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