WEEK 75

Oh la vache!!! Une semaine c'est fini encore?! Ça m semble comme c'était hier que j'ai fait les e-mails....comment c'est possible que les semaines passent assez vite? Mais cette semaine c'était bien passé et nous avons eu beaucoup des choses qui sont bien passé. J'aimerais bien d'entendre comment c'est passé votre semaine:) j'aime bien les e-mails! Ça me fait sourire chaque fois que je reçois un nouveau mail!:)  "Holy cow! Another week finished? It's like it was yesterday that I did my last email... to how it is possible that the weeks pass so quickly? But this week it was well spent and we had a lot of things that are going well. I would like though to hear how it went your week :) I like email! It makes me smile whenever I get new mail! :)"

LUNDI SOIR

Well as soon as we had finished emailing me and elder Nelson went and bought some new shoes...my shoes that I've had since the beginning of the mission, finally gave up the ghost last week...:( it was hard to see a part of my heart go with those guys. (I actually am going to try to keep them.....#ALLFORTHEMEMORIES) so after we had finished that we headed home and changed and then headed off to the church for our family night. We played some ping pong and then elder Nelson shared a thought on testimony. Like what it is and why it is important and we had a super good discussion on it with everyone. Then we had some chocolate cake and chilled with everyone. It was really good!

MARDI

Today was straight up a finding day. Haha I've been trying to work on my complaining and I've been trying to get rid of it, but it's not really working out as much as I would like it to lol. We had a ton of time for working and finding and I feel bad but you know those days you have when you just don't want to do something like at all? Like it is literally the last thing you want to do? Ya that was finding for me today...we woke up this morning for studies and....I FINISHED THE NEW TESTAMENT!!! I was so happy! There was a ton that I didn't understand, but it was really great to finish! It was the first time ever for me! After studies we headed out the door so that we could make it to our weekly lunch appt with Patrick at the Worlds Best Pasta. We were walking in the bitter cold and in my head I was just complaining up a storm but I was forcing a smile as hard as I could haha it honestly was a struggle. I was trying my hardest to be happy and talk to everyone and I can honestly tell you that faking it DID NOT work. Haha there was almost no one that stopped to talk to us and I know it was because of my attitude. My mom sent me a quote the other week that said, if you want to be happy, you have to be happy on purpose. You have to decide what kind of day you'll have. And I'm really sad to say that today I was really not that happy so I know it was my fault. We got to lunch and had a great time with Patrick and we laughed and talked and ate and got warm so all the essentials were checked off! Then we headed out. We decided that it would be a good thing if we had our coats and gloves and so we headed home to get those and tried to call and set something up with a couple investigators and stuff but none of them answered and so I just decided that this is what we needed to do today and so I went out and did it with a smile. No, my attitude didn't suddenly change, and no nothing crazy incredible life changing happened, but I was able to do it and talk to people and try my hardest to serve others. And then the phone rang! It was a member telling us that she could come to a lesson with the recent convert that they just baptized the week before I got here! It was a tender mercy of the Lord for sure haha I can't explain to you how cold it was! So she came and met up with us and we headed to the recent converts house where we started the after baptism lessons. It seems to me that me and elder Nelson have taught the restoration lesson almost everyday since I've been here! Haha and with this lady, she likes to talk A LOT! And so we didn't even get to finish. Once we'd spent an hour or so with her and discussed a lot, we headed out. The member had parked her car right on an ice patch and so when she tried to get going, the car would not move but instead slid back into the ditch cause we were on a hill! So we spent the next 5 or so minutes trying to get out and then finally me and elder Nelson got out and pushed the car out of the ice haha it was funny. She then dropped us off not far from the gare where we contacted until our apartment and went in and took our dinner. After dinner, elder Nelson wanted to go out to a small ville outside of Namur to find some less actives and so we caught a bus and headed out to do that where we found the less active, and she told us she wasn't interested in talking to us anymore so instead we just ported around her neighborhood and we got 4 people that told us we could come back!! One was a Protestant priest, one a Muslim family, one an African family, and one a French family! Haha quite a diverse night lol so anyway we made our way back to the gare to catch our train home and I called the Deslypper's just to say hello and I was on the phone with them for a good 20 minutes. They are such an amazing family!! Frere Deslypper told me something that hit me and that I wanted to share...not to brag or anything but just because it made me feel good he said, 'Elder Libby, don't think you were here in Dunkerque for such a long time for no reason. You left behind blessings that are now coming into action. The Dunkerque branch is growing, and it is because of you.' It honestly got me a little teary eyed! Anywho I talked to them and then we headed home for the night!

MERCREDI

Today was super good!! It just seemed to kind of be a waste....haha I'll get into that later but let me just say that we spent the day in Brussels and didn't get almost any work done :( and it was all President and Soeur Babin's fault!;) no I'm totally kidding. It was no ones fault. It's just easier to find someone to blame than to explain;) haha I'm literally kidding, it was no ones fault. So we woke up this morning and didn't have time for studies cause we had to go and catch our train into Brussels for our district meeting. From now on, I guess they've changed things for some reason? From now on we only have zone conference like every other transfer and what they are doing is coming to our district meetings now and having interviews there and spending time with us there. So it's a good thing! We get a little one on one time with president and Soeur Babin! So we got into Brussels and met up with the other missionaries and then headed to the chapel. In Brussels they have the French speaking missionaries from our mission, but they also have the Dutch speaking elders from the Netherlands mission and so we got to the chapel and it was locked and so we rang the doorbell and some missionaries came to the door that I didn't recognize and then all of the sudden he goes, 'Oh your the FRENCH missionaries...' haha it was hilarious. It was fun to talk to them for a while. Then president and Soeur Babin showed up and we had interviews and mine were really good! I had some really cool conversations with them today. They were a little too personal so I don't really feel like I need to share, but let me tell you that I'm really grateful for them and for the friendship that I have with them! President Babin told me today that my French is really good too! Haha he told me that my accent is great and that I'm doing a really good job and gave me a few pointers on how to better it and you wanna know what he said to do?? He told me to play the Book of Mormon in French on my iPad and follow along reading and try to pronounce like the man that speaks on my iPad! Haha so I'm gonna start trying that. Then we had district meeting and it was good. The chapel was freezing and it was freezing outside and so all day I was in my thermals and coat and gloves...haha even during my interviews!!! So during district meeting I just snuggled up to a heater. Then we ended and got all ready to leave and headed out into the bitter cold and made our way to the gare to head home to Namur. We caught our train and the heaters WERE NOT ON. The whole ride home was freezing cold cause there were no heaters...so I was legit trying not to die haha when we got back to Namur I had to buy a warm gaufre just to warm up haha! And it was delicious so don't worry:) we got home and hurried and warmed up and drank some hot chocolate and then headed out to go porting for the night. Nothing too crazy happened. We then came home for the night and I got a call from Jorgy. Sadly he had received a call from president Babin telling him that his grandpa had passed away. He and I have been through this once before and he just needed to talk. We had a heart to heart and he's is doing ok. I got a couple laughs out of him:) Keep him and his family in your prayers!

JEUDI

Well today was kind of like yesterday...haha we spent our day in Brussels and we didn't get a whole lot of anything done. Sadly:( we had to go into Brussels cause we had doctors appointments for our legality here in Belgium. Cause you know, no one is ok with just having LDS missionaries here for free. We ALL have to be legal. It was funny though cause elder Norby was telling us today, 'who wouldn't want the Mormon missionaries in their country? Honestly we bring life into these countries I thought that was funny. So we woke up this morning and got some studies done and then we headed out the door so that we could catch our train into Brussels. I saw that there was a little store in the gare selling Gaufres and hot chocolate for 2,50€ and so I decided that could be fun for breakfast;) we got on the train and into Brussels and met up with the Norby's and then we had to go to this little machine to take some passport pictures for a portfolio that we had to make for this legality process. After we headed to their apartment and as I was sitting at their table, I opened up my folder that I brought with all my legality papers from my whole mission, (yes I have kept them all;) ) and guess what fell out? A roll of passport pictures that me and my trainer went and took my first day in France!🙄I laughed and showed elder Norby and....ya...I'm stupid. Haha so now I have like 8 passport photos and I don't know if I will ever use them haha. We then got in the car and headed to the doctors office and met up with the other missionaries in Waterloo. I guess it's like a pretty historical city?? Like Napoleon fought there or something?? Does someone wanna fill me in on what happened there?? Lol it was super fast though. We walked into this guys house he looked at us took a few notes and signed a few papers and then said thank you next please lol so we were in and out pretty fast. After that the Norby's took us all to lunch at macdo and it was a fun time with all the missionaries:) Soeur Norby took some fun pictures of us and then she sat down next to her husband and held up her phone to take a selfie and it was just the cutest thing ever. To see these 65 year olds taking a cute macdo selfie. I'm gonna go to macdo with my wife when I get old just to do that. It was cute then we hopped in the car and elder Norby was driving us back to the gare to catch a train home and we LITERALLY got 2 minutes from the gare when he said how about we just drive you home? Haha so we were like if you really want to? And so he turns around and takes another hour and a half to drive us all the way to Namur! I love senior couples. The whole way there we were talking about their mission in Côte d'Ivoire and how different is was there than here and how they lived it and hearing all their stories and it was fun to talk to them for the drive home and spend the day with them. It always makes me feel special when I spend time with a senior couple. Their kind of like my grandparents I guess?;) when we got home we went for a walk to contact cause we had a while before our next appt. We contacted a man named Emmanuel and he told us he loved to talk about God and he'd be to the church at 5PM tomorrow to talk with us! So that was cool! We then went to our dinner appt with a member named Dydy. Dydy has a son who is less active and we wanted to get to know him. We got there and they had fries and meat for dinner! So we are really well;) we spent a fun night with them and got to talk about him and his situation as well! We shared Because of Him and then left him with the challenge to start to pray and see if it changes his life. He was only a year older than me so it was a lot easier to connect and understand him:)

VENDREDI

Tonight we saw a miracle. Honestly it was pretty cool! Haha I'm pretty excited with where it looks like we are going! We started off our day normally. We got our studies up and out of the way and then headed out first thing to go contacting. We went to a few different places and talked to some really nice people and got some really good discussions in but it was just another contacting session. We found a lady on the road that we contacted that told us she knew who we were and that she was even baptized into our church and that she lived in the other ward. So we talked with her for a while and she told us that after all the trials in her life she'd just come to the conclusion that there isn't a god because it was too hard. That response always makes me sad. I ALWAYS ask myself after a conversation like that, 'what do they think about the good things in life? Where do they come from?' That's just such a sad response to me...so anyway we slowly made our way around town and then into the apartment for lunch. Elder Neslon made me Italian Poutine which is fries and spaghetti sauce and cheese and it was good but I prefer original poutine from Canada with gravy please;) #SOGOOD. I've considered moving to Canada just for that. Then we had a rdv with our Peruvian investigator Luis. We got to his house and he was telling us how he'd had a hard few weeks cause of this and that and so we let him vent for a while when he goes, ok I've talked enough. Your turn to talk. So instead of us venting;) we finished up the restoration! Haha it went well, it was just a super weird rdv. He was telling us all about how he saw a video on FB where a woman gave birth to satan and how it was down in South America and how he was telling about the end of the world and then disappeared and the woman died....? Huh? Haha so I got the spirit back and we talked about the restoration instead;) then we left and got a call from another investigator named Alex. He's been investigating the church for 10 or so years and is something we call an eternal investigator hah we got to his house cause he was on lunch break for work and talked to him while he ate food. We talked all about his questions about life on earth and after death and it was well! Then he dropped us off at the gare and we caught a bus to the church where we were supposed to be meeting the really cool guy from last night. He had called today and confirmed so we waited for a while... After 45 minutes of waiting and calling he called and said that because of the rain he wasn't going to be able to come:( so we left and just went porting in the neighborhood next to the church to finish up the night before the bus came. We taught a doorstep lesson to one lady and then the miracle happened. We knocked on someone else's door and she said come in! So we went in and explained who we were and she knew who we were because of our church being in the neighborhood. She let us pray and then she told us we could come back next week while her kids were in school cause she wasn't sure if there was a god but she wanted to learn more!! So we left her with a prayer and headed out and we are going by next week! Honestly it was a miracle cause of 2 reasons. 1) they live right next to the church and they are a family! 2) that kind of stuff never happens. Busy moms do not like to let random people in to pray! Haha it was a miracle!! Then we came home and made some calls to finish up the night cause of the rain.

SAMEDI

Today honestly felt like one of the most successful days in a while. It was such a good day and I feel so happy about the work that we did. Days like today make it so easy to lay down in bed and sleep cause you know you just worked your hardest and it's just the best feeling. Maybe there is another missionary who knows how I feel?? Hahah we got up this morning had our studies and then we got out to work! This morning we didn't have anything to do so we just went contacting and I decided I was sick of nothing happening during contacting so I went HARD! Haha I literally was stopping everyone. Moms, dads, couples, bikers, everyone! And honestly not a ton of people listened, but I handed out quite a few cards, some brochures, and I even got some numbers and appts fixed for later days!! There was an older lady who knew we were the Mormons but didn't have a ton of time so she asked for a paper and wrote down her name and address and said come here on Tuesday night and we'll talk! Haha so that was a sweet and tender mercy of the Lord. We taught a lesson to this young college couple and they said, well more she than he, that they would like to meet again and learn more! I have a testimony that when we put ourselves out there and try to make our purpose known that the Lord will put the people in our paths who need it! Whether that be in missionary work or anything else! We will be able to help someone when we are doing something out of the ordinary:) then we headed in for lunch and then right back out for a rdv that we had with our Rwandan investigators. Today we had a really good and interesting rdv. We re-taught the restoration and they asked lots of good questions and then we got on the topic of baptism and the wife was holding their newborn baby (#SODANGCUTE) and she asked if we could baptize her baby when he turned 8 and I was all BAH OUI! And then I asked if they had ever considered being baptized and she goes well we already have been and we can't get baptized again can we?? And so I explained that baptism is essential in the Lords plan and that the baptism that they had done was a good choice and that them wanting to follow the example of Christ was great but that without that authority of the priesthood, it didn't really do anything and they looked at each other like it finally made sense! Then they asked why the Book of Mormon replaces the bible and so we had to clarify on that as well. That the book of Mormon and the bible compliment each other and that they both have the same goal, to testify that Jesus is the Christ, and that neither replaced the other. It was like another light clicked! We had to get going cause we had another rdv but they asked if next time we could talk about baptism. DONT WORRY I WAS ALREADY PLANNING ON IT. Haha! We then went to our rdv that we had with the man from the other night. We met him at the bus stop just next to where we met him and took it to the church and on the way up to the church he said, 'I randomly got on this bus last week and saw your church and told myself that I wanted to get to know what you were all about.' GOD IS SO GOOD! We took him on a church tour and explained our goal in being there as missionaries and that we are not there for us but for him and he said that he would love to learn more! So he left and me and elder Nelson stayed and cleaned the church a little bit cause it was nasty....we vacuumed and mopped and then headed out to come home and do weekly planning. We got home and did that and it went really well and we had a ton to plan for cause of all the new people we met and it was a great planning session:) then we had an hour left for contacting and so we went out and did that and stopped by the friterie on the way home and grabbed some frites and a metraillette...it's kind of like a kebab but not really....don't worry. I still like kebabs a lot more! These weren't that good...Belgium is just known for them and so I had to try one;)

DIMANCHE

Well today went well! Sunday's are always a great day. It went by super fast today and there wasn't a ton that happened....it was good though! Haha we woke up this morning and got ready for church and then headed out the door and caught our bus. We got there and waited for everyone to come. People started showing up and there were so many! I'm still trying to get used to having more than 15 people in church haha it's crazy. So we were sitting there and just welcoming people in when all of the sudden, an investigator that we taught just the other week walked in! Jean-Claude! It was cool! We didn't even call him or anything and he just came in and stayed for all 3 hours of church. So that was a mini miracle! During sacrament meeting there was a lady in the ward who gave a talk on keeping the Holy Ghost with us at all times and it really touched me. I don't know why but it was a really good talk! Then we had a lesson on prayer when we got into gospel principles class with our investigator and recent convert and that went well. I like the gospel principles class cause it shows just how simple the gospel can be. I really enjoy it. Personally I would love to go to the Sunday school class and learn all about the Book of Mormon but that's ok, I'll wait:) then after all our meetings we were around talking to all the members for so long that we missed our bus! So we had to walk home and about halfway home a member drive past and saw us and offered a ride the rest of the way. So we got home and ate lunch and then we went to do paperwork...cause we had a ton of it haha honestly I am not the best area book keeper;) and with this fancy iPad we are supposed to have the area book app but because of European regulations... We don't. So it's all still paper for the FPM:) France Paris mission. So after we'd finished up all that crap we went out and did some real missionary work. We went out and contacted for a while and then made our way out to this one area that we had a rdv with some potential investigators and ported and then headed to their place for our rdv and they totally just didn't even acknowledge us...they were walking around inside and we were knocking on the door and they wouldn't answer...so that was a bummer. We then just continued to port and talked to some really nice people but in the end it was just us knocking on lots of doors. 

Et voilà une semaine est passé....ça me fait peur franchement...mais c'est la vie et ça va toujours être comme ça. J'espère que vous avez tous passé une bonne semaine et que cette semaine ira pour vous aussi. Merci pour tous les prières et pour tout ce que vous faites pour moi. Je suis très béni:) on se parlera bientôt!! Ciao:)  "And here my week is spent... it scares me frankly... but this is life and it is fast like this. I hope you have all had a good week and this week will go good for you also. Thanks for all the prayers and for everything you do for me. I am very blessed :) we will speak soon! Ciao :)"

Elder Libby 

 

       

WEEK 74

Cette semaine c'était la meilleure!!!! Je ne blague pas. C'était merveilleux. J'ai passé une très bonne semaine et en plus, je suis allé à Paris pour la meilleure conférence jamais! C'était incroyable. Aussi nous étions très occupé tout la semaine! Donc ça c'est bien aussi. Voilà ma semaine! (This week it was the best! I kid you not. It was wonderful. I spent a very good week here and more, I went to Paris for the best conference ever! It was amazing. Also we were very busy all week! So it is good also. This is my week: )

 

LUNDI SOIR

So here in Namur on Monday nights the ward has family home evening and the missionaries go and share a message each time. So tonight after we'd finished emails, we went home and changed and then headed out to the church where we had family home evening. There aren't a ton of people who come but it is still good! We started off with some ping pong and let me tell you, we have a member here who #GETSINTOIT haha he was all over that big table slamming that ping pong ball lol. Then we went on to do the lesson for the night and I shared a message on obedience and it went really well and there were lots of stories that were shared from the members and why they believe that it is so important. Which always helps to drag the thought along a little bit;) then we ate a little snack and made our way home for the night.

MARDI

Today was full of finding!! Haha we walked a ton and had all our rdvs fall through. Ok we had one rdv planned for the day and it fell through...so that was a blow. Because of that we literally were finding all day long. It was long but we made it through. We woke up and had some studies and then made it out to do some work. Right now I feel like elder Nelson might be a little bit in robot mode for missionary work...ya know? Like always walking the same route and only talking to 1 in 7 people, silly things like that. So I'm like not trying to crush his dreams and make him feel like I make all the choices, but I'm trying to get some variety in to what we're doing. And it kind of feels like he might be a little bothered by that. So I'm just going slow;) we changed it up a little bit and went into actual Namur. Our apartment is on the very end of Namur facing the neighboring town named Jambes which is where it sounds like most of the missionary work gets done. SHOCKER. Seems like the missionaries have always gone to work straight out of their apartment. Lol it's hard to get those guys motivated to go other places sometimes! So we went out and were contacting and found a few people who seemed a little bit interested in getting to know us and we even fixed a rdv for this Friday with this random lady and exchanged numbers so that was awesome. We then walked and talked to more people and eventually made our way in for lunch. We have a conference in Paris this Thursday and we were eating lunch when we got a text from the ZLs telling us where we would be sleeping over and so when we finished lunch we headed to the gare to look at train times to make it tomorrow night for our sleepover. The way the train system works here in Belgium is SO much different than in France haha it's gonna take me a while to get used to that. Then we just went contacting for a while and got caught in the rain and saw the prettiest rainbow! Haha obviously we went looking for gold and obviously we took pics. Belgium is beautiful. Then we came in for like 15 minutes just to take a bathroom break and grab a drink and whatnot before we headed out for the rest of the night when the elders from the apartment that we will be staying at tomorrow called and said that they wouldn't be able to meet up with us til later so we headed back to the gare to look at other train times. Then we had a dinner appt with the ward missionaries and so we made our way there and we were having Raclette! I decided that I am going to buy a raclette machine before I come home and we are going to have raclette parties in the US cause it is one of my favorite meals here. It's potatoes and melted cheese and some meat that you cook on a tray right in front of you. It's awesome! And YOU make it yourself. So it's really fun! We had a great time with them and they wanted to go over the ward list and so we started that and after an hour and a half of going over it, we finished 5 out of 6 pages....but we had to leave to be home on time! Haha so we are going over again soon! AMERICAINS! GET READY FOR A RACLETTE PARTY.

MERCREDI

today went by super well! It was super fast and we were super busy all day long. Our rdv that we were supposed to have yesterday got moved to today and so we were pretty booked cause we already had a lunch appt and another rdv with a potential investigator. So we woke up this morning and got our studies done. I am almost done with the New Testament! It will be the first time that I've read it and let me tell you that I am a little confused on Revelation...but I'm not telling myself that cause I'm also following along in the student guide for institute and at the beginning of the commentaries for Revelation, there is a quote from Joseph Smith that says: '"The book of Revelation is one of the plainest books God ever caused to be written" Though it is rich with imagery and symbols that are not always easy for readers in modern times to understand, the themes of the book are simple and inspiring.' And so after I read that I've tried to tell myself that I can come to understand it....as you can tell, I'm having just a LITTLE bit of difficulty trying to convince myself that. I wanted to have the New Testament done by the new year, but some things just don't work out like that. So we made our way out after studies this morning and contacted to our lunch appt at the WORLDS BEST PASTA! Haha it went well. The member is really nice and I'm gonna have fun meeting with him weekly;) then we had to go back to the apt to drop off the leftover pasta from elder Nelson cause he's a wimp and didn't eat it all;) JUST KIDDING. I LOVE MY COMP. After we'd finished with that we went out and did some contacting. We walked all around and talked to a very passionate man saying that if we wanted to talk to him about religion he'd win. He said that we believe in Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and I said yes and he said well that is NOT possible cause God doesn't have a wife. And if he did have a wife, they would have had more kids. So as I tried to stop him so I could explain a little, he just went on and on saying how there is no way it's possible and so I stuck out my hand and said AU REVOIR. LOL. It wasn't worth our time. So we kept walking and met this man who told us he was an optimist and didn't let anything in life get him down and so he talked to us, let us pray and took a card! So we'll see what happens with him:) then we headed to the chapel to meet with our potential. His name is Jean Claude and he was super nice but seemed kind of crazy. Haha he said he wanted to meet with us cause he was curious but I told him that we were here to help him change his life and that we'd meet with him if he was willing to try out what we have to share and he told me ok, and that he'd be there on Sunday! So that was awesome haha we'll see where that goes too. Then we headed to these one investigators house! They are African and you'll never guess where from. RWANDA! If I baptize these people, it will be the 3rd and 4th Rwandans that I baptize on my mission!! Haha I might as well have been called to Africa. These 2 were super nice though and she just had a baby and so I made the joke that if she gave me the baby I might run off with it and before I knew it she was up and went and got the baby out of the nursery and brought him out to me for me to hold him! Technically that is not allowed, for missionaries to hold babies, and I guess she didn't know I was joking, so I held their newborn baby and just fell in love. Haha the new pure little spirit of this little milk chocolate baby was just so heavenly and I wanted to cry. For a little moment I felt close to heaven. I could just feel nothing but joy for this little baby as he was clenching my finger with his fist! he was so cute. Then we left and headed home to take dinner and pack up to leave for the night and then left the apartment to go catch our train to make it into Brussels for the night to make it to Paris tomorrow!! We got into the little ville of Braine l'Alleud and guess who is serving there? The one and only elder oldham from Davis High school haha I'd never talked to him before but we spent a large portion of the night talking and got to become good enough friends;) we are in the same district so it will be fun getting to know him!

JEUDI

Well I experienced the BEST conference in the mission that I have ever experienced today. Elder Kearon is such a special man and I can testify that I know he is called of God to preside over this area of His kingdom. I feel very blessed to have been able to attend the conference in Paris today. We didn't get tons of sleep last night due to the fact that we were all talking and up til the wee hours of the night. Haha literally all day I was running off of like 2 1/2 hours of sleep;) it was fun. We woke up super early to catch our train to Brussels and then our train to Paris. They are REALLY cracking down on safety here! Like we had to bring our passports and they scanned our bags and made us walk through the things like at airports haha it was crazy, but good so no complaining haha. We got into Paris and to the chapel in downtown Paris and it's been like 6 or plus months since I've been there and so all the construction had been finished and it was super fun to be back! We met up with all the other missionaries and ate some pains au chocolat and were waiting for elder Kearon and the Babins to arrive. Then we got seated and they came in and we started and honestly it was such an amazing conference and I just wanted to share a few things from it that touched and helped me as a missionary

Sœur Babin shared her testimony on how we have rules in the mission to protect us and that she knew that if we followed the rules 100% that we would receive blessings 100%

President Babin said something that REALLY touched me. He told us that the temple in Paris is OUR temple. He said if it belonged to anyone, it was the missionaries because it is thanks to the missionaries that we are getting a temple here. He told us that he was thankful for the work of the missionaries and used the example of John 15 where the savior talks about the vineyard and compared it to us and it was really great.

Elder Kearon is just one of my favorite people. HE IS SO DANG FUNNY. Honestly he is just so nice and he made me feel like a million bucks. One topic that I noticed coming from him ALL DAY LONG was the fact to just stop worrying. The little things don't matter! We are gods children and if we are doing what we should and following the example of the Savior we have no need to fear. So he encouraged us to LITERALLY forget ourselves and go to work. A quote that I absolutely LOVED that he said and that I'm going to make a sign for it or something was "Celebrate the pain au chocolat moment in which you are living.' Honestly he was just telling us that we are serving God. He loves us and he blesses us. The good and bad days will come, but we need to celebrate the pain au chocolat moment in which we are living. Isn't that cool? Haha I thought it was great and I'm going to live off that motto for a while. Towards the end of his messages he told us 'If ever there is a time that the gospel needs to and will spread in France, it is right now because of the construction of this temple.' He told us that he has a vision for these people and he knows that people are prepared for this message of the gospel. It was honestly an AMAZING conference. Maybe you just had to be there to feel the spirit, but it was amazing! And I didn't ever get tired!!

So during the day we had a split for lunch and during of course I was with all my friends! I took some fun pics. Then after the conference had ended I ran up to Elder Kearon and asked for a picture and he told me 'Yes, if it's fast cause I don't want everyone to do it!' Haha so we ran fast and grabbed Soeur Redd to take a picture of us. I also spent the entire conference sitting next to the Wilson couple! Do you all remember them from Metz?? The first senior couple I met! So obviously we had to take some fun pictures! I also noticed that like a gajillion of the people in my group were all at this conference and so we got all of them together and took a picture cause it is probably the last time that we will see our sisters:( haha so that will be a good memory. We then got going to make our train home and just like this morning we had to scan our bags and show passports and stuff haha but we got the train and got into Brussels and headed home to Namur for the night. I was so excited to get to my own bed! After running off of only 2 1/2 hours of sleep I was tired!! On the way home we walked past a kebab shop and I was too tired to make something for dinner and so we stopped there and headed home where I ate, showered and went straight to bed

VENDREDI

So this morning we woke up to find.......SNOW!! And a lot of it!! It was a fun little surprise haha we woke up and were exercising and I walked past a window and white over all the houses and so we got really excited. We then studied and then right after we had a rdv with the ward missionaries to finish going over the ward list to find out who needed to go where and who was going to visit who. So we went on our way to their house but I had told them that this time I was going to bring drinks and so we stopped by the grocery store to grab some drinks and when we were going through the checkout stand I set the buzzers off....haha so people came to us and made me show my bags and empty my pockets and we came to the conclusion that it was probably my 'new' coat that had a tag somewhere....oh la. So we got to their home and spent the next hour or so going through the list and once we'd finished she made us some dang good omelettes!! (Funny side note, as I just spelled omelettes, I realized that it's probable that it is a French word...lol I'm gonna try to figure that out) so we sat and ate with them and then we had to get going cause we needed to do weekly planning. It had been snowing since we left our apartment and so there was a lot of snow on the ground by now and so it was a very slippery walk home! But we got there and came inside and started our weekly planning. It went well, but as usual it just took forever to finish. When we finally had finished we had about an hour left of work and so we decided that since it was cold, dark, and snowy that going out and trying to work wouldn't have been the best use of our time. Even though the last thing I wanted to do was stay in the apartment a little bit longer haha do we just opened up our area book and made some calls to finish up our night. And it went well! We talked to lots of people and they either told us no thank you, or fixed a rdv! So we are getting good at cleaning out the area book;)

SAMEDI

Well today we had quite a great day to be honest! Haha it was full of work and went really well. I'll tell you what, it is so weird when you wake up on time, AND EXERCISE. Cause honestly I can wake up and just sit in a chair and do nothing but I am like pretty tired during the day, but the last 2 days I've worked out and I feel so awake and good the rest of the day. Elder Kearon told us to do it and, you are going to laugh at me, but the spirit just testified to me that I need to do it! So I'm glad I do cause I feel so much better!! Studies this morning went really well! I am getting so close to finishing the book of revelation! And then I'll be done with the New Testament so I am pretty excited about that! For language study I have decided to follow the counsel of I think it it was Harold b. Lee?? He told us that if we read the Book of Mormon all the way through in a foreign language we would be able to speak the language, so I'm going to do it in French before I get home! Then we went out contacting and talked to a few different people who were interested to talk to us but not interested to meet again. Being on my mission I've decided that that is the most frustrating thing about this work. People are interested in who we are, but not what we have to bring and it is SO hard to interest them enough to get back to see them. I'm still trying to figure out how to do it haha and I probably will my whole mission. So we then went and tried to drop by one of our investigators houses but he didn't answer the door even though I'm pretty sure I heard noises coming from the other side:( we then made our way home for lunch and this afternoon we had a rdv with another one of our investigators that I had never met before. So after lunch we went out contacting until the church. We got there and waited for him to show up and he never did which was a bummer. So we had a dinner appt with some members after that so we went and caught the bus to make it down to catch another bus and while we were waiting for the bus, he called and canceled on us cause he was in Brussels all day and it just wasn't going to work out with his schedule. So we did what all missionaries do when appts fall through and we went porting! Haha so we went and ported up an area that elder Nelson led us to. We were in an apartment building ringing sonnets when this one lady walked in. She told us she had just tried to go to mass but there was none at the Catholic Church she had gone to so she came home. We told her we were here tonight to share a prayer and message with her and after some serious contemplation lol she told us to come up. So we went up with her and taught her the restoration and prayed with her. She understood really well! But then she told us she wasn't sure if she'd want to meet again....I SWEAR! Haha I don't know what I do wrong lol she took a Book of Mormon and she told us when she was done with it she'd call us and give it back, so we told her she could keep it and she laughed and goes no I'll call you....so ya. We then left her with a prayer and headed home for the night

DIMANCHE

Today was a good Sunday! Sunday's always go by pretty fast. It's weird how that works. But it's good. So we woke up this morning and got all ready and out the door for church. When we got there this morning we were sitting there waiting for everyone to show up and slowly people started to get there, and today not a ton of people came because of the snow. There wasn't a ton of it this morning, but there was some ice and so lots of people didn't show up cause they were scared of the roads. Which was sad...have you ever been to Utah?!?! Lol jk so ya we were welcoming people in and all of the sudden 2 people speaking English walk in! They told us that they were from Arizona and here on business and that they'd be flying out on Saturday. So they came to our meetings and guess who was the lucky one to translate?? Haha seems like people like to make elder Libby translate. Also a member brought her neighbor friend so we had a special Sunday school for her so that we could answer questions and stuff like that. She told us that she already knew everything and that she didn't need to come to church like us cause she already knew everything she needed to know and that she was already close with Jesus. 🙄 if I had a nickel for every time I heard that I WOULD BE A MILLIONAIRE. LOL so she stood up in the middles of class and told us that she was going to go out to smoke. It was so funny cause after she left, this rather loud member says, 'someone needs to go tell her to stop smoking in the bathroom! I went in to pee and could hear her smoking in the stall and when she came out, she looked up at the ceiling and said Lord, how am I supposed to go in there?!' And then she looks at me and in English she says in like a serious but laughy tone 'elder, she smokes so much!' I died. Needless to say I was useless like the rest of the hour cause I was just dying laughing. The rest of Sunday was good and then we went and caught our bus home and took our lunch hour and then we went and made a list of all the less actives that we found while over at the ward missionaries this week and put all the ones that we are supposed to go and see on our list and then went out to find some. We were walking to one and got to the house address we had and no one answered but a neighborhood lady was walking around and so I stopped her and asked if she knew him and she said, 'No, but let's find him!' She then proceeded to go and knock on about 5 other doors asking around if anyone knew our less active haha no one did and so she told us to go down to this store just down the road and ask the manager, so we did and he didn't know either. Haha that was funny! Then we had a dinner appt with a family tonight. Their name is the Halushka family. They are Ukrainian and super cool! The mom speaks 5 languages and English is one of them and they were just super nice! We got out to their house and talked and ate and it was fun to be with some members. We then shared the restoration as a spiritual thought and in all honesty, it was a train wreck lol we didn't do a very good job and their non active son just started asking questions that just made it hard to concentrate...but we did have a good discussion gospel and we're hoping that soon we'll snag the interest of the son!;) they are super cool though and I had a ton of fun with them tonight!

J'espère que vous avez aimé ma lettre cette semaine!! C'était une semaine que je ne vais pas oublier! Franchement j'ai changé cette semaine. Et c'est pour le meilleur;) j'espère que vous passiez une bonne semaine et on se parlera bientôt:) je vous aime! Souvenez que ce n'est jamais trop tard ni tôt pour changer. Le Seigneur nous aidera:) a très bientôt!! Célébrez le moment pain au chocolat dans laquelle vous vivez

 

(I hope you enjoyed my letter this week! It was a week that I will not forget! Frankly I have changed this week, and it is for the best;) I hope you have a good week and we will talk again soon :) I love you! Remember that it is never too late or early for change. The Lord will help us :) Celebrate the pain au chocolate moment in which you are living! 

Elder Libby

 

             

WEEK 73

Je suis amoureux avec la Belgique. Franchement, c'est le meilleur! Et les frites sont bien aussi!!! Cette semaine c'est comme un rêve. Lol je suis parti du ghetto et je suis arrivé à l'hôtel Marriott! J'habite dans un château. Des fois je me perds dans l'appartement lol. Mon nouveau collègue vient de finir d'être un bleu donc il ne parle pas beaucoup le français mais quand-même j'essaye de parler le plus que je peux! Je n'ai pas parlé beaucoup en français cette semaine! :( Mais ma semaine était vraiment super! Laissez moi vous expliquer un peu!! Voici mon adresse:

 

Elder Tanner Libby

25 Avenue Golenvaux

Namur, Belgique 5000

 

LUNDI SOIR

so tonight ended super well. Like it was awesome! We had spent the day in St Omer and so around 4 we caught a bus home to Dunkerque and then once we got back we went shopping cause we decided it would be nice to have some food. So we went and got some food and then ran home and changed and headed over to the Deslypper's for dinner. One more time with them and it was great. I love them so much and I have been super blessed to have been with them. Just like every other time we ate lots of food and it was delicious and then we sat and talked and then I asked if I could share a thought for my last time and I shared D&C 31:3 and then told them thanks for everything and brother Deslypper told me to NEVER change. He told me that he has seen my progression in the last few months here and he knows that my trials had strengthened me. He told me that I would be blessed for what I was doing. They then gave us some little presents and mine was a model of the Beffroi in Dunkerque, which is this clock tower and Soeur Deslypper told me that she got it for me because she wanted me to remember the time that we climbed to the top with them. It was so cute. They then took pics with me and we headed out and they gave us a ride home and the night ended with a big hug from Frere Deslypper and me trying to finish up packing my bags.....YAY

MARDI

Today was CRAZY. Like seriously it was so busy and we were LEGIT running all day long. At the end of the day, elder Sorensen asked me, why wasn't every day like this while we were together?....haha so it started out with some studies, which for me consisted of some packing....lol but then we had a rdv with the ward clerk cause he had some questions on a list of members and less actives that me and elder Sorensen had worked on while we were together. So we headed out to the church and made our way to the rdv we had with him. So we got there and spent the next little bit with him explaining the list and what everything meant. We were supposed to have a lunch rdv with Mike at macdo but he called us and told us that his school schedule was changed and so he wouldn't be able to meet up with us for lunch. So I talked to him and it was a good talk with him. He's such a good kid. He will do great things. #NAMETHEMOVIE so then we went home and took some lunch for a while and I continued to pack my bags until we went to Mado's house once more so that I could go and get a note from her that she wrote for me and stayed and talked to her for a little bit and had to go and get Jean Paul for our rdv with Miguel...........so we went and did that and Miguel took us in and he gave me a Belgian flag and told me that he was so excited that I was going to 'his country' and that he might come and stop by in Namur and say hi to me.......... Anywho we then went for one more rdv with Jean Paul! honestly it was one of the saddest things ever. He told me he'd prepared a message for me and went on his tablet and pressed tons of random buttons til he got to this one page randomly in the 'Adjusting to Missionary Life' pamphlet in gospel library and read a little section on praying often and told me that as long as I prayed and stayed close to Heavenly Father that he knew that He'd watch over me and bless me and lead me to the people ready to be baptized. He then told me he loved me and we took some pictures and then had to leave :( I LOVE JEAN PAUL. THERE I SAID IT. We then went and headed out to Jean Bernard's house one last time and spent some time with him and shared a little message with him and took some pictures. Then we headed home and made this crumble that we'd promised to make for the Golding's one last time and so we made that and then RAN over to their house and spent the night with them. It was so good to spend some time with them. They are such a great family! We took some pictures and played some monopoly deal and then we had to run home for the night. It was a great night! I then finished up what I could on packing.....YAY

MERCREDI

Today was super good! I got up to Belgium and my new apartment is like a mansion. I kid you not. I moved from a shack into the Marriott. I can't get over it. This place is so big that I get lost sometimes. And my new area is beautiful! I've tried taking a couple pictures but they just don't do it justice so I guess you all will need to come here sometime and discover for yourselves! So this morning we got up and I FINALLY finished up packing and then we got a text that was from the assistants that said, 'Missionaries going to Belgium, all you need to board your bus this afternoon is you ID. please be sure to have it.' And I was like DIE. We had to take a bus from Paris to Belgium because of a strike going on and there were no buses. Like honestly, it was so long haha. So my inner self was just complaining;) we got on the train and headed out of Dunkerque and while leaving I got a phone call from Soeur golding telling me goodbye and a text from Soeur Deslypper telling me 'Good Mick. (<-- that was in English but the rest was in French!) We love you! Love Alain and maryse' and then 2 seconds later another text that said, 'good LUCK! Not mick!' Haha it was funny. We got into Paris and we were chilling in the gare and I called president Duez to say goodbye and in the background I could hear Soeur Duez screaming, 'Bye Elder!! We love you!!!' It was cute and tender. So I was just chilling in the gare and heard that we were coming back to Paris next week for a conference and then that it was because of a strike that we were taking a bus to Belgium tonight.....gah. So after the allotted wait of time we made our way to the new gare to catch our bus to Belgium. We still had a long time before we would be leaving so we waited and guess who showed up?! SOEUR CLAWSON! It had been forever since I'd seen her! So we caught up on good times. I can't believe that her and all my other soeurs are going to be 'dying' this transfer....I'm gonna be so lost without them when they go home! So anyway when the bus finally got here we went out and got in line and I was waiting to get on the bus when I turned around and who did I see?!?!?! LISA ROYER!!! Pauline's cousin and Gilles' niece from the Metz ward!! I may have freaked out a little cause she was standing right in front of me with a MISSIONARY BADGE ON!!!! She and I were buds when I was back in Metz and she is going to St George on her mission and waiting for a visa in Belgium! So I was freaking out when I saw her! It was so fun! We caught up on good times and then boarded the bus to Belgium. It was a long ride...like 4 1/2 hours....bleh but we finally made it to Brussels and we met up with the Norby's and all the other missionaries and got to the car and they drove us home for the night! Me and elder Nelson got to our apartment just around 9 and we planned and I spent the rest of my night unpacking and getting all settled in to my new mansion. I kid you not, this apartment is HUGE. I LOVE IT HERE!!

JEUDI

today was a marvelous first day here in Namur. We did some good work. It was really funny to see elder Nelson running around today. He is all alone in this area and he is just so young that I think he's freaking out a little trying to remember everything and everyone. I know how he feels and I know it's a little bit stressful! But it was funny to see him like that. So I was told that here in Namur it's usually beautiful weather and that I was in for a change! But this morning we woke up and there were clouds all over and just about a half hour before we walked out, it began to rain.....so needless to say, I  brought the nasty Dunkerque weather with me! That little town doesn't want to leave my heart!! So we had a lunch appt with a member and I guess it happens every Thursday for lunch we have a member named Patrick that takes us out for The World's Best Pasta. (Congratulations guys!!!! You did it!!!!! World's Best Pasta!) #NAMETHEMOVIE and it actually was really good pasta! And Patrick is a nice guy too. We spent about an hour with him getting to know each other and talking about the ward and all that fun stuff and then we got going. We went to go and get my bus pass for here in Belgium and then went home to grab elder nelsons and then had a rdv with one of their investigators here! His name is Luis and he is from Peru and they've been seeing him for a while and today we went in to re-teach the restoration and he was super nice! I just think that from what I saw we need to go slow with him and make sure that he understands clearly everything. It was fun to see elder Nelson saying how he thinks he's gonna get baptized soon;) his bleu fire is so strong!!;) so after that we headed home to look at the ward list to see where we should go next and we found this one less active that elder Nelson said he'd remembered the bishop had asked him to go see sometime and so we found her address and which bus we needed to take to get out to her house and we did that! We got out to the area and found that we had a long way to walk and we went up this MOUNTAIN walking through this road trying to find this less active. Not going to lie, I felt like we were in a scary movie running through a scary forest road lol I had no idea where we were going and I was just following this map on my iPad and it was so deep into the woods! But we finally found the address and....she had moved...lol so we found this ghetto bus stop and decided we'd see if a bus stopped there so we ported around in the scary neighborhood until the bus came and we took it back home. We then were contacting around when we got a call from someone in the ward asking us where we were and if we were still coming. Haha we were all huh?? And she goes we had a dinner appt and I have your food. LUCKILY, we were like 5 minutes away from her house but we were like an hour late for dinner and so we ran over to her house and she let us in and she had made some fish for us and so we ate with her and spent the rest of our night with her. I felt so bad but she was just laughing saying everything was ok! But neither of us knew about it so the old elder must have forgotten to tell us! Haha so that was interesting.

VENDREDI

Well today was weekly planning and it did take forever but also it was super good and we stayed focused like I kid not the entire time! It was awesome. We planned for all the investigators that we needed to and elder Nelson showed me the member book with all of the members of the ward and it was good to see them! I got kind of familiar with them before actually meeting them. It was good. So we woke up this morning and had some studies and then went out contacting and had some good discussions with everyone and it was good and all and then we came in for lunch and then started weekly planning. That literally took such a long time haha but we planned for this transfer, like we do at the beginning of every transfer and we made it a goal to have a fun date night for the Valentine's Day this transfer! Haha I'm hoping that that will work out cause that would be super fun! Apparently our ward is like super out going and so it would be super fun if we could do that to make everyone like a fool out of themselves or whatever;) so after we finished that we had picked out some less actives that we wanted to try and go see for the night and so we went out and caught a bus out to their neighborhood and tried to find them and ported around there and they weren't there or we couldn't find their house. I wanted to share a cute little bleu moment that elder Nelson did today. :) we were porting and someone answered and then saw us and slammed the door shut and he looks at me and goes, does that count as a door getting slammed in my face?? And I was like ya sure and he goes, YES! I can write about that in my journal! Lol!!! I thought it was so cute! Then we went to catch a bus home. The bus system is so much different in France than it is in Belgium....no one knows anything here!! Hah so after we had finished porting we went home and stopped by the friterie not to far from our apartment and LET. ME. TELL. YOU. BELGE FRITES ARE THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. I honestly am in love. Haha I was dying they are so good. I spent the rest of my night just dying over them cause they were just amazing!!

SAMEDI

Well today was a long finding day. But we made it through! We did a lot of finding and lots of walking. Elder Nelson told me that everyday we do about 10-15 miles of walking but I have yet to walk about 5 ;) today was good though. We woke up and we went and had studies and then went out to go contacting. We walked all around and talked with a bunch of different people and went to a few different areas that we hadn't been before and so we were just walking and talking. Then we came inside for lunch and we were just passing time you know doing dishes and whatever...haha then we went out to work for the afternoon. I wanted to go and see the chapel cause like why not? That gave us a destination to walk to and it was good for me to see everything before tomorrow. So we went and walked and we got there sooner or later while contacting people on the way. It would have been awesome if I was able to say we brought someone with us to the church to take them on a tour but that hasn't quite happened yet....we got there and I looked around and the chapel is almost the same as Dunkerque just flipped around! The big sacrament room and everything else, it was great to see. And to think that all the rooms would be being used! It made me a little nervous to have the big ward again! No thanks....I think I'll stick with the usual 15 each Sunday!;) after we'd finished up there we headed home for the afternoon and took some dinner and then we went out porting to end the night. We were going to go to this one area but the busses didn't work out and so we took another bus to another area and went and found this really nice man named Luc who let us in to explain a little bit. The only problem was, was each time I tried to explain, he'd interrupt and so I didn't get to explain a ton before we had to leave. But I wish all the best for Luc! Haha we gave him a card and a Book of Mormon and we'll see if he comes back to us or not. It was a good night!

DIMANCHE

Today was such a good day! I got to meet the whole ward and it was great. I do have to say that getting to church and just watching the people come in and not stop was super weird! To have more than 12 people at church is weird. I don't know if I am quite ready to come back to Utah....how the heck am I supposed to get to know everyone?? So anyway there is that little rant. We woke up this morning and went out to catch the bus to get to the chapel and here there are some members who take the bus with us and so we got on and the wife made the husband get up and move so that I could sit down right next to her and introduce myself and so that was cute. We got to church and everyone showed up and the bishop asked me to get up during sacrament meeting and bare my testimony. So we went in for sacrament meeting, cause they do that first here and it is awesome, and I had to bare my testimony which went well! And we also gave the Holy Ghost to the new member that they baptized last week before I got here. It was super cool! Then during the investigators class we talked about the fall of Adam and Eve and I was following along in Moses and I just realized how much I miss the temple! Like I think I'm just gonna hop in the car and head out to the temple with some members here!;) it's something that I did not take advantage of while being at home in Utah. It is a special blessing. So we finished up all our meeting today and then mingling with all the members and elder Nelson was all over trying to get a few dinner appts for this week;) haha so I was just walking around jumping in on conversations and trying to get to know some people. I got so many compliments on my French today! And it was from a week where I wasn't only speaking French! It made me pretty happy! So after all the meeting and mingling we headed home for lunch and then once we had finished lunch, it was windy and raining and so since there was no one on the roads and it would have been no good to go out in that, we did some area book work! We went through and called almost every potential investigator and started to clean out the phone and fixed a couple appts during the week. It was great! So that took a lot of time and by the time we'd gotten through a whole section in the area book we looked outside and there were clouds but it wasn't raining and so we went and did some work out there. We went to this random road and started to port. I was getting a little down cause I didn't feel like we were super inspired to go here and so I was like praying and asking for God to bless me to hear the whisperings of the spirit and I just wasn't getting anything! But we just kept going and this one man opened the door and let us in to pray and his family walked around the corner! They were a family from the Congo and they were 5 normal people! They let us pray and invited us to come back another time to meet up with them! It was such a blessing! They were so grateful to have had someone come ask them to pray. So we are going back next week. It was a tender mercy from the Lord.

Voici ma semaine! J'espère que vous allez bien. Je vais essayer cette semaine de parler plus français. Haha mais je ne crois pas que ça va arriver comme je voulais. Je parle souvent en français mais, il faut que mon collègue me comprend, n'est-ce pas?? Je vous aime!!! Et envoyez vos lettres!!!!! A bientôt!

Elder Libby