April 13 - Zone Conference Week

      Like the title says, this was Zone Conference week.  Right now we have 3 Zones in our mission--New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.  We don't usually travel with President and Sister Low to Moncton for the New Brunswick Conference or to St. John's for the Newfoundland Conference, but this time he asked us to go with him to Moncton so that Elder Boyle could do the car inspections.  We have been having the Senior Couples that live in the different areas of the Mission do car and apartment inspections every 6 weeks between conferences but now that winter may be thinking about being over, President Low wanted Elder Boyle to check all the cars so he could talk personally to the missionaries about keeping the cars maintained and clean.  

Sister Prudent and Sister Schultz

     After our weekly Monday morning meeting we decided we should get on the road as soon as possible because a big storm was supposed to be on it's way (Unfortunately winter is Not really over). We drove a mission car to give to the Fredericton Sisters because their car needed to be in the shop for a week to get some repairs done.  It is a 3 hour drive and we made it to Moncton before the snow storm started that night.  It was already snowing in Maine and the western parts of New Brunswick so the President changed their interviews from Monday evening until Tuesday after the Conference.

  Tuesday was the Zone Conference.  It was nice to be able to see the Elders and Sisters that serve in that part of the Mission because we don't ever really see them in the office because they live so far away.  We also got to meet Elder and Sister Routson who have been serving in Bathurst for about 6 months and Elder and Sister Chan who are serving in St. Stephen and have been in the Mission for a couple of months.  Because of the winter weather they both drove directly to their areas of service instead of coming to Dartmouth to the office so we hadn't ever met them in person, just spoke on the phone or seen them in our Senior District Meeting over Zoom.  I also got to visit with Sister Taylor---a ward member from Moncton who always prepares a luncheon meal for the Conference.  We have spoken on the phone so it was nice to visit with her in person.  We only had one Sister going home before the next Zone Conference and that was Sister Johnson so she bore her testimony at the end of the meeting.  Those closing testimonies are one of my favorite parts of the meeting.  The Conference was over about 4 PM and after Elder Boyle took the group picture we headed back to home.  Luckily the snow that fell all night long had melted and the roads going home were clear.  Thursday was Nova Scotia's Zone Conference held in the Dartmouth Stake Center.   Sister Davies and Sister Green and Sister Behlke gave their last testimonies.  

New Brunswick April Zone Conference

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The leadership council held right after the Conference ended.
These Elders and sisters make the Mission go.

Nova Scotia Zone Conference

Elder Smith leading the music

Sister Davies

After the Zone Conference we went to the Mission Home to have dinner with the two departing Missionaries, Sister Green and Sister Davies.  Sister Low always serves wonderful meals for her guests and we have these dinners with the Office Staff and the Missionaries that are leaving to go home every transfer.  The plan for after the dinner was to go to the Temple with everyone for the Thursday night session but Cary and I decided not to go because my foot was really hurting.  (another story for in the future.)

Sister Davies and Sister Green getting ready to board their plane to go home

On Saturday, even though it was gray and rainy, we decided to go to a place called Sugar Moon Farm where they make maple syrup.  It was a place in the forest just north of Truro--about 1 1/2 hour drive for us.  The months of March and April are the times that they tap into the maple trees and draw out the water that they make into syrup.  We could have paid to go on a 6 km hike to see where the trees were being tapped but we weren't up for that this time.  We went in the the small restaurant and had some yummy pancakes with maple syrup.  We were surprised to see how runny it was.  They told us that the sap was running that day and that we could go back and see where they were boiling the tree water down until it was 63 percent sugar.  It was very interesting to hear about the process and see how it is done.  I'm pretty sure I can't ever buy that fake stuff in the grocery store any more.  All that pancake syrup has zero, zip, nada maple syrup in it.  

Elder Boyle waiting for his pancakes to be served.

                         

                        

         The man in the blue shirt is constantly stoking the big wood fire in the belly of the beast.    Elder Boyle really enjoyed learning about the process.           

There is fire behind those heavy black doors.

The steam going out the roof.

The beast that boils the syrup.

The lady in the plaid shirt gave us the tour. The other couple with us had a 2 year old and a four year old and spent most of their time wrangling their kids.  That reminded us so much of our grandkids.

An outside view of the Sugar Shack





This old wagon was in a field across the street.

Everywhere we go we find cool churches. 

 This one and the statue of a World War I soldier on the grounds 

is in a small Village named Tatamagouche.

It has taken me 3 days to get this done.  Already we are halfway into another week.  Time just flies by.  We have been on our mission for 11 months with lots of adventures to go.

Robyn