WEEK 87

Et alors! Je peux dire que je ne suis plus en enfant! Lol j'ai 20 ans et honnêtement je ne ressens pas la différence! Et en plus, j'ai oublié que mon anniversaire c'était vendredi! Lol cela peut vous dire combien nos jours, en tant que missionnaires sont différent. Chaque journée c'est le même! Mais quand-même, j'étais gâté et je suis béni avec les amis que j'ai ici à Namur! J'espère que vous avez aimé la neige qui est venu! Ça se passe chaque année pour mon anniversaire! Je ne me rappelle pas d'un anniversaire sans la neige! Alors amusez vous bien avec la neige. Merci à vous tous pour les mails et les mots gentils que vous m'avez envoyé pour mon anniversaire. C'était une bonne semaine:)  (So what! I can say I'm not a child! Lol I'm 20 and I honestly do not feel the difference! And besides, I forgot my birthday was Friday! Lol it can tell you how days as missionaries are no different. Every day is the same! But anyway, I was spoiled and I am blessed with the friends I have here in Namur! I hope you enjoyed the snow that has come to you! It happens every year for my birthday! I do not remember a birthday without snow! So have fun with the snow. Thank you all for the messages and kind words you sent me for my birthday. It was a good week  )

 

 

 

LUNDI SOIR

Well today we just stayed at the church while we waited for all the members to show up for family home evening. Tonight was the last time that we were going to see the Mazy's for a long time cause they are going off to Portugal for a few weeks cause they have a house there and so they will be gone for a while. I was going to make some cookies, but we ended up not going back home so, sadly we just had family home evening and then some of the other goodies that the members all brought. It was a good night. We had a lesson on how even when we are members of the church, we still are learning. Brother mazy told us all about how it's important to remember that we can still learn. It was a good night ended up with some hangman and some hugs. The Mazy's also gave me a birthday present since they weren't going to be here on Friday. It was a tie with elephants on it and they said the reason they got it was so that I would never forget them, or Emmanuel and Claudette cause they have elephants in their country hahah! They are such sweet people.

 

MARDI

Today we had district meeting and for district meeting we were given the task to make the side dish and so we decided to make some pasta salad. So I got up this morning and I had some pasta to make so I did that and we got all the ingredients and then headed out to catch our train out to Charleroi. When we got in, we met up with all the other missionaries and then we hopped on a bus to the chapel and there has to wait for the guys from Charleroi to come and open up the church. We had a good formation today on testimonies and their importance and why we have them. It went really well and it really gave me the desire to have mine strengthened. We then went to have lunch and these little missionaries were so dang cute that they bought some ice cream sticks and then stuck some candles in them for my birthday and brought them out to sing to me haha! The only problem was that there wasn't any lighters and so it was just an ice cream stick with candles hanging out of them. Haha we then decided that since we had about a half hour left until the bus passed to take us to the gare that we'd hurry and clean up all the dishes and then hurry and go play a few rounds of Jungle Speed! I don't know if any of you have ever played that, but let me tell you, it is fun, exhilarating, and FREAKING INTENSE!! Haha when you know how to play, these guys really get into it haha! So after a few rounds I finally got the hang of it and figured out how to play a little bit and we played until the bus came! It was super fun. Then we had exchanges with the district leader for today and tomorrow so we all got on the bus and headed down to the gare and then went and hopped on the train and all headed up to Nivelles together. We went into the apartment and we planned for the rest of the day and talked about 'what goals we wanted to set and accomplish during our time together on these exchanges.' So we did that and then me and elder Taylor headed out and worked for the rest of the evening. We had about 3 1/2 hours to fill and so we did a lot of contacting and a lot of knocking doors and it was good. He just came from the district with one of my really good mission friends that I met here and so he was telling me lots of really funny stories. It was fun to be with him and learn from him. He is only one transfer in the mission younger than me, so we are pretty much the same age. We came to the conclusion that I am the oldest missionary that is currently in Belgium....can you believe it? I die in 2 1/2 transfers and I'm the oldest one in the whole country!! Anyway, our night ended by going in for dinner and the other elders coming in and us all playing Jungle Speed together. I finally won a round, and I think I might be getting the hang of it to kick someone's butt!

 

MERCREDI

Well we were still on exchanges today when we got up and so we got up and had some studies and tried to figure out what we could do for the day. We decided to go and work for a little bit this morning and then all meet up for lunch at a kebab shop. So that's what we did. Elder McDonald had a letter to mail off to the mission home and so we had to run to the post office and send that off cause he said he'd been putting it off too long haha then we went and looked at train times for me and elder Anderson to make it back to Namur. When we got to lunch I gave in and I bought the wretched metraillette! Haha it had been a while and when I saw them I just ordered one and are it and wanted to die....lol so anyway during lunch I had told elder Anderson when our train would be leaving and he said something along the lines of not wanting to go back to Namur because he was having fun and we all laughed and said oh just wait haha when we get back into Namur, you'll know that it was time to get back. Nothing explains the feeling of being home. (I'll let you know what that feels like in a few months haha) so we then went back out and contacted around for the afternoon and me and elder McDonald found this pond and some really flat rocks and we decided to try out our skipping rock skills! Sadly as I am typing this I realized we didn't get any pictures or videos of us skipping those rocks, which might have been a good thing cause I was suckin that up BIG TIME, but I'm also just a little bummed cause I was super happy to finally do that again! It reminded me of all the times that we would do that as a family (which wasn't often like at all, but still we did it sometimes) and how my mom would tell me all about how my grandpa would love to go and throw some skipping rocks out in the dam. It was a cute moment. Anyway we came home and did some exchange inventory stuff and then we went and we caught a couple trains back into Namur and as we were walking into the apartment I asked elder Anderson, 'you see what I mean by being home??' And he goes, 'I totally understand.' Lol so we had to hurry and get our stuff and go cause we had a rdv with some less actives (well, he's less active, she's not, but they live together and they're not married....long story) cause they'd invited us over. So we went and caught another train out to their house and had a good quick little rdv with them and talked about our potential to conversion and watched the 'Waiting on the Road to Damascus' Mormon Message which is such a good one! It was a pretty good rdv and honestly, ELDER ANDERSON'S FRENCH IS AMAZING. The whole rdv he was just talking with the members and even added in his '2 cents' at the end of the message 🤗️🏻️🤘🏻🏻 he's doing so good. Anyway after that rdv we headed home for the night.

 

JEUDI

Well today we had an awesome rdv with the old investigator that we re-found last week named Adrian! It honestly was such a great lesson and we got super in depth with him and he's doing great for the moment. So to start off today, it was my last day of being a teenager haha what the..... It's so weird how old I am getting I just can't believe it. Ahhh. Anyway. We got up this morning and we studied and then made our way out to lunch with Patrick. Today was alright. I felt like he was kind of just complaining a little bit about everything, but I guess we all have those days right?? After lunch we had a rdv with the new guy that we'd met last week and so we went and made our way to the church cause we told him we'd meet him there. I'd called him earlier today to confirm but he didn't answer and so I was a little nervous he wouldn't show up. Me and elder Anderson had a few things that we needed to do on the computer though. We have to go into Paris next week and we need to buy some train tickets and so we went and looked up train times and had to fill out a form online for our legality here in Belgium, which is an absolute nightmare.....the government doesn't seem to be working with us at all and so we are apparently having so many problems with legality here. This is Elder Libby talking, but I kind of think that since I only have 2 transfers left, that they're going to kick me out of Belgium next transfer and try to get someone else in here so they can try to get legality for them instead....so if you'd like to maybe start praying for that that could help:) anyway the new investigator never showed up and so we finished up the things we needed to do on the computer and then we left and made it down to Adrian's place for our rdv. It went super well!! He'd read the restoration brochure and he'd marked his questions and he'd asked all his questions and told us that the whole past week, after our last rdv, that he'd really felt like he needed to pray and so he'd been praying! He just said the only embarrassing part was that he hadn't really gotten any answers to prayer and so we told him that it was ok and that he could totally just keep praying and that with time, as he read, prayed and came to church, that things would start to work out. Then. He was all, ok I'll come to church this Sunday. I WAS LIKE WHAT?! Haha it was the best! He said that he just didn't want to have to get up and introduce himself cause he was a little shy about that kind of thing. So that was funny. But anyway we had such a great rdv and talked about the priesthood and the Book of Mormon and then we left and came in for dinner and then went and ported in this one neighborhood that I'd never been to before and it was good haha I feel like Satan is working really hard on these people right now! Not a ton of people are listening to us lately and it's super tempting to not go talk to them cause it's just not fun to get rejected! But we're still trying. Anyway we knocked and knocked and nothing happened before it was time to go in for the night.

 

VENDREDI

I'm going to be 100% completely honest with you all right now and say that half way through today, I legit forgot that it was my birthday haha! I legit didn't even remember and then elder Anderson mentioned something about it and I was all oh ya haha! That honestly goes to show how repetitive our days our. They all feel the same! So anyway, we got up and I was all haha it's my birthday I'm going back to bedddd haha so I went and slept in a little bit more and then we got up and had some studies and then we went out and contacted a little bit and it went well haha we had to go up to the church to print off some train tickets that we need for next week going into Paris so we went and did that and then we were contacting again and we went for some #BIRTHDAYFRITES haha we got there and the guys gave us our frites and then we headed home and we ate some lunch with our frites right before we planned. How sad, I know...we had to weekly plan on my birthday...what kind of sick world is this?? Anyway we started and it took a long time haha but we finally got it finished and when we did we had a bout a half hour until we needed to go and get Emmanuel and Claudette to get to the Badoux's house for dinner. So we took language study, like good missionaries, and then we went and we headed out and got to Emmanuel and Claudette's house. She stuck her head out the window and told us to go ahead cause she was a little bit behind schedule and that she'd be there soon. So we had about 20 minutes and we went and looked to see if we could find some yeast so that maybe we could make scones or something, but instead we got distracted by the movie rack and because it's my birthday, I may or may not have bought some movies to watch when I get home! Haha they all reminded me of my past times with movies and so I got them cause why not?;) now the real problem is to keep them hidden away in my bags so that I don't watch them while I'm still out lol jk my will power is too strong haha. So ya we went and got those and then we headed over to the Badoux's and as soon as we got in it started to rain really hard and so Claudette called and she goes, it's raining and so I'm going to sit here and wait for the rain to stop and so Frere Badoux decided that we'd go and get her, and so we got there and Emmanuel wasn't there and we were all....huh? Apparently he found a job! And he works every night and he had just started the day before and for some reason they didn't tell us! But we were like sad cause he wasn't there, but super happy because he found a job!!! He works in a Chinese restaurant I guess and he says it's good, so we're happy! We got back to the Badoux's and we ate raclette and had a fun night there and soeur Badoux had bought a really nice patisserie cake and it was delicious! So anyway that was probably the biggest part of my birthday haha nothing too exciting, just another day. We then left and came home the Nivelles elders had come in for the night so that they wouldn't have to wake up super early tomorrow morning to make it in to our finding day. 

 

SAMEDI

today was a good day! We had an awesome finding day! The only down side was that it was legit a day of teaching and no legit finding....that meaning that we taught tons of lessons and people, but we didn't find any new investigators....:( so that was definitely a bummer. But we had fun and some members came and hung out with us for the day and helped us out and so it was a good time. We got up this morning and we made a couple of boxes full of book of Mormons and brochures and contacting cards and all that and then we headed out and all the other missionaries were on the bus that got us up to the church and we went and waited up there for all the members to come and while we were waiting, elder Larsen pulled out a box and it was wrapped and he said happy birthday from the district! It was so nice! So I opened it and it was a game of Jungle Speed!!!!! I was so happy and so excited!!! So I wanted to break it open and play it right then, but then Pierrot and Annabelle showed up and then Frere Chung and the bishop and a couple other members and so when we had waited for a little bit, we all got into cars and headed down into centreville and we started to hand out book of Mormons and brochures and go contacting and all that and it was really good! I got to go with elder dudfield and it was a blast and we taught 2 lessons in 30 minutes!! Haha it was great. We then went and it was our turn to, for lack of a better term, work the corner! We had our box full of brochures and cards and family proclamations and we were just stopping people as they walked by and asking them if they wanted to learn more and talking to them about all our beliefs and stuff. It was really fun actually! Then the grey clouds started to roll in and it got time that we needed to leave to make it to Pizza Hut Buffet on time for our reservation and so we left and we headed there and as we were driving there, it began to POUR!! We literally stopped at the perfect time haha. We got to Pizza Hut and had a fun hour or so and tried to see who could eat the most pieces of pizza and elder Anderson won and ate 22 slices of pizza.....I was satisfied with a solid 13 hahahaha it was good fun. Anyway after that we all came back to the apartment and said goodbye to the members, and went to go and check train times for everyone and then played a couple rounds of jungle speed while everyone hurried and used the bathroom and then me and elder Anderson went and got some porting in for the night. There wasn't a ton of people that wanted to listen to us, like I said, I'm pretty sure Satan is working hard here! But we are trying to work harder! And we're gonna win. So ya we walked and knocked on lots of doors and got lots of no's but we'll just keep going until we get those yeses!! When the night had finished we came inside and counted it up and today we had taught 17 lessons in all!!! I don't know about you guys, but I find that just a little bit incredible!! It was a great day, and plus we had lots of fun. The only down part was, I went to go look at our phone this afternoon and it said, LOCKED. PLEASE ENTER PUK CODE. So I was all what? And I called the office lady and she told me we'd have to wait til Monday to get our PUK code....so we were without a phone all weekend.....

 

DIMANCHE

Well today was a fun day as well! Haha it started off with a just less than awkward morning....we woke up on time and even got ready on time. We literally got out to the bus stop on time, but that bus must have passed super early cause we sat there forever and it did not pass....we were waiting and nothing....so we finally decided that we'd just walk over to Emmanuel and Claudette's place and see if we could just catch a ride with them, and we were waiting downstairs, right next to their car, for them to come down and see if we could ride with them, when all of the sudden, Adrian came out of nowhere and was like hey guys I'm on my way to church! So we started walking with him and I was like look we can catch the next bus and it'll drop us off just 10 minutes from the church and we can walk the rest of the way and Adrian goes ok I'll see you there! And just kept walking....so we caught the bus, passed Adrian on the way, and then walked the rest of the way to church.....we finally got there about 15 minutes before church started... Anyway, like I said, it was just less than awkward. But Adrian did make it to church and he stayed for sacrament meeting! So that was great!! I had to give a talk during church today and it was about how to gain a testimony and if we're being completely honest, I didn't even remember I was giving a talk in church until yesterday and so all last night after we got home I was preparing my talk and to be honest it wasn't that good. So I got up and gave my talk and then after sacrament meeting, I got so many members come up to me and telling me that my talk was 'incredibly inspiring' and 'touching' and 'super good' so that made me feel good. During the last 2 hours of church we had a guy from Paris here to tell us all about the church's self reliance program and what it's all about and how we use it and, I'm sorry, but as a missionary, that was super boring.....haha we were sitting next to Pierrot and Annabelle and the whole time we were all making jokes and laughing and it was a blast just because of that. They are honestly the funniest. Anyway, after that we were just waiting around and saying goodbye to all the members when all of the sudden the bus passed and so we were like oh dang....haha so just as we were about to start walking home, Pierrot yelled at me and asked if I liked tacos and I was like sure why? And he goes good get in the car and let's go and I was like dude you invited us over last week! And he goes, so?? Come on! So we went home with them again and spent the afternoon with them and ate lunch and had fun with them. It was super fun! They were telling us all about some funny movies that they'd seen lately and they were telling us how I'm gonna be able to really know who I need to marry and how they knew and it was a really good time with them. I really like them, can you tell? They also told us that we were welcome to go to their house to Skype our families for Mother's Day, so that'll be fun!! After we'd finished, Pierrot drove us to the train station and we caught a train back to Namur and then came home and changed and then went out and contacted until we needed to come in and do some studies for bleus and take dinner. So it was a good and filled day! I sure am blessed to be in such an amazing ward!! I love these people and I love being here in Namur!

 

Et bien! J'espère que cette fois je vous ai bien amusé. Merci pour vos mails et vos souhaites pour mon anniversaire! Je vous aime tous! Je vous demande de continuer à prier pour cette paroisse et pour les gens ici pour que mon collègue et moi puissent les trouver pour les aider se rapprocher à notre père céleste! On se parlera bientôt! Allez faire quelque chose du bien cette semaine et M'ÉCRIVEZ VOS EXPÉRIENCES! Je vous aime!!  (Well! I hope with this news you had fun. Thank you for your emails and your gifts for my birthday! I love you all! I ask you to continue to pray for this ward, and for the people here, for my companion, and that I can get closer to our Heavenly Father! We'll talk soon! Go do something good this week and EMAIL ME YOUR EXPERIENCES! I love you!!)

 

Elder Libby