Cabbage, Cabbage, and more Cabbage

Cabbage – in a word, that sums up our week!

The seniors prepared zone conference lunches for the missionaries on Wednesday and Friday. The main item on the menu is a light, refreshing summer chicken salad that has shredded cabbage as a base. The recipe calls for a bag of shredded cabbage. The only bagged shredded cabbage I could find was a small one, weighed less than a pound and cost a fortune. So, I shredded cabbage on Tuesday and Thursday. I’m happy to report that I managed to shred almost 19 pounds of cabbage using my mandolin and still have all of my digits intact. Truth be told, it isn’t that hard. In fact, the hardest part of the whole process is quartering and coring the heads of cabbage! We have one more conference to go—Wednesday. Then it will be time to start gearing up for the next lunch we prepare. (We want to do a pasta-based main dish salad—if any of you have a to-die-for-recipe, send it my way!)

My handy mandolin!

"Bagged" cabbage ready to go!

The office was pretty quiet a good part of the week. When there is a zone conference going on, many of the missionaries who would be in the office are at the conference, so during conference hours there isn’t much action. But once the conference ends, things get pretty busy pretty fast.

Wednesday evening I had an interesting experience. In order to get to the temple for my shift, I have to cross the St. Lawrence River. The only bridge I’m familiar with is the Jacques Cartier Bridge. There are two other bridges and a tunnel that I could use, but I don’t know how to get to them or get from them to our apartment. With the fireworks that take place on Wednesdays at 10:00, the bridge closes at 8:30. I don’t leave the temple until around 9:30-9:45. I had it figured out how to get to the temple and back again on the bus and the metro. I had to ask a couple of questions to learn how to buy tickets for the Longueuil bus system and to find out where the bus stops—not big problems at all. I arrived at the temple in plenty of time. When I was walking toward the bus stop after my shift, a couple of members stopped me and insisted that they take me home. Well, to cut a long story short, we ended up in the tangled mess of the bridge closure! They did manage to get to the Victoria Bridge and then to the apartment. I watched some of the fireworks from their back seat as we were tearing through parts unknown! They were so kind and so concerned about me. Unlike the young missionaries, senior missionaries don’t have strict rules that we have to follow. The wife was very concerned that I didn’t have my companion with me. I explained that the rules are different for us oldsters and that there are some single sisters who don’t have a companion. We had a nice visit as I rode home with them.

Fireworks—absolutely marvelous! I think it was China that did last night’s exhibition. Hearts and waterfalls and exploding balls—magnificient!

Yesterday, all the seniors in the city were invited to go to Granby to a member’s house for a picnic. What a gorgeous drive! And what a fun afternoon. They have a beautifully landscaped yard with a Japanese teahouse, a little river, and many, many maple trees. And I forgot my phone so I couldn’t take any pictures! We each brought a side dish to go with the sausages and salmon that they provided. We left just before 7 so we could get across the bridge before it closed.

One of the assignments that we have every six weeks is to inspect missionary apartments. One of the apartments that we do is located in LaSalle, so we do this one after church. Today was the day. We drove to the chapel and had to deal with a massive road resurfacing project. We were unable to turn left for nearly a mile. We passed the church on our left and continued straight ahead until we were able to make a U-turn and retrace our path on the ride side of the road. We had to deal with the problem going the opposite way when we headed out to do the inspection. Luckily, that distance was only about two blocks. We turned left, wandered through a shopping mall parking lot and were able to get back on the main highway going the opposite direction and headed up the road. Truly, it is always an adventure when we go anywhere!

For the last month, we have been teaching a temple prep class. We have two or three students. One of them, is going to the temple on Saturday. We are so excited for him and so happy that we will be able to be there as well. He is probably in his 30s and learned about the Church because he saw The Book of Mormon, the musical! Then he found the LaSalle building and sat in his car in the parking lot for a long while until he found the courage to come in! The missionary who taught him returned home to Washington state a few weeks ago. He was back in LaSalle this week so he can be in the temple with this incredible young man. Also, a sister missionary who returned to California in January was visiting the ward as well. Love seeing these returned missionaries again.
It is so cool and beautiful in the mornings that I enjoy walking to work. One of the most unique features of many apartments are staircases here's an example:

President Phillips told us that before a building could be considered finished and eligible for taxes, the staircase had to be enclosed. That has probably been changed now but it explains why there are so many outside stairways. Imagine trying to wrangle a refrigerator up those stairs! That's what the Evans have to deal with as they are responsible for missionary housing!

It’s been a crazy missionary week, so I’m ready to call it a day—just waiting for our FaceTime call! We do love what we’re doing. We love the Lord, we love his Gospel, and we are so humbled to be in His service.