Happy 9 months! :)

Hey everybody!

So....all the news: Rive Sud is staying open, and Sister Leonard and I are staying here together. It was so crazy...we thought for sure that Quebec Ouest (the elders here) were going to close and that we were going to take over their area, but then they kept them open as well as us. Instead they closed Hochelaga sisters. So crazy. I'm excited though, and Lyse was THRILLED when we told her that we were staying. She said that she's been praying all week that we would both stay and that neither of us would be transferred, and she decided that God answered her prayers. It was so neat :) And the whole ward is thrilled that we're staying. It'll be wonderful. I'm really excited for this transfer. It means I'll have been here for about 7 months by the end, which is kind of a long time, but I'm excited for it. I really love the ward and the members here, and then with Lyse getting baptized in 2 weeks, it will be so great. I'm way excited :)

So that was pretty much the exciting news for this week. Other than that, not too much happened. We taught Lyse and she is AMAZING. We taught her word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity, and we told her what we were teaching in advance and so she had a "True to the Faith" book that we gave her and she had already read all about both of those and was willing to make all the changes necessary to live them and so teaching the principles was way easy. And the members have been a huge help; she loves all of them and they're all so welcoming with her. She's so excited for her baptism too...it's wonderful. I LOVE teaching people who understand the importance of the gospel and really want to have those blessings in their lives...it's sucha neat thing to be able to watch them as they find the love and joy that comes only through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Then we had another pretty neat experience last night. We contacted a guy about a month ago named Stephan who was really neat adn has a really strong faith in Jesus Christ due to some things in his past, and so he said we could come back another time. We've tried calling him about 50 times and he never responded, even after we left messages, so we decided to try to pass by him one more time last night and if he wasn't there then we were going to drop him. So we stopped by and he was home and at first he told us that he thought we were a sect and wasn't sure that he wanted to talk to us, but we said we'd like to just explain a little bit about what we did, so we went out to his porch and sat there and explained about missionaries and the Book of Mormon and it turned out great. He was SO excited to read the Book of Mormon by the end. He's already made a ton of changes in his life and really does want to learn more about Christ. He said we could definitely come back again, but he's going on vacation for the next 2 weeks, so he won't be able to meet with us until after that which kind of stinks, but that's ok, it'll turn out well. I'm excited to teach him. Then at the end in his prayer he thanked God for the "2 angels" that were sent to him that day. We told him that that was really sweet and he said "Well, you have to see it...you two just glow. You have to be angels. I've never seen anything like it before." It was so neat. I'm excited :)

Then this morning we met Presidend and Sister Cannon for the first time and they are wonderful. Sister Cannon is extremely outgoing and friendly and will be a LOT of fun to work with. President Cannon is a little more reserved but he has a really strong testimony of the Gospel and together I think they will just be a wonderful strength and support for the mission. I'm way excited to work with them. It will be a wonderful transfer. And this week (Wednesday) is my 9 month mark! Crazy to think that my mission is already have over...I still have so many things left to learn, so many people left to teach...so much to do! I'm excited to keep working! I love it!

Anyways, i hope you all are doing well...I love you all tons! Take care and have a wonderful week!

Love, Nicole

PS: Happy birthday Sara!