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