John and Karen in the Canada Montreal Mission

At Senior District Council this week we learned that we would be doing missionary apartment inspections.  We thought we might not have that chore on this mission, as no one had mentioned anything until now.  Apparently the District Leaders or Zone Leaders have been doing the inspections - can you picture a 19-year-old conducting an inspection of another 19-year-old's apartment?  I can see how that wasn't working out!  So now the seniors have been asked to do an inspection once a quarter.  We don't really mind; the missionaries take the criticism fairly well and are pretty good natured about it.  We assumed we would be inspecting the apartments in our district but have been assigned to the Laval district about 50 minutes north of us. We have continued to visit more of the older ward members.  Most of them have been pretty isolated during the pandemic and are not able to return to church yet.  I am not the most social person and I sometimes struggle...

 Can you believe that we have been in Montréal one month already?  It just occurred to us that we haven't shared our address and phone numbers yet.  My number is 450-801-3500, John's is 450-801-9860.  Our mailing address is: 229-400 Boulevard Saint-Francis Châteauguay, QC J6J0E2 Canada Here is the photo I promised from the Senior Valentine's Dinner last week.  President Harkness took the picture and said the young missionaries taught him how to do selfies. It wasn't a large group.  Only the seniors in the Montréal area attended.  We have a senior council via zoom every Monday morning so we can see and talk to couples in other areas.  Last Monday it was our turn to introduce ourselves. Geographically, the Canada Montréal Mission is one of the largest missions.  It covers everything from Ottawa, Ontario east to the Atlantic and north to Hudson Bay.  There are currently 202 young missionaries serving here, with more coming every transfer....

This week was transfer week.  Sister Quinton was transferred to Ottawa and Elder McStravik went home.  The missionaries receive their transfer notice by personal email late Sunday evening or early Monday morning.  The travel instructions are posted on a Google doc and travel takes place on Thursday.  On transfer week there is no District Council and the mission office is closed except for transfer related business. The temperatures have been much warmer this week, between 28 - 34 F.  It has been overcast and rainy, windy with occasional snow flurries.  We are still walking indoors.  Until the temps reach the mid forties and the skies are clear, I'm opting to stay dry and warmer in the garage. The top picture is our parking space.  The garage is large; three paths or roads with parking stalls on each side.  One lap around the garage is about 1/4 mile.  We usually do 10 laps or about 2 1/2 miles each morning.  The other residents look...

 I should be all caught up now so that you'll get one week at a time going forward. Monday was Senior District Meeting and we still had no internet access so we took a laptop down to the lounge area of our building and used the public internet to join the call.  We have to sign in before entering the room and only 6 people at a time are allowed to be in there.  And wear a mask, of course. It is a pretty nice area, with the pool table and big screen TV.  We were told there is a pool outside the windows but I think it will be a long time before we see it. The modem finally arrived!  We had to do all the connecting and activating ourselves but we did it!  We now have internet access and don't feel so cut off from the world. On Wednesday they came and pulled the lights off the trees in front and chopped the trees down so Christmas must be finished.  There were the two big trees in front of our building and two in front of the building across from us. ...