Week 59 - 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

Week 58 - Yay Service

Hullo family!

I know I said this last week but it seriously cannot be Monday again. This is crazy.

So yeah. This week we did missionary work. Tried to find people to teach. Got frudged a lot. But that's okay because then we pass bys of less actives and it was actually really cool. We do a lot of work with less actives and recent converts up here and sometimes it's hard because usually their progress is realllly realllly slow and it seems like you're doing absolutely nothing, but this week even though we didn't make any sudden breakthroughs with any of them, it felt like we were there when they needed someone to be there. So I'm grateful for that.

Even when it's awkward and we get in the middle of branch drama from 15 years ago and we can't do anything about the fact that the branch president said or did something he shouldn't have or you didn't get the appreciation you should have or that the chapel is on the other side of the city from you. Usually we're just there to listen. Because usually, they know what they're supposed to be doing, but they want someone to hear and understand them and tell them that God loves them and that there's someone there to help. (Even if that means we invite them to come to church constantly)

So yeah. Some Soeur Hansen thoughts on less active work. Other than that...We got rained on. Helped people clean and other people get ready to move. Yay service. Got attacked by a lady's super annoying, stressed out, attention starved dog. The poor animal. He just wants to be loved. (Don't worry I've got a picture)





Yesterday after church we went to the Redds and watched women's session- so fun. Soeur Redd was trying to apologize that the food she made us for lunch was really simple and we were like "Soeur Redd, this is better than anything we could have possibly made for ourselves." I love the Redds!




But that night Soeur Archbold and I made this meal we've been planning for a while- I bought Hollandaise sauce a couple weeks ago and we wanted to make mashed potatoes. So we finally made it happen. It took like over an hour to cook (don't worry you RMs we had our dinner hour at 8 and did or planning before, we weren't being pagan) and we ate it all in like less than 15 minutes. Missionary status.

Yeah. I think that's about it from me this week! I love you guys a lot! Thanks for everything you do!

Soeur Hansen

"Reeaaallllyy wet."

"Creepy skeleton in the Cathedrale."

"Liège Stairs"

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]