The RY2017-18 Rotary International Convention was held in Toronto, Canada and since we had never been there we decided we should go. So we paid the $700 registration fee, boarded a plane and headed for Toronto.
Toronto is the capital city of the province of Ontario and the largest city in Canada by population, with 2,731,571 residents … and in the Greater Toronto Area, the population in 2016 was 5,928,040! It’s pretty obvious this is a huge city judging by the traffic!
Before the convention – with more than 30,000 Rotarians in attendance from all over the world – we decided to travel to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, from which we could see downtown Buffalo, NY. The falls were beautiful, but the crowds were comparable to a busy day at Disneyland – and the traffic, to and from Niagara, was bumper-to-bumper in four lanes … on both sides of the freeway.
The convention was amazing! Speakers included – but in way limited to – Former First Lady Laura Bush and The Royal Princess Anne, sister to HRH Queen Elizabeth.
But, the highlight of our week in Toronto came in a very unexpected way:
In between sessions, we were sitting in the House of Friendship having a drink while waiting for the next session to begin, when a woman walked by with a Guyana flag on her purse! At first I thought I was seeing things so I jumped up and followed her around the corner booth. I was delighted to see she had stopped to look at some Rotary-branded merchandise, so I approached her with a question, “are you from Guyana?” “Born there,” she replied, “but came to the US as a child. Now living in Lafayette, CA. Why do you ask?”
I then proceeded to tell her our story – how we had lived in Guyana for 18 months.
“Are you LDS,” she asked and I almost fell over because she is not only LDS but has been in Rotary for about 2 years … with her underlying goal to find ways to help her native country through Rotary.
“But my real reason,” she said, “is to find a way to get the Church to save records which are rapidly deteriorating for the families of Guyana.”
I wanted to weep with joy because this is what we – Simeon, Selwin and I – have been working on, too. When couple missionaries are assigned to the work and it officially begins, I will post the “rest of the story” which is sooooo amazing!
Next year the RI Convention will be held in Hamburg, Germany … and as Rotary District Governor (RY2020-21), Ed and I will have our travel expenses paid-in-full. Can’t wait to travel to the land of my paternal grandmother’s ancestry!
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