Today is March 7, 2021
We have enjoyed another delightful week in the Canada Montreal Mission with pretty much a carbon copy of most of our weeks, but we never tire of our predictable service!!
A quick summary of our week includes: Monday Office meetings, Montreal Zone interviews, and visits Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday we loved our new missionary orientation meeting (which we usually do twice in our six week transfer cycle) where we talk about things like adjusting to missionary life, goal setting, planning, how to find people to teach, and how to use area book. Thursday afternoon, we drove to Drummondville to attend, and participate in their District Council. In Atlantic Canada we had the luxury of attending a district council every week, but given the geographic expanse, and the pandemic hitting a year ago, this was only our third opportunity to attend this special meeting with a small group of our missionaries, and what fun it was to physically be together!
Friday we finished our final Zone Conference in this transfer joining with the Montreal Zone for a morning of teaching and testimony. Repeating our teachings five times never gets old. No two zone conferences are the same…but what always is the same is the faith, and understanding of our young missionaries who always inspire us with their experiences, their comments and their testimonies.
Friday afternoon we had a special mission wide Devotional where we announced the temporary leaving of our missionaries from Nova Scotia.
Missionaries that were serving in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and PEI were transferred from there in November and December.
Some of our dear missionaries serving in Nova Scotia, we have not seen for over a year. Covid has wrecked havoc with our ability to see these stalwart missionaries, but, enough is enough! For at least three months the Spirit has been reminding us to ‘temporarily’ move these teams, and finally we listened, and are obeying!! 8am Tuesday, March 16th, twelve missionaries will drive six vehicles, over two days, the thirteen hours to Montreal, overnighting in Riviere du Loup, while seven others will fly directly here. Before leaving last week, Sister Little thankfully, organized the mass vehicle exodus; and our housing Elder and Sister Roberts are currently working tirelessly getting apartments ready for the nine relocating teams! Having all our missionaries within arms reach is going to be so comforting; we can hardly wait to see them in living daylight!! Having an in-person Mission Wide Zone Conference…(if covid regulations ease up, as well as getting Area Presidency permission) is our dream!!
Happy to report three Baptisms this week..Francis, (Longueuil) Lisa, (Laurier) and Kathryn, (Villa Marie) We all celebrate we have a Baptism!!
Our key indicators show we have 35 more friends on date!!
Watercolouring is still one of our favourite relaxing activities, and Richard’s landscapes get better with each scene he paints. This week he finished a darling PEI cottage that I would love to move in to!! Painting flowers has become such a happy thing for me, and doing it with Sister missionaries from 9-9:45pm is awesome!! About a year and half ago, one of our Family service counsellor missionaries told us she had repeatedly suggested to missionaries struggling with anxiety or depression to start watercoloring!!! When she heard that we were doing it in the CMM she was thrilled, and so …we continue to paint!! Someday we will take lessons so we know what we are doing!!
Yesterday our Pday adventure was a little drive out to Granby to pick up our preordered ‘Cabane Sucre’ box which was filled with a maple sugar feast. For almost 200 years, to celebrate the maple sap starting to flow from the maple forests that sweep across Quebec and Ontario, Quebecois created a wonderful celebration involving a lot of eating, singing and dancing!! Last year, the afternoon before covid pretty much closed the world; we attended such a festival!! We watched cheery dancing, heard traditional Quebecois tunes, and ate so much…split pea soup, omelette, maple ham, maple sausages, potato wedges, bacon, french toast, maple chicken, maple pudding, sugar pie, and more. On our long picnic tables were tall pitchers filled with maple syrup which we poured over everything!! Our take home ‘box supper’ that we picked up at ‘Erabliere La Grillade' was much the same…we just had to warm everything…you can imagine it was a ‘very sweet supper!!’ No toe tapping music, singing, or dancing though! They packed enough food in our box for three meals!! Look at macabanealamaison.com/en/ambiance-101 to see how to create your own homespun sugar shack ambiance!! Such a fun tradition! We hope to take our Seniors out to another Cabane sucre on the 27th!!
This upcoming week promises to be another wonderful one…we receive two new missionaries - Sister Smetaniuk, and Elder Johnson, and we have Mission Wide Learning Conferences on Wednesday and Friday, so we will keep busy…no twiddling thumbs!!
Here are a few of my framed favourite quotes..but I have no idea where they came from…
“If the Lord can do great things
with a single loaf..
Imagine what He can do
with a single life.”
_________________________
“What if you woke up today
with only
the things you thanked God
for yesterday?”
_________________________
Have a wonderful week…all of you!
Our weeks are flying by too quickly!!
with much LOVE,
Grandpa and Grandma, Dad and Mom, Richard and Gayle
Keep Smiling!!!
March 7th, 2021 Missionary Miracles:
This from a Sister who had to return home early due to health reasons (persistent headaches that had plagued her for years prior to her mission and which had baffled all doctors she had seen pre mission):
“Hi President and Sister Low! How are you? Sorry it's been this long, lots of things have been happening so this will be a long email!
I am loving being a service missionary! It was slow at first trying to figure out where I can volunteer and my service leaders were training the first couple weeks I was back home, so we've all been trying to figure this service mission out. Two and a half weeks ago I started working at the CEM mission office and I'm loving it! They have me doing the mission history for all of last year, ordering supplies, taking care of the mission cell phones, and starting up the weekly newsletter that stopped when covid came around. I definitely have my work cut out for me but I love it nonetheless. Heavenly Father definitely heard me because I once mentioned to Soeur Vaiho that I wanted to work in the mission office and asked how I could. She then said, "revelation."
I've also been doing lots of family history, practicing my flute, and I'm learning how to animate! I have a goal of animating myself playing ‘If You Could Hie to Kolob' on the flute like I did with ‘Peace in Christ,’ but since I know next to nothing about animating, it's going to take a long time!
I want to thank you and Mission Medical for denying my request for an MRI in Montreal. I know that sounds a little weird but honestly it was a blessing in disguise. So many miracles have happened here because of that decision and the decision to allow me to see a neurologist. Two days after I returned home, I had a doctor's appointment with my family doctor. I was a little skeptical because she had denied me medications for my headaches in the past but I went nonetheless. Instead of seeing my family doctor, a resident saw me who was so caring, thorough, and gave me the care that I needed. It was incredible! Definitely a tender mercy from the Lord. The resident had initially wanted me to go see a neurologist there, however when I mentioned to her that I had already seen one in Montreal and showed her the requisition he had given me for an MRI, she immediately sent a requisition to the hospital here. After years of being denied an MRI, that piece of paper that I received in Montreal helped me immensely. She then warned me that there are patients who have been waiting for months, even years and it might be the same for me. I was okay with that, at least I was on the list! The next day (on Friday), I received a call from the hospital. They had had a cancellation and they could fit me into an appointment that Sunday!! I wasn't even home for an entire week and yet I was already getting the help that I needed! I broke down and cried because I knew it was Heavenly Father who orchestrated this whole thing. He is honestly so kind, it boggles my brain thinking about how much He loves each of us. On Tuesday, I received the results from the MRI. My doctor told me that the ventricle on the right side of my brain (a little pocket that holds, distributes, and drains cerebrospinal fluid) is inflamed due to an increased amount of csf. There is an obstruction preventing it from draining properly and so it's pushing against my brain. They don't know yet if this is the cause of my headaches but it's a pretty good guess. They also don't know what the obstruction is but they told me it's almost 100% not a tumour so that's good! They sent the images to a neurosurgeon to see if surgery is necessary to remove the obstruction or if it can be resolved by medications. I have an appointment with the neurosurgeon the beginning of April so we'll see what he says. Again, thank you for the decision to not let me get in an MRI in Montreal and for all the love and kindness you both have shown me.
Truthfully, I miss Montreal and the CMM family. I will forever cherish the time I spent there, albeit shorter than expected. I love sharing with my little sister all of my mission stories, she has heard them numerous times to the point of her loudly sighing when I start a sentence with, "when I was in Montreal..." But secretly, she likes story time. I'm using what I learned in the field with my family and every second day we switch between Come Follow Me for scripture study and reading Safeguards For Using Technology. I love the positive impact that I am having on my family as a service missionary as well as the people who are interested in potentially serving a service mission.
I want to finish with my favourite scripture. It is in 1 Nephi 20:10: "For behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." This scripture has new meaning for me now. He has chosen me for this great work and He loves me despite and because of my afflictions. Trials are a refining process and I thank my Heavenly Father for loving me enough to give me these trials, because if we didn't have trials and hard things to work through, we wouldn't progress. We would just be the exact same person and not grow into who we need to be. It is amazing to me that Heavenly Father loves us so much to give us these experiences to grow our faith and our testimony because He knows that as we are refined, we come closer and closer to being like Him. We have the possibility to become like Him, to become gods ourselves, which is amazing to think about. When I think of the typical god portrayed in films and media, that god is selfish and they just want to keep all their power for themselves. But Heavenly Father is so selfless and loving and kind because He gives us these opportunities in life to progress into our full and eternal potential. If Heavenly Father didn't love us, He wouldn't give us challenges in life that stretch our faith; everything would just be easy going and we wouldn't grow.
Anyways, I miss you both! Love you! “
Sherbrooke Elders:
Hey President! I've been super excited to tell you this super neat miracle Elder Salmon and I had this week. You are welcome to share with sister Low as well. Oh I have the story of a lifetime!! This week we had this bible drop off this week 10 minutes out of our area so we go and drop it off at this older couples house because they live with the person we gave the bible too. But the older man had a glow and touched my little soul. So we depart from their house and we get about 5 minutes out and we feel the spirit super strong telling me to go back. So I said elder flip this car right around we gotta go back! We go back and all the butterflies start coming right? So we get there and the man said "i was hoping you'd come back!" He said he was the only Christian preacher in the tiny town of Weedon Quebec. He said he prayed for us to come back. Well when he came back he said he knew we had a message for him that he needed to hear. Well we very briefly explained the Restoration by using our 3 minutes and under skills that we had previously been challenged to do and he said he wanted to visit our church! Isn't that crazy?
Riverside (Ottawa) Sisters:
We had a little miracle on Sunday. We met with a member and she was having a hard time with family, living away from them and different choices that they were making. When we were meeting with her I thought of a quote that I had written in the front of my scriptures during my MTC training. My MTC teacher had shared this and I thought I would share it a lot as I taught but I've never read it in a lesson until this Sunday. It was a quote by Elder Eyring who asked a prophet once and expressed his concern about family members making choices that would make it impossible for their family to be together forever. The Prophet said "you are worrying about the wrong problem. You just live worthy of the celestial kingdom and the family arrangements will be more wonderful than you can imagine." This quote seemed to be just the thing she needed and it was cool to see how after 8 months I finally found the one person who I knew would need to hear it.
Villa Marie (Montreal) Sisters:
We had a cool experience this week, we were on the bus and I pulled out my phone to contact someone, my screen saver is a picture of Jesus Christ. Immediately a man behind me saw and got so excited and said wow is that Jesus, where did you get that picture?! It started out just as a conversion about Jesus and then he realized we were missionaries and we talked about the Bible and his religion and what we do as missionaries for “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” Then when we hoped off the bus Soeur Vaiho pulled out the Book of Mormon and he took it graciously and we were able to swap contact info and everything! It was a miracle and all because of my phone screen! This proves even more how divine all the rules are, and the safeguards for technology!
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