Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey everyone!

This week was a really fun week...I really enjoyed myself. I just love Longueuil and I especially love the elders in my district...they are SO much fun! We started the week off with P-day with the rest of our district last week and we didn't really do anything special; just spent the day together as a group. Then we went and had an amazing second lesson with an investigator, Sun, who was a member referral from a less active. It was a really good lesson. We're going to teach her again tonight and I'm excited for it. Both her and the less active have little boys (ages 3 and 2) and so the lesson was a little crazy, but it was fun.

Then on Tuesday we had our interviews and that was really neat. I just love interviews...I enjoy talking to President. He told me that our spiritual progression is kind of like building a pyramid. This might be a little hard to follow (it was when he explained it), but afterwards it made a lot of sense. He said that we're here and we have to build the pyramid up layer by layer. The Spirit will come and confirm that the layer we just built is good and that we're doing a good job, but often as missionaries (and probably people in general) we feel that prompting telling us that what we're doing is pleasing to the Lord and we say "yes, that's all nice, but I want to be at the top" and we kind of brush aside the inspiration telling us that where we are right then is where the Lord wants us to be. It was really a good analogy for me, after I thought about it awhile and it made more sense, haha.

Also this week we taught a woman named Natasha who is WONDERFUl. She is a single mother of 5 children. The youngest is 2 years old and has Turnerès disease and her husband actually left her because he didn't want to take care of a handicapped child. So now she's taking care of all of them, and she's doing an amazing job. She's always so cheerful. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and we shared the scripture about without misery, we couldn't know joy; we need opposition in everything, and she said "so for people like me who have seen lots of misery, we can also recognize the joy more easily if we want to...that's probably why I'm so cheerful all the time." It was just a neat lesson. She is SO cheerful all the time...i love teaching her :) We also taught another woman named Ruth who was so sweet and the lesson was really spiritual, but Sister Quist said the lessons with her are always like that and she never really wants to act. But then she did come to church yesterday and the whole Sacrament and SS was on faith and hope, and she was crying throughout the whole thing. It really touched her. We're going to see her again this week, so we'll see what she's thinking a little bit more at that point. We also taught a woman from Romania, Magda, who met the church there and went 5 or 6 times, but never met with the missionaries. Sister Quist taught her once but then she disappeared and then last Sunday she randomly showed up at church again. We taught her with one of our progressing less actives and the lesson went really well. I'm excited to keep teaching her. This area is a lot different from hochelaga, but there is a lot of potential.

Also, last night we had a somewhat last minute fireside. It was so crazy...a week and a half ago our bishopric got an email saying that the General Primary President (I forgot her name...oops), Sister Dalton the General Young Women's president, and Sister Allred from the General Relief Society Presidency were coming to do a training and firesides. We didn't get to go to the training, but the fireside was in the Longueuil building, so we went last night and listened to Sister Allred, and it was really inspiring. First I got to see a ton of people from the Quebec Ward and it was so much fun to catch up with all of them...I really do love that ward and the people there. BUt anyways, Sister Allred talked a lot about fellowshipping recent converts and talked about how she had visited a recent convert family of 3 months in Guatemala (I think) and talked with them. They mentioned how they had Family home evening each Monday and she asked how they knew what to do for it and the dad said they didn't know what to do for it, but they had heard they should have it, so each Sunday he made a list of the things that he had questions about while at church and Monday night they would look up all those topics in the scriptures and that was their FHE. She told them other things they could do (sing songs, play games, etc.) and they were so excited. Then she mentioned another girl who was a recent convert but had never been to RS before. Sister Allred invited her to go, and she said she didn't know what relief society was. She had shown up on time for the meeting at 9, but didn't know what to do that first hour, so she'd always joined another sunday school class for another ward and thought that that was relief society. We do need to take the time to make sure that investigators and recent converts understand different things that we might find to be obvious or habitual because they probably don't know tons about them. She also then talked about the importance of Family prayer and family scripture study everyday and how that does make a huge difference. She said something that I really liked too. She said (and I paraphrase): "We've heard over and over again how the Lord has reserved the strong and choice spirits to come to earth at this time to live in this world with all of the temptations around us. I also believe that with that, God has reserved and sent forth spirits just as strong and just as valiant to be the parents of those choice spirits, to raise them and teach them the things that they need to know to live in this world." it was really powerful. Thank you so much, Mom and Dad, for raising me right and for helping me to realize the importance of those high moral values. I realized just how lucky I am to have parents who have always supported me and who have taught me the importance of the Gospel principles. Thank you so much.

I love this Gospel. I love being able to share it everyday. I love seeing the joy and peace that comes into the lives of others when they give their will up to our Father in Heaven adn make the decision to follow HIm in every way. And I love being able to do that myself. thank you all for your love and support; you are wonderful. Have a wonderful week and a happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey