Weather to Bless your life

September 5-17, 2018
After careful consideration it looks like this blog will become bi-weekly. We have found we have lots more to do and will only be able to post every two weeks.  That will be a blessing for some of you. Less mail in your in box.
It has been a very eventful two weeks.  It started off with a trip to Montreal to visit the Temple and then have a dinner with all of the couples in the mission.

Welcome to the Montreal Temple. The small temple in my hand was
3d printed by my nephew, Jared Noorda, and his son. It is a small night light

Yummy food at Montreal Restaurant 

You've got to love Salmon!

All the couple in the Mission except one.
Pres. Phillips and his wife are on the far end of the table.

We had the privilege to meet our Mission President and his wife.  The Phillips are great leaders and are doing an amazing job presiding over this great mission. They are on the down side of their mission and will return to Idaho this July.
There are lots of Senior missionaries in this mission. About half of them are involved with the Church history and family history department scanning records.  It is a huge project that started about 10 years ago. They have been scanning official land documents from notaries for the past many years and are almost to the point were they will have access to the vital statistics of Canada.  Each missionary will scan about 2500 documents a day, five days a week. It is a huge project.  All of you indexers get ready for lots more records in the near future.

This is our group of senior couples The one in the white shirt was our guide. That is Elder Smith. They are heading home soon. This is their 4th mission.

We ferried our cars over to Quebec City

Large building on the left is a hotel that the Canadian Railroad Company built
so that their important guests had a place to stay.
There are several of these buildings across the country.

Sidewalk cafe and shops are big here

This mural was very well done 

More sidewalk shops

Later that week we traveled to Quebec City and stayed over night and spent the day touring that beautiful city.  It is like stepping into a European village.  The area is very French and very little English is spoken unless you are a tourist and then you can find people that will help out.

We had to stop at the Christmas Shop

Very quaint court yard

This mural in on a flat wall very realistic.

The pictures speak for themselves.  The area is wonderful and there are many large churches that are just beautiful. One thing we found out is that the people here are becoming more sectarian and so many of the churches are closing and being sold for government or local businesses.  Some are being converted into apartment buildings.  It is sad to see these wonderful old building being closed down.

This is very common it shows the priest working with the First Nation People
(The word Indians in not used here)

Testimony to miracles that have taken place at this church
The Lame shall Walk

The Quebec Falls was the highlight of the day. It is an impressive sight to behold.  I hope the video works. It's exciting!

We have been enjoying the weather!  We learned a lesson from a man we talked to on one of our walks.  He told us you need to embrace the weather and love it for what it is.  Every season has its blessing and we just need to recognize it and prepare for it.

This is the humid time of year that I'm embracing.

Even winter is a glorious time.  He told us if you complain about the weather all the time all it will do is make your life miserable.  So no more complaining about the humidity. We are just going to embrace it (or let it embrace us).

found this fun tree on a walk one day

This is part of an experimental farm near our apartment
No they don't grow rocks! This is a work of art.

This little guy caught our attention one morning. He had great balance 

Our friend who told us to embrace the weather also taught about the parable of the trees.  He pointed to several trees and told us that in the winter these trees will be taller.  I asked how that could be. He told me that in the winter they will lose their burden of foliage and will then stand taller.  Then in the spring the blessing of those leaves will return to take nourishment to the tree and the tree in response to that blessing will bow down a little in humble gratitude for that blessing. He then correlated that to us, how we too must bow down in reverence to all the blessing the Lord has bestowed upon us. I felt that was quite insightful.

This guy is beginning to lose its burden

This past week has been very busy as we have been involved with the youth in the Welcome Week.  All the students are returning to the various universities here in town and they are all moving in. That does present a bit of an issue with the elevators while everyone was moving in. Two of our four elevators were out of service so people could use them to move their stuff into their apartments.  So it was walk 10 flights of stairs or wait for quite awhile for one of the other elevators to show up. Another lesson in patience!

We have a wonderful bunch here at the Dow's Lake Ward and in the stake. Every night we had a different activity and we got to meet lots of new students.  We also got to fulfill our CES call. Some might think that is Church Education System, but in reality it means Cook Every Second. The young adults have already fallen in love with Sister Mikkelsen's cooking.  We have learned some new games and activities. These young people really know how to have fun. One night the Elders Quorum President put together an activity called Pub Trivia.  (I guess in Pubs around the area it is a big thing) He had 10 rounds of 10 trivia questions and we were divided into teams of four.  Our team struggled. We ended up with 28 points out of 100 possible. I really struggled with the Canadian History Category. I did find out that the original artist for the Superman character was Canadian. I also realized I didn't pay very close attention in history class because I knew very little about the War of 1812. And do you know what Koumpounophobia is?  That's right. Its a fear of Buttons! I missed that one.

We completed our first round of Missionary apartment inspections.  It was a fun opportunity. Some were really great.  Others need a little assistance.  All the missionaries are so great here we love them.

This was on one of the apartments we inspected someone in the stake made it.

We taught our first lesson last week.  We team teach the Foundations of the Restoration class.  It was great fun to have a class that Sister Mikkelsen and I can share together.  We are learning lots about teaching and about each other as we learn to bounce off of each others comments.  By the end of the mission we just might be a "couple teaching team". In the winter we might each have our own class.
Yesterday in church we had the retired Area Director of all of Canada Seminary and Institutes speak in Sacrament meeting. His wife spoke about revelation and how they had used it through out their life to make eternal family decisions. It was a perfect talk for our young people they are in the middle of the Decade of Decisions right now and need to understand that they can rely on the Spirit to direct them.  We too can do the same thing in our lives. It would encourage you to start now to prepare yourselves for General Conference it's only a few weeks away.

To look for revelation in your life and ask in your prayers what else the Lord would have you do- Like serve a senior mission when the time is right.  What a blessing it is to be here. This next two weeks will see us back to Utah for Jacobs wedding on the 22nd and a reception in Highland Utah and in Bunkerville NV.  We hope to see all of you there.  Have a blessed week the gospel is true.
Love Elder and Sister Mikkelsen