Hey everyone :)
This week was a lot of fun...we had a really great time. We had zone conference on Tuesday and it was incredible! The whole focus was on the Book of Mormon and President Cannon shared several stories from his mission about how the Book of Mormon really did change the lives of people and how we need to encourage them to read it. And it's so true. i've found those people who really read and study the Book of Mormon (members and nonmembers alike) find they have a greater desire to do the will of God...to live His commandments and to become the person that He wants them to become. They want to go to church because they realize the importance of the sacrament...they try to obey the commandments because they see the blessings that come as a result of obedience. There is a power that comes with the Book of Mormon that we as missionaries cannot replicate...each person needs to try it and read it themselves and feel that power and that spirit that comes with it. It's really neat :)
Also this week we had a couple really neat activities/miracles. We went on a split and I went Spanish speaking with Sister Leonard. It was SO fun to be with her again! I just love having her as my companion :) unfortunately, we didn't really get to teach any lessons...we got smurfed twice and then our DA forgot they were feeding us so we spent an hour at their house waiting for the pizza to arrive that they had ordered. But it was still really fun. She made me Mexican hot chocolate for breakfast and then we spent the day contacting and just laughing together. I just love her :)
Also this week we taught a new investigator, Lucy. It's a really neat story: She met with the sisters and took all the discussions about 3 years ago but then decided that she didn't want to get batpzied after all. In the last 3 years, she's continued reading the Book of Mormon and keeps coming back to the things that the sisters taught her. She came to church about 6 weeks ago, and sat next to one of our members that she remembered. The member told us about her and had asked her if she wanted to be baptized, and she said yes. However, when the member told us that, she didn't want us to scare Lucy away, so she said that if she came to church the next week, she'd introduce us to her and we could start teaching her. But then the member's been REALLY sick for the last while and hasn't been to church so finally last Saturday (about a week and a half ago) we found Lucy's name and number in our area book and called her up and set up an appointment with her. We met her on Wednesday adn again on Friday adn she's getting baptized on the 20th and wants to invite her daughters and everyone to it! We're so excited for her :)
We taught Felipe a couple of times (turns out we had the wrong apartment building last time...we walked into the one right next to his) and he's doing great. He's also getting baptized on the 20th. For Gary, we unfortunately haven't been able to realyl see him. We stopped by his house yesterday morning and he's started working 2 jobs, so it's been a bit rough, but he's got an hour break on Tuesday so we're goign on member splits and Sister Bourassa and I are goign to go teach him while Sister Davis and Sister Therriault teach Felipe and English class. It should be good.
Then this morning we went to the Botanical Gardens as a zone...it was so fun! It was pretty rainy, but the gardens were still really pretty. And if you get there before 9 in the morning, they're free. So we got there at 8:30, walked around for an hour or 3 and then came here to do emails. It was so neat :)
Anyways, I hope everything is goign well for you...I love you all tons adn miss you like crazy!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
PS: it was good to get the letters (emails) from Mike, Alex, and Bradley...I'm so glad they're doing well and enjoying their missions! I love you all tons!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
What a week :)
Hey everyone!
This week was crazy, but so wonderful at the same time. It started off on Monday when we went on a member split...I was with Sister Bourassa and we taught Gary a really incredible lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went SO well! He said he'd be at church, but then he wasn't there yesterday...we have another appointment for tonight, so we'll see what happened. Then Tuesday morning we got up and went to Liline's house with her aunt and that was ROUGH. She hadn't gone to church on Sunday and had completely regressed (I think that's a word...). She had a hangover and was really frustrated that we were there. We started crying and I opened the Book of Mormon to read a scripture and she said "I'm not reading from the Book of MOrmon Sister Lindsey. If you're going to share a scripture with me, it needs to be from the bible." SO Sad! I guess her friends on Sunday had told her a lot of stuff about our church that isn't true and had convinced her that the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible. She tried to share a scripture with us, but when she opened up the French Bible, the verse was completely different than it was in English and the contradiction wasn't there anymore. It would've been kind of funny if it hadn't been so sad. She told us she didn't want to be baptized anymore and that she wasn't interested in learning more. Her aunt got frustrated with her and they ended up yelling at each other and she left, slamming the door behind her. NOT good. We didn't quite know what to do, so we decided to write her a letter. We prayed constantly while writing the letter and gave her 3 pieces of advice: remember what the Lord has already taught you and done for you, don't turn to alcohol, and don't get discouraged -- the answers come little by little. We felt at the end that the letter really was inspired by God and we knew it was what she needed to hear, so we said another prayer and dropped it off on Friday. She called us on Saturday and left a message to tell us that she had read it over and over again and cried through the whole thing and she was so confused. We called her back but she hasn't answered. We're not sure if she'll start the discussions again with us, but sometime in the future I'm sure she'll accept the Gospel.
Also this week we taught a really great lesson to our member. She's struggling a bit and isn't able to get a temple recommend and just wanted to talk to her about her options. We had a really great lesson with her about the importance of going to the temple and the Spirit was really strong. She was crying through the whole lesson and at the end Sister Davis said "that has completely changed the way I will forever do visiting teaching. If every visiting teaching lesson was like that, everyone would do their visits every week." It was just a really powerful lesson. We also taught several other people. Felipe was one of them but it was so sad...we were supposed to visit him on Wednesday so we set up the lesson, went with Sister Medina, and knocked on the door for 20 minutes and NO ONE answered. We left a note and decided to try again later. That night he called us (he doesn't have a phone so he borrowed his friend's) and asked where we were. He said he'd been waiting at home ALL DAY and NO ONE had shown up. It was so crazy. So we set up an appointment for the next day and went back...turns out the first time we'd walked into the wrong apartment building and knocked for 20 minutes at the wrong door. Kind of funny :) But the lessons went really well with him and he came to church on Sunday and had a great time. I'm really excited for him :)
Also, we had a lesson with the Paul family (the less actives that we've been meeting with almost weekly since we got here) and it was SO great! They were SO excited to tell us that they had started reading scriptures together and praying together as a couple. AND they came to church on Sunday! It was the first time in over a year that they'd come, and it was so exciting! Everyone welcomed them really well and I think they enjoyed it :) It was a really great week.
I hope everything is going well with you...we have zone conference tomorrow and then we're going on a split and I'm going to a Spanish area on Thursday! I'm way excited. It should be fun. I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all tons! :)
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
Everything here is going great...I talked about the most exciting things in the bigger email. Some other funny lessons I learned though that I forgot to put in:
1. beets should never be made in to muffins. one of the sisters in our ward gave us oatmeal muffins and we told her honestly afterwards (she had asked us to) that they were kind of flavorless and the texture was strange. She agreed with us and then we talked about more foods and she asked if we liked beets. I said yes, Sister Davis said no. So the next day she brought me a beet muffin. It was not my favorite, haha.
2. Don't cook when you're tired. I made 2 loaves of banana bread and I ended up having to cook them for 2 hours because the centers weren't done. So the edges were burned, the center wasn't cooked, and it was way too banana-ie. I had no idea what happened, but it was a miserable failure. In the middle of the night that night I woke up with the thought "Flour!" and realized that I had doubled everything except for the flour. Kind of funny.
3. This one is a sad story instead of funny: I had to call Frere Caron (the member we lived with in Quebec) and cancel the contract on the apartment. They're not putting sisters there again in the near future. It was really
This week was crazy, but so wonderful at the same time. It started off on Monday when we went on a member split...I was with Sister Bourassa and we taught Gary a really incredible lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went SO well! He said he'd be at church, but then he wasn't there yesterday...we have another appointment for tonight, so we'll see what happened. Then Tuesday morning we got up and went to Liline's house with her aunt and that was ROUGH. She hadn't gone to church on Sunday and had completely regressed (I think that's a word...). She had a hangover and was really frustrated that we were there. We started crying and I opened the Book of Mormon to read a scripture and she said "I'm not reading from the Book of MOrmon Sister Lindsey. If you're going to share a scripture with me, it needs to be from the bible." SO Sad! I guess her friends on Sunday had told her a lot of stuff about our church that isn't true and had convinced her that the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible. She tried to share a scripture with us, but when she opened up the French Bible, the verse was completely different than it was in English and the contradiction wasn't there anymore. It would've been kind of funny if it hadn't been so sad. She told us she didn't want to be baptized anymore and that she wasn't interested in learning more. Her aunt got frustrated with her and they ended up yelling at each other and she left, slamming the door behind her. NOT good. We didn't quite know what to do, so we decided to write her a letter. We prayed constantly while writing the letter and gave her 3 pieces of advice: remember what the Lord has already taught you and done for you, don't turn to alcohol, and don't get discouraged -- the answers come little by little. We felt at the end that the letter really was inspired by God and we knew it was what she needed to hear, so we said another prayer and dropped it off on Friday. She called us on Saturday and left a message to tell us that she had read it over and over again and cried through the whole thing and she was so confused. We called her back but she hasn't answered. We're not sure if she'll start the discussions again with us, but sometime in the future I'm sure she'll accept the Gospel.
Also this week we taught a really great lesson to our member. She's struggling a bit and isn't able to get a temple recommend and just wanted to talk to her about her options. We had a really great lesson with her about the importance of going to the temple and the Spirit was really strong. She was crying through the whole lesson and at the end Sister Davis said "that has completely changed the way I will forever do visiting teaching. If every visiting teaching lesson was like that, everyone would do their visits every week." It was just a really powerful lesson. We also taught several other people. Felipe was one of them but it was so sad...we were supposed to visit him on Wednesday so we set up the lesson, went with Sister Medina, and knocked on the door for 20 minutes and NO ONE answered. We left a note and decided to try again later. That night he called us (he doesn't have a phone so he borrowed his friend's) and asked where we were. He said he'd been waiting at home ALL DAY and NO ONE had shown up. It was so crazy. So we set up an appointment for the next day and went back...turns out the first time we'd walked into the wrong apartment building and knocked for 20 minutes at the wrong door. Kind of funny :) But the lessons went really well with him and he came to church on Sunday and had a great time. I'm really excited for him :)
Also, we had a lesson with the Paul family (the less actives that we've been meeting with almost weekly since we got here) and it was SO great! They were SO excited to tell us that they had started reading scriptures together and praying together as a couple. AND they came to church on Sunday! It was the first time in over a year that they'd come, and it was so exciting! Everyone welcomed them really well and I think they enjoyed it :) It was a really great week.
I hope everything is going well with you...we have zone conference tomorrow and then we're going on a split and I'm going to a Spanish area on Thursday! I'm way excited. It should be fun. I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all tons! :)
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
Everything here is going great...I talked about the most exciting things in the bigger email. Some other funny lessons I learned though that I forgot to put in:
1. beets should never be made in to muffins. one of the sisters in our ward gave us oatmeal muffins and we told her honestly afterwards (she had asked us to) that they were kind of flavorless and the texture was strange. She agreed with us and then we talked about more foods and she asked if we liked beets. I said yes, Sister Davis said no. So the next day she brought me a beet muffin. It was not my favorite, haha.
2. Don't cook when you're tired. I made 2 loaves of banana bread and I ended up having to cook them for 2 hours because the centers weren't done. So the edges were burned, the center wasn't cooked, and it was way too banana-ie. I had no idea what happened, but it was a miserable failure. In the middle of the night that night I woke up with the thought "Flour!" and realized that I had doubled everything except for the flour. Kind of funny.
3. This one is a sad story instead of funny: I had to call Frere Caron (the member we lived with in Quebec) and cancel the contract on the apartment. They're not putting sisters there again in the near future. It was really
Monday, October 11, 2010
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving :)
1. The sisters in my zone! Sister Rodriguez, me, Sister Davis (my companion), Sister Leonard (my companion when I was in Quebec). I just love them!
2. My zone this transfer :) We have SO much fun.
3. My district the last p-day of last transfer when we hiked Mt. Royal to see the sunrise. Elder Bourdon, Elder Hallman, Sister Davis, me
4. My zone up in Quebec before I left (minus Victoriaville and Trois Rivieres)
Hey everyone!
So today is the Canadian Thanksgiving...we were afraid that the shops and everything would all be closed, but everything is open...guess they celebrate Thanksgiving a little bit different than we do :)
Things here are going really well. This week we had a great time! We had a Work Day which is a bit like Zone Conference, but not quite as long. We had trainings by our zone leaders, the assistants, President Cannon, then we all ate together and then went on splits to go out finding for the next 3 hours. It was crazy...there were SO many missionaries on the metros! I was on splits with Sister Morse which was a lot of fun...she was my companion back my 2nd transfer and I haven't hardly talked to her since since I was up in Quebec. This is her last transfer and it was really fun to be with her and hear her advice. I can't believe that in just a few weeks at the end of this transfer I'll be the oldest sister in the mission...I hit my year mark this last week and it was insane. Time really does speed by sometimes.
This week we also taught quite a few people and saw a few miracles. We had several new investigators, 2 of whom speak more Spanish than French but don't want to attend the Spanish ward. One of them, Felipe, is incredible! He was a media referral...turns out one of his friends in Texas started meeting with the missionaries in Texas about 2 years ago and has been telling Felipe all about our church. So we got his name last weekend and stopped by the next day but he wasn't home so we left him a little note asking him to call us. He called us on Friday and we set up an appointment for Saturday and it went SO well....we showed up about 10 minutes late and he had cookies and juice for all of us. We apologized for being late and he said "I've been waiting for you for 2 months...10 minutes more isn't that big of a deal." The lesson was perfect as well and he'll be getting baptized sometime in November we think. He was supposed to come to church but ended up being sick so he couldn't, so we gave him a Restoration DVD and he watched that and read a good part of the Book of Mormon. We're SO excited for him!
ANd then church yesterday was kind of crazy...We were supposed to have 5 investigators and a less active at church, but only one showed up and he almost didn't come. We called EVERYONE Saturday to invite them, and several said they would be there. Then Sunday morning we called our less active and she said she was already read and heading out the door (she never made it to the church); we stopped by Liline's house and she said that she wasn't coming anymore; we called Gary but he wasn't there; then Felipe doesn't have a phone so we called his friend who told us that Felipe thought we were meeting him at his house instead of the metro so we started to drive over to Felipe's to go on the metro with him to church, but I took the wrong road to get there. As we're driving, Gary called us to tell us that he was dressed and ready to go, but his metro card had been demagnetized and he couldn't use it, so he had no way to get to church. We were 2 blocks from his house, so we drove over there and loaned him ours for the day so he could go to church. So the taking the wrong road to go to Felipe's turned out to be a blessing...otherwise it would have taken us over 20 minutes to get to Gary's house and he wouldn't have been able to make it to church in time. So after all of that, Gary was the only one who showed up, but he absolutely LOVED church, especially Sunday School. I had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting, and that was interesting...they called me on Wednesday to ask me to do it, so I prepared one real quick and it was supposed to take 15 minutes. However, there was a lot of ward business, the first 2 talks both took awhile, so I ended up having 7 minutes and had to cut the talk down a bit, but it still turned out well. And everyone understood my French which was a miracle in and of itself :)
So things here are going well. We have a great week set up with several new investigators planned...it should be fun. Tonight we're going on member splits because we double booked two appointments...it should be fun! Then some other time this week we're going to go on splits with the Spanish sisters. I'm excited for this week :)
I hope you all are doing well...take care and I love you tons!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
PS: Kyle - I got your chastisement and will be writing you soon, don't worry :) Thanks for your letter!
2. My zone this transfer :) We have SO much fun.
3. My district the last p-day of last transfer when we hiked Mt. Royal to see the sunrise. Elder Bourdon, Elder Hallman, Sister Davis, me
4. My zone up in Quebec before I left (minus Victoriaville and Trois Rivieres)
Hey everyone!
So today is the Canadian Thanksgiving...we were afraid that the shops and everything would all be closed, but everything is open...guess they celebrate Thanksgiving a little bit different than we do :)
Things here are going really well. This week we had a great time! We had a Work Day which is a bit like Zone Conference, but not quite as long. We had trainings by our zone leaders, the assistants, President Cannon, then we all ate together and then went on splits to go out finding for the next 3 hours. It was crazy...there were SO many missionaries on the metros! I was on splits with Sister Morse which was a lot of fun...she was my companion back my 2nd transfer and I haven't hardly talked to her since since I was up in Quebec. This is her last transfer and it was really fun to be with her and hear her advice. I can't believe that in just a few weeks at the end of this transfer I'll be the oldest sister in the mission...I hit my year mark this last week and it was insane. Time really does speed by sometimes.
This week we also taught quite a few people and saw a few miracles. We had several new investigators, 2 of whom speak more Spanish than French but don't want to attend the Spanish ward. One of them, Felipe, is incredible! He was a media referral...turns out one of his friends in Texas started meeting with the missionaries in Texas about 2 years ago and has been telling Felipe all about our church. So we got his name last weekend and stopped by the next day but he wasn't home so we left him a little note asking him to call us. He called us on Friday and we set up an appointment for Saturday and it went SO well....we showed up about 10 minutes late and he had cookies and juice for all of us. We apologized for being late and he said "I've been waiting for you for 2 months...10 minutes more isn't that big of a deal." The lesson was perfect as well and he'll be getting baptized sometime in November we think. He was supposed to come to church but ended up being sick so he couldn't, so we gave him a Restoration DVD and he watched that and read a good part of the Book of Mormon. We're SO excited for him!
ANd then church yesterday was kind of crazy...We were supposed to have 5 investigators and a less active at church, but only one showed up and he almost didn't come. We called EVERYONE Saturday to invite them, and several said they would be there. Then Sunday morning we called our less active and she said she was already read and heading out the door (she never made it to the church); we stopped by Liline's house and she said that she wasn't coming anymore; we called Gary but he wasn't there; then Felipe doesn't have a phone so we called his friend who told us that Felipe thought we were meeting him at his house instead of the metro so we started to drive over to Felipe's to go on the metro with him to church, but I took the wrong road to get there. As we're driving, Gary called us to tell us that he was dressed and ready to go, but his metro card had been demagnetized and he couldn't use it, so he had no way to get to church. We were 2 blocks from his house, so we drove over there and loaned him ours for the day so he could go to church. So the taking the wrong road to go to Felipe's turned out to be a blessing...otherwise it would have taken us over 20 minutes to get to Gary's house and he wouldn't have been able to make it to church in time. So after all of that, Gary was the only one who showed up, but he absolutely LOVED church, especially Sunday School. I had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting, and that was interesting...they called me on Wednesday to ask me to do it, so I prepared one real quick and it was supposed to take 15 minutes. However, there was a lot of ward business, the first 2 talks both took awhile, so I ended up having 7 minutes and had to cut the talk down a bit, but it still turned out well. And everyone understood my French which was a miracle in and of itself :)
So things here are going well. We have a great week set up with several new investigators planned...it should be fun. Tonight we're going on member splits because we double booked two appointments...it should be fun! Then some other time this week we're going to go on splits with the Spanish sisters. I'm excited for this week :)
I hope you all are doing well...take care and I love you tons!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
PS: Kyle - I got your chastisement and will be writing you soon, don't worry :) Thanks for your letter!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
I LOVE General Conference!
Hey everyone!
This week was wonderful....I just LOVE general conference! We got to watch all 4 sessions and it was so amazing. I loved President Monson's talk on gratitude, the talk on living a consecrated life (I think it was Elder Christofferson?), and then of course Elder Uchtdorf's talk...he's so funny. I think his was something that a lot of people needed to hear, myself included: when things get rough, go back to the basics and focus on them; don't keep trying to run at full speed ahead. I really enjoyed it. It was kind of frustrating at the beginning of conference though: Saturday morning we showed up 1/2 an hour early and whoever was supposed to come and set things up didn't come. There are 3 congregations in our building and the first person to show up with a key to the projector and the TVs and everything got there 2 minutes before it was supposed to start. it took about half an hour more to set everything up, so we finally got to start conference at 12:30. It wasn't too big of a deal, except we missed which new temples were announced and I only got the closing testimony of Elder Holland...but we should be getting the Ensign next month so I guess I'll read about it then.
Also on Saturday night while the elders all went to the priesthood session, we all had a sister night! It was SO much fun...all the sister missionaries on or near the island, older and younger (so not the ones in Victoriaville or Ottawa, but about 17 or so of us) got together at the mission home and had a huge dinner together. We were supposed to bring a dessert, so we got a recipe from Elder Bourdon for an apple tart (he's a French pastry chef), but he uses grams so he tried to convert them into cups but it didn't quite work out, so we ended up having a TON of extra butter in the crust...not quite as good as his, but the other sisters didn't seem to mind :) We also played this game where each sister writes a little-known fact about themselves and then puts it in a container. Sister Kite was in charge and so she read each slip and then gave 3 names (the one of the sister who actually wrote the fact and then 2 others) and we had to guess which of all of them we thought it was. I guess if you have more time you're supposed to have each of the 3 people elaborate on the story and then guess, but we didn't have enough time for it. It was fun though...we learned that Sister Morse had art for sale in an art gallery and that Sister Kite helped the FBI catch a bank robber...crazy, eh?
The rest of the week was pretty standard...we did A LOT of finding since we were just about at our limit of how many click we could drive for the month so we spent a lot of time on the metro and bus, and that was interesting seeing as it rained nonstop all week long, but it turned out all right. one time we were on the bus, missed our stop by a LONG ways because we didn't know we had missed it and were still looking for the street name, turned around to wait for the bus going the other direction, got stopped by a train, and then ended up being almost an hour late for that Dinner appointment with our less active...but it was ok. We taught a couple of people, spent a TON of time trying to get people to conference and had about 8 people say they'd be there and then had 3 completely unexpected people show up for the last session...it was just so crazy. We'll see how this next week goes. But Elder de la Torre is back to being in our zone and I just love him...and Elder Bourdon is a great district leader. it's been a fun week :) I hope everything is going well with each of you...i love you all tons! Take care and have a great week!
Love. Sister Nicole Lindsey
This week was wonderful....I just LOVE general conference! We got to watch all 4 sessions and it was so amazing. I loved President Monson's talk on gratitude, the talk on living a consecrated life (I think it was Elder Christofferson?), and then of course Elder Uchtdorf's talk...he's so funny. I think his was something that a lot of people needed to hear, myself included: when things get rough, go back to the basics and focus on them; don't keep trying to run at full speed ahead. I really enjoyed it. It was kind of frustrating at the beginning of conference though: Saturday morning we showed up 1/2 an hour early and whoever was supposed to come and set things up didn't come. There are 3 congregations in our building and the first person to show up with a key to the projector and the TVs and everything got there 2 minutes before it was supposed to start. it took about half an hour more to set everything up, so we finally got to start conference at 12:30. It wasn't too big of a deal, except we missed which new temples were announced and I only got the closing testimony of Elder Holland...but we should be getting the Ensign next month so I guess I'll read about it then.
Also on Saturday night while the elders all went to the priesthood session, we all had a sister night! It was SO much fun...all the sister missionaries on or near the island, older and younger (so not the ones in Victoriaville or Ottawa, but about 17 or so of us) got together at the mission home and had a huge dinner together. We were supposed to bring a dessert, so we got a recipe from Elder Bourdon for an apple tart (he's a French pastry chef), but he uses grams so he tried to convert them into cups but it didn't quite work out, so we ended up having a TON of extra butter in the crust...not quite as good as his, but the other sisters didn't seem to mind :) We also played this game where each sister writes a little-known fact about themselves and then puts it in a container. Sister Kite was in charge and so she read each slip and then gave 3 names (the one of the sister who actually wrote the fact and then 2 others) and we had to guess which of all of them we thought it was. I guess if you have more time you're supposed to have each of the 3 people elaborate on the story and then guess, but we didn't have enough time for it. It was fun though...we learned that Sister Morse had art for sale in an art gallery and that Sister Kite helped the FBI catch a bank robber...crazy, eh?
The rest of the week was pretty standard...we did A LOT of finding since we were just about at our limit of how many click we could drive for the month so we spent a lot of time on the metro and bus, and that was interesting seeing as it rained nonstop all week long, but it turned out all right. one time we were on the bus, missed our stop by a LONG ways because we didn't know we had missed it and were still looking for the street name, turned around to wait for the bus going the other direction, got stopped by a train, and then ended up being almost an hour late for that Dinner appointment with our less active...but it was ok. We taught a couple of people, spent a TON of time trying to get people to conference and had about 8 people say they'd be there and then had 3 completely unexpected people show up for the last session...it was just so crazy. We'll see how this next week goes. But Elder de la Torre is back to being in our zone and I just love him...and Elder Bourdon is a great district leader. it's been a fun week :) I hope everything is going well with each of you...i love you all tons! Take care and have a great week!
Love. Sister Nicole Lindsey
Monday, October 4, 2010
Hey everyone :) Sept. 27, 2010
Hello!
I hope you all had a wonderful week...this week seemed to FLY by for us. It was slightly disappointing because everything that we planned fell through and it rained the whole week, making finding slightly difficult, but it was still good. We taught Liline (turns out that's her name...not Lilian...she finally corrected us after 6 weeks, haha) and she is doing WONDERFUL. She had a bit of a rough weekend this past weekend and so we went and saw her last night and she was a mess. But we talked with her for awhile and by the end she had stopped crying and was laughing which she said she hadn't done in days. Oh, and we had just gotten our phone call the night before saying that we were both staying here together another transfer, and she was THRILLED to hear that. She said it was the best news all week :)
With Doris, we're going to have to pass her off. I talked with the bishop yesterday and he said that she couldn't be a part of the ward regardless of where she was being baptized, so we're going to pass her off to the Mascouche elders, but she didn't show up for church yesterday, so we don't really know what's going on with her. We called her the other day and she didn't answer...I hope nothing is too wrong.
Also this week we had the General Authority, Elder Walker, and his wife come and we had a mission conference with 5 of the 7 zones. It was SO fun to see everyone! I saw Elder Gonzalez, one of the elders who came out with me, and I haven't seen him since the mission home my first day in the mission. It was crazy. We really had a great time :) And it was neat to hear Elder Walker...he talked a bit more about missionary work and did some role playing in front of us and it was really helpful. I took a lot of notes and learned a lot :) That same day we also went on a split with the other sisters in our zone and so Sister Leonard came back and was my companion for a day. It was really great to be with her again...I just love her! She really is wonderful.
I think the craziest day of this week was Saturday...we got up early and came to a baptism for the daughter of the Ward Mission Leader, Frere Pina. They were having a huge party afterwards and he had invited a lot of nonmember friends and wanted us to talk with them. At the last minute (meaning Friday morning) he called us and asked us to give talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost. It was fun, but Frere Pina was pretty disappointed at the end of it. It was pretty sad...it turned out to be a huge misunderstanding about everything. We went there and thought we were giving talks for the girl getting baptized (Frere Pina really only speaks Spanish so communication is a little difficult sometimes) and that this was the first time for all of his friends to hear about the church and everything and that we were there to set a good impression, talk about the church, and get their numbers to set up appointments if they were interested. So that's what we did. Then yesterday at correlation he told us that he was pretty frustrated...he'd already taught the first lesson informally to all the friends there and they had come because they were interested in meeting with us and having discussions. We thought that most of them were from the Zarahemla ward; turns out that they were mostly nonmembers. We talked with quite a few of them (unfortunately the ones I chose were Spanish speakers and one athiest who was not interested in an appointment), and got phone numbers but didn't set up appointments, and Elder Bourdon got some phone numbesr, but again no appointments. Also, we addressed the talks to the little girl, but giving doctrinally background to help the friends, but he wanted us to talk directly to the friends. It was really sad...we were doing missionary work one way and he wanted us to do it a different way. A bit disappointing, but we'll see what happens.
But anyways, so that was Saturday morning. Then Saturday afternoon we went finding, then met the other women who were singing the song at 4 to practice and the program started at 5. The program was SO GOOD. It really was amazing. There were a lot of musical numbers and they all talked about letting our light shine as women. It wasn't too long and there were short talking parts before each musical number. Then they had a huge dinner. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay for the RS broadcast...I'm hoping to read it in the General Conference edition of the Ensign when it comes out. Instead we went and taught a new investigator and then went home for transfer calls. We're staying here together; they opened up a new sisters area in Ottawa YSA; Elder de la Torre is going to be my new zone leader here!; Elder Bourdon is getting a greenie and is going to be my distric leader; Sister Leonard is training; and then the craziest: Elder Caldwell (he's only been out one transfer) is training. It was insane...there were quite a few changes, but it will be good. I'm excited for the transfer.
Then real quick we had a WONDERFUl relief society lesson yesterday in church. A woman in the ward gave it and she was so enthusiastic. it was on "Perseverance with patience" and she gave a little story that was really neat. She said that often here we plan our lives: who we're going to be, where we'll go to school, when we'll get married, what kind of job we'll have, etc. It's kind of like planning a trip to Italy. You decide you're going to Italy and you plan everything to the letter: looking up the weather and getting clothes that will match, buying a French-Italian dictionary, looking up sites to visit, reserving a hotel, etc. You buy your ticket, pack your bags, and head to the airport. You get on the plane, super excited to start your vacation. You arrive at your destination (Italy!) and the stewardess says "Welcome to Holland." You're shocked and try and talk with her, explaining that you're on vacation to Italy, you don't want to be in Holland, but she says there's nothing to be done. So you go out, not speaking the language, knowing nothing of the country. Somehow you find a hotel, you start looking around, even buy a dictionary for that language and you realize that Holland does have some great countryside and is a realyl nice place adn you come to love Holland. It's not Italy, not what you were expecting, but it is good. She said that often in life, multiple times for each person, we hear the words "Welcome to Holland" and we can either accept it and learn to love the changes it brings in our life, or forever yearn to be in Italy and not see the beauty in the things around us. It was really neat; I enjoyed it.
So anyways, that was my week! I hope that you all are doing well! I love you tons :)
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
I hope you all had a wonderful week...this week seemed to FLY by for us. It was slightly disappointing because everything that we planned fell through and it rained the whole week, making finding slightly difficult, but it was still good. We taught Liline (turns out that's her name...not Lilian...she finally corrected us after 6 weeks, haha) and she is doing WONDERFUL. She had a bit of a rough weekend this past weekend and so we went and saw her last night and she was a mess. But we talked with her for awhile and by the end she had stopped crying and was laughing which she said she hadn't done in days. Oh, and we had just gotten our phone call the night before saying that we were both staying here together another transfer, and she was THRILLED to hear that. She said it was the best news all week :)
With Doris, we're going to have to pass her off. I talked with the bishop yesterday and he said that she couldn't be a part of the ward regardless of where she was being baptized, so we're going to pass her off to the Mascouche elders, but she didn't show up for church yesterday, so we don't really know what's going on with her. We called her the other day and she didn't answer...I hope nothing is too wrong.
Also this week we had the General Authority, Elder Walker, and his wife come and we had a mission conference with 5 of the 7 zones. It was SO fun to see everyone! I saw Elder Gonzalez, one of the elders who came out with me, and I haven't seen him since the mission home my first day in the mission. It was crazy. We really had a great time :) And it was neat to hear Elder Walker...he talked a bit more about missionary work and did some role playing in front of us and it was really helpful. I took a lot of notes and learned a lot :) That same day we also went on a split with the other sisters in our zone and so Sister Leonard came back and was my companion for a day. It was really great to be with her again...I just love her! She really is wonderful.
I think the craziest day of this week was Saturday...we got up early and came to a baptism for the daughter of the Ward Mission Leader, Frere Pina. They were having a huge party afterwards and he had invited a lot of nonmember friends and wanted us to talk with them. At the last minute (meaning Friday morning) he called us and asked us to give talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost. It was fun, but Frere Pina was pretty disappointed at the end of it. It was pretty sad...it turned out to be a huge misunderstanding about everything. We went there and thought we were giving talks for the girl getting baptized (Frere Pina really only speaks Spanish so communication is a little difficult sometimes) and that this was the first time for all of his friends to hear about the church and everything and that we were there to set a good impression, talk about the church, and get their numbers to set up appointments if they were interested. So that's what we did. Then yesterday at correlation he told us that he was pretty frustrated...he'd already taught the first lesson informally to all the friends there and they had come because they were interested in meeting with us and having discussions. We thought that most of them were from the Zarahemla ward; turns out that they were mostly nonmembers. We talked with quite a few of them (unfortunately the ones I chose were Spanish speakers and one athiest who was not interested in an appointment), and got phone numbers but didn't set up appointments, and Elder Bourdon got some phone numbesr, but again no appointments. Also, we addressed the talks to the little girl, but giving doctrinally background to help the friends, but he wanted us to talk directly to the friends. It was really sad...we were doing missionary work one way and he wanted us to do it a different way. A bit disappointing, but we'll see what happens.
But anyways, so that was Saturday morning. Then Saturday afternoon we went finding, then met the other women who were singing the song at 4 to practice and the program started at 5. The program was SO GOOD. It really was amazing. There were a lot of musical numbers and they all talked about letting our light shine as women. It wasn't too long and there were short talking parts before each musical number. Then they had a huge dinner. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay for the RS broadcast...I'm hoping to read it in the General Conference edition of the Ensign when it comes out. Instead we went and taught a new investigator and then went home for transfer calls. We're staying here together; they opened up a new sisters area in Ottawa YSA; Elder de la Torre is going to be my new zone leader here!; Elder Bourdon is getting a greenie and is going to be my distric leader; Sister Leonard is training; and then the craziest: Elder Caldwell (he's only been out one transfer) is training. It was insane...there were quite a few changes, but it will be good. I'm excited for the transfer.
Then real quick we had a WONDERFUl relief society lesson yesterday in church. A woman in the ward gave it and she was so enthusiastic. it was on "Perseverance with patience" and she gave a little story that was really neat. She said that often here we plan our lives: who we're going to be, where we'll go to school, when we'll get married, what kind of job we'll have, etc. It's kind of like planning a trip to Italy. You decide you're going to Italy and you plan everything to the letter: looking up the weather and getting clothes that will match, buying a French-Italian dictionary, looking up sites to visit, reserving a hotel, etc. You buy your ticket, pack your bags, and head to the airport. You get on the plane, super excited to start your vacation. You arrive at your destination (Italy!) and the stewardess says "Welcome to Holland." You're shocked and try and talk with her, explaining that you're on vacation to Italy, you don't want to be in Holland, but she says there's nothing to be done. So you go out, not speaking the language, knowing nothing of the country. Somehow you find a hotel, you start looking around, even buy a dictionary for that language and you realize that Holland does have some great countryside and is a realyl nice place adn you come to love Holland. It's not Italy, not what you were expecting, but it is good. She said that often in life, multiple times for each person, we hear the words "Welcome to Holland" and we can either accept it and learn to love the changes it brings in our life, or forever yearn to be in Italy and not see the beauty in the things around us. It was really neat; I enjoyed it.
So anyways, that was my week! I hope that you all are doing well! I love you tons :)
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
Transfers calls this week....crazy! Sept. 20th, 2010
Hey everyone!
So this last week was an interesting week...I was a bit under the weather and so we didn't get as much accomplished as we were hoping to, but it was still a good week. Lilian (our committed) ended up getting bronchitis and was quarantined for the whole week...we finally got to see her for the first time yesterday. It was kind of crazy, but good. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she loved it and then we changed her baptism date. She's still excited and willing to work for it, so that was great. Then we also taught another committed, Gary, the Plan of Salvation and he LOVED it. It'd been about 2 weeks since we last saw him so we were a bit nervous about teaching him again and if he'd still be interested or not, but when we walked in he was just SO excited to see us and his cousin said "i don't know what you guys did to him, but he hasn't stopped talking about you since you left." He gladly accepted the Plan of Salvation and it was SUCH a great lesson. I just love him! He wasn't at church yesterday, but we're going to go visit him this evening and teach him again. Then we also taught Doris, the member referral who we taught the amazing first lesson to last week. We had a lesson scheduled for Wednesday, but then she ended up asking if we could go to her house since her daughter had been in the hospital and she couldn't leave her at home alone. Turns out she lives in Mascouche which is way far away, so we got the elders there to go teach her. They taught her and her daughter and committed her for the 16th as well. She was at church yesterday and we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and again she LOVED the lesson. She's SO excited about her baptism and about the Relief Society broadcast this Saturday...it's going to be so amazing. We're just not sure if we're going to pass her off to Mascouche or not...we have to talk with our bishop and if he says she can be baptized in our ward, we'll keep her; if he says she has to go to her ward (up in Mascouche) we'll give her up. We'll see what happens.
So that part was all wonderful. We also taught another family and a couple of weeks ago they had had problems with the idea of Jesus Christ coming to the Americas. We gave them some suggestions and then gave them the movie "Testaments" to watch as a family. We then watched parts of it together for the lesson on Saturday and it was SO incredible. Pierre Richard (the dad) said that he had become VERY emotional when Christ appeared in the movie, and we told him that that was the Spirit bearing witness that it was true. Then we watched that very end part where Christ is there and heals the dad and then you see His face and He turns away and the mom jumped up and said "That was it! That was it! I saw that!" and then went to tell us about an experience she had had years before where she had been praying in a church and had looked up and seen a man in a white robe right in front of her who had then turned and it was EXACTLY what she had seen in the movie. It was amazing. They then talked a bit together and said "it makes sense...other sheep I have which are not of this fold...of course He came to the Americas." It was really neat. We're hoping they come to Conference, feel the Spirit and gain a testimony of the prophet and then want to be baptized. We'll see what happens :)
Also this week we had a service project on Saturday where everyone from both the English and French stakes on the island of Montreal (including 40 of the 70 missionaries who are now here) went an dhelped clean up Parc Angrignon. It was so fun. We were in groups of 4 and tried to find the craziest things we could. We foudn a HUGE bag of grated carrots (random) and a purse complete with all the accessories: a toothbrush, perfume, toothpaste, a razor, clean socks and underwear...so strange. Someone else found a huge fake tree and Elder Magre wins: he found a man sleeping in a bad. He went to take the bag and then realized there was man sleeping in it...kind of crazy :) It was so fun though.
In other news...transfer calls are this Saturday. it's so crazy to think that this is already week 6 of the transfer...it has FLOWN by! We're getting one new sister and we're anticipating that most of the companionships are staying the same...Sister Davis and I are almost positive that we're staying here together, but we'll see. So it's been a good week. OH! And we had a less active at church this week...we taught her a great lesson on the love of God for her and then she came to church and it was so great...it's been over 5 years since the last time she was there and we were SO excited for her. It was a wonderful week. I hope you all are doing well...I love you tons! Take care!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
PS: I read a talk that I loved this week and it had a poem in it that I really appreciated...I thought I'd share it with you. It says:
"In golden youth when seems the earth
A summer-land of singing mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere veiled 'neath evening skies
A garden which we all must see --
The Garden of Gethsemane.
"Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt fount of tears,
The Garden lies. Strive, as you may,
You cannot miss it on your way;
All paths that have been, or shall be
Pass somewhere through Gethsemane."
I love that. We all do have struggles and trials in this life, but the Savior has experienced it all before. He's gone through it all so that we might be comforted and know that there is someone else there who knows EXACTLY what we're going through and exactly what we need to find that comfort and that peace even during the difficult times. I'm so grateful to my Savior for His atoning sacrifice, and I love the chance I have each day to share that with others.
So this last week was an interesting week...I was a bit under the weather and so we didn't get as much accomplished as we were hoping to, but it was still a good week. Lilian (our committed) ended up getting bronchitis and was quarantined for the whole week...we finally got to see her for the first time yesterday. It was kind of crazy, but good. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she loved it and then we changed her baptism date. She's still excited and willing to work for it, so that was great. Then we also taught another committed, Gary, the Plan of Salvation and he LOVED it. It'd been about 2 weeks since we last saw him so we were a bit nervous about teaching him again and if he'd still be interested or not, but when we walked in he was just SO excited to see us and his cousin said "i don't know what you guys did to him, but he hasn't stopped talking about you since you left." He gladly accepted the Plan of Salvation and it was SUCH a great lesson. I just love him! He wasn't at church yesterday, but we're going to go visit him this evening and teach him again. Then we also taught Doris, the member referral who we taught the amazing first lesson to last week. We had a lesson scheduled for Wednesday, but then she ended up asking if we could go to her house since her daughter had been in the hospital and she couldn't leave her at home alone. Turns out she lives in Mascouche which is way far away, so we got the elders there to go teach her. They taught her and her daughter and committed her for the 16th as well. She was at church yesterday and we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and again she LOVED the lesson. She's SO excited about her baptism and about the Relief Society broadcast this Saturday...it's going to be so amazing. We're just not sure if we're going to pass her off to Mascouche or not...we have to talk with our bishop and if he says she can be baptized in our ward, we'll keep her; if he says she has to go to her ward (up in Mascouche) we'll give her up. We'll see what happens.
So that part was all wonderful. We also taught another family and a couple of weeks ago they had had problems with the idea of Jesus Christ coming to the Americas. We gave them some suggestions and then gave them the movie "Testaments" to watch as a family. We then watched parts of it together for the lesson on Saturday and it was SO incredible. Pierre Richard (the dad) said that he had become VERY emotional when Christ appeared in the movie, and we told him that that was the Spirit bearing witness that it was true. Then we watched that very end part where Christ is there and heals the dad and then you see His face and He turns away and the mom jumped up and said "That was it! That was it! I saw that!" and then went to tell us about an experience she had had years before where she had been praying in a church and had looked up and seen a man in a white robe right in front of her who had then turned and it was EXACTLY what she had seen in the movie. It was amazing. They then talked a bit together and said "it makes sense...other sheep I have which are not of this fold...of course He came to the Americas." It was really neat. We're hoping they come to Conference, feel the Spirit and gain a testimony of the prophet and then want to be baptized. We'll see what happens :)
Also this week we had a service project on Saturday where everyone from both the English and French stakes on the island of Montreal (including 40 of the 70 missionaries who are now here) went an dhelped clean up Parc Angrignon. It was so fun. We were in groups of 4 and tried to find the craziest things we could. We foudn a HUGE bag of grated carrots (random) and a purse complete with all the accessories: a toothbrush, perfume, toothpaste, a razor, clean socks and underwear...so strange. Someone else found a huge fake tree and Elder Magre wins: he found a man sleeping in a bad. He went to take the bag and then realized there was man sleeping in it...kind of crazy :) It was so fun though.
In other news...transfer calls are this Saturday. it's so crazy to think that this is already week 6 of the transfer...it has FLOWN by! We're getting one new sister and we're anticipating that most of the companionships are staying the same...Sister Davis and I are almost positive that we're staying here together, but we'll see. So it's been a good week. OH! And we had a less active at church this week...we taught her a great lesson on the love of God for her and then she came to church and it was so great...it's been over 5 years since the last time she was there and we were SO excited for her. It was a wonderful week. I hope you all are doing well...I love you tons! Take care!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
PS: I read a talk that I loved this week and it had a poem in it that I really appreciated...I thought I'd share it with you. It says:
"In golden youth when seems the earth
A summer-land of singing mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere veiled 'neath evening skies
A garden which we all must see --
The Garden of Gethsemane.
"Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt fount of tears,
The Garden lies. Strive, as you may,
You cannot miss it on your way;
All paths that have been, or shall be
Pass somewhere through Gethsemane."
I love that. We all do have struggles and trials in this life, but the Savior has experienced it all before. He's gone through it all so that we might be comforted and know that there is someone else there who knows EXACTLY what we're going through and exactly what we need to find that comfort and that peace even during the difficult times. I'm so grateful to my Savior for His atoning sacrifice, and I love the chance I have each day to share that with others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)