THIRTY-NINE

Bonjour tout le monde!

Even though it's only been a few days since I sent my last email late last week so much has happened! I'll pick things up where I left off last Wednesday! So, after I sent my email...

We went over to Louis and Landry's apartment for a lesson. Landry was actually in Québec City unexpectedly to go visit a friend so we just met with Louis. He is doing so well! When we got there he had cleaned the apartment and had his Book of Mormon on the table waiting for us. We wanted to do a follow up lesson on the Restoration and start teaching him about the Plan of Salvation. We had the whole lesson planned out (something that we normally don't do!) and it went... well I didn't go anything like we planned! We asked him about his reading from the Book of Mormon and he was excited to tell us about what he had learned. We had him read Alma 32 and he loved it! He had a lot of questions about who Alma was and we ended up telling the story of the Book of Mormon again. He really liked it and would sometimes fill in where he could. Afterwards we started to introduce the Plan of Salvation and he wanted to know about President Monson. So we decided to watch the highlights from this last General Conference. He absolutely loved it! We had to go at that point so we left him with a good bit of the video to finish. We are going to try to commit him to be baptized the next time we meet on Wednesday! Pray that he will be open to the invitation! After that we went to go contact a few of the referrals that we had received earlier that week. No one was home but we knocked around the area and talked to a few people. We read with Eric before going home that night and then got all unpacked from our trip to Québec.

Thursday! We had a pretty busy day full of missionary work! In the morning we went to the Friperie like normal and helped them load bags of clothes into the semi. They were pretty backed up with the amount of donations from spring cleaning and asked if we could come again the next morning as well for an hour. I really like the people there! Hélène, the manager, told us that "les Elders" have been coming ever since 1993! That is so nuts! But anyways... We did some knocking and tried to contact the referrals again—still no luck. So we went out to St. Blandine to see Karole and Calvin (remember "Husband"? Yeah well his name is actually Calvin.) They were doing pretty well! They told us about some crazy news from the States. Those tornadoes in Oklahoma sounded intense! We started to teach them about the Plan of Salvation and it became apparent very quickly that we are going to have to go very slowly with them. The rest of the day was filled with knocking and pass-by's.

Friday! So at this point we knew we had permission from President Cannon to go to Montréal for the weekend with our branch for Stake Conference. We were planning on having Louis and Landry come with us and get a ride from some of the members. We hadn't heard back from them yet and we were supposed to be leaving in a few hours so I gave them a call. Louis answered and told me that they weren't coming because now he had to go to Québec City. We were devastated! We thought that that meant we couldn't go to Montréal so we called President Cannon to see what to do. I told him what had happened and this is what he said, "Well if you don't go then who's going to help in the temple?" I was speechless. I finally asked, "Wait, what?" He said, "Really the only reason I'm sending you to Montréal is to work in the temple on Saturday morning. Your branch is doing baptisms for the dead, right? And they don't have enough endowed priesthood holders so you'll have to help." We were so shocked! We got to go to the temple!! So we quickly packed our stuff, ran to the Friperie and helped for an hour, then met up with the members who were taking us down and got on the road! We got our sleeping arrangements figured out on the way and would be staying with the missionaries in Longueuil. We stopped to have dinner with the Fourtina's at their home and then they took us to the apartment. We got there at about 9:30.

On the way to Montréal we stopped at a Fromagerie and bought some "kwick kwick" (squeaky) cheese! So good!

And some garlic bread. Also delicious!

And stopped in a forest for a break. I just woke up.

Saturday morning we woke up, got dressed and then went to the temple! I cannot tell you how big of a blessing this was! It was incredible. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the temple lately and to be able to go and partake in the work there was beyond what I could imagine! Elder Ruby and I did an endowment session in French and then helped with the baptisms. It is amazing how much you can learn when you listen in another language. You pay attention to smaller details and they way things are said. I have a new appreciation for the temple and outlook on my relationship with Heavenly Father. What a blessing! So we spent almost the entire day in the temple! The rest of the day was spent doing missionary work with the Longueuil elders. That night we went to a session of Stake Conference and I ran into Caitlin! It was so good to see her active as ever! 

Knocking with Elder Laguan. Cool guy!

Sunday we went to Stake Conference and learned a lot! I got to see and catch up with some old friends from Montréal! Then it was back on the road to Rimouski! We drove almost the entire day and made it home safe and sound! It's good to be back in Rimouski!

I'm out of time! I love all of you and I'm grateful to have so many supportive friends and family members! I hope you have a fantastic week! 

Avec amour,

Elder Ellis