➢ Transfers, trainings, and terrific devotionals!

Transfer calls came this past weekend! My lovely companion is finishing her mission and I get to STAY in the Montreal Ward! I'm receiving Sister Hoffmann, who is currently in Kirkland. I'm so excited! She's already in my zone so we've been on exchanges together, and she is awesome. She's also Venezuelan, so hopefully I'll get to work on my Spanish! :)

In other news, we had a really great zone training meeting on Tuesday. We talked about our missionary purpose and how to be successful. Basically, your success as a missionary is based on the things that you can control. Most of the numbers we report on (baptisms, lessons in the presence of a member, referrals received, etc.) are more or less beyond our control. The things that are within our power to change are things like how dedicated we are, how much we love the people we're serving, and our attitude. It was fun to do our weekly calls with the district leaders this morning and hear the different things that missionaries got out of the meeting. Most people pulled out different things and the Spirit whispered to them what they needed to change, and as a result there was a spike in our numbers as a zone! We found more people, taught more people, and we even had a baptism this week. Wonderful!

The big highlight of the week though was definitely the devotional we attended by Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder Gerritt W. Gong of the presidency of the Seventy and their wives. I was so impressed by how they personalized their talks to our specific area. One of them talked about the history of the name "Mount Royal" (the name of our stake) as he taught about the name of Christ, and the other used the license plate slogan, "Je me souviens," to talk about things the Lord wants us to remember. We got to shake hands with each of them at the end, and they even took the time to ask us where we are from and (in the case of Elder Gong) how we're doing and how we're really doing. These men really love the people. They are true disciples of Christ. I am blessed to have had the chance to cross paths with them both. :)

I hope you all have a great week!

Sister Shaver

PS Oh, and this is my only picture from this week. #ghettowhiteboard. Everything in Montreal is ghetto. I love it. Oh! And in other transfer news, sister Perdue is training in Riverside (same as me!) and Sister Cunningham is FINALLY leaving Ottawa (she's been in the Kanata ward the last 3 transfers) and coming to the Montreal zone (the French-speaking one that covers the same geographical area as mine)! She'll be in Hochelaga, and I'll probably run into her on wednesdays because we'll both have district meetings at the mission office! When I told her that earlier today she was like, "prayer answered! I was praying I'd see you again before you leave!" She's so sweet! I haven't seen her since Christmas and I miss her!!! anyway, that's it. bye!