Hey everyone!
Things here are going well. Lyse came to church yesterday and it went so well! She`s so excited about her baptism...she just keeps hoping that I`m not transferred before then. Right now it`s set for the 17th, and transfers are a week from tomorrow and we`re pretty sure that our area is either closing or I`m getting transferred. We`ll see though...I was wrong the last 2 times that I tried guessing, so I don`t think I`m going to guess this time at all. But Lyse came to church and LOVED it...she said the best part was how welcoming everyone was and how they all seemed to be friends with each other; it`s very different from the Catholic church that she attended before. She also told me that she had been really disappointed with the Catholic church and she had told herself that if she ever beleived in something again, it would have to be something really GOOD and they would have to be honestly trying to follow Christ and His teachings. I asked her if she had found it and she said ``I`m not sure; I think I have.`` Then I told her that I knew she had and went on to bear my testimony. It was so great. And it was really funny because at her lesson on Wednesday she was showing us how she usually asked a question then would open the Book of Mormon and read the first chapter she found, so she showed us and the first time she opened it up to the Topical Guide under the topic of Baptism. Then she tried again and opened it to Moroni 8 where it talks about infant baptisms. It was so funny :)
Also this week one of the elders` investigators, Dominico, got baptized and he asked me to give the talk on the Holy Ghost, so I talked about the goals of the Holy Ghost...why we really have that gift. He`s here to testify of truth, to lead us, to direct us, to comfort us, but also he is there to purify and sanctify us. It was something I read in a talk by Presidetn Eyring this week...he said that the Holy Ghost cannot dwell in unholy places and that each time we feel the HOly Ghost, we can know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is working in our lives and that we area being cleansed from the mistakes that we have made. It was really neat. I thought I did ok, but I hadn`t really written the talk out and just talking in French is a little tough sometimes, but afterwards I had several people come up and say I had done a good job. Then yesterday at church I had 2 more woman go out of there way to tell me that they had really enjoyed my talk and what a good stage presence I have. It was exciting for me :)
We didn`t get tons of finding time in this week what with p-day, interviews all day Tuesday, lessons on Wednesday, and St. John Baptiste day on Thursday, but it was still a good week. We did teach an awful lesson on Saturday though...remember that Baptist preacher Sister Tschumi and I met last transfer? Well, we met these 2 YSA guys and set up a lesson with them. We show up and start to teach them with our member, Sister Belanger (she`s the one who helped us with Patrick a lot), and then up walks the Baptist preacher with his dad who had been a preacher for 20 years and they came to argue with us. It was SO frustrating. Sister Belanger bore a great testimony though and we left not too long after. It shook both Sister Leonard and I bit...we really don`t like those kind of confrontations, but it just fortified Sister Belanger. And it was so cute; yesterday in church President and Sister mcKinnon spoke (they`re leaving on thursday, it`s so sad!) and President was using a lot of the same scriptures that the Baptist preacher had used and Sister Belanger ran up from the back of the chapel and came and sat next to me and Sister Leonard and gave me a huge hug and sat there the whole talk. Then she thanked me for inviting her the day before and said that it had really fortified her testimony. It almost made me cry; she is so sweet. I just love the members here :)
So all in all, it was a good week. My birthday was wonderful...all the missionaries were here for zone interviews and they all sang me happy birthday and one set of elders bought me 2 cakes...it was so sweet :) So it was fun and I`m looking forward to this next week: working hard, meeting our new President on Saturday, transfer calls Saturday night...it should be interesting! I hope you all have a wonderful week...love you tons!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
"To be a living, modern witness in word and deed, of the divinity of His great and marvelous latter-day work..."
Hey everyone!
This week was such a fun week. We had a really wonderful time. And SO many funny things happened...it was crazy. One was kind of scary, but then when we figured it out it was just funny. Wednesday night at around midnight the phone rang so I got up to answer it, but then saw it was from an unknown person, no number listed, so I decided I probably shouldn't answer it. Not even a minute later, we got a phone call from a 502 area code, which I didn't even recognize the area code, so I ignored it. That person called back another time and then in the next 5 minutes we got 3 more phone calls from another phone number with a 502 area code that had an extra number on the end. It was really strange. So the next day we got permission to look up where the area code is located to see if it was even in Quebec or if it was somewhere else, and we found out 502 is an area code in Kentucky, and we just laughed and decided not to call the person back because it was long distance. But then Thursday afternoon we were talking to the Victoriaville sisters and they said they had gotten 5 phone calls the night before (all at different times...one at midnight, one at 1:00, one at 2:00, etc.) from the same phone number that had called us. They had tried calling back, but couldn't get through, so they suggested that we try calling. We called back the first number and it said the number was incomplete. So then we called the second number that was too long and it went through but we couldn't understand the person on the other end at all because each time he talked it made a staticky noise like when the TV is on but not on a regular channel, so we hung up. It was so strange. Then on Saturday we went out contacting with one of our recent converts, Gabriel, and we got 2 more phone calls from the same phone number, but I missed them both. It was so strange. So later that night Gabriel looked it up on his computer and found out that the 502 isn't an area code...it's a country code for Guatemala and the phone numbers there are 8 digits, and that's why the number had an extra digit. We then figured out the person calling was a guy that Soeur Leonard had taught in Victoriaville who had just moved back to Guatemala and was supposed to be getting baptized there this past weekend, which explained why it was only us and Victoriaville who got the random phone calls. It was kinda creepy at first, but then it was just funny after we found out that it was probably just Walter trying to cal us :)
Also this week we decided to go and try and visit some less actives, and that was fun. We went and saw one, Lucien Gugiere, who I had never heard of before and then Soeur Bruniau mentioned his name. So we called him and he gladly invited us over and it was so fun. He knows so much about the gospel and has about a million books in his library. He's retired now and so he spends his time constructing a website for the church in French (since there aren't many French resources provided from the church online) where he's taking all the resource materials like "Ancres dans la Foi" and putting them online. He has every ensign ever published since 1984 when he joined the church and all the Church News as well. It was so crazy. Unfortunately, his wife of 43 years and his 3 children are not at all interested in the church and they just found out his wife has cancer and so she asked him to stay at home with her a little more. We're hopeful that soon she'll soften up a little and at least allow him to come to church without getting upset, but we'll see. We also had planned to pass by another woman who speaks Spanish but has lived here forever and stopped coming to church a long time ago, but we decided to knock a street or two first. Then Sister Leonard felt like we needed to go stop by, so we stopped knocking and went straight over there and the woman was outside with her boyfriend on the porch and we talked to them for quite awhile. He said he's atheist, but asked us quite a few questions anyways about what we're doing and what we believe. It was a really neat experience.
Other than that, the week was pretty much the same as normal (lots of knocking, a couple lessons, visiting with members and the other missionaries), except for a few random exceptions. We went one day to visit Patrick (he had canceled on the elders 3 times in a row, so we decided to go try and he set a lesson with us..kind of funny) and one the way out we saw a woman who was fairly well dressed in this little window at the side of a huge dumpster digging through the trash can. Thinking that she may have lost something, we went and asked if we could help her, and she just said no thank you and then walked away. Except she didn't look like she was homeless and searching for food...we're not quite sure what she was doing, but it was kind of funny. Then there was another time where we were on this LONG country road with nothing really around and we decided to get out and pick a few daisies to put on our table back home to make it look a little prettier. So Sister Leonard gets out and picks one or two and then turns around and sees this creepy man with long, unkempt hair, beer in hand, standing and staring at her. He said hello and she freaked out and ran back to the car. It was so funny :) Then another time we were going contacting and we parked the car and said a little prayer before starting and then when I finished I saw a car next to us out of the corner of my eye and I looked over and there was a man parked in the street next to us staring at us. We both freaked out and it took us a good 30 seconds before we realized it was just our recent convert, Gabriel. He thought it was the funniest thing ever; we both found it terrifying. But afterward it was pretty funny :) Then for English class instead of just teaching them, we went down to Old Quebec and went to a little market they have there each spring and then they gave us a tour of Old Quebec and pointed out some of the things that we had to see while we were down there. It was really neat. I think there were other random things that happened as well, but I can't really think of them right now...it was a really fun week though. I love it here :)
I'm also really looking forward to this next week...We were supposed to have interviews this Friday, but then for some reason they were canceled and so they've been rescheduled for next Tuesday (my birthday!) so that should be fun. All the missionaries are then coming down on Sunday evening and our p-day on Monday will be spent with them and then interviews on Tuesday. It will be interesting celebrating my birthday with EVERYONE here...we were planning on just having a dinner with just our district, but this should be fun too. And Gabrielle is coming on Sunday; I'm so excited! :) It'll be fun to see her again. And then we're also teaching Liz again and have some other things set up...it should be a lot of fun. I'm excited to work this week! But anyways, I hope you are all doing well and everything is going fabulous back home. I love you all tons!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
This week was such a fun week. We had a really wonderful time. And SO many funny things happened...it was crazy. One was kind of scary, but then when we figured it out it was just funny. Wednesday night at around midnight the phone rang so I got up to answer it, but then saw it was from an unknown person, no number listed, so I decided I probably shouldn't answer it. Not even a minute later, we got a phone call from a 502 area code, which I didn't even recognize the area code, so I ignored it. That person called back another time and then in the next 5 minutes we got 3 more phone calls from another phone number with a 502 area code that had an extra number on the end. It was really strange. So the next day we got permission to look up where the area code is located to see if it was even in Quebec or if it was somewhere else, and we found out 502 is an area code in Kentucky, and we just laughed and decided not to call the person back because it was long distance. But then Thursday afternoon we were talking to the Victoriaville sisters and they said they had gotten 5 phone calls the night before (all at different times...one at midnight, one at 1:00, one at 2:00, etc.) from the same phone number that had called us. They had tried calling back, but couldn't get through, so they suggested that we try calling. We called back the first number and it said the number was incomplete. So then we called the second number that was too long and it went through but we couldn't understand the person on the other end at all because each time he talked it made a staticky noise like when the TV is on but not on a regular channel, so we hung up. It was so strange. Then on Saturday we went out contacting with one of our recent converts, Gabriel, and we got 2 more phone calls from the same phone number, but I missed them both. It was so strange. So later that night Gabriel looked it up on his computer and found out that the 502 isn't an area code...it's a country code for Guatemala and the phone numbers there are 8 digits, and that's why the number had an extra digit. We then figured out the person calling was a guy that Soeur Leonard had taught in Victoriaville who had just moved back to Guatemala and was supposed to be getting baptized there this past weekend, which explained why it was only us and Victoriaville who got the random phone calls. It was kinda creepy at first, but then it was just funny after we found out that it was probably just Walter trying to cal us :)
Also this week we decided to go and try and visit some less actives, and that was fun. We went and saw one, Lucien Gugiere, who I had never heard of before and then Soeur Bruniau mentioned his name. So we called him and he gladly invited us over and it was so fun. He knows so much about the gospel and has about a million books in his library. He's retired now and so he spends his time constructing a website for the church in French (since there aren't many French resources provided from the church online) where he's taking all the resource materials like "Ancres dans la Foi" and putting them online. He has every ensign ever published since 1984 when he joined the church and all the Church News as well. It was so crazy. Unfortunately, his wife of 43 years and his 3 children are not at all interested in the church and they just found out his wife has cancer and so she asked him to stay at home with her a little more. We're hopeful that soon she'll soften up a little and at least allow him to come to church without getting upset, but we'll see. We also had planned to pass by another woman who speaks Spanish but has lived here forever and stopped coming to church a long time ago, but we decided to knock a street or two first. Then Sister Leonard felt like we needed to go stop by, so we stopped knocking and went straight over there and the woman was outside with her boyfriend on the porch and we talked to them for quite awhile. He said he's atheist, but asked us quite a few questions anyways about what we're doing and what we believe. It was a really neat experience.
Other than that, the week was pretty much the same as normal (lots of knocking, a couple lessons, visiting with members and the other missionaries), except for a few random exceptions. We went one day to visit Patrick (he had canceled on the elders 3 times in a row, so we decided to go try and he set a lesson with us..kind of funny) and one the way out we saw a woman who was fairly well dressed in this little window at the side of a huge dumpster digging through the trash can. Thinking that she may have lost something, we went and asked if we could help her, and she just said no thank you and then walked away. Except she didn't look like she was homeless and searching for food...we're not quite sure what she was doing, but it was kind of funny. Then there was another time where we were on this LONG country road with nothing really around and we decided to get out and pick a few daisies to put on our table back home to make it look a little prettier. So Sister Leonard gets out and picks one or two and then turns around and sees this creepy man with long, unkempt hair, beer in hand, standing and staring at her. He said hello and she freaked out and ran back to the car. It was so funny :) Then another time we were going contacting and we parked the car and said a little prayer before starting and then when I finished I saw a car next to us out of the corner of my eye and I looked over and there was a man parked in the street next to us staring at us. We both freaked out and it took us a good 30 seconds before we realized it was just our recent convert, Gabriel. He thought it was the funniest thing ever; we both found it terrifying. But afterward it was pretty funny :) Then for English class instead of just teaching them, we went down to Old Quebec and went to a little market they have there each spring and then they gave us a tour of Old Quebec and pointed out some of the things that we had to see while we were down there. It was really neat. I think there were other random things that happened as well, but I can't really think of them right now...it was a really fun week though. I love it here :)
I'm also really looking forward to this next week...We were supposed to have interviews this Friday, but then for some reason they were canceled and so they've been rescheduled for next Tuesday (my birthday!) so that should be fun. All the missionaries are then coming down on Sunday evening and our p-day on Monday will be spent with them and then interviews on Tuesday. It will be interesting celebrating my birthday with EVERYONE here...we were planning on just having a dinner with just our district, but this should be fun too. And Gabrielle is coming on Sunday; I'm so excited! :) It'll be fun to see her again. And then we're also teaching Liz again and have some other things set up...it should be a lot of fun. I'm excited to work this week! But anyways, I hope you are all doing well and everything is going fabulous back home. I love you all tons!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
Monday, June 7, 2010
"My commission is to do what He wants done. To say what He wants said."
Hey everyone!
This week was wonderful...we had zone conference, which is always amazing! It was President and Sister McKinnon's last zone conference...they'll still be here for interviews, but this was their last zone conference and it was so sad! I'm going to miss them...I'm excited about the new mission president, but I love the Mckinnon's; it'll be sad to see them go. But the conference itself was wonderful with a lot of really impressive trainings.
This week was pretty uneventful...we did a lot of finding at the beginning, but then Sister Leonard got sick at the end and so we didn't do very much the last couple of days. We did teach Liz on Tuesday and it went really well! We taught her the Plan of Salvation which is my favorite lesson to teach, and I think it went well. She had a bit of a difficult time because she believes more in reincarnation and said that before judgment if we haven't learned everything that we need to learn, we just go back to the premortal existence and start over again and we do that over and over and over again until we learn all the lessons that we need to learn on this life. We talked about how agency is so important to God that He's never going to take that away from us. If we don't want to learn the lessons that He wants us to learn, He's not going to force us; He's not going to watch us suffer through this life again, still not learning the same lessons if we don't want to learn it. I think she accepted that a little bit more...we'll see. Then she said that she had had questions and she knew that she needed different answers to them than the ones that she had and so she started looking for them, and that's when Sister Tschumi and I showed up. So then Sister Gelinas bore testimony and said that if she had questions and we showed up right after, maybe she needed to start looking a little harder to try to find the answers in what we were saying instead of just thinking that she knew everything. She agreed and we're meeting with her again next week, so we'll see how it goes :)
Oh, and then it was so wonderful after that! We came home on Tuesday right after the lesson and the zone leaders had come and heart attacked our house! I just love them; they really are so wonderful. We have pretty incredible elders in our district :) Oh, and all the elders came down right before zone conference and Elder Garcia had found out that it was my birthday at the end of this month, so he kept asking me what I wanted and then decided he's making me a cake and they're cooking us dinner...I just love them :) But anyways, so the rest of the afternoon on Tuesday we spent finding...we were going to contact on this one street, but then we saw a guy with a gun, so we decided that we should probably go to a different street, haha. Then the next day that we went and taught a less active, Claire Dion, and that went well. We talked about the 10 commandments and following God's plan for us. I think it went really well...she said that with her boyfriend, they have a really good relationship between them, but not with God, and so we suggested that maybe she needed to invte God into the relationship, and one way she could do that pretty easily was through having a fmaily home evening with him and maybe the Carrier family who live nearby and she said that was a really good idea. So then we called the Carrier's and asked them if they could also call and invite her to have an FHE with them, but they said they'd tried that a year ago and she'd said no, so they didn't want to try again. It was so frustrating...I'm really learning here how important member participation and member support is for the missionary work. Everything works out better when the members are helping and bearing testimony...it's a good lesson I hope to remember when I get back.
I think that was about it for the week though...it was good and I'm looking forward to this next week. I love Sister Leonard and we have a lot of fun together, so it should be a wonderful week. I hope everything is going well for you and I love you all tons!!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
This week was wonderful...we had zone conference, which is always amazing! It was President and Sister McKinnon's last zone conference...they'll still be here for interviews, but this was their last zone conference and it was so sad! I'm going to miss them...I'm excited about the new mission president, but I love the Mckinnon's; it'll be sad to see them go. But the conference itself was wonderful with a lot of really impressive trainings.
This week was pretty uneventful...we did a lot of finding at the beginning, but then Sister Leonard got sick at the end and so we didn't do very much the last couple of days. We did teach Liz on Tuesday and it went really well! We taught her the Plan of Salvation which is my favorite lesson to teach, and I think it went well. She had a bit of a difficult time because she believes more in reincarnation and said that before judgment if we haven't learned everything that we need to learn, we just go back to the premortal existence and start over again and we do that over and over and over again until we learn all the lessons that we need to learn on this life. We talked about how agency is so important to God that He's never going to take that away from us. If we don't want to learn the lessons that He wants us to learn, He's not going to force us; He's not going to watch us suffer through this life again, still not learning the same lessons if we don't want to learn it. I think she accepted that a little bit more...we'll see. Then she said that she had had questions and she knew that she needed different answers to them than the ones that she had and so she started looking for them, and that's when Sister Tschumi and I showed up. So then Sister Gelinas bore testimony and said that if she had questions and we showed up right after, maybe she needed to start looking a little harder to try to find the answers in what we were saying instead of just thinking that she knew everything. She agreed and we're meeting with her again next week, so we'll see how it goes :)
Oh, and then it was so wonderful after that! We came home on Tuesday right after the lesson and the zone leaders had come and heart attacked our house! I just love them; they really are so wonderful. We have pretty incredible elders in our district :) Oh, and all the elders came down right before zone conference and Elder Garcia had found out that it was my birthday at the end of this month, so he kept asking me what I wanted and then decided he's making me a cake and they're cooking us dinner...I just love them :) But anyways, so the rest of the afternoon on Tuesday we spent finding...we were going to contact on this one street, but then we saw a guy with a gun, so we decided that we should probably go to a different street, haha. Then the next day that we went and taught a less active, Claire Dion, and that went well. We talked about the 10 commandments and following God's plan for us. I think it went really well...she said that with her boyfriend, they have a really good relationship between them, but not with God, and so we suggested that maybe she needed to invte God into the relationship, and one way she could do that pretty easily was through having a fmaily home evening with him and maybe the Carrier family who live nearby and she said that was a really good idea. So then we called the Carrier's and asked them if they could also call and invite her to have an FHE with them, but they said they'd tried that a year ago and she'd said no, so they didn't want to try again. It was so frustrating...I'm really learning here how important member participation and member support is for the missionary work. Everything works out better when the members are helping and bearing testimony...it's a good lesson I hope to remember when I get back.
I think that was about it for the week though...it was good and I'm looking forward to this next week. I love Sister Leonard and we have a lot of fun together, so it should be a wonderful week. I hope everything is going well for you and I love you all tons!!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
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