A Note from the Mission Office

25 August 2019

 

To Friends and Family,



This week is transfer week for the Canada Montreal Mission which means that our Missionaries will have P-day on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.  The only exception to that will be the Elders and Sisters serving in Newfoundland.  They will still have P-day on Tuesday to prepare for travel on Wednesday if they are being transferred off the island. They should still have time to e-mail or telephone you. Transfer day is on Thursday and that is when everyone who is transferring will move to their new area.



Hopefully this doesn't cause too much confusion.



Sister Robyn Boyle
Canada Montreal Mission

Oh boy!

Got some poutine

Dear All,

So this is my last week. After next P-Day, I'll be out the door with bags packed and with just enough money to buy an engagement ring in my pocket (they seem very insistent about that last part). I'll save the mushy, reflection-y stuff for next week. 

This week we had my last ever zone conference, and also my first zone conference we have ever had with President Low. It was quite a nice zone conference. A little more relaxed than they were with President Phillips, but still very uplifting. I felt pretty good afterwards. They talked about finding through members. It was pretty applicable for our current predicament with our severe lack of investigators. We got some helpful advice.

We had exchanges with the zone leaders again since they're in our district. This was the exchange that I was planning, but the zone leaders said they had too many lessons, so we all did work in their area and they ended up just leading everything. It's nice to have leaders in your district because it means there's a whole lot less that I have to do. 

Elder Vargas and I took a trip down to Ottawa yesterday to see if we could find any francophones living in the Riverside area. After spending several hours knocking around the neighborhood of one of our members, we determined that there weren't any. However, we did find several people who were very nice and were actually interested in learning more. We're gonna send them over to the riverside Elders to teach. Again, we got some good numbers, but not a whole lot to do.

This evening we're going to the Couture's home (the Coutures are a member family who really likes us) to have a Family Home Evening with a bunch of less actives and recent converts. We're both pretty excited about it, and hopefully there'll be some non-members coming too. 

We went fishing this morning and caught an astounding two whole bass. This time we did keep them and we're gonna eat them. Pictures included.

That's it for me. Wish me luck.

Both of us

One fish . . .

Two fish . . .

Elder Hadden

That dating training they make you do. (that's how you know it's really the end. They start telling you to get married) 

12 August 2019

Dear all,

Following up from last week, we spent a lot of time finding this week, and got some numbers for our efforts. Again, none of them seem super solid, but at least they were interested enough to see us again. 

We had a lot of a fun thing we call "bashing" this week. I'm not a particularly big fan of having "discussions" about the scriptures. In my experience, there is no amount of scriptures or logical arguments or discussion that will change anyone's mind about religion. Elder Vargas however, is very, very good at it and enjoys doing it a quite a bit. The other day while we were knocking, we knocked into these three young African guys who invited us in. They proceeded to ask us a bunch of questions about why snakes don't eat dust if the Bible says they should, and how we can know if the Bible is being metaphorical or literal. They were very intent on the Bible containing the whole truth of everything, and very much weren't interested in the idea of an open scriptural cannon. 

Yesterday we had a similar experience with another lady, but this time we brought a member named Frère Morin for backup. He is also incredibly gifted with explaining the Gospel very well and just getting along with people. Elder Vargas and I pretty much just sat and watched Frère Morin try to explain the need for a restoration and everything like that, while she tried to rebut and reject what he was saying. It was a very long discussion, and went pretty much nowhere in the end. She was very much not interested in listening to what we had to say. 

All in all, my opinion on bashing really hasn't changed. Sometimes it's nice to at least just talk to someone, but nothing really happens. 

We had a district activity last P-Day, but there was a torrential downpour at the last minute, so we had to scrub our hike. We instead just hung out in the church, made Latino food, and played soccer and basketball in the gym. It was enjoyable overall. However, I didn't take any pictures because there wasn't anything too interesting. I've taken probably about 5 pictures total this transfer. I'll take some boring ones this week, just for kicks. 

Love you all, 

Elder Hadden

Sic semper homines exquirendo *

Dear all,

Pretty downer stuff going on in the area this week in terms of investigators. We tried to pass by our golden Haitian friend Élie the other day and succeeded only in making his wife angry at us. He still hasn't answered any of our calls and hasn't come back to church. 

Lydia and Flora, the "Golden" people I taught with Elder Surette last transfer, also officially dropped us this week. From the text they sent, it sounded like they had dropped us about a month ago, but I guess they just didn't communicate it too well, or we didn't understand it too well, or both. Either way, that's another two fewer people to worry about.

As far as I've seen on my mission, that's pretty much the life span of a "golden investigator." You find them and they're super hyped to come to church and get baptized, you teach them a few times and maybe give them a baptismal date, and then they just stop talking to you for no reason that you can see. You can't even schedule an appointment with them to figure it out or help them overcome their concerns. They're just gone. 

There's always a very interesting battle with hope. Most of the time, I feel like I'm doing the Lord's work, and I generally enjoy what I'm doing, but my struggle is to have hope that the work I do will pay off. I know that even if I don't see any results in terms of baptisms or high numbers that I'm still making a difference doing what I'm doing (perhaps sometimes a difference only in myself), but it can get very discouraging. I feel like I very frequently go through a cycle of being filled with hope as we find someone new and then having that hope slowly leak out as they gradually start to ignore us. 

However, I have learned that hope should be much more in ultimate results or events than proximate ones. Even if I don't have much hope that we will baptize someone or that a specific person we're teaching will progress, I do have hope that my service and efforts are recognized by God and that one day everything will be made right. 

In other news, member work has been great. We met with quite a few less active and active members this week and had great visits with all of them. One of them is a chess teacher named Robert who agreed to let us come back so he could teach us some chess. Another is a sister named Rosie who hadn't been to church in more than a year but came this Sunday after we invited her. We also met with Sister Baker again (we've been meeting with her for a while, but we lost touch with her about a month ago) and had a very enjoyable visit with her. Even if non-members are depressing to work with sometimes, members are always great. 

We've also been doing a good amount of successful finding trying to rebuild our teaching pool. The other day we found a less active member from Peru who hasn't been to church in years and only moved to Canada a few months ago. She has a couple kids who havent been baptized and she said she wanted to come back to church and meet with the missionaries regularly. We passed her off to the sisters since they're the Spanish team, and last we heard they had a very, very spiritual lesson with her. 

So there we go. The moral of this week is: missionary work is sometimes pretty depressing, but hey, at least we've got members. 

Love you all, 

Elder Hadden

I'm out of pictures today, but we're having our first ever non-apostate district activity P-Day today. Pictures next week. 

* Sic semper homines exquirendo:  Thus always to investigators.

District Leader Email

29 July 2019



Dear Brother and Sister Hadden,

Just a short note to inform you that your son was recently called to serve as District Leader in the Ottawa Zone of the Canada Montreal Mission. We are pleased that he has prepared himself and is willing to accept this call.

Leadership in the mission is very significant and can make such a difference in the life of the leader and those whom he leads. We are grateful for his dedication and service.  We are also thankful for the sacrifices you have made and are making so that it is possible for Elder Hadden to serve the Lord in this part of His vineyard.  Elder Hadden has a strong testimony and is a devoted missionary who loves the Lord and this great work.  We pray for the Lord's continued blessings on your family.


Sincerely,



President Richard A. Low