May 2-8, 2022

Happy Mother's Day!  There have been many women who have been an influence for good in my life, including my five wonderful sisters, and I thank them for that.  This is my beautiful mother, Mary Bernice Draper Tolley, who died when I was four years old so I never really knew her.  She was only 29 and left my father with six very young children, including a two-week old baby.

This is my sweet grandmother, Martha Edna Hurd Draper, who took my baby sister and me in after our mother passed away.  I have many memories of living on the farm with Grandpa and Grandma until our father remarried and we returned home to live with our family.  Grandma passed away in 1986 and I still miss her.

This is my paternal grandmother, Sarah Jane Phillips Tolley, who died in 1936.  She passed away years before my parents were married.  We never had the opportunity to know her or our grandfather, who died about the same time as our parents were married.

None of this information has anything to do with our life in Montreal this week; just feeling a little nostalgic I guess.

Here is a link to a church article written about Sister Harkness:

https://news-ca.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/from-mother-of-five-to-mom-of-200

Today the men took care of Primary so all the sisters and young women in the ward could attend Relief Society.  I cannot recall being in a Sunday Relief Society class with so many women.  I counted 56, not including the babes and toddlers in arms.  Needless to say, it was quite noisy.

I didn't get the sisters in the back left corner of the room, including spunky Sister Ross who came to church for the first time since we've been here.  We were given a small potted plant - we'll see how long it survives in my incapable care.

Speaking of Relief Society, this week I received an email from my home ward advising me of changes/updates in my ministering assignments.  I wasn't sure if my feelings should be hurt that no one has noticed I haven't been there for several months or if I should be honored that they think I am capable of ministering from 2300 miles away.  I told my partner that she would have to bear the burden until I return in 14 months.

We have been out "finding" most of the week.  We didn't have a lot of luck - some have moved and the current tenants don't know where they went; some told us they have returned to the Catholic church and not to bother them again; one man died several years ago.  It was a somewhat discouraging week but at least we have more information about those members now.

Both our Thursday appointments cancelled early in the day so we decided to stay home and do spring cleaning.  Everything got a good scrubbing, including the floors and windows inside and out (the ones we can reach outside, anyway).  I love the smell and feel of a clean house!

After having such lousy winter weather and being quarantined for so long, we had two fun adventures within a few days.  I wrote about Chinatown last week.  On Monday, the young missionaries invited us to join their P-day activity.  We took the Metro to the Montreal Biodome.  The Biodome is part of the Montreal Space for Life, which is the largest natural science museum complex in Canada.  The complex also has a botanical garden, a planetarium, and the Biosphere.  All this is located on the site of the 1976 Olympics.

The four Elders are leading the way; Sisters Pollock and Bly are in the foreground.  Brace yourselves - we took lots of pictures!

We started in the Sub-Polar Region, which includes the sub-Antarctic islands and the Labrador Coast.  Unfortunately, they did not have signs to help identify what we were looking at and I do not know the names of most, so it's just pictures.

I do recognize these animals.  Sister Pollock, Elder Jenkins and Elder Neesom.  Elder Ford is waving in the photo above.

We moved on to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence display.

Elder Neesom, Sister Bly, Sister Pollock, Elder Jenkins, Elder Ford, and Elder MacDonald.

The LaSalle District, Mount Royal Zone of the Canada Montreal Mission

Next area was the Laurentian Maple Forest.

The last area was the Tropical Rainforest.  Except for the birds, this is probably my least favorite - all those creepy reptiles and other things that scare me!

The Sisters caught us resting outside the Space Museum before we started the trek home.

It was a good adventure with our district.  Transfers were this week and only Sister Pollock and Elders Neesom and MacDonald stayed with us.  The second Elder's apartment will remain vacant for now.  Sister Bly transferred to Ottawa but Elders Ford and Jenkins are still in the Mount Royal Zone so we'll see them at Zone Conference.

Saturday was Bishop's Storehouse.  This is one of my favorite things to do.  We can feel the spirit with us as the Stake Members work together to serve the members in need.  When we finished we went to brunch with Elder and Sister Gothe, who are serving in a smaller branch about an hour from us.

Here is our reality today:

Remember, that's per liter so a gallon would cost about $8.11.  I guess we can be grateful we don't drive a diesel vehicle - it is 228.9 per liter.

The Seminary lessons follow Come Follow Me for the most part.  We skip around a bit to include lessons the students will miss during the summer break.  This week we were studying 2 Samuel and discussing King David's downfall.  If he had simply turned away when he first happened upon Bathsheba, he probably would have been okay.  We tried to impress upon the kids that we will all encounter bad things in our life; that is not the sin.  Lingering to watch or experience the evil we encountered is what gets us in trouble.  We used an experience from President Hinckley:

President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), when working for a railroad early in his career, received a call from a railroad worker in the state of New Jersey. He said a passenger train had arrived without its baggage car. Look for what switch points on a train track could represent in our lives.

“We discovered that a baggage car that belonged in Newark, New Jersey, was in fact in New Orleans, Louisiana—1,500 miles from its destination. Just the three-inch movement of the switch in the St. Louis yard by a careless employee had started it on the wrong track, and the distance from its true destination increased dramatically. That is the way it is with our lives. Instead of following a steady course, we are pulled by some mistaken idea in another direction. The movement away from our original destination may be ever so small, but, if continued, that very small movement becomes a great gap and we find ourselves far from where we intended to go” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Words of the Prophet: Seek Learning,” New Era, Sept. 2007, 2).