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!