May 18 Perhaps the Best Day on our Mission

We dedicated May 18 entirely to the Lord. Saturday is supposedly our “Preparation Day” to do necessary duties such as laundry, cleaning, and site seeing. But this day was very different: we had 7 baptisms that we were greatly involved with.

Then, after the baptisms and confirminations were accomplished, we jumped into the car, accompanied by a Sister Companionship and a recent newly baptized sister, and headed to the temple where we met other recent converts and introduced them to doing temple work for their deceased ancestors. Elder Morris provided instructions and helped administer the cerimonies. Sister Morris assisted with the smooth operation. When we were completed, we met together on the temple steps for lots of hugs and picture taking. Sister Morris also decided to invite many of the participants over for dinner on Sunday where she not only fed 11 of them but also got some started in the Family Search program of creating their own genology trees. Many of these individuals came from Africa and written genology is scarce but she got them started and got them family names to take to the temple themselves. We had also helped several take their own names to the temple for the first time.

Now some of you might wander what kind of an apartment the Morris’s have to sit 11 people in and the answer is small, real tiny. We have a table with a leaf (the only one in the mission as far as we know) that fills our whole apartment but some had to sit on the couch.

The Senior Missionaries had planned a trip to The Canadian Tulip Festival held in Ottawa hosted at the Commissions Park. It is a very large park with a lake in the center and literally acres of tulips surrounding it. We had decided because of everything going on in our Ward as well as the fact that May 18th was the funeral of our wonderful friend, Connie Schmidt, to celebrate her life by serving the Lord, we didnt go with the other Senior Missionaries, and we went instead on May 11th.

The Canadian Tulip Festival was established to celebrate the historic Royal gift of tulips from the Dutch to Canadians immediately following the Second World War as a symbol of international friendship. The Festival preserves the memorable role of the Canadian troops in the liberation of the Netherlands and Europe, as well as commemorates the birth of Dutch Princess Margriet in Ottawa during World War II—the only royal personage ever born in Canada. The Dutch royal family went into exile when the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940

Upon returning to the Netherlands, Princess Juliana sought to thank Ottawa and the Canadian people with several gifts, including 100,000 tulip bulbs. Since then, the Dutch royal family has sent tulip bulbs (10,000) to Canada’s capital each year – a lasting gift known as the “Tulip Legacy” which inspired the festival. 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of this Gift of Tulips, and the end of World War II. In honour of this landmark year and lasting friendship, a special Liberation75 tulip was created to represent the relationship between Canada and the Netherlands. 

The Canadian Tulip Festival has been celebrating the tulip, an international symbol of friendship and peace, since 1953.

OK now just enjoy the pictures. All pictures show tulips (some very exotic) except the tree in blossom is not a tulip but it was too beautiful to ignore.

A picture of my favorite tulip.

Last thought…..Elder Morris finished his first big project at the Archieves today…58 boxes of legal documents!!!!!

May 10: An Once in a Lifetime Experience

So this NEVER happens!! Below is a picture of every missionary serving in the Canadian Montreal Mission on May4th. Everyone was quietly informed that a special meeting with all missionaries would take place on May 4th. Some missionaries had to fly in, others came by train, bus or car. We had to find overnight accomidations for every person requiring some junior missionaries to spend the night on blow up mattresses on the floor of other missionaries. The Senior missionaries were put up in hotels for one night. WHY you ask? If you look closely in the picture, seated in the center, next to President Harkness, is Elder Gong from the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and his wife Sister Gong. Elder Gong was accompanied by The President of the 11th Quorum of the Seventy for the North American Northeast Territory Dominic R. Sénéchal and later joined by the Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric L. Todd Budge and they proceeded to (one-by-one) shake hands of everyone there. If you look closely, Sister and Elder Morris are on the right side towards the front. After this picture was taken, we spent two hours in instruction by both Elder Gong and his wife. The next day, Sunday, we had Presiding Bishopric Counselor Budge also address us at our Stake Conference. Both Elder and Sister Morris sang in the choir on Sunday and it was absolutely fantastic. We sang “Redeemer of Isreal” with both the piano and organ as accompiment, and they had an Africain American that sang solo, that made it feel like a Southern Baptist revival, but it was beautiful. You didn’t know Sister Morris sang did you?

Elder Gong shook everyone hands and as he looked into our eyes he truely made us feel that we were here – at this time, and in this place – to do the work that the Lord has called us to do.

What a wonderful oppertunity it was to rub shoulders with all 236 Junior Missionaries and 35 Senior Missionaries and to listen to these wonder people who have been called to lead us at this time. Elder Gong asked the missionaries all of the attributes of our Mission President and his wife. They came up with wise, humble, forgiving, obedient, charitable, commitment, love, diligent, bold, their faith in God, integrety, patient, sacrafice, committed to the missionary purpose, and with an eye to the glory of God. Elder Gong told us that we needed to emulate all of these Godly Characteristics. He also talked about that fact that each of us are called of God for the purpose of serving the Lord here in Canada and so has our Companions. And that they need to learn to love their companions, that isn’t very hard for Elder Morris and I, (we have done it for almost 50 years now). And he told the story about Elder Quintan Cook and how he and Elder Holland were missionary companions and how he learned to love him when they served together on their missions and how he still takes care of him now and incouraged the missionaries to all do the same.

I love how Elder Gong taught us about the Savior. We are told that when we are resurected, our bodies will be perfect. Christ still has the holes in his, hands, wrists, feet and side because this is his perfect resurected state. This helps us all to remember everything that he has done for us as he atoned for all of our sins and made it possible for us to live with him again.

I loved Sister’s Gongs talk. She is a former school teacher and she had us all write our own “psalm”. Elder Morris didn’t finish his but I’ll add mine here. She gave us the bolded words and we had to write our own words after. I would like to encourage each of you to write your own psalm.

Praise Ye the Lord

For he hath Stregthened me and my Testimony.

The Lord, is my redeemer and my Savior

And I will follow his commandments so that I can return to live with him someday.

Elder Gong made sure that we all knew that were were call by God, and by President Russel M. Nelson, to serve here in Canada, at this time so that we could be here to meet, teach, influence and help all the people that have been brought here and prepared to imbrace the gospel. We have been brought here for them. What a wonderful humbling experience it is to be here and to serve. The weekend was filled with many more insites that help to strenthen our testimonies of the gospel, of missionary work, of the temple, of the power of the atonement, of keeping the commandments and the power that it brings to us and our families as we serve. We are so blessed. We are so thankful for this oppurtunity.

The night before the meeting, all of the Senior Missionaries gathered for a dinner together. Below is our only picture of all of the Senior Missionaries serving in the Canadian Montreal Mission. We are standing on the steps of the mission home. I havn’t told you much about the mission home so now is a good time to describe it. It was originally a police station. The Church purchased the buiding and rennovated the interior so that it now serves the work of the Lord. On the bottom floor, is a recreation room where games like ping pong, pool, and other games are played. Down the hallway is a full chapel and two wards meet in the building. It also has a baptismal font on the bottom floor. The second floor has mostly storage and a full gymnasium. The third floor is where the mission office is and has several offices, a conference room, the reception area and the President’s office. There is an elevator for those not wanting to negotate the stairways.

After dinner, we rolled up our sleeves and prepared more than a hundred sack lunches for all of the missionaries who would have to travel back to their locations as quickly as possible.

On our next blog, we will take you to the “Tulip Festival” in Ottawa.

May 4: Sites of the “Old Worf” of Montreal

Saturday the sun came out so some of the Senior Missionaries decided to go walk the old docks. This area was the industrial strength of Montreal for many decades. Today, they are more of a “tourest trap” as they are now the areas frequented by cruise ships and vacationing tourests. Since this is still barely spring, most of the “quaint” shops are still closed but every week we see more weekend only places appearing. Come walk with us through the century…

From 1616 until the creation of the new docks in 1936 (located north of Montreal), boats docked here at this location to unload goods and services from all over the world. Today, the old docks are used for small boating and other commercialism products. In 1863, these docks played a major role in the development of Canada with more than 1600 ships docking that year and transporting more than 25,000 sailors.

The docks have been taken over with gift shops, sight seeing statues and restaurants. Some of the docks have HUGE concrete structures so big that they are still just hanging around because no one has figured out how to demolish them and get rid of that much concrete..

Some of the docks have been converted into recreation areas including the giant Ferris Wheel. It is the tallest observation wheel in Canada at 60 meters (200 feet) and rotates on a 20 minute cycle. So you get on and it rotates once in 20 minutes and then you get off. It’s called La Grande Roue de Montreal and costs $30 per person. We obviously have not ridden it.

Although we didn’t get down to the real old Montreal area of the city, alot of the docks and water areas have interesting buildings including some extradinary churchs and other structures. The bottom right picture is actually the entrance to “Old Montreal” but we will take better pictures when summer gets here and everything is in blossom. Speaking of blossom, Sister Morris and I are going to travel to Ottawa next weekend to attend the annual “Tulip Festival” and we should have some pretty good pictures from that.

From the worf, turning and looking inland, you can see the skyline of Montreal. “Bonjourn” of course is “Hello” in French. At night the skyline is really impressive as all of the buildings are lit up.

We decided that we would have dinner and so found us a little place to eat.

Dinner is Served

Being down on the docks, just blocks away from Old Montreal, affords us an opportunity to have a very unique atmosphere. Live music makes the dinner even more unique.

Food Ordered

Food on the docks has a certain kind of flair to it. French Crepes from Jarden Nelson is a must experience. We have decided it’s our new favorite place to eat.

Hungry Senior Missionaries

Senior Missionaries from Left to right: Sister Jones, Elder and Sister Bushaw, Elder and Sister Loftus, Elder and Sister Washburn and us enjoying outdoor dinner.

Location. Location. Location

Here we are standing in front of the entrance to Jarden Nelson’s restaurant. Yes, it is that narrow alley behind us. It’s a terrace restaurant and one of the best dinners we have had in Montreal.

April 21: Joy, Success and Miracles

Hi to all of our family and friends and best wishes from Montreal. Tomorrow, Peggy is presenting “Joy, Success and Miracles” in our Senior Missionary Meeting. We thought we would share what she is going to say.

As most of you know, Hal and I work in the Montreal Archives doing record preservation. On a day to day bases I straighten papers, put documents in numarical order and remove fasteners all day. If you looked at this aspect of our mission it might make you question….why am I here? On a side note, I wonder the similarities that I have with the seamstress who sewed all the fastenours on these documents and used all the pins to put these paper together using the sames skills I use as a quilter.

When we were doing scripture study the other day I ran across this scripture in Words of Morman 1:7 .

“and now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will“.

I know that the ‘miracles ‘ we are looking for won’t come really till we go on to the other side and I imagine to myself that someone will run up to me and say…”oh thank you, you took out all the fasteners and prepared those documents in the Montreal Library so that they could be photographed and sent to Family Search where my great great great granddaughter was able to find them and connect me in her genealogy. Then she took my name to the temple and was finally able to do all the Temple Work that I have been so patiently waiting for. Thank you so much, my family is now all sealed as an Eternal Family”.

Before we got here in Montreal on March 4^th, the Missionaries set a goal to do 1,000,000 clicks by the end of 2024, we updated our records and we have done 324,542 as of last Friday. We are 1/3rd if the way there, and 1/3 of the year!

At General Conference Elder Brent H Nielson said : “My friends at Family Search have taught me that over one million new names are added to Family Search each day. If you didn’t find your ancestor yesterday, I invite you to look again tomorrow. When it comes to gathering Israel on the other side of the veil, there has never been a better time to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than today.” To me…this is the Miracle that we have been waiting to see. Maybe just a little bit of what we are doing now in the Montreal Archives is helping someone to link there families together.

This was my Miracle #1.

Before we moved to Montreal. Sister Washburn, one of the Senior missionaries we work with, let me read the letter she sent to her family and friends where she described how there are people congregating here in Montreal from all over the world : Vietnamese, Haitian, Brazilian, Nova Scotia, British, Chinese, Canadian, Peru, Barbados, Philippines, and Nigeria, 1st Nation, Mohawk and Kahnawake, I’ll add to that Ghana, Kenya, Iran, India, Turkey, ect..ect..ect. Montreal has become a melting pot of cultures and I truly know that they have been brought here to find the Gospel and strengthen the Gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. A friend of mine wrote in a text to us : “these people (investigators and new members) are, the “field is white and ripe for the harvest”.  No wonder your mission is having so much success with (the) gathering Israel.  “Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.”  (2 Ne 1:6).”

What a joy and miracle it is to me to work in what ever way I can, with these wonderful, humble children of God. They love the Lord and Jesus Christ. Most of them already have a testimony and love for the Savior. The additional knowledge of the Book of Morman and the Church just gives them an increased love for the Lord. They love our Montreal Ward family, are here to be LOVED into the Gospel. They call me Mama, and Hal Papa (I’m sure it is the gray hair), but it is so enduring to me.

This is Miracle 2

On to Miracle 3

I have tried for months to learn new things, like french, and I just can seem to do it. I excuse myself because of my old brain. I just don’t think I can learn anymore. President and Sister Harkness ask all missionaries in the Montreal Mission to memorize something in preparation for Elder Gong coming to our mission on May 4th. I knew I would not be able to do it. But Miracle #3 I have memorized Moroni 10:32

`President Russell M. Nelson has taught us to seek and expect miracles,.. It is a work of miracles, attended by angels. It is the work of heaven, and it blesses all God’s children.‘

Miracles still do happen today. I know that as we are perfected in Christ and as we help all of these wonderful new members of the Church strengthen their testimonies that we too can feel and never deny the power of God. And I say this in the name of jesus Christ. Amen.

April 4: The Montreal Archives

We promised you a tour of the Archives de Montreal.

This is a picture of the archives from outside. You can see that it is a large building multiple stories tall.

Here is Peggy approaching the front door. When you think about a library, you think of rows and rows of books.

This is the stairway leading to the reception area where many social events (even wedding receptions) are conducted.

This is the Reception Area as seen from three stories above it. This only shows part of the area.

Here is a view of the floors that look over the Reception Area. There are many offices on each floor.

This is the metal stairway leading from the Reception Area to the Archive. Before you get there, you have to walk through the forest.

Of course, these trees are artificial. The leaves are metal but its kind of fun to have an area where you can sit in the forest and read. But before you get to the archive itself, you have to get past the “Ladies” who stand guard at the entrance to the archive.

Welcome to Archive de Montreal

Here is what the Archives look like inside.

The first thing you notice about the upper levels is that the floor is made out of sound suppressant materials or covered in sound suppressant materials. Footsteps are silent, even on the circular iron rail stairway. It is really quiet. As you walk along the desks lined up in a row, your feet almost sink into the flooring and its bouncy. But then you see the archive levels of research stations and it takes your breath away.

The archives itself houses all of the records for the Montreal area covering hundreds of years: Vital Records like birth, death, marriage, citizenship, census, wills, pre-marriage agreements, military and more including business dealings, ownerships, debts, leases, sales, inventories and anything that required a legal document.

“Many times I have wondered why we have been called on a “Records Preservation Mission”. We do the same thing every day. It can be very repetitive. But I do know that it must be very important to the Lord. It’s helping to gather Israel-on the other side of the veil. It is getting more and more important to do the temple work for our ancestors. We may never know what we do here in Montreal and how what we are doing to helping members of the Church find their ancestors. Brent Nelson of the Quorum of the 70s said in General Conference (Saturday) that 20,000 new names are added to Family Search every day. I’m thinking what we are doing is part of those numbers. Yesterday, I listened to an old talk by Hugh B. Brown entitled “God is the Gardener”:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oDrhvm9EnJ4%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Brother Brown said that when he was turned down for an advancement in the Army because he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was very angry. He had done everything right. The Lord told him through much prayer that if he was given that advancement in the Army, that he would not have become what the Lord wanted him to become. The Lord knows us . . . He gives us opportunities in life so that we can become who he wants us to be. We are having great opportunities as we preserve the records and also as we work in the Montreal Ward, working with the missionaries, large number of new members and the investigators. The Lord is blessing us, strengthens our testimonies and giving us great opportunities to grow closer to our Heavenly Father.

The Field is White Already to Harvest. . .

This is a picture of the “Zone Conference” we recently attended. The missions in the Church are organized into territories called Zones. There are multiple zones in every mission. Zones are further divided into Districts which can encompass six to twelve Elders or Sisters. Elder are paired with Elders and Sisters with Sisters (except the Senior Missionaries). Elder and Sister Morris belong to the Mount Royal Zone. Our District Leader is around 20 years old but they really respect us. Mission President Harkness and his wife Sister Harkness are in the middle of the picture.

Missionary work is growing very fast in the Canada Montreal Mission. We have been here just one month and have been involved in five baptisms in our ward. We have been most involved with Kami from Nigeria. She calls Hal and I “Mama and Papa”. Abby was baptized yesterday. She was very excited and bore her testimony and sang a song about her relationship with God. We worked quite close with her.

Mother and daughter from Iran

There are several other individuals to be baptized in the next several weeks. We have invited a half a dozen “Friends” (individuals who are investigating church and new members) to watch General Conference and have lunch at our apartment.

For our zone, we have had 43 baptisms this month. As you look at the graphic for this week, you will see the goals and what the missionaries achieved. They met 236 “New Friends” meaning they taught a short lesson, got contact information and invited them to church and 211 showed up.

They had 112 lessons with members involved. The zone has 12 individuals with baptism dates scheduled, 6 baptisms this week and 70 new members out of 84 at sacrament meeting last week. The missionaries invited a friend to church last week and he brought 11 of his friends with him./

This is the statistics for the whole mission for this week. The mission has had 76 baptism this month with approximately 147 baptisms this year. The numbers in RED indicate the highest number ever achieved in the mission. The missionaries here must really be doing something right. The Lord is blessing them for all of their hard work and the people they are teaching are ready to receive the Gospel. The members are welcoming them in, with open arms, and helping them to feel a part of the Ward Family. In the upper left hand corner is President and Sister Harkness.

March 17: Chapel full

Many of these new members are relocated from countries around the world who are seeking a better life in Montreal.  Clearly the mission is finding success with refugees / relocations from Africa: Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Congo and other nations are finding the Church to be very appealing.  Many of these people know the Bible very well and have found the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be true.  The missionaries meet with the people, give them the address of the church and invite them to attend on Sunday. We have between 10 and 50 new investigators show up each week.

Our daytime job is to save paper records that are more than a hundred years old by converting them into digital records. We received notice that the records we did our first week here are already available on the Family Search website. Although this does not show what Hal does very well, you can imagine that under his right hand, in that box, is about 350 documents. Each document may have multiple pages requiring him to place the front page facing upwards towards the camera. His left foot hovers over a foot switch and when the document is just perfect, he touches the foot switch triggering the camera to make a digital image of the page. Then he may have to open the document to examine the insides and place each printed page upright for imaging. Documents can be a single page or up to 8 pages glued together in one corner. When he is all done, he closes the document and places it in the box to his left. These documents were originally hand written in the 1870’s timeframe. Here is a sample of the cursive handwriting and signatures on every page.

These an are the wonderful people we work with every day. From right to left (cause you already know the people on the left end) is Sister Jones (from Salt Lake City), Elder and Sister Washburn (from Missouri), Sister Clawson (from Magna, UT) and us. We counted the number of images we created from the first of the year until the first of March and the total was around 187,000 images. Our area supervisor visited with us during the week and revealed that Elder Morris and Sister Jones would be getting a new project in the coming weeks that we will be working on for the remainder of our mission: it is estimated to be 10 million documents and is all vital records (like birth, death, census, and marriage documents).

Sister Morris’s (Peggy) job is quite different from Brother Morris’s job (Hal). She does what’s called “Preparation” which includes removing staples from documents, unfolding and straitening documents, sequencing documents in numerical order, building boxes of records ready for digitizing. It’s a tough job because the documents usually arrive in whatever order they have been stored for over a hundred years. Records may be stuck together and incomplete.

Let me introduce you to The Metro.  This is the underground subway that runs throughout the city.  It is great!  The trains are about 100 yards long, run every 2 minutes during rush hour, and literally go almost everywhere we need to go.  As Senior Citizens, we get to ride for free so we use it a lot.  We go to work (at the Archive), go to church, go to the doctor (or the the hospital) and even go grocery shopping via the Metro, I’ve seen people with luggage bags going to the airport. We always ask people if we can get somewhere on the Metro first.  FREE! You get on the train, the doors close, and it takes off like a rocket speeding up to 60 to 70 MPH before it even leaves the station.  You get to wherever you’re going really fast. It’s about an average of 4 to 5 minutes between stations.

While I’m talking about the Metro, let me tell you about how thoughtful the Montreal people are.  When we get on the Metro, someone will immediately offer Peggy (and sometimes Hal) their seat.  It happens almost on every Metro ride.  They are very considerate to their Senior Citizens.  The other thing is if you look confused, someone will approach you and ask you where you need to go and then tell, or show you, how to get there.  We even had a middle aged man escort us through a series of underground tunnels, taking time out of his day, to reach our destination. We were not alone so we were OK with these people helping us. They never ask for anything in return.  They are just good Samaritan’s. Another thing about the Metro is that street people can take shelter in the Metro during rain or snow or night. It is pretty normal to see a street person asleep in a corner on the cement floor. No one bothers them. Rather than asking for money, they perform some musical instrument for their donation.

Stay tuned for our next blog because it will “blow your socks off”. We will be taking you on a tour of the building we work in. You will not believe it as it is one of the “Wonders of Montreal”.

February 29, 2024 Row, row, row your boat . . .

We have heard from the missionary travel department as to how we will be going into Canada.  We will leave the MTC on Thursday, February 22 in the afternoon and drive to Mom and Dad’s house to stay overnight in SLC.  We will have to be at the airport at 4am to catch a jet to Atlanta where we will change jets and head for Montreal.  The plan is for us to apply for a “Work permit” at the passport office.  Then we will go to a hotel at the airport, stay overnight and catch a plane to Minneapolis.  A four hour layover puts us on a plane back to SLC where we will pack up the car and then decide if the weather is good enough to start our drive back to Montreal.  Depending upon weather, we could transit the 2300 miles in four days or take longer if the weather doesn’t hold.  Upon arriving at the border, we will present our papers to the border guards who may question us as to why we are going back to Montreal so quickly and the answer as detailed by the church legal department is: “They told us we could bring our car so we went home and got it.”

Things went smoothly as described above except two things: we only had a little more than 30 minutes to transfer between our arrival gate in Atlanta in the A terminal to our departure gate in the I terminal. Our flight arrived early which barely gave us enough time to make the transfer. Peggy registered more than 6,000 steps between them while Hal rode in a wheel chair pushed by a very fit young person.

The second delay was waiting for customs in Montreal.

We arrived in Montreal a little after 6 pm, made our way to customs, where they would issue to us our work permits, and then a quick jump to the hotel. We received a number, and sat down to wait until they called us. One hour. Two hours. Finally they called us and we presented our legally prepared papers provided from the Church. Another hour later, they called us up and presented our completed work permits. We arrived at the hotel after 9:30 without any food. Nothing at the hotel. We shared an oatmeal cookie between us but just like the miracle of the “loaves and fish” we were satisfied.

The next morning we were up at 3 am to catch our international flight to Minneapolis. Then a flight to SLC arriving mid afternoon. The only noteworthy part of that trip was when we landed in SLC and made our way to the curb we were in our missionary attire and suddenly two very youthful Spanish speaking missionaries (an Elder and a Sister) approached us asking in their broken English “Please help us”! They had just arrived from Peru. They showed us their travel papers and we called the number on it to the MTC but because it was Saturday, no one was at the office. Peggy found an airport employee who told us that they knew where they needed to go and escorted them away. They were so young looking compared to us but their faces glowed with the Spirit and we were uplifted by them.

We carefully kept up on the weather and an approaching storm decided when we would begin our easterly drive. We left Sunday morning early, stopped in Evanston, WY to give Barry a hug and then proceeded down I-80, most of the way to the east coast where we made a sharp left turn to go to northern New York. Because of modern technology, we were able to attend our Chandler Stake Conference ce while we were driving across southern Wyoming.

We made note about the wonderful country we passed through. Our thoughts about Nebraska was mostly flatland with wide open acreage between housing. Farmland as far as you could see in every direction. Iowa was similar but with gentle rolling hills. The housing is widespread but each home was surrounded with a barn, silos, various farm equipment trees and HUGE acreages of whatever crop they had. Of course in late February, everything is brown awaiting the spring planting but it was easy to envision what they will be looking like in just a few months when everything will be green. We also drove through Indiana, Ohio and some of Pennsylvania before turning north through New York.

We had frequent stops, changed drivers, slept in reasonable hotels and had great weather until the last day. The storm coming from the west caught up to us and it rained most of our last leg to just short of the border. In Illinois, we skirted Chicago and learned the next day that they had tornadoes in that facinity. We were blessed to have stayed ahead of the storm.

We spoke with the mission home and they told us to arrive about noon so we had a leisurely morning seeing that we were just 50 miles from the border and Montreal was just on the other side.

Here is our picture with President David Harkness and his wife Sister Lisa Harkness. They are wonderful people and have really had fantastic success here in Montreal.

Upon our arrival, we had a crew of missionaries assist us in moving ALL of that stuff you saw in our first blog picture from our car to our apartment. We have been assigned to the Montreal (English speaking) ward and will attend our first Sunday tomorrow. We want to just express how grateful we are for the many blessings we have already enjoyed.  We wear our Elder and Sister badges full time and had so many people greet us with a big smile and congratulations on our mission.  They want to know where we are going and what we will be doing.  We are sharing the Gospel with just our being there.  

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February 17th, 2024

The MTC Experience

We want to tell you about the Missionary Training Center (MTC) experience.

The Provo, Utah MTC houses as many as 3000 new missionaries weekly.

There are 11 total MTC’s across the globe.

Peggy and Hal were only two out of four missionaries called to the “Records Preservation” mission out of all the missionaries called this week.

We arrived Monday morning at our assigned time where we were greeted by a host of volunteers who helped us with our luggage and getting the car parked.  Our room is not spacious but very adequate with a queen sized bed, dresser, closet and bathroom.  We didn’t expect anything more as this room is used almost continuously every week by Senior Missionaries entering the MTC.  In fact, we learned that the second week of our stay, we will be housed in a local hotel for the week because they need the room for new Senior Missionaries entering the MTC.  They reported to us that we were one of 86 senior couples reporting for service this week.  We heard that there are up to 3000 total missionaries at any one time arriving and leaving from the Provo, Utah MTC. Wednesday is when a great many young missionaries will be leaving while another batch of missionaries arrive. 

Life in the MTC is like going back to college.  We need to get up and get dressed by 7 am if we want breakfast.  We eat together with the junior missionaries. There is a variety of breakfast meals, both hot and cold, then we head to class by 8 am.  Although the Senior missionaries have a solid grasp of the church doctrine, we are receiving the same training that the junior missionaries get.  It has been wonderful working alongside so many Senior and Junior missionaries.  Lunch and dinner are also served at appropriate times daily.  

We have also been busy at night with special activities including an organizational meeting where Hal was assigned as a District Leader over a group of 8 Senior Mssionaries.  On Wednesday night we had a “Devotional” (which is just a religious meeting) with a special speaker who turned out to be D Todd Christofferson.  He is a member of the 12 apostles.  The picture above is only half of those attending the Devotional. I would have had to turn the camera all the way around to capture everyone who was there.

The spirit here is wonderful with so many missionaries and we, as Senior Missionaries are looked upon as role models for the younger generation.  We love talking to them and finding out where they came from and where they are going on their mission.  We have met missionaries going to the Ivory Coast, South Korea, Vanuatu (by Australia), East Africa, many European countries, as well as Reno, Nevada and St. Paul Minnesota just to name a few.

This is our group of eight that we have spent the week with: Elder James Smith and Sister LeAnn Smith, Elder Steve Showell and Sister Mary Ann Showell, Elder John Webb and Sister Jan Webb, Elder Hal Morris and Sister Peggy Morris and one of our instructors Sister Lunt.

Out of everybody who is here, we are only one of two couples assigned to the Family History work of preserving and recording records for entry into the Family Search database.  The Family Search program is available FREE to everyone and includes family genealogy, census, birth and death records and much more.  If you have an interest in exploring your genealogy this is the world’s largest free genealogy database to draw from. Did I mention it is free and no one will come knocking on your door after you enroll.

Well this concludes the MTC experience.  Next week we will be getting additional training dealing with some very expensive camera equipment and we will include that in our next blog.  

P.S. You can send us emails anytime.  We want to hear from all of you and keep in touch.  Peggy.Morris@missionary.org and Hal.Morris@missionary.org

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• February 6th, 2024

Hello, oh I mean “Bonjour”.

We have had a wonderful Tuesday evening (February 6th) with our family joining us both in person as well as via ZOOM as we were set apart as Full Time Missionaries of the Church of Jesus  Christ of Latter-day Saints.  For those of you that don’t know, this is where we receive a special blessing, given by Our Stake President, who has the Priesthood authority, setting us apart as full time missionaries. Our Stake President Jeremy Grohman laid his hands upon our heads and pronounced  a special blessing to teach and preach the Gospel.  And also blessed us with other blessings that will help us on our Mission and throughout our lives. There was a lot of congratulations , hugging and tears as this represents the start of our mission. 

We will  report to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) on February 12th in Provo, Utah for two additional weeks of instructions and training. We will be joining hundreds of youthful women and men and other Senior Couples and Senior Sister’s who also have been called to Serve Missions.

We had previously done a “trial run” packing our car and it all fit BUT…these pictures tells the whole story…we don’t have any extra room!  

We are on our way leaving Wednesday morning at 4:30 am, driving through rain and snow and arriving safely in Salt Lake City about 6 pm. We are visiting with family and friends before checking ourselves into the MTC.