Finally a Senior

A milestone on Friday; Sister Wheeler had a birthday. 

Birthday girl at the Mandarin

We started the day early (4:30 am) to make a 6:30 session at the temple. It included our zone and one other zone. There were other zones at a 6:00 am session and at a 7:00 session. There were a lot of missionaries floating around the temple that day.

Three Wheeler - Elder Wheeler from Burley, Idaho

Sister Wheeler was wished Happy birthday by more people than she knew. She received a nice card from the zone. We finally were able to go to lunch at the Mandarin, a fancy Chinese buffet where they gave her a small cake with jello. They took our picture which we scanned in. We then went to the mission office to take the mail we had for other missionaries. Several months ago we scraped our car door on a pillar in the parking garage. We left our car in Brampton for body work and used a loaner from the mission. We will pick up our car this next week.

The missionaries here are encouraged to OYM (open your mouth) by talking to everyone they meet on the bus or on the street. We decided our version of it is LYLS (Let Your Light Shine). We are out among the people much more since we have started taking the bus instead of driving around town. We try to give everyone a smile and "good morning" which surprises some people and gives a reason for others to purposely ignore us. We will pick an area of the city we would like to see and walk around. We have had several people see our name tag and talk to us. Wednesday after district meeting that morning we decided to see what was at the bottom of Bathurst Street. We see various sites from our apartment window and try to place them on the map. We walked along the harbor, saw Little Norway, and the Music Garden which represents six movements from a Bach cello sonata. Elder Wheeler had a nice talk with a Korean on the streetcar. He is a chef (western-style) having worked in Korea, Whitehourse, Yukon, and now Toronto.

Fallen American soldier with a live Canadian soldier

Geese and sailboats in the marina. The geese are getting in formation to fly.

A different kind of temple worship

Totem in Little Norway

Pathways in the Music Garden

4th movement of the sonata

Sister Wheeler in the garden

Apartments overlooking the harbor area

 Sister Wheeler and Maria have been preparing a piano duet for the ward cultural evening held on Saturday night. We showed up at the right time (5 pm), but it didn't really get started until 6:30 pm. They had decorations and food from each of the countries represented in the ward. We didn't know exactly what was happening since we have trouble with the Spanish (even at 95 dB from the sound system).
They rolled a piano from the priesthood room to the back of the gym (they don't call it a cultural hall here) so they could play.

Decorations for the cultural night

Maria and Sister Wheeler at the piano

We had our institute class on Thursday evening. Most of the students are from the Christie Ward, but speak some English as well as Spanish. We have a different group each week (with some that come almost every week).

Sister Wheeler teaching institute

Our institute class

Sunday was a busy day. We started with missionary coordination meeting. The Spanish sisters and elders weren't there so it was only us with the ward mission leader. This was followed by ward council (for Elder Wheeler) in Spanish, of course. It was fast Sunday so there were a lot of testimonies. Everyone goes up and sits on the stand until the bishop lets them know when to stop coming up. Spanish is so embedded in the ward that even the Portuguese members speak Spanish, including testimonies and the priesthood class for High Priests. At least the Sunday School class was in Portuguese. Sister Wheeler was asked to play the piano for a baptism after church. By that time we headed off to the stake center for a mission president's fireside. President Scott actually spoke. With a one hour bus ride back, we didn't get back to our apartment until 9 pm.