"Forward forever; backwards never"

Hey everyone!

So this week was insane...so much has been going on! First and foremost: transfer calls were Saturday night and it was not at all what I was expecting. Elder Grinton and Elder Williams (our zone leaders) came to our transfer party and already knew what was going on and told both Sister Cottrell and I that we would be so much happier and to think of the craziest thing that could happen to both of us, and that's what was going to happen. So the craziest thing I could think of was going back to Concordia and being a junior companion to Sister Morse and was thrilled with that idea. But that's not at all what happened. Instead, I got a call from President McKinnon saying that Sister Cottrell was being transferred to Hochelaga (French speaking in Montreal) and I was staying here and training again. I guess they had all the transfers worked out last Thursday, but then they got a call Thursday evening from the MTC saying that another sister was coming out so instead of just the one they were thinking there were 2, so they had to redo all the transfers and for some reason they decided it was a good idea to have me stay here in Quebec and train again. So crazy. One of the sisters is from Utah, speaks Spanish and then just the French that she learned in the MTC. The other one is from Switzerland and is fluent in French, Spanish, and English. They're planning on sending her up here, but that might change depending on personalities when President interviews them on Monday night. So crazy! It definitely was not what I was expecting.

But other than, this week we had a lot of funny stories :) We went knocking doors the other day and we met a man who made me realize that I REALLY need to learn French better. He told me his wife had died 3 years ago and so I started the door contact about how families can be together forever and he can live with his wife again and he thought I was volunteering to find him a new wife here and so he said no thanks, he's not really looking to get married to anyone right now. So I corrected myself and used the phrase "rester ensemble" which means remain together, or something similar to that, but he thought I was saying that we could come and rest there with him, and he refused saying that his son came often to stay with him so thank you, but it wasn't necessary for us to move in with him. It was SO funny. I tried to rephrase what I was saying again, but then he saw the Book of Mormon and we changed the sbuject. He did give us his phone number though and we're going to try to go back and visit him again this week. We left the house just laughing :)

Then also this week we had sports night on Friday and it was SO much fun! We played soccer with 2 balls going at once which made it insane, but I loved it. I actually got into the game this time and we had such a blast. Then on Saturday morning one of the cub scouts in the Branch invited several of his friends over to play hockey at the church to introduce them a bit to the church and the scout leader asked the missionaries to all come and play as well. It was way fun. I've never played hockey before in my life and didn't even know how to hold a hockey stick, so Elder Grinton showed me how to do it before the game actually started. Then halfway through the game he became the goalie for the other team and I ended up scoring the 2 last goals of the game. It was so funny. Elder Grinton gets SO competetive and he kept going on about how I had completely ruined his pride and he could never play hockey again...it was great. I think the boys had a really good time as well, so it was a success :)

Oh and the cabane a sucre last week was so much fun! It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was definitely an experience you have to have when you come here. There was a live "band" there playing really twangy old country music, half in French, half in English, and then a bunch of huge tables and they just served everybody the food all at the same time. It was pretty good, and you drown everything in maple syrup making it even more sweet and better. They served the most bizarre thing I think I've ever heard of though: eggs boild in maple syrup. It was interesting. We had a great time :)

Oh, and it was Elder Zaldivar's last district study so we did a little wake for him where we had him lay in the middle of this circle and we all said something nice about him and tried to embarrass him with stories we were telling. He was SO excited...he'd really wanted one and thought we were doing something for him, but didn't know what. So then we got to district study and he's just waiting for us to say something, but we didn't until about halfway through his thought and then Sister Cottrell stood up and said "I'm sorry, Elder Zaldivar. I'm sure you've planned a great lesson, but we have somewhere more important to be right now" and then we all got up adn he followed us and he was SO excited. It was so much fun.

As for the actual missionary work, it's coming along. We did a lot of finding this week with not tons of success, but it's coming. Patrick is still doing well and we've now passed him off to the elders (he lives in their area) so that's good. And he gets along really well with Elder Magre which will be a huge help for him in the next couple of weeks as he prepares to get baptized. Other than that, we had Raymond, but we haven't heard from him since conference last Sunday. He left Conference early, missed our rendez-vous on Tuesday, and hasn't returned any of our phone calls. It's so sad when that happens and people just kind of drop off the face of the earth without even learning the best part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But we'll keep praying and keep looking and find those who are ready. I'm excited for this week...it should be a great one :) Anyways, I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your month of April! Love you all!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

PS: GABBY: congratulations on your baptism!! I'm SO excited for you! :) Love you tons