Je vais commencer en disant que c'est TROP bizarre de ne pas avoir tous mes sœurs missionnaires en mission.....LOL. J'ai reçu quelques mails d'eux et c'est bizarre de les voir avec leurs familles à l'aéroport....haha je vais vous dire que ça me fait TRUNKY!!! Par les uns d'entre vous qui ne parle pas missionnaire, ça veut dire que ça me fait penser beaucoup de chez moi et quand je vais rentrer;) mais je vais continuer!! J'ai encore 5 mois et demi!!:) mais bon voici ma semaine!! C'ÉTAIT INCROYABLE!!!!! (I'll start by saying that it is too weird to not have all my Missionary Sisters in the mission... Laughing out loud. I have received a few emails from them and it's weird to see them with their families at the airport... haha I'll tell you that makes me TRUNKY! By some of you who don't speak not missionary, I mean that makes me think much of my home and when I'll return;) but I will continue! I still have 5 months and a half! :) okay here is my week! IT WAS AMAZING!
So on the way home tonight we got a call from the mission office and the referrals manager told us that she had a referral from us! He lived right behind us and so we were going to go and contact him tomorrow! We got home and hurried and made some cookie dough cause the members here LOVE my cookies! They keep asking for more every week at FHE. We got to the church and had our weekly meeting with our DMP and then we started FHE. Claudette even came!!! Emmanuel had school and so we knew that he wouldn't be able to make it, so it was so good that she came:) No one had told us that they had been assigned the lesson so, us being the prepared missionaries that we are, we prepared a lesson for us:) we used the story of the horsemen that picked up pebbles cause they were commanded by a voice saying if you do it tomorrow you will be happy and sad. The next day they reached into their pockets and found that the pebbles had turned to diamonds and they were both happy and sad. Happy they had diamonds and sad they didn't have more. We had a great discussion on it! It was a super great family night.
MARDI
Today was alright. Nothing too exciting happened. OH WAIT! EMMANUEL AND CLAUDETTE HAVE A BAPTISMAL DATE! Hahaha it was such a great night and we finally got a date with them!!!!!!!!! It was an amazing rdv and it was all because of YOU and YOUR prayers and the help of the amazing members that we have here in Namur. We are truly blessed! But I'll get to that story soon. I have to start at the beginning of our day. Today we got up and had our studies and they went well. We practice taught for our lesson tonight. We had figured that we were going to be at a members house for dinner with them, and the Mazy's were coming as well and so tonight would be the best night to challenge them to a baptismal date. Then we went out contacting and talked to some interesting people, but that happens daily;) haha this one dude that we stopped was an army guy and he was telling us that we needed to prepare cause the Third World War was coming in like 2-3 months and that its all getting heated and yadayadayada....I was like ok well I don't like thinking about that stuff and so we left him with a prayer and then got going. We came in and ate lunch and then we had decided to head to the church to look at all our referrals and try to figure out how we can get to others and stuff. We found this one dude that was a Dutch speaker (we didn't know at first) and we had texted him and he texted back in Dutch and do we went to google translate!!;) haha we tried to have a conversation with him through that, but that didn't work out....he never responded after we said 'Zijn de Missionarissen van de Kerk van Jezus Christus van de Heiligen der Laatste Dagen. We kregen uw verwijzing en we wilden een ontmoeting met u. Maar we hebben geen nederlands spreken. Spreekt u Engels?' Lol don't worry I understood everything too........ha. So after we'd tried to contact them all, we headed out and contracted for the rest of the afternoon. When we'd finished we had to come into the apartment really quickly to grab some things for tonight and then we went to go and get Emmanuel and Claudette to head to dinner tonight! We got to their house and they got all ready and then we headed out the door to the Badoux's house. On the way there Emmanuel goes, 'Libby! You've gotten skinny since you got here!' YES. #LIBBYFORDAWIN we got into dinner and the Badoux's had invited the Mazy's and us and Emmanuel and Claudette and little baby Yannick:) haha we started off by eating and then we went into the lesson and it went really well. We talked about our life on earth and the atonement of Jesus Christ and elder Nelson shared a personal experience about his dad and we set the tone for the spirit. The members were then telling about how they've experienced blessings of the atonement in their lives and then Claudette shared an experience of how when the last elder left Namur they were interested/nervous about who would come in and so when I first came into their house and we were 'already friends,' it was that much easier for her to get her testimony of the gospel. She then told us all, 'I know it's all true!' To which two of the members laughed and said, 'so why aren't you baptized yet?!' And that lead into me and elder Nelson telling them that after prayer and thinking, we know they could be ready for baptism by March 20! And they looked at each other and said ok! They said they were going to work towards that!!! It was incredible!!!! Keep your prayers coming! They sure do need them still!!! A lot can happen in a month, so keep them coming! They are also talking about soon getting their daughter who is still stuck in Rwanda because of legality issues up here soon. PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM!!!! When we got home, I made my last phone call to Claire, or Soeur Walton as I sometimes refer to her;) haha we had a good time talking and got a lot cleared up. I'm super sad their all gone! But life is like that and we just have to learn and move on.
MERCREDI
today went well. Haha it was transfer day and so it went by super slow for me haha! Staying in a ville and no changes is weird....especially when it's just two of you elders! We get a little bored sometimes;) but none the less today went well. We woke up this morning and we did some studies and then we went out to go contacting. Honestly nothing too crazy happened. Except one lady told us that we could come to her house tomorrow and so we are definitely going to try that!! Hoping she didn't give us a faulty address haha! We found some other people and got a lot of them to give us phone numbers so they better watch out cause these two Mormon missionaries are going to get them;) LOL. I AM TOO FUNNY. Ok well we then came in for lunch and I was fasting so I didn't eat. I just went and wrote in my journal and smelt the food elder Nelson was making and wanted to eat some so bad haha!! We then went out and contacted until we had our rdv with Josiane our recent convert. We were just walking around and then slowly made our way to her house. After someone is baptized we have to teach them all the lessons again and so with her we are in the middle of the the plan of salvation. And she is a talker hahah so we don't get a ton taught or anything while we are there, but it's still good cause she calls us her angels tells us how thankful she is for us every time. She is a nice lady. We then went with brother Chung to this guy that didn't live too far from Josiane that he had found for us to possible teach. We went and stopped by his house and did a little type of introduction to who we are and why we actually want to come and see him and he was like ok I'll come to church sometime. Hahah so after we left we went and decided to go porting to finish off the night. We went and found an area that we hadn't been to in a while and we went and knocked doors. It really surprises me how much people are just like, no! So you even know what time it is? Haha like we are usually porting between 6-8 and people are like hello it is too late to be asking to pray with people....it doesn't make sense...haha! We then stopped by the friterie on the way home and we got some fries for dinner. I am gonna tell you that I am going to miss that so much!! Just going to a friterie and getting a cornet of frites for dinner! It's gonna be sad to not have anymore!
JEUDI
Today went by fasssttttt! Haha it's so weird to me how fast it goes...the sister missionaries that I came in with made it home today...that was weird to notice. Around 11 I realized that they were on a plane and around 8 I realized that they had landed....so weird!! So today we wanted to go to Emmanuel and Claudette's tonight with a member who had asked if she could come teaching with us, so we were trying to call Emmanuel all morning but he wasn't answering and so we just decided to go and knock on their door and ask. So we did that and they were all ya come tonight;) so we went and contacted until we had our rdv with PATRICK!!!! Haha long story short, he tried to cancel on us today because of meetings, but we worked around it and got our weekly meal with him. I honestly just love meeting with him!! He is so amazing haha! So we ate and had a good time with him and then we went out contacting until we had a rdv with the lady we met yesterday! We made our way to the address she'd given us and we knocked and she answered and let us in! We got to know her first off and she told us that she wanted us to come back and teach her more cause she's heard lots of things about the Mormon church and she wants to know if all the rumors are true or not. So we taught her and answered all her questions about the restoration and then she told us we could come back. It was a good rdv! We then left and went and contacted for the last little bit that we had until our rdv with Emmanuel and Claudette! We met up with Soeur Dewagne and we went and taught them the rest of the plan of salvation. These two are SO interested in this plan! Haha like I can't get over it. It is all they ever talk about. They keep saying things like they are finally content with knowing where they come from and why they are here and they know the goal of this life and it is just so cool to see the spirit work in them. They are so interested in this little plan that God had made for them. We then came home for dinner and ended the night with some fries and chicken
VENDREDI
Today went by in the blink of an eye....lol not kidding!! It was so fast. And it went by super fast cause we only did a couple of things today, but they took up the entire day. So I'm sorry, but just like the rest of the days this week, today will be short! We woke up this morning and had our studies and during my language study.....I ate a whole bottle of salsa.......haha thanks mom;).....#FATTYFORLYFE anyway after I had finished eating, I mean studies, we went out and we went contacting. We had found 2 more less actives that lived decently close to us and so we went and decided to go and try to find them and see if they lived there. 1 had told us he moved and the other told us that he didn't want anything more to do with us....so we told him to write a letter to the bishop and so we'll see. We then contacted all around until it was time for lunch and so we made our way in. After lunch we had to start weekly planning. BEST part of the week.....LOL I CANT EVEN SAY IT WITHOUT FEELING BAD. I am totally kidding. I do not like weekly planning. Haha we went into the study room to do it and we were in there for 4 hours. AND WE DIDNT EVEN FINISH. ahhhhh. So anyway while planning we made a list of all the less actives that we had tried to go and find during the past few weeks to give to the ward missionaries, our ward mission leader, and the secretary so they can do what they want with them and we also planned HARDCORE for our lessons next week. We are planning to go in depth with Emmanuel and Claudette and teach them the 3 big commandments next week: Word of Wisdom (which is really the only one that we think we'll have a problem with), the law of chastity, and tithing! So keep those prayers coming!!!! When we had finished we had to get going. We invited the Mazy's to come with us tonight and they told us they were going to try, but they had something else planned, so we didn't know to expect them or not. We brought my Oreos from mom cause I thought that would be fun to play the game where you put the cookie on your forehead and you have to get it down to your mouth without your hands haha! We got there and as soon as we got inside the Mazy's called and said, we are coming!!! We are stopped because of a train but we'll be there! So they came and we had a fun night! We played the Oreo game and we watched elder Nelson and Emmanuel box for a minute! Lol it was fun. We then taught repentance and it went really well. During the lesson e&c and the Mazy's asked me what my story was behind coming on a mission. So I started at the beginning and told them how it all went down and how after talking with HF, my parents, and my bishop about all my thoughts because of what happened my senior year in school, I knew I wanted to be able to save people. It was a good rdv!!! The Mazy's then gave us a ride home. It is so cool to see the spirit in these people!! I can't even explain it! They said it themselves tonight. They said, 'what you're teaching us is like a quench to our thirst. We are just thirsty and we NEED more!' It was so cool. These 2 are changing me.
SAMEDI
Well today went well as well. Honestly these past couple of weeks have just been great. There really hasn't been a day that hasn't been 'good'. I've been pretty blessed. Today I kind of felt like we didn't use our time to the fullest and we could have done more, but it wasn't necessarily our fault...the weather was nasty and we misunderstood when we had a rdv...so let me get to that. We woke up and had our studies. After we had finished, we looked outside and saw that it was nasty rainy weather and so we decided we'd finish up our weekly planning. So we did that and after we had about an hour left until our rdv. Or so we thought.....we got outside and contacted to the church and then waited for our rdv with a potential investigator named, Emmanuel;) haha so we were waiting and he never showed up, so we called him and he goes we said TROIS heures. On the phone, if you aren't really paying attention, TROIS heures (3 o'clock) sounds a lot like TREIZE heures (13 o'clock... Yes they use the military clock here, but sometimes don't at the same time....confusing I know) so we had thought he said TREIZE when he said TROIS, so we were at the chapel 2 hours early. He told us that he was sorry and he'd get there as fast as he could. So we had a while before he said he'd be there so we decided to clean the church! We swept and mopped and vacuumed and it was good. He then finally got there and we taught him a lesson on the restoration. It went well, but then we asked him if he'd be baptized if he came to know what we taught was true and sadly he said no. He told us that he was not set on the idea of one true church and that he was a part of multiple churches cause he likes them all. So that was a bummer. So we left and made our way home and by this time is was like 3:30 and we hadn't eaten since this morning and so we just cooked up a HUGE pot of pasta for lunch haha! We literally ate until our stomachs were sore. Then since it was raining still and no one was outside we just stayed in and made some calls...someone has to do it so you might as well when no one is outside right?? Anyway we were still sick to our stomachs when we saw we needed to leave for Emmanuel and Claudette's. We then realized we had told Claudette we would bring frites to our lesson tonight and she said she was going to make us all dinner! And we weren't even hungry....in fact we both were about to explode haha! So we went and got frites and then made our way to their place, and while doing so, we got SOAKED by a car who drove past us in a puddle........thanks. It was a noteworthy experience. We got to their place and ate til we about exploded and then taught them baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the sacrament and enduring to the end. Claudette pretty much quoted 'Is It Still Wonderful to You?' She was all, 'enduring to the end is super important. Like there are probably so many people who make excuses like, 'I don't need to read the scriptures cause I know them all.' Or, 'I don't need to go to church cause I've learned everything.' I'm always going to stay cause I know I'll always be able to learn something knew each time.' I literally was just amazed. THEY ARE SO GOOD. And during our entire lesson I was holding Yannick cause anytime E&C tried he just cried. #babywhisperer #stillgotit #whosyadaddy
DIMANCHE
Sunday's are always a blast when you're serving the Lord!! Haha Sunday's are such a great day. Even when we are working the whole time, I still feel like Sunday's are a different kind of work. It doesn't feel like the rest of the week. Honestly, Sunday's are LITERALLY a day of rest! Haha funny how that works isn't it?? But today went well. We got up this morning and got all ready for church and then headed out and caught our bus. We got there and they had told us that we were going to have a ward council for a few minutes before church started and during it we told our ward mission plan, to have 7 baptisms by the end of the year, and told of Emmanuel and Claudette fixing a baptismal date. We had originally planned to have 12 baptisms this year but......anyway someone changed it. (Chung) hahha sorry. We then had good meetings!! Last night at Emmanuel and Claudette's house we had explained a little bit how the church meetings go and why we raise our hands to sustain things and stuff and today when the 1st counselor announced that we were going to have a baptism for Emmanuel and Claudette, they hadn't gotten to church, but after they got there, elder Nelson told them that they had just announced them getting baptized, Claudette goes, 'Oh no!!! We didn't get to raise our hands!!!' 
I died. Anyway the rest of church was really well. We had good meetings and then Emmanuel and Claudette's offered us a ride home and so we left with them and got home to eat. Today we didn't make a huge pot of pasta, but we made a ton of crepes cause like we didn't really have anything else! Haha so that's what we ate and it was good. I still haven't mastered them....I KNOW. IM TERRIBLE. 18 months in the land of crepes and I still haven't gotten it. Same thing with baguettes too....I still need to figure out how to make those. After we had finished eating, we did some paper work cause we had a ton of things to fill out and it had been forever since we updated the potential investigators paper. So we spent a good 45 minutes doing that and then had decided to go out to this one neighborhood that we'd ported and try and find this one potential investigator. This was like the 3rd time we'd done that and so after she didn't answer we just decided to leave her on the potentials list and not take a whole ton of time on her. We then spent the rest of our time porting and then we went and caught a bus back to Emmanuel and Claudette's house. We invited the member that took us to Chinese takeout the other week, the Paulus'! He served his mission in SLC and he speaks English and it's always fun with him. We taught the 10 commandments and the sabbath day tonight and the only problem that we found out was when Claudette gets off of maternity, she has to go back to work, and she works every Sunday, MANDATORY. So she asked us to do one thing. PRAY SHE CAN FIND A NEW JOB. So I don't wanna ask to be greedy, but if you all could start praying for that, that would do wonders for us! We're currently trying to figure out what we could do to help them. Anyway after the lesson, we went and had dinner with a couple members and it was a fun way to end the night.
I died. Anyway the rest of church was really well. We had good meetings and then Emmanuel and Claudette's offered us a ride home and so we left with them and got home to eat. Today we didn't make a huge pot of pasta, but we made a ton of crepes cause like we didn't really have anything else! Haha so that's what we ate and it was good. I still haven't mastered them....I KNOW. IM TERRIBLE. 18 months in the land of crepes and I still haven't gotten it. Same thing with baguettes too....I still need to figure out how to make those. After we had finished eating, we did some paper work cause we had a ton of things to fill out and it had been forever since we updated the potential investigators paper. So we spent a good 45 minutes doing that and then had decided to go out to this one neighborhood that we'd ported and try and find this one potential investigator. This was like the 3rd time we'd done that and so after she didn't answer we just decided to leave her on the potentials list and not take a whole ton of time on her. We then spent the rest of our time porting and then we went and caught a bus back to Emmanuel and Claudette's house. We invited the member that took us to Chinese takeout the other week, the Paulus'! He served his mission in SLC and he speaks English and it's always fun with him. We taught the 10 commandments and the sabbath day tonight and the only problem that we found out was when Claudette gets off of maternity, she has to go back to work, and she works every Sunday, MANDATORY. So she asked us to do one thing. PRAY SHE CAN FIND A NEW JOB. So I don't wanna ask to be greedy, but if you all could start praying for that, that would do wonders for us! We're currently trying to figure out what we could do to help them. Anyway after the lesson, we went and had dinner with a couple members and it was a fun way to end the night.
Je ne peux pas croire que ça fait déjà 18 mois.... C'est TROP bizarre....mais c'est la vie LOL. Merci pour tous ce que vous faites et pour tous ce que vous êtes. Je vous demande de continuer à prier pour mes amis de l'église et pour moi. Avec les avancements que nous avons fait cette semaine, je sais que l'adversaire va continuer à travailler plus dure. Ils ont besoin des prières. Je suis très reconnaissant d'être un missionnaire pour mon père céleste et le Seigneur. Merci encore! N'oubliez jamais que je vous aime!! (I can't believe that it's been already 18 months... This is too weird... but it's my life LOL. Thank you for all that you do and for all that you are. I ask you to continue to pray for my friends in the Church and for me. With the excitement that we have this week, I know that the adversary is going to continue to work hard. They need the prayers. I am very grateful to be a missionary for my heavenly father and Lord. Thanks again! Never forget that I love you!)
Elder Libby
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