MERRY CHRISTMAS! :)

Hey everyone!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! What a wonderful season this is! I just love that we get to celebrate Christ's birth and that we know the impact that His birth had on the world. It's so sad to talk with people here sometimes where Christmas has become just a commercialized celebration and they either haven't been taught or don't care to know the real reason that we have this holiday. I love being able to share the message with those that listen that Jesus Christ is our Savior! He was born for us, lived a perfect life to show us the example, and died for each one of us. And then the most exciting part of it all: He was resurrected and He lives today! Because of Him, we CAN return someday and live with our Father in Heaven again. We can be completley pure or all errors that we might make. And we can overcome our weaknesses. I just love that part of this Gospel...it is so full of hope and joy! :) Weare STILL rejoicing in the birth of our Savior just as the angels did on the day He was born. What a wonderful reason to celebrate! :)

Things here are going really well and I'm excited for this next week. We did have transfers and I am staying here in Longueuil but getting a new companion, Sister Palmer. She started her mission 6 weeks ago up in Victoriaville and we were a bit surprised to hear that she was being transferred but even more surprised to find out that Sister Quist was going up to Victoriaville and replacing her, still keeping her 2 other companions (there is a 3 some there now and still will be). But we're both pretty excited about it...it'll be different, but so fun :)

Also this week we had our mission Christmas party and we just had the most amazing time! It started at about 10 in the morning and we got our flu shots first thing (not the best way to start it off, but at least it was over and out of the way) and then we all voted on what movie we wanted to watch. there were 3 options: It's a Beautiful Life, The Bishop's Wife (I'd never heard of that one before), and Toy Story 3. So naturally we picked Toy Story 3 and it was such a good movie! It was kind of strange to be sitting there with a bunch of elders watching a non church movie, but it was a lot of fun. Then the senior couples had all prepared us a fabulous dinner, we had several muscial presentations (one from each zone and then one or two others) and then we had a qhite elephant gift exchange. There were some random presents that were given...but it was a lot of fun. The funniest was our assistant to the president, Elder Corbett. Everyone teases him mercilessly about how he looks like Jacob from Twilight (and he really does look a lot like him) and so he opened his present and it was a poster of Jacob from Twilight. SO funny. Everyone was laughing and he posed for about a million pictures with his poster. I loved it. Then after that we had a quick visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus who gave us each presents before we headed home. The whole party ended at about 4 in the afternoon and we all just loved it.

So that was probably the highlight of the week, but we had some other good things as well. We had several DA's...several members from the Greenfield Park ward invited us out to eat with the sisters from that ward so we went to a really nice Chinese restaurant and a great Italian one. Then we also went to the Elders Christmas party in Lemoyne because they had a recent convert who wanted us to come. It was so much fun. In between all of that, we did teach several lessons and met some great people, unfortunately most of them are going out of town for the holidays, but we'll see them when we get back :) And we've been opening your presents everyday Mom...thanks so much! it's always so fun every morning to look up the scriptures and then try and guess what the presents are. We've done a pretty good job of guessing them so far...there are some really clever ones. Thanks so much :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week and an incredible Christmas...we do have such a great reason to celebrate this Holiday season :) I love you all tons!!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey