Hot and Dangerous

Hello again! Well, another week has rolled by, and I find myself completely thrashed and in need of some hot stone therapy. But! It was a wonderful week full of miracles and blessings, so I'm not going to complain. How is everyone doing? Are you all gearing up for Thanksgiving? I'm JEALOUS! Thanksgiving was soooooo last October out here, so I will be doing my missionary thang like any other day. Anyway, I hope you are all doing just fabulous and that winter isn't treating you too terribly. 

Well, where to begin? This week was so darn stressful that I don't even want to remember what happened. It was full of so many wonderful moments though, so I'll focus on those. On Wednesday night we started our splits with the Sister Training Leaders, which is ALWAYS a party, whether they think it should be or not. Meh. My area, my rules. My favorite Haitian member Flore invited us over for dinner, so I delighted in delicious Haitian food and Haitian honey and blueberry tisane while my companion spent the night finding people to help and love and serve on a bitter Quebec night. Ha ha am I the world's rudest companion or what? ;) The next day I was cruising around in our beautiful red car named Scarlet when SUDDENLY I look into my rearview mirror and I see flashing lights! BUSTED! I have never been so panicked in my life! The other sister and I were both freaking out because we had no idea what I did. We were going the speed limit, following traffic rules, everything. So bizarre. Anyway, this fine, young officer comes up to the window and is all like, "How you doinnnn?" And of course all of my French left me completely. He took my driver's license but wouldn't tell me what was going on! We were sitting there forever in a panic, and I kept asking him what I did and he wouldn't tell me! Apparently it's completely acceptable here for policemen to do that. So he comes back an eternity later and just says, "Have a nice day!" And I was like, "Could you please tell me why you pulled me over!" And he's just all, "Meh, c'est beau!" And I'm just like, "Whaterrrrrr." So strange! Basically I got pulled over for no reason, other than the fact that the police officer was bored and wanted to chat me up. As if! Ohhhhhhh Canada. I guess it's a crime to be sexy here? My bad.

Alright, onto miracles and more spiritual things. Saturday was out of this world, fantastic, possibly one of the best days of my mission. Our ami Guy has been in and out of the hospital the whole time I've been here teaching him, which has made it impossible for him to get baptized. But he's amazing enough to be a Bishop already, and he hasn't even been baptized yet. Well, last week he had a miraculous recovery from his final surgery and left the hospital way sooner than anticipated. So we were sooooo ready to pounce and give him a baptismal date. Everyone kept telling us to make it as soon as possible, because the ward wants to give him a calling. Last week Sister Guevara and I were looking through our calendar trying to decide on a date. I flipped open to December and saw Lily's birthday, December 21st. I said jokingly, "We should totally give him a baptismal date for the 21st of December to make me less sad that I'm missing my little sister's 8th birthday and baptism." But strangely enough, when we prayed for his baptismal date, I felt the strongest feeling that we should plan for the 21st, even though everyone kept saying it should be sooner. I thought, "Maybe I just want this because I want him to be baptized on my little sister's birthday...." The more I thought about it though, and the more Sister Guevara thought about it, it just felt right. So we stuck with that. Well, fast-forward to Saturday. We had been too busy to meet with Guy all week, but we were determined to see him Saturday morning before the baptism of one of the elders' amazing, amazing investigators. His fellowshipper usually isn't available Saturday mornings, but by some miracle her husband let her go and all was settled to meet with Guy. When we got there I was planning to talk about baptism, but I was feeling all nervous and afraid, and I had no idea why. We started with our usual chat, but the whole time I was thinking about changing the lesson to something else because I was afraid. No idea why! Well, I decided to just go for it. I opened up to D&C 20:37, which if you don't know talks about the qualifications for baptism. Guy opened his scriptures and just gave me the biggest smile. So we read it, discussed it, all was well. The Guy said, "I was going to call you this morning and tell you that I wanted to talk about baptism today, but for some reason I didn't. I'm glad that you were following the spirit, because I'm ready to choose my baptismal date." He gets out his calendar. I get out my calendar. He says, "Okay, so... it's in December." And my heart starts racing. And our fellowshipper Sister Vallerand says, "The 14th?" And he says, "No, later." And my heart starts racing even faster. He turns the calendar around and shows me. "I want to be baptized on December 21st. Sister Guevara and I almost fell to the floor! I opened my calendar and showed him the circled date, December 21st. I said, "Guy, we prayed about when you should be baptized, and we recieved the same date." EVERYONE was crying. I have NEVER seen this man cry. The spirit was so remarkable strong. It might have been one of the most powerful experiences of my mission. He was so touched. He said, "If you recieved the 21st, and I recieved the 21st, we know without a doubt that this is what Heavenly Father wants." I'm sorry, but this story is Ensign worthy. Anyway, long story short, Guy finally has a baptismal date! On Lily's birthday! And the Winter Solstice. I think it's absolutely perfect. :)

The rest of the week was great! We were pretty much dead by the end haha. Last night we had a wonderful night with our vegan ami, my favorite member Sister Duchemin, and our boy Pierre. We watched the talk that Elder Holland gave this last G-Con. SO GOOD! Then we sat and laughed about Rob Ford and how awesome Canada is. I really do love this place, and the people here. Why are missions so dang awesome?! Well, I better get going! We're going to try to go to Old Quebec today with the Ste Foy sisters for Soeur Foniciello's birthday. I hope everyone is having a FANTASTIC WEEK! Please remember how much I love, love, love you all! For real, I do. More than I should. It hurts sometimes! Or rather, all the time. Ha ha peace and blessings to you all! Much love. Big hugs.

Love,

Syl