What a week!!

Hey Mom!

I decided not to change your subject, since it fits my feelings perfectly, haha. It has been kind of a crazy week, but definitely a good one! We had Zone Conference last Wednesday, which I LOVED. We have two incredible AP's: Elder Cowley and Elder Ronndahl, and their training was incredible. Then the mission president and his wife both did their trainings, along with our zone leaders. I guess our mission went from being one of the worst in the North America North East area when the Mckinnon's first came back in 2007 to being on par or better on each of the factors as the other missions in the area. But then the past few weeks our numbers have just plummeted as missionaries become more and more relaxed in their efforts and less obedient. President McKinnon isn't very strict about all of the rules and just kind of hopes that we will work hard anyways, but not all the missionaries are willing to work hard and some really take advantage of his lenient attitude. It's pretty sad. So they addressed that quite a bit in the Zone Conference, and I realized a lot of things I need to work better at. Then our zone leaders came up with this "ugly tie" idea. They went out and bought 2 of the ugliest ties in the store (one is just completely hideous) and we're passing them around the zone, and each companionship has to wear them until they commit someone. So now it's our turn and I think we might have them for awhile...we haven't been having much success. There are lots of people who just don't show up for things. We had like 20 lessons scheduled for last week and only 7 of them actually happened, and some of those were because we just met with the recent convert members who had agreed to come with us for the lessons with the investigator who never showed up. So frustrating. But this week will be better, I just know it :)

The lessons we did have this past week were pretty good...we met with Rob and he's doing so well! I just love meeting with him. Elder Cowley came to one of the lessons and answered all his questions that we didn't even know he had...Elder Cowley is pretty amazing :) He can be very direct without making the person feel uncomfortable or intimidated. I haven't quite mastered that art yet...

Then we met with a man named Theo who is INTENSE. He asked me last week why God needed a body and tried to argue it with science, and I couldn't come up with a good answer that he understood. He has studied MANY religions and even was in France for 3 years studying to be a Catholic priest, but then decided it wasn't for him. So he's having a hard time accepting some of the things we teach and wants to skip right to the deep doctrine stuff without having any faith in the basic parts, and it doesn't work that way. So Saturday we taught him plan of salvation and he couldn't understand why a loving Heavenly Father would allow His children to have agency and to suffer the consequences of their choices. The member, Lynda, and S. Williams tried to explain that it's because He loves us that He lets us experience these things, but Theo would have none of that. And I was so upset by it and just wanted so much for him to understand that our Father in Heaven is a very loving God and He loves each of us and WANTS us to return to Him, so I ended up just bearing testimony about that and I was shaking and crying and I just wanted so much for him to understand. He asked why I was crying and I said I just felt to passionately about it that he HAD to understand it, and he seemed to accept it. Or he stopped questioning it at least. But then he has some HUGE issues with blacks and the priesthood (he is black) and so we're going to work with him on that next time. Say a little prayer for me please...I'll need it.

In other news, there were some funny things that happened this week. In the metro on Friday night, we were contacting and ran into our ZL and told him we were going home in 20 minutes and he said we couldn't go home until we had 2 more potentials (or had 2 more people give us phone numbers so we could meet up with them again later). So I saw this guy sitting on the wall and I went to him and introduced myself and S. Williams and said we were missionaries and he interrupted me and asked "can i have your phone number?" and I said "Sure, if I can have yours." So he gave us his number, we gave him a pass along card with ours and told him we wanted to teach him about Jesus Christ and then walked away, happily counting him as one of our potentials but not realyl interested in calling him. So he called us yesterday to ask what we were doing...we missed the call and can't decide if we want to call back or not yet, haha. Oh, we also got invited to a party while walking home on Thursday. The guy started talking to us in a mix of French and English, and we thought he was asking us if it would be warm the next day so we tried to answer, but then he said something about seeing us that night after work because we were going to have a party. I don't know exactly how the conversation went to that, but we said maybe and then he asked where we lived and we pointed to a random building about 2 streets away from where we actually lived. I figured lying was justified in this case :)

Then another funny story: yesterday we were going to a recent convert's house (Robyn...I LOVE her. She is SO amazing!) for breakfast with her, Crystal, and the elders, and we asked 2 girls for directions to the street, so they pointed out where it was, then one of the girls asked "Umm..are you looking for the Jehovah's Witness place? Because if so, that's over this way..." and we just kind of laughed and said no, we were members of our church, and she was a bit embarrassed, but we thanked her for the help anyways and just brushed it off. Then the other girl said "well they hand out really great pamphlets around here, so it's actually a complement.." and we couldn't help but laugh at that. It was just such a funny situation :)

Then yesterday at church we ended up having a new investigator come, which was SO exciting! His name is Earnest, and we weren't expecting him there at all. We met with him once about 2 weeks ago but never set up another appointment, then called him Saturday to remind him of church, not expecting much, but he actually came! It was really exciting until Sacrament meeting started and we realized our Branch President and 1st Counselor were speaking, and instead of giving inspiring or spiritual talks, they spent the whole time relating stories about their childhoods. They both tried to make them connect to gospel topics, but I had a hard time understanding the connections, so I'm sure Earnest did too. Not exactly the spiritual meeting I was hoping it would be. then I had to teach Sunday School, and that was interesting. I was SO nervous for it and I hadn't spent tons of time preparing, but everyone said I still came across very confidently and did a good job. I was speaking about missionary work, so it was something that's very close to the hearts of most of the people in there (it was the investigator/recent convert class) and Robyn and several of the other girls came up at the end and said they had to tell themselves not to cry at the end because they were so close to it. So hopefully he was able to feel the Spirit at least a bit in that class and then in Priesthood...we're meeting with him on Tuesday, so we'll see! :)

Then it was really neat, after church we went upstairs and were trying to track down who had taught this media referral we had gotten who had been taught a lesson like 2 months ago. So we spent awhile with that and it was a bit frustrating to waste that much time, but then we walked downstairs and Brother Holland (stake missionary coordinator or something like that) was talking to a less-active/recent convert, Jimmy, and said "You asked for a teacher Jimmy, and the Lord sent you Sister Lindsey. What do you want her to teach you?" So we went and taught him the Plan of Salvation. It was really neat how all of that worked out :)

But anyways, that's all the news from here! It was so great to hear from you and everything that's been going on there! I'm so glad the adoption is final...that is SO exciting! And thanks for the pictures...I always show them to my companion and she loves them too. I'm glad you got the package from S. Andrews...I actually don't know what she wrote in that letter, so I would like to see it when I get home if you don't mind keeping it :) I just love her...she is SO amazing! And yeah, if you could send the package from her, that'd be great. My companion here said packages usually take about 6 weeks to get from the US to here...I don't think letters take as long because I got the letter Dad wrote the Sunday right before I left the MTC last Monday, so those take about a week, but packages do take MUCH longer. But I want to get the one from her at some point. The pictures are the ones we took on our disposable cameras while in the MTC so I haven't seen them at all. I'm excited to get them! :) Anyways, i hope you're all having a wonderful week and I will hear from you next week! I love you tons and tons!

Nicole