Week 60 - "These are our plains"

Family! Hullllooooo!

Well alors this week- honesty racking my brain about what to tell you guys, we did lots of missionary work. So yeah.

Monday there was a bus strike, so weird to see Liège without buses. The next morning when we got up and could hear them outside our
apartment again it was so reassuring. Some people have security blankets or good luck charms, we have loud yellow buses.




Tuesday we went to Brussels for a conference with Elder Kearon (President of the interregion) Sister Burton and Sister Oscarson! It was wonderful! We got to hear President and Soeur Babin speak English. They both speak really well but we don't hear it very often- so cute, especially President saying "Oscarson", that one wasn't easy. It was our zone and the Lille zone, so about fifty missionaries. So so good. I loved Elder Keaton's talk, his wife spoke for a few minutes about his conversion story which was really neat - and then he just gave us a pep talk haha we've been quoting his one liners all week "these are our plains!" And "we thrive on adversity!" Whenever we were like walking somewhere or we got frudged we would just say "these are our plains!"

The rest of the week we just worked. A lot. Like always. We're both old and sage so we're trying really hard to make this a transfer where we just get going and take everything we know and work as hard and as smart as possible. I really like Soeur Nelson, she's just easygoing and she is down for anything so it's super easy to teach her the ville.

One focus of ours is to be really efficient with our time- if we have an hour we can go contacting instead of doing a random pass by to avoid doing finding. I mean sometimes we need to do pass bys but we're trying to find new people and the way to accomplish that goal is by doing finding so we're trying to be disciplined and yeah. That's the goal.

So on that note one experience I wanted to share with you guys - it's been on my mind this week. I think it was Wednesday or Thursday I don't remember honestly but we were walking somewhere and we had a little time so we were contacting and we stopped this lady and she was like tout de suite on the defensive and tried to wave us off by saying she wasn't believing (little do they know we want to talk to everyone, not just believing people!) but since she was belge she was nice enough to stop for a second when we asked her a little more. She shared with us briefly some of the trials she's had in her life and that they make her feel like there's no God. You could just see how much pain she was in, so we testified in the quick second we had with her that God loved her and had a plan for her, and that we can all find hope and peace through Jesus Christ.

We have experiences like that pretty frequently - people aren't always willing to stop or hear us out but like more or less, we contact a lot - but for some reason that experience has been on my mind. It made me reflect on how much God really does love us individually and personally. He loves that woman we talked to and He wanted her to know 

that.

Yeah. Getting deep over here.

I love you guys! Have a great week! Remember you are loved!

Soeur Hansen

In the words of Sister Burton "It's a Korean thing"

Week 59 - Better than ever and the best is yet to come

New companion, Soeur Nelson

Hello family!

I love you all. I'm just going to start off with that! You're
beautiful people. I'm so glad I'm related to you.

This week was really good - full of adventures as usual!

It was Soeur Archbold's last couple days here so we spent Monday and Tuesday running around saying goodbye to people. Monday night this super awesome family had us over for dinner. In our mission we're allowed to stay an hour an a half for mangez-vous. So we get to their house at 7, planning to leave at 8:30, perfect amount of time to get
home... We started eating at 8:20... Haha we got there and the mom was still cooking, one of the daughters wasn't there yet yada yada and we ended up hanging out with Rachel, their other daughter who's a JA [young adult] and is awesome. I love her. So like it was fun. And we got home before 9:30!!

Tuesday we said goodbye some more.

Wednesday we got up WAY too early to get to the gare and catch a train to Brussels. Soeur Sabando and Soeur Archbold were transferred and Soeur Facer had to go pick up her bleue, so they all went to Paris and I got babysat by some elders in Brussels. Since I was there we couldn't really do much (we couldn't like go contacting in a group of 5) so we were tourists! We went to the Atomium and the Neuhaus chocolate factory where you can get free samples. 

My babysitters in Brussels

Unfortunately I was kind of sick. I ended up calling the mission nurse because and she told me I needed to see a doctor and get a prescription tout suite. So that was fun. Haha I was like "hey...so...I've got to go to the hospital..." Haha we called the senior couple in Brussels and they got me over to urgent care which took FOREVER they seriously just dumped me in a back room to wait for the doctor for like and hour and a half. The Norbys finally came back to check on me because they were worried - I took a nap because I was feeling super nauseated from my migraine. It was bad.

But funny memory now! We went to their apartment and ate, I took a nap and they left to go get Soeur Nelson at the gare while I was asleep. We decided that we should just stay the night in Brussels because I really didn't feel up to taking the train. So we had a sleepover!

It was pretty funny when we called the Norbys though, the elders were like "we need to take Soeur Hansen to the hospital.... We didn't do anything! She was already sick!" Worst babysitters ever.

The Norbys are wonderful. They've been out about a month and they're so ready to work. He was the mission president in Côte d'Ivoire a few years ago and they're just wonderful people. Took such good care of us. And Soeur Norby gave us her extra European blow dryer! Score! All the ones we had were American and have blown up.

Everyone: serve a senior couple mission. You get to hang out with missionaries and save the day.

Thursday we came back to Liège. Not nearly as exciting. Helped set up for the Porte Ouverte.

Friday. Nothing special.

Elder Kaonohi from Hawaii - the Porte Ouverte

Saturday! Porte Ouverte! [Open House] Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the chapel in Liège. It was really cool. The Redds were in charge of it and they did a great job. There were hundreds of pictures and little videos of activities and people, the construction, missionaries, and all kinds of stuff about the chapel over the last 50 years! Super cool. And there were tons of people which I know Elder Redd was worried about, but lots and lots of less actives came and a bunch came to church the next day too! So great. We even had some people from the neighborhood come that we'd invited - the four equipes did porting with invitations and people came!! It was so cool! Way to go Redds.

Sunday. Church. Weekly planning. Our plans changed like a thousand times so it was a little stressful but it all turned out good. Forgot to send in our stats so the DL had to text us- Soeur Facer teased us about that one "you guys are in your 10th and 11th transfers!!" Haha whoops.

Yep so that was the week! Lots of fun, I love Soeur Nelson. One of our transfer goals is to fête chaque jour. [Party every day]


Better than ever and the best is yet to come.

Soeur Hansen ✌

Our new team of Liège sisters

At the Atomium in Brussels

Week 58 - Somehow it all works out

"Portland Temple!!"

Hello fam!

How was your week? Mine was pretty good. So I'm sending you an email to tell you all about it. Well like actually I'm going to tell you about like 5% of it but that's about all I can handle typing up and trying to organize as coherent and hopefully uplifting insights from a missionary.

Monday we went to Brussels with the Redds :) then the single adults soirée familiale at the church. Good stuff.

Tuesday we had district meeting and then did mini exchanges! I spent the day with Soeur Facer and Soeur Archbold went with Souer Sabando. It was super fun, went out in Liège 2's sector and found some less actives. Always fun to change it up a little!

Wednesday we called everyone on the ward repertoire to invite them to the open house that's on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the chapel here. Woot. I love the phone. Especially when we call old people that don't understand our accents- "je ne comprends pas" - ["I don't understand'] worst phrase ever to hear on the phone.

Thursday weeee did some missionary work. Went up to the church for something and when we got there the elders were talking to a little Korean lady outside- turns out she had just stopped her car to come ask them questions about the church! So they passed her to us right away and we set up a time for her to come have a tour! She was so cute.

Friday we went out to this super cute family's house- they got baptized a couple weeks ago after being Amis for a super long time (they had to get married). They are so cool. Like ahh. The mom found the church online because she watched one of the broadcasts that they show that say that Mormons are Amish polygamists and she was like "no, I need to know who they really are." So she started researching and watched the retab movie and chatted with missionaries on Mormon.org. She ordered a Book of Mormon and started reading and she was just like, "my whole life just started to change" SO COOL. Their family is so great and we LOVED being with them, geeking out about conference and how great the gospel is.

Saturday was repertoire day! My new companions name is Soeur Nelson, she's in her 11th transfer (I'm in my 10th). She's super cute and tiny and was comps with Soeur Back a while ago so that's super fun! So this transfer our apartment is two 11s, a 10 and a bleue. So funny. So old.

Fam this week to be honest was a little bit of a doozy, I love missionary work and I love being here but some weeks we just really get reminded that we don't control anything, and we have to just roll with it. Plans fall through and change, people are late, you miss buses, everyone is somehow only free during a single half hour window on one day, but somehow it all works out and even the worst days can end with miracles.

Look for the miracles, laugh, have fun, and if all else fails watch The Testaments (or at least like the last 10 minutes). Or Legacy. There's always Legacy.

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Soeur Hansen

"Saying goodbye to Soeur Archbold"

"My 9th transfer, and I have an Elder growing out of the top of my head."

"Running the Liège stairs!"

"Beignets!"

Week 57 - General Conference and a Trip to Brussels

Hello team!

I really don't like writing emails on an iPad keyboard, but I'll
persevere for you. That's how much I love you all.

This was a good week- really quick which was nice because we've been looking forward to conference for weeks! Absolutely loved it, and we had an ami come to a session yesterday which was sweet! Loved getting all the inspired messages and getting to sustain three new apostles! Basically we just spent the entire day at the church, best Sunday ever.

Haven't gotten to watch the World Report yet though- missing out on that.

But yeah this week was good- kept really busy running around, our sector is huge so we spend a lot of time on buses which is good but sometimes means we don't have a lot of time for finding (yes, we talk to people on the bus but if the person you're sitting next to is a man or not interested you're just sort of stuck until someone gets off) so anyway one thing we've been really focusing on is taking advantage of moments we have to do contacting while we're walking home or to RDVs and other stuff like that. It's fun.

After conference Saturday night we had permission to go to this Liège fête where they put candles all the way up this famous staircase (apparently the most precarious staircase in the world - at least according to very proud Belgians). It was cool- made me grateful once again to get to serve in a cities and countries that have so much history and tradition. It's pretty sweet.

[The grand staircase in Liège has 374 steps. Click here for more info. The "fête" she refers to is called "La Nocturne des Couteaux de la Citadelle" - the Night of the Slopes of the Citadel. It is held on the first Saturday in October - click here for more information.] 

And today it was our turn again for a Redd adventure so we went to Brussels! Saw the Atomium, Grand Place and just enjoyed the city! It's really cool- I love all the little streets and the buildings. Liège is great and I love it, but it's definitely not the most visually stimulating place I've ever been. So Brussels was super fun today! I love hanging out with the Redds and talking to them about their lives and the mission. They make me want to be a senior couple missionary.

Grand Place in Brussels (city hall on the left)

So yeah. I think that's all I've got for you guys this week. Super exciting I know!

Love you all!! Have a great week!

Soeur Hansen

The Atomium in Brussels

The fair outside our apartment