How we got here and what Exactly is a CES mission? Mission Blog #2

My sister, Diana, kindly pointed out that I might want to explain exactly what we will be doing on our mission in Montreal, Canada here are some details. To quote from our mission call letter: "You are assigned to labor in the Canada Montreal Mission. Your primary assignment is to serve with Seminaries and Institutes of Religion programs. You will begin your missionary training on Monday, May 12, 2025, after being set apart by your stake president. Please see the Missionary Portal for additional information on your training experience. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months." A quick recap of how we came to get this letter; by the way, Steve and I each received our own letter. Every missionary who desires to serve fills out a packet of paperwork that includes information on our background, such as education, employment, church service, and general health info (which takes 70-year-olds a lot longer than 18- or 19-year-olds!). Then we get a physical form signed by our doctor and another signed by our dentist saying that we are basically physically fit, with any limitations indicated. We submit all this to the church through the missionary portal along with any personal preferences on where and how you would like to serve--senior missionaries also get to look at kinds of missions as well as positions that are coming available and choose a list of up to 8 that they are particularly interested in. The top of our list was Montreal, but we never expected to go there. A few weeks later, we get a letter that expresses appreciation for our desire to serve and tells where we are going and how we will be serving. CES (Church Education System) missionary is just one possibility. These missionaries usually teach Institute classes, which are geared to college age young adults and can be taken for college credit. No pressure! This class will be based on scriptural topics. With a month until we arrive in Montreal, we had a third Facetime with the missionary couple we will be taking over from, Tom and Camille Clark of Pocatello, Idaho. They had already told us a bit about the duties and gave us a tour of the apartment we will be living in, very comfortable looking. This time we made our final coordination plans; we will arrive on Wednesday afternoon, May 28, and over the next couple of days they will show us the ropes before heading home to Idaho late Friday. So this is a typical week, as of right now: Every Sunday we attend the now combined single adult church unit. The French and English YSA or Young Single Adult branches (small church units) are now a YSA ward (larger church unit). That consists of a 2-hour meeting starting at 10:30am. Sunday afternoon or evening will involve occasional spiritual activities with the ward. Every Monday morning except transfer week, we have a meeting with all the senior missionaries in the mission as well as the Mission president and his wife. Some of the most far-flung attend through Zoom. Our mission is the largest in area in the world. Transfer weeks occur every 6 weeks and are when missionaries are moved around the mission to new locations, many of the senior missionaries help with this. Monday evenings are family home evening, where we gather with other missionaries and members of the ward for religious discussion and fellowship. Every Tuesday evening, we have the activity coordination meeting with the YSA ward members who manage that. Every Wednesday we finish the major shopping for the meals prepared on Friday night for the 60+ young single adults. Every Thursday we will serve in the Montreal Canada Temple from 8:30am to around 1:30pm. Every Friday we will spend the day prepping to feed dinner to 60 or more young single adults. This will be followed by the Institute class, taught alternately by Steve and myself. The next semester will take teachings from the prophet, Russell M. Nelson, for its theme and we will arrive about a 3rd of the way through that time. Following the class, we will assist with a fun activity, such as a dance. Needless to say, Fridays run late. Every Saturday for us is what missions call Preparation or P-day. This is when you take care of personal needs, do laundry, shop, etc. However, there are occasionally young adult events to assist with. Most of our requirements are in the evening but we will spend the days preparing lessons, food menus, shopping trips, pre-prepping food, attending additional meetings, such as a monthly meeting with the CES coordinator, and currently, preparation meetings for the YSA conference in June that will last three days. In our free time, we do quarterly inspections of 9 young missionary apartments. So that is what we are expecting to do. The good news is we won't be bored.

Finally on our way west. Mission Blog #1

I thought I should give an update on what's going on with us, as we are not officially starting our mission until May 12.  We sold the boat in November, the house in December with a rent back for six weeks, and since January 31 we have been on the road, first spending a week at our friend, Christine’s apartment in New York (thanks Christine) then 3 weeks in the basement of our oldest son, Robert’s house. He, Hilary and the girls, Mikaela, Caitlin, and Saoirse, were the first to host us. Next, we spent a couple of weeks in our daughter’s basement before we headed down to Myrtle Beach to our little timeshare at Jade Tree Cove the last two weeks of March. Marie, Jake, and the boys, Tom, Joe, Greg, and Will hosted us for another week after that.  Both families live in Leesburg, Virginia so it was an easy transition and their basement guest spaces are very comfortable. 

This allowed us to consolidate our worldly goods already packed in a 10x15 storage unit as well as a 5x10 space in the basement of Robert’s house. This included packing and unpacking for each trip and change of location, clearing out old papers, and deciding what we would take to Montreal. We passed on our 17-year-old Honda CRV to Robert's girls (he expects to have 3 girls competing for 2 of their 4 cars by this summer) and replaced it with a Toyota RAV 4 with a winter package for Montreal. We reconsidered taking the Toyota Prius after seeing a YouTube video about snow removal there [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7obwyqdnIM].

We had packed winter stuff, regular stuff, and spring stuff, although Myrtle Beach didn't actually warm up this time--usually the second week gets a little summery. A lot of that would go into storage, so now we had to get serious. Everything that went west with us to our daughter, Ellie, and Kyle's house in Terre Haute, Indiana had to either fit into a large suitcase and carry on or be left behind in Terre Haute. Because the next leg of our journey goeth thusly:  

Drove to Terre Haute April 6&7 with a stop for sightseeing in Ohio, driving the Prius. Turn the Prius over to Ellie and Kyle. Stay with them in their cleverly designed guest space in Terre Haute until April 26, enjoying some time with grandkids, Eowyn, and twins, Aurora and Artem before flying to Salt Lake City, Utah. Our son, Dan, and wife, Jess, will pick us up at the airport and we will stay with them and our grandson, James, in their basement guest space until we enter the MTC on May 12. We spend about 10 days there and then Dan picks us up May 21 to spend the night at his house, so he can take us to the airport early on May 22 to fly to Montreal. We go through customs there in order to get our certificate allowing us to stay in Montreal for the duration of our mission, 18 months. We stay overnight in a motel and then fly to Dulles Washington Airport where we pick up the RAV and drive up to Montreal on May 27. Why didn’t we just drive up? you may ask. Well, getting the certificate by driving across the border can take days. So our church has learned to do this approach instead. We pack the RAV with the rest of our supplies and then we finally get to start our mission.

Attachments area

Preview YouTube video Snow Removal Operation in Montreal - First snowfall of December 2024

Endless Cats

 I thought I would share a story I wrote for my creative writing class in college.  It is based on real events that happened while we lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming in the 1960s but I got creative about a few things.  Our dog at the time was Cleo, short for Cleopatra (we went through a phase with our dogs based around Roman history, Caesar, Brutus, etc.). I am not sure how we got the cat originally, what we called her, or how many litters there were. The last mom cat and her kittens actually moved with us to Shreveport, Louisiana, so the cat we dropped off for that last visit was another stray that showed up just before we moved, but all the cats mentioned in our home and at the farm were real, especially Fuzzy and Feisty.

Endless Cats

      When I was in elementary school, our family adopted a dog and a cat adopted us.

      The dog ran around with us kids, jumped fences, barked, and generally had a good time, but she slept outside.  The cat pretty much went where she wanted, when she wanted, and was only interested in us at mealtime and bedtime. She slept inside, on the couch, or my parents’ bed, or wherever she felt like.

      My parents were careful to make sure our dog didn’t have puppies, but they forgot to make sure our cat didn’t have kittens.  Soon there was a litter of kittens in our dirty clothes basket. 

      Mom was not happy but Dad said, “I can find homes for them, don’t worry.” And he did. He found homes for every one of the kittens. They were pretty cute. 

      But we still had our dog.  Our dog helped us find chipmunks, chase cars, and played chase with us. Our cat spent all day hunting for things and bringing them home. Our dog still didn’t have puppies, but our cat had kittens in the clean clothes basket. Mom was getting upset, but Dad said, “I have a friend with a farm.  He always needs cats.” And he did. He took all the cats but two over to the farm, even the mom cat.

      We kept two boy cats, so no more kittens. We named those cats Fuzzy and Feisty. Fuzzy was fuzzy and Feisty was smooth.  They were black and white, Fuzzy mostly black and Feisty mostly white but they both had black tails with white tips.  They went everywhere together, but they were very different.

      The dog loved playing with Fuzzy, but Feisty hit her nose with his claws. Fuzzy liked play with me and didn’t mind having his fur rubbed the wrong way. Feisty hated having his fur messed with, scratched little kids, and hid his toys. Fuzzy and Feisty both like to sleep with me, one at the top and one at the bottom. I loved Fuzzy and Feisty.

      Then another mother cat adopted us.  She had kittens in the rag basket.

      Mom said, “Too many cats.  Some will have to go.” The mother cat and kittens couldn’t go; they were too young. So Fuzzy and Feisty had to go to the farm.

      I rode with Dad to drop then off.  The farm was so lonely, no cats around anywhere.

      “Where are the other cats?” I asked Dad.

      “Maybe they’re hunting.” Dad shrugged. Dad stopped the car and we opened the door.  Feisty jumped out and raced to the barn.  He didn’t like driving or being outside.  Fuzzy stretched and purred and finally I had to pick him up and carry him out.  I set him down and he just looked at me.  I think he knew we were leaving him.  But he got up, brushed my legs and purred before strolling toward the barn.  It’s okay, he was saying, I’ll miss you but I’ll be fine.  We drove back home.

      The dog was glad to see me. We ran around, played ball, ran through the sprinkler, and lay in the sun. The mom cat and kittens stayed inside and watched.  Soon Dad was finding homes for the kittens. Mom was glad to see them go. 

      Now we had just one cat.  Mom was glad to only have one dog and one cat, for a while.  Then one day the mom cat had kittens in the sewing basket. Mom had had enough.  Dad was glad it was only a couple of kittens.  He soon found homes for them.

      “No more kittens.” Mom said, looking at Dad.  “The last cat has to go.”

      Dad looked at me.  “Want to drive to the farm with me?” he asked.

      I nodded excitedly.  “Maybe we can see Fuzzy and Feisty.”

      Dad looked funny. “Sure, but it’s been a while,” He said.  He didn’t sound so sure.  I thought of the empty farm with no cats.

      We drove up the highway and turned down the road to the farm.  Then we drove into the driveway. Dad stopped the car and stared.  I didn’t blame him.

      Everywhere we looked, there were fuzzy cats! Big cats, little cats, black and white cats all lazing in the sun.  They all looked at us and some came over to meet the mom cat.  They were very friendly and some purred as they brushed my legs. 

      “Where are Fuzzy and Feisty?” I asked Dad.  He looked around.  In the distance he saw two black tails with white tips walking through the fields.

      “I bet that’s them over there.” Dad pointed and held me up to see.  I called to them but they were too far away.

      “That’s okay.” I said.  “Maybe next time.” I smiled at Dad and he smiled back.

“No more cats for us.” He said. “But it looks like endless cats for the farm.”  We both laughed as we drove away.

     

 

 

A Thing about Rocks in Wyoming

 

    When we lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, from my 7th-12th years, I think our family must have had a thing about rocks.  Of course, it was pretty barren high prairie, but the rocks had a particular fascination.

 Our LDS congregation, Cheyenne Second Ward, had a tradition each August of going to Veedauwoo Recreation Area in the Medicine Bow Forest for a ward picnic, Pioneer Day, I think. We pronounced Vee-da-voo, by the way, and it means "Land of the Earthborn Spirits." .  It was a daylong affair and was only about an hour away, so we had lots of time to play and explore.  The hills seemed to be mostly cracked granite and were fun to climb, with lots of handholds and little shadowy spaces under the stones, perfect hiding places for snakes, although we never saw any or even thought about the possibility of them.  What trees there were on the hills were scrubby pines, windblown and beautifully shaped.  

    There were also little meadows, full of cattails, tall reeds, and gurgling little streams that flowed through and under the mossy green spaces.  You could hide from people in the peaceful corners and the water covered the sounds of the picnic area not that far away.  But the best part was that the mossy stretches often had enough water flowing under them to form floating mats that you could walk on, if you were light enough and fast enough.  When I was younger I could pretty much walk anywhere, but in the end I could hardly walk on any of it, I weighed too much.  But it was still fun to be there and share the fun with my younger siblings.                  

    I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world.

    Sometimes, if there was time, we would drop by the Tree in the Rock rest area in the middle of Highway 80.  It was halfway between Cheyenne and Laramie and not far from the Lincoln Memorial, a bronze bust on top of a box of granite pillars.  It was also a good place for climbing, although not much was there besides rocks and a scraggly pine tree in the middle of a stone.  Later, when I visited the location, they had put up a bigger fence and wrapped a cable around the rock, which was cracked.                                                       

    The best nearby place to visit for climbing was Natural Fort (we called it Indian Fort because of the legend).  When you headed southwest out of Cheyenne towards Ft. Collins, Colorado, at the state line were two limestone outcroppings.  The legend was that two Indian war parties met at this outcropping and the one group massacred the other group as they tried to hide out.  It was an interesting story, but the cave-pocked outcropping with the mysterious set of steps carved into the side that allowed you to climb up to the ‘observation platform,’ a flat section of the hill, was much more exciting to us kids.  It was not far from our house and if we could con Mom and Dad into taking time to take us there, it was well worth the trip. I have been back to the area, but the outcropping has been bypassed by Interstate 25 so you either have take a long a frontage road to the one or off-road it to the other. 

This older picture I found online is more what I remember. In current pictures it is covered with graffiti.

    Of course, we also visited Devil's Tower one summer are part of a larger vacation that seemed to involve high winds wherever we went, even at Mt. Rushmore. More and more rocks!

 

Vedauwoo Photo: Clark Harris  https://www.territorysupply.com/camping-medicine-bow-routt-thunder-basin

Tree photo: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/317926054914339971/

Natural Fort Photo: https://mountainscholar.org/handle/10217/38780?show=full

 

One Man's Mountain Pass...

So back in September of 2014, after dropping Ellie off at college, Steve and I planned to drive up to Billings, Montana, to visit my Aunt Carol.  We looked at the options and decided that cutting through Yellowstone would be the most reasonable route, especially as the interstate system cut quite a large right angle. The Northeast Passage didn't look too bad, though it was interesting that it was closed much of the year and mid-September was pushing into the time they often closed it.  We checked, it was open, and no weather was forecast to change that. And indeed, it was a lovely drive.  

However, it was not what I expected for a mountain pass. To me, a pass is a lower point in a mountain range that is easier to get through.  I did not expect to climb and climb and, well, as you can see--some men's mountain passes are other men's peaks.  We did not, as expected, get to Billings before dark, even though we left Yellowstone just after lunch. But we did get back down out of the mountains, and it was only another hour to Billings.  

This was my first attempt at a video slideshow with music. I will occasionally share more, though right now I only have 2 that are fully complete.  I try to keep them down to 3 minutes or less, as I did with this one, but that is mostly because I want to use a particular piece of music as much as it is in deference to the attention span of my audience. Enjoy!