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