Interesting Few Days

As we look out our living room sliding door, this is the sight we see - lovely Mount Royal.

A week ago Monday, I was awakened by a loud crashing noise in the middle of the night. When I got up to investigate, I found that one of the lights in the bathroom had exploded—yes, exploded! Oh, the joys of ghetto living!

 The sign near this building says it is a genealogical society building!  Interesting, right! We liked the architecture.

 I loved the colors of the plants on this building and the colorful railing.

We are official residents of Canada--

--at least for the next few months. The drive to Montréal was beautiful and the border crossing uneventful (thankfully!) The pictures don't do the beauty of the drive justice. We have been in the mission office for two days frantically trying to learn the many tasks that we are given. We live in a very small apartment about a mile from the mission office. Typically we walk to and from the office each day. We are enjoying the togetherness, the associations with the other senior missionaries (ran into Art Burnah who was an influential French teacher when I was also teaching French!), and the interactions we have with the young missionaries. Traffic is unbelievable! The GPS on my phone died before we arrived in Montréal. Luckily, I was still able to use the phone. Elder and Sister Holt were our GPS as we navigated the tricky route to rue Bérri. We purchased a GPS on Monday but haven't ventured out with the car since them! (Call us terrified!) We have to take the car into Costco tomorrow to have snow tires installed (one of the unique laws in Québec). All in all, life is so good; we are happy where we have landed and already love Montréal, the mission, the missionaries, and especially the other senior missionaries. And yesterday the Internet was connected so we can FaceTime! 

On the way to Montreal - stunningly beautiful!

At the border--luckily all went well.

Still waiting to cross

Border sign
Once we passed through the border, we headed to Montreal.  Gorgeous, gorgeous route.

We arrived in Montreal on Saturday, October 14, 2017.  On Sunday, October 15, 2017, this is what we saw outside our apartment.  This was a protest about wages.  We live on the third floor, so we have a great view of what goes on in the street. Notice the beautiful fall colors!

Right next to the apartment building is a bakery.  I loved the marzipan figures. The lion made me think of our precious Michael Lion.

 Here are some of the sights we see as we walk to walk.  The architecture is so unique and beautiful.

We spend 9-5 in this building.  It is three stories; we work on the third floor and a basement level.  The chapel for the two Young Single Adult Branches is on the basement level. The kitchen and gym and Relief Society Room are on the ground floor. Church offices and classrooms are on the second floor.

Beautiful fall colors.

 A playground on the way to the office.

 Interesting statue

 And there are bicycles, bicycles, bicycles - everywhere!

Tomorrow - Montreal

Laundry done, repacking done, papers in order - we hope (for crossing the border), a quick trip to Niagara Falls, and a walk around Buffalo, New York.  Tomorrow, Montreal, Canada, and 18 months as a senior missionary couple!
We're ready for this new, wonderful adventure!
The view from our hotel room.  We spent two nights here and had such a marvelous time.

Here are some of the sights we saw as we strolled around Buffalo, New York. Of course, we found a church!

And then our trip to Niagara Falls! Wow!

At Niagara Falls State Park

American Falls

The next three pictures are of Horseshoe Falls - on the Canadian Side.

 It was very hard to stay dry!  Look at our glasses.

 Observation deck from the Maid of the Mist

 More photos of this beautiful place.

And we're off!

And we're off to Montréal, Canada. Tender Mercy: As part of our training this week, Pat was told to stress with the young missionaries that anytime there is a sound coming from the car to immediately pull off the road and call the mission office. Friday we were returning to the MTC and heard a sound coming from the car. We took to heart what Pat had learned and called the Subaru dealer. Their mechanics were finished before we could arrive, and they only had a skeleton crew on Saturday. I consulted good ole Google to try to find a solution. There was an auto shop listed that had good reviews. I made multiple attempts to phone them. Each time a message said the circuits were busy. We drove over to the location only to discover that the business was defunct. But--right next to that location was another auto shop. The owner was so accommodating and kind. He diagnosed the problem: the front axle needed to be replaced. Then when he was replacing the axle; he discovered that when I had had the car serviced at home, the lug nuts on one of the wheels were not torqued, and the wheel was about off! If we had driven the car to Cheyenne, Wyoming, without the lug nuts tightened properly, we would have lost a wheel while speeding down the highway at 75 mph! That would not have been good! We were indeed blessed. And we are so very grateful! Now we are in safely in Cheyenne. First leg of our long journey completed!