Zarahemla Week 20

We went all the way up to the North Shore of the Island.
The St. Lawrence River is completely frozen solid!

Another week gone, and in just a few days, I will hit my 6th month mark on my mission. That's so crazy! I still feel like I'm brand new! I have a lot of things I want to do, so I hope that I'll be able to use this pressure to work harder. Elder Landetta and I had a great week, and I'm learning a ton from him. We’ve had a lot freezing rain lately, so almost every day we have been helping tons of cars get out, which has been funny. Here's what we have been up to this past week.

Last P-day we spent most of the day deep-deep cleaning our apartment. It's still fairly new, so it's not bad at all, but it definitely needed a bit of cleaning. After we finished all our chores, we headed to the familia Vinces to eat dinner. They're from Honduras, so they cooked us some classic Honduran food. It was super good! Then we met up with a recently returned missionary to go teach Edward, a referral that we received from one of the sisters in our ward. He's from Venezuela, and had an insane number of stories to tell about his expériences from there. He's here basically in a type of witness protection program which is crazy. We talked a TON though, and got home pretty late. He's a great guy!

Visiting Francisco 

Wednesday was very busy, and we got a lot done. We had a leadership meeting (Elder Landetta is the district leader) which was cool, then left to meet with Francisco. It was our last meeting, since he keeps having some problems with some commitments. But it's fine! It was fun teaching him, and although it might not be his time now, he still has a chance! Then we headed over to a recent convert who is less active to see how he's been doing. We got there a bit early, so we decided to do some contacting. We knocked a door of a Haitian couple, and they invited us in! We taught them all of the Restoration, which was cool, but super weird. I'm only used to doing basic contacts in French, but not full lessons! Luckily Elder Landetta is basically fluent in French, so it wasn't a problem. Then we met with Jose, the recent convert, who's a really cool guy. Got him to commit to read his scriptures every day again, which is great! Hopefully he'll be able to come back to church soon. Then we went and ate at the Familia Escobar's house, and she taught us (well me basically) how to make rice the real Hispanic way. I finally can, and it's super good! Then we went down to visit with Hermano Sanchez which was fun. He's a really nice guy.

Elder James & Elder Higbee - both from the Cedar Hills Manila Stake 

Thursday wasn't as busy, but we got a few things done. We had a coordination meeting with our ward mission leader and the other missionary teams in our ward which was good as always, then we had district meeting with the zone leaders and sister training leaders. Basically, the entire district has been super busy lately, so it's been difficult to get studies in every day. Wee got chastised a little bit on that which was needed, haha. After district meeting we visited a former investigator that Elder Landetta taught here when he served in Zarahemla, and he wants to investigate again which is awesome! Then we went home, and did some weekly planning. After that we passed by a few potentials up north, then went to a couple, Cynthia (Peru) y Andres (Guatemala), that we contacted on the bus and set up an appointment with a while ago. They were super nice, but we all talked a lot, and it was super late, so we were getting stressed about getting home on time. Then we heard a knock at the door, and it was the pizza man. We should have left a long time before, so we just wrapped it up and ran basically. We got home SUPER late, but it wasn't a big deal. You can't do much when you teach such great Hispanics.

Friday was fairly busy as well. We visited Guillermo (who's meeting us today to go visit the Biodôme), which went pretty well. He's on track to get baptized fairly soon—next month! We went home, had our studies and ate, then went contacting in the same area where we found a lot of people last week, but didn't have as good of luck. Then we went down to visit Alicia, who we hadn't seen in a LONG time. She still wants to be baptized, but it's just so hard to visit her since her parents work a ton and we can't get in contact with her sometimes. But we will hopefully be able to see her more consistently! We then passed by a few potentials, then went home.

Elder Landetta barely made it inside the door - he was exhausted!

Saturday was pretty good; we got a lot done. We left right away to help a member from Honduras move apartments (just one building down). We didn't want to spend too much time there, but the other people they asked to come didn't show up, so we ended up doing it until around 13h30. It was a bit inconvenient, but they gave us pizza, so it made it worth it! We then went to the opposite side of the island to pass by a potential that said he would be home, but sadly wasn't there. Since we were already in that area, and an appointment with Jesus and Yeni fell through, we decided to pass by a referral we got the day before. They weren't there, but we noticed a couple of kids playing across the street who we heard were speaking Spanish. We found their mom at the window watching them. Turned out, she was the cousin of the member who we had just helped move that morning! We asked if we could share our message with her, and she told us to come back later that night and she'd be able to. So, we left, passed by a couple of people, then went back and were able to teach their entire family! It was such a miracle, and they were pretty interested! Such an amazing experience. We then tried to go home, but it was super difficult. We had freezing rain the night before and into the day, and by this time at night there was a thick sheet of ice over EVERYTHING. It was SO hard to walk! It took us 20 minutes to walk to a place that should have taken only 5! We both fell a few times, but it was pretty fun.

Sunday was great; fairly average. Went to church, and had a few of our investigators there, which was great. After all the meetings, the ward had a surprise birthday party for the Bishop in the gym. It was extremely loud, and there was a French ward still meeting in the chapel and they were NOT happy about it. But our ward didn't care and kept having a great time, haha. After that, we went to pass by a referral who lived super far east, and then went to visit Hermano Mendoza to give him the sacrament. Then we went home and had some dinner that the members had given us. It was a fairly good day!

Saying goodbye to Nicole's Grandma

Monday was alright, but we had a few people cancel on us, so we didn't end up being able to do much. We were able to repent and get all of our studies in that morning though! We spent a lot of time contacting, passed by some of the people Elder Landetta remembered, and went our way to Nicole's house to say goodbye to her Grandmother who left back to Mexico later that night. While on the bus on the way there, Elder Landetta asked for the phone and I handed it to him. He didn't have a good grip though, and dropped it about 3 feet onto the floor. It wasn't a bad drop at all, but for some reason the phone just wouldn't turn on again! It was super funny, since the phones they give us are not very strong. So, for last night, and this morning, we don't have a phone. Luckily today is P day, so it's not that big of a deal! We went to Nicole's house, and visited with them for a while, took pictures, and said goodbye to her grandma. She was so awesome in helping with Nicole! We'll miss her for sure. Then we went and got some Haitian food and ate it at home. I freaking love Haitian food; it's so big here in Montréal.

It’s been a great week. I'm loving working with Elder Landetta; he's been really helping me with my Spanish. We basically only talk in Spanish all day, which I've been loving. He's an awesome missionary and is super diligent. I'm still loving it here!

Love you all so much—hope you have an amazing week!

Elder James