February 16

Hey everyone! I hope that you were able to have a good Valentines Day! It was good here. My companion and I even had a candle light dinner of waffles. 

This week we didn't get the chance to see many people. We were able to see India and Val. We watched The Testaments with them. They and Indra's other daughter Carrie (a member) cried through the movie. At the end of the movie it says that the Messiah has come and he will come again. Val asked when and if it would be next week. Carrie said she hoped not because she is not ready. Val said she was ready. Carrie told her it was because she was 7. India said she was ready too. Both of her daughters just looked at her and Val told her she wasn't ready because she wasn't baptized yet. I wasn't really sure what to say to that. They both want their Mom to be baptized so bad. Someday I know that she will, it's just a matter of when.

I know that I wouldn't be ready of the 2nd coming happened next week. I know there is often the joke that if your a missionary you will be fine. But I know for myself there is so much more I need to do to prepare for it. 

I hope you all have a good week!

Talk to you later,

Sister Gardner

Pics of our candle light dinner and Ti (the 5 year old with cancer)

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentines Day this week everyone! 

This week has been an interesting week. I would like to start off by asking everyone to keep our recent convert Rosa in your prayers this week. She is from Croatia and she offered to help us with our Croatian. Anyway this week has been a rough week for her. On Monday her parents got a letter in the mail saying they were going to be deported back to Croatia. Rosa is worried that her papers will not go through now. To make it an even better week her 5 year old son has cancer and he had a MRI this week and the cancer is back. So he will be doing more rounds of radiation and chemo. So if you could just keep them in your prayers this week that would be great!

We were able to see 2 other investigators this week Mari and Val.  Val is 7 years old and is super cute. We taught her about listening to the Holy Ghost by blindfolding her and she was suppose to find a picture of the Montreal Temple. We had her mom telling her how to get to the picture while her older sister was distracting her and telling her to go to another spot. She ended up going where here sister sent her. Later she came back and started to listen to her mom and she found the picture. We told her that the Holy Ghost speaks to us in quite ways and we have to listen carefully to what he is saying so that we can do what is right and go the right direction. It went well. Val's words of wisdom this week are to poke polka-dots, since they're made to be poked. 

Mari  is a little mentally handicapped so we are taking things really slow with her. I guess she was meant to have a lesson on the why we get baptized because the elders had gone over earlier in the day and read some scriptures on baptism. We didn't know that until after. So we had a type of object lesson/visual aid to help her understand it. I don't know if you know about the soap and the pepper trick but we used it. We had a small bowl of water and we put pepper it it representing sin. When we allow Jesus Christ in and repent he can help clean us. You put a drop of soap on your finger and put your finger into the pepper in the water and it all goes to the sides. But there is another step because we aren't completely clean. We get baptized to wash away our sins. So you dump out the water and put fresh in. Unfortunately we are not perfect and we sin again and we can't get baptized every week. So what do we do now to completely wash our bowl? We take the sacrament each week so that we can be clean again. The lesson went well.

Basically that was my week this week. I did have a Mrs. Polifax feeling though. I have been learning different ways to play Solitaire this week and I'm on a mission. The only thing I'm missing is a hat. :) (Sorry for those of you who will not get this reference, but it is a series of books and they made 2 tv movies)

Have a great week everyone!

Sister Gardner

There is more winter here for sure! Lol imagine that here in Canada? We have snow. Snow removal here is intense. They move the cars and if you don't it gets toed. Then the have all these trucks that they put the snow into and they drive it to what we call a snow mountain. It is seriously this mountain made of snow. I think they should open it up for sledding! That's what I wanted to do when I fist saw it!

February 2nd

Hey everyone!

I hope you are all having a good week. Things here in LaSalle are good. I am starting to settle in and know the people here. It will be a slow process, especially since I am terrible with names but they will come! 

Croatian is interesting! To learn it we have some books and I have a Book of  Mormon. We also have a recent convert named Rosa who has agreed to help us learn the language. So that will be nice. On my own I decided to work on the alphabet so that I could sound out words. We will see how it goes. Wish me luck with that and my French! On the good news someone asked me a question in French yesterday and I was able to understand it and reply back. :) The question was how are you and where are you from? 

My quick story is the power of cookies. We have an investigator named Sam  (Sammy). He had kind of dropped us recently. Anyway so we were texting him and asking if we could meet him and he really wouldn't say yes. We asked him if there was anything we could do for him and he was like, "like what?" So Sister H asked me what we could do. I offered a couple of things one of them being cookies. After we sent that we could make him cookies he was like, ya we can totally meet and Tim Hortons (coffee shop) and you can bring me cookies and we can talk. So that was awesome! We did make him cookies and met him at Tim Hortans and he wants to meet with us again.  :)

I hope you all have a good week!

Talk to you later,

Sestra Gardner (Croatian word I know)

Pic is of a ward game night and the girl smiling is my companion Sister H

January 26th:LaSalle

Hey everyone :)

What a week it has been. So I moved to Montreal this Wednesday for transfers. I am in the LaSalle area and it is English speaking. But here is something new, I get to learn Croation. Yep Croation. And I thought French was hard! It will be interesting that's for sure! Wish me luck and if you get a chance you should look it up so you can see what it looks like. There are a lot of Croation people here so President has asked us to start learning it. So it will be exciting.

My crazy story of getting to Montreal. So I wake up and finish packing, which was rather stressful. But then again when is moving not stressful. We are running a little behind, but it's ok. We still have time. So I had Sister G  put the address in her GPS and off we went. Well, the GPS didn't take us to the right place. I have no idea where we were but it was in a very industrial part of town. We were calling the Sister Training Leaders and the Zone Leaders. So they gave us the right address and away we went. Alas we did not make it to the bus station in time. I missed my bus by about 3-5 min. So we traded in my ticket for the next bus. And then I did what doesn't normally happen. I traveled alone to Montreal. Yep, I was by myself and I was really nervous! But Heavenly Father had my back and I made it to Montreal ok and a set of Sister Training Leaders picked me up. What an adventure. :)

My new companion is Sister H. She is from Kaysville, UT. She has done 1 semester in Logan and plans to go back when she gets home. 

I hope you all have a good week!

Sister Gardner

Baptism and Transfers

Well everyone, I am leaving this awesome city of Ottawa. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know I am going to where I am suppose to be, which is Montreal, but it doesn't make saying goodbye any easier. I have grown to absolutely love the people here! They are amazing, and I know they will continue to be awesome and amazing people! Someday I will make it back to this place, whether it be while I'm on my mission or when I'm off. So wish me luck with packing and leaving and everything else that goes along with that.

The Snow Family Baptism was yesterday. It went so well. Thanks to everyone that helped with that! Sister M was able to skype in and watch the whole thing. She was able to say the opening prayer as well. It's awesome what technology can do now. We were all excited to see her. Sister G and I gave the talks. Mine was on the Holy Ghost. I thought it went well. I hope that it wasn't too long. Elder A baptized Rick, Elder B did Karen with the help of Elder A, and Elder B did Xavier. It was so great! They are an amazing family who was ready for the gospel. Next week they get the Holy Ghost. 

What was cool about this baptism was it wasn't just the sisters or the elders. It was our district. We all have been working with the family. That doesn't happen very often. So that was cool and I'm honored that I was able to be apart of it! 

Mom, Becca, and Elise when I get home we have got to work on my hymns! Oh man, I need to learn more, practice with a metronome, and practice to somebody leading me! I also played the piano for the baptism and while the Snow's were changing we sang hymns. Oh my word. I'm sure it would have been comical for you three to watch Sister M and I. When we would get off we would do that typical I made a mistake smile, except the fact that it was Cassy making the mistakes. :) That is something for me to work on when I get home!

I hope you all are continuing to do well! I love hearing form you so keep the emails and letters coming!

Love you all!

Sister Gardner

Pics of baptism and cleaning the font

January 13th

Hey everyone! I hope you are having an awesome week! 

Things here are going great. Yesterday we had a zone training, so that's why our p-day was Tuesday instead of Monday. The training was all about finding and family mission plans. It was really good. We talked about helping families make a mission plan. Which when they first said this, I was a little nervous. When you say people you are going to make a plan like that the members tend to freeze up. We watched a clip from the Hastening the Work website called Let Your Light So Shine. As the family watches the video we ask them to think of names of people that could use a lift. After the movie we go through the names of the people and ask them what the next step is. So if you thought of the cashier at the grocery store the next step would be to learn her name. It's as easy as that. The missionaries are here to help. That doesn't mean they are ready for lessons or anything, although that would be great. We are here to help and encourage them, and help the families not be so scared. We all know people who are ready for the Gospel, whether it be to plant the seed or teach them the whole thing. I challenge each of you to watch the clip and think of people. Think of what your next step would be to help them be ready for the Gospel and then do it! There is no better time than now. This is the time of the Hastening of the Work. 

Karen, Rick, and Xavier's baptism is this Sunday. They are so ready for it. It's has been amazing to see the changes they have made in their lives to let the light of Christ in. I'm honored that I was able to be apart of that. They are an amazing family! If all goes as planned by this time next week they will all be baptized. :)

This week Sister G and I were able to see Ida. It's been a long time since I have been able to see her. She is still the sweetest lady! She really could kill someone with kindness! We read with her from the Book of Mormon Alma 37:36-37 about prayer. She really liked the message. She said she would start reading from the Book of Mormon. Sister G and I felt like we needed to ask her to help us with our French while we were there and in turn we could help her with her English. She is from the Congo and her native language is French. She is taking classes here to learn English. So we asked her if she could teach us French and we could help her with her English homework. She agreed and said we could read more out of the Book of Mormon too. So we will be seeing her again later this week. 

I hope things continue to go well for all of you! Stay warm. We had a day last week that with the wind chill it was about -40 (which is the same in Fahrenheit). Don't worry it hasn't been that cold since. I know, I just have to wait and it will come. 

Love you all!

Sister Gardner 

January 5, 2015

Hey everyone. I hope  you all had a great New Years. I have to admit on the mission it is not a very exciting holiday. We still had to go to bed at 10:30. But my companion and I set our alarm to go off at midnight so we could celebrate the new year. Not that we did much because we were tired. 

This week has been good. We continue to teach and serve the people here in Ottawa. Karen, Rick, and Xaiver and getting ready for their baptism. I am so exciting for them. Yesterday we were there singing hymns and such so they could pick out hymns for their baptism and then they asked the elders to baptize them. So that will be awesome! 

Oh a fun note with Karen, I had started to play the first to measures of a Nocturn by Chopin, the one from Hallmark's Secret Garden. She totally knew it. She said that sounded like the Secret Garden. I just stopped, mostly because that was all I could remember, and said "you know it?" She was like, "ya!" So then I quoted some lines to her and it made me very happy. The second thing is Karen was looking at pictures of temples and she came across one she really liked. It was her favorite one out of the group she was looking at. When she showed it to me later that day, it turned out to be the Vernal, Utah temple. How cool is that?! 

The other cool thing that happened this week was meeting Myra. She was a referral to us by the Chapel Hill Sisters. We were planning for Friday. We had an open space and I thought we needed to see Myra. We had never met her before. So when Friday came we knocked on her door. Her son answered and asked who we were and what we were about. Before we had a chance to answer him, she had come to the door and said, "Are you the Mormon Sisters?" We said yes. While we were saying that I was thinking "Oh no." Generally when people ask that, it's not a good thing. But as soon as we said yes she told us to come in. We had a great chat with her. She is from Haiti and speaks, French, Creole, English, and Spanish fluently. She has met with missionaries before and even had a Book of Mormon. We had a nice chat and shared a scripture on prayer with her that Sister G felt she needed. We went back the next day and she told us that on Friday she had been having a really hard time and was really depressed. She had been praying to God to help her. That night we knocked on her door. It was amazing! Heavenly Father really does care about his children and will put us in their paths if we just listen to the promptings/ideas that come into our heads. 

I hope you all have a great week!

Love you!

Sister Gardner