Week 65 - Back in France

Hello fam!

So apologies in advance, usually I write this email the night before so I can actually have some kind of coherence, but I had no envie last night so sorry if it's even more random and scatter brained than usual.

This week!

Monday and Tuesday we were on lockdown, Tuesday we started to get pretty slap happy. Played games, I finished packing, got our last frites (got special permission to go out for that one), and basically just completely cracked. It was fun. 

"Last frites in Belgium"

We went to the Redds that night for the JA FHE. They ask the missionaries who are leaving to bear their testimonies or share something they've learned. It was so sad :(.  Four of us were leaving so it was very bittersweet. And to make it worse they sang God be with you till we meet again. They kill me.

Wednesday we got up super early to get to the gare, got to Brussels, got to Paris and met up with Soeur Sabando, got on a train and came up here to Valenciennes!

So Valenciennes. It's basically the summary of what everyone thinks France is, small and quaint, quiet, everyone is at least 60 years old and Catholic. No one understands my French. It's fun. Very different feel from my other villes, but I'm excited to get to finish my mission here. The look of it reminds me a lot of Tours mixed with Liège. But that doesn't really mean anything to you guys haha.

Soeur Sabando is great, probably the chillest start to a companionship, we already know each other and have lived together so we could just get to work. No more awkwardness than is normal in a two-man apartment. It's just quiet and tranquille up here. And super cold. And no matter where you're walking the wind is in your face haha. I don't know how it's possible but that's how it is.

Thursday was really great, got to meet some amis and see more of the ville (we walk everywhere pretty much since there are like literally four bus lines and a tram, I've never used public transport this infrequently). Made a little Thanksgiving dinner for ourselves. Pretty low key, I honestly kind of forgot that it was a holiday haha.

Thanksgiving with my Canadian companion, who tried to convince me that Thanksgiving was in October.

Friday we did missionary work. Went to ward council. Woooohhoop.

Saturday, ditto.

Sunday we went to church and did some porting. Woot. Met some super nice Muslims.

And so like yeah. Voici the week. Full of adventures as you can tell.

I sent a package home with a bunch of clothes I don't wear right now but still want and some chocolate for you guys! Hope it gets there okay!

Love youuuuu
Soeur Hansen

"The wise man that Soeur Corneta gave me from a creche she got-- she was like, I can't keep this, i can't fit it in my suitcases!"

"I found a Care Bears coloring book in my desk when I was cleaning it out. and we'd been on lockdown for four days so..."

Week 64 - Transfer news

Love the Redds! Gonna miss them!

Salut team!

Hope you're all doing just fantastic! Got lots of stuff for you guys this week - not sure that I'll write about all of it but like we'll see :) here we go.Monday we had our zone pday- everybody in Belgium came out to Liège! It was super fun, we played some games and ate some food and wrote some emails. It was a party. This weekend was super weird, we saw our zone Friday for zone conf, Sunday for stake conf and then again on Monday! It was especially weird for us in liege - usually we just feel like were banished over because we see no one haha. So it was a fête.

Tuesday we had district meeting, did some missionary work, went to the Redds for soirée familiale. Went on a hunt to find flowers to take to a member that's really sick- it's remarkably hard to find flowers in Liège!

Wednesday we had a nice long day of finding.

Thursday - did some more finding and then we went to Paris! I had to go pick up my titre de sejour card so we went down and stayed with the Versailles soeurs- Soeur Walton! It was sooo fun. And we definitely went to bed on time... Lol no. Sorry.

Friday - got my titre de sejour! I'm legal! Yay! Then we had a couple of hours to wait until our train, so we went to the Arc de Triomphe and walked on the Champs Elysees! It was POURING all day so that was a bit of a bummer. After that we went and got hot chocolate and waited inside, bought a baguette and then got back on the train to Liège! Soaked and freezing. But it was super fun!

Saturday - got up and did studies, we got a text about 8:30 am that Belgium's security level had been raised, that people in general in Brussels weren't supposed to go outside and that they would keep us posted. About 9 we got a text that we needed to cancel our rdvs and stay inside. Fête. We watched Meet the Mormons, played Uno and organized becauuseeeeeeee...

I'm going to Valenciennes! With Soeur Sabando! Crazy! Soeur Nelson's training for her last transfer and Soeur Facer is going to whitewash into Torcy! Lots of crazy changes this transfer. I'm going back to France!

Funny from Saturday - Soeur Redd texted us that she wanted to bring us something - we were hoping for food since we were a little low haha, she brought us the repertoire (the zls had already called us and told us what was going on with transfers) as well as a bag of clementines, nacho cheese Doritos, and a chocolate cake. Thanks Soeur Redd!

Sunday - church was only sacrament meeting and the branches were combined, so that was kind of fun! It was supposed to be the Primary program for the other branch so they went along with that. There were two primary kids, three that were there but one was too shy to do it with both branches there. And two less active kids had parts but weren't there so their teachers replaced them, pretty funny to see adults get up to give their one sentence and then sit back down. "Les prophets sont appellé par Dieu." [Prophets are called of God] They did a good job. And then Elder Kaonohi sang the closing hymn- "reste avec nous seigneur". [Abide With Me] So so beautiful. He also played the prelude on his ukulele haha. That was
sweet.

But yeah. Spent the day in the apartment again, but avoiding packing. It's crazy to be leaving, I feel like I barely got here! But I'm excited for this next adventure.

Today we're still sort of on lock down, we can't take public transport or go to rdvs unless we have a member drive us there and back. So... Yeah. We got permission to come to the Redds! So we're having our bye bye breakfast.

Love you,

Soeur Hansen

Uno!

Rachel, one of the young adults in the branch

Week 63 - Pray for France

Hello family, first off I love all of you a whole lot and I hope you know it.

Just to start off, I want you to know that we're all safe, the mission is taking good care of us, we're being very careful and praying our hearts out for the people of France.

Just to briefly recap the week - for starters thank you so much for praying for us to find new people! We saw MIRACLES, people popping out all over the place. It's amazing and it's thanks to you! Good job!

This week our zone was focusing on member relationships, so we had the challenge of passing by lots of members this week, with rdvs or just randomly when we were in the area, it was really fun! We've got lots of cool members up here and it's great to be able to take the time to get to know them. We also focused a lot on less actives and were able to see a bunch that we usually see only once in a while and check in on their lives.

Friday we had zone conference and it was really good! Lots of new ideas and inspiration. And we had our interviews with President and Soeur Babin and that's always the BEST. I love those humans so much.

One really incredible thing we're starting as a mission is a 40 day fast to find. The goal is to find a new ami each day from Saturday (14 November) until Christmas Eve, as our gift to the Savior. As a part of it we're praying on the hour to invite the spirit to guide us and looking for ways to become more consecrated and obedient. At the beginning when they announced it, I was pretty skeptical because this isn't the first time we've gotten goals like this that seem impossible. Just to put it in context the standard of excellence for new amis is 3 a week. Which I think I've gotten a total of like 4 times on my mission. So this goal more than doubles the standard which is already a lofty goal. BUT, Soeur Nelson and I have been praying for faith and as we talked about it more during and after zone conference I have felt the strongest confirmation that this is inspired. We're going to see miracles and it's going to do wonders for the mission.

Another thing I loved that President mentioned in my interview was that if we miss a day, and don't find an ami, it doesn't mean we failed. It reminded me of what Dad sent me a letter about a couple months ago - our offering needs to be acceptable, not perfect. Christ is not going to reject our offering if it's only 39 amis or even if it's only 1. Each is a precious soul. So we really can't mess this up.

Saturday morning we heard the news about the attacks on Paris, and like I said we've been praying for France, for the people suffering now because of hate and violence. But I am so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel, for the Prince of Peace and for the chance I have to be here to share these things in this amazing part of the world.

I love all of you! Pray for France.

Soeur Hansen

Week 62 - Oh the places you'll go - Like the Belgium Netherlands Mission

Fam!

I have another train story for ya! But we'll get to that later.

I hope you all had a great week! I had a pretty good one. It was plein d'adventure.

Monday we went to a church that had a little famous super old baptismal font. They recently restored the church building so they made a little video about it- with like 2 minutes about the baptismal font. They're very proud of their video haha, they made sure we got to see it and in English. So that was fun. That night we went to the doctor for Soeur Nelson - same Doctor I went to. Party.

Tuesday we did some LARC hunting, aka we wrote a list of a bunch of people we don't know that live relatively close together and went on a hunt. (LARC is less active/recent convert) Did some porting. The fun never ends!

Wednesday morning we went and saw Kristalina, she's a recent convert, got baptized in February and she's probably one of my absolute favorite people on the planet. She has cancer and is really really sick but she's always so positive and happy, and always happy to see
us and talk about the gospel. Last week she had to be in the hospital in Brussels for tests so we couldn't see her and it was probably one of the sweetest moments of my life when she told us how much she missed getting to talk about the gospel and taking the sacrament. She is an ange.

Then the adventure really begins, Tuesday the STLs got here for exchanges with the other Liège soeurs, and we headed back with them to do our exchanges in Lille Wednesday afternoon. So we had to take a train to Brussels and then connect with another train to Lille. We got to the gare on time, our train was at 15h, and the train out of Brussels was at 16h17, and it would take an hour to get there. But on the platform of our train (which was sitting there with the doors closed) it said "ne pas embarquer" where it should have said Brussels. Stressing. So we talked to a conductor that told us we could take a different train- that one takes an hour and a half because it makes more stops :( long story short we missed our connection, but made it to Brussels.

We went to information and got set up with a new itinerary- got to Ghent and then make the connection to Lille. We would have 15 minutes in between. But then the train to Ghent keeps stopping randomly on the track and sitting. So we roll into the Ghent gare with one minute before our other train leaves. We SPRINT out, find the board that says where all the trains are and SPRINT to our platform, as we got up the escalator the whistle blew, we hopped on and the doors shut behind us - biggest exchange miracle of my life. Ghent is in the other mission where they speak Dutch, most people speak French as well and often English but still miracle that we didn't have to deal with that. So then the conductor comes through to check our tickets and it turns out that this train splits at the second stop, one half goes to Lille and the other doesn't - so at the first stop we got off and ran to the other side.

"after we caught our miracle train to Lille. when it was EMPTY and we panicked"

We made it safe and sound and the train ended up stopping in the city we needed to be for our rdv, so we were only half an hour late! But yeah, what should have been an hour and a half trip ended up being almost four hours.

Missionary work.

Thursday we had exchanges. It was good. :) did some porting.

Friday. Did some planning. Ate with a less active.

Saturday. Did some work

Sunday. Eglise. We were told were singing in the choir for the fête de Noël (they are so excited for this Christmas party, it's literally the only thing they ever plan in advance or get people to work together on) so yeah. I never thought I would participate in so many musical productions. but yeah, rounded out the day with some porting and had another adventure trying to get home tonight. Buses in Liège are not my friends. Especially Sunday nights.

But it all worked out! We made it home safe and sound! So yeah. Those were the most interesting things that happened to me this week!


Everybody pray that Soeur Nelson and I can find some new Amis!

Love you all! But not as much as God does!

Soeur Hansen

"Got creative in the kitchen"

Week 61 - Happy Halloween

Hello fam!

Gonna be honest, not a ton to report for you guys this week, Soeur Nelson was sicky this week so we had to take some time for her to rest up but it was a good week overall!

Monday we had soirée familiale with the single adults, always a party.

Tuesday we went out to a city called Seraing, there are a whole bunch of members out there but very few are active because there used to be a branch there but it closed and they got moved to Liège, so a whole bunch stopped coming :( So we did some searching! And we found one! It was sweet! She wasn't really interested in coming to church at all but we met her so that was cool!

And the rest of the week was pretty boring, we watched 3 movies Friday because we had to stay inside pretty much the whole day... I don't remember the last time I watched a movie that didn't have Joseph Smith, pioneers or an apostle involved. I love church media.

Saturday night the JA [young adults] organized a Halloween fête at the church! It was actually super fun even though it was totally last minute haha. They got really into their costumes, lots of fake blood involved, I was really impressed.






And yesterday was church. Yeah.

Sorry this is so lame, but just know that I love you and I'm grateful for all you do! You guys rule!

Soeur Hansen