Montreal Temple Visit

Last Saturday we traveled to Canada with two other couples to attend the temple. Even though it's called the Montreal Temple, it is located in the town of Longueuil, in the province of Quebec. The exciting thing for us was that many of Mike's ancestors were born in Longueuil. In fact the Patenaude and Trudeau families lived there for at least four generations.

We hope to make another trip to visit the churches and cemeteries.

The grounds of the temple are absolutely fantastic, and we enjoyed our visit very much.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant and the food was quite good. We took our car, and Elder Charchenko drove. We were really glad to have a GPS so we didn't get lost.

The couples who went with us were Elder and Sister Starley from Utah, and Elder and Sister McGreggor from Idaho. They enjoyed the trip as much as we did.
It was very interesting driving through Canada and seeing everything around us written in French. It would have been fun to have had Jeremy with us to read the signs.

All of the people working in the temple spoke French, but most of them understood a little English. It was definitely like being in a foreign country. For a while it looked like the session would be in French and we would be using headphones, but in the end it was the other way around. It was pretty evenly matched between English and French speakers that day, so the session was in English and the prayer circle in French.

We hope all of you are well and happy. (Remember Happiness IS A MATTER OF CHOICE!)

PLEASE HUG ALL THE GRANDKIDS FOR US EVERY DAY.

Love, Elder and Sister Charchenko

We love you all. Make it a great day and make it a great year. Love Elder & Sister Charchenko

Late Summer

Oh how lovely was the morning.....
We just had to stop and take a photograph this week on our way to work. The humidity and the sun made a striking picture.

Brother Charchenko loves it here. He has become the "resident electrician" because every time there is a project that involves wiring or electrical repairs, he gets the assignment.

He has always been able to fix just about everything (as his children will tell you) and he has had the opportunity to fix, build or repair a lot of different things since he has been here. He has even helped plant the fall flowers when he's not busy with other projects.



Sister Charchenko loves working among the flowers. The sisters (three of us) with the help of our husbands, just spent several days planting hundreds (over $2,000 worth) of burgundy and yellow chrysanthemums. It was REALLY hard to pull up the spring flowers that were still blooming so we could put in the new ones. We transplanted several because we didn't have the heart to throw them away. It is quite a miracle when you can dig up a fully grown plant that's blooming and transplant it to a different spot and it not only survives, but thrives. The Joseph Smith Memorial is truly a place for miracles.

We send love and greetings to all of our friends and family. We are having a great experience, and we appreciate your prayers.

Love, Grandma & Grandpa, Mom & Dad, Mike and Janie, and Elder and Sister Charchenko

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are a few pictures.

The house on the left is the top story. The foundation is on the right of the picture. The bottom story was demolished.

The pictures of Mike and I were taken at the end of a long day working in the mud. The mud had dried by the time we
took pictures, so we don't look as dirty as we really were, but I can't remember ever being so dirty. I thought shoveling mud would be like cleaning out the corrals after milking but it was much heavier and stickier, and very difficult to shovel.

The day this picture (below) was take I was pulling posters, bags, and boxes of "stuff" off of the top of a very large walk-in cooler and the muddy (smelly) water just poured down on me each time I pulled something down. I spent a couple of hours standing on a ladder handing down all of the stuff that was up there. I used a golf club and a rake to reach a lot of it. After lunch I spent the entire afternoon with a large floor squeege, sweeping the floors to get out the last of the muddh water. While I was working in the restaurant Mike was working in the trailer behind taking out sheet rock and insulation. By the end of the day we were both beyond tired.

The day before these pictures, Mike and I were both working in the mobile home (behind) and the young women (who were amazing) were working in the restaurant in front. Sharon, the lady who owns Sandy's restaurant, said, "I can't believe what these Mormons have done for me, and the YOUTH... I have never seen kids work like that."

Below is a picture of her restaurant where we worked for 2 days. The water came up to the eves. In the beginning Sharon (the owner) was not going to re-open, but after all the help she changed her mind. All in all it was an amazing experience. Since then we have had rain all day and all night (again) but the river didn't raise more than a foot or two. When the hurricane came through there was so much water coming down that it was like a bucket pouring water instead of rain drops.
This is the first time in my entire life I can remember anyone praying for it to stop raining!

We love everyone, and will write more later. Elder and Sister Charchenko

It looks much better now.

Well, you haven't heard from us for a while because we have been experiencing Hurricane Irene in a big way. We had 18 hours of rain. Then 24 hours without electricity or water. It was 4 days before we had electricity at our shop here at the visitors center. The Visitors Center stayed open, and the grounds stayed beautiful in spite of the storm. As for the people in neighboring areas, some people still don't have electricity

The past few days we have been very busy shoveling mud, tearing down sheetrock, hauling muddy ruined belongings out of houses, piling the back of our car full of the things to be salvaged, which were taken to a friends RV where we unloaded them to be washed later. We spent from about 9:00-4:00 Saturday and then again today (Sunday) from 10:00 t0 3:00. At 7:00 AM today we met at the church where we had an assembly line going to make 200 sack lunches. They made 100 sack lunches yesterday. After making lunches, we loaded them in our car and took them to the school (the command post) then we went home and got on our boots and work clothes and spent the day at Sandy's drive in restaurant and the mobile home behind it. The muddy water came clear up to the eves of the building and left about 6 inches of very sticky black mud that smelled swampy (like the mud at the bottom of the pond). The flood waters were 28 FEET above the normal flow of the river. Very few people had flood insurance. (We took pictures today, but left the camera at home so we will have to add them later. ) The ward provided sack lunches both days, and provided dinner at the school for all of the volunteers and for those they were helping (both days). The ward has a great group of young women and they were super. They pitched right in and were very hard working and cheerful. We were very proud of them. On Thursday all of the young Elders (the missionaries) in our mission are going to come and help out. People have come from towns all around to help. It has been great.


I told some of you about the Stone Bridge. Last week before the storm Mike and six other men spent the day restoring the turnpike bridge. The old wagon road through here was called "The Turnpike" and there was a stream that had to be crossed, so in the 1700's they constructed this bridge. The guys repaired it with the help of a backhoe/front end loader and angels. It was a miracle it came together with no one getting hurt. Some of those stones weighed more than 2,000 pounds, and every one of those guys said they had help from angels. At one point they had the last and probably heaviest stone held up by a strap (like you tow a car with) and it balanced perfectly so they could set it into place. It looked really GREAT. There were still ferns and wild flowers around, and they took the leaf blower and blew pine needles all around so it looked totally undisturbed, just as it might have looked in the 1700's after it was first built. It was shady when I took the picture with my cell phone, so it's not great, but I wanted you to see it anyway. It is amazing that they were able to build it with horse and wagons.
The second picture shows the flood waters. When Elder Charchenko and I got there Monday morning the water had gone down, but debris was causing the water to go over the bridge and was washing it out. He dragged out huge limbs and sent me for Elder McGreggor and the tractor. They were able to get all of the water going under the bridge, but about two-thirds of the road was washed out and has to be replaced. It has been a pretty exciting week. We love you all. Our apartment is high and dry, and we had more rain this evening (Sunday night).

ADDRESS CORRECTION: 273 LDS Lane, South Royalton Vermont 05068

e-mail addrerss: jmchar@gmail.com





In this picture you can see how deep the water was. You can't even see the bridge or the culvert or the road that we drive on. (We don't drive over the stone bridge. We just take people to see it.)