Vehicles were inspected last week. Sisters Machado, K. Hall, and Nichols couldn't wait to show me the sign they have on their dashboard.

On Saturday there was a Senior Missionaries Conference and 15 of us attended "Heritage Days" at a park near downtown Edmonton. This annual event features dozens of big white tents scattered throughout the park showcasing food, costumes, crafts, and entertainment from immigrants' home countries. This year there were 71 nations represented. It was an amazing sight! 

Croatian Doughnut (we shared!)

Last week during inspections, technicians installed tracking devices in all the mission vehicles (except the Pattisons). These devices, called "Tiwis," primarily monitor speed, seat belt use, and aggressive driving. It will now be my assignment to monitor the driving behavior of the missionaries, and mentor them when the devices register violations. The Canada Edmonton Mission and one other mission in the US are the last two missions in North America to receive these devices.

Several years ago when the Church was evaluating the use of Tiwis, they established benchmarks by collecting data for 30 days from 1400 mission vehicles. Normally when violations occur drivers are alerted, but during this evaluation drivers did not receive alerts. The recorded violations were quite revealing:

                                                                 Speeding: 105,945
                                                             90+ mph speeding: 370
                                                           Hard accelerations: 1,171
                                                                 Hard brake: 1.109
                                                                 Hard bump: 2,936
                                                                 Hard turn: 12,695
                                                                 Seat belts: 12,634

Interestingly once the device alerts were turned on, violations dropped by over 90% in every category. We were told that the single greatest liability the Church has is missionary drivers. Reportedly the use of these devices and the resulting improvement in driving behavior by the missionaries is saving the Church millions of dollars.

PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE

This past Saturday we drove to downtown Edmonton and visited the Provincial Legislature building.

Plaza, fountain, pools, and legislature building.

A multi-purpose water fountain -- the lower right bowl is for pets; the middle one is a regular fountain; and the upper left is for filling water bottles.

The greenery in these planters are the numbers "1-5-0" in recognition
of Canada's anniversary this year.

Beautiful grounds surround the legislature building.

A large totem pole is located on the grounds

Yesterday, as a way of learning more about the areas where missionaries are serving, we attended church in two branches east of Edmonton. We drove 114 miles and attended Sacrament Meeting with 32 members in Vermilion (population 4,000).

 

Vermilion Branch Chapel

 After Sacrament Meeting we drove 44 miles farther east to attend Relief Society/Priesthood in the Lloydminster Branch. Lloydminster has a population of approximately 28,000 and a proportionally larger branch membership.

Lloydminster Branch Chapel

On our way home we stopped in the small community of Chipman and saw these two churches. There is a significant Ukranian population in this area.

St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church


The Russo Greek Orthodox Church

Canada is the world's second largest grower of canola, behind the European Union. Right now the canola plant is flowering. In about a month, seeds will begin to form in pods,. Eventually the seeds will ripen and the crop will be harvested using standard combines.

The bright yellow canola fields were spectacular!

Early settler sheds giving way to advancing time.

Look at the blue letters on this Goodwill sign -- nice message.

 

Saw this sunrise while walking.

The City of Olds is between Red Deer and Calgary, and is the farthest south community in the Edmonton Mission. We were pleased with this sign: O "LDS."

Two weeks ago we spent the weekend with Cydne and Dave Godfrey who live outside of Calgary in Cochrane. They took us to the Banff and Yoho National Parks which are located west of Calgary. Below are some photographs:

Takakkaw Falls

Bow Falls

Lake Louise

Today is a holiday known as Canada Day. On July 1, 1867, the British North America Act united the British provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario into the Dominion of Canada.This year is particularly special since it marks Canada's 150th birthday.  Alberta Province (Edmonton) was added to the Dominion of Canada in 1905.

This week I found a paper mache statue on my printer. The sticky note attached to its leg read, "The Car Czar Cherub." It was a "gift" from the mission finance secretary, Elder Watson.

Alberta Temple. The clouds here are spectacular.

More clouds

This is something I get to deal with occasionally. Fortunately the missionaries were not hurt. The windows are blocked by the air bags that deployed. The repair estimate was $11,200 ($8,600 US). The Church decided to write the car off. We are now down one vehicle from our authorized number with no new cars due until January 2018.

The July issue of the mission newsletter can be viewed by clicking on this link:
Mission Newsletter - July 2017

About a third of the mission vehicles are Nissan Rogues. When inspecting cars today I came across the following modification to one Rouge's nameplate.

"May the Force be with you." 

Every six weeks, in conjunction with zone conferences, I inspect mission vehicles while the missionaries are in their meetings.

This is the back of a mission office van that I load with motor oil, antifreeze, windshield washer fluid, candy, inspection forms, air pressure gauges, and tire tread depth gauges.

Sandy helped me with inspections to begin with but we could only do five cars in an hour. She suggested I invite Brother Hill (a newly-called Church service missionary) to help since he is a mechanic. Brother Hill then recruited some of his friends and we did 18 cars in 65 minutes. What a blessing! The brethren from left to right are; Cal Hoddes, Michael Fisher, Alan Hill, Tim Read, and Bill Wright.

Cal and I teamed up and worked together. Two sister missionaries who serve on an Indian reservation came to zone conference with an especially dirty car. They said  they had taught a lesson on Saturday when it had rained, but decided they would have to come with a dirty car rather than wash it on Sunday. After we finished inspections, Cal took their car and washed it. During vehicle safety training with the missionaries, I mentioned what Cal did and noticed those sisters get emotional as I told the story.

On Saturday, June 10, Elder M. Russel Ballard met with all of the Canada Edmonton Missionaries for two hours. Following this meeting a group photo was taken.

Part of my responsibility as vehicle coordinator is to collect a monthly record of the kilometers driven by the missionaries. The Church has a maximum distance that mission vehicles can be driven each month (2010 kilometers/1250 miles). Below is a record, called a Klick Report, submitted by two sister missionaries for the month of May.

In the bottom left corner the sisters reported that they drove 490,576 kilometers during the month. Actually, they drove only 1,389 kilometers. They mistakenly added up the daily ending odometer readings in the left column to arrive at the larger number. This might suggest more training is needed.