Final Week...

Hey everyone!

This is just going to be a short email this week as I'm going to be seeing and talking with you all in person in just a few days. It's kind of crazy coming to the end of my mission...I was expecting to be sad and want to stay longer or to be extremely excited to go home to the point where I couldn't focus on my mission, but neither of those things happened. Sister Palmer and I continued working like we normally had (except we took a little bit more time out of our schedule this week to update the area book) and I'm excited to come home, but not to the point where it's all I think about. I'm still worrying about our investigators and planning like I'll be here all next week. Then I'm sad to leave the friends that I've made, but not to the point of tears. I thought I'd cry at that last transfer call, but I was just SO EXCITED that Sister Leonard was coming here (she was my companion up in Quebec if you remember and she's one of my favorites...I was half praying that she would come! I'm SO excited for her and Sister Palmer!) that I wasn't sad at all. Haha, Elder Corbitt when he called told me that my new companion would be a man named Michael and I said "Oh, that's my dad!" and he said "Well that'll be interesting...your new companion has the same name as your dad...odd." It was funny :)

But this week was a good week overall. We had our sisters sleepover and training at the mission home and it was SO much fun! It was great to be able to see all the sister again and to meet some of the ones that I haven't served around yet. Everyone kept asking me what my plans are for when I come home and I couldn't think of anything to tell them...to be honest, I haven't thought much about going home at all. But it feels like it should be the next step, so it's good. So the sleepover was a lot of fun, and then the training was probably one of the best trainings that I've had so far in my mission. President gave a wonderful one about working with the priesthood and the things that they said applied not only to us as sister missionaries, but they're things that I can apply after I get home as well. Sister Cannon talked about unity and the importance of being united as sisters, and it was really neat. There is such a force for good when we all work together for a common goal. I love it :)

We taught several people this week, but nothing extremely interesting to note there. We taught Denis tithing and law of chastity and he accepted both fairly easily. He said as we were teaching tithing that everything just makes so much sense as we teach, there's no reason for him NOT to accept it. I loved that answer :) He's wonderful...he'll be baptized in 2 weeks and I'm SO excited for it! There's so much going on right now in this area...Sister Leonard and Sister Palmer will be great and I'm really excited for them.

It has been really neat to be able to reflect this last week on lessons that I've learned on my mission. One of the greatest lessons that I've learned is how much God knows and loves each one of His children. It's really easy for me to think that He loves me and my family and my friends, but it was harder to think about Him knowing the people that yelled at me in the street. But there was one day in particular that I looked around and started to really think about each one of the people that I saw and how they each had goals and hopes and worries and how God knows all of that and loves them and wants to help them. It marked a turning point in my mission where I started looking more at people as children of God instead of just as people in the street who I don't know. Another lesson I learned is just how importance obedience is. Really, each blessing is given based on our obedience to a law given by God. Our Father in Heaven really does WANT to bless us. He is even more willing to give miracles than we are to receive them. As soon as we obey even the smallest commandment, God blesses us as much as He is able, and that's something I've seen and experienced while here on my mission and I love it. I've learned a million other little lessons, but those are the two that have made the greatest impact on my mission. I'm so grateful for the chance that I have had to come here and serve the Lord for 18 months with my whole heart. I've seen so many miracles and really come to know my Savior personally and it has been wonderful to help others gain the knowledge that I have. I can't wait to go back home and continue serving the Lord with all my heart, just in a different capacity. Thank you for all of your love, support, and prayers. I love you all!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Sugar high.... :)

Hey everyone!

So this week was yet another WONDERFUL week! It`s March which means that spring is coming! SO exciting! :) It started raining the other day and we thought that winter was over and then it started snowing yesterday and turned into a horrible snowstorm for today, so maybe it`s not quite as over as we thought it was. But at least the snowstorm didn`t stop us from going to our cabane a sucre today! We went to one out in MOnt St. Gregoire and it was SO much fun...and SO sugary :) THey give you an all you can eat breakfast meal and you douse the whole thing in maple sugar. We went to one last year and it was really good...this one was slightly different, but it was the first time that everyone else in the zone (except one elder) had gone, so it was a great experience. And because of the storm there weren`t very many other people there, so we had a waitress there just waiting on us. It was a wonderful p-day :)

And the rest of the week was great as well. We taught our family that came to church last week again - twice. Their names our Josie and Sebastian and they are SO much fun! We went over on Tuesday evening and they didn`t have long, but we just sat and talked with them and they LOVED church. And they said that more importantly to them, their kids loved church. They asked the 10 year old afterwards what she thought and if she had had fun playing the games and she said ``I didn`t play; I LEARNED`` and they were thrilled about that. And they started asking us questions about how they could become members and we explained baptism and they wanted to plan it out all right then: who would baptize them, what clothes they would wear, who they would invite. It was great. And they asked about getting sealed in the temple and how that works and we explained it a little. We came back on Saturday and they had started reading the Book of MOrmon Stories (for kids) to their children each night and praying with them and they all loved it. We taught the Plan of Salvation, which they loved, and then set a date for baptism with them and they wanted to meet us at least 3 times a week until their baptisms. Unfortunately, we don`t have 3 evenings open each week, so we`re teaching them twice a week, but it`s still wonderful. I`m so excited to see them progress!

And we also taught Denis and it went so well. He`s progressing so well! We have 2 more lessons on commandments to teach him and then his baptism is in 3 weeks. He just needs to stop smoking. But he came to church AGAIN this Sunday (for the 7th Sunday in a row! He`s come every Sunday since we met him!) and again he loved it. He said he already knows it all, but each time he deapens his understanding, which is what he wants. It`s so great to see everyone learning and progressing...it`s the best part of missionary work :) And then we have Isabelle Poissant who is actually making progress! Her husband (a member) is in the hospital right now with a million different medical problems but he gave her an ultimatum and said if she hadn`t stopped smoking by the time he got out, he wasn`t going to come back to the house because he needed to think about his health. it just about killed both of them to think of that, but it gave Isabelle the motivation that she needed to really make an effort to stop and she`s sincerely trying. She promised to come to church this week and we`re really hopeful that her baptism will go through for the first week in April.

And also, JOSEPH called us! We haven`t seen him in over a month because he keeps cancelling our appointments at the last minute, but he called last MOnday and set up on for last Thursday. We waited there for 45 minutes and he never showed up, never texted or called us back, and we didn`t know what to do. So then yesterday I called and left a message saying that I was leaving and wanted to talk to him before I left and he called back early this morning and said that just about an hour before our lesson on Thursday (he was all set with a backpack filled with church things) he collapsed from exhaustion and some sickness and was in the hospital for 2 days and then sick in bed for 2 days and now both of his kids are sick. Crazy. So we set up another appointment for this Thursday..I pray that it actually works out.

But things are going really well in the area now. It`s amazing to see the progress and the blessings that have been poured out in this area and on the mission as a whole in the last month or so...there are miracles almost every day in each of the areas, both big miracles and little ones. It`s such a great time to be a missionary and such a wonderful mission to be a part of...I love it!

I hope all of you are well. Take care and have a great week! I love you!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

What a beautiful day :)

Hey everyone!

This week was AMAZING!! :) We've been working hard and we're definitely seeing the blessings from it. We had a great lesson with Denis at the Groux's house and it went SO well! We taught the Word of Wisdom since we'd already kind of covered it in Sunday School class and Sister Groux testified so beautifully of it's importance. He accepted it without a problem and said that he'd been thinking for some time now that he needed to quite smoking and he wasn't sure if that was just him or something else telling him to stop, but he's going to try really hard to stop. it was great. And then he came to church on Sunday and we're pretty sure he loved it...he left right after Priesthood and Relief Society hadn't been let out yet, so we didn't get to talk with him right afterwards, but we're going to call him today and see how it went. he's wonderful though...I love to see the progress he's making!

Then also this week we taught a FAMILY!! It was a man, Sebastien, and his wife, Josee, and their 4 kids. During the lesson we actually only taught the husband, but he really liked it, said the prayer at the end without argument, and said that they wanted to come to church on Sunday. They have neighbors who are members of the Victoria (Spanish) ward, and they really like them. So then on Sunday morning we were sitting in the car before church and a number we didn't recognize called us and it was a woman from the Victoria ward who said that we were teaching her neighbor, Sebastien, and that he and his family had come over the night before and asked them a bunch of questions about church and so they had skipped their ward and were coming with Sebastien and his family to our ward. So the whole family showed up and they LOVED it! Everyone was so friendly and the kids just adored primary. Soeur Groux said they participated a lot in sharing time and she even asked one of them to say the prayer at the end because she had just been so involved in the whole class. It was so cute. We're teaching them again this Tuesday and the mom said that they were going to come back next Sunday. The dad had said that they wanted to find a church with good family values and teach their children more about Christ - perfect! I'm SO excited for them!

Then we also had our investigator Jean-Guy who we taught and he is an interesting guy. Very into meditation and very factual so when he read the Book of Mormon this week he looked up a timeline in the Guide des Ecritures at the back and decided that it was missing some things so he went through the Book of Mormon and filled it in the rest of the way and that was his study. Odd. But he said he'd been talking with his nephew about the church and then called us Sunday morning to say that both he and his nephew would be coming to church. So they both showed up and I think they liked it...the nephew said he did and he wanted to come back, so we'll see what happens. But Jean-Guy is definitely a character...we're going to commit him to baptism this week to see if he really is interested in progressing or not. We're not sure where he stands right now. But church yesterday was WONDERFUL...we had a really interesting Sacrament meeting and each of the investigators liked it and the members helped us so much. It was wonderful.

Also this week we did splits with Concordia and that was exciting! I went back to my greenie area with my first daughter, Sister Cottrell, and it was so fun to work with her and talk with her again. I just love her. And we got to see some of the people that I knew from before. And the best surprise of all: Elder and Sister Anderson showed up! they went home from their mission a couple of months ago, but they came back out for a wedding this last weekend and they stopped by the church at the same time that I was there! SO exciting! :) I just loved it. It really was such a great week.

And this next week is going to be wonderful as well. There is SO much going on in the next few weeks! I can't believe my mission is almost done and with everything that we have planned these next 3 weeks are just going to fly by. But it will be fun. I'm so excited for everything, and I just love seeing all the progress that our investigators are making! this really is the work of the Lord and it is definitely going forth. I just love it and I'm so glad that I get to be a part of it and share my testimony with people everyday! I'm so glad that Heavenly Father knew me well enough to send me on a mission to this area and to put me with this companion so that I could have these experiences. And I'm even more grateful that I listened and came out here. It's been the best experience of my life...I just love it :)

Hopefully you all have a wonderful week! I love you!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

PS: I got the valentine's day package from Heather and Kaylee this week....thanks so much! I loved it! And I got the one from Nic and Janey the week before and I LOVED the pictures...and the fudge hearts :) I have the best Friends ever!!

Oh Canada :)

Hey everybody!

This week was wonderful! It finally started warming up and the snow started melting...on Friday it got up to 10 degrees! That's the warmest it's been in a long time! We were outside in just little sweaters...so nice :) But then it started getting cold again and today it's back to -12 or so. But at least for a little while it got warm and we can actual see the road now instead of just snow everywhere.

Sister Palmer and I had a lot of fun this week as well. We taught Denis on Saturday at a member's house in our ward and it went so well. He told us how the Plan of Salvation that we had taught the week before had answered questions that he didn't even know he had. He was always unsure as to how a loving Father in Heaven could help us right up until we die and then send us to hell for the rest of eternity or how a little child who died before being baptized could be stuck in limbo forever without a chance of seeing his loved ones again, but the Plan of Salvation taught him how merciful and loving God really is. He does want us to succeed, so he gives EVERYONE a chance to hear the Gospel and to be baptized, even after this life for those who don't have that chance here. And for those who don't accept it, they are still given a place in one of the glories (telestial or terrestrial). So they don't receive the same reward as someone who does try their hardest here, but they won't be eternally miserable either. And those were things that he had wondered about since he was really little but had kind of forgotten about and then the Gospel answered those questions. It was so neat. So this week we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was so funny because it was at a member's house and she was there talking a lot when we talked about faith and repentance and then when she saw that we were going to talk about baptism she was afraid that we were going to commit him and so she left the room to go get juice and cookies and then came back and said "So have they gotten to the gift of the Holy Ghost yet?" Kind of funny. We told that to our zone leaders and Elder Mongillo said "Yeah, members are chickens." We laughed quite a bit about it especially since that baptismal committment was probably the easiest one we've ever done. He accepted so readily. He really is trying to follow Christ and learn as much as he can. Even yesterday when we talked about the Word of Wisdom in Sunday School (that was a HORRIBLE lesson by the way...we were teaching it but we didn't have a single solid member in the class and our less actives and recent converts went off on all kinds of random tangents and we had the hardest time bringing it back to what we wanted to talk about. Luckily Frere Angulo came in halfway through and was able to respond to some of their questions....it was not the best lesson we've ever taught) he just came up to us afterwards and said he'd like to discuss the word of wisdom another time with us, so we're teaching it to him next. It could have scared him away completely because he doesn't follow it completely now, but it'll be good. I just love working with him :)

Oh, we also had a pretty funny experience this week: we ran to the supermarket one time during our lunch hour to pick up a couple of random things and I got distracted by the valentine's day candy (it was 50% off...I had to at least look :) ) and this man came up to Sister Palmer and I and asked if we were sisters. I said yes, just assuming he was talking about sister missionaries because really Sister Palmer and I don't look anything alike, but then he really meant sisters and so he looked at me and said "tu es la plus belle" and then turned to Sister Palmer and said "et tu es la plus jolie." So I'm the prettiest and she's the cutest. It made our day :)

Also, we had a cray adventure...we went to this one street on Friday and tried to visit a less active who wasn't home so we just knocked the rest of the street. We were parked in our car afterwards making a couple of calls and we saw this police car drive really fast right in front of us then back up really fast all the way to the street right behind us and set up a road block. We weren't quite sure what was going on, so we decided to drive away and saw a fire truck coming with another police officer. We looked to the other side and saw a tempo (one of those canvas/plastic tents that they cover their driveways with like in the picture I sent you a couple of weeks ago) was completely up in flames. Crazy. Then the next day we went back to that same road to visit some of the potentials that we had found the day before and a little farther down there were 3 fire trucks and a million police officers and a 4th fire truck came while we were there and there were firemen on top of this smoking apartment building. It was so insane. We decided it had to be arson. And we even knew who did it! There were these 14 year old boys the day before who had started yelling at us for being "temoin jehovahs" and then had tried to throw snowballs at us (they didn't have very good aim.) and we decided it was them. We thought about telling the police but then decided they could probably figure it out themselves. Just kidding....it was probably just a coincidence that there were 2 fires on the same street but we've decided to take a break from knocking there anyways, haha.

So other than that we also taught a couple of new people. one was a pass off from the Spanish elders named Jean and he was this 70 year old retired man who was really not worth visiting. He had told the elders that he didn't believe that woman could teach but they gave him to us anyways. So we went over and he told us this 30 minute story about how he switched religions about 15 times and then wanted one with a prophet and found this other church (I forgot it's name but I've met a couple of people from it before) that has a prophet and he was saying how a prophet's main role is to denounce false practices. I told him it was also to testify of Christ and tried to share a Book of Mormon scripture and he just kept interrupting me to talk about the Bible and how the Bible says that woman can't preach and he told the story of Paul twice and we said that we knew it well and then I tried sharing a scripture again and he said that before I shared that, he wanted to share a story with me in the Bible and if I reacted well, he'd listen to me; if I didn't react well, he wouldn't listen to me. I knew exactly which one he was going to share...there's one in Corinthians (I think,...or Ephesians) where Paul says that women should not speak in church and if they have questions they should ask their husbands at home and their husbands can tell answer their questions or ask the preacher, but women shouldn't talk in church (Joseph Smith Translation says "rule") and we knew that if he read that and we still kept trying to teach, he'd not listen, but if we read it and stopped teaching than he'd be more sure than every that he was right. So we just left. We encouraged him to read the Book of Mormon and he told us he had great respect for us, but was worried about our salvation since we said we believed in the Bible but weren't living it. It was so frustrating because there were all kinds of scriptures we could have shared or stories we could have told about women in the Bible and there's a scripture just a chapter or so before that one that talks about how women can prophecy if their heads are covered and long hair is a covering of the head, but all of those stories and scriptures would have just been to argue and not to listen. It's sad sometimes when people come so close to the truth but then get hung up on little things or listen more to their own reason than to the Spirit. oh well...it made for a good story in my journal :)

So this week was good. We had a lot of fun with the members and worked hard. I just love this ward and I'm so glad to be able to serve here...I really love it :) Thanks for all your support and I hope you all have a wonderful week. i love you!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! I hope you're all doing something fun to celebrate one of the greatest holidays of the year :) Sister Palmer and I made sugar cookies and valentine's for several of our less actives and took them to them which was a lot of fun. And the Groux's made us each Valentine's....so cute :) And then tonight we're eating at the Bishop's house and we're not quite sure what we're doing after, but they told Sister Palmer to make sure that we wear red, and I love that family so it'll be a wonderful evening. Other than that for today we're just relaxing, trying to catch up on sleep...it should be a great day :) Except I didn't get Janey's package yet...so sad. We onyl get mail from the office every couple of weeks and the last time that we got it was about 3 weeks ago. But we're going on a split with Concordia sisters this Wednesday (I'm going back to my greenie area for a day with one of the girls I trained...I'm way excited!) so we're going to stop and pick up the mail then. So I'll get it soon! I can't wait! :)

This week was a really good week. It went by kind of fast...I don't really remember much about what happened. There were a couple of fun stories though...on Saturday we ended up having 2 dinner appointments one right after the other and that was a bit intense. The first one is a returning less active who I LOVE and who has decided that she is feeding us dinner every Saturday until I leave (even though we have dinner appointments for at least one of those saturdays already) and she feeds us TONS. She always gives us salad, the main course, and then a dessert, but she doesn't eat the salad or the dessert because the main course fills her up. But we can eat more than she can, so she gives us everything, haha. So we were there and she had invited one of her friends over and that was really neat to meet her...she's coming to the dinner again next Saturday and wants to watch the Restoration DVD with us because the less active told her about it and she was really interested. So that'll be neat :) Then right after that we went directly to another DA with a family that again fed us too much. I think I've gained at least 5 pounds just this weekend. We were both full halfway through the first meal and I honestly didn't think I'd be able to finish the dessert on the second one, but I did. But then the next morning (Sunday morning) we ate breakfast with our ward mission leader (I LOVE that family as well...they're just so cute!) and we could barely finish it and we were still full for our DA Sunday night. By the end of the salad we couldn't eat anymore and we still had the main course and the dessert. It was all really good, just a lot more food than we're used to in a very short amount of time. But I love the members in this ward...they're amazing :) And it's interesting...somehow everyone found out that I'm leaving in about a month. i was trying to keep it a secret except from one or two families, but it spread to everyone and they all keep asking me about plans as soon as I get home and trying to figure out when I'm getting married. Sister beaumier said I wouldn't even come back this summer because I'd go home, find my "chum" (boyfriend), get married, and then be pregnant this summer. Then the Grolaud's decided that I needed to marry someone French and so I'd probably marry the missionary that I was going home with. God would make it so that on the plane ride home I would sit next to another returning missionary and start talking to him and we'd get married not long afterwards. I said I didn't think that would happen since I'm not going home with any other missionaries on the same plane and I didn't think I'd fall in love that quickly and he quoted that "any righteous man and woman living the Gospel can have a happy life together" or whatever the quote was. Just kind of funny. They're not helping me focus on my mission, haha.

But luckily Sister Palmer and I are focusing really well. we taught quite a few lessons this week and things are going great. There was another man who showed up at church this Sunday who we'd never met before, Jean-Guy. Turns out one of our members invited him to come and listen to him give a talk. So Jean-Guy came in and asked us if this was the church of Leona. We didn't know that that was the first name of Frere Caron, so we thought he had asked if this was the church with the Liahonas, the French version of the Ensign magazine. And so Sister Palmer responded "Yeah, you can find one in the Library" and he was a little confused. We quickly realized that it was his first time there so we gave him a tour of the chapel, talked about missionary work a bit, and then he stayed for all 3 meetings and participated and really enjoyed them. We're teaching him on Saturday which is really neat. I'm excited :) Denis came to church again and we taught him the second lesson and he's going to work to be baptized...we're going to meet him every Saturday. He said he left our meeting on Saturday (the plan of salvation....we kind of skipped over the veil and turns out that was a HUGE thing for him, haha)and wasn't sure if he wanted to commit himself and if he wanted to keep meeting with us or not, but then he told Frere Angulo yesterday after church that he had thought about it all night long and couldn't stop and kep comparing us to every other church and finding the "catch" but so far he hadn't found one. So he wanted to keep meeting with us every Saturday until he found something wrong or got baptized. So we'll keep meeting with him until he gets baptized, because I'm confident that he won't find anything wrong...this IS the true church and it is led by God Himself. It'll be good :)

Oh, also a funny story: so yesterday we left our DA which was out in Boucherville, an area that I don't really know all that well. It had snowed several inches and the lines on the road were all covered up. So we had to turn left on to this slightly larger road and a car came down it from the direction we were turning and was in the lane I thought we were supposed to be turning into. So I looked a little farther and saw a median and then another opening for the road. So I went, passed the median, and turned into what I thought was my lane on the road. We got stuck and I realized that it wasn't a road, the other person had been driving on the wrong side of the road and we had just turned into a set of train tracks. Sister Palmer got out to try to push and 2 girls pulled over to see if they could help us, but there was nothing they could do so we asked them to leave, and then I just tried backing up and we started to smell burning rubber from our tires on the railroad tracks and then a tow truck pulled up and stopped and the guy got out and told me how to turn my wheels to get myself unstuck. It was definitely an experience....first time I've ever driven on the railroad tracks :)

But it was a fun week and this week is going to be even better. We have a lot of lessons set up already and the area is doing pretty well. I love the members of the ward and I'm so excited to work with them this week! It'll be great. I hope you all have a wonderful week...I love you and Happy Valentine's Day again!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Zero degrees has Never Felt so Warm... :)

The traffic during our 4 hour drive to zone study the other day...the guy in the car next to us facing the wrong direction is the one who contacted us, haha
It snowed a lot and we have to brush all the snow off of the tempo (the driveway tent thing) but it wouldn't come off because it was piled too high on the sides so I had to climb in the snow and shovel it away from the sides of the tempo so that we could get it off the top. It was DEEP. I was literally up to my waist in snow,...crazy.
Again, shoveling snow...oh Canada :)



Me, Sister Palmer, and Elder Foster with the cake we made him
Me and Sister Palmer in front of the temple a little while ago


Hey everyone!

This week was an interesting week...the weather changed midway through and went from huge snowstorms on Wednesday to sunny skies and above freezing on Saturday and Sunday...so nice! We did get a TON of snow though on Wednesday. We left our house at about 10:15 to go to our zone study in Mont St. Hilaire which is usually about a 30 minute drive, so we decided we'd be just a little bit late. Then we got lost and started going the wrong direction, turned around and the road disappeared in this huge whiteout, but we finally found the right interstate and started heading down to our zone study. At the beginning we were about 10 cars behind this row of snowplows (3 of them slightly staggered so they could plow the whole thing at once) and we were crawling along at about 40 km/h when the speed limit is normally either 80 or 100 kmh. But we were grateful they were plowing the roads, so we didn't complain and just called to tell the zone leaders we would be a bit late. Then somehow we were right behind the snowplows and they came to a complete stop in the middle of the interstate. We waited behind them for about 20 minutes without moving and then people started trying to pass them so they moved over and set up a whole blockade so no one could get through. Then police officers and about 3 ambulances went zipping down the side of the road and a bit later the snowplows all turned around and left. There was a huge gap in between us and the cars that had been stopped in front of us (they must have been there awhile because most of the cars were turned off and covered in snow) but a fireman came down and told us not to fill in the gap but to wait where we were and that it might be another 2 to 4 hours sitting in the traffic before they got everything cleared up. It was crazy. Cars started turning around and goign the wrong direction down the side of the road to try and get off so for awhile there were cars turned every which way on the street. We finally turned around and they redirected us to another road and we decided it wouldn't be worth it to go to the zone study (they had put us on a conference call and we were listening to the trainings over the phone) so we tried following the map to get back home (by that time it was about 1:30 so we'd been in the car for 3 hours). We were driving along, had no clue where we were, and then turned a corner and there was Mont St. Hilaire. crazy. So we met the elders and had lunch with them :) Then they gave us directions to get back but with traffic and bad directions we ended up taking another 2 hours to get home...so we were in the car for a total of 6 hours that day. It was insane. Probably NOT the most productive of days.... :) But we did contact a guy in the car next to us (or rather, he contacted us) and we got his number and then he scraped our windshield. Pretty funny.

But then also this week we taught Joseph twice and it is just such a sad situation. He wants so much to get baptized and come to church, but his wife won't even let him come to church. And he's worried about the safety of his kids and of himself, so he's trying to get out of the marriage and out of the house, but he needs custody of his kids first so it's not considered kidnapping, and he's not sure if he wants a divorce or not. But he does want to get baptized and soon. Except we talked with President and he looked up the rules and either Joseph has to get permission from his wife to get baptized or he has to have signed divorce papers, which Brother Gonzalez was telling us it takes a year of separation before you can get a divorce. Crazy, huh? So we're going to keep working with him and try to help him not get discouraged. And prayer always helps...the whole ward is praying for him. And God has a plan..it'll all work out :)

On happier news, Denis came to church again this Sunday! We hadn't talked to him all week because he wanted that time to read the Book of Mormon, so we left him alone, but called him Saturday to invite him to church. He didn't answer, but then on Sunday he just waltzed right in and made himself at home! It was so great :) He stayed for all 3 meetings and LOVED them. We watched the Restoration DVD in Sunday School and the Spirit was so strong...he was really touched. He didn't quite understand why we separated into Relief Society and Priesthood and none of the 15 different explanations we gave him really helped, but he still liked it. Then at our church after church each Sunday there's free bread from a bread shop here in town that just gives to different organizations their leftover bread from the night before, so someone picks it up each Saturday night and brings it to church. We were explaining that to him and he said "Free bread? I MUST be in the true church!" So funny.

And we had interviews this week. it was a bit strange...instead of going to the chapel, President and Sister Cannon came to our apartments. Since we only have the two main rooms (the bedroom, the living room/kitchen area), there weren't very many options for where we could have the interviews. So Sister Cannon stayed with the one not being interviewed in the living room and President came into the bedroom to do the interview. It was a bit strange sitting on Sister Palmer's bed and having him sit on mine. He started out the interview "I see you have your straightener there, and Sister Palmer has her straightener set up over on that little table....glad to see you have enough space to get ready each morning." Just a little different. But it was good; I enjoy talking to them both. So overall, it was a good week.

OH, and I almost forgot: on Saturday we did some door knocking and we met the most interesting people. We had one lady in the first area ask if we had permission to proselyte there and we said yes. She wanted to see our cards so we gave her the ministerial ones that were given to us that say we can proselyte in the province of Quebec and she said we needed another one for Boucherville and she was going to call the police on us. We left the area, but then after-wards we both felt kind of guilty for running away and wished we would've stayed. Oh well. Then we moved to a different area where a man answered the door and he was STRANGE. his name is Andre and he was interested, but it'll be an interesting lesson. We told him about the Book of Mormon and he said "I love Christ. I love to read. And I love the color blue." The book was blue, so we gave it to him. Then he invited us in, but not upstairs where his friends were since it wasn't his house. Instead he invited us into the unfinished basement where he laid a piece of carpet on the floor and wanted to talk to us there, but we weren't really comfortable with that, so instead we got his address (which he whispered to us) and then left. His friends upstairs kept asking what he was doing and he kept saying "just talking!" like a 17 year old who's annoyed with his parents asking what he's doing, and they said he could talk upstairs and he just rolled his eyes. But he's married with a little boy...it'll be interesting. Then we kept knocking and met a guy without a shirt who was nice but not interested. He like shut his door and we were halfway down the sidewalk and he opened it back up and said "but one thing I do love about the Mormons is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir" and then shut it again really fast. Bizarre. Then the next lady asked if we were Temoins and we said no, we were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and she started screaming at us to get off her property and we smiled, said ok, and wished her a good day as we were walking off and she responded with "NO! Get off my property!" We laughed at that one. Then another guy a little while on was really nice and talked to us for about 15 minutes about Quebec politics and how they should separate from Canada and different things and then told us about some great cabane a sucre's that we should go to, and then as we were leaving his wife came out with a plate of fudge that she had just made and asked if we wanted any. I just love being a missionary :)

Anyways, I hope everything is going well back home. I love you all! Thanks for your support! And happy early Valentine's Day :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Transfer news...

Hey everybody!

This week was WONDERFUL...we got our transfer call on Saturday evening and it was kind of crazy...for the first time since I've been on my mission, there were no huge changes. None of the sisters changed. At all. So Sister Palmer and I are still together! We were SO excited about that :) But it's kind of crazy to think of some of the other sisters...This will be Sister Verdeja's 6h transfer in Victoriaville..so nine months out there. And then Sister Rodriguez has been on her mission for 6 months and she's been in the same area with the same companion that entire time...kind of crazy! I guess President said that he wants missionaries to get to know the members and learn to work with them better so he's going to leave missionaries in their areas for 3 to 6 transfers at a time. So in our district, nobody changed at all except for Elder Foster who's going home. There were like 10 teams that changed this transfer...such a switch from the last few transfers where it seemed that every companionship changed. I'm excited though...I love my district and it will be so fun to work with them again!

This last week was really neat. We taught Joseph another 2 times and he is WONDERFUL! One of the times we taught him over at the Groux's house and it was probably the funnest lesson I've had. I got a little distracted (it's just so much fun to play with her kids!) but it was neat for him to go into the home of one of the members and realize that you can have the Spirit in your home as well, not just at the church. And to see that the members really are normal with normal kids who get into things and draw on the walls...we're not perfect and he doesn't need to be perfect to join the church either. As we left he said "That's what I want. That's what I want my family to be like someday." It was really sweet :) And he told us that he got an answer to his prayers....he'd been praying to know if this really was the right church and he really was making the right decision and he had a miracle in which both he and his 4 year old son had a dream in which his grandma who is probably the most important person in his life came to them and confirmed that what he was doing was the right thing. So neat! He told us that and then said because of it, he wanted to move his date up to February 19. So we're going to baptize him this month! The only problem is that his wife doesn't support him tons. He wasn't able to come to church yesterday because his wife wouldn't let him and he didn't want to cause any huge problems. He called us about 30 minutes before church started to tell us that and he sounded like he was about to cry. then we got a call from one of our members last night at 10:30 saying that he had been at church helping his wife set up for seminary for this morning and as they left they saw a car in front of the temple. Thinking that it might be somebody doing graffiti on the temple or something they went over to see who it was. They saw Joseph in his car praying so hard because he didn't know what to do about his wife. It was so touching that he knew he could go to the temple and that he could seek the help of the Lord in knowing what to do in his life, but also so heartbreaking because he wants to much to have a happy family but doesn't know how to do it. We're not sure how best to help him, but we're going to keep praying for him and encouraging him in whatever decision he decides to make. I really hope things work out for him.

Also this week we taught a new investigator named Denis. On Saturday we were smurfed 3 times (meaning the person we were supposed to visit wasn't there), and so we used that time and passed by some other potentials. A lot weren't there or weren't interested anymore, but then we decided to go visit this man Denis, who we had his address and we'd contacted him about a month ago but had completely forgotten who he was. We went to his house and caught him right as he was gettin gout of the shower but he let us in and we taught him a first lesson and he was so interested. He really liked how we didn't push him in to anything or try to convince him that we were right but that we just invited him to pray and find out for himself if it was true. He said he would and he'd read in the Book of mormon but to give him a week or so before coming back so that he had time to read. Then he asked us about church. We gave him all the information and he said he was really interested and then he actually showed up! It was great! We gave him a tour of the chapel and introduced him to some of our favorite members (Sister Groux was wonderful with him...I love introducing people to her, she's so much fun and makes them feel so comfortable!) and he stayed for sacrament meeting. We asked if he wanted to stay for the other meetings but he hadn't anticipated church going so long so he couldn't this week but he said he enjoyed himself and the next time he's going to schedule more time so that he can stay for the whole block. It was really exciting for us :)

Hmmm...what else happened this week? We taught a couple of other people including the grandson of one of our members who seems pretty nice. He's a bit on the quiet side and we tried to give him a picture of Jesus Christ and he wouldn't accept it. Odd. But other than that it was pretty normal...we had a lot of fun together, like usual, and had a great time with the elders. We have wonderful elders in this district. It's crazy to think that I don't have tons of time left with them. Today is Elder Foster's last day in the mission so Sister Palmer and I made him a cake with a Plan of Salvation model on it only instead of premortal existance we put Utah (that's where he's from), we put Canada Montreal Mission instead of the world and the arrow said MTC instead of "birth" and then at the end we put wedding rings since that's what he has to look forward to. It's pretty fun, I'm excited to give it to him later today.

But that's about it for this week. i hope you all have a wonderful week and I love you tons!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

What a beautiful day :)

Hey everyone!

This week was WONDERFUL! :) It was a bit crazy, but it turned out so well!! MAGDA and LUNABELLA got BAPTIZED!!! :) It was SO exciting! It was a bit intense...we taught them a lot last Sunday during church and then taught Magda the Law of Chastity on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we had an hour and a half to teach Luna-Bella the Plan of Salvation, law of chastity, and word of wisdom. It was a bit crazy, but she accepted everything! Then on Wednesday as we were leaving their house Luna came running out of the house and called us back in because her mom was on the phone saying that she had to work all day on Friday after all (her boss and just called her and asked her to...it was the first time that had ever happened and she couldn't say no) and so she couldn't have her interview. So we rescheduled the interview for Saturday morning at 11 and the baptism was at 2. Elder Leavitt came and talked with them both and then President came and talked with Magda and everything went well. We ran home afterwards and finished the little treats we were making (funny story....) and then ran to the baptism which went so well! Everyone showed up late, including the person baptizing them, but that was ok. We had the first talk and everything, Frere Lasso got in the font and just stayed there for like 2 minutes until Sister palmer finally went to go see what had happened to Magda and Luna-Bella...turns out they weren't sure when to go in so they were waiting on a loudspeaker to tell them to enter the water. Pretty funny. Oh, and one hour before the baptism, our ward mission leader (who had done all the planning for the baptism...easiest baptism I've ever seen or heard of) texted us to tell us that he had written down the missionaries on the program to do the talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost. We didn't have time to prepare anything, so I ended up making up a talk on the spot, but it actually turned out pretty well. Sister Poirier, one of the members, came up after me and told me that I was an angel and that as I was speaking, it was as if an angel was speaking. She said "there are angels all around us, and you, you are an angel." It was so sweet :) I just love her. Oh, and in making the treats for the baptism, it was pretty funny...Sister Palmer and I had wanted to make a bouche de Noel for awhile now (it's this cake and ice cream roll thing that they make at Christmastime) so we decided that this gave us the perfect reason to do it. So we made one, but it stuck to the pan way too much and we couldn't even take it out of the pan, so we ended up using it to make cake balls (which miraculously turned out all right!). Then we made another one, but it kind of collapsed and the ice cream melted and it was just a mess, but we put it in the freezer and we're eating it anyways. So we finally decided just to make mini cupcakes and decorate them like a Romanian flag, so we researched the Romanian flag and make them and took them to the baptism and EVERYONE there recognized it as the Romanian flag. It was crazy....Romania is tiny! NO ONE knows what the flag looks like...just every Canadian we talked to. And our zone leaders. Obviously, Boston and West Virginia weren't the best at teaching us to recognize other countries flags....or Sister Palmer and I just didn't pay enough attention :)

So that was a lot of fun. Also this week we had a HUGE miracle! Elder Corbett (one of the assistants) called us to tell us that a man had called the Mission Office and wanted to learn more about our church and he lived in Longueuil. So we called him and set up a lesson with him for Friday morning. Sister Hayward came with us and he is the most prepared person for the Gospel that I have ever met! It was crazy! He has tried about 12 different religions and didn't like any of them, but he came in to our church and said it's the first time that he's actually felt good in a church (we had the rendez-vous at the chapel) and that he felt like he was "coming home." He then went on to tell us that he has some problems with his wife who has decided that she doesn't believe in God anymore and he wont' let her read the Bible or pray in the house at all, so he lied to her about coming to the reunion with us, but he really wants to find a church that he likes and that he feels good in and then bring the rest of his family. So we met with him again this morning and he said that he has a reason to live now; he has a goal to attain. He wants to be baptized. He spent the whole weekend looking things up online, read 4 chapters plus the introduction of the Book of Mormon, and then watched the Restoration DVD 4 times, and he loves it. He's getting baptized in March before I go home...he just has to tell his wife first. But he loves it and kept talking about how we saved his life...I just love missionary work :)

In other news, we're going to the temple tomorrow! I'm SO excited! It's the first time on my mission that I'll be able to go! I really can't wait :) Then on Wednesday we have zone conference...it should be a really good week. I'm excited for it. It's crazy that it's already week 5 of the transfer...not this week but next will be transfer calls...Sister palmer and I are pretty sure we're both staying, but we'll see :) I'm excited for the rest of the transfer with her...I love my companion, I love this ward, and I love our investigators! It's such a wonderful life :) I hope you all are having a great week. Take care! I love you all and I'm so grateful for your support and love. Thanks for everything :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

What a week :)

Hey everyone!

I hope all is going well for you guys...this week was so much fun! It was a bit colder (hovering around -6 Celsius the whole week) so nothing too horrible, but it make tracting a little more difficult. But the week really turned out well. It was really neat...we've been teaching a woman named Magda and her daughter Lunabella for a little while now and this week pretty much revolved around them. They're the ones from Romania who met the church over there and then just randomly showed up in church here one week back when Sister Quist and Sister Morse were here, then they disappeared a bit, then they showed up again and we started teaching them. They came to the Relief Society Christmas dinner awhile ago and came up to us afterwrads and said that they just loved the church and wanted to be baptized. So we started working with them more and set a date for the 15 of January, but about a week ago we realized that we still had to teach them about 5 principles and she works 12 hour days 3 days a week so it might not work out. So we decided to change their date for the 29th because that would be a little easier. We met with them this last Saturday and at the end we gave her a calendar and told her that we were going to change her date to the 29th (it was just Magda, the mom, because the daughter was out with a friend) and she said no. She said she was too impatient and wanted to be baptized this Saturday. We explained how we still had to teach her Follow the Prophet, Chastity, and Tithing (some pretty important ones...we had just finished Word of Wisdom and she had accepted it pretty easily) and she said "Ok, so after church tomorrow you can teach me everything and then on Saturday we'll have the baptism." So we said Ok and now that's what we're working for! We were supposed to teach them after church yesterday but then when they got there they said that they had to leave right after church so we decided to skip Sunday School and teach them follow the prophet and tithing during that hour, but then the Bishop wanted to meet with them for a couple of minutes (he said 5), so we waited for them to finish that meeting. Over an hour later, after RS had started, they came out and then we went with a member of the Bishopric and taught them those 2 principles. I guess the Bishop had already explained everything though because they had asked about the strucutre of the church and then he explained prophets, etc., and then he told them about temples and what we do in the temples and they asked how we got the money for them since everyone is volunteer and he explained tithing, so then when we taught them we asked what she knew about them already and she said she already knew it all and accepted them both really quickly. While they were in the interview we had told the member of the Bishopric (the one who came to the lesson with us, Frere Lasso) that we might change their date anyways because we didn't have time to teach everything and he told us that we shouldn't do that, but we should ask them what they know and if they accept it, then to baptize them anyways. So that's what we did and it worked out! We're going over on Tuesday and teaching them Chastity and then they'll have their interviews on Friday and on Saturday we'll have a baptism for both of them! I'm so excited for them. It really is neat to see how the Lord works to prepare His children. If they are prepared and they feel the Spirit, they will accept the principles of His Gospel and they will have that desire to follow Him and obey His commandments so that they can receive those blessings from Him. It's just so neat; I love it :)

Also this week we taught a really great lesson to Ruth. She's the one who was investigating last year and then stopped and then we started teaching again. She comes to church every Sunday and just loves it, but isn't really interested in acting. So we had her study Choice and Accountability this last week and on Thursday we taught a lesson on the importance of choosing. We shared the scripture in Revelations about "I would that ye were hot or cold..." and how we really need to choose instead of being "lukewarm". When we make a decision and start acting on that decision, the Lord can direct us. If it's the right decision, He'll encourage us and let us know that it's good. If it's the wrong decision, He can quickly correct us, if we're open to receiving His revelation. It's when we're stuck in the middle, this lukewarm area, that the Lord really can't help us or give us guidance one way or another. We need to make a choice, act on that choice, and listen for the promptings of the Spirit to know whether the choice we've made is the right one or not. The members we brought with us were great and bore strong testimonies of choosing and the blessings that come from the Gospel. She told us that her choice is not to be baptized. She loves having us come over, but she doesn't think it's right for her to join our church. She doesn't want to "limit" herself, which I found pretty sad because she doesn't realize that this isn't a limitation...this is the WHOLE truth! THIS is how she can receive ALL the blessings that God has for her and more knowledge than she has currently! I wish she would understand that. But we've decided to give her a few weeks. She still came to church this week and we're going to invite her to the baptism, but we're not going to teach her for a little while and we're going to see if she realizes the difference when the Spirit's not in her home as opposed to when we invite it in to her home and maybe the Lord will help guide her, if she's open to the revelations. We'll see. Sometimes it's a bit frustrating how people decide to use their agency, but there's not tons we can do about it. Oh well.

Other than that, the week was just a bunch of funny contacting moments, like always. There was an emergency transfer and we got a new district leader which was interesting...he came in on Wednesday right before district study and still hasn't even unpacked his bags yet...crazy, huh? But it's been fun. I really love our district and I just LOVE this ward. I love working with our members...we have such great people here! We had dinner at the Bishop's house and they are just an incredible family. I told him how well he's doing as a Bishop and how impressed I was with the way the ward here runs as opposed to some of my other areas, and he said he hadn't felt like he'd really been doing that great since his vision is so much higher than what the ward is actually doing, but he has some great desires and some great plans that we're going to present to the ward soon for how to best accomplish the 3-fold mission of the church. One of them is the set-a-date program where each family in the ward picks a date to find someone to introduce to the missionaries by. It's going to be wonderful. I'm so excited to work more with them members! But anyways, I hope all is going well for each of you...I love you all tons! Have a wonderful week and take care :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Hey everyone :)

Hello!

This week was SO much fun! Sister Palmer and I worked so hard, taught a lot of great lessons, and met some really...interesting people, haha. There was one day where we talked to a million people and everyone was either really rude, contacted us through the door (like wouldn't even open the door to say hello), or said something hilarious that we just laughed at. We talked to one guy where he opened the door and he kind of moved backwards and gave us a really funny look, so we both did exactly the same thing and took a step backward and then gave him the same funny look. It was entertaining for us :) Then there was a guy who was talking to us in French who said he knew about Mormons and we asked what he knew and he said he knew about Mr. Smith and the "massacre" only he said it in french and neither of us understood at all and then finally Sister Palmer realized he was talking about a massacre and translated it into English for me (they're spelled the same but I promise the word sounds different when said in French) and I was like "OH, Haun's Mill? Where everyone came and killed the Mormons?" because that was the only thing I could think of and then the guy responds in English in a British accent "Actually, it was the Mormon's that were the killers" and walked away. We just laughed and laughed and laughed. Of all the things to remember from his studies, he remembered the name of Joseph Smith and some random story that most people don't know about. We found it amusing. And then it was also interesting to see how many people HAD to respond when we said "happy New Year." We'd say it at the door as we were leaving and people who had shut the door on us would open the door back up to say "you too." It was really funny :)

And to celebrate the new year we had a lot of fun. One of the recent converts in Lemoyne who we know well and who LOVES sisters was having a party. Or actually, her twin sisters were having their Sweet 16 birthday party and we know the whole family well so they invited us over. Since we couldn't proselyte, we went and had SO much fun. There was a lot of food and we just talked and laughed all night. And by all night I mean until 8:30 when they had birthday cake and Sister Palmer and I left so that we could get home and go to bed early. We got lost a bit, but still made it home on time, toasted at 10:15, and went to bed right afterwards. It was the perfect new year :)

Also, we're teaching a new woman who is really neat. She's been investigating the church for like 3 years since her husband joined but can't give up smoking. She finally decided that she was ready to quit, so we're starting to visit her again. Her name is Isabelle. We talked to her about smoking and Christmas day she only smoked 3 cigarettes as well as the day after she only smoked 3, so we were pretty excited and sure that she could quit by the end of January. Then they called us one time and asked us to come over and do dishes for them (they called and asked for that service and I was shocked...that's the first time that anyone's asked me to do dishes for them as service. I was seriously speechless and Sister Palmer had to take the phone from me in order to answer because I wasn't answering because I didn't know if they were serious or not) and so we went over and did the dishes while she sat at the table and smoked. We asked her how the smoking was going and she said she's cutting it in half and we asked how many that was each day and she said now she's going to only smoke about 25 cigarettes a day...she buys 6 cartons each month, which is like 1200 cigarettes a month. Crazy, huh? But we're going to work with her towards a baptism in April...she knows it's all true, but is just lacking a bit of willpower. But it will be good to work with her :)

Anyways, there were some other things that happened this week, but I can't really think of any too exciting ones. I'll probably remember them after I get home...that's what usually happens. Oh, haha, one of the guys we contacted in the street wanted to meet with us RIGHT THEN, so we followed him on a random goose chase down the street, into a Domino's, out of the domino's, down another street and finally into a Subway just to have him tell us that we were wrong. We started telling the story of the Book of Mormon and he couldn't find a picture or Mormon in it, so he said it couldn't be true. That was another time we just laughed. Oh, and the other day it was so funny: I walked in to our laundry room and saw Sister Palmer doing laundry and she had a HUGE whole in the bottom of her pajamas...it was like 5 inches long. I asked her what happened and then just started laughing and laughing. So we're sitting on the phone a couple of minutes later and telling that story to the elders and I bring my knees up to my chest and hear a huge rip and looked down to see that the whole knee of my pajamas was ripped out. Oh karma. It was so funny though :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all tons!! :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey