Christmas 2013

 I can't believe Christmas has come and gone.  Time just passes so quickly.  The best part of the day was that we got to talk to all of our children.  This is the second Christmas we are spending on this mission.  It is hard not to be with all of the kids and grandkids, but we know it is what we should be doing, so we are fine with it.  We are happy to serve.
We got together with a few other missionaries and had Christmas dinner together.  We also made it a little farewell for the Bendio's who will be leaving the day after tomorrow.  They have served a wonderful mission.  Just in the past 2 months they have had 3 baptisms and 1 completely inactive woman come back to church and going to the temple.  Of course they have been working with these people and teaching them for some time.  The Vallecalles are the couple that will be replacing them.  The Vallecalles are from France originally, but have been living in California for many, many years.  Interestingly enough, he spent some time in the Basque country so Dad had some fun reminiscing with him.

 This time it was Sister Abrams who hosted the dinner at her apartment.  I made the turkey, the southern style yams and stuffed mushrooms.  The food was so yummy and the conversation was nice, so we had a very pleasant time together.

We were spoiled this year and got all of these wonderful gifts.  We are so grateful for all that we have.  We are especially grateful for our Savior and His great atoning sacrifice for all of us. We are grateful for our family and for the many wonderful friends that we have.  We are truly blessed.

Merry Christmas

 I want to wish each of you a very blessed Christmas.  I love this wonderful season of the year.  I count my many, many blessings among which are God, our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ, my beloved husband, my children and grand children, the great grandchildren and you my dearest friends.

Our assistants to the president, Elders Lopez and Williams have been busy delivering packages and letters to the missionaries.  All of the mail comes to the office and then I sort it into zones.  Usually the zone leaders pick up all of the mail on zone order day, but because of Christmas we have been doing special deliveries.  All of the missionaries are anxious and excited to talk to their parents on the phone or on SKYPE tomorrow.

 Not everyone receives a package though.  Some families are too far away and some families just can't afford to send something.  We had 50+ missionaries who did not receive a package this year.  So Sisters Jordan and Nilsen and I put our money together and bought everyone that didn't get a present something.  Then as a happy surprise one of the senior couples who served here before, the Mahaffey's send a package with lots of stuff from their ward for those same missionaries.  We had a fun time deciding what to give to which missionary and wrapping the presents for them.

 It took us a long time to get everything sorted and wrapped, but now everyone has a present to open for Christmas.  As you can see, we had fun chatting and laughing as we worked.  The picture above is our second session of wrapping gifts.  We had so much little stuff that is took 2 separate wrapping times.

Christmas Activitie

 The Christmas Season is a time to be celebrated with fun and spiritual activities.  In the mission office, though, it is lots of work as usual.  In fact because of the terrible weather there is more work for Elder Arhets because of car accidents.  Luckily we have had no missionaries get hurt, but can't say the same thing for the cars.  Cars slipping and sliding cause a lot of damage.  Just this week we have had 3 sets of missionaries in accidents.
Emily, President's daughter, goes to the Montreal Ballet School and she really wanted me to go and watch her dance on their special visitor's day.  John and I went to see her.  It was mostly watching the girls go through their regular practice and exercises and at the end there was a little Christmas skit.  Emily is the reindeer in the middle.  I have seen a lot of dance practices and a lot of ballet practices, but never one quite like this.  It reminded me of the old, classical ballet schools.   There were two classes, each lead by a ballet mistress.  There was a real live pianists, not a tape or CD.  Both of the mistresses were VERY strict. As the girls did their exercises and routines, the mistress would walk around and make little comments to the girls and tap them in various places with her little wand to make corrections.  The girls were totally silent, but they seemed to enjoy their class.  I enjoyed seeing it too.

 Tuesday we had to go to NY for me to see the dentist again.  And, we will have to go again after the first of the year because my tooth is still hurting a lot.  Maybe it's a different tooth.  I will have to be a detective and try to figure out what is going on.  There is a brand new Five Guys in Plattsburg and it is just as good as the one in Utah.  We went there and had a yummy lunch.

 Today we were snowed in.  Too much snow, ice pellets and dangerous roads.  Church was cancelled.  Our branch president called and said that we could hold sacrament in our apartment if we wanted to.  We did want to and so we invited the missionaries that live in our same building and invited them to join us.  John talked about four of the characteristics of Jesus Christ; consecration, faith, purity, and sacrifice.  He had me read the story of Why The Chimes Rang, which is one of his favorite Christmas stories.  Then he relayed the story of the widow and her mite from Mark12: 41-44 and also the story of the widow in Elisha's time from 1Kings 17; 9-16. We discussed how our goal is to develop these same characteristics and to become Christ like ourselves.  We talked of how we need to live our lives, dedicating ourselves to Christ every day and throughout our entire life, not just once in a while.  We all felt the spirit so strongly and I think everyone was glad that they came.
Afterwards we munched on freshly made pumpkin bread from a new recipe I was trying out and had some fun conversation.  Sister Abrams, a single senior missionary, is from North Carolina.  Sister Landeen is from American Fork, and Sister Laurent is from Paris, France.  It was so much fun to talk to her and to reminisce about our mission to France.  It turns out that she knows many of the wonderful JA's that we had the opportunity to work with and to get to know in France.

Dentist

Quite a few months ago my tooth began hurting and pretty soon it was so bad that I couldn't really eat on that side of my mouth.  I kept on putting off going to the dentist, but finally I bit the bullet and went. He checked my tooth, took x-rays, etc and finally said that I probably just have trauma to my teeth from stress.  I tried not to be stressed, but the pain didn't go away.  I went back about a month later and it turns out that I had to have a root canal.  The procedure went well, but by the time I went back to have it done, I had another tooth on the other side of my mouth hurting.  Today I went back and had a crown put on.  It turns out that my tooth on the other side was hurting because an old filling had a crack in it.  The dentist put in a new filling, but now both of my teeth are hurting.  I have a very odd bite in that I can move my jaw forward and backwards and also sideways.   That makes it very difficult to adjust the bite.  So now we have to go back again.  We drive into Plattsburg, NY and the drive is about 1and 1/2 hours unless we have a slow time getting across the border.  Then it can be even longer.  Sometimes it seems like forever to get through customs.  The drive is pleasant enough except in the wintertime.  Today we were supposed to only have snow flurries, but actually it was a continuous snow falling.  Luckily the roads were still good and visibility was great too.
Whenever we are getting near the border and customs, we always hope for a nice customs officer.  One time we had a horrible one that made us go inside and go over every single thing that we had in the car.  It was a woman officer and she was so mean and unpleasant.  She interrogated us for over an hour, asking the same questions over and over again.  She looked over our receipt of what we had purchased while in New York and charged taxes us on several items including a plum that we had eaten while still in the U.S. and also on a soda that we were still drinking that was in the car.  That just doesn't seem right to me, but oh well.  We really just had to pay the extra taxes and keep quiet.  This same officer charged a couple that was next to us an enormous tax on their little puppy that they were bringing with them.  One young man and his Mom missed the last turn off back to the U.S. accidentally and she detained them for hours, not letting them return.  She did not have a kind word or smile for anyone that we saw her dealing with before it was our turn.  She must have really been having a bad day I guess.  Luckily most of the officers are pleasant and those are the ones we want to deal with.

Missionary Christmas

 We will be spending another missionary Christmas here in Montreal.     Of course our main celebration is the birth of our beloved Savior Jesus Christ.  Without Him we would have nothing.  With Him we have everything.  We have the opportunity of having life eternal with Him and with our Heavenly Father.  My greatest desire, hope, and prayer is to see all of my children and grandchildren and their children and their children and on and on live the gospel of Jesus Christ.  My prayers are for them to do all that is required of them to reach the Celestial Kingdom and to have everlasting joy and happiness.

 Today at sacrament we heard a recent convert speak of his conversion to the church.  He said before his baptism he was one man.  Now he is a totally different man.  He loves the Lord and wants to serve him.  He has prayed and received a witness that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of the Lord.  He spoke of how each of us can come close to God and how each of us can receive all of the blessings that God wants for us.  He, a brand new member of the church, urged each person to pray and to receive this witness for himself.  The interesting thing is that he was a Muslim before and the son of an Imam.  An Imam is a leadership position in the Islamic community.  Most often it is a leader in a Mosque and in a Muslim community.  Mousa has been in Canada for 18 months and is probably in his mid thirties.

 We loved listening to the Christmas Devotional broadcast from S.L.C.  We loved hearing the Prophet Thomas S. Monson and the other speakers.  We loved hearing all of the beautiful Christmas music.

I love the Christmas season.  The only hard part about it is that I am away from my children and grandchildren and great grand daughters.  I miss them all so much.  I can't wait to see them all again.
Until then, I will continue my work and be happy serving to the best of my abilities.

Thanksgiving

 
Thanksgiving came and went as it does every year.  We celebrated with our friends, the Howards, another senior couple and one of their sons and his wife.  We spent the day feasting on turkey, southern style yams, mashed potatoes, stuffed mushrooms and other delicacies.  After dinner we played a fun game of Mexican Train.  
As we thought of the many reasons for being thankful, here are a few that stand out:

The Plan of Salvation and The Atonement.

The First Vision to the Prophet Joseph Smith.

The Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Restoration of the Priesthood.

The Restoration of the Temple Ordinances.

Our Children, Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren.

Our Wonderful Friends including each and every one of you.

There are many others, but all seem to flow from these 7.

We are happy to serve our Father's children here in Quebec.  Many of our blessings are the result of our
being engaged in the Lord's work.  We are seeing many miracles here.  Just recently a retired dentist who lives in our apartment building has been taking the missionary lessons.  He has been to our apt for FHE.  Ivan loves all that he has learned and he feels the spirit strongly when he is among the members of the church.  He watched General Conference, has been to Stake Conference and church and now he has a baptismal date of Jan 11th.  We had Stephanie randomly come to the mission office at the request of her daughter who met up with some missionaries at the university.  We gave her a little tour and taught her some basic principles.  She was very impressed and now she and her two children want to join the church.  Our baptisms in the mission are at an all time high.  Just in the past two weeks we had about 25 baptisms.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church on earth.  Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.  We love Him with all of our hearts.

And So It Begins.

 We went for our regular Tuesday Temple work tonight and when we got out at about 10:10 this is what we saw.  It's snowing.  And so, winter begins.  I am not looking forward to freezing winds and deep snow.  I think we will be taking the Metro a lot.  Last year our little car got stuck at least 5 times.  We had to get dug out and that is no fun.  I was hoping that it would not snow yet, but here it is.

We love to go to the Temple.  It is always a spiritual boost to be in the House of the Lord.

 Falling snow does look pretty and I love to look at snow from inside.  I just don't like being in it.  Oh well, It's okay.  I will do just fine.

 Today was Transfer day and it was so, so busy and hectic.  We got 5 new missionaries: 1 Elder from Canada and 4 Sisters.  One from Denmark, one from France, and two from US.  They are all so cute and anxious to begin working.  I just love new missionaries.  We also had 5 missionaries leave.  One Sister and 4 Elders.  The missionaries that leave always get to spend their last night at the Temple.  It is always so special to go with them.
Sister Smith below got transferred to Ottawa.  She had mixed emotions about going.  Of course she is excited for a new area, but also sad to leave her companion and the people she loves here.  She wanted to have a photo with me, so of course, I took one on my camera too.

 Elder Cutler was there and since we were busy inspecting cars during zone conference when he played his violin, he brought it to the office and was able to play for us.  Oh my goodness, he is a violin virtuoso.  He played two beautiful classical pieces and one hymn.  It was a real treat.

 Batman was at transfers too.  This was the end of the day and our two AP's were worn out from all of the work they have been doing.  They were glad things went well and were having a little fun.

 Elder Ruby  plays the violin too and so this new companionship said they will play something together next time we see them.