Going into Transfer 3

[And if my sarcasm of the last few posts haven’t been clear… It’s definitely not the beginning of her third transfer. That was a few weeks ago. I would apologize, but I’ve apologized enough…maybe. Probably not.]

Bonjour tous le monde! J'espère que vous allez bien! Well, this upcoming week is bringing a lot of changes to Liège and Bruxelles. Soeur Clawson will be leaving to go to Torcy (Disneyland Paris). So she will be in the Paris Est zone. My new companion will be Soeur Walton, and she will be coming to Liège from V'dasque, which is only like a two hour train ride from Liège. She is in the same transfer as Soeur Clawson. So, I'm staying in good ole Liège! And I will no longer be a bleu! And I made it to transfer 3 without training!

So, here is the crazy news of our zone. We used to be the Liège zone with the Liège district, Bruxelles district, and... I don't remember the other one. But, with all the missionaries going home this transfer and not many coming in, they have had to close down a lot of villes. They shut down three equipes in Bruxelles including the STLs. They changed it to the Bruxelles zone and shrunk down the districts and the STLs are now in V'dasque. It was crazy on Saturday when we found out all this news. Also, fun fact, the next transfer day (not the one this Wednesday, but the one at the end of transfer three) will be on my six month mark--April 29.

[Ummm… if anyone totally understood all that, I applaud you. Sometimes, missionary talk is very… missionary-esque.]

So, this past week has been BUSY! (Always a good thing!)

Tuesday, we had some good time to do some contacting after district meeting and before going to dinner at a member’s house. While we were contacting, we were actually having some decent luck, we had two people who talked to us for a little bit, and we were able to leave them with a prayer, and then we were heading to the bus stop to catch our bus. While we were walking, I saw a lady coming toward us and I really felt like we needed to contact her! It was almost like a voice screaming in my head, but I was on the wrong side of Soeur Clawson, and if I tried to contact her it would have been really awkward! I started to panic a little because the prompting was so strong! Then, right as she was about to pass us, Soeur Clawson contacted her! It was like a breath of relief! We did our usual contact stuff and found out that she was not believing at all, but she was super curious about what we were doing here in Belgium! We chatted for quite a bit, and then we asked her if she had ever prayed, she said no, and then we asked her if we could leave her with a prayer today and explained how to pray. She was a little weirded out that we wanted to pray just there in the middle of the sidewalk, but she agreed. She was adorable! She wanted to make sure she was standing right, and she asked if she needed to close her eyes. Then, Soeur Clawson said the prayer, and after Marcella said that she felt like she was in a rêve--she felt like she was dreaming. The sprit was so strong! We then talked a little bit more and fixed a day that we can see her again! Yay!!!

Aurica the amazing Romanian amie.
Soeur Chisholm has no idea why she's wearing this hat.

On Wednesday, our contacting was not quite as lucky. We had some success and met an awesome lady who we hope to see again this week, but I also had one of the most awkward contacts of all time! We were contacting on a bridge, one of our favorite things to do because of the views, and it was a beautiful day, and there are always people walking across the bridges. So, we are walking on the bridge, and I see a lady coming towards us, and I think to myself, “Whoo, she is kind of manly looking, but I'm going to contact her anyway!” So, I contact her........ and she is not a she. She is a man. Holy poop! It was so awkward! It was a man, wearing a skirt and heels and wearing make-up. Basically, after I asked if they were believing, and then they looked at my tag, they said that churches are bad, and then walked away. I stood there stunned for a minute, and then Soeur Clawson and I busted up laughing. Oh my, contacting is so fun!

African pants Soeurs Clawson and Chisholm found one p-day for super cheap.
They are awesome because she will wear them the rest of her entire life.

Also, on Wednesday, we taught Sara. She is 17 and came up to the elders about two months ago and said she wanted to be baptized. However, she is not keeping her engagements, but we are working with her. We had the awesome opportunity on Wednesday to teach with Chelsea a member who is also 17 here on an exchange program for school. She was able to give such on strong testimony on Joseph Smith and the power of prayer! Holy poop, it was so awesome. After the lesson, she told us that that was the strongest she had felt the spirit in a long time, and that she really wants to teach with us again!

Thursday, we made cookies with one of our less actives and talked about obedience. It was such a fun lesson! Our less active loved it! She is started to prepare to go to the temple so she really loved talking about the importance of keeping the commandments, and she had a lot of questions. It was a really good lesson. Then, we went to a member’s for dinner. Soeur Coenan had knitted me a scarf! And a hat. They are awesome! She was still working on Soeur Clawsons. She also gave us some legit Liègeoise recipes! I'm so excited to make them.

The scarf and hat knitted for Soeur Chisholm.

Friday was so awesome, too! We talked about tithing and the law of the fast with one of our recent converts. We were able to do it in a member’s home, which was awesome. The member was able to give such a strong testimony of the blessings of paying tithing! The spirit was so strong, and then we read Malachi 3:10.

Then, we had to run to another rendez-vous. I say run, but I mean run to one bus, catch it, ride it for thirty minutes, then get off the bus and walk another 15 minutes, BUT we were still on time! This lesson was with an amie who was taught back in 2009, and we contacted her again at the end of last transfer I believe. We had an amazing lesson with her about a month ago and then we hadn't been able to see her since. But, Friday, we had a lesson with her, and we taught the retab. She had some awesome questions that we were only able to answer by the help of the spirit--that is for sure. Then at the end, we asked her to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet. She said that she would, but that she thinks she already has her answer. She said that obviously God sent us to her, and we are here doing what we do for a reason, so obviously, He must have called Joseph Smith as a prophet. AHHHHH!!! So cool!!!

All Sisters at the "Bye-bye" breakfast for Soeur Clawson and Elder Nielson

Then, Saturday we had a lesson with a lady from Madagascar! She was very impressed that I knew they spoke Malagasy there! Thanks Nathan! However, when I said that I knew they spoke that, she thought I meant that I spoke it, and so she asked me what I could say... and I was like oops, I don't actually know that language. However, she did teach me how to say, “I am a missionary,” in Malagasy, so that's cool.

Then yesterday, I was sooooo sick. I went to church, and by the end I felt like DEATH. I wanted to tough it out though, so we went to our rendez-vous right after church. After that, Soeur Clawson was like, “OK! Time for you to go home.” So, we went home, I got a blessing from the elders, and Soeur Clawson was a doll and made me chicken noodle soup! Then, I slept the rest of the day and all last night, and I woke up this morning feeling a million times better. I still have a sore throat and a little cough, but yeah. I just have a little cold, now so all is well! :)

I hope you all are doing well, too! Sending lots of love from Liège!

That One Time Our Branches Got in Trouble, and the Missionaries had to Play Babysitter

It's so awesome to hear that all is going really well back home! To make you all a little jealous, I didn't wear a coat yesterday! We had sunshine and beautiful weather...I would have taken a picture, but I was carrying a pot of soup ALL day. But that story and the reason for the title will come a little bit later.

This week was awesome! We are starting to see a bunch of new amies progressing! Our less actives are progressing! And our members are becoming more willing to work with us and starting to not see me as the little bleu! Hallelujah!!!!

I did my second exchange this past week with Soeur Pettingill one of our STLs, it was my turn to stay in Liège and Soeur Clawson went to Bruxelles. Soeur Clawson and I took a train to Bruxelles, and then Soeur Pettingill and I got right back on another train and headed back to Liège. Our train got back to Liège at 3:30, and we had to be at the chruch at 4 for a rendez-vous! To get from the gare to the church is a solid 40-45 minutes on a good day... it was not a good day. It was raining, and we stopped at literally every bus stop. Then, Felicité called and said that she couldn't find the church, and is chilling at a random bus stop waiting for me and Soeur Pettingill to come find her. Oh la la! It was crazy! However, thanks to a lot of prayer and patience, we were able to find her, and get her to the church. Then, we had an incredible lesson! Soeur Pettingill dies at the end of this transfer, 18 March, so her French is beautiful! [Her mission ends… just in case we weren’t clear on that earlier…] This was our second lesson with Felicité, and she came in having read the whole Restoration brochure and full of questions! Soeur Pettingill and I were able to answer all her questions, and the spirit was so strong, and she accepted a soft invite for baptism!!! Also, I got some awesome advice from Sr Pettingill on things I can do to improve my French, one of them being translating. I have started translating "jeunes, soyez forts" (For the Strength of Youth) from French to English. It's super fun, and I'm learning so many things!

Soeur Pettingill and Soeur Chisholm made cinnamon rolls for district meeting.

On Wednesday, I got Soeur Clawson back, and we had to rush to another rendez-vous. This one was with this little old Catholic lady. She is so funny. She tells us every time that she is not intéressé in changing religions, but she keeps keeping her commitments, and she says every week that everything is juste. She knows it is true, but she is just being so stubborn! We are going to be teaching her this week with a member who used to be a professor of religion, and very, very Catholic. I'm so excited!!

For Soeur Clawson's last week, she wanted to have what is known as the most Lèige meal ever.
Boulette liègoise before. 

Boulette liègoise after.

Wednesday night, we got a call from one of our amies saying she had lost her keys and wanted our help to find them. We told her that we wouldn't be able to come that night, but if she can hold off; we could come the next morning. She said that would be fine. She hasn't been progressing, so we had been slowly dropping her... We keep trying and then something happens, and we end up back at her house. This time it was her keys. So, we plan to go in and pray with her hoping to find her keys and talk about the power of prayer! Well, we get there and she has her keys! She said that she had called a member friend, and she had come over just before us, they said a prayer, and she found them! She kept saying, “C'est un miracle!!” And we kept agreeing and testifying, and we made enough progress that she said she wanted to start praying like us. Hopefully she'll keep praying and figure out the she should get baptized! We also saw our little miracle less active, Laurence on Thursday. She is still doing so awesome! She has been to church every Sunday for the last three weeks, and she's smiling, and starting to joke around with us... It's awesome.

They sat for 20 minutes waiting for the less active older lady to finish her exercises before the lesson.

Friday and Saturday were full of rendez-vous and a lot of buses, c'est la vie.

Then, Sunday was quite an adventure. It was supposed to be conférence de branche, but it got "canceled." Instead, it became a "call the two branches to repentence" day. The two branches here, Liège 1 and 2 met together, and they sent the kids down to primary. We were down in primary, but word is that the stake president talked about repentance and the need to forgive and to be good examples for your children. There are a lot of problems between the two branches... It was all really odd. But, after that two hour meeting, and two hours of primary (I got to practice my tu/toi skills), we had a combined sacrament meeting. Then, we ate! Lots of soup and pasta salads. One of the members gave us a whole pot of soup left over to take home. The other Soeurs weren't going home, and we thought we were so we took it.

But then we got put on kitchen duty and were going dishes until 3 in the afternoon. Then, we carried our pot of soup all the way out to Marie Servait's out in Herstal, a 45 minute bus ride and a decent walk. When we got there, she had made us pudding... a lot of pudding. To make her happy, I downed almost my whole bowl of pudding, and that was after I had already filled up at the church. We had a good little visit, and then we headed back to Liège, with our pot of soup and met an amie to go to a member’s for dinner. We went to the member's house and had a big plate of spaghetti. By the time, we finished dinner, I thought I was going to explode!! I think that is the most I have eaten since coming on my mission, it was awful. And now this week, we are eating at members houses almost every night because Soeur Clawson in leaving the 18th. I'm preparing myself to gain a few kilos this week :(

But anyways, the work is progressing, my French is progressing, I'm loving Liége, and I can't believe that I am almost in transfer 3! I find out this Saturday who my new comp is, and if I will be a third transfer trainer... It's going to be an exciting week!

Keep working hard at home; I love you all!!!!! Have a great week!

à la semaine prochaine!

March!?

[JK! Hello April. *sniffle*]

Bonjour ma famille et mes amis!

It's crazy to hear about all the snow back home! We keep thinking it will warm up a little here, but as I am typing, I'm looking out the window at ice/hail/rain/whatever it is that Belgium gets. It started out nice and sunny this morning, and now it's quite cold!

This week has been full of adventures! Soeur Clawson and I have gotten really good at having backup plans. I don't think we had a single day that someone didn't randomly cancel on us, haha. However, thanks to these backup plans, we found a couple new amies!

On Wednesday, we had two lessons planned, and they both texted us that they were busy, so we decided to go and do some porting. We walked out of the apartment, and it was cold and raining! We were kind of thinking, “Well this is going to be miserable.” Then, I was like, “NO! This is going to be awesome! And we are going to find an old lady who is lonely and we are going to help her!” And guess what! The first door we ported, an old lady answered, and before we could even say anything, she told us to come in! We went in and sat down, and she told us that she has three cancers, she eats through a tube, her husband and parents are all dead, and her son has mental issues. She's alone, but she knows that God is there. While we were talking to her, I got the distinct impression to share the Plan du Salut with her. I pulled out the brochure, and told her that God has a plan for us, and that through studying and having faith in this plan, I have found so much peace and hope in my life. The spirit was so strong! She promised to read the brochure, and we are going to go see her again this week. She's so awesome! She also told us to go talk to her neighbor, so we did, and they invited us in! (This never happens!) We were able to talk to them for a while, but they weren't super interested.

View of Lèige while porting.

Saturday we got to do a bunch of porting again. We went to this cute rue, up at the top of Liege. The view was incredible! We met a couple people who told us to pass by another time, but nothing crazy. We did meet a lady from Louisiana though! It was so weird to hear an American accent not from a missionary! It was a fun afternoon. Hopefully when we pass back by some of these people, we can teach them a little bit!

On Sunday, we had one of our less actives at church. She has been having such a hard time recently. By choosing the church, her family has written her off. She had a lot of anger for a while, but as we have been working with her, she has started to become happier and happier. She bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting! And then later, after church, she comes walking up to me with a temple prep book and tells me that it's time to go back. Holy poop! I wanted to cry! She has come so far in the last three months. The gospel has put a light back in her eyes, that didn't exist the first time Soeur Clawson and I rang her doorbell. We also had another less active come. She has slowly been coming back, but she is super old so sometimes it's hard for her.

Picture with Laurence, the less active who wants to go back to the temple. 

Today, since we are getting close to the end of the transfer, and Soeur Clawson will be heading out to another ville in France, the Redds took us on another adventure. Today, we went to another American WWII cemetery. This one is on land where the Battle of the Bulge was fought. Turns out that was fought not too far south of Liege. It is so humbling to go to these cemeteries! I am living in a place so full of history! It's so cool.

Every morning, in my studies, I study a Conference talk. I finished the Ensign for the last Conference, so I just started the next one I found in my desk from April Conference 2013. This morning I was reading a talk by Elder Cook about peace… SO GOOD! In it, he quotes Doctrine and Covenants 121:7-8 when Joseph is in Liberty Jail, and he's told to have peace, his adversity and afflictions will be a small moment and to bear them well. The footnote in the talk leads to a quote by Howard W. Hunter I believe, that I have absolutely fallen in love with! It says, "So we must be refined; we must be tested in order to prove the strength and power that are in us." I don't even know why I love it so much. I think it's kind of comforting to know that our trials are given to us to prove that we have the strength to overcome them. So if you are struggling, souvenez-vous that you have the power to overcome it!

Since yesterday, was testimony meeting, I'll just bear a quick testimony for y'all :)

Je sais que notre père celeste nous aime tous. Il est toujours la pour nous aider. Il ne nous oubliera jamais! Je peut ressentir son aide chaque jour. Père Celeste et Jesus-Christ nous connaisse! Chacun de nous! L'église est vrai. Le Livre de Mormon est la parole de Dieu. On peut trouver tous les réponses a nos questions dedans. Nous parlons aven Dieu par la prière, et il parle avec nous par les écritures. Nous avons un prophète vivant aujourd'hui.

I love you all! Until next week.

Almost Four Months... What??

[Guys. I am laughing because this was like… two months ago. BAHAHAhahwwwWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!]

Carnival, twelve buses in one day, and zone conference...OH MY!

So, fun fact, Mardi Gras doesn't just exist in New Orleans. Which makes sense the more I think about it, but anyways. Here it is a full week called Carnival. It is even a weeklong school holiday. It ended Saturday with a big parade and people dressed up in crazy costumes. Other than that, I don't actually know what else they do. I didn't see much.

Tuesday, we went on a less active hunting adventure with the Redds, our Senior Couple here in Liège. We spent about two hours driving around Grace-Hollogne and Jemeppe. We set out looking for five people, and we found one! Yay...that is actually really awesome because we usually don't find anyone. People are always moving around here, not many people stay in one place for very long. We also had a couple other lessons that day a recent convert, less active, and nonmember. We pretty much covered all the bases that day.

Wednesday was the day of twelve buses. That doesn't even seem possible to me, but somehow we ended up taking twelve different buses from about 11am-9pm. We had a mangez-vous with a member who lives in the middle of nowhere where the buses don't go, so she picked us up at the Gare. By this point we had taken 11 buses, and we said that if we had to take another bus, we might throw up. We were so happy that the member would be taking us home after dinner. We had an awesome rendez-vous! Her husband is a non-member. We watched the Testaments in French (super funny by-the-way), we were only able to watch about 30 minutes and then we ate, and then we had about 5 minutes for the pensé spirituelle. We did a little thought on feeling the spirit, and it went really well. So, then it was time to go home, and she dropped us off the Gare, meaning we had to take one more bus home, making it 12 buses in one day. We just had a good laugh, and then decided we never wanted to get on another bus again... until the next morning at least.

Thursday was zone conference!! We took a train in to Bruxelles at 8 in the morning and didn't get home until 7:30 that night. It was super awesome! We learned a lot about working with our ward and branches... It's kind of difficult from time to time, but ça va! We had a really good lunch and then we had interviews with President and Soeur Babin and watched Meet the Mormons! The interviews went really well! They were all in French, and I understood everything and was able to talk to them! Soeur Babin even complemented me on my accent! Woohoo! She told me she was impressed with my French and that I am learning quickly. That is always good to hear. I have been working so hard on learning the language. I LOVE FRENCH!!!!

The rest of the week was pretty normal. I just have two more funny stories:

We walk through this little tunnel-ish thing almost every day. In this tunnel is a little shoe shop (SUPER expensive). There is this little man who owns it and is there every day. We have started waving to him and saying hello as we pass. He always gets this huge smile and waves back. The other day, we were walking through, and he was out of his shop. The first thing he does is try to come up and bisous me! AWKWARD! That is the second time I have been bisoused by a man. Oh la la.

The other story is just that Soeur Clawson and I had to ride an elevator the other day with two men dressed in full out drag. The best part, we had a totally normal conversation with them. As soon as they got out of the elevator, I cried I was laughing so hard. It was the strangest thing in the world!

Anyways, I have been studying a lot about the spirit recently, and trying to recognize it in my life. I know that the spirit leads and guides us. He tells us what to say and what to do. He keeps us safe and helps us know the needs of others. The spirit is the most important tool in missionary work! I hope we can all strive to recognize the spirit in our lives and learn how he speaks to us. I have to come to notice that often, the spirit speaks to me through music. I have found so many answers to prayers through hymns and spiritually uplifting music. It is amazing!

Je vous aime tous! Passez une bonne semaine! à la semaine prochaine, alors :)

[Have you noticed that I’ve given up translating the French? If you want to know, you’ll google translate it. Also, if the two months late blog posts show anything, I’ve been a tad… just a tad busy. Selfish reason, really. But there it is.

[The final picture is of the largest cathedral in Lèige called the Basillique St. Leonard. According to Soeur Chisholm, it is, of course, not open on Mondays. But the building right next to it in the picture is apparently supposed to be normal sized.]