Terrebonne, continued ...

So I'm sticking around in Terrebonne (SO HAPPY!), as is Sister Schmuhl but no longer as my trainer!  We're just companions now, as I am a fully fledged missionary #movingupintheworld



Sister Carpenter has been chopped, she's transferred out to Greenfield Park which is an English speaking area and Sister Beaumont (came in with me) is TRAINING in Mascouche! So, as exciting as that would be, I'm feeling very blessed.

One of my friends from the MTC serving in the West Indies (Elder Kwak) is training one of the elders the Terrebonne ward recently sent out (Elder Duplessis) which is just so exciting :) I've gotten really entertaining emails from them both.  It's a very small world, especially in the church.  It's got me thinking about all the amazing people I have met in the last four months (cannot believe it's already been four months) and how much each of them have changed me for the better.  Missions are supposed to be about serving others but I'm pretty sure I have been blessed and edified and served more than anyone around me, and definitely more than I expected.  

STOKED to hear about Josh's mission call, missions are just the coolest!  And what an amazing mission.  Hey, you there, you should go on a mission.  Everyone's doing it.  

All four of us sang in the Mascouche ward yesterday, a really pretty arrangement of "I'll go where you want me to go" in French.  I've missed singing so much, I felt very blessed to be able to do that, especially because it was right after we found out Sister Carpenter was being transferred.  After transfer calls, the song meant a lot more to all of us.  

And hopefully I'll get the chance to sing again soon, Lorenzo asked me and Sister Schmuhl to sing at his baptism which, if all goes well, will be this Sunday after the last session of General Conference.  Things are looking a little rocky at the moment with that but we're really hoping and praying that it will all be okay and that we'll have good news on that front by next PDay.

Speaking of General Conference, I am so excited for this weekend!  What an amazing opportunity we have every six months to hear from our beloved prophets, seers, and revelators.  I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to watch it in English or if it'll be a good eight hours of language study but the spirit is the same in every language (if there's nothing else I've learned on my mission, it's that).  I WAS able to watch the women's session in English and it was incredible :)  Our leaders are called of God and inspired in their teachings.  One of my favorite things that was said, I believe by President Uchtdorf, was answering the question "Can we only have happiness in eternity? Can't we be happy now?" to which he responded "Now is part of eternity." God created us to have joy. 2 Nephi 2:25.  

The open house for the temple in Montreal is now this transfer, I am so pumped!  It's been such a blessing to watch and help people get excited about the temple, members and nonmembers alike.  We and the Elders did a fireside last night on temples to (further) prepare people for the open house and it went really well. 

I am grateful for temples.  I am grateful for the priesthood.  I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father.  I am grateful for Sister Schmuhl and everything she has taught and continues to teach me about loving people with all of your heart, might, mind, and strength.

I love you!
Souvenez-vous qui vous etes ♥
Soeur Lonas

The moose mentioned in last letter :)

I ate moose!

Could I BE any more Canadian??  And it was delicious. Don't worry, we took pictures.

I'm pretty sure that we ended every single day this week saying "Well that was just our weirdest day yet." and then the next day would just be weirder.  SO many surprises!

I don't even know what to say in this letter, there were just so many ups and downs and I don't want to jinx it BUT one of our investigators now has a baptismal date for October 4th and we're feeling very anxious and hopeful about that.  So stressed.  Missionary work is so exciting!

Every single one of our dinner appointments cancelled on us this week which was a bummer but I got to do much more cooking than normal and that made me feel like myself :)  I really love making food for people.







And a member gave us a LOT of bread. It inspired a photo shoot. :)

 I've been reading Jesus the Christ by James E Talmage -- what a good book!  It feels so good to feel like I'm developing my own relationship with my Savior every day in more ways than one.  We cannot know Christ by knowing of Him, but knowing of Him is helping me learn how to get to know Him better and strengthen my personal relationship with Him.  I just love Jesus Christ so much.  I am trying to make more of an effort not to take his Atonement for granted, which is so hard because it is actually incomprehensible for me right now.  I cannot understand everything He went through for me.  But I can do my best to make sure it was not suffered in vain by repenting daily and using that as an opportunity to be better.

I love being a missionary so much.  I am completely blown away every single day by the love I feel for the people I serve and serve with.  I always think about what mom says -- "everyone is just doing the best they can."  So true.  People do really silly things.  But it makes sense to them, and they're just doing the best they can with the resources they have right now to go through life.  That doesn't always make it easy to love them but it can make it a little easier.

This weekend was so stressful, I wish I could share all of it with all of you and I'd probably cry even though so much of it was so good.  Just one thing, we are so grateful when ward members realize the value of a person's desire to learn more about the gospel and are willing to be a part of it.  There is so much power in member missionary work.

I love this quote from one of my friends serving in France "If you want to feel what heaven is like then I would ask you to love everyone around you and give them service, and then you will see that heaven is always closer than we think!"   Thanks, Elder Connell :)

Transfer calls will be coming on Saturday, I am already really worried about it and have had dreams about what I believe is every possible outcome so we'll see which one comes true! We're just waiting to see who gets kicked off the island.  It's totally like a reality TV show.  Whatever happens happens and I'm sure it'll be great, but if I'm honest I hope I get to stay here in Terrbonne with Sister Schmuhl :)  because things here are wonderful.  But it'll also change a lot if either of the Mascouche sisters peaces out so we'll just have to see!  So many possibilties!


I love you!
Souvenez-vous qui vous etes ♥
Soeur Lonas

We go to sacrament meeting to change, not only remember.

What a great life this is :)

Zone Conference yesterday was the most amazing meeting I have ever been in.  We have an amazing mission president.  I am just so blessed with my mission president and with my companion and with our area and our ward and the people we visit.  God is absolutely looking out for Terrebonne.

The focus in Zone Conference yesterday was on the sacrament and keeping the Sabbath Day holy.  Some new things I learned were that the sacrament is a look forward into the coming week, not a look back at the previous week and that we are making a new covenant every single time we partake of the sacrament.  We promise to always keep the commandments when we partake of the bread, and those words are not repeated in the prayer for the water.  That is because it is a covenant and there is no purpose in doing it twice in a row, five minutes apart.  We go to sacrament meeting to change, not only remember. And it was brought to my attention by Jeffrey R Holland that the sacrament is the only ordinance we repeat for ourselves.  President Patrick said (quoting an apostle but I forgot to write down who) that because we repeat this ordinance and covenant for ourselves, it is not the highest ordinance, but it is the most important ordinance because it is the one that keeps us on track.

On the Sabbath, I learned that it is not about lists of what we can and cannot do on Sunday, it's about whatever sign we want to show to our Lord and Savior.  The Sabbath is a gift from God to us, because He loves us.  He loves us so much, individually and personally.

Those are just a few of the things that hit me most, but I really learned so much.  I'm looking forward to studying more this week and throughout the rest of my life to deepen my own understanding of why exactly we got to church on Sunday.  And I'm very excited for church this week :)

In my own studies, both personal and companionship, I feel like I'm finally beginning to understand the Godhead a little bit (the word for the Godhead in french is le divinité, which is cool).  It's helped me feel a greater love on a more personal basis from both my Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ.  They are one in purpose and in all they do, but they love each of us on their own as well.  

My temporal accomplishment of this week is that I can finally French braid my own hair, which means that when I get home I will be capable of being an independent woman.  I'm making great strides in my life. :)

There have been more Canadian geese around lately, which was just hilarious until it was pointed out to me that they're flying south.  Not funny, anymore.  It's gotten a lot colder this week and I'm told that it'll basically be winter in about 2 or 3 more weeks.  They weren't lying when they said Canada has a very short autumn.  It's really not funny.  In all seriousness, I am absolutely terrified. 

But, I can only hope and pray that if I am obedient and diligent, the Lord will keep me from freezing to death!  I love the scriptures so much.  I love Sister Schmuhl.  I love Quebec and I more specifically love Terrebonne.  I love my mission president and his wife (she reminds me of my mama).  I love the missionary schedule.  I love getting up and running every morning. I love having the opportunity every day to watch people being touched by the Spirit. I love Jesus and I love Heavenly Father.

And I love all of you :)

Remember who you are, make good choices, soak up every bit of sunshine you can,

Avec beaucoup d'amour,

Soeur Lonas

Comme Si, Comme Ca

This week was comme ci, comme ca. Really good things, really rough things.  I'm actually watching a really adorable video that Emily sent me of Eden over and over again to procrastinate writing this email because I just don't even know what to say, it was so up and down.

Main rough thing was that our investigator with the baptismal date of Sept 19th up and moved.  To Montreal.  Her family basically disowned her (we think because she wanted to be baptized) and they either don't have or aren't willing to give us her address or phone number, so we have no way of contacting her.  The last time we saw her was at church the Sunday before last, when she was just so excited about being baptized.  We really don't know what could have happened.

So that's really sad, but we can only move forward and focus on the people we have to work with.  We did have some really amazing lessons this week, and then on Sunday we had a combined third hour and President Patrick came and talked to our ward about member missionary work and family mission plans and we can already see the way it has really softened people's hearts.  So many more members in our ward are excited about missionary work which just makes our job so fun :)

This is kind of a funny highlight, but I think one of my favorite parts of this week was yesterday when this older sister in our ward invited us over for lunch.  She's 75 and works full time, lives alone, and when she had the day off yesterday for the holiday she just said that she felt very strongly prompted to invite us over for lunch.  She isn't on the ward list (don't know why) and she works in the primary during church so we'd never met her, but she was just the SWEETEST little grandma.  I already knew that it means a lot to me when people make me food, but I was really feeling that yesterday.  I just think one of the sweetest things one person can do for another person is make them food. But anyway, after we ate this really delicious lunch that she made us she pulls out this gorgeous cake that she made that morning and after we'd taken good healthy servings of that she packed up the rest of it, along with the leftovers from lunch and extra food she had in her fridge and sent us home with all of it.  I have been blown away by how nice our ward is to us, and this was a perfect example.

I love personal studies.  I love the Book of Mormon so much.  I love being a missionary.

I really am a very happy camper :)  Even with our investigator moving, we are so blessed to feel that we have truly done all we can do with her.  No regrets.  God knows our hearts and he knows hers :) I love our ward, and I think some of them love us!  Please be good to the missionaries in your home wards.

I love you all so much!
Souvenez-vous qui vous etes ♥
Soeur Lonas

p.s. someone please tell Josh to email me, I'm pretty sure he would fit into Quebec better than anyone else I know and funny things happen all the time that I just think he would really appreciate