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