Marriage Is What Brings Us Together Today

Hello, babelets!

How is my sweet American dream doing? I miss you all dearly and I hope you are surviving the dregs of winter! Lucky for you, spring seems to get started on its way in March. I think we still have a good two months to go, but it's not nearly as cold as usual. In any case, I hope you are all doing well and loving life!

This week was comme ci comme ca. On Monday I spent the entire day sleeping and watching church movies, which would have been nice if I wasn't feeling so darn sick. Thank you for all of your prayers though! I know they helped. :) Around 8 o'clock on Monday I had just about had it with the fever and the chills and not being capable of eating my Korean Ramen noodles or any of my usual foods, so we decided to call the elders for a blessing. At exactly 10:30 at night the APs and the Zone Leaders showed up. PARTY! Ha ha. I am so blessed. We felt super weird having four men in our apartment after bedtime, but I desperately needed the blessing, so it was worth it. Even if the apartment smelled like elders for days afterward.

The next morning I felt that I had made a full and complete recovery, aka, it was our temple trip on Tuesday and there was no way on earth I was going to miss it. So at 7am I found myself on the metros, hacking up a lung and shivering to death, but I tell you, the minute I walked into those temple doors I felt completely healed. And continued to feel that way during the three plus hours I spent sitting in the Celestial Room. It was such an incredible experience! We even did a session in French! Thank you, gift of tongues. :) Our district went to the 9 o'clock session to beat the enormous crowd of missionaries coming in at 11 o'clock, but the sisters I was with decided to wait for the other missionaries in the Celestial Room. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I sat and watched dozens of missionaries fill the room, some I hadn't seen in months and months. I think I know what heaven must be like! It was also my year in the field mark, and who did I see but Sister Murdoch and Sister Landeen! I hadn't seen Sister Murdoch since June! I gave her a huge hug and just could NOT stop smiling! It will definitely be a day I will never forget. Ahhhh. I love being a missionary! We had such an incredible day at the temple, and I vowed to myself that I will NEVER go a year without visiting the temple ever again. The minute I walked out the doors, however, I was horribly sick and exhausted. Worth it? So definitely worth it.

N'inquietez pas, mes biches! I went to the doctor and got antibiotics to treat what turned out to be a bad sinus infection progressing toward... pneumonia! Haha. In a couple months I have to go back and get the pneumonia vaccine, but I should be healed soon! Thanks for your love and care. :) 

This Saturday we got to go to a WEDDING! It was so beautiful and fantastic. I was supposed to sing at the ceremony but my voice sounded disgusting, so no fame for me. I was pretty devastated, but the wedding was super fun and we met a lot of great people, nonmembers, and less actives we've been looking for but haven't been able to find! Needless to say, we saw a lot of miracles this week. On Saturday we also helped one of my very favorite less active women do her genealogy, and we saw miracles GALORE doing that! Cool stuff happening. The work is hastening! I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to be a part of all of these exciting changes. Good things are happening here in Montreal!

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week! I pray for you loved ones on the daily and hope that you know just how much I MISS YOU! No worries though, we'll be seeing each other so very, very soon. I can't even believe it! For now, have an exceptional week and take great care! Love you forever! Until next time,

Soeur Cutler

Sicklet

Dearest chickpeas,

Ehe ehe.... I'm sick.

I'm currently laughing at my Mean Girl's reference, but I keep breaking out in coughing fits, so I'll try not to be too funny in this letter. I'm dictating this letter to my companion right now actually, and she has so lovingly accepted to be my scribe for the day. Forgive me if this letter is a bit bizarre. I'm a little delirious today due to my fever and the lack of oxygen to my brain. I hope you all can find it in your hearts to feel sorry for me, as I am battling what looks like the beginning stages of pneumonia. Don't fret though, I'm a survivor, I'm not gone give up.  Anyway, I hope you all had a fantastic week and that you have sufficiently recovered from your Valentine's Day chocolate hangovers.

This week was... interesting. Last Monday we had a cottage meeting with some ward members and less actives for Family Home Evening. We had to tag-team a lesson with the elders, and they totally tried to steal the show with an object lesson involving a Rubik's cube. We had a cool way of explaining the apostasy by whispering awkwardly into everyone's ears, but it ended up not being as cool as we thought because the elders took it upon themselves to reteach everything we had taught with their stupid Rubik's cube. Sigh... #sisterproblems

This week was filled with sister training leader responsibilities, which spiced things up a bit! On Tuesday I crossed over to the Riv Sud for exchanges with my main Brit, Sista May. She confessed her deep, dark secret to me that she is a feminist, and now I can officially say that she is the second coolest sister missionary in the mission (with the exception of Sister Sherwood). (Just found out after typing this that Sister Sherwood added her own commentary to the letter I dictated to her. Lol.) Seriously though, we had such a groovy day! We bopped in and out of hospitals and homes all day, singing and playing guitar everywhere we went. I felt like Joni Mitchell, bringing good vibes and mellow tunes to the wonderful people of Montreal. 

On Wednesday, Sister Sherwood and I prepared our training for zone conference in under twenty minutes... whoops. Our training was flipping awesome! All of the elders worshiped us! But nothing new there... Zone conference was so amazing. President Patrick taught us the difference between justification and sanctification. I would explain what I mean by that in greater detail, but my head is swimming and I am coughing up a lung. So I will have to tell you all about it when I come home. It totally changed my life though, and I'm beginning to understand the purpose of being a Mormon and how blessed we are to have the knowledge that we have.

On Sunday I was lying in bed unable to move because of sickness, so I prayed that Heavenly Father would help me to feel a manifestation of His love throughout the day. I ended up wobbling into church, rasping out the hymns and sitting around looking like I was on another planet. At the end of the meeting the kindest man came up to us and gave us boxes of chocolates and roses for Valentine's Day. He said he had felt impressed to do that since Thursday, and I proceeded to cry. It was a testament to me that Heavenly Father is always thinking about us, and is always sending us manifestations of His love. I encourage you all to be open to the spirit and look for those moments throughout the day, even when everything seems to be crashing down around you. He really does love each of His children and wants them to know it. That is why I share the gospel. There is no greater manifestation of His love than the truths that He has given us! 

Well, I better wrap this letter up! I hope you're all doing fabulous! Remember, I love you all so very, very much and think of you constantly. You are always in my prayers, and I hope you feel my love from afar. Take care! Have a wonderful week. Keep smiling! Until next time,

Soeur Cutler

Six Months to Sexy

Hey there! How are all of my smoochlings doing? Any fun plans this week for Valentine's Day? Ohhh là là! Tell me all about it! We're going to try to do something exciting for Single Awareness Day, so all the single ladies (all the single ladies) send me your ideas! As long as they don't include wailing (whaling) over a bucket of Ben and Jerry's! Alright. Moving on to more exciting things. I'm a year old! Whoooo! Seriously don't know where all that time ran off to. It was the weirdest day of my life, to be sure. Funny how an anniversary can make you remember a lot of things! I think my flashbacks included memories of Daniel weeping, Mom screaming after me as les elders pulled me away from my family into the MTC doors, right down to those last sobs into my pillow before I finally drifted off to sleep under those scratchy MTC prison blankets! Aaaaah. Haha. I'm making February 6, 2013 sound like a nightmare. It was actually a wonderfully fulfilling day. The highlight was putting on my name tag for the very first time. Don't judge me, but I may or may not have worn it to bed the night before my year mark.... haha. Yeah. I'm one of those sisters.

This week was FAB! On Monday we literally drove through the entire city of Montreal looking for an Indian food restaurant to celebrate my mission birthday. I don't even want to tell you the damage we did to our kilometer limit in our attempts to find a dang Indian restaurant. At least it was a beautiful drive! I got to see parts of the city that I've  never seen before, so that was special. We ended up settling for a mediocre Thai restaurant after ...hours... of searching. We were convinced that there had to have been a purpose for us being in that place at that time. Well, as we were chilling and hipstering and eating Pad Thai, Elder Hernandez and his companion walked by our window! Ha ha! I guess it was meant to be. We chatted them up for a few minutes but then it got awkward so they left. Typical elders. I think they were super confused as to why we were all the way up in their area, and even more sketched out that we were somehow on the same street as their apartment. Ha. Story of my mission life. Creeping out elders has become my forte.

Tuesday was a WONDERFUL day! I got to go on exchanges with my mission granddaughter! So fun to see my posterity thriving. Next transfer I'll get to do exchanges with my GREAT-granddaughter! Just call me big Mama Cutler! I've got little ones all over this mission! It was fun to spend the day with her though. She told me all about my Montreal peeps, and it was nice to see how much things have changed since I was there a year ago with Sister Cantu. She even helped me brush up on my Canaccent a little (she's from BC). ;) She is seriously an amazing sister missionary, and even if my greenie was the one who trained her, I still take full credit for her achievements. :) 

THEN on Wednesday DISASTER struck. It was a great day for the most part. We had dinner at the Bishop's house, at least. They're a cool family from London with the best accents known to man, and their daughter is serving in our mission. I seriously felt like I was in Harry Potter. Or more like Downton Abbey, starring as that annoying American relative with a horrendous accent. Ugh. For shame! But anyway, the day was going well. After we left Zumba, however, we realized that we didn't have our cell phone! Someone flippin stole our archaic, pre-technological flippin flip phone! Aaaah. Devastation. Two days as a missionary without a phone is quite possibly the worst thing on the entire planet. #sonothasteningthework So there was that. I wanted to call and text EVERYONE for their year marks, but I was stranded and phoneless! Worst day of my life, to be sure.

To celebrate February 6th we sat in the car for lunch and ate week old cheesecake. Celebrate good times! It actually turned out to be a blessing not to have our phone because we relied on the spirit the entire day and saw miracle after miracle. On Friday we for real celebrated my year mark. We did our weekly planning at the mission office so that we could have phone access, and then miraculously passed by a wonderful Indian restaurant as we were leaving! I remember walking by the same restaurant on a cold winter's night as a greenie, yearning with all my greenie heart to go inside. It was a wonderful feeling being on the inside looking out this time. I felt just like I was in Bombay House again, and probably spent half my grocery bill on Saag Paneer just to feel that way. (And it was oh so WORTH IT!) For an hour I revelled in dim lights, sitar music, and a classy view of Rue St-Denis under soft snowfall. Truly, it was a day I will never forget.

So that's the week that was! Now I've got to start pushing my six months to sexy, which so far commenced with Indian food and a Filipino feast last night. Yikes. Go big or go home big, eh? Haha PRAY for me to have self control! Anyway, I hope you all have a WONDERFUL, LOVELY, ENCHANTING Valentine's Day! I do so wish I could be there. Have a beautiful week! I love and miss you all to the skies and beyond! HUGS! Bisou bisou! 

Love,

Syl

The Year That Was...

My babes! My loves! Oh my GRACIOUS! Comment ça va? How are my precious ones? Baaaah! I miss you all so much. Permit me to go down trunky road in this letter today because... this week is my YEAR mark! WHAT IS LIFE?! Can you believe you haven't seen my beautiful face in a whole year? You wouldn't even recognize me anymore! Ha ha but really, you wouldn't. Last night my compie and I were looking through some photos from the beginning of my mission, and we just sat and laughed our heads off about my eyebrow less, skinny self. Those were the days! Oh well. At least I'm building character! I had to so I could tell off those street kids for mocking me and my ghetto brows. Ain't nobody got time for that! 

So this week I couldn't have asked for anything better! It got off to the worst start, but by the end all was well and we saw miracles a plenty. Last P-Day after I emailed you all, Sister Sherwood and I went to visit chez Target to grab us up some cute nick knacks. So on Monday we had the most vicious winds I have ever seen. When I opened my car door, it practically blew off the entire frame! I literally had to use ALL of the muscles in my Zumba bod to shut it! Well, since I'm *slightly* the dramatic type, Sister Sherwood thought I was joking about how strong the winds were. So she popped open her door as if there wasn't a hurricane a brewin' outside! Unfortunately, a car was right next to her side. And I tell ya, it doesn't take a prophetess to guess what happened next. In the blink of an eye, her door snapped the side view mirror of the other car CLEAN OFF! The next HOUR (and this is not an exaggeration) was spent in a panic, Sister Sherwood frantically trying to get in touch with someone from the mission office and me sitting there in desperation trying to figure out how to write in French, "We're spazzes and the ...wind... snapped your side view mirror off and we really, really, really hope you don't key our car. If you want to learn more about forgiveness, ASK THE *SISTER* MISSIONARIES!" So after a good hour of this nonsense, we decided it would be a good idea to move our car so that it wouldn't get keyed when they came back to our note. Well. We go to start the car. NOTHING! In the process of all of this mayhem, our car decided to just give up and quit! So we decided to just give up and quit as well. We proceeded to spend the next TWO hours wandering around Target avoiding the situation and feeling sorry for ourselves. After two hours of looking at birthday cards and yoga pants we'll never be allowed to wear, we decided to call the elders and tell them to come jump our car for like the fourth time in a six day period. And they were so mad that they didn't say ONE word to us! *tears galore* Ugh. So to end the world's worst P-Day we found ourselves a McDonald's and proceeded to binge on fries until dinner. And there you have it! No sugar coating. A day in the life of ME!

Luckily the rest of our week went exceptionally well. We were led to the right people at the right time and we did a lot of good in the world. Lately we've been doing this thing where we have the women we visit teach us one of their talents. It has been so incredibly fun and we're getting to know people a lot better. On Thursday one of the women in the ward that we adore taught us sign language! She has a deaf daughter and has been teaching sign language to parents of deaf children for years. Sign language is incredibly beautiful, and I am utterly amazed at the ability of the human mind to communicate in such a profound way. On Friday we went and did makeovers with one of the women who is a fab makeup artists, so that was fun too! She even invited one of her nonmember friends and invited her to take the discussions! Like, seriously? How awesome is she? Love me some member-missionary work! THEN on Friday night we visited with one of our awesome returning members, and she taught us how to crochet! Aaaaah! I haven't done crochet since I was an anti-social fifth grader! I fondly remember about a two week period of my life when all I did was crochet long chains of yarn that wrapped around the house! As sad as it is to say, my crochet skills today are not much better.... haha. STILL! it's totally addicting and it lowers our blood pressure, so it's a skill I'm willing to acquire! 

THEN on Sunday I was asked to SING! It felt sooooo good to share my talents with the ward. I sang "Savior Redeemer of My Soul," which is the last song I sang for my family and friends a year ago before I left! Everyone in the ward worshipped me pretty much. ;) Haha. They said I sound like a Disney princess, and so I've promised them a rendition of Color of the Wind sometime. ;) Man I miss that jam. 

Anyway, that was the week that was! Thank you everybody for your love and support during the first year of this amazing mission. I have loved every minute of being a missionary, but I know that would not be possible without your love, prayers, and infinite support. I am so incredibly blessed that I can't even believe it sometimes. I love you all and miss you terribly! But n'inquietez pas, my little ones. I'll be seeing you soooo soon it's unreal! Until then, bisou bisou! Have a great week!

Love,

Soeur Cutler