This week has been an exciting transfer week for us as we received 22 new missionaries to our mission. Most come from Utah and the US, but we got three from France, a couple from Canada and one from New Caledonia (A French South Pacific island). It was fun for us to meet many of them at the training day last Thursday when we cooked the luncheon for them. Our mission is growing, and President Sorenson is sending some missionaries to open up new areas in New Brunswick. One of our Chomedey Elders was transferred there too. In our district we got three new elders, one brand new from Utah valley who already speaks fluent Mandarin from his Mandarin immersion program, but we kept our wonderful sisters. We were hoping to keep them around for at least another transfer as they are awesome at finding new people to teach. Currently they have about 4 to 7 people close to the waters of baptism. They have also been instrumental in making our FHE lessons fun with some great games. Last week we had several of our friends and some recent converts there for a rousing game of “Guess what I’m drawing blindfolded on chalk board”. It was a silly game, but very very fun and maybe a bit too competitive for some. Our branch mission leader is a very animated guy who loves to joke around. He has been great at getting many of our recent converts out for FHE.
We also got to teach Debbie and her daughters again with our sister missionaries yesterday. Debbie is the most interesting person. She has been a flight instructor in the Air Force and teaching conflict resolution in the Army. She is also a nurse and has taught martial arts, baseball, figure-skating, and coached gymnastics. She is an artist and an author. She has literally done just about everything and is the most kindhearted person. As I have read a little of her books it is clear that she is looking for a world with strong family values and goodness. She and I feel like we have known each other for a long time and will always remain friends. When we teach her, she lets her daughters ask the questions and listens so politely to our lessons. We feel a strong spirit of love and humility in her home. I think she has accepted the gospel and is ready for baptism, but she wants her daughters to understand before they make the commitment. She also gave me signed copies of a couple of her books.
We didn’t take many pictures this week as we had our hands full most of the time with cooking, teaching, driving and playing while blindfolded. I chose this one painting of what I imagine are a senior missionary couple harvesting wheat. That is what it feels like. We are gathering people to church, to activities and hopefully soon to the temple. I continue to find names to take to the temple whenever we get a chance to go for ourselves. Next month we will officiate at the quarterly temple sessions with our missionaries. This is new in the church and only the 2nd or 3rd time for us that we get to reserve an entire session for each of our zones to go to the temple together. It really is an awesome sight to see the room filled with these wonderful young people. When I look at them, I think of my own four sons who were missionaries just like these and I think of the missionaries who used to bike 30 miles to my house to teach my family and me so many years ago. It is hard to be so far away from family for so long, but it is also so very fulfilling. We love the gospel, and we love serving in the Montreal Canada Mission.
Au revoir,
The Glenns
(Gigi and Papi)