Week 57 - Be like Abinadi

Elder Libby from the MTC and Elder Orton who's
in my district

Hello family!

I seriously feel like I JUST wrote this email, so I don't really know what to tell you about. Liège is good, the food is delicious and fatty (I don't think I've yet heard of anyone NOT owning a deep fryer), the weather is cold and the people are warm. Or maybe I can just actually communicate with them now so we can be friends haha. But they are pretty proud of their reputation as being warmer than the French.

But yeah. Good week.

Zone conference on Tuesday in Brussels which was really good! Lots of really good formations that were focused more on the basics of missionary work - faith, charity, repentance, having the spirit. It was really a nice change, the last couple conferences have been very technical- focused on how to be better teachers, which is important too, but it was a little less enriching. But yeah really good. Learned a lot.

With Soeur Rasband on exchanges

After zone conf the STLs came back to liege with us for our exchanges- I was with Soeur Rasband. She's awesome. I love her so much. She's just chill and kind, makes you feel good.  Took them to the soirée familiale at the Redds (every Tuesday for the Jeunes [young adults]). Soeur Proudfoot is the other STL and she started her mission in Liège so she was stoked to be back here for the day.


Wednesday. We did some contacting in the rain - always a party. Good ol' fashioned missionary work.


Thursday. I don't really remember. I'd have to go look at my planner and that sounds like way too much effort.


Friday. Meme chose. [same thing] Missionary work.

Saturday. Did some planning like obedient missionaries. Did some work- miracle! We met this woman a couple weeks ago that was super cool but the night our rdv was supposed to be was when I was super sick so we ended up going early and she wasn't there  so we figured that the fact that she wasn't there or answering her phone were not good signs. BUT she was super cool and seemed really genuinely happy to have met us so we were like "we're not giving up on this girl!" Well. Woman. So we go to pass by her, no one answers the sonnerie. But someone else answered and let us in so we just start porting- and we found her!! Her phone got lost or broken or something so she'd lost our number and hers was different. But we found her! and she came to church with us this morning!!! It was awesome!!

Sunday. Church with our new bud. they rearranged the branch presidency and my favorite person- Guy Andre is the second counselor now! He's from Congo and has been a member for like 5 years and he LOVES us, Soeurs in general, he thinks we're like angels straight from heaven. He's the best. AND I ran into one of my other favorite people- Frère Djemai! From Tours!! He works for the church so he was up here for this meeting with the local bishops and the stake president talking about self sufficiency! He's the best also!

You know who else is the best? Abinadi. He's a boss. I'm in Mosiah right now and I love it. It's so rich with Abinadi spiritually slapping everyone with his testimony of the Messiah. I love it. New life goal. Be like Abinadi.

Well I think that's about all I've got for you guys this week but I love you a lot! Hope you know it!

Soeur Hansen 🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪 🍟 (we get emoji on the iPads, so stoked)

"Liège is Gotham"

Week 56 - Finally feeling better

Couscous family!
I wrote coucou and it corrected to couscous and I though it was funny. Couscous!! Hope you've all had a good week!

Mine was pretty good except that you know how I said I was feeling a lot better last Monday....? I actually got worse this week haha. I'm ACTUALLY feeling better now but this week was super rough. 

We were able to do work Monday night and I was fine until district meeting on Tuesday when I starting having this super horrible headache but it wasn't a migraine like I'm used to it was through my sinuses and I was just super stuffed up and coughing like nobody's business. I took it super easy this week and felt really lazy but we went to the doctor on Friday and that confirmed that I had a sinus infection and it had gotten into my lungs a little bit. The doctor gave me a prescription for some stuff to clear it all up and some antibiotics for the infection so I'm finally feeling better! But yeah this week was rough especially for my comp haha she's a champ but I don't think she has anything left in the apartment to clean or organize.

We went out and worked on Wednesday and then Thursday I woke up and tried to get going but then it hit me really hard and I was like "nope" so we went and got some meds from the Redds and called the mission nurse and then somehow we ended up staying there for like most of the day haha I took a really nice nap. If anyone's sick, I highly recommend the Redds apartment.

Friday we did a little work and I went to the doctors that evening. I think I was in his office for like maybe 10 minutes- he looked at my throat, felt my sinuses and lymph nodes, checked my lungs and then wrote me some prescriptions. (In Belgium you need a prescription for most of the stuff you could get over the counter in the states). It was very extensive.

But we did do some actual work this week- mostly with less actives and recent converts, that's a lot of the work we do up here. It's really interesting and kind of sad to see the contrast between the fire that recent converts have and the complacency of less actives. Just got to help them get that fire back.

Yesterday was Soeur Archbold's birthday so we decorated her desk and made crepes and watched the Emma Smith movie. It was a good time. Except that we ran out of milk and had to use some chocolate milk in the crepes. They were interesting.

So yeah that was my week. I love you guys a lot and I'm sorry this whole email is about me being sick. I'll try to come up with some good stories for next week.

I bought African fabric!

I love you guys!!!!

Soeur Hansen

Week 55 - Feeling "Super Sicky"

Hello family!!

I am currently typing this on my....... Wait for it.... IPAD!!!!! Yes, the impossible is true, I have finally joined the club. I'm very happy.

But anyway this week-- not too much big stuff to report, doing missionary work and such which is always a blast.

Basically I don't really have anything deep or powerful to share with you guys but I can pretty much just tell you that it's been really good this week other than the fact that I'm feeling super sicky so that's pretty much the worst thing ever on the mission. It's just a cold but I feel like I'm going to cough up a lung.

I ended up staying home from church yesterday because I was feeling pretty miserable so I went and chilled with Soeur Redd (the senior couple sister) at their apartment and the other soeurs trio-ed at church. All the members thought I was gravely ill and I received a lot of prayers to help me recover and be able to stay on my mission haha - the members are great.  But yeah Soeur Redd is basically the best - I took a nap for like 2 hours, and she made me soup and told me about BYU football. After that I just spent the rest of the day back in our apartment in my bed while Soeur Archbold rearranged our apartment and tried to not go insane.

I'm feeling a lot better today though! So don't worry mom and dad it's all good!

But yeah other than that we just have been working super hard trying to find some new people to teach! There's so many people here now that school is back in session! It's sort of crazy. It's also starting to get cold which kind of stinks -- had to pull out the tights and sweaters
again.

Love you guys! Have a great week!!

Soeur Hansen

Week 54 - End of Transfer 8

FAMILY!

Hello! Had a good week six of the transfer, all the Soeurs are staying for another and three of the four elders - Elder Jouffray is leaving for Calais, he was in my branch so we'll be having a new elder up here - Elder Reiss who was actually in my MTC district with me. One year later and we're together again haha. It's going to be a great transfer- number 9! So crazy!

So there were a lot of things that happened this week but I mostly just want to talk about two experiences, maybe three. We'll see how it shakes out.

Thursday we went down to Lille to do a week six exchange (usually you only do one per transfer but we did a second one because we wanted to). It was really great-- it POURED and was freezing, which I didn't know before we left Liège so I was just wearing a sweater and got SOAKED. Thankfully sweet Soeur Back is in Lille so I ended up wearing her clothes and one of her jackets for the day haha. But it was a really good exchange- got to ask some questions and get some advice and just talk out some stuff with someone. You've always got your comp but sometimes its nice to change it up.

Sunday we had a full day planned (which is weird, usually if we're  trying to fix something for Sunday its for them to come to church but we ended up having some people that had to change their RDVs and it fell to Sunday so anyway) We had a member that we took to two RDVs, (she's a GEM. seriously so kind of her to come to two back to back) and she was just great. The one I wanted to talk about though was the second one- it was with "L" and "P". So the other day we taught the law of chastity and they we like "ça va pas" not okay with it. They were really confused and kind of frustrated that we'd not told them sooner that they had to be married if they wanted to keep living together and get baptized, they were NOT okay with that one. So it was a little "delicat" for a couple of days- they ended up canceling a RDV and I was pretty sure we'd lost 'em. But they said we could come Sunday night. SO we show up at their house with this member and Pascal answers the door holding their Books of Mormon and all their brochures, baptismal calendar EVERYTHING. And my heart dropped. Like gone. So he starts explaining that they're super not interested anymore because of some reasons that are really flimsy and he tries to use the Bible to justify stuff and I'm like "nope, sorry, those don't hold up" but trying to be all patient and charitable and answer his questions. So we talk for a second and then Soeur Archbold is just like "just let us talk one more time" so surprisingly he lets us in, gets "L" and we start talking.

So we start talking about commandments and explaining all that and answering questions and turning them to the Restoration and everything and come to find out that the real issue, for "L" at least, was that she thought we were telling her she wasn't welcome anymore and that we were ditching her if she didn't want to get married. She's had a super hard life so we were able to tout de suite correct that misunderstanding and kept our ami! It was like 100% by the spirit though- such an intense RDV. But a total miracle so thank you for all the prayers!!

Voila, my thoughts for the week- God answers prayers.

I gave a talk this week. I think it was probably about 4 minutes long. Wowww.

Yep. The mission's good.

Love you all, have a great week!

Soeur Hansen

Week 53 - One Year!

Place du Vingt Août in Liège
[Vingt Août means August 20, the day Maren went into the MTC]

FAM! 

It's been a really good week- kind of like a normal week but lots of good stuff. So I'm going to pull the REALLY exciting day by day format and hope that I don't forget anything.

MONDAY

Came to the church to email. One of the elder's amis came up on the same bus with us, he was coming to the FHE we have monday nights. But got here at 3:30. FHE starts at 6:30. So he just hung out. And then had to leave early from FHE. And he was the only person that ended up coming (all the members were sick or out of town) SO awkward. But one of those experiences you can only have as a missionary. 

TUESDAY

Honestly can't really remember. We did some porting for like 45 minutes, it was really hard. I haven't ported in months because it's pretty much the worst. It's not like worse here than other places, porting just makes my soul cry. and on that note....

WEDNESDAY

Zone Conf. In Strombeek- (Bruxelles) The chapel is technically in the Belgium Netherlands mission so that's pretty funny. The entire zone and mission president left the mission for several hours. haha

It was a good conference, had interviews this transfer which are always really great. We were also supposed to get iPads (me and the couple other people who are still waiting) but they got stolen out of President's car on Tuesday night. 

I wish I was kidding when I say I was not expecting to actually get my iPad. Like I was hoping but I felt like it was a long shot haha. But they have enough to replace them so hopefully it will make it my way at some point. 

Zone Conference

Strombeek Chapel where we had zone conference

THURSDAY

??  I think we hung out with our super cool recent converts

FRIDAY

I don't remember

SATURDAY

We went out to visit a lady in another city in our sector who someone asked us to go see- she was so sweet. And had a sweet house. And she wasn't so sure about us at first (didn't even offer us anything to drink which is like a big deal) but we sang for her and then right after she was like "oh, voulez-vous boire quelque chose?" [would you like something to drink?] and we were like "ah yeah. the spirit" Finished off the day with some weekly planning. 

SUNDAY

Church, I taught the lesson in Relief Society which was a little stressful, it went okay, Sr Archbold was with the JAs, [Young Adults] (they do a JA relief society once a month) and it was a really small group so it went a little short but it went okay. It was really weird to teach without a companion though!! 

Then we went and passed by "L" because we hadn't seen her in a while. She wasn't there for our rdv and a couple other reasons so it was complicated but she's doing really good! Thanks for all the prayers!

Love you guys a lot, you're the best!!

Soeur Hansen

[On Maren's mission Facebook page, they posted a link to a YouTube video - two sister missionaries in the France Lyon mission, singing "I Love to See the Temple" in French. It's really beautiful - so great to see the excitement of the members and missionaries in France as they look forward to the Paris temple next year. Click here for the link]

Week 52 - A trip to Paris

Hey fam! 

So I was sitting here like "wow I've had so much time today I hope I'm not fogetting to respond to somebody" and then I realized I hadn't written my big email yet! whoops! 

This week was really good- lots of work and lots of fun stuff. I'll get you the lightning version (there were like 3 thunder storms this week! It was so fun to watch them from our balcony!) 

Monday- took a really nice nap. Did some missionary work

Tuesday- district meeting, Elder Stanford was super inspired for what he did for the formation [training at district meeting] which was really cool. 20 year olds can be super inspired for their amis and also for other missionaries, it's sweet. 

Wednesday- Taught some things to some cool people. Then that afternoon Soeur Facer and I got on a train to Paris!! We had to go in to do some French legality stuff at the same time so we did a little exchange and ditched our comps in Belgium. Stayed with Sr Ellis who's serving in St Ouen now! So fun. Went to the Arc de Triomphe. :) 

Thursday- went to do our legality stuff, so many things went wrong! The metro pass machine ate 10 euros so we had to go deal with that and then none of the tabacs (it's like a convenience store but only for like tobacco, lottery cards and magazines) had these stamp things that Sr Facer needed for her second year legality stuff. SO frustrating. Then we missed a train and had to wait super long but it's okay because in our wandering we found CHIPOTLE!!!!! There are like two in Paris and one happened to be at the gare where we were!! We were there at like 9 in the morning but I was like "WE ARE COMING BACK HERE" 

So we finished up our legality stuff (I'm legal in France... although I live in Belgium) then went to Chipotle, and went and ate it under the Eiffel Tower!! So much fun. I love Paris. Belgium is great but France is great too. 

Friday- we did some service, lots of fun. 

Saturday - Went to a wedding! The elders are teaching this couple (they've been investigating for about a year) and they just got married! They were so cute. But the religious ceremony (it's complicated here) was outside and it POURED. POURED. I felt so bad for them. The elders were running around trying to get water that was collecting out of the tops of the little tent things that were set up but as soon as they'd finished one side the other was full again. It was so sad but they were really good about it. 

Sunday- since like the whole branch was involved in the wedding most of them weren't there the next morning haha so there was a good 30 of us there maybe. Finished off the week with some weekly planning. 

Sorry this is such a lame email but it was a great week! We fixed a baptismal date with our ami "L". She lives with her boyfriend and we're not sure exactly how chastity is going to go over with them but she's really sweet and we love her and she loves us so if you guys could keep her in your prayers that would be just dandy. 

You're wonderful!! love you so so much! 

Soeur Hansen

"We had gauffres today"

Week 51 - Mattresses in the metro and making doughnuts

Hey Team!

We had a really great week but like I don't really remember what we did so like usual, I'm just going to start writing and then we'll see what comes out! 

Monday we did some shopping, hit up HEMA (it's like the French/Belgian Target) and got some cards for the birthday kids this week, love you lots Mama and Erik!

After that this week we just did lots of missionary work, saw some members, got to know the ville. 

We also had exchanges this week- went down to Lille so I got to see my dear Soeur Back. I love her so much. They changed apartments with the elders because theirs was kind of sketchy so we were helping them finish up moving some stuff- got to take some mattresses through the metro so that was once in a lifetime. It was fun to be in France, even though it was just right across the border, it just feels a little different. I miss it but I love Belgium. 

Friday we got to help one of our amis makes some doughnuts and Sr Archbold learned how to fry them. So we're basically professional. 

We had a really great experience with some of our amis - they're a couple that live together and have for a really long time. They've had really difficult lives but they're really sweet. They both grew up believing-ish in Catholicism so basically they know gospel words and not really what they mean. So we've been teaching them and finally they prayed! It was so cool, we taught them how to over the last two rdvs so in one he prayed and the next one she prayed. They were both really powerful, very simple heartfelt prayers. It's probably my favorite thing when amis pray for the first time. Hearing them start to really sincerely create that relationship with God is so amazing. ahh. Live for those moments. 

Other than that not much else to report, livin' it up in Belgium, eating lots of good stuff but not too much- don't worry mom. 

Frites with Soeur Archbold

Have a great week! You guys are the best! 

Soeur Hansen

Cats are everywhere in Belgium too

On exchanges with Soeur Rasband in Villeneuve d'Ascq