THIRTY-SIX

Bonjour tout le monde!

I hope this email finds everyone enjoying the sun and in a happy mood! We had another fantastic week up here in Rimouski. The spring, or in French, le printemps, has finally arrived after a few weeks of off weather! And we definitely took advantage of it!

On Monday after our normal p-day stuff we had correlation with Frère Hébert and talked about the progress that we had made in the area during the past week. We had a lot to report! After our correlation meeting a few of the members came to the chapel for Soirée Familiale. C'était formidable!! We had a great lesson and some snacks afterwards.

Tuesday we decided to venture out a bit and profit from the beautiful weather. So after our daily reading with Eric from the Book of Mormon we headed out on the 132 to a small little town called St. Blandine. It is such a quaint little town tucked away in the hills and winding woods about twenty minutes from Rimouski. While there we met a lot of very situated people—everyone was nice but was very set on not changing. "Born Catholic! Gonna die Catholic!" kind of attitude. I love those people... We almost got caught in the middle of a huge fight while talking to a nice old lady. Some drunk teenagers were fighting with nightsticks and chasing each other in cars. It was intense! When we got back to Rimouski we passed by Shirley-Anne to give her a Bible and to check up on how her reading went. She was there but didn't answer the door. That was the third time that happened so we decided to drop her. 

 

St. Blandine (Power lines!!)

I thought this was pretty funny. Dinosaures!

Wind power! (And power lines!...)

Wednesday was (I'm sure) one of the most memorable days of my mission! I'm not sure if I've mentioned the famous and mysterious "Rimouski Marble" yet... It is a legend among missionaries that have served here and remains to be a mystery for those that haven't. It is tied to an amazing family and a long story that I can't even begin to tell. Needless to say, after 10 weeks of searching (of course it wasn't our primary objective the whole time, but I would be lying if I said that it wasn't on the back burner since we arrived) we have found them! And in fact we are at their house right now! Dora and Ruud say hi everyone! They are amazing people. I'm sure I'll tell more of their story another time. For now that will have to do! After receiving our marbles they sent us off with about 10 pounds of frozen moose meat. We went over to Eric's and read with him—you can already see the change that is being made in his attitude and appearance! The Book of Mormon is having a profound influence on him! Right after we finished reading with him we got a call from Sylviane asking if we could come help move some stuff from her basement to her garage. We went over and helped her and her niece with Frère Hébert and then sat and talked and got to know each other a little better. Apparently Frère Hébert was a pilot in his teenage years! That man gets cooler with every day we spend with him. We knocked for pretty much the rest of the day.

Dora and Ruud

Thursday! Let's see... We had district study and we got to meet a new elder in our district—Elder Sloot. Elder Freeze is training him in Alma. Elder Ruby gave a great training on asking inspired questions. We read with Eric and then Catherine Dupont wanted to come knocking with us so we met her at the residence buildings at the local community college (if you want some good reading about Québec's educational system, look up CÉGEP.) We knocked around the area and she did a great job! She told us that a lot of the people we were meeting were classmates and that it was fun to be able to talk to them openly about her beliefs. She'll be going on a mission in about a year so we are trying to help her gain some good missionary experiences. Later that night we went over to the Lévesques to help them with their missionary work. We did a few role plays on how to talk about the Plan of Salvation with friends and family. Catherine was also there and we gave her some help on an English essay she is writing on non-traditional casting in theater. It was fun to be analyzing a topic from an essay point of view again but I definitely do not miss it! After that we stopped at Chantale and Yvan's to pick up a few bags of clothing to take to the Fripperie in the morning.

Elder Ruby getting manhandled by a snake! (This was at Isreal's house. I shared a talk with him that I wrote in Montréal about sacrifice. The introduction talks about chess and I know that he loves chess so afterwards we played... I totally beat him! It was awesome!)

Friday, Friday, gotta get d... no. Friday! We had a great time as always at the Fripperie! I love doing service there! While we were doing our weekly planning later that day we got a surprise call from Debbie! She told us about a great experience that she had at work with one of her coworkers. They were talking about religion and it turned to "The Mormon Church" and there were a lot of people saying some nasty stuff about us and one of her coworkers started defending the Church! She decided to speak up and they were able to have a good conversation about our beliefs. She asked him afterwards how he knew so much and he said that he has always thought that the Church was one of the best in the world because of the examples he has seen set by members. She told us his name and where he lives but forbid us from going over for another week or so so it doesn't seem too suspicious like she sent us or something. I can't wait to meet him! Later that day Soeur Dupont called us to ask if we could come lock the chapel. When we got there they were meeting with the Lemauge family from Montréal! It was great to see them again! He is the Institute President in Québec. I got to know them really well while I was in Montréal. We talked for a bit and they offered to take us to dinner! We went to a really nice restaurant, La maison du spaghetti. Mmmmm. I got manacotti to see if it could beat my mom's... Not even close! But it was delicious quand même! 

After dinner we had a lesson with Yvan. Earlier that day at the chapel I had printed off a one page 2013 calendar that we were planning on using with Eric to make a reading chart but forgot it in the car. When we got to their apartment I had a feeling that I should bring it in, so I folded it up and stuffed it in my pocket. After about ten minutes of chatting and catching up I remembered it was there and suddenly it clicked. It was time to help Yvan find which day he was going to be baptized. We talked for a bit about baptism and at just the right moment I pulled the paper out, put it on the table in front of him and waited. He was terrified at first but after talking for a while we decided that it was his decision and would give him some time. I've never prayed so hard for someone to receive an answer. After about three minutes of straight silence he muttered, "The twenty-fourth. I want to baptized on August twenty-fourth." We were so happy for him! It was a big step for him. I hope I'll be around Rimouski for that day!

So... Saturday! We had lunch with the St-Jacques family and taught the Plan of Salvation using balloons. I had a crazy idea that morning of how we could do it and we ran to Walmart to grab some balloons and construction paper before leaving. After about twenty minutes of drawing and cutting we were ready to hit the road! It was a great lesson and the idea worked! I was happy with how it turned out. (I'm running out of time... Time to summarize!)

Plan of Salvation with balloons!

That afternoon we were going to have dinner with the Duponts who live about an hour from Rimouski in La Rédemption. Catherine invited her friend, Esther, to dinner and a lesson after. So on the way to their house we stopped in Mont-Joli to see Soeur Dupont's mom. We sang a hymn and talked for a bit about her family. At the Dupont's we had a wonderful dinner and got to try sea snails! It was super weird... the texture was almost too much but I was able to get it down! We taught the same lesson afterwards with the balloons and then had to get on the road home! 

Bourgot! Sea snail! Mmmmm

Not so mmmm!

Esther, Catherine, Elder Ruby, the Dupont's, some kid

Sunday! (I'm out of time!) 24 people at church that morning! It was wonderful! We have been working so hard and are being blessed for it! After church we took President Fourtina around to meet some of the less-actives. That night while we were eating dinner and listening to a talk we heard someone knocking our window. I went to check who/what it was. It was our neighbor across the hall. She was asking if we could help them pick up some furniture across town with our truck. We offered to help and ended up spending the rest of the evening helping them. They offered to feed us dinner on Tuesday and Friday for helping! We finished the night by calling Sister Hedge (the one who lives like eight hours from Rimouski) and reporting on church to her! She is a great lady!

A man on a horse! I took that over my shoulder while driving at like 90 km/h.

I think the Baggins' live around the corner from here...

Well! That was our week! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! And as for my call home next week! I'm two hours ahead and our church ends at 12:30 here. We're thinking about going out to the Dupont's so we can skype so that means I would be skyping around 3 our time. Just plan on being logged into skype that afternoon and I'll send you an email on Sunday once I know what time we are going to be leaving with the Duponts! But like I said, just plan on about 3:00 my time, 1:00 your time. I'll find a way to get in contact if there are any changes in plans! I can't wait to talk to all of you!

I've been counting down!

Avec amour,

Elder Ellis