Happy Halloween

Dear all,

This week was pretty normal. No fire incidents, no donuts, no crazy people, no noodles. Nothing. Just trying to find people. 

We did go on an exciting exchange with the lovely ''Assistants to the President'', however. They are in our district, and Elder Blinn is the district leader, so we went on exchange with them. It was exactly like any other exchange. I was with Elder James (from DC) and we had a good time talking about the MTC and all the museums in DC that I have never been to. I complained that all the museums in Ottawa cost $20 and the museums in DC are free, even though Canada is the one with all the taxes. They seriously are so backwards up here.

The other exciting news of the week is that IT IS COLD AGAIN. Not super cold yet, but we are moving in that direction. ''Winter is coming'' and all that.

We helped the first counselor in the bishopric put up his temporary car shelter (or ''tempo'' for short) for the winter, and afterwards he told us stories about working in the VFX field. He's worked on a bunch of movies, including ''Gravity,''  and had some pretty interesting stories about what goes on behind the scenes of VFX.

He's one of at least four members of the ward that work in VFX and animation. The others have worked for Disney and a bunch of other companies, and all of them have been pretty high up in the industry. The Elders' Quorum President is one such member, and he said he'll take all the missionaries to tour his studio next Tuesday. If I am allowed to, I'll get some cool pictures and send them back. If not, I'll just write about it and you can watch the movies in theaters when they come out. 

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

Oh yeah. This Week, Too, I Guess.

Dear All,

First things first. Our apartment almost burned down this week. The fire alarm went off one night, and everyone slowly wandered out to the street in the cold. We met up with the Mandarin Central Elders (Elder Lehnardt and Elder Hsu) who live in our same building, and after a while of watching fire trucks pull up, got too cold to stand there anymore. We decided to walk around the block to the nearest Tim Horton's to shelter inside until they cleared the building. We stayed there for a few minutes, had a bunch of cheap donuts, and then headed back to our totally unharmed building to finish the night. It was very exciting. 

We, along with our good friend Vincent Mutche, helped a member's brother (?) move on Thursday. The member had texted Vincent that morning to ask if anyone could help out, but since it was such short notice and on a weekday, Vincent could only find us who were available. This member isn't super active, and is a little....interesting. We showed up, chatted a little bit with him, moved all of his brother's stuff into a rented car, and then drove it across town to his new apartment. Since we drove, Vincent, Elder Blinn, and I showed up well before the member and his brother did. We got one of his brother's new roommates to let us into his apartment so we could move the stuff without them. Upon entering the apartment, our noses were confronted with the weird and unpleasant aroma of A LOT of weed, dirt, and onions(?). We looked in one of the rooms and saw the walls covered in crazy drawings and writing. It looked like a set piece from a psycho horror movie. Some real ''all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'' kind of stuff. Needless to say, we moved all the stuff, and high-tailed it out of there before anyone else could show up. Vincent took us out to get ramen afterwards (pictures included).

This ward is probably the most interesting one I have ever served in. You get all the best of Montreal. 

That's pretty much it for me. I would talk about the people we are teaching, but we don't work with people very consistently. 

Vincent Mewtia and the ramen.

Fire truck selfie.

The donuts. 

A big ol' spider we found.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

We Had a DA

(Well, I meant to press the send button, but apparently I didn't. Here's the missing email from last week.)

Dear all,

Our week was spent mostly riding buses to and fro all over the island.  A lot of the members in the ward live well away from any metro stations since they have families and cars and stuff like that. Since we don't have a car, we often have to travel for hours and hours just to get to someone's house to see if they live there. I've been able to see a lot of Montreal that I haven't before, and get to know the bus system in Montreal a lot better, too. I feel like I'll be an expert on public transport anywhere in the city by the end of this transfer.

Other than that, we got to talk to some more members, and even got a family to feed us. The Young Mens' president and his wife invited us over for dinner on Sunday at their lovely home in Westmount. They moved here not too many months ago from the frigid, cold LA. It was nice to be around talk about the weirdness of living in Quebec with some other people from the western US. Elder Blinn even got to join in, since even Nova Scotia is not nearly as interesting as Quebec. In exchange for feeding us, we agreed to go and visit some of the less-active families with young men. It was a wonderful DA.

Last week for P-day, Elder Blinn and I accompanied our beloved friend Vincent Mewchew of the LaSalle ward to the impressively large St. Joseph Oratory on Mount Royal. Vincent of the LaSalle ward used to be a Catholic before he was converted by the Book of Mormon musical, so he gave us the insider tour. I didn't take many pictures, because I already sent pictures of it home. 

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

Fall colors on Mt. Royal

The inside of Mt. Royal

The inside of St. Joseph

The river, returning my thumb.

The river again.

DA - Dinner appointment

Happy Thanksgiving

Dear all,

This week was spent mostly in meetings. We had our Zone Conference on Thursday, where a bunch of people got together and listened to some people talk about the church, and then we had General Conference, where even more people got together and talked about the church. I did really enjoy both of them. I even got to watch General Conference in English this time. It made a lot more sense.

All the Chinese missionaries were hoping for them to announce China being opened up, so we can all get transferred to Beijing together, but it didn't happen. I still have one more conference though, so maybe it will happen. 

In other news, yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving (or as they call it here ''Regular Thanksgiving''). We did not get anyone to feed us, so Elder Blinn and I ended up just going to KFC (or as they call it here ''PFK''). Nobody really cares about normal Canadian holidays in Quebec, so all the KFCs were open, and we got a bunch of chicken for the two of us. In the end, it was really expensive and not that great. It's even worse here than in the States. 

Pretty disappointing, but at least I didn't ruin REAL Thanksgiving for myself. (they call Real Thanksgiving ''American Thanksgiving'' here. They are so backwards).

Anyway, I'll be back next week.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

Hump Day 27 September 2018

For Elder Hadden's halfway point, I prepared a package with half a package of oreos, half a package of TimTams, half a Toblerone bar, half a Dairy Milk bar, and half a pair of socks.  It also contained a photo book with pics of lots of people holding a sign that said "Happy Hump Day Elder Hadden" and his new International Driving Permit.  

The Salt Lake Scots at the Labor Day Pot Luck

Elder Hadden's response:

". . . Also, I got your package. I expect all the rest of that chocolate when I get home. My companion thought that was the meanest thing ever."

No comment on the photo book or the permit.

Grant

Cat&Grant&Jeff&Lucy Christensen

Back to the McGill 'Hood

Dear all,

Well, I made it back to Montreal. For our last P-Day together, Elder Burton and I walked around downtown Ottawa because we ran out of fun things to do. And then a few days later, I hopped on the Greyhound bus back to the great city of Montreal. I'm surrounded by francophones and Chinese people again. So much fun.

On top of that, I'm living back next to the McGill University campus where I lived when I was with Elder Tsai and Elder Furness. It's just like old times.

We're currently working in the Montreal ward, which is where all of the people who don't speak French, Spanish or Chinese in Montreal go. The ward boundaries cover most of the island, and the ward has about 300+ less active members on record. We have a ''special assignment'' to clean up all the nonsense on the ward records and try to help less-actives come back to church. President keeps referring to this ward as an ''inner city'' ward, which makes me think that it's where all the sketchy gang stuff goes down, but I think he just means that it's very transient and diverse. All in all, it is very difficult to track people down, and often very difficult to communicate with them if we actually do find them. It's a party. 

The best part in everything is that I got to eat poutine at La Banquise with my brother from LaSalle, Vincent Muetzsche. It's only been a few weeks since I last saw him in Ottawa, but it was still fun.

I have very little time today, So I will email next week. Hopefully I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing then.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden