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

I love Christmas :)

Hey everybody!

Christmas here was WONDERFUL! I have eaten more tourtiere (meat pie) and bouche de Noel (these Christmas ice cream/cake logs) than I thought was possible. It was SO fun though. Sister Palmer is my new companion and we are having the best time together. We laugh everyday...I don't think there's been a single day where we haven't laughed for at least half of the day. On Tuesday we met at Berri and went out for poutine (as is the tradition among missionaries) and then came home, unpacked, and went to go teach a new investigator. She's actually been taught by missionaries before (she's the wife of a member) but has smoking problems and has never been able to quit, but has finally decided that right after Christmas (so this week) she's going to stop for good. We're excited to keep teaching her and bring that family closer together so that they can get the blessings of an eternal temple marriage. I'm excited for it :)

We also spent a lot of time with members and less actives this week. It was amazing to me how many people remembered to invite the missionaries over to their houses for Christmas (we got at least 7 invitations, but had to turn quite a few down), but forgot about the other single people in the ward who don't have families nearby. So Christmas Eve we spent visiting with these single less active sisters and trying to help make their Christmas a little better. We had made fudge the other day and put some of that on plates and delivered it to less active families and it was a lot of fun. Then Christmas Eve we went to this Christmas party with a family in our ward and all their relatives and the elders were all invited too and we had such a great time. WE ate all night (including a meat pie made out of moose....yes, I ate moose. crazy) and the traditional turkey dinner. We then went to midnight mass at this Catholic church with the elders and that was an interesting experience that I don't think I'm going to repeat...it took way too much concentration for how tired I was that night to try to follow along and stand up and sit down at all the right times. But it was a fun experience to do once. Then on Christmas day we went to a family in Lemoyne's ward (the elders area) and it turns out that my favorite family in our ward (the Groux's...the ones who she's 23 and a convert and they have 3 girls under the age of 3 and we go to their house like once a week) were there because it's the husband's family. They're from Switzerland and made a traditional Swiss meal which was good, but had some very different-tasting things (like these jello jigglers made out of like chicken bullion) and we were there for several hours and just laughed the whole time. At one point they gave us cookies which we had already eaten way too many other things and so I gave half of my cookie to Sister Palmer who gave her whole cookie to Elder Anderson, who gave it to Elder Helle, who stuck it back on the plate of the man who had given it to us to begin with. The man turned around and asked who had stuck it there and Sister palmer and I both blamed Elder Helle, but he pointed at us and the man thought it was us. It was just so funny though. Probably funnier in person....

Then we went to a second dinner at Sister de Seve's house. She's an older single woman and she had invited another older single woman to come and we were all sitting there and Sister Palmer and I were SO exhausted by that time that we could barely keep our eyes open. She gave us ANOTHER tourtiere (like the 6th one we had eaten that week) and so much more food that we could barely eat. It was SUCH a fun day...we really had a great time this week.

And I'm really looking forward to this transfer with Sister Palmer. She is so much fun...she's a lot like the people that I hang out with back home. And she's SO excited about the work...she goes and talks to everyone and she is so enthusiastic about it that it makes everyone else want to listen to her. I'm so excited. It should be a really good week :)

Anyways, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you have a great New Year! I love you all!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

MERRY CHRISTMAS! :)

Hey everyone!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! What a wonderful season this is! I just love that we get to celebrate Christ's birth and that we know the impact that His birth had on the world. It's so sad to talk with people here sometimes where Christmas has become just a commercialized celebration and they either haven't been taught or don't care to know the real reason that we have this holiday. I love being able to share the message with those that listen that Jesus Christ is our Savior! He was born for us, lived a perfect life to show us the example, and died for each one of us. And then the most exciting part of it all: He was resurrected and He lives today! Because of Him, we CAN return someday and live with our Father in Heaven again. We can be completley pure or all errors that we might make. And we can overcome our weaknesses. I just love that part of this Gospel...it is so full of hope and joy! :) Weare STILL rejoicing in the birth of our Savior just as the angels did on the day He was born. What a wonderful reason to celebrate! :)

Things here are going really well and I'm excited for this next week. We did have transfers and I am staying here in Longueuil but getting a new companion, Sister Palmer. She started her mission 6 weeks ago up in Victoriaville and we were a bit surprised to hear that she was being transferred but even more surprised to find out that Sister Quist was going up to Victoriaville and replacing her, still keeping her 2 other companions (there is a 3 some there now and still will be). But we're both pretty excited about it...it'll be different, but so fun :)

Also this week we had our mission Christmas party and we just had the most amazing time! It started at about 10 in the morning and we got our flu shots first thing (not the best way to start it off, but at least it was over and out of the way) and then we all voted on what movie we wanted to watch. there were 3 options: It's a Beautiful Life, The Bishop's Wife (I'd never heard of that one before), and Toy Story 3. So naturally we picked Toy Story 3 and it was such a good movie! It was kind of strange to be sitting there with a bunch of elders watching a non church movie, but it was a lot of fun. Then the senior couples had all prepared us a fabulous dinner, we had several muscial presentations (one from each zone and then one or two others) and then we had a qhite elephant gift exchange. There were some random presents that were given...but it was a lot of fun. The funniest was our assistant to the president, Elder Corbett. Everyone teases him mercilessly about how he looks like Jacob from Twilight (and he really does look a lot like him) and so he opened his present and it was a poster of Jacob from Twilight. SO funny. Everyone was laughing and he posed for about a million pictures with his poster. I loved it. Then after that we had a quick visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus who gave us each presents before we headed home. The whole party ended at about 4 in the afternoon and we all just loved it.

So that was probably the highlight of the week, but we had some other good things as well. We had several DA's...several members from the Greenfield Park ward invited us out to eat with the sisters from that ward so we went to a really nice Chinese restaurant and a great Italian one. Then we also went to the Elders Christmas party in Lemoyne because they had a recent convert who wanted us to come. It was so much fun. In between all of that, we did teach several lessons and met some great people, unfortunately most of them are going out of town for the holidays, but we'll see them when we get back :) And we've been opening your presents everyday Mom...thanks so much! it's always so fun every morning to look up the scriptures and then try and guess what the presents are. We've done a pretty good job of guessing them so far...there are some really clever ones. Thanks so much :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week and an incredible Christmas...we do have such a great reason to celebrate this Holiday season :) I love you all tons!!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

On the first day of Christmas.... :)

Hey everyone!

How are you? How was your week? This week was really fun...it started off with a wonderful but incredibly exhausting P-day last Monday. We've been wanting to climb Mount Saint Hilaire for a little while, so we all drove out to St Hilaire (the zone leaders area) and did emails, went out to eat, and then went to go climb the mountain. it was kind of crazy though, while we were eating it started snowing TONS. We decided to climb the mountain anyways though and just take the shorter route, but then that route was closed and so we ended up taking the longer one. It was likte 5 kilometers which wouldn't have been too bad, but by the time we got to the top the snow was like 5 inches deep. it was SO much fun though. We had a great time. We were all pretty exhausted when we got back, but it was definitely worth it.

Other than that, this week was pretty uneventful. We taught a couple of people and had our ward Christmas party which was really fun. We taught Magda (the woman from Romania) and committed her to be baptized in January. It was so exciting! She has a daughter who wants to get baptized at the same time, but we have to teach her a little bit more first. I'm so excited for them...they're wonderful. Then we taught Ruth and she came to the ward Christmas party and LOVED it and then came to church and just had a really great time. She's doing really well.

Also this week we went on splits with the Greenfield Park Sisters (Sister Cottrell and Sister Tschumi) and so Sister Tschumi came here with me and we worked together for a day and it was just so much fun. I haven't really seen her very much since I trained her back like 4 transfers ago, so it was fun to be with her and catch up. We were laughing the entire time and just had a great day together finding and teaching people. We met a really interesting man...I've realized again how little clothing people wear here. We had several who opened the doors without pants on...so bizarre. But it was a lot of fun :)

We also had the chance to visit with a lot of our members this week which was really neat. I just love working with the members and we have some really neat people in this ward. I love them and I'm so excited to work even more with them! One of our members, SIster Groux, invited us over and we talked with her for a LONG time. She has 3 daughters all under the age of 3, and they're so cute! I just love that family. Transfer calls are this Saturday adn I'm almost positive that I'm staying here and I'm so excited...it'll be fun to work here for at least another 6 weeks and get to know the members even more and keep working with our investigators.

Then this week we're having a Christmas program for all the missionaries...we're meeting up with the IDM zone (so the one I was just in last transfer) and the Quebec zone and we're spending the entire day together playing games and singing songs and doing all kinds of things. I'm so excited...it should be a lot of fun this Christmas. I hope everything is going well for you back home...I love you all tons and I'm so grateful for all your love and support! thank you for all that you do :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Hey mom!

Thanks so much for you letter! I`m going to write you a real quick one now and then I`ll write a bigger one to everyone and then hopefully I`ll still have time left to write you another one. But I wanted to let you know that I DID get your packages! Thank you SO much! They came on Tuesday night and it was kind of funny, the woman we live with (Grandma) said that she signed for them but then realized she didn`t know who Nicole Lindsey was and so she almost sent them back, but then luckily we decided to go visit her that evening and as an afterthought I warned her about the packages that were coming and she said that they had just come! I wasn`t expecting them for another week or so, but they came really fast this year. Thank you so much! We started looking up scriptures almost immediately and there are some that we got pretty quickly and others that it took us a lot longer to understand. Like the toothbrush one was pretty easy...`cleanliness of teeth"! How did you find that scripture? And did you find the scripture for the package or did you find the scripture first and then decide to send toothbrushes? Pretty funny. There are some really good ones...we opened the first presents today and it was so exciting! thanks so much for the gingerbread house and candle...we're going to have a blast this Christmas :) I love you tons and I'll write more later!

Love, Nicole

Christmas bells are ringing... :)

Hey everybody!

This week was SUCH a wonderful week! We had zone conference on Tuesday which is always fun and it just started out the week well. Then afterwards on Tuesday afternoon we went and blitzed the elders area a bit and ate with them and then went out and met a really neat girl while knocking named Victoria. She's 17, studying to be a dentist, and has already met with the missionaries (a long time ago) and is really interested in learning more. I'm way excited to keep teaching her.

On Wednesday we went out to eat with the Hochelaga sisters (Sister Davis and Sister Hamula) and I just LOVE them! They are so much fun...Sister Hamula and I have been talking about how much fun it would be to serve together...maybe someday we'll be companions! We did a lot of knocking doors this week, which was good, and got to have a couple of dinners with some of our members which was also a lot of fun. It's really neat to get to know them better and see them in a home setting instead of just at church...I really love it :) We also had a Relief Society dinner on Thursday and that was way fun...we spent all day decorating for it and then we were there for a couple of hours and it was just a lot of fun to be there with all of the other women in the congregation. We had several investigators who came and just loved it, so that was good. 2 of them (Magda and Lunabella) decided that they just loved our church so much that they want to get baptized and they came and asked us how to do that. So we're going to keep meeting with them and set a date at some point in time...I'm pretty excited about it :)

The best part of this week though was definitely on Saturday...we went to the temple with Lyse! Haha, we thought we were doing baptisms at 9:30 though so we got to the temple at 9 and met up with Sister Leonard and Sister Rodriguez, then found out that the bus from Quebec wasn't coming until later because they weren't starting the baptisms until 11. So we sat and talked with the other sisters for about an hour and I love them so much...it was so fun to catch up with Sister Leonard. while we were waiting we also called Elder Coronado, one of the elders who was Sister Leonard's and my zone leader when I was in hochelaga who is now in Quebec and talked with him for a bit, and he said how we were legends up there in Quebec...everyone loves us. It was SO neat to be able to see them all again and to look around and realize how much I love those people. I saw Lyse (which was SO amazing!) as she did baptisms for her family and it was so exciting to realize that she has been able to keep her baptismal covenants since her baptism and is still so strong in her faith..I just love it. And to know that she's now been the means of bringing even more of her relatives into the Gospel...so neat. I was all set and ready to take care of her as well, but we walked in to the temple and the members were already doing such a good job leading her around and taking care of her that I realized that she didn't really need me there. But it was still SUCH a great experience to be there and to have those memories of Quebec...I LOVE Quebec.

Then church yesterday was fun. We were asked on Thursday evening to give the RS lesson in church on missionary work, so we toodk some time on Saturday to prepare the lesson and it went SO well. We were so grateful...it is really incredible to see how much the Lord blesses us each week...I really just love being on a mission. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas :)

Hey everybody! :)

It started snowing this week! It was really fun until I realized that I'd left the boots I bought last year up in the Hochelaga apartment...but the sisters are bringing them down with them to Zone conference tomorrow so I'll have them again soon. :) But it's been sucha fun week...there are Christmas decorations up everywhere and Grandma (the woman we live with...we live in her basement) has put up decorations ALL around her house and in her yard, including a 4 foot tall plastic Santa that sings Christmas songs nonstop. It's fun :) Also, since it's almost Christmas time, we're allowed to start listening to Christmas CDs in the car and it's been so fun to hear all the Christmas music. I just love Christmas! We're having a Christmas party for Relief Society this thursday and another one the following Saturday for the whole ward...it should be so fun!

This week was good with Thanksgiving and everything. We had a district study with Elder Helle giving his first ever district study. He was SO nervous, but he did such a wonderful job! We talked about love/charity and how really we are out here because we love the people here. He talked about loving them in to the Gospel and how they really need to be able to feel that love of the Savior through us as they're investigating the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was really powerful. For Thanksgiving day, we didn't have any invitations over for dinner (since the Canadian thanksgiving was about a month ago and nobody in Quebec really celebrates it and we don't have any Americans in our ward), so we had our own little Thanksgiving dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and an apple pie that one of the women in our ward had given to us. We were going to make a pumpkin one, but ran out of time. Then we thought about buying a turkey but they were ridiculously expensive, so we bought ham instead. It's the first time I've ever really cooked ham and Sister Quist doesn't really cook at all, so it was an adventure, but it turned out really well :) It was so fun.

I don't have tons of time left on here so I'm not going to be able to give tons of details about who we taught, but we had some really neat lessons. We decided that we needed to work more with less actives, so we called this one couple several times and left 2 messages, but they never called us back. Then they showed up to church for the first time in over a year and intorduced themselves to me first thing and both of them said (one right after another) "Hi, we're the Rouabah family. You called us and left 2 messages but we were too busy to call back, but we're here now!" it was kind of funny. They still didn't set up a time to see us, but at least we know who they are now and they were at church socializing with people! Ruth came to church for the second week in a row, and it went really well. She stayed all 3 meetings and there were SO many people who were there fellowshipping her. She really loved it. We're going to see her again this Thursday and then we're hoping she comes to the RS Christmas party. We'll see. We also visited another less active yesterday after church who PROMISED us she'd be at church this next Sunday. It was such an odd lesson though...we had given her a challenge the last time we were there to read in the Book of Mormon (she reads it every day even though she hasn't been to church in like 3 years...usually less actives stop reading it too) and make a list of all the blessings that she sees. She did and then she told us her favorite one and then one she wants: to be part of the first Resurrection and to be there when Christ comes again. We told her that to do that, she needed to obey the commandments. She knows that. And we read several other scriptures about blessings that come through obedience, and she knows it all and knows she needs to start coming back to church to take the sacrament and renew her baptismal covenant, but she doesn't want to because she doesn't feel important. We're not quite sure what to do. But she promised she'd come this time, so we'll see.

But that's about all the time I have on here for now...it was a wonderful week, and I think this one will be even better! I love you all! Thank you so much for your support...you are wonderful. Have a great week!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey everyone!

This week was a really fun week...I really enjoyed myself. I just love Longueuil and I especially love the elders in my district...they are SO much fun! We started the week off with P-day with the rest of our district last week and we didn't really do anything special; just spent the day together as a group. Then we went and had an amazing second lesson with an investigator, Sun, who was a member referral from a less active. It was a really good lesson. We're going to teach her again tonight and I'm excited for it. Both her and the less active have little boys (ages 3 and 2) and so the lesson was a little crazy, but it was fun.

Then on Tuesday we had our interviews and that was really neat. I just love interviews...I enjoy talking to President. He told me that our spiritual progression is kind of like building a pyramid. This might be a little hard to follow (it was when he explained it), but afterwards it made a lot of sense. He said that we're here and we have to build the pyramid up layer by layer. The Spirit will come and confirm that the layer we just built is good and that we're doing a good job, but often as missionaries (and probably people in general) we feel that prompting telling us that what we're doing is pleasing to the Lord and we say "yes, that's all nice, but I want to be at the top" and we kind of brush aside the inspiration telling us that where we are right then is where the Lord wants us to be. It was really a good analogy for me, after I thought about it awhile and it made more sense, haha.

Also this week we taught a woman named Natasha who is WONDERFUl. She is a single mother of 5 children. The youngest is 2 years old and has Turnerès disease and her husband actually left her because he didn't want to take care of a handicapped child. So now she's taking care of all of them, and she's doing an amazing job. She's always so cheerful. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and we shared the scripture about without misery, we couldn't know joy; we need opposition in everything, and she said "so for people like me who have seen lots of misery, we can also recognize the joy more easily if we want to...that's probably why I'm so cheerful all the time." It was just a neat lesson. She is SO cheerful all the time...i love teaching her :) We also taught another woman named Ruth who was so sweet and the lesson was really spiritual, but Sister Quist said the lessons with her are always like that and she never really wants to act. But then she did come to church yesterday and the whole Sacrament and SS was on faith and hope, and she was crying throughout the whole thing. It really touched her. We're going to see her again this week, so we'll see what she's thinking a little bit more at that point. We also taught a woman from Romania, Magda, who met the church there and went 5 or 6 times, but never met with the missionaries. Sister Quist taught her once but then she disappeared and then last Sunday she randomly showed up at church again. We taught her with one of our progressing less actives and the lesson went really well. I'm excited to keep teaching her. This area is a lot different from hochelaga, but there is a lot of potential.

Also, last night we had a somewhat last minute fireside. It was so crazy...a week and a half ago our bishopric got an email saying that the General Primary President (I forgot her name...oops), Sister Dalton the General Young Women's president, and Sister Allred from the General Relief Society Presidency were coming to do a training and firesides. We didn't get to go to the training, but the fireside was in the Longueuil building, so we went last night and listened to Sister Allred, and it was really inspiring. First I got to see a ton of people from the Quebec Ward and it was so much fun to catch up with all of them...I really do love that ward and the people there. BUt anyways, Sister Allred talked a lot about fellowshipping recent converts and talked about how she had visited a recent convert family of 3 months in Guatemala (I think) and talked with them. They mentioned how they had Family home evening each Monday and she asked how they knew what to do for it and the dad said they didn't know what to do for it, but they had heard they should have it, so each Sunday he made a list of the things that he had questions about while at church and Monday night they would look up all those topics in the scriptures and that was their FHE. She told them other things they could do (sing songs, play games, etc.) and they were so excited. Then she mentioned another girl who was a recent convert but had never been to RS before. Sister Allred invited her to go, and she said she didn't know what relief society was. She had shown up on time for the meeting at 9, but didn't know what to do that first hour, so she'd always joined another sunday school class for another ward and thought that that was relief society. We do need to take the time to make sure that investigators and recent converts understand different things that we might find to be obvious or habitual because they probably don't know tons about them. She also then talked about the importance of Family prayer and family scripture study everyday and how that does make a huge difference. She said something that I really liked too. She said (and I paraphrase): "We've heard over and over again how the Lord has reserved the strong and choice spirits to come to earth at this time to live in this world with all of the temptations around us. I also believe that with that, God has reserved and sent forth spirits just as strong and just as valiant to be the parents of those choice spirits, to raise them and teach them the things that they need to know to live in this world." it was really powerful. Thank you so much, Mom and Dad, for raising me right and for helping me to realize the importance of those high moral values. I realized just how lucky I am to have parents who have always supported me and who have taught me the importance of the Gospel principles. Thank you so much.

I love this Gospel. I love being able to share it everyday. I love seeing the joy and peace that comes into the lives of others when they give their will up to our Father in Heaven adn make the decision to follow HIm in every way. And I love being able to do that myself. thank you all for your love and support; you are wonderful. Have a wonderful week and a happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

First week in Longueuil :)

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing? Things here are going great....the first week in my new area! Longueuil reminds me a lot of Quebec...it's about the same style of work with lots of knocking and no metros. I love it :) The ward seems really great. We went to PEC the first Wednesday that we were here and I was amazed by how on top of things the ward is. They were talking about visiting teaching, home teaching, and how to help each one of the members that might need help; you know, all the things they're supposed to do during PEC. It was a big change from Hochelaga where they weren't quite as on top of things. Plus, it is RIGHT next to the temple. Like, we share a parking lot with the temple. It's pretty little, but beautiful. I'm just hoping that I get to go in at some time....eventually I'm sure I will :)

I don't have tons to say about this week...not tons happened. I love my companion, Sister Quist. She's from Utah and has a big family, and is so sweet. She's also extremely tall...like 6 feet. I just love her. And Sister Morse came back with her family adn we spent Saturday night talking to them and that was so fun. I just love her :) She was my second companion here and I have a lot of respect for her. It's kind of crazy to think that she's done with her mission already and that I'm now the oldest sister in the mission...so crazy!

There's not tons going on in the area right now. The sisters spent the last week of last transfer up in Quebec city for the symposium so they didn't get a chance to find anyone and they didn't get anything set up for this past week at all. And I guess things have been a bit slower anyways in the area. But we went finding a lot and found quite a few new potentials that I'm excited to teach...it should be great :) Oh, and then last night we had a dinner appointment with the zone leaders. it was with a family in the spanish branch here (they don't have missionaries in their branch) and it was a birthday party for their 20 year old twins so they had a TON of people that were over there and we ate and then had a family home evening with them. It was a lot of fun, but kind of strange. They came in and we were going to start eating, and then the dad came and said something in Spanish that we didn't understand at all so Sister Quist and I just sat there and smiled. Then we asked the elders to translate for us and they said the dad had banished us to this other room to eat our dinner and had asked for volunteers to go eat with us so we wouldn't be paired off and no one volunteered. They said it was the most awkward thing ever, haha. It was so pretty funny. So we sat in a room by ourselves with 3 other girls who came and sat by us. Then we tried to play the game with them but part of it involved putting lipstick lines on our face and they told us that that was face painting and we couldn't participate. It's kind of funny the idea that people have of the missionaries sometimes. But it's been a fun week and I'm excited to work in the ward. I hope everything is going well for you all and I love you tons! :) Take care!

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey

Starting transfer 10...SO crazy!

the Giles, Sister Davis, and I :) after district study one day


at the botanical gardens


me with the cupcakes we made for gary! haha, the frosting was too thin though and it all slid off before we got them to him...



sisters and the zone leaders at the botanical gardens - Sister Rodriguez, Leonard, me, Sister Davis, Elder Coronado (back), Elder de la torre (front)


Sister Davis, Sister bourassa, and myself

Hey everyone :)

So...transfer calls came! And I am being transferred. We weren't sure what to expect...Sister Davis and I had our little "sisterland" hanging on the wall and tried to figure out what was going to happen with the sisters for transfers and we were completely wrong. So I am going to Longueuil, another French speaking family ward just south of the island of Montreal, with Sister Quist, and it should be a lot of fun. I'm going to miss this zone so much though! Elder de la Torre, Elder Bourdon, Sister Leonard - the people that I've been with since I've been in Quebec. But I am realyl excited. It'll be fun to stay in French speaking and keep improving that. it was so sweet: we said goodbye to Elder and Sister Giles yesterday (they invited su over to lunch) and they were just so sweet. I told them that I was staying French and they were SO excited for me. Sister giles mentioned how Elder Giles keeps telling what Ia talent I have for French...he said that people can just understand me - what I say, they way I explain it. It was so sweet :) I just love them.

Other things going on this trasnfer for anyone who might be interested: Elder Bourdon is going zone leader in Rive Nord and Elder Sybrowsky is the other zone leader there, but they're not companions; they're both getting greenies. Elder Smedley is training (it's his 2nd transfer) and Elder Coronado is going up to Quebec! He's not thrilled, but I'm SO excited for him :) The sisters stayed pretty much the same except for me, then Sister Hamula is coming here with Sister Davis (they will have SUCH a great time) and Sister Fletcher and Sister Verdeja are both getting greenies. It should be a good transfer.

This week was an interesting week: we taught several lessons, but I ended up being sick in bed for about 3 days and we didn't get tons of contacting done. Lucie is still doing wonderful and she came to a baptism yesterday right after Stake conference for the Joliette branch and LOVED it. She's so ready for her baptism. We taught Felipe the word of Wisdom, and he accepted it without any problems. He scared us a bit though at first by saying "I can give up the coffee, that's not a problem, but I CAN'T give up the drugs." We didn't quite know what to say until he started laughing. Then last night we FINALLY got a hold of Gary. We drove by his house and then i called him and at first he said he didn't have time but then I told him that I was leaving and needed his address and he let us in. The sisters are going to back and visit him again in a couple of days. I just love the people here; I am going to miss them. But from what I've heard, Longeueil is a wonderful ward, so hopefully that will be just as great :)

Other than that, I can't think of tons of things to say about this week. haha, yesterday during stake conference, the kids in front of us were OUT OF CONTROL. Sister Davis doesn't have any younger brothers and sisters, just older ones, and she kept saying how her children will never act like that. i just laughed. But then it was so funny: we had made a cheesecake for the baptism and we went in to get it right after the baptism for the little refreshments part and it had already been mostly eaten! Definitely the work of at least one little 2 year old :) And I could just picture a mom coming in and seeing him and panicking a little bit because he had eaten the entire middle out of our cake. It was SO funny...we took pictures and I'll try to send them to you next week :)

Anyways, I hope all is going well with you...I love you all tons! Have a wonderful week! :)

Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey