Volume 21: Eau D'érable

Allô tout le monde, comment ça va? Well this week was probably the hardest one thus far. I'm definitely glad it's over that's for sure. I'll get into that a little later, but I would like to share highlight and bring a little light to this email.

 

 

So "eau d'érable" in French means maple water, and like I've said there is a lot of that here within the maple trees. A lot of people have them in their backyards because they are just that common, and one of those people is our good old (litterly) friend Annie who is 94. So we went over to her house on Friday so that we would shovel a path way for her towards the trees. She still trudges to the maple trees, even if she can't really see... so making the path was quite important so she wouldn't fall in the snow. But she's a determined lady, and would of done it anyways. After we made a pathway, we thought we were done, but we were definitely wrong because we noticed that she was putting on her coat and bringing some supplies along with her. So something was about to go down, (she also has these two sticks that she uses to get around, and it's awesome, you will see in the photos). Anyways we followed her to a tree that was actually pretty far away, and at this point I knew what was gonna happen. We were about to tap a tree! I never thought I would of been able to experience something quite like this! After she put the spile in, she gave me a cup and I drank straight from the tree! It just tastes like slightly sweet water. As I was drinking from the cup, I thought of how many other people drank from the same cup... probably a lot but I just didn't think about it. She also went through exactly how to do it, and now I know how! I don't know about anyone else but I think it's a good skill. I can now say I'm truly Canadian! Now we litterly have 15 bottles of maple water in our fridge, thanks to Annie. As we speak, we are boiling it down! You need a lot of maple water to make the syrup, I think it's like 40-1 ratio or something. But we got no problem with that. We are now about to have the purest of the pure maple syrup.

 

 

Now for the hard part of the week. So as y'all know we just had transfers, and I had to say goodbye to Elder Forsyth. He was such a great trainer, and I'll miss him. Now it's hello to Elder Giesbrecht from Vancouver! He has a bright spirit that's for sure! The only thing is, this is his first ever French area. He has been wanting to become a French missionary for a year, and he finally has the opportunity now. The problem is, we now have 2 missionaries that are still learning, and struggling with French. So that's been terrifying to really do anything. Also since Ive been in this area the longest I'm the one who leads the area, which is also terrifying (for me at least). So sometimes I feel like I'm training a new missionary because he is new to the area, and to French... so it's been a little rough, but we are working at it together. The first few days I found myself stressing myself out to the ultimate level (like I always do). Sometimes you just feel like there's a lot of pressure on yourself as a missionary no matter what you do. But, I knew this was Satan working at me and I was done with it lol. Luckily, I came across a talk by Ronald A. Rasband called "be not troubled". I've never read a talk so powerful, and it's saved me from my stress that's for sure. My favorite thing that he shared was "when we allow fear to open the door to all it's companions, discouragement, anger, frustration, and disappointment, the spirit leaves and we're without the Lord." I have learned that fear is what keeps us from progressing in life. It could be in the gospel, school, work, or maybe even standing up for yourself. But when we have fear, we are letting Satan win. The only way you are going to be able to get over your fears, is through Christ because he knows what you're going through, and he knows how to help you. I know that as we look unto Christ for help, there will be no reason to fear. Even though I still can't understand things all the time, I know that as I have Christ on my side, everything will be ok. Or like the Québecois say it "ça va bien aller!"

 

 

Well I hope y'all had a great week, and that things are starting to warm up! Summer will be here before you know it!

 

 

Avec amour,

Elder May

 

 

Photos

1. All the jars

2. The tree

3. The cup

4. Annie and her walking sticks

5. Up close

6. Her backyard