Who knew that June was Spring!!

Remember when I said that we had one week of Spring and then right into summer.   Well,  they do things a little different in Quebec (if you didn't already know that, watch their politics, etc) and the seasons are no different.  We are now in full flung Spring.  Mid 60s to Low 70s with lots of rain.  I LOVE IT!!!!   It is my kind of weather!!

It is so hard when our missionaries leave!!!  Transfers are heart wrenching times.  We get to love them so much, it is like our kids leaving every 6 weeks!!!   This time Elder Blackwelder left to another district in our zone so at least we will get to see him every now and then.  He was replaced by Elder Sorensen from Washington State and this is his first stop from the MTC.

Elder Ritz is a great trainer and they are going to do some great work together. The sisters are really rocking and rolling, they set a goal of 20 lessons a week and they have exceeded their goal!!  way to go sisters!!

My good friend Louise has had some up and downs.  But she gets answers to prayers faster than anyone I know.  She is in the Hospital right now getting both chemo and radiation therapy and her cancer has now metastasized into her shoulders as well, but she seems to be getting stronger and she is her usual  chipper and mood lifting self.  We always come away from our visits with a lighter heart than when we went in.

Here she is with her mom Iréne during better days.  What a team.  They are amazing women.

Elder Pete set a goal a long time ago of joining the local Rotary.  The ward mission plan set the goal of being more involved in the community and he saw this as one way he could help accomplish this.  It has been a very positive experience.  Many of them know about our church and make sure that there are appropriate things for him to drink.  The local Major of the Salvation Army - who is also a member of Rotary -made a point of telling everyone that our church members are GOD'S WORD IN ACTION.  We have a wonderful member - Hans - who is a dedicated volunteer for counseling and and on 24 hour on call for the suicide help line. (Yes, this is the same Hans who just had his 70th birthday!!) The Elders and the Sisters also go there weekly and often bring other members with them.

Back to the weather, here are a couple of pics from the first of the month when our favorite walks along the river were along a gentle river, with fishermen walking in it, and rocks that we could walk out on, I even saved a fish that had got stranded on a sandbar because the water was so low.

Then...  here is the river now after a few weeks of rain storms.  Nothing crazy rain wise..,.  just nice spring rains....  but WOW...  the river has gone nuts!!!

Kim's wish for her 40th birthday was to spend a weekend with her sister.  Just girls.  They had a lot of fun laughing and playing together.  It warms a mom's heart when her girls are such good friends even though they don't get to see each other as much as they want to.

Here are a few of my favorite pics that they sent me.

escaping from the Mystery Room

  With Grma Iris

With Grma and Carrie 

The "POSE".  They did the first one when Dani was going on her mission... 1998, and they keep doing copies as they get together.  I love it!! 

an my very favorite of all!!!

When they went to the temple

June is here

Life is Good

God Loves You

Keep the Faith

Where did May go??

Really??!!  it is the first of June??  This month has just flown.  So many things happening that I am going to just highlight the main points, or we will be here all day!!

We have been spending a lot of time with our friend Louise.  She is fighting her cancer and believe me... she is a fighter.  She brings light to everyone who visits her and she is a joy to be around.  Her mom and I have a fun time communicating...  I am an Anglophone with limited French and she is a Francophone with limited English.  But we love each other A LOT and hugs communicate amazingly well.

Also another of our good friends baptized their son.  We love this family and the baptism was a wonderful weekend of family and friends for them.  This is them and our missionaries. Well most of them...  the one on the far left has left already and we have a new elder.

We love where we are and in this time of year with the seasons changing, we have been blessed to see some beautiful things.....

This is The Riviere Magog that runs through town and has 3 dams in the down town area, creating beautiful waterfalls.  Many of our favorite walks are along this river.  The first pic is early spring when most of the trees were not yet leaved...  but you can see in the last how beautifully they have popped!!  What used to be covered in white and stunning beautiful, is now green, green, green, and we love it!!

Another interesting thing in downtown are the murals.  They are all hand painted by a group that lives here, but goes all over the world painting them.  They are so lifelike that often you can't tell if it is a painting or if it's real - until you get right up to it.  Especially things like doors, windows, and bldg features.

Yes....  balconies, doors, windows, molding, everything is painted

can you find Elder Petersen in the mural...  he is the only 3 dimensional thing there... the rest is all paint.

Notice the guy in the second story window...   the green window sill looks real on the left, but he has his hand on the one on the right..  they are both painted.

and my favorite!!! I love the people on the bookshelves.  Yes that is all paint too...  no shelves!

As most of you know, we took a little trip to the Halifax Temple.  Well, not really little, it is a 12 hour drive over the tip of Maine and back down through New Brunswick to Nova Scotia. Since we were so close we decided to take a little detour and go see Prince Edward's Island too.

 We drove the Confederation bridge to get there - a 12.9 kilometre (8mile) bridge that links PEI to New Brunswick.

We fell in love with the island...  I could live there - maybe 4-6 months of the year.  They had over 15 feet of snow this year - so much that it still hadn't all melted. So I don't think I would want to winter there.  But it is beautiful now.

We took the ferry to Nova Scotia. It was a beautiful sunny day and the waters were perfect.

The men of our trip.  

 The Halifax temple looks a lot like what the Montreal temple will look like when they finish this November.  We are so looking forward to it opening!!

 We stayed with the James family.  They are good friends with John and Hans who were with us on the trip.  They are a wonderful family and great Hosts and our new friends.

 They took us out to Peggy's Cove.  What a beautiful spot of the world.  The waves here are very different from what we are used to with sandy beaches.  The rocks interrupt the motion of the waves and they are crashing, and swirling, and creating a huge undertow.  It was amazing to watch.

On the way home we stopped by Fundy Bay.  This is a bay where the tide makes a 52 foot rise and fall 2 times a day.  It is amazing.  We didn't get to see it rise or fall, but we saw it at it's peek.  You can watch it on You Tube and see how dramatic the rise and fall is.

We also visited the longest covered bridge in the world...  1282 feet long crossing the St Johns river at Hartland, New Brunswick. You can't drive past something like that and not stop and see, and of course drive through it!!

That was our trip to Halifax.

Now a few  random items:

The border between Canada and the US is a funny thing.  We often go to Derby Line, Vermont, which is just across the border.  We go to check our mail box, get gas (1/2 price from Canada) and sometimes get groceries.(some things you can only get in the US)  Each time we go we cross at the border crossing and do the whole - check your passport, check your car, where do you live, and whose car are you driving - thing. but ---  the border it's self is pretty strange...  in fact the Opera House and Library sits right on the border with 1/2 in each country.  The boarder is marked by the flower pots.  Notice the tip of the Border Patrol Vehicle on the left.

Here is Elder Pete straddling the border inside the building

 and here am I doing the same outside.


The weird part is....  there are neighborhoods all along the border in these towns.  All of the roads and city blocks have little fences that don't let you drive across except at the border crossing....  but the lawns of the houses connect from one yard/country to the other...  you can easily WALK across almost anywhere.  There is a border crossing guard that sits in his car outside the Opera/library ...  why I ask?  to make sure those who park on the Canada side walk - into the library and back out on the US side - make sure they get back to their car on the Canada side??  How about the kids playing on the grass...  if their ball rolls onto their friends lawn is it OK if they go get it in the other country?  or do they need to show their passport to get their ball?  

 Alright....  fine....  I will get off my soap box.   It just seems weird to me.

One day we were driving through the farmlands and saw this 

 It is an observation deck built by an artist for the local communities.  On a clear day you have a 360 degree view of the Eastern Townships.  Local attraction/rest stop.

Well....   there you go....  May in a nut shell....  as we enjoy Our Mother's Day Pot Luck - one of many Pot Lucks sponsored by the Sherbrooke Ward - We wish you a fond adieu .