Montreal is such a melting pot

10/2/17

ah man another fantastic week. p days are starting to feel back to back now which is super weird. over three months out now! so crazy. kinda bummed time is passing too fast dang it. 

super busy this week! haha its getting harder and harder to remember what all went down in the weeks. i had the awesome privilege to bless a restaurant of one of our Haitian investigators André haha that was pretty cool. its awesome to see the faith in these people, wanting us to come early before an opening of his new restaurant so the Lord can bless it and the people who come. haha Haitians are literally THE awesomest people on the planet. speaking of Haitians, we got a new investigator this week and he's seriously the greatest guy. he just got here in Québec and he's adjusting to life here trying to find work and everything and he told us he wants to learn more about Jesus! like when does that ever happen haha seriously such an amazing opportunity. he invited us to his apartment and we talked a bit about what we do and got familiar with him and everything and he's so excited to learn haha that was so exciting for us. we brought up the Book of Mormon and he hadn't heard of it and we explained the history and everything and he got so excited! the spirit was doing amazing things there. Ronel is his name, and man i love seeing people that truly desire a relationship with Christ. i feel like growing up in the church we sometimes lose that awesome desire because we convince ourselves we are satisfied with where we are at and what we know. progression is a huge deal in the church and meeting these people makes me wish i had that better imprinted in my mind all throughout my life. but yeah Ronel is such an amazing guy, big Haitian guy haha like huge and seriously the sweetest guy, Haitians tend to all be like that here i love it. we were leaving out the door and i just slipped my shoes back on without tying them so we could just walk out but he stopped me and was like no wait please and then knelt down at my feet and tied my shoes for me and like did a little brush off after and came up smiling haha i was speechless, some people are truly so charitable from the heart, and I've noticed here that the majority of them are those who go through so much hardship like those who stayed in refugee camps for years or escaped poverty or hazardous areas or things like that. theyre the ones that do the small things that come straight from the heart. like our investigating family Nadji Adjim from africa, Bernard the father is the one who begged us to tell him how to pay tithing haha. they do so many small things that are so heartfelt and amazing, like before we leave every time he goes out super fast and sets our shoes our for us all nice and tidy and man, such an amazing heart these people have. such small things that show so much. i only hope i can have a heart that charitable and full of love. i loved the talk by Ellis in yesterday's session about how the difficult experiences help us so much in life. they've definitely led to miracles with so many of the people here that i have had the most amazing privilege to meet. 

the Nadji Adjim family is doing so amazing. haha the Songo is a bit difficult still, and we found out that Songo is actually the bigger language and that Cabbaa is the tribal language they speak. soooo we are actually speaking something that like maybe a few thousand others speak. such an awesome experience. they're pretty similar, just a few differences here and there. the family Mouhe speaks more of the Songo than Cabbaa but their french is getting way better! its a fun learning experience for all of us. the family wants to be baptized! like they really want to be baptized haha its killing me, cause we actually have to keep waiting for approval from the first presidency of the church for some things involving their life back in Africa. but i have faith it'll all work out soon! this family is absolutely incredible. the support we have been receiving from the members with them has been outstanding. the family doesn't have a car so the members send two cars over to get this beautiful family of nine every week and for all the activities. and the other night we were talking to them about the Book of Mormon and Bernard started tearing up and said he felt so bad cause he couldn't read it because of the scaring on his eyes from his sickness and that he wanted more than anything to be able to read it. man my heart was broken. but then we were able to get an old cassette player from some members and the entire Book of Mormon on cassette for this family and ah how amazing are members of this church. 

i realized I've become an older brother to the kids of the family Mouhe haha which is so fantastic. we walked with Kudji and Marie and Nadege to church and i loved it. haha these three little girls all similar ages to Kennadie Reaghan and Reese and we were talking and laughing and running around the whole time and i was dying i was having so much fun and Elder Johnson was like "kinda like having sisters again" and that hit me hard haha freaking jerk. but it really was and I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to be an older brother again and to have had the most amazing little sisters all my life. i miss those girls more than anything haha. 

our pirate buddy has been doing great!! we met up with him at the service deal again where we leaned more bits and pieces from languages from people, leaning some phrases in Arab and russian and some random things like that. but yeah Mac is doing great!! he came up so fast when we got there and was like "hey halliday!! hey man oh man i gotta tell you!!" haha such an awesome sight, this big pirate guy running towards me so excited and he went off on the Book of Mormon and the pages he read, he LOVED it! like so much. and he said things with his wife got better that week! and his family felt better and everything and ah i was tearing up. heres this scarred tattooed rough and tough irish pirate tearing up talking to me about his relationship with Christ and wanting to know more. such a beautiful opportunity. he's doing so great, can't wait for his life to become more and more beautiful.

haha so our Afghan friends are begging us to come to dinner now. we visited the house just to be like heyyyyy hows it going and the mom was like whoa come in please and fed us this amazing lunch and was like thats the sneak peak this week you're going to eat the best food in the world. she speaks in afghan and french a little but throws in in english every once in a while, "afghan is NUMBER ONE" with a big thumbs up haha what the heck. and she also makes a point every time that not every Afghan is a terrorist, and her sons are like ooohhhh my they know mom they know… haha fun to see some men being embarrassed by their mom. such a fun experience with them. but holy smokes Afghan food actually is SO good my friends. like i can't even describe how amazing it was. and apparently that was just a snack. an actual meal takes about five hours to prepare haha so its a big deal they're inviting us for dinner. such a sweet prideful family. 

such an amazing time here guys, i couldn't be happier anywhere else. i love this mission so much and seeing the happiness of the people here has been such a priceless opportunity. i love these people so much and i love meeting new people every day. I've been learning so much and id give anything to be able to just give you guys all these experiences so you could just feel the same emotions. i love this gospel so much!! conference was such an amazing experience. a little different in French cause its not their voices but still amazing. it was interesting listening to it as a missionary, looking for things that are meant for our investigators or people here in need and it was amazing to see these men saying things that are so specific to the needs of our investigators. haha the church is SO true my friends!! we have such an amazing prophet and loving Heavenly Father who is willing to help us in enormous ways!! love you guys so much!!!

-Elder Halliday 

sorry not many pictures again, I'm working on it. you guys all know I'm the worst at remembering. but i got all my winter gear! and heres a cool giant statue and the other half is somewhere on the south shore but i have no idea where. and heres from the inside of the giant biosphere on some island i forgot what its called. love you all!! 

Awesome letter!!  Sounds like the Haitians are taking over Montreal!!  Does the additional language stuff prevent you from working on the French or are you pretty comfortable with the language?  I would be totally confused all the time trying to think about what language I should be speaking at that time!  Gift of tongues man!  Gotta love it!

I'm glad you were able to find your cold gear.  Do they let the missionaries go up north during the winter?  It's hard to believe people actually live there during the cold season.  I'm sure they stay inside most of the time.  Tracting would be interesting...

Love you kid.  Keep talking to Mom if you can.  You have no idea how much she looks forward to this part of her week.  She was moving some stuff around in our closet and saw your boxes.  Immediate tears.  Not to make you sad.  I was at a suicide of an 18-yr-old kid when she was crying and we talked about how what you're doing and where you're at is exactly where we want you to be!  So proud of you and love you so much.  Have a great rest of your day!

Dad