Today is Sunday, June 6, 2021
Happy Birthday to Preese Auburn Low who tomorrow, gets to blow out 5 candles!!
AND
Happy Birthday to George Solon Low who turns 64 tomorrow!!
Our hour glass sand is sifting through at record speed, and as we complete our final month….almost everything we do, or think, we are so melancholy and say….”this is the last time we will be doing this…” We are filled with so many mixed emotions as we think about leaving our beloved MISSION, and all the incredible experiences we have had!! Our lives will never be the same.
With tears that refused to stop, we barely survived our final transfer week…Here’s a quick rundown on some of our activities!!
Office meetings on Monday were wonderful as we geared up for the busy week ahead. Such an outstanding group of missionaries - our six seniors, and our four young elders all know how to work as a team, which makes serving together such a joy! Our new couple the Walker’s from Sylvan Lake have transitioned into the Canada Montreal Mission so well. Sister Walker has replaced Elder Trevino as head Secretary, and Elder Walker has taken over the Accounting from Elder Zhou, and although we miss our young Elders when they leave, we know service in the Office gets old!! Elder Gibb coordinates vehicles, and gas receipts, and Elder Glenn takes care of all technology, and both are ready and willing assistants to Elder and Sister Roberts and all their housing needs! And Transfer Week keeps us all hopping!!
Our Assistants Elder Dial and Elder Wang are experts at organizing the travel plans for every single transfer. We submit the Transfer, and they go to town on getting the plan ready, which includes purchasing train tickets, and letting every team know which vehicle goes where, and who is supposed to be in the vehicle!!
We celebrated as we welcomed seven new Missionaries; Sister Gorham (Creston, BC), Sister Pack (Taber), Elder Alzamora (Surrey,BC), (Elder Burnham(Coldstream, BC), Elder Greep (Raymond), Elder Ina(Coquitlam, BC), and Elder Lee from (Taber). Montreal restrictions have relaxed somewhat, allowing us to have small groups of 8 outside…so we had little shifts of missionaries come and enjoy a simple taco soup, with fresh bun supper in our pretty backyard!! It was so wonderful to get to know them, and it was so fun to finally, after 18 months, have missionaries HERE!! While one shift was in our backyard, the other teams enjoyed the sunshine in the park across the street! We have so missed having our Mission Home filled with missionaries!!
Dearly departing 15 Missionaries included Soeur Margrin (Papeari) and Soeur Vaiho (Mahina) who both made it home to Tahiti!!!, as well as Sister Call (Sandy, Utah), Sister Cherniawsky (Glenwood), Sister Goodwin (Raymond), Sister Hiatt (Syracuse, Utah), Sister Irazoki (Bayonne, France), and Sister Olsen(West Haven, Utah). Also Elder Alley (Batavia, Illinois), Elder Dial (Cedar Park, Texas), Elder Edstrom (Merlin, Oregon), Elder Forsyth(Edmonton), Elder Pinkney (Alexandria, Virginia), Elder Peck (Dundas, Ontario), and Elder Salmon (Okotoks) all returned home. Elder Hawk (Boston) returns home on the 18th. Although we can’t have a fancy farewell supper, we love our final interviews/visits, and feel satisfied sending each off with a snazzy bag lunch, a yellow good bye book assembled by our Office team, and a farewell letter from us. Thursday night we loved our Testimony Meeting with this amazing group, and were inspired by their goodness, and their service; and are confident every one of this departing group have created deep covenant paths! That makes us so happy!
Currently, with all that adding and subtracting, in field our total young missionaries serving is 108. The predicted missionary tsunami that will arrive when the borders open won’t be on our watch, but we WILL continue to watch, and pray from afar for this OUR dear Mission. We will be leaving a huge chunk of our hearts here….
We all celebrate every Baptism, and this week we had four!!
Alicia who was taught by Sister Hechmati, and Sister Vaiho, was baptized on Monday.
Gloria, taught by Sister Gibb and Sister McLeod was baptized on Tuesday.
And yesterday Lukeson who was taught by Elder Reese and Elder McCrae, and Iraida was was taught by Sister Goodwin, Sister Cook and Sister King; were both baptized. So EXCITING!! Now…we need to get them to the Temple!! Did you know that a new convert who takes a family name to the Temple has a 95% chance of staying active in the Church?
Friday, our PDay we felt like real Montreal’ers hopping the subway down to the old city for a little visit to some ‘Old Churches’ Our first stop was to ‘Mary, Queen of the World,’ an incredible bascillica built between 1875 and 1894 after the manner of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Rome. I loved the larger than life sized hand carved statues of the Saviour’s 12 apostles! The architecture, all the murals, the molding and the gilded gold work was impressive, especially since it was all created before power tools were even invented!!
‘Bonadventure’ was our next subway stop but, with tall metal fencing all around the famed Notre Dame Cathedral we could tell it was still closed to the public…So.. we will be happy looking at photos on line!!
Such a fun adventure!!
Yesterday our diversion after the Baptisms was out to our favorite Botanix Garden Centre that sells probably every plant that grows in Quebec! Hundreds of shrubs, perennials, and annuals covered every square inch of this gardening paradise, and we felt like we were in heaven!! We bought a few english ivy, and two white Itoh peonies; which I planted as soon as we got home!! With people not travelling much, green thumbs are popping up everywhere in Quebec!!
Last night we had another virtual Senior Kahoot Activity, all over zoom, and although it is not quite the same as being together, we all laughed and had a great time getting to know each other. Oh, how we need so many more Senior couples!! Anyone wanting to have an adventure of a lifetime…we could help hook you up anywhere in Eastern Canada…think about Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, or even Maine…there are so many possibilities!!! One year, 18 months or perhaps 2 years…you get to choose!!
After that fun party, our friends Eric and Kathy Jarvis (who were asked by the Church History Department), zoom interviewed us for about two hours. I hope we conveyed our love and joy of this incredible three year adventure; and how serving our Heavenly Father together has been the best thing we have ever done. We have seen so many miracles that have strengthened our Testimonies, and solidified our lives on a consecrated covenant path.
This upcoming week promises to be wonderful as well. Ottawa interviews, and Zone Conference will be great, and although Ontario is still on lock down, we will hold our ZC in Gatineau across the river. I was hoping to visit with family this last time…but will just have to be happy delivering drop by treats…(I’m not going to even ask if that is allowed!!!)
We love and pray for all of you!! Have a great week!!
Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma, and Richard and Gayle
Keep Smiling!!!
Canada Montreal Mission Miracles June 6, 2021
Greenfield Park Elders (happened even before he was transferred to Greenfield park): “Also a little miracle for you to share with Sister Low. Me and Elder Day (before transfers) got our covid shots at the Olympic stadium. We showed up and we had 7 different interactions about the church and gospel from our tags. It started as soon as we entered the parking lot to the lady who gave us our shots, medical staff standing around d and finally the miracle, the last security guard we saw before we left.as we are walking out of the exit I see in the corner of my eye him starting to approach us. I turned and said hello and he proudly says that he was married in our church! I asked if it was in the temple and he said no just one of our meeting houses. He was married in Florida with his wife who he has since divorced from and has been living in Montreal for maybe over a decade. He was also Baptized in Florida with his wife and hadn’t attended or known where one of our churches have been the entire time he has been here. He never had his records moved and nobody know he’s here. I asked for his number and address and he turns out to be living in Brossard which is in my new are here in Greenfield Park! This was before I even knew I was getting transferred here ! I told him I would get the missionaries there to contact him but little did I know I would be the one to contact him! How cool. Anyways this is the lord's work and his hand is in it always. “
Dows Lake Ottawa Sisters:
“As you know President we got rear ended this week. Everyone is okay except for the car is a little dented. Anyways it was p-day and we had just got finished washing and vacuuming our car. We were at a red light and then all of a sudden we felt a crash. The hit was hard enough to give us a little bit of whip lash but not to bad. We pulled over and got out and started talking to this guy. We got all of his information but it didn't take him long to say that he recognized our tags from when he was a kid. He would watch commercials about us. We asked to set up a lesson and he agreed. Our first lesson was amazing. He really opened up to us and told us that he needed something more in his life. He explained how his life was finally coming together. He had just bought his first car last week, got insurance two days ago and then next thing you know he smashes into us. He told us that there was no way this wasn't a sign from God and that he knew he needs to meet with us right now.
It was so cool to see how literally God brought someone so prepared right into us. He was even willing to sacrifice a car and sore bodies to help this man.
I don't want to make this super long but here was something else that was cool this week. In the morning Sister Olsen and I have started to play tennis. One morning two guys were playing in the court next to us and we started talking. We got their numbers and set up a lesson.”
Victoriaville Elders:
“Obviously we will be talking soon, but this past week was good in terms of missionary work. I have been praying a lot for our friends. We miraculously had 7 people tell us they would come to church, and I was praying and even fasted that these people would be able to come. All of the sudden Sunday morning came around and all of them cancelled or didn't show up- except for one, Francis. And he had a great experience, it seemed like the talks were for him specifically, and lots of members presented themselves to him. Yesterday we had a lesson with him and he actually ran into some anti-church material, but happily he felt comfortable enough with us to still have a lesson and ask us some questions that were hard, but we did our best to respond. I really love him and hope that he continues to progress. We gave him the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and promised him he would find all answers in reading it and praying about it. I think he's going to do it. “
Kanata Elders:
“We were able to have a pretty cool miracle this week. We ended up accidentally calling one of the former mission Presidents because his number was in our area book, and anyways we called another lady named Barbara just a couple days after. Apparently she was really good friends with the mission president when they were out here and she said they had a really big impact on her! She wants to learn about the Gospel!”
Hochelaga Sisters:
“Another cool thing was we had a Bible drop off and we met the girl at the door who wanted the bible and then her mom was there too! Both me and Sœur McLeod were thinking about inviting everyone there to participate! So we were talking to her too and when we said we do Bible studies too she's like I love Bible studies and perked up! So we set up a time for a Bible study, and to introduce the Book of Mormon more on her day off. “
Drummondville Elders:
“The area is doing awesome! We have a Baptism this month! And our other friends seem to be progressing very nicely! We haven't found a whole of people but we are talking to new people and increasing our finding efforts so I'm confident! It was crazy though! One Sunday this women just walks into the church with her son and is like yeah I wanna be taught. So we of course were very excited! We found out that she is actually in Trois-Rivières area but we got to teach her and she already believes in the Church and everything as soon as she walked in and met the members she knew!! She will probably be on date next lesson! It's super awesome! She should have been on date this last lesson we taught her before we pass her off but I suppressed that prompting because of things the member was saying and other things. Honestly it's just a bad excuse I should have followed it and Elder Braithwaite felt the same way! So learned my lesson there. “
