Christmas Day 2015 in Canada

Christmas Day fun with the Bishop and his family.

Sister A learning how to build a snowman.

The woods near my house.

Skyping on Christmas Eve

The best thing ever is the Christmas eve skype!

Christmas Eve 2015

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas Eve Fun

Joyeux Noel

Joyeux Noel! Merry Christmas!! Feliz Navidad!

I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far and that you will continue to have a wonderful Christmas Holiday.

This week is going to be super busy for us.  First off I'm not getting transferred! :) I will be here for the holidays and I will finish my mission in Sherbrooke! I'm pretty excited for that. We are losing Elder Rudy and he is going back to Ottawa and we are receiving Elder Thomas from Belgium. 

Tomorrow we will be in Montreal for an all missionary Christmas Devotional. This is pretty exciting. It's the first time since I've been on my mission that I will be at an all missionary devotional. Sister A and I are singing a duet in it so wish us luck and keep us in your prayers. 

We have lots of caroling to do this week with lots of other pass by to people who don't have a lot of family around. So it should be a fun week!! 

I would like to share 2 thoughts of things I have learned and thought about this week. The first comes from a conversation we had at the bishop's house last night. We've all heard of the Golden Rule "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." Last night he taught us the Platinum Rule which is very similar but says "Do unto others as they would have done unto them." Sometimes what a person needs is not what we would want or need but what they would do. Sometimes it may not make sense to us, but as long as we are doing our best to discern their needs and we do it with the spirit it will all work out. 

My second thought comes from a training Sister A and I have at district meeting this week. Picture yourself receiving the most important invitation of you life: a chance to spend a day with Jesus Christ. How would you prepare yourself spiritually and physically for such a day? What blessing might you hope would come from such a visit? There has been a big emphasize on keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and I would like to testify that by keeping the Sabbath Day Holy we are giving ourselves a chance to have that day to spend with Christ. We are allowing ourselves to give him the best present which is to remember Him and learn from Him. So I challenge us all to make our Sabbath Day more meaningful and Christ centered and by doing this small thing so many blessings will come your way!! 

Love you all and have a wonderful Christmas!

Sister Gardner 

Picture is one a member from our ward took and created the card for the stake.

12.14.2015

Hello everyone!

Sorry I don't have a lot of time this week to write but I hope you are all doing well.

Sister A and I have survived our first week without Sister T. It was rough but we did it. I know that with the Lord's help we can do this. 

Highlights of the week:

1. Sara and Mack are officially engaged!

2. The Ward Christmas Party went great and we had a lot of people come including one of our investigators! :)

3. We kind of got transfer calls... So we were suppose to have normal transfer calls last Saturday but for some reason our call said that since it wasn't the real transfer time that we would be together for a week and we would get another transfer call on Saturday. But to make that even weirder it was only our zone that got that message. Everyone else I have talked to knows their fate. Hopefully nothing crazy will happen. 

I hope you have a great week!

Sister Gardner 

Pics from May's Baptism and the Ward Christmas Party

12-09-15

Hello and sorry for the delay on this email. We didn't get home from Montreal yesterday until 8 pm and so we got permission to do emails today since we haven't had the chance to do it at all this week. 

This week was a pretty good week. Papa Burgers told us the cutest things this week. He told us that we shouldn't have to do the dirty work of missionary work (finding). He told us that was his job. Then he also said that we were a great trio and that there will only ever be 1 Sister T, 1 Sister A and 1 Sister G. It was sweet. 

We were able to set 2 baptismal dates with 2 of our investigators: Sam's is set for Feb. 27 and Abe's is set for March 5. Abe came to church with his family this past Sunday. :) Sam didn't get home from Montreal in time to come to church on Sunday but we did have a lesson with him. We finally saw Mack and Sara on Sunday. We had a little lesson on Prayer and Reading the Scriptures. But mostly it was just a goodbye for Sister T. 

May's baptism went great! She seemed so happy. Frank was able to baptize her!! We didn't get final word that he could until Tues. or Wed. night. Frank also gave the talk on baptism and all I can say is wow. I know I didn't understand all of it, but I know I could feel the spirit and it went great. Gabby gave the talk on the Holy Ghost and she did really great too. At the end of the baptism Bishop pulled Sister T aside before she left the stand (I was playing postlude) and he told her about how in the last 5 years of being bishop he has been able to watch this family come back to the gospel and now the last member of the family is a member of the church. Sister T said he was crying as he said that. That was cool!! 

The last few days have been hard. We have seen so many people to say goodbye (5 people on Sunday and 14 stops on Mon. 1 stop had all of the Burgers's, Sister Parry and France Node. Imagine if I had counted individuals).

Yesterday we made it to the temple and it was a pretty full session. Traffic just before the bridge was terrible. It took us 1/2 hour to go 2 kilometers.

Then we went to the mission office to drop off Sister T and pick up things, and last we finally made it to a Lens Crafts. It was in LaSalle. It was so weird driving back through there. When we left the mall around 6 (that's where the Lens Crafts was/dinner) I felt like I should just go back to my apartment in LaSalle. A long day and it was nice to come home but it was weird not to have Sister T. I realized that out of my trio I will have had both companions by themselves in a duo for about the same time too- 1 1/2 transfers. 

Have a great week! Sister Gardner 

I realized I forgot to mention the reason we were dropping Sister T off at the mission office was she is getting emergency transferred... Don't worry she is doing great they just needed her mad skills in Montreal. 

11-30-15

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a great week. I don't have a time to write today so I'm just going to paste what I wrote to President. 

Hello President! I hope that you had a good week. It was a pretty good week. We met with a referral we had received from the Mont St. Hilaire missionaries. Her name is Mads and her sister is a member over there. It was a really great lesson. We talked a little about the Book of Mormon and gave our testimonies. We tried to set a return appointment, but she kept telling us she would learn everything she wanted through reading the Book of Mormon. But she did say in 2 weeks she would come to church. 

We had a Cornelius moment. We had stopped at a grocery store to grab lunch and this person named Marie started talking to Sister T while I was paying. At first she was asking about Sister T`s flower. We walked out with her and she looked at Sister A`s tag and switched into English and said, "Oh you're with the Mormon's? I used to have boys come and visit me and I really liked our visits." So we were able to get her address and phone number and she said we could stop by. So we're going to call her today and see in the week when we can stop by. 

We tried finding at a park this week. We were able to give out some cards but no one wanted to give us their info. It was a little discouraging.

Our split this week went well. Sister A and I were able to go and teach 3 lessons while Sister T was in her Auxiliary meeting.  We now have a new investigator. His name is Sam. Sister Bess invited him to come to the Primary Program yesterday (which went really well!). We had a lesson with him after church and he is a very sweet kid. He's only 16 and he wants to know more about God and what happens after Death. So our lesson was on the Plan of Salvation and at the end Sister A asked him when he knew these things were true, if he would be baptized? He looked at her in the eyes and said yes. We will be seeing him again on Tuesday. 

We are almost ready for May's Baptism. We are just waiting to hear from Bishop tonight to know if Frank can baptize her and she has her interview with Elder Rudy on Tuesday. But based on her answers to the questions last night she should pass. :) 

So that just about sums up our week. Hope all is going well for you! Thanks for all you and Sister Patrick do! Sister Gardner