Adjustments and I am in the best area!

Hey Mom!

Thanks so much for the pictures! The kids are all SO cute...and Dad and
\david both look wonderful all dressed up :) I showed my companion, Sister
Williams, the pictures of all the little kids, and she thinks they're
adorable too. I'm glad to hear things are going well at home and I'm really
looking forward to reading Dad's letter...it's always nice to have them in
the mail so I can read them whenever I want and not take up all my internet
time reading them. Luckily the pictures didn't take long to download at all
and I have an hour now instead of half an hour on here each week.

Things here are going really well...it hasn't been too difficult adjusting,
but it definitely feels like I've been here longer than a week already. My
companion is Sister Williams. She's from Wales and is so sweet. I like her a
lot. I'm the first person she's trained so she's been a bit nervous, but
she's taking on the role of senior companion really well. AND she makes all
the phone calls which is WONDERFUL for me, haha. This first week we had 4
sisters all crammed into our little 1 bedroom apartment. I guess they'd been
living there for almost a month while their apartment was getting redone.
They just showed up one day and their bathtub had been ripped out of the
bathroom, so they moved in to my apartment. It was fun having them, but 4
girls in one little bedroom is a bit tight, so it was nice when they finally
moved out last night.

My first area here is supposed to be the best area in the mission.
Everyone's told me that so far, and it is a lot of fun. I'm serving in
Montreal in the Young Single Adult english-speaking branch, and the members
are SO fun. I guess there have been like 12 baptisms in the last 3 or so
months here, which is crazy, but the new converts are all so much fun.
There are 2 in particular, Robyn and April, who are just the sweetest girls
and I LOVE talking to them. It's still a bit difficult adjusting to mission
life and the rules associated with that, but I think I'll improve with time
:) My companion doesn't like speaking \french at all, so we really don't,
which is a bit of a disappointment, but I'm going to try a bit harder to
make an effort to speak it whenever I can. I really want to learn the
language and learn it well, so I'm going to try hard for that. It has been
difficult trying to manage my time though. It still seems like I don't have
enough time in the day to do everything I'm supposed to be doing. If we do
our language study it means we don't get out the door until 10:30 or 11, and
then we're supposed to spend 3 hours a day in contacting (which is AWFUL, by
the way...i am NOT outgoing enough or comfortable enough to just walk up to
random strangers and say: Hi, I'm a missionary for the church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but I'm working on it) and then add that to
teaching lessons, service projects, and talking with recent converts and
less actives, and it's next to impossible. Somehow the elders are all able
to do it, though, so I'm going to experiment a bit more this week and see
what I can come up with. \we'll see how it goes :)

The weather is pretty chilly up here already. Not quite coat weather yet,
but i definitely need 2 layers. Except since we're in a metro area and we
do all our contacting on the metro, we really aren't supposed to wear heavy
coats; they become WAY too hot in the metro. So somehow this winter I'm
going to have to find a balance between dressing warm enough to walk the 10
minutes from our apartment to the metro, but not too warm that i die while
I'm in there. It's going to be interesting...

The elders that I've met so far are all really wonderful. I was pretty sad
at leaving the MTC and not having those elders around anymore and not having
Sister Andrews as a companion (THAT part has been really hard...we were so
perfect for each other and had everything in common, and although Sister
Williams is really sweet, it's not quite the same), but it's been fun here
too. I talked to several people on the plane and in the airport, so that
was fun, and then we spent the night at President and Sister McKinnon's
home, which was really great. I talked with President for awhile, and he is
such a wonderful man :) And the AP's were there, and they're really great.
We're the only sisters in our zone, which is fine; the elders are all really
wonderful. Most of our appointments take place at the church (it's a HUGE
building) so we get to see the other elders in the district and in our zone
quite often, so it's fun.

Yesterday was the first day at church in this branch, and that was really
neat. the RS president, Rebecca, has her mission call and is leaving the
beginning of February for San Francisco, and I am SO excited for her! She is
the cutest girl. We spent awhile with her yesterday going over the girls in
the RS and finding out who were the less actives and who would be willing to
help us and things like that, and it's so sad to see so many people who are
less active. There are quite a few who were baptized and then 2 weeks later
stopped coming to church for some reason or another and it's just so sad to
see that. But at the same time, I'm glad that they went inactive then
instead of waiting until after they had gone through the temple and made
those covenants...those are the ones that are really hard to see.

But anyways, we've been working pretty hard...i think we could be working a
little harder, but my companion is convinced that we're working as hard as
we can, so that's been interesting. I really want to take charge more, but
we've already had one companionship inventory where she told me that she
felt like I didn't trust her or think she was capable of doing anything
because I always say exactly what I'm thinking and we do things my way. I
hadn't noticed that at all, but I guess it had really upset her, so I'm
trying not to step on her toes too much, seeing as she is the senior
companion. So somehow this week I'm going to try to find a way to sneakily
do more work without her thinking that I'm taking over...we'll see how it
goes :) But we do have one investigator who we've been meeting regularly
with, Rob, and he is wonderful. He is so accepting of everything and is
really trying hard to find things out and know them for himself. It's so
wonderful :) He had a baptism date set (Dec. 6) and we're working hard to
help him get everything ready for that. he's trying hard to quite
smoking...he really wants to obey the Word of Wisdom and knows that's a good
thing. He's still trying to figure out if the Law of Chastity is a true
principle, but he says he has faith that he will receive an answer about
that soon. But he brought up the Law of Tithing himself and decided he would
start paying it before he was even baptized. \he came to church for the
first time yesterday and came to Elder Uchtdorf's CES fireside last night
too. (speaking of which, is there any way you could get me a copy of the
fireside last night, just a printed one, it should be on LDS.org, and send
it to me please?) I'm so excited for him :)

Then there's another investigator, Therese, who we committed to baptism on
Tuesday and that was SO excited. She was so thrilled about it, and it was
wonderful to be there when she said she wanted to be baptized. The
conversation was kind of going in that direction and it seemed like the
perfect time, so I asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said yes
over and over again. It was wonderful :) But then she didn't come to church
yesterday and we called but haven't heard back, so we dont' really know
what's going on. Hopefully she was just sick or something and will be better
soon instead of having changed her mind. We'll see.

Oh, and you asked about mailing package rules...as I said last week, you'll
have to call the mission office. They told me what they are briefly, but I
don't remember them at all
and I don't know which are the best delivery systems. Sister Castleton
knows everything though and she can tell you exactly what the rules are
because I really don't know what they are at all. But if you are thinking
of sending me a package, I want just a little clock (I had one sitting in a
bag at the bottom of my bed when i left...are you sure you can't find it)
and wheat thins, since they only ones they sell here are ridiculously
expensive, haha. I thought of some other things that would be nice to have
the other day, but they're not necessities and I can't remember what they
are, so it doesn't really matter that much :) And just keep sending letters
to the mission office...they said Canada mail is extremely slow and so not
to send it to individual residences since I might be transferred before it
even gets there.

So that's life here..pretty fun :) How are things back home. i hope all is
going well and I can't wait to hear from you next week! I love you all tons
and tons!!

Love, Nicole

PS: Grandma and Aunt Tami: I'm SO glad I got to see you in the airport!
Thanks so much for the packages...you are so sweet! i love you tons!

Oh, and it was pretty funny: in the airport, everyone else had to pay $40
for their bags. For some reason or another, they decided my flight was
international so I didn't. I love it. :)