"And the Days Dwindle Down to a Precious Few"

Another week is in the books. This was week three (already) of the transfer cycle!  How can that be.

I spent part of the week getting letters ready to be mailed:  Here's part of my organizational plan:  letters grouped by types, all in alphabetical order, so all the parts that need to be included are in the same order.  It works.  They were mailed!

We also did the final two zone conferences:  Monday we were in Ottawa and Wednesday we were at the Papineau Chapel.  That wraps up Pat's assignment to inspect cars and mine for organizing the lunches for the conferences in Montreal.

I am trying to pull loose ends together so that when Sister Penner arrives next Thursday, it will be an easy transition. That's what I did on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

We have been in the Sherbrooke Metro station countless times.  Here is a plaque telling about the station's name sake:  John Coape Sherbrooke. (It's in French--good luck!)

I walked from Mount Royal station on Thursday because I needed to stop at Jean Coutu.  In spite of the snow, it is spring in Montreal as evidenced by the children and parents in the park! I am sooo ready for warmer weather, less snow and ice, and the ability to be outside again!

Traffic in Montreal continues to baffle me.  This is what greeted my eyes Friday afternoon as I was walking to the metro station:  Two trucks have completely cut off the road!

And this is what it looked like at the top of the street—traffic jam.  Some cars were trying to back up, others were trying to go through the parking lot to the left. Most were just stuck!  Typical Montreal traffic mess!

Friday we had visitors!  Sister Louder who was released two weeks ago was back in town along with her dad, Cort.  So wonderful to see her again and her dad again!

As I have served in the Temple each Wednesday, I met the Fortinas.  Recently they became one of our landlords, so the Evans know them as well.  We were invited to their home for dinner on Friday. We drove to Mont St. Hilaire and had a delightful visit and a delicious dinner:  soup, beef bourgeon, and dessert.  Here is Mont St. Hilaire:

 And here is their house. It was cloudy and overcast, so the picture is dark, but it was warm and light and wonderful inside!

 And here we are:  The Fortinas, the McGees, and the Evans.

On Saturday several of us went to Observatoire360.  The sights were spectacular even though the day was cloudy and the visibility somewhat limited.  We had a wonderful time.  And here we are:  Sisters Hyde, Puzey, McGee, Peterson, Howe, and Anderson!  My days as the social director for the senior missionaries are coming to an end!  This was one of the last events that I planned.

From the observatory, I could see the famous Five Roses Flour sign--I have seen this so many times and have used it as a reference for where I am.

 The mighty St. Lawrence and the Victoria and Champlain Bridges

More views:  St. Joseph's Oratory at top and Mount Royal.  (I'm sitting at the desk in the bedroom and looking out at Mt. Royal.  We will miss looking at that beautiful little mount!)

 On the way back to the metro, we passed a flower shop.  Aren't these beautiful?

We spent a quiet afternoon and evening at home on Sunday.  We spoke with Christopher, Marianne, and the kiddos until phones died!

Zone Conference Time

We are now in the second week of the transfer—zone conference time.  We will attend all five of them so Pat can do his final car inspections; this will be our final experience with zone conferences.  

The first one was held in the stake center next to the temple on Monday. The senior missionaries in Montreal prepared the food for this one and for the two other conferences held on the island.  When Sister Puzey and I were packing up things early Monday morning, we forgot the onions.  So, I made a store run to take care of that.  I can't help contrast this experience with what it was like a year ago.  I know where grocery stores are on the South Shore, so it didn't phase me at all!  I would have been in a complete panic a year ago!

Tuesday afternoon we headed northeast to Quebec City for the second zone conference.

The first year I taught I had a huge bulletin board that covered the entire back wall.  Not being the artsy-crafty type of person, I always had a rough time doing bulletin boards.  That particular space was especially difficult.  I remember that I covered it in green and white paper, slapped cut out flowers on it, and wrote this little ditty:

Spring has sprung;

The grass has riz.

I wonder what the what stuff is?

I thought of that as we drove up to Quebec City on the last day of winter and returned to Montreal on the first day of spring.  As you can see, there is still plenty of snow around.  (And some of it isn't very white any more!  In fact, it is dirty gray!) This is looking out our hotel winder at the snow piles.

 More snow as seen from our 9th floor window.

 The conference is always held in the chapel just up the street from the hotel.  More snow greeted us!

 While we do have snow down in Montreal, we don't have as much a they do in Quebec! (Thankfully!)

 The Bills are serving in Quebec.  We don't get to see them very often.  Here we are.
We left Quebec and headed for Montreal just after lunch.  It took us four and a half hours because of the horrible traffic we encountered. As we crossed the river—don't know which one—we saw ice chunks floating.  Bad picture, but you can see some large ice cubes!

I have said many times how terrible driving is in Montreal.  Here is an example.  This is the on-ramp to the Jacques Cartier Bridge that we had to take to get back on the island of Montreal.  The lanes merge into two where we are and then about five lanes merge into two ahead.  It is unbelievable!  Here are pictures of the merging process.

The going was really slow! It was so bad that when we finally made it to the island, I dropped Pat off at a metro station, and I headed to the Papineau chapel to pick up our car.  Usually we drive our own vehicle when we do inspections in Quebec or Ottawa.  This time, however, we drove a new truck to both locations . . .

 . . . and brought the old one back!  Do have to admit it was a pretty nice ride!

I drove our car back across the bridge so that I could serve in the temple that evening.

The office is in quite a state at the moment.  We have zone orders, apartment supplies, and food items all  over the place.  Here's the hall—at least it is organized!

And here's the supply room—the items on the table and in the green bin are headed to a zone conference on Friday.

Sister Puzey has the zone order on a dolly so that it can be delivered to the appropriate conference.  It is a pretty amazing process that we follow.  Miraculously, it all gets done and most of the time it arrives when it should at the location where it's supposed to go.

Friday we did another zone conference complete with lunch because it was on the island.  Pat took the metro to the chapel, so Sister Puzey and I hopped in my car and we hauled the perishable items to the church.  The non-perishable items were packed up and loaded in the Bowler's car Thursday evening, so it was super easy to get everything else in my car.

That evening, the Carlson, Puzey, McGee team prepared another meal for two Tahitian elders. Both of these young men are converts to the church.  Both are incredibly humble and incredibly nice!  My assignment for this meal was the main course--knowing that these are big boys, I wanted something that would provide as much food as they could eat—so I opted for sloppy joes.  Sister Carlson was on salad duty; so she made a delicious potato salad.  That left Sister Puzey with dessert: a scrumptious apple pie.  We had some boiled eggs that we had prepared for next Wednesday's zone conference.  During a momentary lapse of good judgment, Sister Puzey and I peeled them way before we should have.  We didn't know if they'd last, so I made deviled eggs!  It worked! We had a wonderful meal and a great time with these terrific missionaries!

And here is our obligatory photo:  Sister Puzey, the Carlsons, Elder Teikiutapu (say that three times quickly), Elder Tehei, and the McGees. (We call the elders Elder T-squared!)

Saturday evening we drove over to LaSalle for Stake Conference. We repeated the process on Sunday.  This conference was one of the best I've ever attended.  One of the reasons it was so wonderful was because of the diversity that is here.  There were Africans, Chinese, Mandarins, as well as Anglophones who spoke.  It was amazing.

We left LaSalle and headed for Ottawa. As with our trip to Quebec, we drove a new Chevy truck.  We had very good driving conditions—only a few snow flurries.  Once we were in Ottawa and all settled in, it started to storm.  Here's a picture from our hotel room.

We chatted with Christopher for a few minutes before calling it a night.

Monday morning Elder McGee did the car inspections and froze!  It was bitter cold because the wind was blowing.  Lucky for him, it is a small zone with only 10 cars.  We had lunch with the zone and then we headed back to Montreal. Before we left, we snapped a picture of Sister McGee with the McGees. During the few months that I worked at Midvale Middle School, I ran into Sister McGees father.  He taught math.  It's always fun to make those connections.

We have one more zone conference on Wednesday, and then this part of our mission will be complete.  We have loved our missionary experience and will miss it terribly.  BUT we are eagerly anticipating being home again with our kids, grandkids, friends, and neighbors.

Crazy Week—and the Kicker—Stood Up on St. Paddy's Day!

Transfer week is the busiest week of the transfer cycle.  It is difficult to convey the amount of activity and chaos that this week brings as missionaries arrive, missionaries move, and missionaries depart.  The week begins rather calmly but picks up speed as the week progresses, by Thursday we are running like mad!

We had five missionaries depart.  Here is Elder Clark with the office missionaries (except for Pat) on Wednesday when he came in for his final interview with President Phillips.

 And here he is on Thursday with the two of us.

And here are the five of them:  Elder Clark, Sisters Smith and Louder, and Elders Rossi and Eggenberger with Sister Evans, Sister Puzey, me, and Elder Evans. We know these wonderful young people so well and will miss them more than we can express.  What a privilege it has been to work with them, to get to know them, and to love them!

Here is Elder Rossi, such a great young man and a real character! (I had just returned from a trip to the store to purchase food for next week zone conference.)

The chaos of Thursday is manifested on my desk.  I am trying to do about five different things!

Here is proof of the absolute craziness of Thursday.  In the winter, I leave my street shoes at the office and wear my boots back and forth.  The last few days, the weather has been such that I wore street shoes to and from the office.  I didn't take the pair that was already at the office home, so I ended up with two pair at work.  I was in the process of changing into the pair I wore to work when I was interrupted.  When I got home and started to take off my shoes, this is what greeted me:

Then I had to wear this odd pair back to the office to get everything straightened out!

Another activity that adds to the craziness of transfer week is preparing for zone conferences which take place during the next two weeks.  The office missionaries are responsible for preparing lunch for three of the zone conferences.  To prepare for that, we select a menu and then figure out how much food we need to purchase. I order some food from a local store and purchase what I can at Costco.  I had the order ready and the delivery scheduled—then the date of the conference was changed, and I needed the food delivered a day earlier; however, the store couldn't make that delivery.  So on Thursday afternoon, Sister Puzey and I had to take the metro back to the apartment, get the car, and do a grocery run.  Luckily, there is a Metro grocery store with a parking lot and that is relatively close to the office.  We each took half of the shopping list and were able to get everything purchased in an hour.  As we were heading up de Lorimier, we decided that if things kept going like they had on Thursday, we'd both end up here:  The Quebec Psychiatric Institute!

Because the zone conference schedule was changed, we had to prep the food on Friday, two days earlier than we had planned.  I had forgotten to buy a bottle of Montreal Chicken Seasoning when I was at the store on Thursday.  The Swensens and Sister Puzey, who were doing the food prep on Friday, didn't have enough to finish cooking the chicken.  Since we had some at home, I walked across the street, hopped on the metro and went to the apartment to get what was needed, and returned to the office.  As I was crossing the street from the metro, a welcome sight greeted me: We have had a heat wave—the temperatures have been above freezing!  The result is obvious:  Most of the snow and ice is gone from rue Berri! (And look at that blue, blue sky!)

There were other important happenings this week.

Each month the senior missionaries set aside an evening to attend the temple as a group.  That happened on Tuesday.  Because there were so many of us who speak English as our first language, the session was in English.  That's always a boon for those who don't speak French and who would have to contend with headphones if it were in French.  For me, I'm comfortable with either language. We had a very special experience while we were in the temple on Tuesday.  Toward the end of the worship service, 10 senior missionaries, and only we ten, participated in a very sacred ceremony. That is something I'll remember and cherish for a long, long time.

Our dear friend and colleague, Sister Chatterton is leaving Montreal on Wednesday.  Friday we went out to dinner with her and three senior sisters.  We went to a crèperie.  I had an asparagus and ham crèpe.  It was so good.

Sister Chatterton, the McGees, Bear (who has a big sign saying not to touch him!), and Sisters Puzey, Petersen, and Hyde.

Saturday Pat and I were the keynote speakers for the Mount Royal Stake Relief Society Birthday celebration. The theme of the event was Decisions Determine Destiny.  I spoke about how the decisions I made decades ago in the areas of selecting mentors, gaining an education, and developing relationships made all the difference in my life. Pat spoke about his conversion.  From all reports, our messages were well received.

RS Birthday Cake

Sunday the missionaries we had invited to dinner stood us up! We had a delicious dinner in spite of their absence! The Carlsons prepared a corned beef dinner.  Sister Puzey's contribution was an orange jello salad.  I had the easy assignment--dessert. The dinner was wonderful, but the company was even better.  So sad, the missionaries missed out!

 And here is the Sunday bunch minus two missionaries:  Sister Puzey, the Carlsons, and the McGees.

The reason I only made a simple brownie for dessert was that the seniors had a birthday celebration with cake and ice cream a couple of hours after dinner.  Sister Carlson made a German chocolate cake  to celebrate Elder Bowler's birthday.

We finished the evening by visiting electronically with Christopher, Marianne, and our precious little grandchildren.  

Tomorrow morning, we begin doing all of our weekly tasks for the last time.  We will be heading for home in 42 days.  How can that be?