Monday, November 29, 2010

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

Monday, November 22, 2010

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

Thursday, November 18, 2010

First week in Longueuil :)

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing? Things here are going great....the first week in my new area! Longueuil reminds me a lot of Quebec...it's about the same style of work with lots of knocking and no metros. I love it :) The ward seems really great. We went to PEC the first Wednesday that we were here and I was amazed by how on top of things the ward is. They were talking about visiting teaching, home teaching, and how to help each one of the members that might need help; you know, all the things they're supposed to do during PEC. It was a big change from Hochelaga where they weren't quite as on top of things. Plus, it is RIGHT next to the temple. Like, we share a parking lot with the temple. It's pretty little, but beautiful. I'm just hoping that I get to go in at some time....eventually I'm sure I will :)

I don't have tons to say about this week...not tons happened. I love my companion, Sister Quist. She's from Utah and has a big family, and is so sweet. She's also extremely tall...like 6 feet. I just love her. And Sister Morse came back with her family adn we spent Saturday night talking to them and that was so fun. I just love her :) She was my second companion here and I have a lot of respect for her. It's kind of crazy to think that she's done with her mission already and that I'm now the oldest sister in the mission...so crazy!

There's not tons going on in the area right now. The sisters spent the last week of last transfer up in Quebec city for the symposium so they didn't get a chance to find anyone and they didn't get anything set up for this past week at all. And I guess things have been a bit slower anyways in the area. But we went finding a lot and found quite a few new potentials that I'm excited to teach...it should be great :) Oh, and then last night we had a dinner appointment with the zone leaders. it was with a family in the spanish branch here (they don't have missionaries in their branch) and it was a birthday party for their 20 year old twins so they had a TON of people that were over there and we ate and then had a family home evening with them. It was a lot of fun, but kind of strange. They came in and we were going to start eating, and then the dad came and said something in Spanish that we didn't understand at all so Sister Quist and I just sat there and smiled. Then we asked the elders to translate for us and they said the dad had banished us to this other room to eat our dinner and had asked for volunteers to go eat with us so we wouldn't be paired off and no one volunteered. They said it was the most awkward thing ever, haha. It was so pretty funny. So we sat in a room by ourselves with 3 other girls who came and sat by us. Then we tried to play the game with them but part of it involved putting lipstick lines on our face and they told us that that was face painting and we couldn't participate. It's kind of funny the idea that people have of the missionaries sometimes. But it's been a fun week and I'm excited to work in the ward. I hope everything is going well for you all and I love you tons! :) Take care!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Monday, November 8, 2010

Starting transfer 10...SO crazy!


the Giles, Sister Davis, and I :) after district study one day


at the botanical gardens


me with the cupcakes we made for gary! haha, the frosting was too thin though and it all slid off before we got them to him...



sisters and the zone leaders at the botanical gardens - Sister Rodriguez, Leonard, me, Sister Davis, Elder Coronado (back), Elder de la torre (front)


Sister Davis, Sister bourassa, and myself

Hey everyone :)

So...transfer calls came! And I am being transferred. We weren't sure what to expect...Sister Davis and I had our little "sisterland" hanging on the wall and tried to figure out what was going to happen with the sisters for transfers and we were completely wrong. So I am going to Longueuil, another French speaking family ward just south of the island of Montreal, with Sister Quist, and it should be a lot of fun. I'm going to miss this zone so much though! Elder de la Torre, Elder Bourdon, Sister Leonard - the people that I've been with since I've been in Quebec. But I am realyl excited. It'll be fun to stay in French speaking and keep improving that. it was so sweet: we said goodbye to Elder and Sister Giles yesterday (they invited su over to lunch) and they were just so sweet. I told them that I was staying French and they were SO excited for me. Sister giles mentioned how Elder Giles keeps telling what Ia talent I have for French...he said that people can just understand me - what I say, they way I explain it. It was so sweet :) I just love them.

Other things going on this trasnfer for anyone who might be interested: Elder Bourdon is going zone leader in Rive Nord and Elder Sybrowsky is the other zone leader there, but they're not companions; they're both getting greenies. Elder Smedley is training (it's his 2nd transfer) and Elder Coronado is going up to Quebec! He's not thrilled, but I'm SO excited for him :) The sisters stayed pretty much the same except for me, then Sister Hamula is coming here with Sister Davis (they will have SUCH a great time) and Sister Fletcher and Sister Verdeja are both getting greenies. It should be a good transfer.

This week was an interesting week: we taught several lessons, but I ended up being sick in bed for about 3 days and we didn't get tons of contacting done. Lucie is still doing wonderful and she came to a baptism yesterday right after Stake conference for the Joliette branch and LOVED it. She's so ready for her baptism. We taught Felipe the word of Wisdom, and he accepted it without any problems. He scared us a bit though at first by saying "I can give up the coffee, that's not a problem, but I CAN'T give up the drugs." We didn't quite know what to say until he started laughing. Then last night we FINALLY got a hold of Gary. We drove by his house and then i called him and at first he said he didn't have time but then I told him that I was leaving and needed his address and he let us in. The sisters are going to back and visit him again in a couple of days. I just love the people here; I am going to miss them. But from what I've heard, Longeueil is a wonderful ward, so hopefully that will be just as great :)

Other than that, I can't think of tons of things to say about this week. haha, yesterday during stake conference, the kids in front of us were OUT OF CONTROL. Sister Davis doesn't have any younger brothers and sisters, just older ones, and she kept saying how her children will never act like that. i just laughed. But then it was so funny: we had made a cheesecake for the baptism and we went in to get it right after the baptism for the little refreshments part and it had already been mostly eaten! Definitely the work of at least one little 2 year old :) And I could just picture a mom coming in and seeing him and panicking a little bit because he had eaten the entire middle out of our cake. It was SO funny...we took pictures and I'll try to send them to you next week :)

Anyways, I hope all is going well with you...I love you all tons! Have a wonderful week! :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

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.