Montréal Sud-Est Week 1

Me and Elder Amichia

What a crazy, fun week it's been! It's so weird to change areas, with it has come a complete cultural change as well! I went from a Hispanic companion in a Spanish ward focusing completely on Spanish, to a French companion in a French (almost 90% Créole) branch in an area with lots of Haitians, Muslims, and some Quebec-cois. It's been crazy! But, of course, it's been an amazing experience so far!

Saying goodbye to Elder Landetta

Since we opened up the area, we are starting from scratch. We don't have any investigators, and neither of us know the area very well (well I know how to find Spanish speakers, but not French). It's so much fun! It's certainly a challenge, but we both have been really eager to get to work!

Hermano Mendoza

Last P day we actually spent a lot of time visiting people. After Emails we headed to Hermano Mendoza's brother, who is less active, to eat lunch and visit with him. He's such a nice guy, and he's really opened up a lot more because of our service to his brother! It's really given me the opportunity to see how you can never see the full influence of your actions. One act of service, like visiting someone in the hospital, can have an impact that normally you aren't able to see! It's always very important to serve others, despite how little we may think or feel we are doing. A little bit goes a long way, and we can't possibly imagine the extent of our influence! Later on that night we also had the opportunity to eat with the Farfan family, whose father is the Zarahemla ward missionary leader. He is so awesome, and I'm going to miss his family so much.

Familia Farfan

Wednesday was my last full day in the Zarahemla area. We left early to give a blessing to a less active member. I was asked to give the blessing, which was a great opportunity to give one last blessing in Spanish. Afterwards I spent a good chunk of time packing, and later that night we went to the Escobar family's house for my last Hispanic dinner. It was amazing as usual, and it was awesome to say goodbye to the family. They've been so nice to me these past six months! Immediately after we headed over to visit Nicole. We visited with her and her mom a little bit, and talked about her serving a mission to get her thinking about it a bit more. She invited me a while ago to her Quinceañera in Mexico in early December, the year I get back, and I really want to go! Elder Colunga and I are going to try to go together. It would be so much fun! Then Jesus and Yeni picked us up and bought us the Haitian fish one last time and took us home. I love them so much, and I will miss them a lot!

Jesus, Yeni, and I at the Haitian Restaurant 

Thursday was transfer day! Fairly stressful, but it went smoothly. Said goodbye to Elder Landetta. He's been such a great example to me, and he helped me a ton in so many aspects of the work. This is his last transfer, and I hope he makes the best out of these last 6 weeks! Met Elder Amichia, and moved in with two other Elders, in the same apartment that I was in when I started my mission, which was fun. We did a little bit of planning, then got to work! We did lots of finding; felt out a few areas to see how they were. Our area is basically the whole south east section of the island, and there are a lot of Muslims and Quebec-cois, which is really interesting.

Familia Escobar

The rest of our week was fairly similar; spent a lot of time contacting, knocking, visiting members to grow relationships. It's been very interesting, and we've kept pretty busy! Church on Sunday was fun, as it was my first French meeting so far on my mission! There are a lot of Haitians in the branch, and I'm SUPER excited to eat with them. Hopefully we'll be able to get a good relationship so they will start inviting us! I also found a couple of Spanish members, and it was amazing to speak Spanish after craving it for a couple of days. We had Zone Conference yesterday, which was awesome as always. It's been an interesting past couple of days, and I'm sure it'll pick up a bit more soon!

I love you all so much, I hope you have an amazing week!

The Last Supper