The Language

One of the many fun things about serving in Montreal is that even though I'm in an English ward right now, I get to use all of my three languages and more! For example: Last Wednesday was transfers, and we spent the morning in a trio with one of the Spanish sisters while she waited for her new companion to arrive from Ottawa. We went to a lesson with her in Spanish. We later had a member lesson with someone from our ward in English. Almost everyone I talked to on the metro was a French-speaker that day, AND we had a dinner appointment with a Haitian family, so it was like 75% Creole and 25% French. Whoo! 

Strangely, I think it's actually easier to contact people in Spanish than in English, mainly because the fact alone that I speak Spanish is a conversation-starter. The other day, a Peruvian woman sat next to me on the bus. I started talking to her in English, but she didn't understand so I switched to French. Then I found out she was from Peru and I switched to Spanish and she nearly fell off her seat! Surprise! :) 

Anyway, on to more important things. We found a few new investigators this past week. One of them is this amazing Filipino man who has known the Church for years. When we called him up, he basically said, "Yeah, so I want to get baptized and join your church. How do I do that? Is there some kind of procedure..?" Pure. Gold. We are so excited to start working with him!! 

As a zone, we started a few weeks ago having a "theme" for each week - something our teams can focus on that we've noticed people may be struggling with to help motivate and inspire them to improve. For example, other weeks it's been asking for referrals, planning and goal-setting, finding new investigators, etc. They're all things that we should all be doing all the time anyway, but it's kind of a reminder. This week our theme is faith in Jesus Christ. I felt the Spirit very strongly last night as we were at the end of a lesson. I bore my testimony to this woman, who is going through a hard time, and I know that the words I spoke are true. I explained to her that Christ loved her. That when no one else understands, He does. When no one else cares, He does. When no one else is listening, He is. When no one else is praying for you, He is. When no one else is there for you, He is. He will always be by your side, and He will always love you. Could there be anything more miraculous?

Sister Shaver

Look who came by the mission office!

(The family I lived with last summer in St Jerome)

The Farmer's Son

Transfer calls came and.... we're both staying!! :) We are SUPER happy about it! This is Sister Clement's last one, so she'll be my third "kill." Mwahaha. There are relatively few changes in our zone. It's nice and quiet. 

This week has been good. We're still doing lots of finding and not so much teaching - but we are successful! We've gotten two new investigators, lots of referrals, and many phone numbers from people we talk with. I've gotta say, even though I'm not always very good at opening my mouth, talking with strangers is one of my favourite parts of missionary work! Especially here in Montreal because there's so much diversity! One minute I'm talking to a Haitian businessman from New York, the next it's some 20-year-old from Korea, then later it's an elderly Iranian woman who's lived here for decades. It's awesome!

We've had a couple of unfortunate things happen this week too. My companion got really sick and spent a whole day in bed. The power went out and the fire alarm went off while one of the other sisters was in the shower. We're losing two great elders from our district this week.

But! It's all good. I gave a short training in district meeting this week, and I wrote a poem. The 8 elders really liked it and asked for a copy, so I guess it's okay. I figured I'd share it:

There used to be a farmer’s son

Whose dad was always gone.

He worked ‘til late, came home to sleep

And left again at dawn.

The son grew up not knowing much

About his parents’ lives.

It led him every now and then

To question, “Who am I?”

‘Experiment’ became his theme.

‘Adventure’ was his goal.

“To find myself,” he thought inside,

“I’ll travel every road!”

As time went by and carelessly

He threw his time away,

Confusion was his great reward;

No satisfaction came.

One day Father sat him down

To ask, “What’s in your heart?”

The son replied with teary eyes,

“I don’t know who you are.”

The farmer smiled and kindly said,

“Because you always leave.

Forget yourself and go to work –

Come, and follow me.”

At dawn the pair arose and left

To work just as they should.

The day was long and hard, and yet,

The son somehow felt good.

Weeks and months and then two years

Flew by and something changed.

The farmer’s son now found his life

Completely rearranged.

His outlook changed; he didn’t feel

The need to search for more.

Each hour spent by Father’s side

Had changed his very core.

Working arm in arm with Him

He really learned a ton.

In knowing Him, he knew himself,

Because he was His son.

The answer he’d been yearning for

Impressed upon his mind:

He couldn’t find his place until

He left himself behind.

In connection with this poem, I shared Matthew 16:25: For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

One of the greatest things about serving a mission is that we get an inside look at how God works with His children. We get to know Him personally. As we move along the ladder from sacrifice to obedience to consecration, we "lose ourselves" in the work, but in so doing, we learn who we truly are: eternal beings with divine destinies to one day become like our Father. That is beautiful.

Sister Shaver

PS  I FORGOT SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT! AT MISSION LEADERSHIP COUNCIL PRESIDENT PATRICK TOLD US THAT BECAUSE SOME OF US HAVE SCHEDULING PROBLEMS WITH GOING HOME, HE TALKED TO THE MISSIONARY DEPARTMENT AND CHANGED OUR DEPARTURE DATE TO A WEEK EARLIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'LL BE HOME AUGUST 25TH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fear Not

Hello hello!

So this week was really good! The work is picking up pace little by little. This week we visited the Mandarin Chinese district's district meeting (and they mostly spoke English for us), we did a member split - I got to spend a few hours with a 17-year-old in our ward who's preparing for a mission - and we did a regular exchange with the Greenfield Park sisters! I was on exchanges with Sister Prince. It was so fun because this is her first transfer and we got to ride the metro together (her first time on metro!) and teach and find and it was awesome. I love that new-missionary enthousiasm! 

I have a funny story. Our apartment has wooden floors and normally that's no problem, but the other day, just as we were about to leave, I spun on my heel and got a small sliver in my foot. When my companion asked why I was taking my socks off, I explained. As soon as she understood what a "sliver" was, face lit up and she said, "Stay right there!" and disappeared to another room. I started trying to pry it out with some tweezers, but a few seconds later, Sister Clement was back - with two HUGE knives from the kitchen and this scary look of determination on her face.

Yeah...that didn't happen! I convinced her to find me a sewing needle instead... She was like, "Sister, don't you trust me? I chop vegetables all the time. What's the difference?" The horrified look on Sister Arizmendi's face was pretty great when she said that. Fun times! :D 

Anyways, transfers are coming up! We're getting our call this week. I hope we don't change, but Sister Clement has been having a lot of dreams about moving, so we'll see! We've been focusing a lot on boldness lately, and we're getting better at talking with everyone and pushing past boundaries of comfort. I mean, it's a little awkward to sit next to the only other person on the bus, and a little scary to approach a group of men standing outside in the dark smoking and speaking Russian. But hey, sacrifice is what it's all about! When you think of it as, "What am I willing to sacrifice in order to bring someone salvation?" it's a lot easier. Doubt not, fear not! 

Sister Shaver

My awesome district!

Me with a member.

Prison

So when the sons of Mosiah (people in the Book of Mormon) went on their mission, basically the first thing that happened to all of them was they got thrown in prison and were threatened to be put to death. They eventually all got out of prison and had wildly successful missions, baptizing and bringing thousands of souls unto Christ. 

But let's think about that time they were stuck in jail. They were great missionaries, they had good goals, and they had the Spirit with them in full force. But let's face it, they were not getting anything done. Despite everything they were doing right, nothing was going the way they thought it should.

For most of the past 2 weeks, Sister Clement and I have been "in prison," meaning that nothing is happening! It was so frustrating because we planned carefully, set goals inspired by the Spirit, prepared diligently, and worked hard - but every appointment we had fell through. Every person in our already-too-small teaching pool was either too busy or too tired or just dropped off the face of the planet. To make things more awkward, as missionary leaders, our area is supposed to be an example from which other missionaries can learn and we had an exchange last weekend. With the new way of doing exchanges (determined by the First Presidency), both sisters come to work in our area, leaving theirs empty for a day, which means we get twice as much done. Except that we had no appointments scheduled, let alone enough to fill two companionships' schedules....

President Patrick loves to bring up the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) and then encouraging us not to be insane. Sooo we looked at the things we'd been doing to find new investigators and what things we hadn't tried. We hadn't really spent time knocking on doors yet, so we decided to give that a shot. And guess what! This weekend, we found 3 new families to teach and several more potential investigators - one of those new investigators has even accepted a baptismal date already! MIRACLES! 

The moral of this story: God will always bail us out of prison if we let Him.

Other than that, we had a really good zone conference this week. :) Have a great week, everyone! 

Sister Shaver

 We made sushi

It snowed

There are weird monkey murals in Montreal

Dinosaur Day

On the way to the church to email home this afternoon, a woman stopped us because she thought Sister Clement was someone she knew. When she figured out that we were mormon missionaries, she gave us a loud, long-winded rant about how we have a different bible and we don't believe in the Holy Ghost or that we need to be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. I asked her, "Where did you hear that?" And she yelled in my face, "In the Bible!" So then I had to explain, "No no, I mean where did you hear that we don't believe that?" We then had the opportunity to calmly explain that yes, we do believe in the Holy Ghost. We do believe that every person must be baptized, or "born of water and of the spirit." We do believe in the Bible. And we believe in ongoing revelation from God. She calmed down pretty quickly and chatted with us for a few minutes before her bus came. By the end of the conversation we had given her our card (and she had given us her own) and had a group hug. Sigh. People. 

Other than that, this week has been swell! My companion passed her 3-year anniversary of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! We also had GENERAL CONFERENCE, which is always AMAZING. We visited my last area, Kirkland, to attend their district meeting, which was fun. We gave a training on having faith to find, and we managed to incorporate trust falls. That was entertaining. :) 

Oh, and one of the BEST things about this week is that we went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with a recent convert in our ward! She was able to submit names of two of her own ancestors. It was a joyful moment when she entered the water of the baptismal font to perform this essential ordinance for her very own cherished grandmother. Now her grandmother will have the opportunity to accept or reject baptism, whereas before, she didn't have the option. If she accepts, she may also accept the higher ordinances of the temple performed in her behalf later on, the highest of which being sealing to her loved ones, to live with them forever. I wish everyone in the Church could have this experience!! Imagine that - a soul who has passed on who was previously powerless to change her fate now has the opportunity to be justified and sanctified by the Atonement of Christ and to receive eternal life in the celestial kingdom. What could be more beautiful? I myself got to go in the water to do baptisms as well. (It's the closest thing to going swimming I've experienced in over 13 months.) It was awesome!

AND guess who was in the parking lot when we arrived at the temple!!!!! RAFAEL AND MAXIMO!!! My recent convert from the Victoria ward and his 4-year-old son!!! I was SO HAPPY to see them!!! :D :D :D The blessings of temple attendance are endless!!!

I hope everyone had a chance to watch General Conference. What insights did you get? What are you going to change? I'd love to hear from you all! :) 

Sister Shaver

Stay On Course

Hey everyone!

So this past week has been AWESOME. (See last week's email.) There were so many great things happening all week - we had some great lessons, mission leadership council, the stake Easter cantata, a new investigator came to the women's broadcast, I gave a talk in sacrament meeting (which I actually love doing), pretty much ALL the less-actives we work with came to church, a complete stranger walked into church and turns out to live in our area and gave us his contact information, we went on our first exchange of the transfer, and we had a wonderful Easter dinner with two of the senior missionary couples. So basically, it was amazing.

This coming week should be pretty exciting too. We and the zone leaders have decided to start visiting the other districts in our zone to see how it's going and what we can do to help. This week we get to visit Kirkland!!! I'm excited to visit my old area. :) Although the majority of the missionaries who are there now were not there when I was there, so it won't exactly be the same. Still though, it should be fun!

The talk I gave on Sunday was about how the sacrament influences my life each week. I decided that with only 5ish months left on my mission, it was about time I use a swimming analogy to preach the gospel. I remember one time when I was a lot younger that I was taking swimming lessons and my instructor asked me to take my goggles off and swim to the other end without opening my eyes underwater. I did, but it wasn't long before I felt myself hitting the lane rope on my right. So I corrected my course and continued. But only a few seconds later, I hit the lane rope on my left. I ended up zig-zagging all the way down the lane! 

I told that story, and compared the black line on the bottom of the pool to Jesus Christ, and the lane ropes to the sacrament. When we always remember Him, it's easy to stay on track. But when we forget, or get distracted, we start to veer off course. So we need a regular, consistent, effective reminder to catch us before we stray too far. When you take the lane ropes out of a swimming pool, people crash, they get hurt, and in extreme cases, they could even get a concussion from a head-on collision, pass out, and drown. When you take the sacrament out of your life, you risk potentially fatal spiritual damage. Not only does the sacrament protect us spiritually, it gives us access to Christ's Atonement, which does FAR more than simply take away our sins. It helps us grow into a strong person who resists sin and has the spiritual stature to dwell in the presence of God. Anyway, I enjoyed giving the talk. Moral of the story: GO TO CHURCH. 

I love you all! Happy General Conference! :)

Sister Shaver

#Hallelujah

Easter is here again!!! It's weird being out for more than a year because I remember LAST Easter and I was already on my mission! Crazy! Anyways, I'm really looking forward to this week. We have mission leadership council coming up (a meeting with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders, the assistants to the President, and President Patrick) and a stake Easter concert on Good Friday (there will be a missionary choir!). I also get to give a talk next Sunday about how the sacrament affects my life each week (I am so excited) AND we were invited over for Easter dinner with a senior missionary couple who works in the office. Basically, this week is going to be great!

This past week was also pretty great. We went to the temple on Friday and ran into a member from Quebec city who's preparing for a mission and who used to come teaching with us all the time. :) We also had transfers, and of the 6 sisters in our zone (that's not including us) 4 of them are new in the zone and 2 of those are greenies!! I can't wait for exchanges with them. There's something about brand-new missionaries that's very exciting and makes you love being on a mission. I also got to go to my first district meeting in this district. I've been here for a couple of weeks, but we haven't had district meeting because of zone training. So that was fun! I officially win the who's-been-in-the-most-areas game. We even have a few elders who are very close to going home, but I don't think anyone else has served in more than 4 areas besides me. 

Most importantly, for anyone who hasn't heard, there's a new video and website launched by the church to help us focus on Christ this Easter season. It's at followhim.mormon.org and it's REALLY good. Every time we share with someone, the Spirit testifies very strongly about the Resurrection of Christ. I love the message of hope; that because of Jesus Christ, we can ALL find new life and live happily forever in the presence of God. That's what I'm celebrating this Easter. He lives, so I can live too. Since I've been on my mission, some people I was close to before have passed away. It's been hard, and it's been sad, but I know that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, each of them will be made alive. HALLELUJAH! :)

Sister Shaver

Here's a blurry picture of my companion                                                      and a creepy note I found on my desk :)

                                                                                                   (Hermana Perdue lives just down the street from us!)