"To say and do what He Himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the people to whom He has sent me."

Hey everyone!

So the past 2 weeks have been so much fun! It really has been great to be a missionary. The weather has been GORGEOUS and it makes everything even better than it was before! We've been working really hard, like always, but it was nice to have a bit of a break in the middle of tracting this week. On average we go out knocking doors about 5 hours a day, sometimes more, sometimes a bit less, with the occasional less active/recent convert lesson in between. But then last Sunday was MOther's Day so we all got to call home (which was wonderful!) and then Monday we had our zone activity with all the other missionaries in our zone, followed by zone interviews on Tuesday. It really was wonderful. We spent most of the day on Monday playing soccer with the other missionaries, which was fun. I'm not the best at it, but I found that if I just run towards people and kick, something happens. Either I kick the ball and it goes away from the goal, or I kick the person and they fall down, thus also preventing them from scoring. I'm not sure that's the way the game is supposed to be played, but it seemed to work ;)

Then zone conference was really wonderful. We had a really great training from the zone leaders about redefining our vocabulary. So we set, as a zone, the definitions for 10+, committing on the first lesson, and junior companions so that everyone was on the same page and we all knew exactly what was expected of us. And they asked the Junior companions to step it up a little bit. They have great faith and great insight, and they need to show that, use it, and use their excitement to push the senior companions to be better and work harder. Sister McKinnon said that's the first time since she's been there that anyone's given a training on that and it was a little different and unexpected at first, but it went really well and I really enjoyed it. Then we also had the district leader trainings and Sister McKinnon's trainings. Oh, and the AP's told us about this really great ice cream place that we went to afterwards, and it was SO good...it's not very far away from the church and they're all chocolate dipped cones and the chocolate is so thick on them (needless to say I gave up my no chocolate goal for that day ;) ). That doesn't really have anything to do with the zone conference, but it was a fun break in the week...I enjoyed it.

Then what else happened? I talked with Patrick and he is doing SO well...I just love him. He's got some difficult decisions to make in his life right now, but he was talking to me and he said the one thing he knows he needs to hold on to is that faith. He says he prays every night and every morning and he reads his scriptures daily and he knows that that's important, so even when it's hard, he's going to keep doing that. It was really neat. I just love him! :) Then we also taught a couple other people this week. We stopped by a guy's house named Daniel who we taught once about 2 weeks ago. He told us that he had read in the Book of Mormong and it was really interesting, but then he'd looked up things on the church's website and he's not sure he wants to get involved in the church enough that he has to pay tithing or go to church each week. We talked about the blessings that come and what a blessing it is to have the gift of the HOly Ghost all the time, and he said that would be great, but he's not sure he can do it. So we told him to keep the Book of Mormon and keep reading it and then to pray and ask if God wants him to continue going forward with the gospel and we'd call him in a couple of days to see what his answer is. So that was yesterday and we're planning on calling him tomorrow so see what he's decided...we'll see how that goes! Then we've had a couple other lessons, but nothing too promising...we're going to keep working though and I'm sure we'll find someone who's interested soon!

Other than that, the week has been pretty average. Transfer calls are coming up this Saturday and we have no idea what's going to happen. We know there will be a lot of changes with the elders and there's at least one new sister coming in (as of right now at least) so we'll see what happens! I'll let you know next Monday! :)

Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderful week! Take care! I love you all ! :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey