❄ Snow Day! ❄

January 17, 2022

Bonjour tout le monde!

This week was pretty cool, so cool in fact that it was literally freezing. Extremely original puns aside, it really has been a good week! 

This week was once again full of bus rides, cookie drop offs, phone calls, Facebook, and Zoom lessons - so lots of good stuff! I have to admit, I’ve probably experienced the most intense cold of my life during this past week. 

I’m trying to find the words to describe the sensation of feeling your eyelashes and eyebrows freezing together, but it’s honestly something you just have to experience for yourself to understand haha. It’s great to have lots of opportunities to say hi to people on the street and on the bus everyday, and it’s definitely good practice for French.

Speaking of new records, this week Elder Felix and I set a new record for the thickest Quebecois accent we’ve heard so far on our missions. I found the old paper records for people the missionaries had been teaching back in 2018, and after sorting through them I found a few promising records and among them was our new friend Steeve! We haven’t actually met him in person at all, but we talked with him over the phone and he seems really nice! Due to his accent and how fast he talks I’d estimate that I probably understand somewhere between 10-25% of what he says, but it is amazing to see just how much you can discern in a conversation solely through intonation and social cues haha. (The gift of tongues is real!) Steeve is really cool though and is willing to have more calls in the future! 

We were also able to officially start teaching another very Quebecois man named Luc this week! Luc has also met with missionaries a few times in the past, and we were able to get in touch with him over the phone. He is a little bit easier to understand since he talks slower, but I think his hearing isn’t the best which combined with our imperfect French also made for an interesting lesson. As I was sitting there mentally praying to know how to facilitate a meaningful lesson in spite of the language barrier, I felt prompted to simply read in the Book of Mormon with him so we were able to turn to Moroni 10 and remind him of Moroni's promise and it ended up going pretty well! It was a powerful reminder that even if I can’t always communicate perfectly with our friends, the Spirit can. The Gospel truly is preached by the “weak and simple things of the earth,” and I am grateful I get to participate in such a “marvelous work and a wonder!”

One exciting thing that we got to do this week was help a lady move! It was kind of sudden since we didn’t find out about the service until the morning of, but luckily we were available to help out! As I’ve mentioned in previous emails, service is pretty much the best thing ever. The one thing that made this service project interesting though was that the lady we were helping was apparently moving suddenly because of a falling out with her ex-boyfriend, and there were actually some police officers parked out front of the house to make sure nothing happened while she was getting ready to move to Gatineau…. Thankfully nothing too exciting happened. It was certainly interesting when the police officers called us over when we were walking up to the house haha

The most unique experience we had this week though was getting to go on a virtual exchange with the assistants! Apparently the assistants are in lockdown for potentially having Covid and with the Quebec Covid restrictions preventing any in-person exchanges, they decided it would be a perfect time to have some virtual exchanges. I was quite surprised when they called us up since assistants typically only do exchanges with zone leaders and I didn’t know what to expect from a virtual exchange, but it ended up being a great experience! A virtual exchange basically entails studying, finding on Facebook, and teaching together through video call. 

I was “with” Elder Lund for the day, and he was actually one of my zone leaders when I first arrived in New Brunswick, and he really is a wonderful missionary! He is super positive and fun to be around, and I definitely feel like I learned a lot from him. We ended up teaching two lessons: one to a lady they are teaching in Montreal in English and then another one with a couple in our branch that was in French. The Spirit was so strong in our first lesson with the lady in Elder Lund’s area, and the French lesson was also an adventure since, despite being originally called French speaking, Elder Lund has never actually served in a French area haha. The member couple was super awesome though and we ended up having a great discussion about faith and each of our favorite Book of Mormon stories. Overall, it was an awesome experience that I’m sure I will never forget!

One other unique thing that happened this week is that we had a mission wide meeting last night where President and Sister Harness informed us that due to winter storm Izzy, our pday is officially a snow day! Meaning that due to the storm and visibility/driving conditions they would like us to stay inside our apartments. Looking outside our window, it’s certainly been extra windy today but we haven’t had a ton of snow yet so I guess we’ll have to see what happens. Aside from our lights flickering a few times, things have been pretty calm.

Well that pretty much wraps things up for this week, but I hope that you are all doing well and staying warm! I’m so grateful for all of the unique experiences our Heavenly Father grants each of us as part of our mortal experience, and I gain a stronger testimony each day that He truly does tailor each of our lives individually to meet our needs and help us learn the lessons that will bless us and those we love for eternity.

Love you all,

Elder Jackson