It's amazing!

Hola hola! 

Okay, so quick comment on reality - I opened my email just now and a particular email caught my eye - it's the one that tells me I've been enrolled in MyPlan!!!!! My Plan is a 6-week training course to be completed online during the last 6 weeks of your mission. It's real!!!! D:

Um, but other than that, we've just had another wonderful week! I've had the pleasure to run into my new mission president and his wife and kids multiple times this week. Sister Hoffmann and I are basically in love with the Phillips family! They came to our sacrament meeting yesterday because they're still choosing between attending church in French or English. (We hope they choose our ward!) President and Sister Phillips have so much fire for this work and I can't wait to see what comes next for our mission! Transfer calls are coming this week and we're anxious to see what happens! 

We had three investigators come to church yesterday. One was a 10-year-old boy who comes pretty regularly because his mom is an active member. Another was a 10-year-old girl who came for practically the first time, but we had to go to their house and pick her up (and her parents) so that she would actually get out of bed. We were SO happy to see her there though! And the third was a young man named Sajad from Iran. He has a muslim background but is very interested in learning about Jesus, and this was his first time in a Christian church. I got to sit next to him and explain the basics like how to read a hymn book, what the program was, and the significance of the sacrament. After the water tray passed us, he whispered, "It's amazing." And that got me thinking.

Isn't it amazing? Isn't it just so incredibly wonderful that there is someone out there who loves and cares about us so much that he not only walks with us, cries with us and smiles with us - he not only suffered our every sorrow, heartache, fear, injustice, bitterness, frustration, pain, sickness, and weakness and took upon himself the load of our sins, but he also paid the ultimate price by dying so that we could have new life. In a song we recently heard from some other sisters on our mission, it's explained quite beautifully: "It vit, et parce qu'il vit la mort n'aura plus de victoire! Grace a lui, nous pouvons prendre un nouveau depart." (Rough translation: He lives, and because He lives death will never have the victory. Thanks to Him, we can have a new start.) IT'S AMAZING!

I heard another beautiful thought from a Moroccan I met on the metro. He said, "I cannot be an Atheist, because I look around me at nature and the world and I know it had to be created by Someone." Which reminds me of a scripture: "...The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea,and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."(Alma 30:44)

To add one more quote, this one from an elder at mission leadership council, "It's the Gospel. It works!"

Yeah, it does.

Sister Shaver

             

A Marvellous Work and a Wonder!

SO MANY MIRACLES! 

This week has been insane. Not to brag, but it is worth mentioning that we got the best numbers I've ever gotten on my mission this week, the coolest of which being FOUR investigators at church and SEVEN new investigators! 

However, we worked ourselves sick. Literally - my companion is sick and I don't think I'm there yet but I might be close. We got caught in a big storm one day and had a lesson right after in a building that had the A/C on full blast, and that plus the lack of sleep was what did it. We got up extra early a few times this week for different reasons - stake correlation meeting, delivering a suitcase at 7am, and picking metro passes up at 6am.... we're really tired.

Can I just tell you about Thursday? So we were supposed to meet some sister for an exchange at 4 but they were 2 hours late (because of traffic) and we had double booked appointments at 5. Because of a lot of confusion we ended up at the mission office to get extra metro passes at 4:30, and while we waited we met President and Sister Phillips!!! THEY ARE SO COOL!!!! We love them a TON already. So we waited and waited and waited and got more and more stressed until finally we were like, "We need to leave now." and the sisters we were supposed to meet were still far away - conveniently, the Ville-Marie sisters were there and had nothing going on for a few hours, so we asked our slightly flustered brand-new mission president for permission to do a short emergency exchange with them until we could meet the other sisters and he said yes! So we took off at the speed of light and didn't look back!

President and Sister Phillips

I was with Sister Guzman (we're not even in the same zone - it was so funny!) and at one point we were with a member from my ward at the apartment building of the investigator we were supposed to see, but we couldn't get in. The buzzer was broken. So we said a prayer that someone would let us in and within 10 seconds someone came over and opened the door. But when we knocked on the apartment door, no one answered. So the member we brought said, "It sounds like someone's home next door. Maybe we can teach them!" I don't know if she was serious but I thought it was a great idea so I knocked and a Haitian girl answered. She let us in and we taught her the Restoration in French. She accepted a return appointment and a baptismal date! Now Sister Guzman and Sister Fleming will get to teach her! It was perfect! 

After that I met up with Sister Mejia and we taught the investigator I'd been supposed to see with Sister Guzman and then got ice cream and had a lovely exchange the next day. :) The rest of the week was not quite that crazy, but almost!

Me with Sister Mejia

 I LOVE being a missionary. I firmly believe that this gospel is the only thing that can heal us, give us hope, and bring us home. I know that the Lord directs this work and I am so grateful that He has given me the opportunity to be a part of it.

Sister Shaver

The Patricks with the flag signed by all the missionaries.

Michelle and her companion thought up the idea, bought the flag and... voila!

Summer!

Hi everyone! I don't even really know what to say about this week. It was really hot. We were really busy. So overall I guess it was great! There was a ward picnic the other day which was really fun, and after that we didn't have any appointments so we spent most of the rest of the day walking around. We ended up in Chinatown accidentally at one point and got bubble tea. I swear, I'm not even serving my mission in Canada. It's this weird mix of pretty much everything! 

We got to go to the temple this week too, which is always a blessing. I'll only get a couple more trips to the Montreal temple while I'm here! So weird!

We did two exchanges this week, and for one of them I went back to an old area, Victoria. Except instead of teaching in Spanish we were looking for the Anglophones. Since we were in a car, finding people to teach and talking with everyone was a little more challenging, so I went a little crazy...haha I even rolled down my window at a red light to try and talk to the man in the car next to us! Unfortunately the light turned green though, so it wasn't very helpful. :/ 

Anyway, the most exciting thing about this upcoming week is that President Phillips is arriving! I'm sad to see President Patrick go but I'm sure the Phillips will be wonderful! Have a great week, everyone!

Sister Shaver

 My district!

The Pure Love of Christ

Charity. We met Charity last Wednesday after she ordered a Bible online. By the end of our first visit, she had accepted a Bible, a Book of Mormon, and a baptismal date. We had another lesson with her that week, and then she came to church on Sunday! She. is. perfect. She introduced herself in Relief Society and announced to the room that she was getting baptized next month! She also cried in sacrament meeting because the opening hymn was so beautiful and she felt the Spirit so strongly. WE LOVE HER! 

Yeah. That's probably the biggest news of the week! But other than that we found a couple more new investigators and set up two other upcoming baptisms! This area is BOOMING! We are so crazy busy now - last week we had to orchestrate this crazy member split in order to get to twice as many appointments on night (I had 4 different companions that day), and this week we're going to have to do it again plus we're doing two exchanges and going to the temple. Crazy!

We've also been having more and more fun with the cultural diversity of our area. This week we took a brief trip to Iran, stepped into Ukraine, and brushed paths with Italy. That's on top of the usual mix we get from all over the place. This wonderful, wonderful returning less-active we've been working with to quit smoking and come back to full activity in the church was able to go to the temple last Saturday for the first time EVER. As a thank-you and to celebrate his success, he took us out to this super fancy (and super good) Iranian restaurant. (He's a chef, so he knows where all the really good food is in Montreal.) Another time, we passed by a less-active Afghani man in our ward but he wasn't home and instead we tried to communicate with his wife who only speaks Ukranian and Russian. That was a party, but at least now I can say like 3 things in Russian! 

On a sadder note, we said goodbye to President Patrick the other day. He's not actually leaving for another week, but they've begun their end-of-mission tour, and our zone had the first farewell devotional. I've learned so much from both President and Sister Patrick, and I'm going to be really, really sad to see them go. I'm excited to meet President and Sister Phillips too, but the Patricks will be dearly missed.

"And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. 

For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end 

they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of 

never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it." 

- Mosiah 2:41

Love,

Sister Shaver

There are no miracles in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the miracle zone.

Hey!!!!

So I got a new companion this week! Sister Clement went home. Another one bites the dust. My only ex-companions that are still on the mission are my MTC companion, my greenie, and my current companion. Anyway, I miss her a ton but I also LOVE Sister Hoffmann! We've already seen so many crazy miracles together and I am fully confident that they're going to keep on coming! 

Chocolat Favoris - Sister Clement convinced the senior couple sisters in the mission office 

to drive us all the way to the south shore (where I served in Victoria) to get this on her last pday

I'll tell you about some of them. One night at the very end of a long day we were walking around the block with the last little bit of our time and we met this woman who was walking home. We walked with her and talked and when we got to her apartment, we had a really short lesson in the lobby, prayed, and set up a return appointment. New investigator! 

We also got to meet with this man who was referred to us by other missionaries like 2 months ago. He always said he was busy but since we were so nice and kept persisting, he decided to give it a chance. He is SUPER cool but unfortunately decided not to keep meeting with us. 

Also, this Iranian less-active man we've been working with to quit smoking is finally going to the House of the Lord this weekend to be baptized in behalf of his father. This will be his first time inside a temple, ever. He's been a member of the church for decades, and I'm so excited for him to finally have this beautiful experience. The peace and warmth that is felt in the temple is probably the most exquisitely profound things that can ever be felt by a mortal heart. Unfortunately, we won't be able to go with him because of a scheduling conflict with the Patricks' farewell devotional. But I know he's going to have a great time either way!

One of our investigators unexpectedly came to church! And she loved it! She had told us she would come, but people say that all the time and then don't, so I didn't think she would really be there. But she was! I'm not sure how much she really understood because her main language is Hindi, and she doesn't have a religious background that matches up too well with our beliefs. I'm pretty sure she's been Hindu, muslim, and a Jehovah's Witness. So teaching her is pretty interesting. But we gave her a Book of Mormon in Hindi and she's excited to read it!

We work with a lot of children, for some reason. We have two 10-year-old investigators, each of whom have at least one parent who is a member of the church. We also do Family Home Evening every week with a sweet family with two kids. It's a lot of fun.

I'm so grateful for the experiences I've had as a missionary so far. This is literally the best thing ever. I'm so so so happy here! I can't wait to see what the coming week brings! I love you all!

pictures by my bed

 Sister Sully

festival - we found beaver tails! Soooo yummy!

ferret - this member from Kazakhstan's boyfriend's daughter's ferret.

➢ Transfers, trainings, and terrific devotionals!

Transfer calls came this past weekend! My lovely companion is finishing her mission and I get to STAY in the Montreal Ward! I'm receiving Sister Hoffmann, who is currently in Kirkland. I'm so excited! She's already in my zone so we've been on exchanges together, and she is awesome. She's also Venezuelan, so hopefully I'll get to work on my Spanish! :)

In other news, we had a really great zone training meeting on Tuesday. We talked about our missionary purpose and how to be successful. Basically, your success as a missionary is based on the things that you can control. Most of the numbers we report on (baptisms, lessons in the presence of a member, referrals received, etc.) are more or less beyond our control. The things that are within our power to change are things like how dedicated we are, how much we love the people we're serving, and our attitude. It was fun to do our weekly calls with the district leaders this morning and hear the different things that missionaries got out of the meeting. Most people pulled out different things and the Spirit whispered to them what they needed to change, and as a result there was a spike in our numbers as a zone! We found more people, taught more people, and we even had a baptism this week. Wonderful!

The big highlight of the week though was definitely the devotional we attended by Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder Gerritt W. Gong of the presidency of the Seventy and their wives. I was so impressed by how they personalized their talks to our specific area. One of them talked about the history of the name "Mount Royal" (the name of our stake) as he taught about the name of Christ, and the other used the license plate slogan, "Je me souviens," to talk about things the Lord wants us to remember. We got to shake hands with each of them at the end, and they even took the time to ask us where we are from and (in the case of Elder Gong) how we're doing and how we're really doing. These men really love the people. They are true disciples of Christ. I am blessed to have had the chance to cross paths with them both. :)

I hope you all have a great week!

Sister Shaver

PS Oh, and this is my only picture from this week. #ghettowhiteboard. Everything in Montreal is ghetto. I love it. Oh! And in other transfer news, sister Perdue is training in Riverside (same as me!) and Sister Cunningham is FINALLY leaving Ottawa (she's been in the Kanata ward the last 3 transfers) and coming to the Montreal zone (the French-speaking one that covers the same geographical area as mine)! She'll be in Hochelaga, and I'll probably run into her on wednesdays because we'll both have district meetings at the mission office! When I told her that earlier today she was like, "prayer answered! I was praying I'd see you again before you leave!" She's so sweet! I haven't seen her since Christmas and I miss her!!! anyway, that's it. bye!