A Very Busy Summer

Hello again, Everyone!

It's been a little while since we last updated our blog. That isn't because we haven't been doing anything. Rather, it is because we have been busy all of the time doing the same type of work already posted in the blog. New entries would just seem repetitive. Here's a quick summary of some of the major things that we have been up to since the end of June:

• We traveled over 13,000 miles in our car searching for "lost sheep"; seminary age and institute age youth who are on the church records but are not attending church ("seminary" is a series of religious courses for high-school age students; "institute" is a series of religious courses for college age students).
  
  
• We developed and taught a summer online institute course on studying the scriptures. About a dozen young single adults who live in areas where there is no regular institute classes attended the online course.
  
  
• We did a lot of testing and fine-tuning on the pilot online seminary course for the 2010-2011 school year that the Church is developing.
  
  
• We visited many wards and branches throughout New Brunswick, northern Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to give talks, firesides on the online seminary program, and to sign up students. (In our church, a "ward" or "branch" is a congregation of church members within a geographic area. Wards in this area typically have around 100 members, and branches have around 20 to 40 members.)
  
  
• We set up four online seminary classes to cover the New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland provinces.
  
  
• We helped to train 3 new online seminary teachers in these areas.
  
  
• We started our online seminary class for the 2010-2011 school year. We have 15 students in our class who live in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. Most of these students are the only high-school age youth in their branch, and the only members of the church in their high schools.
  
  
• We developed another online institute course on following the teachings of the living prophets, which we are teaching fall and winter semesters.

On October 15th & 16th, we visited some of our seminary students who are in two branches of the church on Cape Breton Island in northern Nova Scotia. Where we live is pretty much in the center of our mission, and it is a 7 hour drive to this part of Cape Breton Island. Elder Sutherland spoke in the sacrament meeting of one branch, and then gave a fireside in the other branch. Each of these branches has just one seminary student, who are in different high schools.

Another pair of "senior" missionaries was also visiting the area and spoke in one of the branches. On Monday, we and this other couple took a day off and drove around the "Cabot Trail" on Cape Breton Island. This "trail" is actually a 185 mile paved road that circles around a very large state park on the northern end of Cape Breton Island. Tourism literature claims that it is one of the most scenic drives in all of North America -- that claim is true! The road goes along ocean shores, over high cliffs overlooking the ocean, and through some mountainous areas. The weather was cold and rainy that day -- we even had a little snow and hail at some of the higher elevations. Despite the weather, the scenery was incredible. The Autumn leaves were at their peak for color, with bright yellow, orange and red colored trees covering all of the hills and lining the roads.

Following are just a few of the many pictures we took on our Cabot Trail drive last week.

An Eventful June

Greetings, everyone!

The weather has finally turned "nice" in the Canada Maritimes provinces. Nice means mostly in the 60's during the daytime and mostly cloudy and off and on rain showers. Occasionally there will be a very sunny day, and a couple of times it has been a really warm day. Nights have been in the 50s and 60s.

We have done a LOT of driving since our last blog post. We have attended seminary and institute graduations in 5 different places, spread several hundred miles apart. One Sunday we drove close to 300 miles, starting from our mission apartment in Moncton, New Brunswick to Amherst, Nova Scotia, and then out to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (driving across an 8 mile long bridge), and back to our apartment again. Then the next Sunday we drove over 650 miles round trip to attend graduations in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia and in Sydney, Cape Breton Island (which is also part of Nova Scotia) and back to our apartment again in Moncton, New Brunswick. The very next day we drove about 160 miles one-way the opposite direction to be in St. Stephen, New Brunswick and Calais, Maine.

The trip to St. Stephen and Calais was great! That's where we met up with our son, Sam, his fiancé, Laura Romrell, Laura's parents, our daughter, Tamara, and Tamara's friends, the Goodsell family. On Wednesday of that week Sam and Laura were married on the bank of the river that separates the US and Canada. They were married on the US side, and spent their honeymoon night on the Canada side. It was great to spend a little time with some of our family and to be at Sam and Laura's wedding!

In between all of traveling, we have developed a summer online institute course from scratch, and are now part way through teaching that course. The Church has a pilot test program for online seminary (for the high school age students) which we helped develop and teach this past fall and spring. There is no test program for institute (for college age students) however, so we are doing this one completely on our own. It is going very well! We have eight students participating in the class who all live in areas where there are no regular institute class. They are somewhat isolated from other LDS young adults, and this class is giving them a chance to have real gospel discussions with other LDS peers. Everyone, including us, are really enjoying it.

Just in case all the graduations, course development, teaching, and a wedding weren't keeping us busy enough, this past weekend we participated in an annual regional training program for seminary and institute teachers, held in Halfax, Nova Scotia (a mere 175 miles from our apartment). We developed and presented a class for the workshop on how to identify doctrines and principles in the scriptures, and how to get students to identify and apply them in their daily lives. Before the all-day workshop started we were able to attend an early morning session at the Halifax temple.

On a sad note, the day after returning from our trip to Halifax we received word that Sister Sutherland's Mom passed away. She had been ill for some time, and so her passing away was not unexpected. We take great comfort in knowing that one's spirit lives on after death and that she is now with her husband and extended family that had passed on before her. We know that Christ's resurrection and redemption makes eternal life possible for everyone of us, and that families truly can be together forever.

Below are some pictures from our travels. First are two of pictures of Sam and Laura's wedding. The second couple of pictures are of a tree we saw while driving down a country road near a tiny town called Hodgdon, Maine, along the Canadian border. It is a very large tree with literally hundreds of pairs of shoes looped over the branches, from top to bottom. I searched for information this shoe tree and found that there are a few others around the US, along with an explanation of how they "grow" (see http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/shoetrees.html). The next three pictures are of a wildflower called lupins that pop up in fields and along the sides of highways all over here in eastern Canada. The last picture is a sign showing the name for McDonald's restaurants on Cape Breton Island. It's not a joke -- they really are called by that name! (You can click on a picture to see a larger view).

Warm Wishes and Warmer Weather, too!

Hi to everyone! We are alive and well and still going strong here in Atlantic Canada.

The weather here is warming up. People are planting their gardens. But, since our apartment is on the ground floor, and halfway underground, we don’t have much luck with growing anything ourselves. We tried for a while to keep an onion plant alive in a pot on the window sill, but it did not do very well.

We have been spending a lot of time tracking down less active young single adults in the different wards and branches. This helps both to clean up records and to reach out to invite people to participate again in Institute, YSA programs, and the Church. We still host a ward YSA Family Home Evening twice a month in our little missionary apartment.

We got to go to the temple in Halifax again last month. "Sutherland" seems to be a popular name in Nova Scotia. :)

In April, our ward had another baptism of a lady in a wheelchair. It took four elders to help carry her into the font so she could be baptized. She is so happy.

The first week of May, the Moncton Ward marked 30 years of having a ward building with a week-long celebration. It was fun to see some pictures displayed of ward members when they were much younger. There was a ward family home evening, an emergency preparedness night, service opportunities, a fireside with Elder Murray, of the Sixth Quorum of the Seventy, and a dinner and dance for all the past and present ward members.

The online seminary class has gone well, except for a few weeks in April, when, in the process of the system administrator making some updates, all of our computer records of student work were accidentally wiped out. Then they found out that the record backups that had been made didn't work. It took a bit of creative "punting" for a while, but at last we were able to get the records restored.

Tonight we will be going to the seminary and institute graduation night for the Saint John New Brunswick stake. We actually will get to go to more than one graduation, because we also have seminary students in the New Glasgow District, and their graduation stuff will be in June.

Doing online seminary this year has been a highlight of our mission. We have been blessed to be able to get to know some really great seminary students who also have very strong testimonies. They will definitely make a difference for good in the world. Now that the seminary year has finished, we are working on developing an online institute of religion class, to be taught in the summer, that will help to meet the needs of those who cannot regularly attend an existing class.

Elder & Sister Sutherland

Six Months On A Mission!

It's our 6 month anniversary! Our mission began six months ago, on September 7th. We can hardly believe how fast the first one-third of our mission has gone by. Perhaps it is because we get to stay so busy all of the time.

On Valentines Day, we visited a small branch in a town called Miramichi, in New Brunswick Canada. At attendance for the church meeting block was the branch president, three sisters, one brother, and two teenagers. Two of these were less active members who seldom come to church, and only stayed for Sacrament meeting. There were also 2 missionaries and us, making for for a total of 11 people at Sacrament meeting, and 9 for Sunday School and a combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting. The little branch met in a portable building on a small piece of land with a gravel parking lot. The branch president had joined the church just two years ago, and has no counselors. We were the only speakers at Sacrament meeting, and were asked to say the opening and closing prayer, as well. Then Elder Sutherland presented the Priesthood/Relief Society lesson.

Two weeks later we spoke at a much larger ward in St. Stephen, New Brunswick. The ward has about 40 members who regularly attend Sacrament meeting. After the meeting block, the ward held a "linger longer" with snacks and finger food. As the members ate, Elder Sutherland gave a fireside about sharing the Gospel. We were scheduled to stay at a little Bed-and-Breakfast in Saint Stephen Saturday night. At the last minute, that B&B called us to say they had to go out of town, but had made arrangements for us to stay at another B&B in the little town. As it turned out, this second B&B had just opened for business, and we were the first guests to ever stay there. What was more interesting was that the B&B was run by a retired gentleman and his wife, who is a Reverend for the United Church of Canada. We were a little unsure about how they would feel about hosting Mormon Missionaries, but they were wonderful to visit with. We had an enjoyable visit talking about serving God, and shared a Book of Mormon with them before we left (in which we had written our testimony on the front page).

For our 6 month anniversary we drove to Halifax, Nova Scotia to attend a session at the temple. We spent the night at the Mission home, and drove back the next day. The Mission President was out of town on mission business, but we had a nice visit with his wife, Sister Simpson (the Mission Mom).

These pictures were taken at the hotel we stayed at in Miramichi. We liked the "vehicles" being used by most of the guests there that night. They were part of a snowmobile tour group traveling around the New Brunswick province on logging roads and trails through the forests. It had been warm (about freezing) the past few days, though, so the snow was not great for snowmobiling.

The town of Miramichi has an interesting part in early Church history. The town had some ship building operations back in the days of wooden sailing ships. The owner of one company, Joseph Russell, who was very wealthy, joined the church about 1840. Around 1850, he sold all that he had and took his wealth to Salt Lake City. His wealth significantly helped the Church in its formative period in Utah. We are told, though, that descendants of Joseph Russell who are still in the Miramichi area are still displeased with their progenitor taking all his wealth with him when he moved to Utah.

Many are cold, but we aren't yet frozen

Well, I guess we are at the point on our mission now that we are focusing so much on the work that it is hard to stop and write about it. We are keeping busy, and really enjoying being here in Canada.

The online seminary class is doing well and still takes much of our time. We have also given talks in several sacrament meetings all around the province of New Brunswick, given a few firesides, and taught Relief Society and Priesthood lessons. It has been fun getting to meet and know people in different wards and branches. We have also attended several different seminary and institute classes throughout the mission. In January, we traveled to Houlton, Caribou, and Presque Isle, Maine; Hampton, Bathurst, and Fredericton, New Brunswick; and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.). Next week, we will speak in a dependent branch in Miramichi, New Brunswick.

One day, six of us (the Area CES Coordinator, an institute teacher, two full-time missionary elders, and us) went all around Fredericton, tracking down lost Young Single Adults (YSA) that were still on the ward list, and inviting them to institute class and YSA Family Home Evening. Some had moved, some responded favorably, and some did not want to have anything to do with the Church. We’re now trying to do the same thing in Moncton. The Moncton ward has over 90 names on the ward list that are identified as YSA, but only about 10 who are presently active in the ward.

We have had some fun Home Evenings with the YSA here in Moncton. Two times a month we host the FHE at our apartment. We attended 3 great baptismal services in January. One of them was a direct result of member missionary work. The other two were Young Single Adults. One of those learned about the Church from a non-member friend who told her about the Church. We get to home teach 5 inactive families, also.

Mission district conferences are good. Zone conferences are even better. Last zone conference, it snowed so much that the sister missionaries from P.E.I. could not drive home, so they stayed overnight at our apartment. We also had the mission president and his wife, another senior missionary couple, and the sister missionaries come to our apartment for dinner that night. We had fun teaching the mission president how to eat with chopsticks. 

We think we must be adapting to the climate a bit, because the high 20’s or low 30’s Fahrenheit feel like nice days. A few days ago it was -13 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning -- and that was without the wind chill factor. Though it has gotten pretty cold some days, the winter overall has not been as hard to take as we anticipated. Our little Prius has done great in the cold weather and has not had any problems at all in the snow. We are putting a lot of miles on it!

Below is a picture of our car in front of the world's longest covered bridge, which is in Hartland, New Brunswick (one of our online seminary students lives just down the road from the bridge). Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Our mission is a great experience! We are learning and growing and getting to know a lot of really nice people. We love the chance we have to serve and teach others, and to share our testimonies.

A White Christmas

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas time, and we have been enjoying a white (and cold) past couple of weeks. The snowman in the picture was taken right outside the door of our apartment building. Some little kids rolled up the big snowballs, but couldn't stack them. Magically, during the night a snowman formed out of the three balls (actually, Elder Sutherland and two of the younger missionaries who stopped by our apartment stacked the snowballs while Sister Sutherland directed the operation).

After a nice warm November (with temperatures in the low 40s during the day and dipping to just below freezing at night) we have had a cold snap the last two weeks. The temperature was 0 degrees Fahrenheit when we left for Church one Sunday morning--30 degrees below zero with the wind chill factor. It warmed up to 7 degrees by the afternoon. These last two days really warmed up, though. The high has been 36 degrees, and raining instead of snowing. The locals say this is typical of December, but that we should not expect any "warm" weather like this in January and February.

We have continued to work a lot on the development and teaching of the online seminary lessons. We are now on the Christmas break until January 4th for teaching classes, but the development will continue everyday throughout the holidays. Missionary work doesn't take a break! We expect to be expanding enrollment in the class in January, and also training local teachers to help with teaching the online course.

We are also working with the Young Single Adults in the New Brunswick province. We help them with organizing activities, family home evenings, etc. Last Saturday, we drove to Saint John, which is one of the larger cities in the province, to attend a Young Single Adult activity.

We traveled to Saint Stephen, New Brunswick, and Calais, Maine, this past week. These two small towns are really like one small town with a small river and an international border through the middle. There is a small ward there, with about 30 members attending Church on Sundays. Some of those members live 45 minutes or further from town. Those who live on the Maine side must bring their passports with them (even little children) in order to cross the border to get to church. They lose an hour on the way to church, too, because Canada is in a different time zone.

Sister Sutherland noted that the Relief Society room has the grocery store fliers from both sides of the border, so that members can see what sales are happening at stores on each side (these are small towns, so there are only a couple of grocery stores in each one, and they are not very big stores). In general, food is about twice the price in Canada, so residents in Saint Stephen do much of their grocery shopping in Maine. It really is like one town with an imaginary line drawn through the middle. We learned that there are all sorts of rules as to what food items and how much food can be taken across the border in each direction. The quantity changes, based on how long one is in the US, too.

We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast Inn the one night we were in Saint Stephen. It was a very large and old Victorian home with plank flooring and lots of antique furnishings. Since this is not tourist season, we were the only ones there so we had visit with the host that night and morning. We shared a Book of Mormon with him and he promised to read specific chapters that were marked. We hope to stay there again in a few weeks and talk more about the Gospel with him.

Last night, we went with some of the younger missionaries to one of their investigators, where Elder Sutherland shared his conversion story and Sister Sutherland shared how she got her testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Merry Christmas to all who read our blog! We hope that amidst the hustle and bustle of the holidays, you find many opportunities to remember the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you to those who have sent us a Christmas card or letter! There haven't been many, but they sure do mean a lot to us!

An Explanation of Mormon Missions

This blog entry is for our friends who are not familiar with how Mormon missions work. We thought it might help make sense out of some of the comments in our other blog entries if we set the stage.

The official name of the Mormon church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Mormon is a nickname that is often used because of our belief in the Book of Mormon as a companion to the Holy Bible and a second witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Mormon was the name of a prophet who lived around 320 to 400 AD. He abridged the writings of several prophets who had lived over about a 1,000 year period of time on the ancient American continent. These prophets prophesied that Christ would come into the world and of His mission to be the Savior of all mankind. The Book of Mormon truly helps to understand and appreciate all the Jesus Christ has done for us. Visit http://www.mormon.org/ for a more complete explanation of the Book of Mormon and to receive a free copy.

The Mormon church has a lay ministry, rather than a paid clergy. All ecclesiastical positions are filled by members of the Church who are called to their positions, and not paid for their work. Most still have regular full-time jobs and are raising families. Missionaries are called by revelation to teach others about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and pay their own way. Most are young men and women between the age of 19 and 23. They leave their college or jobs behind for 18 to 24 months to serve the Lord wherever in the world they are assigned.

Many senior couples also serve missions. Sometimes, couples who are empty nesters, but not yet retired, will take a leave of absence from work to serve a mission. Senior couples may handle the administrative affairs of a mission, fellowship Church members in remote areas, provide medical or agricultural service in developing countries, or other assignments. Senior couples also pay all their own costs to serve a mission.

In our case, we expected it would be a few more years before we would be financially able to serve a mission. Last April, we were asked us to consider serving a mission at this time. We prayed about it, and felt in our hearts that this is what the Lord wanted us to do. A few weeks later we were called to serve an 18 month mission in the Canada Halifax Mission, which covers all the Atlantic Provinces of Canada: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador.

The specific calling we received was to be "Church Educational System (CES) Missionaries". As such, we work with the "Seminary" and "Institute" programs of the Church. Seminary is a 4-year program for high-school age students. Each year focuses on one specific part of the Holy Scriptures. "Institute" is a series of religious courses taken by college-age students. Most of these courses are taught by members called from local congregations. One aspect of our mission is to train and assist these local teachers. The major towns in New Brunswick are not very close together, and so our mission requires a lot of driving. We use our own car on our mission, and expect to put at least 50,000 miles on it during our 18 months. We are also extensively involved in a new Internet-based seminary program, designed to teach high-school age students who live in remote areas and cannot attend regular seminary classes.

So, that is what we have been doing since the beginning of September, 2009. We love it! Although it has definitely been a challenge to leave job and family behind for 18 months in order to serve a mission, and is a stretch financially, those difficulties are more than compensated by the joy of being able to dedicate all of our time to serving the Lord. We hope this explanation helps our other blog entries make sense. Feel free to write or e-mail us with any questions you might have. We love getting mail! :)

We encourage everyone to visit http://www.mormon.org/. It is a great website that explains what we believe in and why we are willing to sacrifice so much to serve Jesus Christ.