Update | 8 September

Dear all,

It's been a good past two weeks here in the Canada Montreal Mission! Here's some stuff that happened.

I think I told the story of Pierrette, the innactive member who found us. Anyways, Pierrette is the ultimate example of a member missionary! She probably talks to more people about the church than we do...Not really, we talk to a lot of people. But she is so cool. She comes to church just about every week and is bringing her friend Jean, who we're teaching. He is probably a distant cousin because he has the same last name as many of my Quebecois ancestors. He's pretty old and forgets a lot of stuff so teaching him is tough...but he wants to be baptized so we can't say no to that! Pierrette said the thing that she missed most about the Church when she lost contact with it was the Sacrament. I love that! The Sacrament is a beautiful ordinance we have the chance to partake of each week in remembrance of Jesus Christ. When we take the Sacrament, we'll have the Spirit with us and sharing the Gospel is easier. I know that's true because I've seen it in Pierrette.

As many of you probably don't know, there's a temple about 20 minutes from where I'm serving, but it's closed for renovations. This past week, some missionaries had the special opportunity to do some service inside the temple! It was a really cool experience. Temples are truly the House of the Lord! My job was to scrape gunk off the floor of one of the rooms to prepare it for carpet to be laid down. It wasn't much, but I'll probably tell everyone I know I helped build the Montréal Temple ;) A temple reopening is exciting for missionaries for many reasons, one of which is General Authorities who come to rededicate it. Supposedly, two members of the First Presidency, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, and a Seventy are coming for the rededication. Nice! for more about building temples, read a great conference talk from November 2012 entitled "Temple Standard" (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/temple-standard?lang=eng)

It's starting to get cooler and autumn is coming. Autumn is the best season!

Speaking French is second nature now I would say. I'm by no means perfect, but it sure is a lot easier. And less people reply in English when I talk to them in French which is good haha. I still get a good laugh at Quebecois phrases and accent. I love Quebec!

Missions are great! I love you all!

Elder Rosenlof

Allo! | 27 July 2015

Everyone,

It's been a good, sort of slow past two weeks. Everyone goes on vacation at this time of year, but we've still found people to teach. I tried to think of some out of the ordinary things I did the past two weeks that I really enjoyed...I helped paint a fence...We drove up to Sorel...We've been doing genealogy...probably some other stuff. I'll write a little bit about those things :)

We helped our Ward Mission Leader paint someone's fence this past Saturday. Didn't know that's what we would be doing; it took about 6 hours. Still, it was fun because I like painting and it made me think of Tom Sawyer. But even more than that, it would have been a really big job for our WML if he did it alone, and for the person whose fence it was! He kept thanking us throughout the job saying how it would have taken a forever if we hadn't helped him. That made it worth it! Service is great

Our drive up to the nether regions of our area was fun because we take a road along the Richelieu River which is really pretty -- lots of green trees and fields. Also, Sorel is a cool town, it has the vibe of a coastal town. And the Saint-Laurent is cool too. But even better than the drive and the scenery, was visiting with the members that live up there. They make lots of sacrifices to attend church about 60km away. Would I go to church every Sunday if I had to drive an hour both ways? As a missionary, we are to strengthen the church. And visiting the members in their homes is a great way to do that!

It's been fun to be able to do some genealogy work, especially to study my Québec ancestors. Have not found anyone with the name Cabana yet :( We have an investigator who lives along the Richelieu, same direction as Sorel. We pass through St-Marc-sur-Richelieu, where my 5th great grandfather Jean Baptiste Cabana was born in 1829. I like imagining what it was like for him back them in the same area I'm in now. Even better than that, is thinking about all my ancestors and the sacrifices they made and lives they lived that led to me! Even better than that, is thinking about the blessings of temples, and how even though these ancestors can receive the blessings of the gospels through the ordinances we can perform there. And even better than that, is the chance we have to help other people who haven't done any genealogy start theirs, and realize the blessings of temples and eternal families. 

Every missionary activity is (or should be!) to the ends of helping people come unto Christ and receive the fullness of His Gospel in their lives. I'm grateful for the chance I have to do this every day, and the people I'm able to help. Missionary work is great! Have an awesome week!

Elder Rosenlof

Update | 29 June 2015

Mes frères et soeurs,

It's been a long time since I've done one of these emails, sorry! I love getting emails from you and responding in detail so that takes up a good chunk of my time. Here's a quick recap of the last 3 weeks!

Had a really good zone training. One of my new favorite Preach My Gospel quotes is on page 19 (or look it up on Gospel Library, ch 1 maybe?). Read it! Then read the rest of Preach My Gospel!

I played piano in sacrament meeting. The regular pianist wasn't there I was the only other person in our ward who could play somewhat. I find that hard to believe. But it was my first time doing that. I only played the upper notes because I was too nervous haha. Next step, playing the organ at General Conference!

We have a new bishop. He's really cool, and really focused on MISSIONARY WORK! Some good changes should be coming soon! He said he wants to talk to our mission president to ask for us to stay in the ward for at least 6 months...we'll see!

Hiked the Mont again. Everything's green around here. It's also really hot and humid

We've received 4 different maple products from members, 2 cans of maple syrup, 1 container of maple butter (more like taffy), and 1 jar of this caramel maple stuff. All basically just pure sugar. I hope I don't lose any teeth while here...either from syrup or a errant hockey puck

Had a minor car accident, a problem with a wheel bearing, and an oil change, which have lead to 2 trips to Montreal with at least 3 more in the future. I'm grateful we have a car though because one, it's hot, and two, our area is really big. 

Did a split in Granby again. Splits are fun because you get to work with other missionaries and learn from them, and it's like going on a trip!

I cut my hair. I tried to use scissors on the top and trim the sides like I normally do but I really messed up the top so I just buzzed it. It looks ok

Celebrated St-Jean-Baptiste Day, or la fête nationale (but it's only celebrated in Québec) which wasn't as crazy as I expected. Sang some traditional Québecois songs with some old members of our ward. They all had to do with snow and cold. This week is Canada Day which isn't really celebrated in Québec haha. Happy Fourth of July to those in the States!

Teaching wise, we don't have very many investigators who are progressing unfortunately. A lot of less active work still. Seen some good progress with those people which is nice to see! I can't really sum up missionary work as in teaching very well so if you're curious ask me specific questions :)

Things are great here! I love you all and love hearing from you! 

Go Cards! On dry ground, not in the water.

No mo flow :( Our church building

Good Week | 8 June 2015

Mes amis,

These past two weeks were great! Busy, busy, busy! We're working with a lot of people and have very little unplanned time. Taught 21 lessons last, last week and 20 this week! And we had about 8 that we planned that fell through. I'm very grateful for our car, we're working all over in our somewhat large area. It's also been pretty hot and humid. I might have to break out the short sleeve shirts soon! 

I'm just going to try to summarize one day last week, probably our busiest. It was in St-Hyacinthe.

6:30 - Woke up and did normal morning routine

8:00 - Personal study as usual. I restarted the Book of Mormon. I'm in 2 Nephi 2 today, where are you?

9:00 - Étude en équipe (companion study) as usual too. One of our investigators who has the most difficult schedule to work with called us and said we could come over in about 30 minutes to teach her because.

10:45 - Taught our ami Nemesi. Started the Plan of Salvation, elle a bien compris

11:30 - Language study

12:00 - Lunch. called "dîner" here. Dinner is "souper"

1:00 - Started driving to St-Hyacinthe. Made some calls in the car like usual. Called a man (Jamal) we met on the street a week or two ago but hadn't had further contact with yet. Set up a rendez-vous for 3:00 that day

1:30 - Met with our good friend and less active member Jacques. He's come teaching with us a few times. I think I wrote about him in past letters. I hope I didn't mention his last name, I need to be better about that! He hasn't been to church in a long time nor meeting with missionaries. We started meeting with him regularly and he's really improved a lot. We challenged him to read the Book of Mormon, two chapters a day, and he's kept on pace! 

2:15 - Walked around "downtown" St-Hyacinthe. Really the only place in our area where people walk around outside so we contact there a lot. Lots of cool looking buildings too, too bad it's kind of a poor area. Got phone numbers from two people who were interested in hearing more! 

3:00 - Went to teach our ami Jamal. Knocked on his door and someone answered who was not Jamal. The man (forgot his name, hard to understand when people say their name because they're not really actual words!) was from Haiti and was reading the Bible when we knocked. We talked a little bit about missionaries at the door. I asked him "How's it going" in Haitian, don't remember how it's spelled but the answer to that question translated is "I'm burning!" Haitian is funny. He let us in but said we had 5 minutes. We taught him the Restoration lesson and testified of the Book of Mormon. He tried to convince us the Bible was enough but we were insistent and he took a book. Who knows if he'll read it but you never know!

3:30 - Called Jamal because the person who answered the door didn't know him. He lives in the basement of the house. Got to know him a little bit. He's from Morocco and going to school here. By the way, I've met people from at least 16 countries already, Québec is very different from Missouri in that manner. Taught him the Restoration and it went well. Have a return appointment for this week.

4:00 - Taught two less actives in a row with a member of our bishopric. He's so cool. We had a plan for our lessons but he kind of took a different direction, the right direction probably! He was a stake president in Switzerland for a bit, called as a temple president too! Hope I have as much wisdom as he does in the future...

6:00 - Souper! Didn't have a dinner appointment so we got poutine.

7:00 - Called a family that lives in town to see if we could share a message, they said yes. It was great! Going to start helping their daughter prepare to be baptized. On Sunday, the father bore a great testimony, talked about how much he like having us in his home the other day! It was great to hear some direct positive feedback like that.

8:00 - Had a lesson with an ami we taught the first time the other week. No one was home and he didn't answer the phone though. Saw some people sitting on their porch nearby and we asked if we could share a message with them. They said yes. We started with a prayer and then opened our Books of Mormon to read something and right away, one of them got really mad (see 2 Nephi 29:3) and told us to leave. 

9:00 - Returned and planned for the next day.

Kind of a depressing end, but it was a great day! Things are great here! Great people and it's really beautiful. Also, Elder Deakins and I may be in a documentary about Mormons in Québec one of our new amis wants to make. I'll keep you posted! Have an awesome week!

Elder Rosenlof

Bonjour mes amis | 25 May 2015

This was a great week and my email today is all about the Book of Mormon! This transfer we had a challenge to finish the Book of Mormon. I finished it Sunday. It was the fastest, most thorough, most helpful read through I've done. Read it!

We had another split so I got to go to Granby for the day. It's even more in the middle of nowhere but with a "downtown" type area, kind of like St-Hyacinthe which I talked about a little while ago. It's a cool, weird little town. The missionary work there is awesome! They just formed a new branch and are the Elders are teaching a ton of people. One lesson I went to with Elder Brooks (Elder in Granby) was with a man named Alain. They've been teaching him for a little while now, he has a baptismal date at the end of June I think. Anyways, they had left him some reading and questions to do in the back of one of the brochures and he did it. He talked about how he's always read the Bible and liked it but he said "The Bible, that has the questions, but the Book of Mormon and these brochures, they have the answers." Wow! He could teach Sunday School at their branch, they probably don't have a teacher yet. But it's true, the Book of Mormon is so clear and simple and it has so many answers to questions we all have.

Thursday we had a zone conference. It was awesome. So much wisdom and counsel from our mission leaders. Our mission president, President Patrick is the best, he knows exactly what we need to focus on and change. He talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how we should focus on using it with everyone! I really tried to do that the rest of the week. I feel like the lessons we taught where we didn't really use the Book of Mormon were kind of unfocused and not as effective (not just for that reason though) but the ones where we just read the Book of Mormon with them and invited them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon were the best! Sunday we had a couple lessons back to back in St-Hyacinthe. We had been trying to find a member to come with us but couldn't. First we taught Jacques, he's just a little older than us, born in the church but really hasn't been to church for about 8 years or so. We've been meeting with him for the past few weeks and are trying to help him regain his testimony by rereading the Book of Mormon. Our lesson went well (we were in a park and talked at by a Jehovah's Witness who didn't agree with us though :( ) and we just asked him if he wanted to come to our next lesson with us. And he said yes! The lesson was with Kevin and Marilyne, young couple with a few kids, have been meeting with the missionaries for the past few years but haven't really progressed. With them we read from the Book of Mormon and discussed it, trying to help them see the importance being baptized and making changes in our lives. We were just about to end our lesson and Elder Deakins asked Jacques if he wanted to share anything. Jacques gave a really great testimony about how his baptism was one of the best things he's done and even though he's kind of fallen of the iron rod (he talked about the iron rod!) he wants to get back and knows Kevin and Marilyne can change too! It was a great lesson. After he told us how the things we were teaching Kevin and Marilyne really helped him too. We all benefited from that lesson I think :)

This week really helped strengthen my testimony of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is the word of God, another testimony of Jesus Christ, and was translated by Joseph Smith. I love the Book of Mormon and things we learn from it. I know great things come from reading it and praying about it. I invite you all to read it and pray about it, I know it will bless your life! Have a great week! 

Elder Rosenlof

p.s. We hiked Mont-St-Hilaire this morning. It was great! It really reminded me of St Louis. For those of you in Missouri, please go on a hike/ride/run along at Al Foster trail, Castlewood, Babler, or any park or trail along the Missouri or Meramec rivers! Didn't get any good pictures, I'll try harder next time!
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Great Week! (and a picture) | 18 May 2015

Tout le monde,

This was a great week! I think I talked about last week in my last email, but this week was different. Last week we only had lessons with 4 different people, but this week we had lessons with 12 different people! And we got 20 lessons total! Woohoo! The difference I think was our faith to do all these things. We really worked hard to see as many people as we could and never doubted it either. It really payed off. We've still got a lot to improve (time management, working with members, etc.) but missionary work here is really starting to pick up! We're still working with a lot of less actives and recent converts as opposed to investigators -- hopefully we'll find some new people to teach, not that we don't like working with less actives, there's just a lot of people who can benefit from our message! I can't really think of any good stories about the people we're teaching still. It seems like every missionary has crazy stories about people they teach and stuff like that but I don't! Pas encore, j'éspere!

This week we had a meeting for the missionaries who came in this transfer and their trainers. It was at the mission office in Montréal. I don't know how I didn't realize the first time I was at the mission office, but I'm in love with Montréal!! The mission office is in this hip neighborhood and everyone there dresses well and is beautiful and the architecture is awesome and there's tons of cool churches and everyone rides bikes and there's people from all over the world and I could go on! We ate this trendy poutine place (I talked about poutine last week -- we got it twice this past week...whoops! It's too good!) and we were sitting by the window so I just people watched. It was a beautiful day so there were tons of people walking around. Then "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees came on the radio and it just fit the scene perfectly! Montréal is a timeless city! Visit sometime!

The training meeting itself was really great, better than the worldly streets of Montréal haha. One thing we talked about was finding a personal purpose for doing missionary work. A verse I find fits that for me is 3 Nephi 5:13 -- "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." Missionary work is truly of eternal significance. The message of the Restored Gospel can not only change your life, but your life for eternity! So as missionaries, we've only got two years set apart to help as many people as possible to receive "everlasting life!" No time to lose! And this work is a work of joy and love so as missionaries we've got to have joy and love for the things we do and the people all around. Missionary work is great! Ayez une bonne semaine! Je vous aime!

Elder Rosenlof

this picture is the first poutine we got this week. I only ate half, don't worry :)

Salut! | 11 May 2015

Dear all,

These past two weeks have been great!

Last week we taught 11 lessons total, which is our highest yet! We were really busy and saw all our investigators and lots of less active members in the ward. One cool miracle we had on last, last Saturday was with a part member family Patrice and Karine. We've been trying to get in contact with them since we got there but have never heard from them. That day we were driving around, verifying the ward directory and meeting people in the ward. We went by there house just to see (we had called the day before but no one picked up) and they were! They said, "We've been trying to respond to your messages but we haven't had time! Want to come over for dinner and a lesson later?" (it wasn't exactly that but kind of). Nice! We had a really great lesson with them and Patrice (the nonmember husband) really seems interested and like this is what he wants for his family. There was even another member friend there from another ward who helped. It was awesome! I even got to go to exotic Granby, QC on a split! What a week!

This week we kind of assumed we would have the same success as last week so we didn't really try and do more planning or verifying or having good back up plans. Then, when a lot of our plans fell through, we didn't have a good idea of what to do, mostly resorting to knocking. And because we were frustrated that we had to resort to knocking, we got even more frustrated sometimes! I feel like all that frustration could have been avoided if we had planned better and had a better attitude. It's inevitable that lessons will fall through sometimes and sometimes miracles will happen, but no matter what, having a good plan for the whole day and back up plans for the whole day too. And if there's nothing else to do than go door to door, we've got to do it! Often if something falls through, we spend too long thinking of what we could do instead when there's really no other feasible alternative than knocking for a little bit. 

Despite our difficulties meeting with our investigators and less actives, we really got to know a lot of the members of the ward. Saturday we had a fun little trip going up to the far places north up to Sorel (where the boots get their name?). We met all the active members that live up there and they were so welcoming! I love seeing the strength of the members of the ward and how welcoming they are to us. I've seen so many great examples of the type of missionary, (and down the line) ward leader, husband, and parent I want to be from these members here. Working with members in missionary work is key!

Other than that, nothing too special or exciting to tell...Some cultural differences I've noticed here though:

So many cats! It may be the nature of the people we work with most (older, lonely, often single people :( ) but everyone has cats! And I'm allergic :(

So many bikes! Motorcycles and velo bikes. After my mission some autumn, I'm just gonna come up here, bring a bike (velo), and ride around and eat at poutine places. Ahhh

Canadian food is the same as American food I guess. At our dinner appointments we've been served authentic Canadian dishes such as spaghetti, hamburgers, and lasagna. But poutine is something else. I've had it twice already, maybe again today. I probably shouldn't... For those of you who don't know, poutine is french fries, cheese curds, and this gravy-like sauce all mixed together. I can't really describe it in words that well, you just have to make it because I don't think anywhere in the US sells it as good as here. Just make sure the fries are crispy so it doesn't get soggy. They're probably a good number of youtube videos on how to make it. Do it!

Anyways, hope you all have a great week! I love you all! Read Moroni Ch 7, especially verses 40-48. Bonne Semaine!

-Elder Rosenlof