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