First week in Canada!! :) - Mascouche

Tuesday, September 29, 2105 7:00p.m. :Tuesday night we received a very short email from Heather letting us know she had arrived safely in Montreal.Her brief email captured her enthusiasm:

Just letting you know I made it safe and sound to Montreal. P-day will be on Monday :) I'm so happy here! FRENCH!!!!! It's amazing :) I'll talk to you then though :) Love you!

Sister Shelley

October 5, 2015

Well...

 I am in Canada.  I'm speaking French.  Life is good :)

I love it here so much. 

The people are so kind,

my companion is wonderful,

 the weather is sublime (for a short time... I'm bracing myself for the freezing cold that's soon to hit)

.All the leaves are changing.

 We have Canadian Geese and beautiful rivers across the street from our apartment.

 It's beautiful here. I'm in an area called Mascouche... it's just north of Montreal. It's a beautiful area.

The members are so so nice. We've been trying to work a lot with them to do their own part in missionary work.

Quebecquois is.... very interesting... haha I definitely have a hard time understanding it. Some people more than others. But there are some older people I can't understand at all ;) So that's interesting... it's going to take some getting used to. But I LOVE speaking and hearing French. It makes my heart happy :) I'm fighting against the quebecquois accent though... I do not want to acquire that accent. It may be inevitable though. It's hard when I'm trying to improve my accent, but that's the only accent to hear. It's tough. Haha

But my companion and i have been trying to speak more French together, which is good. We try to speak French when we're outside of the apartment, which is great... each night I come home still thinking in French. So that's good. Definitely tough though.... but I love French so much. I'm so happy to be speaking it.

My companion is great. Her name is sister Beaumont. She's from near Vancouver and is lovely. She just barely finished training. But her French is amazing because she did the immersion program growing up. So that's great :) It's been good getting to know each other better this week.

So... not a ton of time to write, but I just wanted to talk about a few people we've met this week.

The Ri family... they are WONDERFUL. We went to dinner this last week at their house. We had big plans for the lesson.... role played a ton and I was so excited. We were planning to aim for setting a baptismal date with them, which would have been wonderful. But the circumstances at dinner weren't as planned. We ended up helping make tortillas... which was awesome, but took over an hour. So our dinner/lesson appointment ended up being a 3 hour dinner appointment. No lesson and we didn't get home til after 9. But  Saturday night we ended up going by again, which was a wonderful miracle visit. We had stopped by so many houses after conference, but noone was available. All of our appointments had fallen through and we were starting to wonder what we were going to do with the time left in our day. We ended up stopping by at the Ri home... it was great. Vi (the dad) went to Priesthood (yay!), so Jac and her two girls were just at home. They invited us in to join them for pizza and poutine. It was great because Jac has previously been more distant and less open to us I guess. So it was wonderful to have some time to just talk with her. She opened up a lot to us. Sister Beaumont ( my companion) shared the scriptures in Moroni 7 about Charity... the perfect thing for the conversation we'd been having. It was a simple visit, but it really was a miracle that we were able to stop by and have such a wonderful visit. There really was a reason for everyone else to be unavailable that night. 

We also had some really great visits with some inactive members yesterday between sessions. They were so open to us and so kind.Everyone here is kind. Even those who tell you they're not interested at all in what we have to say... they're all super nice and polite about it. So I guess that's nice ;)

 But it is frustrating how many people just close their doors after hurriedly saying they respect all religions but are not looking to change. Seriously that's every single person. It's just sad though... knowing we do have the restored gospel, and knowing how much happiness the gospel could bring into their lives. It's tough. But we're still going to do our best to bring those who will listen :) That's why members are so great... they can get their friends and family to listen a lot easier than some random missionaries on the doorstep. So family: PLEASE help them missionaries! I realize now how important members are in the work. They really are so so important. Be willing to help the missionaries. Talk to your friends. Be willing to share the gospel. The missionaries can't do it all alone. We need the help of the members :)

Sorry that email's all over the place. I wish there was more time to describe all the adventures we've had. I love you all though soooo much! Keep strong this week and don't forget about me.

Bisous bisous

Soeur Heather Shelley :)

Sister Hoffmann! We were only comps for about 2 days while traveling to Montreal and our last day in the MTC.But she's so wonderful! So sweet and so beautiful:)

President and Sister Patrick ,Sister Hoffmann and me

All of us ready to go out and serve! (these are all the missionaries I arrived with:) Yes, I know i look extremely

black...i promise this isn't the norm. I just grabbed the thickest sweater nearest the top of my suitcase when it was cold. :)

Welcome to the Canda Montreal Mission!!

Montreal on our first day! A bit rainy and dreary.But we stood here and President read the words of Doctrine and Covenants 4...these are the people we're ready to convert.:)

Sister Beaumont and me with President and Sister Patrick :)

Companions:) Already sporting our coats (wonderful finds from the missionary clothing bank at the mission home,,,that saved my life. I was not prepared to jump right into cold weather after 90 degree weather last week!)

A lovely church in Mascouche!

hehe...we set the tiimer so we could get a cute picture of us in our Sunday attire :)

Just to show the view out our balcony...there's a beautiful river just past these buildings...It's amazing with the Canadian geese on it and the pink clouds refelcting at sunrise. We go running past here some mornings. It's amazing! :)