Going Home

     Today is Sunday, we left Brampton Saturday morning.  It all went so fast. I even still had things I wanted to finish at the mission office. We first went to the early morning temple session and then went to the mission office one last tiime. Of course Sister Caldwell had my favorite piano music on- (it's her favorite too). The temple the evening before we left was the most beautiful I have ever seen it. There was mist in the air which helped make it so beautiful. Misty etherial white against a black sky.  we then had the priviledge of having our breakfast in Brampton -at Flips- with Brother Sethi.  (Flips is where the AP's used to always go for breakfast.) We promised Brother Sethi we would be back in August to be with him in going into the Temple.  It will have been a year since he was baptized and he is really looking forward to that day. We were able to See Elders Walter and Strasbourg at the Sault St. Marie branch for Sunday morning sacrament meeting. they were both speaking.  We will be in Elder Strasbourg's ward after we get settled into our new place.  We learned much, and had much experience.  We loved the Sisters and Elders and will miss them very much.  We have so far been blessed by clear roads, which is a miracle, since there was a blizzard on either side of the country, and South as well.  Many blessings during the mission and still.  I hope to add more pictures to this site, as I really did not put as many as I would have liked to over the past 8 months.  See you soon everyone in Albera, Love Sister and Elder Stark

CTM

Seniors Christmas Party

18 of the Senior Missionareis gathered at the Employment Center to celebrate Christmas.  We were happy to gather there, as you know spaces are limited when it gets near to Christmas.  We had a really enjoyable evening of visiting and some videos of the live nativities which were done by church members in the area, and we had a family story by Elder and Sister Caldwell.

This was a celebration in the smae place early December, only 10 senior missionaries together this time for Pizza!

6 Weeks Has Gone By Already!

I can not believe that another 6 weeks has gone by already. At this rate I'll be home in no time.  We still have green grass, it rained a few times over the past two weeks and I am ENJOYING it!  What else is new? We have already had three Christmas dinners.  The other senior missionary couple had us over for their Thanksgiving Turkey dinner as well, so at this point I am considering fasting three days per week! Either that or become seriously short of clothing that fits!

Also new in the office is Christmas packages.  Here is a picture of Elder Stark and myself around the packages.  We've sent out two times already to all the different areas in the mission, and these next two weeks will be more packages out as we do Zone Conferences.  We have transfers this week and two Zone conferences.  The next week we have two zone conferences as well.  We will be having the opportunity to share the workload with a service missionary who will be helping in the office.  We will likely have a second service missionary soon.  Well I hope you all are having as blessed of a Christmas season as we are here in the Canada Toronto Mission.  The attached pictures are all at the office.  It was Zone Leader Council and the Zone leaders were given the Santa Hats by the other office mission couple.  the Zone leaders can wear the hats as they hand out Christmas packages to the missionaries.  We love you all and wish you well, Sister and Elder Stark.

The Last Fall Walk In Brampton

Here are some pictures of the lake around our apartment in Brampton.  In the one picture you can see the apartment from the road and over the lake, it is the second one in the background.  We went for a walk, and I do believe we found the home of the wookchuck.  Here is Elder Stark and myself walking across a pier, it is more needed in the spring than the fall, but it was fun to go for our last fall walk.    This pier is across the small lake which is behind our apartment.    My mom asked me what the name of the lake was and I did not know that the lake was large enough to have a name, we finally found out what the name of that lake was,  Esker Lake. The above middle picture is the view of the lake from the road.  The pier would be off to the right, across from the lake from the apartment.

6 Months in the Mission Field

I really am enjoying having a fall season. Today was the first day that I actually put on a winter coat and winter boots. We saw a few snow flakes yesterday at about 10:00 at night, but the kind that melted as soon as they landed on the ground. There is still green grass outside and ther flowers are just now showing signs of dying due to cold weather. In Edmonton, especially when I was younger, I remember the fall season lasting all of about 3 weeks, and then winter. It is no wonder I never really liked fall, it was just a short anouncement that winter was coming.



P-day at the office.

We weathered "Frankenstorm" rather well. We only had weather advisory for severe wind. Any of you who may have been watching the news may have heard there was one casualty in Toronto, a woman was hit by a sign which blew off a large pole, she did not survive. That was the day that many of our missionaries were driving in the wee hours of the morning because it was transfer day. There were a vew precarious driving conditions, but every one was fine and transfer day went just fine.
 
Elder Stark and myself have had a few new and interresting duties added to our list.  We had to go and do some things for apartments, because now we have no housing co-ordinator.  We are at the point where we are considering to ask Mission President if we can just live at the office, for all the time we spend in the apartment assigned to us, it really does seem like a waste. The picture is supposed to be a P-day but we were still doing office duties.  At least we eat well! I have never before had an entire lobster.  They were on sale- and really inexpensive!  I can never get that in Edmonton, so that day we ate lobster in the office.




Stratford Film Festival

We went to a live performance at the Stratford Film Festival.  I kind of wanted to do something cultural while we were here.  It was an unusual play called, "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" and the actors and actresses were the peanuts! It was so funny, as the announcement at the begining of the play was "Wah wa wa wah-wah-wah-" and ect. then "brrrrr-rrrring" We all knew that they were requesting us to turn off our cell phones, but if you remember in the cartoon "Peanuts"adults were never heard, only blurbed.  So here are a couple of pictures of our trip that day.  We were with two other senior missionary couples.