NINE

Bonjour de Montréal!

Okay, where do I start? How about this—I love my mission! I'm here in Montréal and loving it! My Mom had a list of questions for me so I'll answer those and then try to remember what has happened in the past week! I say "try" because looking back on it now it feels like a 5 second-long blur!

(Okay, sorry, I actually don't have much time to write today. We have a lot to do so I'll just answer the questions.)

1.  Your companion? Actually... I have two! President Cannon put us in a tri-panionship for now because we're expecting another elder this week. My trainer is named Elder Baker. He is so cool! The other elder is Elder Smith! (That was actually pretty funny to me because in the MTC Frère Smith always joked about Elders that are named Smith.) He's been out for one transfer and he was actually in the MTC with me. Where is he from? Elder Baker is from Arizona and Elder Smith is from Salt Lake City. How long has he been serving? Elder Baker will hit his one year mark this Friday! How is his French? Elder Baker knows French really well and has been a huge help! 

2.  Your area? I am dying to hear where you actually are.  Rural? Nope! City? Yep! Beautiful? Of course—it's Montréal! Okay here's the best part... I'm in downtown Montréal in an area called McGill after the university here! So I'm serving in the YSA wards in both English and French! It is so much fun working with them! We have activity nights (Family Home Evening on Mondays, Sports night on Wednesdays, and Institute with soup and baguettes on Fridays!) for the students. Both the French and the English student wards are super strong with 50 members in each! I'm also a Facebook missionary so I'm putting my social networking skills to work!

The funny thing is that I'm actually writing this in the Apple Store in downtown Montréal right now! Wow... apparently Apple has been pretty busy! I'm staying focused, though!

3.  The food? So far the only food I've had is food that I've made, really. We don't have a lot of dinner appointments here because it's mostly students and we don't want to put a burden on them. But we did go out to have poutine the day that I got here with the Zone Leaders (Elder Austin Heder and his companion Elder Pohue!) Do you eat with members every day? Nope! Do I need to send recipes? I want to try making lasagna and tater tot casserole, so if you want to send me those that would rock!

4.  The language? French is the best! I absolutely love it! The accent here is so heavy, though. It was really hard to understand at first but I'm getting the hang of it. Mostly French where you are serving? Actually, I've done mostly English so far which is making it hard to really learn French but that's okay. I would say it's been 70% English. Are your ears growing accustomed to hearing it? Yep!

5.  The weather? The weather has been great! It's a little cold but I love it because I can finally start layering! It 

rained a little but today is perfect! Looks like rain (in Montréal at least) but you've never been one to let weather affect your attitude!

6.  Investigators? We have great investigators! We've found 11 new investigators this week and all of them are super excited to learn more! Sorry, I wish I could tell you more but we really have no time! Do you have a pretty good teaching pool? Have you helped teach any lessons yet? Oh, absolutely! I love teaching! Apple taught me so much about how to teach effectively and the MTC refined my style! Elder Baker lets me teach as much as I want to!

7.  Email time?  Do you have more than 30 minutes to email? After today I should have a little more time! We actually just got a call from President Cannon and the new Elder is here so we have to rush out to go help him and Elder Smith move into their new apartment. Would you still prefer that we send letters instead of long emails?  You can do what's easiest for you! I like the emails, though.

8.  Christmas? Can't wait! Is there anything you want/need for Christmas? Not necessarily! I like black liquorice and chocolate :) I am starting to plan and want to get things sent before Thanksgiving.  I know you don't want to pack lots of "stuff" around, so give it some thought.

Sorry, I really wish I had more time to tell you what's been happening! Just know that I'm absolutely entirely happy right now! 

Elder Ellis