Hello Sunshine!!

Canada has been a lot nicer this week with the weather! We have had a couple sunny days and it gives me hope that one day there will be springtime in Canada. This week was really great because we had Zone Conference. Which is where all the missionaries in Ottawa get together with President Patrick and the Stake President and different missionaries and the presidents give trainings. This was my first one on my mission and it was really cool! Most of the trainings were on how to strengthen the ward. Which is something every ward can work on. Another training was on how to receive referrals from the members. I never new as a missionary that most of the people you are suppose to be teaching are given to you by members. My impression of a missionary before I was one, was knocking on doors all day. The church has come to find that knocking on doors all day is not effective we are wasting time doing that because as a missionary we are suppose to be teaching. They have put a huge push on member referrals and as a missionary its easy for me to think YES give us referrals because that means less scary street contacting, but lately I have tried to put my self back in my old shoes of being a normal member back home and think how hard it is to introduce your friends to the church. Its very hard to bring up religion sometimes, but I have come to find on my mission that so many people have questions about religion they just do not know who to talk to. Luckily our church has FREE, pretty intelligent missionaries that know a bit about religion. Our most progressing person we are teaching right now is a referral from a member in our ward and he is so awesome and it is because he already has friends in the ward! I would love to challenge everyone this week to bring up religion with one person! I know most of you live in Utah and the first thing you think of is well, everyone I know is Mormon, but I know you can find someone!!  Along with zone conference the whole Ottawa Zone had interviews with President Patrick. I loved my interview so much it was so nice to get to talk to President Patrick about how everything was going. He told me when I got off the plane my first day in the mission I had the normal “deer in the head light” look, but now he said he is amazed because I am so confident and radiant. I told him it was because Sister Houde was such a great trainer!  He asked me if I took advantage with having sister Houde as a francophone companion meaning I had a companion that could speak French fluently. I kind of laughed and said ahhh well.. I tried to! He said good because you will be speaking French soon and I told him well I love Ottawa and I could stay here my whole mission! He looked at me again with his soul staring look and said Sister Dick the Lord called you in French you will be speaking French! I didn’t disagree with that and told him I was excited! This past week it seemed that everyone we talked to had watched Sister Wives this past week and had lovely comments about it. It was a lot of fun trying to defend our selves. I wish some people would realize that the church is more then what you see on Sister Wives and South Park. This past Sunday the Chinese-speaking elders held a Chinese dumpling making get together. It was really cool because who doesn’t love Chinese food and Chinese people! It was super fun and they were delicious! Transfer Calls are this Saturday, but President pretty much told me that Sister Olson and I would be staying because it is her last transfer in the mission, but you never know! Well that’s all for this week HAPPY VALENTINES this week! I love you all

Love,

Sister Dick