It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas :)

Hey everybody! :)

It started snowing this week! It was really fun until I realized that I'd left the boots I bought last year up in the Hochelaga apartment...but the sisters are bringing them down with them to Zone conference tomorrow so I'll have them again soon. :) But it's been sucha fun week...there are Christmas decorations up everywhere and Grandma (the woman we live with...we live in her basement) has put up decorations ALL around her house and in her yard, including a 4 foot tall plastic Santa that sings Christmas songs nonstop. It's fun :) Also, since it's almost Christmas time, we're allowed to start listening to Christmas CDs in the car and it's been so fun to hear all the Christmas music. I just love Christmas! We're having a Christmas party for Relief Society this thursday and another one the following Saturday for the whole ward...it should be so fun!

This week was good with Thanksgiving and everything. We had a district study with Elder Helle giving his first ever district study. He was SO nervous, but he did such a wonderful job! We talked about love/charity and how really we are out here because we love the people here. He talked about loving them in to the Gospel and how they really need to be able to feel that love of the Savior through us as they're investigating the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was really powerful. For Thanksgiving day, we didn't have any invitations over for dinner (since the Canadian thanksgiving was about a month ago and nobody in Quebec really celebrates it and we don't have any Americans in our ward), so we had our own little Thanksgiving dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and an apple pie that one of the women in our ward had given to us. We were going to make a pumpkin one, but ran out of time. Then we thought about buying a turkey but they were ridiculously expensive, so we bought ham instead. It's the first time I've ever really cooked ham and Sister Quist doesn't really cook at all, so it was an adventure, but it turned out really well :) It was so fun.

I don't have tons of time left on here so I'm not going to be able to give tons of details about who we taught, but we had some really neat lessons. We decided that we needed to work more with less actives, so we called this one couple several times and left 2 messages, but they never called us back. Then they showed up to church for the first time in over a year and intorduced themselves to me first thing and both of them said (one right after another) "Hi, we're the Rouabah family. You called us and left 2 messages but we were too busy to call back, but we're here now!" it was kind of funny. They still didn't set up a time to see us, but at least we know who they are now and they were at church socializing with people! Ruth came to church for the second week in a row, and it went really well. She stayed all 3 meetings and there were SO many people who were there fellowshipping her. She really loved it. We're going to see her again this Thursday and then we're hoping she comes to the RS Christmas party. We'll see. We also visited another less active yesterday after church who PROMISED us she'd be at church this next Sunday. It was such an odd lesson though...we had given her a challenge the last time we were there to read in the Book of Mormon (she reads it every day even though she hasn't been to church in like 3 years...usually less actives stop reading it too) and make a list of all the blessings that she sees. She did and then she told us her favorite one and then one she wants: to be part of the first Resurrection and to be there when Christ comes again. We told her that to do that, she needed to obey the commandments. She knows that. And we read several other scriptures about blessings that come through obedience, and she knows it all and knows she needs to start coming back to church to take the sacrament and renew her baptismal covenant, but she doesn't want to because she doesn't feel important. We're not quite sure what to do. But she promised she'd come this time, so we'll see.

But that's about all the time I have on here for now...it was a wonderful week, and I think this one will be even better! I love you all! Thank you so much for your support...you are wonderful. Have a great week!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey