Quebecois

The snowy view from our apartment.

Dear all,

Another week swimming in the French here. The accent is about as thick as the gravy and the syrup they love so very much. I think I'm picking it up slowly.

This week we had Branch Conference. The Stake president, a real French dude, came and gave a talk in sacrament that I could actually understand. It made me feel a lot better about my French. He gave a good talk about choosing God over anything else in our lives. I enjoyed it more just because I could understand it.

We took a drive down south this week to visit two recent converts named Manon and Marie-Soleil. They live about 45 minutes south of Granby, not too far from the Vermont border. They made a TON of pork roast that we had to eat very hurriedly because we didn't have too much time. They're a mother and a daughter who are both very nice and Québécois (but their accents aren't too bad.) Marie-Soleil, the daughter, just got baptized a few weeks ago and her mother got baptized a few months ago.

On the way back home we got hit with a big old slushy snow storm and had to drive very, very slowly down the awful country roads. It was an exciting adventure. I'm so glad spring is here with it's beautiful warm weather 



Yesterday while we were knocking, we met a very old Catholic couple. They invited us in so we could share an Easter video with them. I don't think they really understood that we weren't Catholic, and I know for sure they did not understand the video because they couldn't hear it and kept talking over it. They talked to us for about an hour total in their strange, hoarse accents. I got about 20% of what they were saying, but Elder Tarati got pretty much all of it, thankfully. I had to tell them I was from the US about three times because they were convinced I was from Toronto. I'm not really sure if they were interested in what we had to share, but they invited us back anyway. We'll give them a Book of Mormon when we go back, and see what happens.

That's all for me

Love you!

Elder Hadden



The wonderful roads in the snow.

Elders Hadden and Tarati in the snow



The ridiculous amount of macaroni salad that Manon gave us.

Dear all,

Well, I am here. Granby. Home of 60,000 people, a whole lot of maple trees, and the only zoo in Québec. It feels like a small town, with a zoo, and a bunch of French people. As far as I can tell, the only tourism Granby gets is either for the zoo, or the maple syrup.

Despite the small size, there are a surprising amount of immigrants here. Most are from Haiti or West Africa, but there are also a decent few from Latin America. Most québécois people hate any kind of organized religion (look up the "quiet revolution"), so we teach mostly immigrants. Africans and Haitians speak much better French than québécois do, so I'm not complaining.

The branch here is really small. There were only about 20 members at church in Sunday. Everything was in French, and they asked me to introduce myself and bear my testimony, so I went up there and choked through it. I honestly think my first testimony in the mandarin branch was more coherent, but at least I made it through. Everyone was pretty understanding about it (they all speak English anyway).

Yesterday, we had our zone conference. We had to drive a full hour back to just outside of Montreal. It was another standard zone conference. No complaints. The food was good. I felt inspired. I got to have an interview with President afterwards, and then we drove back to Granby to eat dinner with a québécois couple in the branch. After the dinner, they gave us maple syrup on fresh snow since it's that time of year. It was a delightful dinner, and I got a chance to both practice my French and learn a lot about Québec history.

I'll give a better account of what we do here next week when I actually figure it out.

Love you all. 

Elder Hadden

Elder Burton and I went to a natural history museum at McGill last week. 

1. This is a fo' real mummy.

2. This is the whole museum. It was small, but it had a lot of character. 

Quiet Revolution

No Email

I'm not sure what happened, but we did not get an email from Elder Hadden this Tuesday.  Maybe he forgot to hit 'send'. 

I did talk to him yesterday. 

Elder Hadden said the people in Granby were nice, and that various families had invited them out for dinner already.  He reported that it is still cold in Granby, no leaves or flowers.  He is working on his French, with the assistance of Elder Tarati, his companion, but everybody there speaks English as well as French. They have a distinct accent to their French, putting -ng on the ends of words ending in 'n'.  It adds a nasal quality to their speech. They also intersperse their conversations with English words.  Elders Hadden and Tarati are, of course, the only missionaries in the town of 67,000, of which 0.01% is LDS.  They have lots of appointments scheduled. 

He also explained the history of religion in Canada, where the Catholic church was in control of the government, and put only non-French-speaking people in positions of power and/or work, so that today, most people in Canada do not trust organized religion, even though there is separation between church and state now.

I guess they have their work cut out for them.

Hopefully, we will get two emails next week.

Rose, the Editor

Granby

Dear all,

Well, we got transfer calls on Saturday, and I'm going to Granby. Granby is a little town about an hour east of Montreal on the south shore. It's pretty Quebecois, so the little branch they have there is only French. This is going to be my first French area. A year and a half of living in French-Canada and I'll finally speak some French. I'm pretty excited. 

My companion is going to be Elder Tarati, again. He was the Tahitian guy I was with in Ottawa. Last time we were together, I taught him English, and now this time, he can teach me French. Since I was last with him, he has served with two or three other Chinese missionaries, so he's pretty much one of us now. It will be good to be with him again. 

Elder Burton is staying in the Montreal ward and getting Elder Dorich, a tiny little German man. The past two transfers with Elder Burton in the Montreal ward have easily been my favorite. There are a lot of members that we've really hit it off with and we have done a ton of work. I'm super sad to leave, but I think it will be good. At least I'll get to practice my French and hopefully remember my Chinese. 

Tonight we're eating with the Hutchinsons so they can see me off. I'm excited for that. 

I'll keep you all posted.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

Granby

People Actually Came to Church

Montreal Town Hall

Dear all,

It's been a good week for the work. One of the members we've been working with for a long time, Brother Bailey, came to church this week. We organized a ride for him with the Braos and he came 30 minutes early and stayed the whole time. Hopefully he enjoyed it; he still has some concerns that he's working through, but our hope is that he'll be more open once he starts feeling good at church. 

We met with a member named Zora this week. She's a McGill PhD student originally from Kazakhstan who's studying Russian literature. She's incredibly intelligent and well educated, and has a very strong testimony of the gospel and the scriptures, but not of the church, too much. We're trying to meet with her every week to just talk about the gospel and help her have spiritual experiences. She is really cool to talk to, and has a very interesting story. This week she told us about Chaballah, which is Jewish mysticism. Very interesting.

Transfer calls are this Saturday. I seriously hope I stay in the Montreal ward, but I probably will leave. Maybe I'll move upstairs and go to the Mandarin branch. I'll know next week.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

Selfie with Jean Drapeau, the Walt Disney of Montreal

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