Montreal-Est Week 7

The Montreal North Zone

Week 1 of the new transfer & It's been a great week! Elder Wilson is super cool, I was really excited since I already knew him from the MTC.  It's been awesome to get to know him better. Here are some highlights of the week!

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On Tuesday, we went to Odette's house to make Griot. It was SUPER fun, and of course was DELICIOUS. We got detailed instructions and pictures which will hopefully be able to help us replicate it. I hope I'll be able to make it sometime! (See more pictures at the bottom of the page.)

The restaurant in Old Port where our family ate at when we visited last year!

Wednesday was Elder Sorensen's last full day. We were able to pass by some members and investigators to say goodbye, which was awesome for him. And, on Thursday, we took him to the bus station and he left to Gatineau. It was a fun transfer with him! Shortly thereafter I met up with Elder Wilson, and we got to work!

Saying goodbye to Elder Sorensen

It's been pretty busy, which is always good. This Sunday during Sacrament meeting I was able to give a talk on how we can fortify our testimonies. It was awesome being able to study the topic for the past few days, and I learned many things. One of the best ways we can strengthen our own testimony, is by sharing it. We can receive very strong spiritual experiences that help us know the truth, but after that, in order to keep the testimony alive, you must share it. As a missionary, I have been able to see this every single day. Every time I bear my testimony, the Spirit is able to testify back to me that what I said is true. D&C 50:21-22 teaches, "... he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth... Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that reveiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together." As we teach, the spirit can testify to us as well, and both the teacher and the learner are edified. It really is a wonderful blessing that has helped me throughout my mission!

I hope everyone is doing well. I love you all so much, have a great week!

Elder James

Old Port in Montreal 

Old Port

Cooking Riz Collé

Griot, pre-frying

Frying Girot

Elder Sorensen's last time eating Girot 

Montréal-Est Week 6

Griot from one of our investigators

Last week in the transfer! Sadly, Elder Sorensen will be leaving. It was a fun transfer together, and he taught me so many things. Elder Wilson, who I came to Montreal with, will be replacing him. I'm super excited! He's such a great missionary, and I'm really looking forward to serving with him. It'll be awesome!

Exchanges with Elder Teikiutapu

This week we were able to go on exchanges with the Laval Elders again. I went with Elder Teikiutapu, who is being trained by Elder Cash right now. He's from Tahiti and is SUPER legit! He's from a huge island pretty far away from the actual island of Tahiti where there is only one village of about 400 people. He showed me pictures, and it looks absolutely amazing. I want to visit him after the mission! We had a really fun exchange. It was his first time leading the area, and he did a great job! It was fun to be there with him for his first time. I also got to go on exchanges with Elder Amichia, my last companion. It was a lot of fun! We were able to find a ton of new investigators and saw miracle after miracle. On the first door we knocked, someone let us in! It was super cool. It was also Haitian Independence Day, so there were a TON of Haitians outside partying all day long. It was incredible!

Griot, Sauce Pois, and Legume

We also ate A TON of Haitian food this week. Two investigators fed us, we bought some Haitian food on exchanges, and we were fed at an FHE with a recent convert. We ate Griot, Plantains Frits, Riz Collé, Pikliz (a cole-slaw type thing with super-hot peppers called Pikliz, cabbage, carrots, and other stuff), Legume (which means vegetable in French, but is a Haitian food with pork and other vegetables served on rice), and Sauce Pois (which is kind of a bean purée that you put with rice). It was too much for one week, but you can never complain with Haitian food! And, tonight, one of our investigators, Odette, will teach us how to make griot, riz collé, and plantains frits. We're super excited!!!

Family Home Evening with Haschley & Jhonel

Well, I'm doing awesome and I'm continuing to see miracles every day. I'm sad to see Elder Sorensen go so fast, but I'm really excited for Elder Wilson to come! We're going to have a lot of sucess!

I love you all so much, and I hope you have a great week!

Elder James

We visited downtown Montreal this week!
(Notre-dame Cathedral) 

I made one of my mom's favorite dishes - cheese crepes,
but used Wal-Mart ingredients, so it wasn't quite the same.
But it was still good.

Our Zone before transfers

Montréal-Est Week 5

It started pouring rain while we were walking
and we got soaked!

This has been such an amazing, miracle filled week! We've been really busy running around like crazy, and it's been so awesome. We also were so happy to talk to our families this past Sunday! Even though it feels like it's only been a couple of weeks since we talked on Christmas Day, it was a very special experience. Here are some highlights from the week!

Chocolat-Favoris with Elder Cabello

We had the opportunity to go on two exchanges this week which were super fun. For our first exchange I went with Elder Cabello to St-Jérôme, and we had a miracle filled day. We basically did everything in Spanish the entire day, which made me super happy! We taught a Columbian family that was extremely solid, and they were just eating up everything that we told them. It was so fun to teach in Spanish again! We also went "Spirit knocking" for a little bit, which is when you just walk down a street and wait until you feel you should knock on a certain building. We felt to go to one building in particular, and on the first door we knocked into a young catholic Quebec-cois woman. She seemed a little bit closed, but we just taught and testified of the Book of Mormon. She then said something that I don't think I've EVER heard before: "ça m’intéresse," which means, "that interests me." It was an amazing miracle! It was a great example that the Lord guides His work, but also how we should never assume that someone is not interested. We are here to testify, so that's what we should always do! At the end of the day, to top it off, we went to Chocolat Favoris for my first time on the mission (which was a favorite spot my family found when we came here last year)! It was a super fun day!

Exchanges with Elder Cortez

I was also able to go with Elder Cortez to Repentigny as well. We also had a really interesting day. Everything fell through, including backup plans and even some backup plans to our backup plans. We didn't get to teach any lessons, and we didn't find any solid potentials after knocking for almost the whole day. We decided to go to one last area to knock before we picked up food and went home. We were planning on being there for only 30 minutes, but we felt that we needed to keep going until we found someone. After it got pretty late and we continued to get rejected at every door, we decided that the next door would have to be the last. And, of course, at the last door there was a Haitian family that was very interested. We got to teach them on the spot and set a return appointment! It was such an awesome miracle brought upon by perseverance, faith, and diligence.

Saturday was also a great day. The Sisters in our branch had a baptism which was awesome to attend, we had a couple investigators there who loved it. The girl who was baptized is the daughter of one of the recent converts in the branch, who actually had the opportunity to baptize her! It was super awesome. We also were able to find two Haitian women on Saturday, Elda and Mcdala, who are SUPER solid. They mainly speak Creole, since they haven't been here for very long, so we brought one of our Haitian members to translate the things they didn't understand. We talked about the Restoration with them, and everything seemed to click! They also loved the Book of Mormon and were super excited to read it. They even said that next time we visit they will feed us Haitian food! We're super excited!!

Pentalingual!

Another funny/cool experience, on Sunday night as we were walking home from one of our last lesson in the day, and there were two Italian men who were not very... aware or coordinated let's say... who flagged us down and started talking to us in a mix of Italian, French, English, Spanish, and even some Creole. It was hilarious. They were super nice, and they told every single stranger that they saw to come and join us. A Haitian joined in, a Quebec-cois, a Chilean, a Mexican, and it was just a party. They told us how cool it was that we are doing what we were doing and told us to keep it up. They were super nice! We got to teach a little bit, but as they were not super attentive we decided to take a selfie with them and leave. It was extremely funny; Elder Sorensen and I were dying afterwards.

Anyway, it's been an amazing week, probably one of the best on my mission. I'm having the time of my life, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be. I love you all so much, and I hope you have a great week! Happy (late) Mother’s Day!

Elder James