Happy 4th of July. We miss all of the celebrations associated with this day at home. 🎆
We have had some really great visits with ward members this week. Two of them were dinner appointments and we were treated to delicious food from China and India. We are helping Sister Liang prepare to receive her endowments on July 23. Brother Liang, who is not yet a member, prepared the meal for us, then left the house. He is friendly but extremely shy. He prepares all their meals and is a great cook. I neglected to take photos of the food so I stole one from the internet.
Chinese potato salad
I fell in love with this simple salad. I know some of you reading this have lived in China and I hope you learned how to make it while you were there. I had never heard of it but think I could eat it by the bowlful.
The Surla family is from India. They were baptized in September 2021. They are also preparing to go to the temple to be sealed. This food was also delicious and not too spicy.
Jasmine rice, chicken, potatoes, cold slaw
They were so kind to keep the spicy basmati rice and lamb curry separate from the other food. I tried one piece of lamb - it was very good but oh so spicy! I knew I couldn't tolerate eating more but John liked it and ate a good serving of it. We'll just say that he had to make an emergency trip to the rest room before we got back home...
Basmati rice and lamb curry
We learned some interesting things about Indian culture - we didn't realize that they eat with their fingers. We were used to seeing that in Africa but didn't know it was also an Indian custom. Brother Surla said their fathers taught them that metal and plastic utensils will get into the food (flake off or disintegrate?) and then into your body. A wooden spoon is okay to use. When we sat down at the table there was a small towel draped over the back of each chair. Now we know why!
We asked about arranged marriages and how they met each other. Brother Surla's older brother is married to Sister Surla's older sister. That was an arranged marriage. Surlas met at that wedding and were married some time after that. They have two adorable children ages 11 and 9. They all speak their Indian dialect, French and English. The Liang children speak Chinese, French and English. When I ask them about it they look at me like "doesn't everyone?" Umm, no. I am stuck on English. Children are so adaptable and seem to learn languages so quickly.
We had another baptism Thursday evening. Elders Ford and Jenkins contacted Hayden on the street several months ago. He has been coming to church faithfully since them. A few weeks ago his girlfriend started coming with him.
Hayden and Chiara
They had been saving money for two years to take a trip to Europe together in July. They were scheduled to leave the day following Hayden's baptism. After the lesson on chastity, they decided they wanted this more and cancelled the trip. Chiara is waiting until Hayden receives the priesthood and can baptize her.
Elder Sharp, Hayden, Elder MacDonald
This was Elder MacDonald's first time baptizing anyone and he was quite excited. He did a great job.
Friday was a holiday, Canada Day, so we did not do our regular service at the food bank. I mentioned last week on the Jean Baptiste holiday that everything was shut down in Quebec. On Canada Day, the national holiday, it was just like any other day. Some people did have the day off and the Post Office was closed but the stores were all open for business. Quebec is an interesting place, for sure!
We had a second Zone Conference this month, just two weeks after the mission tour Zone Conference. President Harkness was addressing some housekeeping issues at the beginning when he said "We don't die in this mission." I was wondering what that meant when he continued, "There is a tradition in some mission that missionaries 'die' when they go home. That stops right now! Missionaries go home and continue to love, share and invite." That tradition existed in our previous mission and we thought it was the silliest thing. We were happy to hear President's instructions to stop. Now we'll see how obedient the missionaries will be about it.
Sister Harkness talked about why we teach the same principles over and over. She shared this quote from Hyrum Smith: " Preach the first principles of the gospel - preach them over again: You will find that day after day new ideas and additional light concerning them will be revealed to you. You can enlarge upon them so as to comprehend them clearly. You will be able to make them more plainly understood by those [you] teach."
Did you know that President Nelson was in Montréal on August 18, 2018 when he addressed using the proper name of the church? The news conference was also held here. A year and a half after that, the new symbol for the church was released.
We all recognize this as the Christus by Bertel Thorvaldsen. The original Christus is in the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen Denmark. The work was commissioned in the year 1820. Although it was completed earlier, it was not installed in the church until the year 1833. Both of those years have significance in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Christus was not very well know outside Denmark until 1896 when an American textbook writer wrote "(The statue is) considered the perfect statue of Christ in the world." (American Textbook, 1896)
In the 1950's Stephen L Richards, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, purchased a 3.5 meter (11 foot) replica of the Christus statue. He presented to David O McKay, then President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1966 the statue was placed in the North Visitor's Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.
A second Christus was also replicated and used as a display for the 1964 New York World's Fair. Since the display of the Christus on Temple Square and at the World's Fair, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has displayed the Christus in Temple Visitor Centers around the world.
- Salt Lake City, Utah Temple, North Visitors Center
- Hamilton New Zealand Temple Visitors’ Center
- Laie, Hawaii Temple Visitors’ Center
- Los Angeles Temple Visitors’ Center
- Mesa Arizona Temple Visitors’ Center
- Mexico City Mexico Temple Visitors’ Center
- Nauvoo Illinois Temple Visitors’ Center
- Oakland California Temple Visitors’ Center
- Palmyra New York Temple Visitors’ Center
- London England Temple Visitors’ Center
- Portland Oregon Temple Visitors’ Center
- Rome Italy Temple Visitors’ Center
- St. George Utah Temple Visitors’ Center
- Washington DC Temple Visitors’ Center
- Paris France Temple Visitors’ Center
- San Paulo Brazil Temple Visitors’ Center
- Provo City Center Temple
- Independence Missouri Visitors' Center
I have been privileged to visit twelve of the visitor centers listed above. In speaking of the new symbol of the Church, President Russell M Nelson said:
" This symbol will now be used as a visual identifier for official literature, news and events of the Church. It will remind all that this is the Savior's church and that all we do, as members of his church, centers on Jesus Christ and his gospel."
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