Maybe the best week ever?

Hello hello! 

Today is the start of what is going to be an INCREDIBLE week. As in, the highlight-of-my-life kind of week. Do you know why? Because we're going to the Montreal Temple!!! This is the only time in my life that I will be a young full-time missionary during the dedication of a temple - and I get to be a part of it! :D

Besides that, do you know why else this week is going to be amazing? It's because while we're there, we'll be staying with my MTC companion, the wonderful Hermana Perdue, and even going on splits with them to work in their area for a day - in Spanish! YAY!

I have two more awesome things to tell you about: 1) yesterday I held a conversation in Spanish for like 30 minutes (didn't understand everything, but that's okay) and 2) we had a baptism yesterday!!! A 9-year-old boy we've been teaching was baptized and confirmed after church yesterday afternoon. :) It was so great! The member who was supposed to give the talk on the Holy Ghost was sick though, so I had to step in at the last minute. It was fine though - our little recent convert made faces at me the whole time. Oh, children. Gotta love 'em. 

Well, that's about it! I'm looking forward to writing all about it next week!

Sister/Soeur/Hermana Shaver 

Halloween! Cupcakes, our contribution to the district's pumpkin-carving contest, 

and our non-costumes.... 

 they were just, you know, Frozen-inspired outfits....

but not costumes...

This is how much of my journal I've used (a lot) 

and all the postcards I've opened so far!

General Authority + Temple + Baptism = :)

It has been a GREAT week. 

I don't even know where to start. This week our mission was visited by Elder Golden of the 70. We had a leadership meeting Tuesday night, then I and some other missionaries had personal interviews, and then on Wednesday we had a 7-hour zone conference. To be honest, it was a little overwhelming - I didn't think there was room in my brain to take in everything I learned! (I still don't think there is. I'm still digesting.) In short, the whole experience was amazing. I can't even figure out what to write about it other than that. 

As well, we finally found out when we're leaving for Montreal AND HERE'S THE BEST PART - we don't leave until the day after the baptism!!! (In case you don't know, we have a baptism next week. Yay!) Which means we get to actually be there for it! Buuuuut we still don't know about transfer calls, when we come back, or which sisters' apartment we'll live in while we're there. But that's okay - we're here for the baptism!!! 

Speaking of the temple, we have been commanded to invite everyone to the temple open house. So if any of you are going to be in Montreal between November 5th and November 14th, come! Maybe you'll see me there! The temple is a sacred place, the house of God. Even before it has been dedicated, the Spirit is very strong there as it testifies of the Saviour and teaches the plan of salvation. In fact, even if you aren't anywhere near Montreal, I encourage you to make plans to attend the temple closest to you in the near future. I've never regretted a trip to the temple.

We also had stake conference this weekend. :) It was great. I loved some of the talks, particularly by some of the YSA who are preparing for missions. At one point, they had a group of primary children come up on the stand and recite memorized sections of The Living Christ. So cute!

Well, I'm not sure what else to write - probably because there's too much to write! Until next week!

Sister Shaver

 Fall

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Well....not really. But it SNOWED! Thankfully, not very much. And today it's a little warmer, so that's good!

Hmm....well, this week was pretty good. There were ups and downs. One "down" was that we had a last lesson with two investigators whom we love. Unfortunately, they're just not interested in hearing our message anymore. It was a hard lesson. 

But on the other hand, sometimes we have really cool miracles! Like the other day we had no appointments (which is rare) so we ended up walking around for a solid 3 hours trying to pass by people. We hadn't had much luck, other than this one woman who opened her door to us (and was awesome!) and we were getting on the bus on our way home when the bus driver asked us to wait there a moment. He ended up talking with us about what we do, since he sees missionaries all the time and had no idea what we were all about, and talking about his own religious beliefs - he even gave us his contact information! Yay! 

There was another time, yesterday actually, that we were on the bus and the man behind us tapped me on the shoulder and told me that the man behind him wanted to talk to us. So this big African man leaned forward and said, "Hello mah seestah," asked if we spoke French, and then basically preached at us about how Jesus Christ is his life for the whole rest of the bus ride! It was so funny!

Oh, I also have some exciting news! I've been one of the missionaries selected to be interviewed by Elder Golden of the Seventy tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Sister Shaver

Miracles are Everywhere!

I have so much exciting news this week!!!

First of all, last Tuesday we sisters had a training from our mission president regarding the Montreal Temple open house - we get to go! We won't be leading tours, but we will be "hosts" in video rooms before the tour and in the reception tent after the tour. All of the sister missionaries in the whole mission are getting pulled out of our areas for a week to be a part of it!  We don't know exactly which days we'll leave and come back yet, and there's also a transfer in the middle of the open house, so some of us may not come back at all - we'll get transfer calls early so that we know before we leave whether to pack all our stuff or not. I'M SO EXCITED!

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting the other day. I got to choose my topic, so I chose temples. I love going to the temple. In temples, families can be sealed together for eternity. In temples, ordinances can be performed for righteous souls who didn't have the opportunity in life to receive them. In temples, we can find peace and receive revelation. I can't believe how lucky I am to be part of the rededication of the Montreal temple!

As well, next week a member of one of the quorums of the seventy will be coming to our mission! We're going to have a really early zone conference (because he has a plane to catch later). The night before, he's going to be in Ottawa to do a training for missionary leaders (which includes me because I'm a trainer!) as well as a few individual interviews and, most frightening of all, he'll be doing apartment inspections. Sooooo we've been cleaning a lot. Our apartment has had elders in it for years, and we're the first sisters to live there...so there's work to be done....

Annnnnnnd what's even better than anything I've already said this week is that two of our investigators now have a date for their baptism! One is a 9-year-old boy who will be baptized just barely before we leave for Montreal, and the other is the wife of a less-active member of our ward, and she's planning to be baptized next month. Both of them are amazing. :) 

Miracles are everywhere!

Sister Shaver

                                                                            

  Last Monday we went with two other sisters to a live butterfly display at Carleton university, 

and there were two more sisters there! Yay! Running into other missionaries 

is the kind of thing that would never happen in either of my previous areas.

More butterflies, me and sister Cunningham, and Carleton U's backyard.

Our district! 

Group pic: me, sisters Cunningham, Delgado, and Cruz Arenas, 

then elders (left to right) Bourdeau, Mendoza, Hernandez, Monnier,  Mclaughlin, Vanaquer :)

And a program with my name! Sister Cunningham gets to talk next week!

Ni hao!

What a great weekend! If any of you haven't watched General Conference yet, please do! There were so many good talks. I found answers to all the questions I had, felt the Spirit, and just loved it! One of our investigators also watched all sessions, and another one tuned in from home for part of it. :)

All in all, this has actually been a pretty mediocre week. But some cool things did happen! We got three new elders in our district last Wednesday, from Mexico, France, and Switzerland, respectively. I talked to someone in Chinese who doesn't speak English and I think she understood me - but I'm not sure, because I only know about 3 phrases in mandarin. We also - and this is what I'm really excited for - received a message letting us know that tomorrow we will be receiving a training from our mission president regarding the sisters' involvement with the temple open house! But we don't know anything about it yet, so you'll all have to wait until next week to find out anything. 

Also, before I forget, next week I'll be emailing on Tuesday due to Thanksgiving being on Monday. 

Sorry for the short email but, like I said, it was kind of a mediocre week. Sadly, not every day is wildly exciting out here. Have a great week! 

Sister Shaver

It's General Conference Time Again!

Buenos dias! 

This week was wonderful! We were super busy most of the time and had a lot of lessons. We also got transfer calls! Since we're still halfway through the 12-week training program for new missionaries, Sister Cunningham and I are staying right where we are. However, this week we're getting a huge batch of new missionaries, and only one or two are going home! So lots of missionaries are opening, re-opening, flushing (whitewashing), and training! It's so exciting! 

Some other great things that happened are that one of our investigators, we'll call her Lydia, came to watch a baptism at the church last weekend and came to church on Sunday. Another one, our Muslim amie, came to a Relief Society activity on Saturday. For the women's session of General Conference, our Relief Society decided to host a potluck/PJ party at someone's home to watch it together. The best part is we got to go too! We didn't get to wear our pajamas. But we did get permission to be out past curfew to watch the whole thing. :) 

The broadcast was wonderful. There were some really amazing talks. I think that sometimes we forget just how wonderful the Gospel really is! Not long ago we taught a lesson in which the investigator expressed gratitude to the point of tears for the beautiful and wondrous gift God has given us; a living prophet. Think about it for a moment. The Supreme Creator of the entire Universe, who is so great and so wonderful that we cannot comprehend it, He who is perfect, has sent prophets to the Earth in our day to guide us back to Him. That's how much we matter. That's how loving He is. In His eyes, we are worth it. I don't remember who said it, and I'm paraphrasing, but I am reminded of this paradox: "Compared with God, man is nothing. But to God, man is everything." 

Have a great week, everyone! Happy General Conference! :)

Sister Shaver

 Pics of our hike in Gatineau last week.

 The Terry Fox Run in Ottawa!

Why do we do what we do?

Hey hey! 

So here's the update! This week we got a media referral (meaning someone made a request online) asking for a Bible. We called, set up an appointment, and went to drop it off. It turned out to be this 12-year-old boy who just wanted to replace his old, falling-apart Bible that he used at his church every Sunday. We were a little disappointed, but we asked if we could talk to his parents. His mom came to the door and it turns out that she knew about our church and had attended a few times back in Haiti before she moved here! And she said we could come back and talk more about it! Woo hoo! 

We also went to Montreal last Thursday with all the other new missionaries and their trainers for a meeting. It was great. We got winter coats and poutine - who could ask for more? :D 

And today we had a sisters activity with the other sisters in our zone. We went hiking in Gatineau.It was super fun, and really pretty!  It was super weird to drive 20 minutes and suddenly have everyone speaking French. That's one of the cool things about Ottawa, though. Sister Cunningham and I love it here. For the most part, it's really great! But then there are other times where it takes us an hour to catch a bus, or we get caught in the rain, or we have to change our route to avoid a protest, or we awkwardly have to cross the biggest Terry Fox run I've ever seen (twice!) to get to church. But those moments are, fortunately, far outweighed by the good times! 

I've actually been thinking lately about a question that our mission president asked us at our meeting in Montreal: Why is missionary work important? The answer, to me, is obvious. If there were no missionary work, no one would hear the Gospel. If no one heard the Gospel, no one would have faith, repent, or be baptized. No one would be saved, and the whole plan of salvation would be frustrated. Life would be meaningless. The Atonement would have been in vain. Serving a mission can be hard. It can be disappointing and discouraging. But remember, "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God... and if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father" (D&C 18:10, 15). That's what keeps me going - realizing that I could spend these 18 months having the hardest time of my life, experiencing every trial and hardship I can think of, and it would all be worth it if I help even one of God's children return to Him. I hope that you back home who have been blessed by the restored Gospel can remember that, and remember to reach out to those around you. It might be uncomfortable, but realize that no amount of comfort can compare with the eternal joy you will feel when you help someone come unto Christ.

Sister Shaver