Transfer time again....

Hey everybody!

This week was yet another exciting week in the Canada Montreal Mission. It was kind of crazy...we had so much planned, especially on Friday and Saturday, and some of it worked out, but quite a bit feel through. It was really good though :) We had 5 dinner appointments, which is the most I have had in the same week for my entire mission. It was realyl fun to get to know more of the families in our ward and to visit with them. There are some interesting people. Last Monday we went with Elder and Sister Giles (they're the mission couple in our ward...they were the mission president in Haiti for 3 years and they are SO amazing...I just LOVE talking with them!) to Frere Dommerc's house for dinner. We ate with him once before last transfer and he's really sweet. He's about 80 years old and loves the missionaries and tells me so often that I look exactly like his daughter. He hugs me every time I see him and I'm not quite sure how to ask him not to since I'm a missionary...still working on that one. But it was really fun...he made these appetizers the last time we were there and I complemented him on them. So, this time he decided to teach me how to make them. You take hard-boiled eggs and half them like you're going to make deviled eggs, but instead of mixing the yolks in for the middle stuff, you take 2 uncooked egg yolks and mix them with a TON of crushed fresh garlic, add a bunch of oil, and fill the eggs with that. Then you grate the egg yolks that are cooked all along the top. They look good, but are SO garlicy...you end up tasting garlic for the next 2 days regardless of how many mints you swallow or how much you brush your teeth. So he showed me how to make them and we made a bunch, but Sister Davis DESPISES eggs, and Sister Giles didn't like eggs that much either. They couldn't eat more than maybe 2 a piece, but he told us we had to finish all of them and we didn't want him to feel bad, so I got to eat 5 1/2 eggs myself...it was an adventure. But we had fun with him. We also ate with Serge Cardinal, a Recent convert who is SO sweet, Frere and Soeur Same who are an older couple who were just recently married and they are so cute. It was a lot of fun.

Also this week we got to teach Gary, and he said he still wants to be baptized on the 20th, but he didn't come to church yesterday and he canceled our last appointment, so we'll see what happens with him. Then Felipe smurfed us twice (meaning, he wasn't there both times we went to teach him) so we weren't sure what to do, especially since he doesn't have a phone, but then he showed up at church yesterday, which was wonderful! Lucy is doing amazing, like always. She is so outgoing and introduces herself to everyone at church and is really just a great person. I really like her :) We also taught a man named Ronnie for the 3rd time (well, my 2nd time there...). I was a bit nervous about it because the first time we taught him the lesson got a bit confrontational...he was trying to be diplomatic and I responded in what I (and Sister Davis) thought was a fairly diplomatic response, but he got a bit defensive and it just didn't turn out very well. So I was a bit nervous, but this lesson went SO well. We taught him the plan of salvation and he asked us "I'm trying to follow Christ, and I think I have the basics down, but how do I do that on an everyday scale? Every day I wake up and I'm surrounded by filth...how do I keep following the path of Christ?" He's from Haiti and Montreal is just such a different world for him...we're living in Babylon here. He's such a good man really just trying to do what God wants him to do...I really enjoy teaching him :)

Oh, and we had a complete miracle this week! Well, 2 really, but only one was related to missionary work. So the elders had met a man named Jean Bien-aime the other day and we called him and set up an appointment with him for Sunday. He wasn't there, but called us afterward and rescheduled for Monday. We went, planning on teaching a first lesson. then we got there and started talking to him, and turns out he's a less active member of the church! he was baptized 21 years ago and has been less active for probably about 18 years...his name wasn't even on our ward list. So crazy. So we taught a first lesson and he loved it and said " I love this. I really want you to come back and teach my family." He has a wife and 4 children (ages 10, 13, 14, and 21) who aren't members. So we set up a time for Saturday and went back. he was happy to see us, but his family didn't know about the meeting and they were all busy with other things. We'll see if they let us teach them or not. But it is a FAMILY! :) AND we committed him on Saturday to come to church! And he did! He was only there for the last hour, but he came! For the first time in like 18 years! It was SO exciting :)

Then the other miracle we had: it actually was not a miracle at the beginning. So on Friday night as we were getting out of the car for an appointment we heard something clatter to the ground. We looked around, didn't see anything, so just went to our appointment assuming it was something pretty unimportant. Turns out it was our phone. So we went back to the car, looked around, couldn't find it, asked the people in the store next to us and they told us that there are tons of things stolen in that area and we probably wouldn't get it back. The man at the store talked about his propane tank being stolen off his grill, things like that. So we were a bit disappointed, but knew we could get another phone the next day. Unfortunately, the office is closed on the weekends and they told us we couldn't get a phone until this morning, so we ended up just borrowing the elders phone to check our voice-mail messages and showing up at the elders apartment each night to give them our stats, and they'd show up at our house at random times to give us updates on P-day activities today and other things. It was actually pretty fun. So they showed up last night to tell us what was going on today and I borrowed there phone to call our number to get our messages (I called our phone number and then you just press # and the password) and a man picked up the phone! i was so surprised, I didn't know what to say! Then he asked me who's phone it was, and I said it was mine. i guess his mom had found it and had no idea how to work technology so she gave it to him to try and figure out who it belonged to. he'd talked to one other missionary on the phone and then answered when we called and we met him at his work this morning so that he could give it back to us! It was AMAZING! There's hope for the people in Montreal after all :) haha.

Anyways, i think that's about all for this week...we also had a 70 at our sacrament meeting yesterday...Elder Olsen. He came on his way up to Quebec for the symposium. It was pretty neat to talk with him and he bore a really powerful testimony on how he KNEW, he had a special witness, that Christ lives. It was really neat. But anyways, my time's about up..I hope you all had a wonderful week! I love you all tons! :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

PS: transfer calls are this week...time has really flown by! We'll find out on Saturday what's happening with the area. Kind of crazy to think that after this I only have 3 or 4 transfers left in the mission...so insane.