John and Karen in the Canada Montreal Mission

This post is a day late - Sunday was a full day and I just didn't have enough energy to stay up late to write, especially since we had to get up at 5:30 for Seminary this morning.  One more Seminary class/lesson to go!!  The rest of the week is a Doctrinal Mastery review, the final assessment for the semester and a review of the assessment.  We aren't conducting any of those things so tomorrow is our last day.  We have gotten a little attached to the students but I can't honestly say I will miss it. Monday we participated in an inter-faith project to clean up a park.  They select a different park and area of the city to clean each year.  This year we were in Charles Square at Parc Saint-Gabriel. In addition to picking up trash and tree limbs, we were given seed bombs to plant along the way. The bombs are packed with wildflower seeds that germinate and pop up quickly.  We were told to plant them in any bare patches of land we wanted. John and our group ...

We just returned from a ward missionary fireside.  Five returned missionaries in the ward spoke about their missions and showed photos of their experiences.  Then we went into the cultural hall to see the keepsakes they brought home and enjoy food from where they served.  We enjoyed food from Italy, Australia, British Columbia, The Netherlands and Philippines.  We have several Pilipino sisters in the ward and they made several different dishes.  They were all tasty and had exotic sounding names, none of which I can remember except the fish balls. We continue with our attempts to find and visit with ward members.  Some days don't feel very productive when the member has moved away and no one knows where they went.  Or they have passed away and no one in the ward was aware of it. This is Sister Smith, whom we visit in the hospital each Thursday.  She has been in the hospital since we arrived in January.  She has had a couple surgeries and has a...

We have had a week of hot summer temps here.  It went from the 60's last week to the high 80's and low 90's with no warning!  We finally got the air conditioner turned on Friday and are enjoying a nice, cool apartment.  It rained a little during the night and off and on today but the temperature has dropped into the 70's where I am more comfortable. A couple dressed in their beautiful African attire walked into Sacrament meeting about half-way into the meeting.  We noticed the sister on the bench next to them was showing them how to find the words as we sang the closing hymn.  We rushed over to meet them when the meeting ended.  We introduced ourselves and welcomed them.  In their broken English, they told us that someone had described this building to them and that they should come to learn of Jesus.  They needed (not wanted, needed) to learn everything about the church so they could be baptized.  We waved the Sisters over and introduced the...