Elder Poole

Gracias por los recuerdos, Elder Poole!

Happy Halloween!

Montreal Temple

Turkey... still.

Hello. 


It has already been announced that the mission office address is different than it was when i started my mission. It has been on this new address on Rue Gilford for about six months, and the mail has been forwarded to the new address if anyone sent the letter to the wrong place....but the forwarding service ends this week i think. So make sure that ALL male gets sent to that address from now until the end of my mission. Mami, please let the Folkman's know, because i always get random postcards from them, but they keep sending it to the old address. Thanks.

Also.... I dont have an address here in Ottawa...so mail still needs to go through Montreal. The reason we dont have an address here, is because we live in an apartment building that gets broken into a lot, and our mailbox is broken...or something like that. Basically we dont have a way of getting mail here.... we have asked to know where our mailbox is, but it simply doesn't exist. We dont even have a key to any form of mailbox... so chances of me getting the mail you send to Ottawa are very slim. So Montreal is still the pLace to send mail. It'll just take me a while to get it, but it's ok i can wait.

Elder Leon and i got a bucket of left over Turkey from the Ward Christmas Party last Saturday (over a week ago) and we have not stopped eating turkey since.... Every day, since our second day here, we have had turkey... Yesterday, we finally finished our bucket of turkey. I hate turkey now.....  we tried everything to make it different, we ate it with rice, or with Pasta, or even in Burritos.... but the strong taste of Turkey still dominated.... I would be ok with not eating turkey for the rest of my life.

Yesterday we were invited to eat at a Mexican member's house.... Oh how i miss Mexican food already. In Montreal i would eat Mexican food a week,with the occasional El Salvadorian meal (Pupusas) and A lovely Family we were teaching From Brazil who made us some great food as well. Oh the good ol' Latino Days. We did have a Haitian family show us how to make some good food a few days ago. and a Random African Lady who gave us some interesting Fish donuts...... mmm!!

We are getting used to this area. It is more compact than most of the areas i have served in before. I feel like it is a lot smaller, but there are alot more members here than in any of the other areas that i have served in. It was weird to see a full sized chapel, and to see it full of people. the difference here as well, is that when people say that they will be at church..they actually show up. It's not like all of the Latinos who make a lot of Empty promises. I have been accustomed to having to invite about a million people to church for at least one to show up...and here, we invited alot of people, and over half of them showed up. it may have to do with the fact that Christmas is just around the corner...i guess we'll see in January.

Well i am happy and healthy. I am happy mostly with how warm it has been here.... so strange compared to last winter.... it's only snowed once, and disappeared the following day. and it has been very warm since then..... I love it! But Elder Leon is Freezing...hahah if only he knew how cold it actually does get here. Ok! I am off now. we are going to do..stuff.... we have a long list of chores yet to finish. One of wich is buying a Christmas tree! Elder Leon and i have to go pick out our Christmas tree! we wanted to get a real one so that it would smell pretty!

Have a great week!!!!

I love you!!!

Elder Meza

Ottawa

hello!

So Ottawa is nice! the day of transfers it finally snowed! It's the first snow of the year. People here are in an abnormally good mood right now because of the late winter. It is very strange how warm it is this late in the year. People are getting nervous though because they are hoping to have a white Christmas. So my new Companion is named Elder Leon. He is from Fresno, California, but his parents are from Mexico. He's a great kid. he love Reeses Peanut Butter cups (wink wink) as well as any type of fruity candy. Because of the new area that Elder Leon and i had to open, we were given a car to drive to Ottawa, so instead of taking the bus, as we normally do, we had to drive from Montreal to Ottawa in the snow. Hooray!

Thankfully we made it safely, and we made it to our apartment.... poor elder Leon had a fun first night in the mission field. So when we got here there were some Members that had gotten wind of Their being a new missionary coming in, so they prepared dinner for us at their house. So for Elder Leon's first Mission field meal, we were given a Green meal. Everything was green, form the drink, to the dessert. MMMM. We had green pasta, and green soup, etc... lucky for Elder Leon, because he hates vegetables, and broccoli.... the main ingredients for our meal. hahah poor kid. and then i after when we finally got to our apartment,...we were greeted by some beautiful little mice.. no beds, blankets, or pillows... we slept on the floor cuddling up with our towels... haha In the morning we realized that all the food we had was the box of candy that i got from emily the day before (bless her little heart), half a jar of mayo, and a thing of salt. It wasn't too long before we realized that the toilet didn't flush, and that we had no toilet paper.

Things did get better tough. Thursday night, we got an invitation from the only person in our ward from the States, to celebrate American Thanksgiving! Saturday we had a fun Christmas Dinner with the ward, where we got to know a lot of the members. it was fun. We spent the weekend getting to know members, and finding good places to work. It was fun. And we look forward to a great week!

I know why I got sent here with elder leon. So, about a year ago, their used to be a Small Spanish branch in this area that was abolished due to lack of Priesthood. so right now for all of the spanish members, their is a small unit set up within the Riverside ward. Every Sunday Sacrament meeting is translated and they have classes in the separate languages too. When Elder Leon and I showed up and the Spanish members got really happy. They came up to us and we immediately had a list of invitations from them. The Bishopric told us that this group of Spanish speaking members had been praying for a long time to get spanish speaking missionaries to help them to grow, and they took us as an answer to their prayers, because we both speak spanish. Our first night here we knocked a door to a family that is having marriage problems. they let us in right away because they had met the missionaries before in Italy, and they told us that the Message we shared had helped them resolve problems in the past, and avoid a divorce. And they had been trying to get closer to god, when we showed. It was really cool because when were their they pulled out their copies of the Book Of Mormon, and told us that they had already read it from beginning to end...twice! and that they wanted to start going to church, but that they didn't understand English very well. When we told them about the Spanish Unit, they were very excited, (They are actually from El Salvador, but lived in Italy). So at least for now, we are focusing on helping the Spanish unit as much as we can. 


Well everything is well here. We have beds now, and blankets, and plenty of food! I am happy to be here with Elder Leon, and i already love this area. It's a fun challenge. 

I love you all so much, and i hope you have a great week!

Elder Meza