Mormon as a book of scripture'! We have another lesson with him this coming week and we are so excited. « 

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Such beautiful, simple miracles. I probably don’t need to remind you that all the teaching, all the contacting and all the finding is done on tiny Samsung phones!! We marvel at our missionaries creativity, their stick-to-it-iveness, their diligence, their determined desire, and their indomitable FAITH… Truly it is miraculous …the successes we are having…we know around every corner, in every one of our lives, miracles are lurking..we just need to look for them. The Lord is in the details of every one of our lives…I know that.. When we notice or experience a miracle…record it for others to someday have their faith strengthened…

And on that happy note, with a challenge….I’ll send this off with much love

Have a wonderful week…and Keep Smiling

Richard and Gayle, Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma