A quick visit to Montreal

This week we travelled to Montreal to participate in our eldest son and his wife’s 10th wedding anniversary events, the capstone being a recasting of their marriage commitments to each other in their own words. It was fun, heart-warming and joyous in so many ways and yet, as a parent, heart wrenching in a couple of others. They publicly affirmed their love for one another with friends and family as witnesses. I was especially proud of our son’s articulate list that included his pledge to never abandon his bride. One of the party activities on Saturday night was a photo booth that got very, very busy about 30 minutes before it closed.  Alex said he couldn’t resist giving me a kiss…photo credit goes to my sister Judy.

I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a week before my 28th birthday. That decision over 35 years ago was both lifesaving and soul saving. Lifesaving in that the Gospel of Jesus Christ connected the intellectual dots at that point in my life and set ablaze my spiritual self-worth with the knowledge that I am a child of God with glorious possibilities and direction. Not long after I received my patriarchal blessing. It promised me a family with whom I could share not only this life but the eternities with after our mortal deaths. “How could that be? Me married?” I asked myself. My observation was that young men in my community that didn’t marry by the age of 25 did not marry ever and I was well past that age. However, in due time I met a wonderful young lady named Wendy, we made everlasting marriage covenants with God and with each other and raised four strapping and bright sons. Like most families I have known, our lives were not perfect, at times they were messy, and we experienced our fair share of challenges, drama and, unfortunately, even trauma. I am grateful for the redeeming and enabling power of Atonement of Jesus Christ whereby my personal failures, shortcomings and wounds no longer beset me, allowing me to still look up with a brightness of hope. A piece of art we walked by in Montreal could be a visual allegory of what all the small decisions we and others make that affect us can look like - nothing we do or that happens to us is wasted in shaping us. 

My family's reaction was mixed when I first joined the Church. Growing up in my community, everyone I knew identified as belonging to a congregation of faith whether or not they attended regularly. My changing religions was devastating for my mother, her only stated comfort was, “at least you’re not your gay”, the assumed reason for not marrying by age 25. Remember this was 1988. My parents came to my baptism, though I am not sure my mother’s tears were of joy. She said only that baptisms always made her cry.  My maternal grandmother was elated in a twisted way in that my decision would allow her daughter to feel what she did when my mother left the Lutheran faith to become a Roman Catholic to marry my dad. What goes around comes around…

The three of our four sons that participated in this weekend’s anniversary events in Montreal had previously told us that they either didn’t believe in God anymore or that such a being is not knowable, choosing instead very different self-focused and self-directed and would add, socially just pathways. Like my parents we respect their agency to choose for themselves and their decisions do not, cannot and will not change our love for them. 

What this difference of beliefs looks like is awkward, even more so now as we are serving as missionaries. We shared a wonderful meal with them in our youngest son’s apartment and very much appreciated Alex’s suggestion that we hold hands around the table and have each of us share something that we were grateful for – while not said, instead of offering a prayer of thanks to our Heavenly Father. We were not in our own home, and so our gratitude to Him was expressed as sincerely but in silence - should I have also testified? Our being seemed to be testimony enough. 

The weekend was heart wrenching in two respects. Our son who is still diligently striving to become like Jesus Christ didn’t come to Montreal, we longed to see him face to face and to include him in our family embraces and the promise of all of us living together eternally as a family after our deaths was not as clear as it once seemed to be. Our sons are all still young and have made so many good choices in their lives that have brought them much happiness and blessed ours. I am confident they will continue to learn from their experiences and seek what is good and, in the Lord’s due time, these three may yet again accept and strive to keep the covenants they made to be inheritors of eternal life.  

With respect to nuts and bolts of our callings as missionaries. This past week there were two significant developments. We have been reassigned to work full time again in humanitarian aid until there is more certainty in the Education Department with respect to how we can be of service to them. I am so very grateful as it seems we were simply spinning our wheels while we were serving there but I hope we were at least a positive influence.  

We were initially assigned to the Mexico City East Mission, but our assignment changed while we were still in Salt Lake City to the Mexico City West Mission.  The change left the Mexico City East Mission without replacements as senior missionary couples completed their assignments. We offered to help, and a proposal is now being considered that would have us serve there on weekends. 

We currently work in administrative positions in the Area offices from 8 to 5pm Monday to Friday.  What is proposed is that we would travel to the Mexico City East Mission on Friday afternoons to do young missionary apartment visits and inspections and fill in on an as-needed basis in the visitor’s center. We would also be given a new ward assignment to help out on Sundays as member and leadership support. It has taken months for this proposal to get this far and may yet take months before any decision is made but I am very much looking forward to the possibility of engaging with the young missionaries and being bolstered by the Spirit and message they carry to the world for all the come until Jesus Christ.  

Sunday morning while we were in Montreal we went to a French ward hoping to participate in their sacrament meeting.  We understood it was stake conference in the English stake meaning there would be no sacrament services in the English wards. We followed a couple of Elders from the nearest metro stop to the building that would have otherwise been difficult to find. What to our surprise that when we got to the building it was a regional conference in which Elder Gong, one of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was presiding. We saw a number of people we knew in the congregation. On the way back to our hotel, we weren’t sure how to get back to the metro stop as there were no missionaries to follow this time.  Another tender mercy is that a missionary that served in the Canada Montreal Mission while I as serving in the mission presidency ran after us into the parking lot in the rain to say hello to us.  What a joy to speak to him again and to see him there, still striving. He also pointed us in the right direction to get to the metro stop and back to our hotel. 

In the airport on Monday morning, I was delighted to recognize and speak to Frere Fitamant who used to be in our ward in Gatineau. He had seen my missionary tag and made a bee-line to greet me. He too was surprised it was us. He and his wife were on the same flight back to Mexico City. I hadn’t seen him in over a decade. Church membership worldwide is small, only 17 million. Those that actively participate in church activity is about half of that and those that you meet in missionary service or temple worship an even smaller subset - it is not surprising to meet people we know at church activities but still a delight. 

The internet connection in our offices stopped working on Thursday and service has yet to be restored. In the interim, we are hobbling along by tagging our phones and using the hotel's connection. The last itme this happened it took a full week to repair the problem. Hopefully it will be fixed tomorrow. We are not the only ones with connectivity challenges. 

We went to a meeting with officials in Mexico's department of agriculture and rural development this afternoon to ask them to help us identify potential partners for water projects. We have another meeting with more officials in this same department on Thursday.  On the way back, our Uber driver's phone ran out of power and we ended up guiding him to our suite using Google Maps. 

On Friday we will celebrating Mothers' Day with a BBQ and outdoor games for the senior missionaries.  I need to see if I can round up some extra chairs and tables from the mission office.