We are diving down to single digits this week. For the residents up here, who use Celsius, we have already been well below zero. Elder Glenn stepped out onto the St. Lawrence river which is frozen solid after we saw several people who were ice fishing on the river just like they do on the Deer Valley Reservoir. We also took some winter pictures of the Montreal Temple. I am looking forward to the Springtime pictures in a few months.
While we dealt with cold temperatures outside, we met with warm hearts inside this week. Our friend Mark continues to make progress and will soon be ready to get the priesthood, which we finally determined he didn’t have yet. He has had some technical issues with the tools app that have slowed things down a bit, but all that is resolved now. He came to church again today and really enjoyed the lesson and the great talks in sacrament. One of our recent converts talked about the Aaronic Priesthood. It was perfect for Mark. We continue to meet with him weekly to go over the missionary lessons and he is getting to know and reacquainted with the members of the ward.
Our other success story for the week is our friend, Pearl. It has been like peeling an onion as we get to know her more and win her trust. We had a really good visit with her this week where we were able to answer some of her questions and encourage her to move forward. She loves to serve and really enjoyed being on our committee for the Christmas party but has felt a bit lost since then. We invited her to take part in a ward plan to have a once-a-month activity to teach or share a skill or talent. Our newest convert, Hashim, is going to teach yoga. We asked Pearl, who is a nurse, if she would like to teach a first aid class. She lit up with excitement and couldn’t wait to do it. We also learned that she has an interest in family history. She has a big box of photos and other memorabilia and wanted to know how to organize it. That is right up my alley. I promised to start her with an account on FamilySearch this coming week. Each of these two friends has a framed picture of the temple that we gave them and that they have hung in their homes. It may take a while, especially for Pearl, but we hope to see them each enjoy the blessings of the temple someday.
We also saw a family at church today that we had invited to church back in December and then again, this week. The dad came with the three kids and said they will be back next week with the mom as well. They are a sweet family who got kind of out of the habit of attending. We hope this year they will get back into coming together for sacrament and primary. There are a lot of members of the ward who have not attended for some time. We hope to reach as many as we can so that we can share our testimony and our love for all of our Heavenly Father’s children. It is so wonderful to see the light in the eyes of those who are turning to Christ again. My heart is warmed even if my toes are cold.
Until next week,
Elder & Sis. Glenn