M LIKE MARTINE

Hello errybody,

I hope everyone is doing well. It is officially summer over here, which apparently is weird because Canada is supposed to have all 4 seasons, but let me tell you it is HOT and HUMID. And our apartment doesn't have air conditioning.  Every night our bedroom becomes a sauna, and we sit around with our lights off because someone told us when we have the lights on, it makes it hotter. i don't know if that's true or not, but we do it so we may be sitting around like fools in the dark, but at least we think it is cooler than if we had the lights on hahahaha. 

this we we were so busy busy busy. we had a meeting with our relief society president and she gave us so many referrals. we have been trying to contact them all week! little miracles happened when we were able to finally see some less actives in our ward that we had been trying to contact since before i got here. one of them is from iran and over the past month she lost her mother and was in the hospital with a kidney infection. we knocked and knocked on her door, and right when we were about to give up, she opened it! she let us in and sister dexter and i were able to testify of the reality of the plan of salvation. it was such a powerful lesson, the spirit was really working on her. after that she really opened up to us. we were also able to help her fix her hair, which somehow she had accidentally bleached part of the day before...?? not sure how that happened, but she was so embarrassed to go to work the next day and didn't really know what to do. luckily, she had a box of hair dye and it was all one color again in no time. afterwards she said that we made her heart happy and she was feeling much better. 

we have a family from africa in our ward who speak mainly french. it was great when we visited them this week i could practice my french! they have a cute 3 year old daughter named martine and she was sitting next to me the whole time practicing her letters. every single letter she pointed to she thought was the letter "B" but eventually i got her to recognize the letter "M" like "Martine". she has probably forgotten it by now, but it was cute. 

we had fast and testimony meeting this past sunday because we will be having stake conference on sunday. it was such a powerful sacrament meeting. there seemed to be a theme about Heavenly Father answering prayers and the power of prayer. that is definitely one thing i've seen on my mission. Heavenly Father blesses us so much when we pray in faith to Him! i've seen doors open and miracles happen through prayer! 

tomorrow is sister dexter's birthday and so we are having a district activity at the park today. it should be fun! and tomorrow we are having another zone training, and this saturday is transfer calls. we have a busy week ahead of us! 

i love you all!

love,

sister paine 

sososo sorry everyone this is a week late! I was at girls camp from Monday until today so here it is now!! -rachel