letter #41

Letter # 41

In the car leaving Alma, Quebec

January 9, 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR  ~ HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY TO DEAR CLARA ON THE 23RD AND FARHAD ON THE 24TH. LOVE YOU!

WELL HELLO FAMILY AND FRIENDS. YES I AM STILL ALIVE AND KICKING. I KNOW IT HAS BEEN SIX MONTHS, AND FOR THAT I AM SO SAD I have not recorded the last six months. I am sorry for not communicating.  FOR MANY REASONS I regret this, FOR ONE THIS IS MY JOURNAL AND SO MANY WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE HAPPENED!

LIKE MY VISIT TO TACOMA TO WELCOME OUR FIFTH granddaughter since out on the mission, Rainy Shirin Stewart, beautiful daughter of James and Wynn. What a blessing she is to our family. It was a bit of heaven for me to be there. We also attended a mission President’s seminar in Kirtland where we were reunited with a former missionary, Elder Gervasi. That was such a tender mercy. Then my dear Dru came for a most lovely visit. She worked, we laughed, we talked and talked some more and laughed again. Heaven again. Thanks for coming Dru.  We were also blessed enough to be able to see Mark and Libby and our precious Harper on the way home from the seminar, in Rochester. Also a great blessing was to have Emy, Ben, Clara, Eli and our sweet baby Nora came to Montreal in October to visit for a week. What a huge effort on their part to get everyone out here to see us. Thank you guys. We are so blessed. It was so much fun to have the Brashers. Then to top it all off, we finally met our dear Evelyn Cannon, which means Dane and Tracie flew here to see us the week of Thanksgiving and actually the only time we could get them home was on Thanksgiving day. We had the most wonderful time with them and it was a joy to finally meet dear Evelyn. We loved her the second we laid eyes on her but then we loved her anyway.  We also had a visit that was sooo fun from Sou and we had a whirlwind wonderful time with her. Laughing and so much fun.  Also Clint and Diane came to see us. What a wonderful time we had with them as well.

And just last week we had the privilege and pleasure of welcoming Chase Omana (my dear nephew son of  Ham and Di) who came out for a week to serve a mini mission in Montreal. He was companions to two of our finest missionaries, Elders Heder and Reid, Zone Leaders in the Mont Royal Zone. Chase, you looked like a missionary in your handsome suit as you arrived here. You may want to rethink those cool shoes though and get some you can get on a bit easier. JK Thank you for being so obedient and contributing to the work of the Lord here. We are so proud of you. You made a difference while you were here. What a great privilege for us. I am sure I have missed someone who came so forgive me please. We have had countless house guests and visitors. And last but not least it is my pleasure to mention the blessing of having my father in law, Elder Emerson Cannon, and my mother in law, his wife, Sister Colleen Miller Cannon who were called to serve here in the Canada Montreal Mission. Yes, it is true. They are serving and might I add, valiantly and faithfully, in the Chinese Branch. They came in October and have blessed the lives of all of us since their arrival. My memory is fading hope I didn’t forget anyone else. Forgive me if I did. Thank  you - all of you family and friends for making the efforts to fly out, or  drive out to see us or have me/us in your home. We love and miss you so much.

We are on our way to Quebec city from Alma. It is night, it is a blizzard. I only wish I could accurately detail what I see before me. It is literally PITCH BLACK. No towns, no cell phone usage, no lights, only the light of our headlights. I don’t think I have ever in my life, driven in such inky darkness on a road before. Complete darkness. The winds are gusting at high speeds. The snow comes in huge waves across our path. Why have they now cleared this road? We are winding through mountains and hills. It is like a roller coaster here. Normally I would say it is my very favorite drive in Quebec but in these conditions, it is nail bitingly frightening. And on top of that it is snowing, it is negative one, and there is snow on the roads. Yes, I know, especially my dad if he is reading this, must be asking this question… why? Why are we doing this? We are in the  middle of interviews which means we drive to all missionary apartments, inspect them, see how they are doing and simply spend a little time with them. It is the sweetest and most favorite thing we do. I love interviews except for this. And we are on a schedule and we must follow the schedule. When it storms, I don’t like it. But President is driving very safely and slowly which I am grateful for. Otherwise he has become a true Quebecqois driver. I will let him explain what that means. Seriously, I can hardly stand looking up. If I were driving I would be ok but I had a little incident with my eyes in October and as a result I don’t see as well in the night. Wow these hills are very steep We just passed an oncoming car. No one is out, but a few sillies on the road. Hallelujah we just came up behind an enormous snow plow who is salting and we have to slow down and follow behind him. Fine with me. I  am as happy as a clam following this good person, driving this plow.

 Thank you Mr. plow man or woman whoever you are thank you.

Speaking of my eyes. I want to tell you what happened to me not because I want to talk about myself but to exhibit Heavenly Fathers love and attention  towards His children, even me. I was the recipient of His greatness and love. Small miracles abound. We attended the mission Presidents seminar in Kirtland, Oh., in October 2012. It had been the most busy four months, I  think we had ever had. We were sitting there listening to Elder Halstrom of the Seventy in the morning of the first day and I  started having difficulty focusing on him. I had had a severe headache for three or four days. A near migraine but not full blown. By the end of the night I was literally seeing double. To make a long story short, our Medical Area Authority, a doctor was at the seminar and told me to get to the Dr. fast. But we had to drive home so we stopped at the emergency room in Buffalo. This was arranged by the mission Presidents wife in N.Y., the Christiansen’s. She called her Dr. in Rochester who knew an LDS ER Doc in Buffalo. Between them they arranged for me to go there immediately which we did. His name was Dr. Greg or Craig Boyle I think and he was on his day off but he arranged  everything for us including an Ultra sound and MRI to rule out MS and a tumor. I am so grateful he reported to me I was fine with respect to those two conditions and thought it might be the result of a complex migraine. He was so very kind. He even came in and sat with us for a few hours to speed things up. He even arranged for us to go to the Stake Relief Society  Presidents home to sleep that night as we were released at two in the morning. She stayed up and waited for us to greet us and make sure we were comfortable. We did not know any of these people but all were so willing to help us out. So we were on our way home when we got another call from our Area Medical Authority, Dr. Aldous, told me that he had a second opinion and convinced me that I see a Neuro-Ophthalmologist.  At this point we were on the road headed back to Montreal and just heading into Rochester to see Libby, Mark and Harper. Do you know how long it takes to get an appointment with a Dr. with this type of expertise?  Over a year if I were in Quebec. And Dr. Aldous who has a ton of contacts in SL said he tried and they would fly me to SL but it would not be for three months. So there we were on the road wondering what to do. Then I had one of those lightening strikes in my head. A thought came into my mind like a bolt of lightning, or an explosion of the spirit. I was prompted to call our dear friends the Russell’s’ (Dr.)  in Iowa where he teaches and practices at the University of Iowa. His dear wife and my good friend Trudy jumped into action after I told her of my problem. I tell you the Lord works in the most miraculous ways. It just so happens Steve has a good friend (Dr.) who works in the University of Rochester eye dept. and she knows the head of the Dept. there, Dr. Feldon. Steve also knows him. Anyway, she, Dr. Chong or Chen I think it is, asked Dr. Feldon to see me. He agreed. That would never ever have happened without Steve and Trudy.  Fast forward, After a month and a half of no driving which almost drove me mad, I had a return appointment and my sight is pretty good except for my extreme right and left. I see double there but straight ahead I am good. I have learned to compensate by turning my head so all is well and there are no restrictions at all. I am grateful.

January 20, 2013

As you can see I did not finish the letter as we hit some bad weather and I could not concentrate. We are now way, way up North in Abitibi, Val D’Or the valley of Gold.  We drove through another blizzard to get here for a baptism and we spoke today at church. I spoke to this small branch of 20 about sacrifice, service and unity. We were supposed to go to Petawawa today but because of high winds and huge drifts in the roads we decided to leave in the morning.

I am so glad because we are here in the Quality Inn and we got a call from Dane, Tracie and our dear sweet Evelyn. We actually used facetime. It worked pretty well. Isn’t technology amazing? It was so good to see them. They were headed next door to our neighbors, the Smiths for dinner. They always feed them. I love the Smiths and am so grateful for them. They will never know what it means to us that they include Dane and Tracie at their loving table. We love and thank you Smiths. Then one of our former missionaries sent me a message asking me to skype with three other returned missionaries, all in different locations. I just comleted our skype session with them. When I saw them all there on the screen I burst into tears. It made me realize how much we love and miss our returned missionaries. We talked with our wonderful Elder Avitia who is from Tx. But is attending BYU Idaho and is engaged to a beautiful young woman. We talked with our dear Sister Tschumi in Switzerland who has a great job and wants to have our next reunion in that part of the world. Sounds like a blast. She looked beautiful. We talked with sweet Elder De La Vega who is working and going to school in Vegas and plans on heading to Provo at some point. He looks great and lost a lot of weight. So proud of him. And last but not least our dear Sister Penick who is in Calgary going to school but is from St. George and is majoring in Communications. She is a gem and we were lucky enough to catch up with Desiree and her mom in Ottawa! We just happened to be staying at the same hotel. It was meant to be that we get some Poutine together at Elgin Street Diner. All of them so wonderful living such good lives. We are proud of them and happy for them. We love our missionaries.

We had Grandma and Grandpa Cannon, I mean Elder and Sister Cannon over for leftover chicken enchiladas the other night and enjoyed our time with them immensely. It is so fun to have them here in the mission even though we don’t get much time to see them. They are making a HUGE difference in their Branch. Everyone LOVES them and especially the missionaries. Grandpa jokes around with them and they LOVE that.

Today we picked up and drove home, some investigators who are Algonquin Indians and they live on the Lac Simone reservation where all the homes look exactly alike except they are different colors. They rent the homes from the Indian Nation. They call themselves First Nation. They are all very poor and most of them do not have jobs. Alcoholism, drugs and poverty plague these wonderful people. It was so fascinating for me to find out more about how they live. They live on beaver they trap under water, moose they entrap in branches to break their legs then shoot them, deer and they ice fish for Sturgeon and Walleye. They talked about how they use everything from the animals they kill. They must do so to stay alive and feed their families. The men go out and hunt and fish, as do the women. They are going through a very tough time right now as the Canadian government wants to take even more of their land away and they are trying to fight back. But they don’t have the legal power, money and means to do so. It is so sad to me. They are fighting back and their slogan across Canada is “IDLE NO MORE”. They love to go snowmobiling as there are literally thousands of miles of trails or mini snow mobile highways here in Northern Quebec. Chris, one of the guys lives with his girlfriend and they have two little girls. He wants a better life for them. He seems like a really nice guy. He invited us to come up and stay with them and we could hunt, fish and snow mobile some time. Sounds fun but not in the next 5 months that is for sure. No time. But wasn’t he nice to invite us?

I can see I have gone on too long now. I love you all and miss you. Thank you for your support and love. We feel it lift and carry us through times that are tough. We could not do this without your love and support. Thank you.

Much love,

Mom, Shir, Mema, Granmah, Sister Cannon

Pictures, Rainy Shirin Stewart on her blessing day, one of the awful storms we drove in and my sweet Clara with baby Nora,  who will be turning 5 years old on the 23rd of Jan. She is so loving and dear. She brightens my life like no other. Love you Clara.