FIFTEEN

Bonjour et Joyeux Noël!

Hello from Montréal! Well, as of this morning it has just started to snow! I hear that Utah is looking nice and white! I am so excited for Christmas (understatement of the decade...) I don't know if I've already written this but I'll be spending this Christmas Eve with a good friend, Phil. His family has us over for dinner once a week. I love them! I'm especially excited because there is a chance that we might be able to attend Christmas Mass—something that I've always wanted to do!—at the huge cathedral here called St. Joseph's. Then I'll be spending Christmas Day with the Glowa family! Christmas has always been such a big deal to me! I was writing Nicole earlier last week trying to explain just how much fun I have had during this season in the past. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for always making it mean so much! I am so sorry about the last two weeks and my lame emails! Let's get into this last week!

Last Monday ended amazingly at Family Home Evening with the YSA. We met a wonderful girl named Kayla who came with her friend April to the activity. She seems really interested and already has a lot of friends at the YSA. I am so grateful to be working with them! The activities that we have throughout the week are such a great way to introduce the Branch along with the Gospel to our investigators. 

Tuesday was busy! Elder Baker and I had to run to the store to pick up a few things that we forgot to buy the day before for the apartment. We are trying our best to make more of our own food to learn to cook better and be more healthy. Mom, you should send a few more of your delicious recipes! We met Cedric at Lotto Québec (Québec's main lottery company) because he wanted to show us his office and give us some music for the upcoming Christmas concert. I'll write more about that later. It was weird being in that building because it honestly felt like being in enemy territory! I couldn't help but laugh walking around in the halls—we kept getting funny looks. Afterwards we grabbed lunch with Elder Baker, Elder Smith, and Phil before they left to their new areas. We went to a place called Boccadio's, a really good Venezuelan restaurant, and got a big basket of beef empanadas. We got to the office and Sister Arhets asked me to run over to their apartment and "fix their internet" for them so Elder Baker and I went over with them to see what we could do... It was so messed up. But I got everything working and she gave us some really good candy-cane ice cream. It seems like just about every week I am going to someone's apartment and fixing something for them. President Cannon should just have me be the tech-guy for the mission! That night after knocking, Asli invited us to her final concert at McGill! We went and it was amazing! She played a harp duet and there were violins and cellos and ah! It was just amazing! We are trying to set up more frequent lessons with her—finals have been keeping everyone busy it seems!

Wednesday was transfers day! One of Elder Baker's companions came over in the morning to say goodbye before he left for home and we had a fun little reunion down in the lobby of our building! Our building is so nice! It honestly looks and feels like a 5-star hotel! I absolutely love living downtown!! We took Merianne, a less active in the YSA, to an employment session with Elder Aloi to see if we could possibly get her a new job that would allow her to come to church on Sundays. While we were at the chapel we practiced some of the music that Cedric had given us. We got to meet the new Sisters! (The YSA now has Elder Baker and me, and Sœur Nilsen and Sœur Lopez.) We are so excited to work with them! They'll be able to bring a whole new energy to the YSA! The Zone Leaders wanted to grab lunch with us so we went to a little pizza parlour. After knocking we went to sports night with a few of our investigators and I dominated—as always :)

Thursday we had our Zone Study and I got to meet a lot of new Elders from other areas that had just come in. We did a few fun role-play activities and talked about establishing our "Mission Culture." It was one of my favourite meetings so far! We went knocking after having lunch together, and found a great building! I'm sure that knocking is super different here than any other area in the mission because you can knock a single building for a week and never a single block in a month! We try to spread out as much as we can, though. Phil invited us over for dinner with his mom and sister, both non-members. On the way out to his house, I had a wonderful conversation on the bus with a kid about my age who loves hacking. It was funny because I struck up the whole conversation based on a sticker I saw on his bag—the Linux penguin. I really have been prepared by the Lord to do this work and to talk to the people that I have. There are some people that I've run into that I honestly feel like no one else could touch the way that I can. I don't mean to say that out of pride or anything of the like—we are all unique! We helped Phil move some furniture around his house because of the remodel that they're in the middle of. We had a great night with them!

...I just looked at the time. I have to run! AH! The best parts of the week were coming up! Sorry, I guess I haven't acquired the skill of writing good letters like my brother has! I'll do my best to finish this week's experiences in the next letter or in a letter home.

Bises! (In France it means "kisses!" but here it means "lots of love!")

Elder Ellis