I know the events I have just recently written about
in my blog, are “old news”; but as I
have time over the next several months, I will try to catch up to where we are
now in our mission. I like trivia and
detail, so I will share some of my notes that I think will be of interest to
you from time to time of our Canada Toronto mission 2013-2015.
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| WINDSOR TUNNEL |
December 18th, 2013-The Detroit-Windsor
tunnel is an underwater highway tunnel connecting Detroit, Michigan in the
United States, with Windsor, Ontario in Canada. About 13,000 vehicles use the
tunnel each day. When Darrell and I
drove through the tunnel, we were a ‘tad” bit nervous. We had been told by
several of the people in the mission office to not say the word “work”, or you
may be penalized by paying a fine. The
senior couple that came in just before us,
had to pay $300 to cross the border.
In their mission call, they were called to work in the office, whereas
ours said that we were called to be member leadership support
missionaries. Even though ours didn’t
say work, we were still very concerned.
In fact, one of the couples that were coming in to serve in our mission,
had such a difficult time at the border, and were interrogated and grilled so
harshly, they became forceful and were denied a visa. They ended up serving
their mission in the Detroit area. As we stopped at the security booth; prior
to going into customs, the border guard handed us a yellow sheet to take over
to a building across the street. We then walked into the customs’ office, with
our missionary badges on, dressed in our Sunday clothes; Darrell in his suit,
and I in a skirt and blouse. As we walked up to the desk, they took our paper
work and asked us to be seated. We were
invited to sit down on some chairs across the room. They didn’t seem too
anxious to serve us, and seemed to be having a great time laughing, as we sat
waiting for about 20 minutes to be waited on.
I was getting very fidgety and nervous because we had heard from others
how very rude they were to senior missionaries coming into their country. When we were finally called up, “Mr.
Shauffer” looked at our papers for some time, with a scowl on his face, and
then started firing questions at us.
“Who is paying you to come in?”(No one) Why are you here? (We are
ordained ministers of God) “Why do we
need people to come in to Canada to teach us; if we’ve already got ministers
here?” (We are sure there are many churches
teaching the gospel of Christ in Canada, and we’re sure it’s needed by
all) He then asked who told us to come.
(Our prophet). What’s his name? (Thomas S. Monson). We then needed to show him
our proof of income. He wanted to know why we received more Social security,
than they get in Canada. (We said, we don’t know, maybe you need to move to the
United States). He then wanted to know why on this yellow sheet it says you
need a work permit. Are you getting a stipend? (No) Why did the border guard
say that you needed a work permit? About that time, I figured this guy was just
messing with us, and I was so proud of Darrell for talking so politely to this
“jerk” and answering his pointed questions for over an hour. Through all of this interrogation I was
silently saying a prayer, hoping that we could soon leave and be on our way! After an hour and a half of going back and
forth, the border guard said, here’s your visa; you are okay to go!! We grabbed our papers and almost ran out. We
then stopped by to eat and spent the next 3 hours driving to Brampton. ON. We
stayed at the Fairview Inn and slept very well that night!
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