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