STACY, WHERE ARE THE CAR KEYS???

dear everyone,

funny thing that happened this week:

about 5 pm on monday evening we hear a man yelling from outside, 

"STACY, WHERE ARE THE CAR KEYS!?"

"STACY!"

"STACY!"

"STACY I`M GOING TO TAKE THE LICENSE PLATES!"

**he walks away**

**comes back with a screw driver**

**it takes him 20 minutes to unscrew the license plate**

"STACY I`VE GOT THE PLATES"

**walks away**

i think he thought we were stacy because he kept looking up at our window, but it was really funny. 

this week we saw many miracles! it`s been a hard couple of weeks because no one wants to see us. all of our investigators have dropped off the face of the planet and when we go contacting in the freezing weather, no one is interested. but we must press on! and we always see many miracles despite what we think isn`t happening. i realize we are blessed with SO many miracles every day. 

thursday all of our appointments cancelled pretty early in the day, but we decided we weren`t going to let that get us down because it was Thanksgiving after all! (remember canadians celebrate thanksgiving in october, not on the right day). so we texted the relief society president and asked if there was anyone in the ward who may need uplifting, and we could start from there and then work in their areas. we originally planned to heart attack the people she gave us to visit, but we noticed that there was a lot of snow, and everyone was out shoveling their driveways. the family we had just heart attacked had little kids, and were really busy and their driveway needed shoveling. we borrowed the snow shovels from the chapel and went to work. everywhere we went, we prayed to find people and we did! we were able to help out some families in our ward who really really needed some love and meet some new people! i had never shoveled snow before and it was fun. i think we ended up doing 6 driveways. one of the members of our ward saw us shoveling his driveway and he was so happy! we wanted to keep it a secret, but at the same time it was a huge tender mercy from Heavenly Father for us to see his gratitude. he really wanted to give us some meat because it was our thanksgiving so we got some chicken out of it, too! haha. no matter what we said he wouldn`t let us not take the chicken. it was a sweet way to spend our thanksgiving. the best way we could show our gratitude was to help others of God`s children! and we had a dinner appointment with one of our favorite families in the ward. it was a wonderful day! 

friday we went to montreal again for a mission leadership council. we have many new guidelines given to us by elder bennett of the seventy that will improve our mission. we also got to see a sneak peak of the christmas initiative put out by the church!!! it is so wonderful! i love how it focuses on serving other because i know that makes us feel better and feel the joy the gospel brings. you can watch the video here:

https://www.mormon.org/

and it`s awesome because every single day we are given little things to do. our acts of service don`t need to be big, but they will touch our lives and the lives of those around us! 

saturday was another wonderful day. we had dinner with a member in our ward from africa and she is hilarious! she is from cote d`ivoire (ivory coast) and made us the best food! plantains are my favorite! the only problem is that every single african or haitian person thinks we don`t eat enough, so they serve us so much food! she literally gave me half the food and sister garcia the other half! and then she sang to us as we ate! it was so funny/awesome. she lived in maryland for over 20 years and was the first french member in the washington d.c. area. she was there when it was just a french group, then became a branch, then a ward. and now they have a whole mission that is french speaking!

later that day we had some plans to pass by 2 of our investigators in a last desperate attempt to see them. and they were all there! we were able to teach them and share the christmas video and initiative and it was really awesome! i am so grateful for the spirit that brings! saturday night we had a lesson set up with a potential investigator and we had sister scott (the senior missionary in our ward) going with us. he cancelled last minute, but our backup plan was to visit a less-active who lived close by. this less active has been pretty hard to get in with because he doesn`t have a phone, and we have tried several times at different points to the day to stop by and we have left multiple notes, etc. we stopped by and he was there! and we were able to teach him with sister scott and invite him to church the next day and he came! it was wonderful!! a big miracle! 

sunday night our stake had a christmas musical fireside but we had some appointments planned so we weren`t originally planning on going. however, they all cancelled, and so we got to go with our less-active. i am so grateful we got to go. it was so beautiful and a great way to kick off the christmas season. 

I AM SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS!!! i love that we have the chance to focus on serving others. there is a quote that i love by president monson, 

"to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven"

i love you all!!

love,

soeur paine 

pictures:

the snow has only begun! just kidding. it`s mostly melted now but it`s still really cold. 

i match the snow!