letter #39

Letter #39

February 13, 2012

Mission Home

Greetings from a cozy warm office at the mission home!

Hello and how are you all this week? We are fine….but cold as our furnace is broken. We normally keep our home cool in the winter but this winter the mission home has been pretty much freezing. It was about 56 degrees in the house on all three floors after turning it up to 70. For me it is not as bad, as I naturally stay pretty warm without adding extra layers, but for dad, it is torture. Last night he had on six layers of clothes on including two thick sweaters. One being the sweater I bought him when I went to visit Libby in Ecuador up in Otavalo. We have a member of the FM Group (Facilities Management group operated by the Church) Andres, who is coming to fix the furnace. If he can’t fix it he will call the local oil company to come and fix it. So, we wait in the warm office where we have a tiny electric heater.

Every six weeks we have transfers, which means we receive all the new missionaries who have been at the MTC for two months learning one of four languages, English as a second language for those from foreign countries, French, Spanish, and Chinese. They arrive usually around 6:00 p.m. at Trudeau Airport where Pres./dad and I along with our assistants, pick them up. We must always have two vehicles, as there is a ton of luggage depending upon how many come. The times we received over twenty at a time, we have had to bring in our 12-passenger van along with a few other cars to get everyone in with their luggage.

As they arrive, they always have a “deer in the headlights look” on their faces as they are dragging and hauling all their belongings they need for two years, behind them. Their eyes light up as they see our nametags and realize someone has come to pick them up. They are always exhausted, exhilarated, wide-eyed, scared, hungry, thirsty, anxious and very happy to be in Montreal. All those feelings jumbled up into one moment. We greet each of them, I “BISOU” or kiss the Sisters on both cheeks, as that as how the women greet each other even when they first meet. We hand them a granola bar and a bottle of water and off we head for the mission home. We have them email home as soon as we get in to let their folks know they are safe and then we eat a nice dinner.

After we have a short get to know you session in the living room where we give them a Canadian lapel pin and a new Book of Mormon with a highlighter. We challenge them to highlight every reference to Christ, or God the Father in yellow, throughout the whole book (I think I counted only 26 pages where the name of Jesus Christ is not referred to in some way, that is why we teach people that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ ), then dad/Nels interviews each one briefly in order to make sure they are paired up with the right trainer/companion. Lights out at 10:00 and some times before that, as they are beat. The Elders always sleep in the finished basement on the carpet on Aero- beds we make up ahead of time and the Sisters always sleep up on our level with us, two floors above. We have five bedrooms on the top floor of our home with three bathrooms. In the basement there are two bathrooms with three showers. Pretty neat.

In the morning we have a big breakfast and a couple hours of training where we pass out their Metro or bus cards and their credit cards to buy food with. Then we load everyone back into the vans/cars and head down to the Berri UQAM bus station where all the missionaries gather to exchange new companions, get new ones or prepare to leave the mission. There is a lot of hugging, Elder with Elders, back slapping, pictures and laughing that goes on there. They have not seen each other in a while so this is a time to catch up for a few minutes with former companions, greet new missionaries and say goodbye to those leaving. It is also a time to send them on the buses to their various areas some being as far as eight or more hours away.

Once that is all done, we take the missionaries who have completed their missions, directly to the Temple, here in Montreal. It is a very special time as we gather with all our Senior missionaries who run the session for this wonderful time together. It is just all the CMM SENIOR missionaries, the outgoing missionaries and us in the Temple session. The dear Temple President and his wife, the Galbraith’s have allowed us this privilege since we arrived here in Quebec. It is a very precious time we spend with them in the Celestial Room. It is a sacred time of reflection, love and contemplation for all of us as we send these sweet, wonderful missionaries home.

Once we have finished the session, we head home where we have ahead of time prepared a special meal for them. This is one of my favorite times of the transfer. By that time, all the outgoing, who are very sad to be leaving have now settled into a peaceful and resolved kind of attitude. After a long dinner of chatting and story telling we sit around the table or tables and swap funny, wonderful, spiritual stories about the mission. I love this time. You see the stress draining out of them. You see them starting to relax after two years of giving everything they had to give, every minute, to furthering the work of our Father in Heaven here in the CMM. I love and admire them all so much.

After dinner, we have the sweetest, most sacred time with them as we share our testimonies of the work, the Father, His Son, the Book of Mormon, baptisms, and the many miracles we experienced along the way. It is a privilege to be in that small circle of giants. They are all great and wonderful giants in my eyes. I feel the same about our own missionaries on our family. I often think of Dane, Libby, Mark, Ben and James as we go throughout this mission knowing they were of the same caliber as our great missionaries. I love this work.

Pres. interviews them, I go over schedules, complete forms and tags for the airport and their bags, give them a letter we write, and a notebook with pictures and addresses of all the missionaries they served with while they were here. They also get a copy of every letter they wrote to the Pres. every week along with some money in case they have any problems along the way. I have them highlight their favorite scripture in a set of scriptures we have here along with their name and date. They sign an apron as well.

We try and get them to bed on time. Just before we leave for the airport in the morning, we have a huge breakfast, weigh all their bags, do last minute stuff and off we go. At the airport, we snap a parting shot of them with their luggage, then tearfully, bid them adieu…. farewell faithful warriors of truth and good. We miss them so much when they go. We are so blessed to be a part of this wonderful process.

Here is a delicious soup recipe!

Moldovan soup or better known as ZEAMA, in the country of Moldova. Yes, we know people from Moldova and the lady (dear Valentina) who worked for us for a few months before we realized she did not have a work permit, used to make this soup all the time. It is heavenly and I absolutely love it. So healthy. As I usually do, I changed it a bit to fit my taste. Instead of the fresh thyme, I used chopped fresh green onions and threw all three, the parsley, dill, and green onions in at the last minute so they were just warmed through. I was in a big hurry so I used Costco canned chicken with it’s broth. Tons of chunky carrots and some peas at the last minute. Delish. I am including this recipe below. The fresh lemon juice makes all the difference. I had a bunch of lemons I was not using so I juiced them and put the juice in ice cube trays, froze them then threw them in a zip-loc bag. I used four or five in the soup, as I doubled it.

Moldovan Chicken Soup

Um, yeah. Moldovan Chicken Soup (or Zeama) is THE BEST THING EVER.

And so totally easy. I keep saying this about many of the things I’ve cooked so far for this blog, but I will be making this recipe all of the time. Trust me – it’s a winner.

All ingredients for this meal were purchased at Findlay Market.

Both recipes in this post are from PapaBuna.com. My edits will be in a separate note at the end of each.

Traditional Chicken Noodle Soup – ZEAMA

A traditional recipe, Moldovan “Zeama” is typically made with homemade egg noodles and whole chicken, which gives the recipe a delicious flavor. You can find the recipe for the homemade noodles under the Miscellaneous category on Papabuna.com.

Ingredients:

1 smaller whole chicken (about 3lb), cut up,
about 12 cups (3 quarts) water (one time I did not have time to boil chicken so I used canned chicken from Costco and canned chicken broth and it was delish)

3 teaspoons salt or to taste
1/8 teaspoon black pepper, fresh cracked
1 medium onion diced
5 large carrots chopped
1 big fresh tomato diced
about 2 cups homemade egg noodles or store bought are fine
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 large celery stalk with leaves chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh dill weed
3-4 small branches fresh thyme (optional)

1 bunch green onions chopped

Directions:

Wash the chicken, place it in a deep saucepan and add water. Boil on medium-low heat, until froth rises to the top and chicken is cooked.
Meanwhile, clean and chop all vegetables and herbs.

Using a skimmer, remove all the froth. Bone chicken and cut into bite sized pieces, put aside. Add chicken at the end, along with parsley, dill and green onion. You just wanted them heated through, do not cook the fresh herbs.

To the chicken broth, add salt, black pepper, onion, carrot, tomato and celery. Cook for about 3 minutes. Add the egg noodles and lemon juice. Continue cooking on medium-low for about 4 more minutes. Don’t overcook carrots you want them slightly crunchy.
Add the thyme, and finely chopped parsley, green onions and dill. If the celery stalk has any leaves, I usually chop them up and add them together with the other herbs.

Cover, remove from heat. If you let the soup stand for a little while, it allows flavors to blend in, making it taste better.

Serving Suggestions: Moldovans usually serve Zeama with traditional Moldovan corn bread.

I didn’t make homemade egg noodles; I used angel hair pasta and another time I used tiny circle pasta, whatever you want.

Now onto other things, we were just way, way up in Val d’Or where there is a tiny branch of about 18 members. They are strong and faithful. The community of Val D’Or (the valley of gold) is an old mining town which is just as active as ever. It is a town with tons of bars and girly clubs. It is a town with a very large community of Cree Indians. And our dear Elders are hard at work trying to share the gospel in this city which is the home of many drunks and lost individuals. So many are divorced, out of work and many are drug addicts. It is a town that needs the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are so many who are lost, friendless and feel hopeless.

We were asked to speak for the entire Sacrament meeting as we often do, (in French) and afterwards, one of the Brothers by the name of Frere Paille, made a lunch of soup, bread and pickles. It was so fun to be with them and sit around after church and get to know them. What a wonderfully diverse group of individuals. The Relief Society President made dad and I the most beautiful, delish sack lunch, to take in the car with us on the way, as we had an eight hour drive home that day.

We have two Elders up there who are stellar. One of them is from Alaska and is an American Indian. He has been a big hit up there. The Indians love him and he really connects with them. The other Elder is the nephew of Susan and Patrick Neff, Sousan….neat huh? Great Elder!! We love him. He kind of looks like he could be Susan’s son. Anyway. The night before we wanted to take the Branch President, his wife and the Elders to dinner, because they never see anyone from the mission as they are so far away. So we asked the Elders to find a place to eat. Yes, I know that was a risky request. We ended up at the local all you can eat, (of course, it’s the Elders) Chinese buffet. Need I say more. Delectable frog legs, soggy pizza, overcooked Spaghetti, and other things I simply was not able to identify.

As we were at the restaurant eating, I realized something amazing. I was listening to about five different languages being spoken all around me. And as I was in the buffet line there even more being spoken. I figured they were different dialects of Cree. I did not understand anything anyone was saying. It gave me an understanding of what it may have been like to be present during the time of the at the tower of Babel in the Bible when the Lord confounded the language of the people and suddenly everyone was speaking different languages and no one could communicate with each other. I love this place. Honestly, Quebec is the most wonderful mix of the world, so rich in culture, color, dress, food and language. I love it.

Well today, it is the 12^th of March and somehow a month has marched by, or raced by rather. I write in bits and pieces of time. I find it better to end this letter and start another as I have so much more to write. I will attach a picture of the Moldovan Soup, our new missionaries and a picture of one of our Elders who has kept track of all the countries represented by those he has met and taught here in Montreal.

I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for all you do for us. We love and miss you. Please know you are in our prayers morning and night and sometimes in between. I know that Heavenly Father watches over you all. We are SO EXCITED for the upcoming birth of Tracie and Danes, (our) new baby girl. We are looking forward to Libby and Mark’s first baby girl and to Wynn and James’ second beautiful girl. How blessed are we to add to this grouping of new baby girls starting with Nora! We are grateful for Andi, Clara and Eli and Acadia who bring such joy into our lives. And that’s just the grandkids, our kids, you kids, you are our “jewels”, the crowning jewels in our lives. You are precious in every way. We love you all.

Make it a great week and I promise to do my best to do the same.

Love,

Mom, meme, Grammah, Shir, Soeur Cannon

Go to link below for pictures from the mission etc.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadamontrealmission/