A Full Week and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

'Twas the day before Christmas 

---and there was excitement at the office!

Several weeks ago, the Carlsons told me that they wanted to treat the office missionaries to a special lunch that was reminiscent of what their family does on Christmas Eve.  They asked me to tell the office missionaries that lunch was coming on on Monday, the 24th.  I was sworn to secrecy about who was doing it!

They arrived Monday morning and began making their preparations on the ground floor while the rest of us were on the third floor working in the office.  Then the excitement began:  The fire alarm went off. I was on the phone trying to reach Facility Management, an impossible task because only the missionaries and the office were working, and the alarm stopped.  We thought all was well--should have known better!

A couple of weeks ago when we were using the ovens to heat up the food for Zone Conference, smoke started pouring out of the oven.  Because of my experience a year ago when something similar happened when we were preparing food at the Ville Marie Chapel and we ended up with a fleet of firemen arriving in full gear, I quickly opened the back door, and turned on the fans--no problems.  About the time the alarm stopped, Sister Carlson came into the office and said they hadn't done anything.  Knowing the problem with the oven from a few days ago, we went downstairs, opened the door, and turned on the fan.

I went back to the office and continued working when the door buzzer sounded--nothing too unusual about that until I looked and saw three firemen trying to get in.  I pushed the wrong button to let them in and by the time I'd pushed the right one, they were walking away from the door.  I ran back down stairs, opened the outside door, and got their attention. I told them what had happened, that we thought all was OK.  They came in, checked out the building, and headed out, all the while I'm apologizing, in French, of course, for the inconvenience. Then the Facility Manager called the missionaries because he didn't think anyone was in the office. They were on the ground floor and had him speak with Elder Carlson. Later we found out that Salt Lake had been notified and had called the Facility Manager.  Eventually we got it all sorted out.  

Here's what the street looked like from the third floor (thanks, Elder Evans for the photos)--

---notice the firemen!

--and here's what it looked like at street level (thanks Sister Puzey for these pics).

 --in total we were entertained by three firetrucks and four firemen!

In spite of the interruption, lunch went off without so much as a hiccough!  And it was delicious:  cranberry salsa and crackers as an appetizer, then shrimp po'boy sandwiches, fries, fry sauce, and dutch oven peach cobbler for dessert!  Heaven! Thank you Carlsons!

--more excitement!
Because of the alarm, we have no elevator!   Pat missed all of it and the lunch because he wasn't feeling good and stayed home. But then he missed having to climb the stairs to the third floor!

--and then there was still more excitement!

As of July 1, 2019, the Canada Montreal Mission and the Canada Halifax Missions are going to be combined! Wow! That will be one huge mission.  No one knows the details of how this will take place. All we know at this point is that the mission president in Halifax will be the president over the newly formed mission.  Pat and I are just thrilled that we won't have to worry about it because we will be home by that time! Believe me, there is plenty of discussion going on about the hows and whens and whys of this big change!

We had a big day ahead of us on Christmas, so I was hoping to get out of the office a bit early.  Didn't happen!  When I arrived home, I heated up some soup and called it dinner.  Then I began my bûche de Noël project.  I had to decorate six of them.  And here are the results:

I'm definitely prejudiced, but I think they turned out delightfully wonderful!  Each was unique.  I was especially pleased with the mushrooms!  So, why did I make so many?  We had five teams of missionaries at our apartment on Christmas.  Each team left with a bûche, and we had one of the white ones for dessert for Christmas dinner.  

'Twas the Day of Christmas

--and there was joy in the air!

At 8:00 a.m., we started the day bright and early sharing breakfast with Elders Bunting and Moellmer. Sisters Howe, Petersen, and Hyde joined us.  These elders and Sisters Petersen and Hyde go to the LaSalle Ward with us. I fixed a low-carb, gluten-free breakfast casserole and served it with fruit and toast. Sister Peterson brought orange juice and Sister Howe added banana bread to the menu.  Delish! Great way to begin a special day. 

During the more than forty-one years that we've been married, Pat and I have an arrangement:  I do the cooking, and he sets the table and decides on a centerpiece.  Here is our Christmas centerpiece.  It is an advent wreath with a manger scene at either end.  We had a difficult time finding pink and purple tapered candles.  I finally found these at the dollar store in the mall where Pat has his physical therapy! I think the centerpiece turned out incredibly beautiful. The advent wreath has special meaning to Pat because that is what he grew up with. There are three purple candles and one pink candle. Each colored candle represents a virtue: Hope, Faith, Joy, and Peace. The center white candle represents Christ. When he was growing up, one colored candle was lit four Sundays before Christmas, and selected scriptures and prayers were recited.  The next Sunday the first candle and a second colored candle was lit and scriptures and prayers associated with that candle's virtue were recited. This pattern continues each week.  On Christmas Day, the center candle is lit and joins the four other lit candles.

At 10:00 a.m. Elder Bonny and Elder Johnson arrived so they could use our computers to talk to their families.  This was quite a unique experience because Elder Bonny's family is in Europe and Elder Johnson's is in China!  This was a wonderful experience for us because joy filled our little apartment!

Here are Elders Bonny and Johnson with the McGees.

At noon, we shifted gears again and welcomed the sisters from the the LaSalle Ward for lunch.  Sister Anderson wrote us a lovely letter telling us that being invited to lunch was a tender mercy for her because her grandparents have a lunch for their family on Christmas Day. She said that being here with us for lunch was like being with her grandparents and made being separated from her family easier--how sweet and tender is that! For this meal I prepared chicken tetrazzini, a green salad, and sautéd yellow squash. For dessert there were brownies, chocolate chip cookies, blondies, and ice cream. I was actually doing a mini experiment with this meal.  I am planning to get the chicken tetrazzini recipe ready to use for the next zone conference and wanted to know if the missionaries would like it.  They loved it! Getting that ready to go will be my next project! Here are Sisters Costa and Anderson with us.

Elders Smith and Jamison were scheduled to arrive at 2:00 p.m. They called and said that they were going to be late because they were doing what missionaries are supposed to do--talking to an investigator!  They came at 3.  They only spoke with their families for about 40-45 minutes.  Again, our apartment was filled with joy!  Then this team was out the door before the last team came in.  Here are Elders Smith and James with the McGees.

At 4:00 p.m. Sisters Peterson and Hicken called home.  We had a bit of a problem getting Sister Peterson connected.  Eventually, she was connected. Again, absolute joy! At 5:00 our neighbors and dear friends, the Carlsons, joined us for dinner. When my mom was alive, she would always have the family over for Christmas lunch-dinner.  Soups were always on the menu, and two of the soups were clam chowder and taco soup.  So that is what we had for dinner. I served the soups with veggies and Mom's dill dip. So that was a connection to traditions for our past. The Carlsons brought some freshly-baked rolls.  We had one of the vanilla bûches for dessert.  I had a very difficult time finding clams!  When I finally found them, they were expensive and labeled whole clams. OK, I figured I could chop them up.  What I didn't expect was that they would not be cleaned.  There was no way I could use them, I tried to salvage some of them, but we ended up having minimal-clam clam chowder!  When I was teaching French many years ago, I would often make a bûche for each class and then give the kids the recipe.  I only had a recipe for a chocolate bûche.  Last week I received a text from the sisters saying that they had extended a Word of Wisdom challenge to one of the people they were teaching.  They told the lady that if she could go without tea, they would give up chocolate.  So, I consulted Dr. Google and found a vanilla bûche! Turned out pretty good.  And here are the Carlsons, Sisters Peterson and Hicken, and the McGees.

I was so busy getting the three meals prepared that I forgot to photograph the meals; however, this is what we had for snacks for the elders Skyping/Facetiming:

Before the missionary teams left, they each gave us a spiritual message. This is something that they do each time they are in our apartment. Today their messages centered on Christmas, Christ's Atonement, and His impact on our daily lives.  Four of the teams shared short videos with us and then briefly discussed important points of the video. We were on a spiritual high all day long.

In between the missionaries coming and going, we FaceTimed twice with Christopher and Marianne. We were able to watch as Sarah and Michael opened their gifts from us--it was a revelation to us as well because we had Marianne purchase the items!  It is funny to watch the reactions of kids--they each got a battery-powered toothbrush that they thought was the cat's meow! Sarah wanted to continue on FaceTime until the next team of missionaries came so she could talk to them! We chatted away until Elders Jamison and Smith arrived.  They graciously talked to our precious little five-year old before talking to their own families.  After the last set of missionaries left, we FaceTimed with them again.  We were hoping to talk to Kevin and Kristina but Kev was not feeling well, and they had already returned to their apartment by the time we reconnected.  

All in all, we had a wonderful, missionary Christmas!

By the time everyone left, I had a bunch of dishes that needed washing.  I told myself that I'd work for an hour and whatever was not done could wait until Wednesday.  I got everything rinsed and all but the pans, crockpots, and baking dishes washed.  I stacked the dishes on the counter and emptied the sink.  Good thing because a couple of minutes later I heard the portent of a kitchen drain problem:   gurgle, gurgle.  Up comes soapy water from--no one seems to know where.  It takes a few minutes to drain and then I have to haul out the bleach and sterilize the sink.  Always, always an adventure at Place de Cercle!

'Twas the rest of the week

--and there was fatigue and routine all around--

            --and continuing apartment issues!

                  --and cars to move!

You would have thought that we were glued to the mattress Wednesday morning.  That's how tired we both were!  We finally won the battle over the mattress and managed to get up and ready for work. We arrived at the office about 10 minutes late! I spent a good portion of the day getting letters ready for signatures.  I was pretty happy when it was time to go home!

After work on Thursday, we took the metro to Place d'Armes Station so we could run a quick errand. Once again, Pat handled the metro like a champ.  When we entered our building, the landing from the metro hall to the lobby was dark.  One of the apartment workers was inside the lobby and opened the door for us.  When we headed to the elevators, he told us that no elevators were working. Because there is no way to go from the ground floor to any other floor in our building, we had to go out of the building, enter another building that is next to ours, take an elevator to the second floor, go through a hallway, go through a door connecting the two buildings, enter the laundry area of our building, and walk up the stairs to the third floor! The worker said that half the building was without electricity.  The stair wells are all dark, but our apartment has power--thank heavens for small miracles! Always, always an adventure! 

Our errand was to go to the Noël Eternal, a Christmas store, located on Notre Dame.  They have some unique ornaments: maple leaves or pine cones with gold, silver, or copper plating or encased in resin. Here is the section of the store where these gorgeous ornaments are found:

We have passed this tree several times during this Christmas season.  It reminds me of the Tree of Live in Draper Park.  This one is located in the square across from Notre Dame Cathedral.

Across the square from Notre Dame is this building--don't know what it is, but it was decked out with stars.

Here is another building aglow with lights for the season:

This mission is rotating old cars out and new cars in.  Friday I helped with that process.  Two teams of elders, Elder Bowler, and I went to a Nissan dealership to pick up new Nissan Rogues.  We shuttled them from the dealership to the church on Lorimier.  I had to use Google Maps on my phone as a GPS.  On one of the trips, the phone decided it wasn't going to work!  We were over in the area where Pat's physical therapist is located, so I was able to navigate without a GPS and managed to get to the church!  Yeah!  On the way, I passed Côte-des-Neiges Cemetery. We went on a little outing to that cemetery last summer.  Here it is covered in snow:

It was beginning to get dark when I was driving to the church.  Here are some more Christmas decorations on one of the streets:

Elder Drysdale, who returned home last Friday, made a special deliver to Sarah and Michael today--he brought a couple of little gifts from us to them.  We watched them open their gifts.  Thanks Elder Drysdale.

Last spring Pat received a phone call from the elders in Hawkesbury telling him that he wouldn't believe it but turkeys had attacked the car. Elder Tamtom was in the office that particular day and he said that the young elders were not joking—there were wild turkeys that claim the parking lot as their domain and use the cars for whatever purpose they want.  He also said that they will line up and strut down the street! We've talked about that many times since Pat received that phone call. One of the elders serving in that area during the turkey episode was in the office a couple of weeks ago.  We were talking about the turkey episode and found out he had pictures.  And here are those wild gobblers: 

We cross the St. Lawrence River frequently.  Most often our crossing takes us to the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  At night it is illuminated with color.  It is difficult to get a good picture at night when we're in the car.  Here is a photo of the bridge in royal blue that I found online.  We have seen in bathed in green hues, red ones, and with dancing lights.  It is iconic and so Montreal.  I love it!

Sunday we attended our last three-hour block of church.  A rather historic day.  Beginning next Sunday, it is only a two-hour block.  We had an early dinner and made a quick phone call to Marianne to arrange our FaceTiming on New Year's Day. We are very content to have a quiet afternoon and evening.  We love you; we love what we are doing; and wish each a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas--and Stuck in the Elevator, a Flood, and Christmas Baking

And another transfer is in the record books!  Pat and I only have three more transfers until this unbelievably wonderful experience ends!  How can that be?

Usually the arrivals, transfers, and departures of transfer week take place on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Not so this week.  Because of Christmas, everything took place on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday!

My big responsibility for transfers and departures is to move the missionaries from place to place--that means bus tickets!  Usually I have a day and a half to get this task done.  This time, I had to get it done on Monday so the missionaries could have the scanned and emailed tickets waiting for them when they opened their emails on Tuesday.  Sometimes there are glitches that make this process a royal pain.  This time, everything went smoothly--blessing from on high, undoubtedly!  I had the entire process completed by 11:00 a.m.!

Pat had a therapy appointment on Monday afternoon.  Bless little Lucy's heart.  We have been there three times, and she has taken us on three different routes.  Today's adventure had us going over Mount Royal!  It actually was a quick and easy way to get where we needed to go!  If was interesting to see Mount Royal in the winter--there were huge icicles hanging from the rocks and a light dusting of snow.  So different from what we saw in the summer. By the time we arrived back home, Pat was completely exhausted.  We had leftovers in the fridge, so I was able to get dinner prepared quickly--luckily that revived him.  It is times like this that I realize that the stroke has taken a definite toll on him.  The good news is that the therapist said that he is becoming stronger.  He is working hard to do just that.  He's been very good at sticking to his diet and doing his exercises.

Tuesday was the earthquake day in the office.  Oh, my, were we moving fast today.  With 12 new missionaries coming and 13 veterans departing, there was plenty of work to be done.  We had three missionaries miss buses--drives me crazy! One pair was headed to Ottawa. They wanted to leave Montreal at 2, but the Greyhound doesn't have that time on its schedule, so I purchased the 3:00 time. Somehow they managed to miss it!  I have to remember that we're dealing with teenagers who haven't got adulting figured out.

I have decided that what I do most often at the office is to be interrupted!  No matter what I'm trying to do, something or someone interrupts--it's the phone, it's the door buzzer, it's someone needing something.  Sometimes I have so many things going on at one time, it's hard to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.  Here's what my desk looked like on Tuesday as I was trying to get missionaries checked in with airlines prior to their departure on Wednesday amid the myriad interruptions of the day!

By weeks end I had things a bit more under control!

As I've mentioned before, one of our favorite things to do is to attend the temple with the departing missionaries.  Tuesday's trip to the beautiful little Montreal Temple was wonderful.  We will certainly miss the 13 young missionaries who returned home this week.

Since Pat's stroke, I haven't been back to work in the temple until Wednesday.  I left the office at about 4, got dinner, and headed for Longueuil at 6.  I arrived in good time.  I think that's what I'll do for the next few weeks. It was wonderful to be back.  As I drove onto the temple grounds, I noticed this small nativity.


Little by little our lives are beginning to take on more of a normal feeling.  Each morning I try to have lunch prepared and in the fridge before driving us to work. Pat works  about 4-4 1/2 hours each day before needing to return to the apartment. After getting him home and having lunch, I take the metro back to the office to work for the remainder of the day.  Then depending on the weather, I'll either take the metro back or walk. I have stayed after the office closes a few times this week just to try to stay on top of what needs to be done--taking 60-90 minutes out of the middle of the day takes a toll on what I can get accomplished.

Friday we were in the elevator heading to the parking garage.  The elevator started making strange noises and then it started bouncing up and down.  The indicator lights said we were going up when we were actually going down.  Then it stopped.  It was pretty obvious we were not at a floor.  We heard some voices outside, so we told whoever was there that we were inside.  Then we pushed the alarm button--miracle of miracles, it worked.  Someone said, "Un instant."  Then we heard someone doing something to the door.  Then the door opened, and we saw we were between floors.  Remember, Pat is using a walker, so this situation had the potential of being very interesting.  How would we get out of the elevator?  Next thing we knew, two workers came with a ladder:

I climbed down and then the two workers took Pat's walker and helped him get down.  As we came down the ladder, they told us not to step back.  Here's why:

We would have stepped into the shaft! Always, always an adventure when you live here!

With a new mission president scheduled to arrive in Montreal in July, Sister Phillips asked me to get two copies of photos of all the missionaries who will be here July 1.  Got that done!  Yeah!

Saturday was Bûche de Noël day.  I baked and filled six of them!  They are now in the Carlson's freezer waiting to be frosted and decorated tomorrow. We will have one of them with Christmas dinner and the other five will go with the five teams of missionaries who will be at our apartment on Christmas day.

Four chocolate and two vanilla bûches de Noël waiting to be filled

And here they are ready to chill in the freezer.

On Christmas day, we will have missionaries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  In between meals two other teams will come and Skype with their families.  Chris, Marianne, and our precious grandchildren will FaceTime during one of the times that the missionaries will be here to Skype.  Both Pat and I have laptops and I have an iPad and an iPhone--so it will all work out--I hope!  (We had the same number of missionaries over last year and everything worked out fine!) It will be a fun day for all of us.

After I had finished baking, we headed to Old Montreal.  Pat handled the metro pretty well.  We had dinner at a restaurant called the Old Senator.  It was wonderful to be able to go somewhere like we did pre-stroke!

Angles at Notre Dame

Decorations on St. Paul Street

La Grand Roue at Old Port

The old Roman senator who greeted us at the entry to the restaurant

I enjoyed my salmon:

After dinner, we walked back to the metro station.  We passed a pool that Sarah and Michael waded in (until someone told Marianne that wading was not permitted) last summer.  Now it has a half-lit tree in the center:

---we also passed beautifully lit City Hall---

Although it was cold on our way home, we had a good time.
Sunday we only had Sacrament Meeting--don't know why and I don't think it was church wide.  Just as we were heading out the door, I received a text from Janet Schurman asking if we were coming to church and would I be able to accompany a their family if they sang.  Luckily, I had accompanied them a couple of weeks ago and hadn't forgotten what I had practiced!  They are a very talented family. After church, they recorded the number.  It's a lovely Christmas piece entitled, Sleep, Holy Babe. Our Sacrament meeting was lovely--there were four children who gave talks.  After each talk one of the organizations sang a Christmas carol. The Schurman family sang after the first talk.  The meeting ended with remarks from President Glowa, the president of the Mount Royal Stake. After Sacrament Meeting the Schurmans wanted to record their number, here's Elder McGee entertaining Carter Bensen after the recording was finished.  Carter's mom, Katherine, is one of the Schulman's daughters. Both Elder McGee and Carter look happy, don't they:

We came home and were greeted by a big puddle of water in the hall in front of our apartment.  Because we have had water coming up into the sink, we were afraid we had had a flood inside.  Not the case.  Only the entry way was flooded--our engineer friend, Elder Carlson, says he thinks it is coming from above and then down the walls.  There is a similar puddle on the 5th floor.  Who knows what is happening now!  As I've said-Always, always an adventure at Place du Cercle!

---and while Pat wrapped gifts, I did some more baking--cookies, blondies, and brownies.

I even tried my hand at making meringue mushrooms to decorate les bûches. They're stilling hanging out in the oven, so we'll see how it all turns out.

We had a short FaceTime visit with our family and made plans for connecting on Christmas.

We love Christmas because of what it represents. Without the birth of Christ each of us would be without hope.  His coming and His Atonement changed all of that.  The McGees send you warm Christmas greetings and hope that you will reflect on the importance of this day in all of our lives.

Merry Christmas