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