Our Ward Members (Etobicoke Toronto)

We love our new ward members!  We were thrilled to discover its members come from over 50 different countries!  Diversity is a great strength!  Our bishop, Tom Pallin, said Toronto means “a gathering of tribes, or meeting place.” That’s literally true with our ward!   Members come from all continents bringing  new ideas, tradition, and deep faith.

President Monson’s visit in 2011

The building we meet in was built in the  early 1960’s when  Toronto’s first stake was formed at the time President Thomas Monson was the mission president.  He came back to visit in 2011.

Last Saturday we enjoyed getting to know some of our ward members better at a Chinese New Year Party. We also enjoyed attending  a temple session at the Toronto temple. And we FINALLY found a place to play racquetball that doesn’t require an expensive monthly membership fee! YEA!

We have also been very busy with our Public Affairs work attending luncheons, writing newsroom articles, visiting people of other faiths, designing event flyers, etc.  (details coming soon)!

Canadian National Public Affairs Office

We arrived in Canada Monday afternoon (2-1/2 day drive) and have been welcomed all week long with dinner invitations (new years eating resolutions hopefully starting soon)!

We exchanged our US currency for Canadian currency at the border.  We love the colorful Canadian  currency!

We checked in at the Public Affairs office on Wednesday and starting learning our assignments.  We checked in at the Mission Office Wednesday afternoon and met three other senior missionary couples, we were invited to Sunday evening family home evening (held monthly).

We live in a very nice apt. building in down town Etobicoke (ee-toe-bi-co) on Eva road.  It’s small… but very nice and only 7 minutes from the Public Affairs Office!

West Village Eva Road

Kitchen

Living Room

Lobby

Dinning

We are looking forward to participating/supporting the following upcoming events:

• Canadian Public Affairs Council Meetings in Ottawa (May 5-7)
• Religious Freedom Conference in Ottawa (May 8-9)
• National Prayer Breakfast and Leader Dinner in Ottawa (May 17-18)
• Church History Conference in Brampton (July 8)

Along with visiting the Peace Tower in Ottawa!

Monday morning we arrived at the MTC with 97 other new Senior Missionaries (47 couples, and 3 single sisters). As we introduced ourselves to each other, we were surprised that almost 1/4 of the missionaries were headed to Hawaii to serve at the Polynesian Cultural Center or the BYU-Hawaii Campus (lucky them)!

The types of mission service varied from Legal Services to wood carving at the Polynesian Cultural Center (who knew that wood carving would be a mission call?).  Other Mission services included:  Military relations,  Medical advisors, Nurses, Member Leadership Support, Church Education System (CES), Young Single Adult (YSA) Support, and Public Affairs.   We were the only couple serving a Public Affairs mission and only two other couples were going to Canada (Edmonton, Canada and Vancouver, Canada).  We had fun taking the classic “MTC map picture”.  It reminded us of

Jared & Jason MTC – 2007

Jared and Jason’s map picture from 2007.  Jason had just returned from serving in Toronto, Canada (same mission as we are headed to) and Jared was in the MTC heading to Winnipeg, Canada (although Jared’s mission was changed to the Milwaukee Wisconsin mission).

We had a wonderful training experience and made many wonderful new friends!  We loved getting to know the other missionaries in our district, and the energetic, spirit filled student training teachers!

Our District Missionaries

This is Sister Anderson, one of our training teachers. We loved her spirit and her smile!

We just finished a week of training in the beautiful Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which is the home of the church’s Public Affairs Department.  The department helps the Church build global relationships with the community, government and faith leaders, as well as answering questions from the media.

We trained Monday – Friday with 7 other wonderful couples who will be serving as Public Affairs Missionaries in other parts of the world, and who we feel a strong kinship to.

Elder & Sister Carruth (Philippines)
Elder & Sister McGuire (New Zealand)
Elder & Sister Parrish (London)
Elder & Sister Partridge (Birmingham)
Elder & Sister Pinson (New Zealand)
Elder & Sister Switzer (Argentina)
Elder & Sister Thomsen (Tahiti)

Living in Utah all of our lives, we didn’t realize the worldwide scope of the Public Affairs Department.  It is under the supervision of the First Presidency and the Church Public Affairs Committee .  They are supported by public affairs directors, and thousands of called stake council, coordinating council, and national council members throughout the world.

February 6, 1982

We’re excited to serve on Canada’s National Council!

A fun side-note is the fact that we spent our honeymoon in this beautiful building (Hotel Utah 1982).  Here’s a picture of Lucky sitting on the window ledge of our hotel room.

Our training was on the 10th floor.  During our breaks, I went to the vacant Ambassador room with five large windows looking out over the city, to get my fitbit steps in!

Next up! MTC Training starts tomorrow (1/9/2017)!