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