The Christmas Concert

Dear all,

I thought of a good story this week.

The other day we were riding the metro home for the night. We ran into a Nigerian lady and her young daughter who had just arrived in Montreal and were trying to find their way back to the refugee shelter by McGill University. Since we live right by there, we rode the metro with her and walked her most of the way to where she needed to go. We told her we were missionaries and that we work with a lot of Nigerians who have just immigrated to Canada, and we got her contact info so we could pass her off to the sisters for them to teach her. 

Before we passed her off, we decided to invite her to the stake Christmas concert on Saturday. The day of, she said she would be coming down, but it took her a very long time to find the church. She showed up about an hour late with a friend (also a Nigerian lady) from the shelter. It turns out, her friend was actually a long time member in Nigeria and she was super excited to find out that she met the missionaries. We told the member about the church schedule, and got the original lady in contact with the sister missionaries. We won't teach her, but it was cool to be where we needed to be.

Also, during the concert, I talked to the Korean member we're working with named Minae. She told me, in very broken English, about her conversion in Korea. Somewhere in the conversation, we started talking about Korean food, and she was impressed that I knew even anything at all about Korean food (thanks RoseE). She invited us over in a few weeks to have Kimchi Chige with her and her family since I said I really liked it. Also, she told me that my Chinese surname is the same as her kids'.

It was a great evening. It was good to be around so many people. 

In other news, transfer calls are this Saturday, and Elder Blinn is going home, so I will for sure be getting a new companion. Wish me luck!

Love you all,

Elder Hadden


Chinese surname - when asked what his Chinese surname actually is, Elder Hadden responded:  "Han. 韓 It literally means 'Korea'.  Korean names can all be translated directly into Chinese. As far as I know, Chinese was pretty much the only writing system in Asia way back when, so most other Asian languages have very strong ties to Chinese."