13 Months of MIRACLES

Coucou à tous ! Comment ça va ? 

Here we are again with another week in the books! This week we were able to see lots of little MIRACLES and it has been truly incredible to see God's hand prevail in our lives and in the work!          

Tuesday we decided to change things up and go to Tourcoing for our weekly planning instead of Roubaix. My area covers both Northern France and a bit of Belgium. Tourcoing and Roubaix are the two furthest French cities in my secteur. They border Belgium. They take a while to get to because we live outside the secteur in Lille, so we try to go at least once or twice a week to the parts of the mission that are further away. When we do go, we spend pretty much our whole day there "to get our money's worth." 🤣 Just kidding... but really, it's true! We spend a lot of time traveling to different parts of our area, so whenever we get to our destination we try and spend as much time as we can there. 

While in Tourcoing we went to a library to do our weekly planning. (Weekly planning takes place the day after p-day where we take a few hours to make a plan for the week by setting goals and thinking about how we can help our amis and ward members.) It was actually pretty fun because we s'installer on the media floor and they had some good music playing! It sounded like oldies music - I think.  (Not sure it's been a second since I've listened to that kind of music. 😉) But Soeur Smith and I were straight vibin! We loved it! 

However, before we even got to the point of vibin we first had to find the library! Now, for those of you who know me, you know I am not very dué (gifted) in the navigation department!  Soeur Smith and I tried using Google maps on both our phones to find our way, but neither of us could get a good signal, so we were kind of running around. During our navigational craziness, we noticed two other ladies trying to figure out their navigation as well! They stopped us and asked if we knew where a certain street was. Unfortunately, being lost and unfamiliar with the area, we weren't much help, but we offered to go with them to try and find it together. It was also raining... a lot, (it's pretty normal to rain all the time in the winter in Europe) so we all huddled under our umbrellas. One of the women was even carrying her child in a Baby Bjorn with a blanket covering her baby! As we were making our way to where these two ladies were trying to go we ended up passing the library! #MIRACLE

We talked with the ladies as we walked and they were the sweetest and absolute cutest ladies ever! They already have their own religion and were not too interested in changing, but they thought that what we were doing was super cool! We gave them a card and told them to call us whenever they wanted! Even though we may not have gotten their numbers, it was a fun impromptu meeting that absolutely made my day and I loved it! 

This week we also had fun with exchanges! In the Lille zone every equipe is practically in training, so whenever we do exchanges this transfer, we are doing them with some of our new trainees! This week I was with Soeur Taylor, who is currently serving in Arras and is only 3 weeks into her mission! She is so cool and is an incredible artist! She did a watercolor portrait of me and it was sooo beautiful! As we were planning our day, she told me that she would love to do some finding incorporating painting...so guess what we did?! WE DID FINDING WITH PAINTING and it was super cool! It was probably one of my most favorite finding days ever! We saw so many MIRACLES! 

It began on the metro when Soeur Taylor painted a portrait of a lady sitting near us. The woman noticed Soeur Taylor working on it, and as soon as she gave it to her, the woman's face absolutely lit up! She was so happy! I had tried talking to the woman a little before she received the portrait, but didn't really succeed but...the painting changed everything! She said thank you, which was then followed by a, "God Bless You" which I then asked her if she was religious? This then led to an incredible conversation about the Book of Mormon! We presented it to her in French, but she told us that her native language was Lingala, and she definitely read better in that language. I then whipped out my phone and pulled up the Book of Mormon in Lingala! After reading the introduction, she asked if she could get a copy. UM....OF COURSE! Unfortunately, she didn't know her number but I gave her a card with our number on it. I have a lot of faith in those cards and I am expecting a call any day now! 😉 We gave away maybe 4 portraits that day, and each one was incredible! 

We also had our Zone Conference in Bruxelles this week, which was amazing! I was able to see Soeur Madsen, who was one of my MTC companions, and almost everyone else I was in the MTC with! I also hit 13 months in the mission field this week and was able to celebrate with all my MTC peeps - it was incredible! At the conference we talked a lot about member missionary work and how our efforts are always acknowledged. The tide raises all ships! It was so inspirational and, as always, I left with a greater fire in my heart for the work!Then, to top off an already inspiring day, after leaving the conference, we received a call from one of our amis, and the first words we heard was that he was preparing for baptism! AHHHHH! My companion and I could not believe it! Soooo many MIRACLES! 

Spiritual Thought

This week I'd like to share a scripture with you that a dear friend shared with me and I hope you all to take it to heart: 

"And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives! 

For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father— 

That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God." ( D/C 76: 22-24) 

HE LIVES!

I love you all! À bientôt !

- Soeur Hansen 🥰

Haunted Metros

Bonjour mes amis ! En forme ? 

Wow! What a week it has been! I feel like I have been all over the place! 

Tuesday started it all off with a bang! We had MLC in Paris with all of the mission leadership! To get there was a bit of a challenge... more than usual. We took our train from Lille to Paris with no problems. But, when we got on the RER (which is kind of like a subway but French style) heading to the mission home, that is where the problems started! The RER stopped in the middle of the tunnel and we were stuck there, not moving, for about 20 minutes before an announcement came on saying there were difficulties with the train and that that we would be stopping at another gare and would have to find alternate transportation from there. Funny thing was that there already wasn't very many people on the RER to begin with, as none of us thought to check the updates on the transport before we got on the train. 🤣 Not too long after we were rerouted, we received a message from the APs explaining the situation and what to take instead. However, we and the Zone Leaders were already on the broken down transport! 

#Frenchtransportation 

#itisnormalforthingstorandomlybreakdown 

So once we arrived at a different gare we got off the train and Elder Applegate led the way around Paris and its transport systems. We finally met up with some other missionaries at a different gare who were also experiencing some difficulties. We luckily saw one RER heading to where we needed to go so all 8 of us ran for it and jumped on just as the doors were closing. PHEW!! To be honest, I kind of like moments like that because it's pretty fun. Stressful, but fun! 

We did finally make it to our MLC where we discussed the urgency in finding and teaching. It was so good! I left with a new fire for the work! To be honest, the work in Vd'ascq has been a bit difficult. All of our friends have recently become extremely busy so we haven't been able to get in any good scheduled lessons with them and we have been facing a lot of rejection recently. It has been difficult to get a good teaching pool in this area, but sometimes miracles just take a while. Good things come to those who wait, right?! On the bright side, we have been getting some really good member work and creating amazing relationships with our members! So when those amis do come, we will be ready!

Anyway, back to MLC... my companion and I and the ZLs ended up staying in Paris a little longer than planned because we had a "super special, top secret" meeting with President Munns after the MLC. Haha, just kidding! It's not so top secret. Not sure if I mentioned it in a past update, but remember that one meeting with the stake President that had both my companion and I and the elders so nervous? Well, in that meeting we discussed member/missionary relationships and since then we have been working all together, my équipe, the elders équipe, President Munns, and President Duez, to create a fiche, or s plan for how we can améliorer the relationship between members and the missionaries mission wide, but starting in Lille. The relationship isn't bad at all, our mission is just so young now (my transfer now being the oldest group of missionaries here in the mission) that we kind of have to give a little nudge and a little guidance to the younger missionaries. So, we created a plan and before President Duez presented it to the Stake we met with President Munns to gather his thoughts and work out final details.... Jump forward to Thursday real quick... we had another meeting with the stake and Prssident Munns regarding the plan! It went great! We are going to take what we have and make it even more precise where we will s'occuper the plan for the missionaries and the stake one for the members and then come back together and revise! I know! Crazy! Once we get it done, we are going to implement it in Lille and viola! Big things happening in the North!

OK, jump back to Tuesday... After we finished our top secret meeting with President for member work, we had about 2 hours before our train left back to Lille. So what do missionaries do with our free time in Paris? We check off bucket list items! As in, we see the Eiffel Tower sparkle...at night! 😁 The four of us made our way to the center of Paris, slightly running from metro to metro, and I have to be honest... I feel like half the time these metros are haunted! Sometimes while riding the metro, when we pass another unused metro as we go through a tunnel I get a bit of a Ghostbusters moment! 😂 It was actually hilarious, Elder Keck make a comment about that same thing, and as soon as he did the light flickered on the metro and we all got a bit creeped out! 

Anyway, we finally arrived to our stop and descended out of the metro right into the street, turned left, and I couldn't believe it! The Eiffel Tower was RIGHT THERE! Lit up and SPARKLING! Soeur Smith and I may or may not have screamed/ gasped a bit. (Don't worry, we didn't actually scream 😉) It was seriously a dream come true! There was even someone singing and playing the guitar while we were there, and it actually wasn't too crowded! The ambience was perfect! We all took photos, of course, and just stood there taking it all in at the balcony. Paris is so different at night. As the Tower sparkled, we watched the traffic circling around it, watched the people in the streets and in restaurants, going about their lives, and listened to the live music being played both at a distance and up close, and it was all magical and perfect! It was a moment I wish couldn't have lasted for a while longer!  As we left to catch our train home, we walked away from the glittering Tower with the biggest smiles on our faces, which lasted the whole train ride. Once home, in standard fashion, we all then quickly rushed to our apartments so we could make it for a zone wide call we were directing! It was such an incredible day! 

Whenever I go to Paris I like to carry a Book of Mormon in a different language to try and give to someone since there is so much diversity in the city, so this time I brought a Book of Mormon in German with me. Unfortunately, I didn't have an opportunity to give it to anyone who spoke German this time, but who knows, maybe the idea came to me so I could be prepared for a later time.

This week I had a lot of fun visiting with many of the members in our ward! We went back to the members' house in Belgium where they made fries for us again! But this time it was a dish called "chicon au gratin" which is a specific type of vegetable with meat and cheese over fries - of course. 😉 It was sooo good! For desert she made a chocolate musee with real Belgian chocolate and it was delicious! As we sat and ate, the couple began telling us about which potatoes are good for fries and how to make them. It was so fun! They then shared some scriptures they read in the Bible with us and we had an incredible discussion about how the scriptures really are written for our day. I love these members with all my heart. 

We had another fun experience with a member this week! It was probably one of the most relaxing rendez-vous I have had in a long time! The sœur is from France and the frère is from Mexico. They both lived in the US for a while and met at BYU-I, so they speak English perfectly and they are seriously the funniest people ever! It was just us with Soeur Salinas and her two little kids and we were able to get to know each other better, which was awesome! She even made us AMERICAN Cinnamon rolls! (Wow! It's been awhile.)  They were sooooo good! We then shared a spiritual thought about gratitude and at the end she told us that it was exactly what she was needing to hear. She then shared with us that morning as she was cooking breakfast, she was hoping that we would share something with her she was needing to hear... thoughts on gratitude was exactly it! She then gave a beautiful testimony about the simplicity of gratitude. I got absolute chills. I've never really had someone tell me that our message was exactly what they needed to hear before and I felt the spirit so strong when she told us that. It was incredible! 

I had another cool expérience this week where someone told us that our message was inspired. One of the members we are close with invited us to go visit a less active member. We rang the doorbell but no one answered and we were about to leave when I had the thought to call them. We called them and they answered and invited us in! We then talked about gratitude with them too, and as we got further into the discussion we could physically feel him gradually become more and more open to us and our message. It turned out to be very much needed and we had a great visit together. We left with him inviting us to come back anytime! YES! As we were leaving, Louise, the member that invited us to go see him, told us how inspired we were. It was such a fortifying experience! 

Along with all these experiences, as you can see, so much happened this week! Including conducting English classes and teaching someone to say, "you have beautiful eyes" for 15 minutes, to a Sisters only call with President, then exchanges with Soeur Hodson.  Not too many free moments, but I love being busy and this week was amazing!  I especially love to see the weather getting colder and the Christmas markets starting to appear!  My favorite time of year!! 

Spiritual Thought

I want to leave you all with a scripture this week that touched me: 

"Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me."  Moses 6:34

He is with us! He walks with us in each step. Accept His invitation, and as He walks with us, let us choose to also walk with Him. 

I love you all! Have a good week! À bientôt ! 

- Soeur Hansen 😘

Tornado Warning!!

Bonjour à tous ! 

This week felt like a whirlwind...literally. Breaking news...there was a tornado warning for Paris this week! WHAT! I know! I have never heard of a tornado in Paris either!  Unfortunately, I don't know if there ever really was a tornado, but there was definitely a storm strong enough to cancel every single train on transfer day... and the day after. Yeaaaaa c'était un truc de fou ! (It was crazy!) But I'm going to leave you hanging a bit before I explain more.😉 Last Tuesday was Halloween! Even though I  didn't go trick or treating this year it was still probably one of my most favorite Halloweens ever! We practically spent the whole afternoon with members and their kids and it was sooooo fun! The first family we visited was the Harels. We had to take a train to get to their town then walk through a huge field to get to their home, it was magical! Their youngest kept running in and out of the room with a different costume on each time and we were just dying of laughter! We shared a 

pensée spirituelle with them and then we shared a little Halloween goûter together! They made a chocolate galette (a flat pizza-like pastry) 

of Jack Skellington and it was soooo good! It was my first time getting to know this family and they were just adorable. They had a few other treats, including donuts, (I didn't realize how long it had been since I had a donut!) and we just had an amazing time getting to know each other. 

After our visit with the Harel family, we then went to our ward mission leader's home for our weekly meeting where we talk about how the missionary work is going in the ward. After the meeting we had dinner together and dang was it good! It was a rice base with butternut squash, peanut sauce, and an egg. It was soooo good! He and his wife (Johann et Louise) are seriously the coolest people ever!  Johann had another meeting to go to so we stayed and chatted with Louise for a little and enjoyed her mission stories, along with some bits of wisdom she shared. They are both fluent in English, as they served in England and on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. I seriously love all the families in this ward. As a missionary I feel like I get a very outside perspective as I interact with so many families, which has been amazing! I have really learned, and am still learning, how absolutely essential the family is to Heavenly Father's plan, and all the tremendous blessings that come from being part of a family. The members I have met on my mission have become huge examples to me. In getting to know them, and simply seeing how they raise their families in the gospel has been so incredible to witness. I am so thankful for these members and the people in general I get to meet here every day, and that I get to be with them all the time! They are AMAZING! 

Okay, as mentioned in my title and intro, this week has been like a tornado... both figuratively and literally. There was a tornado warning in Paris, which turned into a massive storm warning for at least the whole north of France! Thursday was suppose to be our transfers, but that ended up being postponed until Saturday! 😅 Due to the storm a lot of trains going to and from Paris were getting canceled...which makes things a bit difficult! We were hearing rumors from the Elders the night before that their trains were canceled and that they were going to get transferred Friday instead, so we were a little prepared. 

Oh yea!!! I almost forgot! This week was transfers! 😂 

I am staying in Vd'ascq, but I sadly had to say goodbye to Soeur Reynolds after only one transfer again!!! We also had to say goodbye to Soeur Acloque in our apartment as she is being transferred as well! And to continue with the transfer and trains story... 

Thursday morning we decided to still take a chance to see if the train at 9h12 would be there. So, there we were: all four of us, hands full of suitcases for our parting Soeurs, being pushed back and forth by  the wind, entering into a deserted gare.
As we looked up at the screen, we expected to see that the train was canceled, and although just about every train was indeed cancelled we find that the only other train coming in and out of Paris was leaving an hour later. NO WAY! It was the only train on the screen for the day, which was an absolute miracle! We were able to get the soeurs onto that train, but received a call later that the trains coming in later that night carrying our companions were in fact canceled, along with all other trains into Paris. Great. I was quickly on the phone with the assistants to our mission president, and with an elder in our mission who is in charge of the trains for quite a while trying to get tickets for our soeurs. Long story short, we got tickets scheduled for Friday night so Sœur Stevens (the collègue of Sœur Acloque) and I got to hang out together until our new companions arrived. We decided to join the Young Women's activity that night for a Thanksgiving feast where we made yams and apples (a Hansen family holiday favorite) and deviled eggs! It was so good! 

Then Friday came and it was another day for the books! Soeur Stevens and I spent the whole day together while we waited to meet our new companions. #miniexchange! That morning we went out to do our morning sport then came back to quickly take out the trash. Upon trying to enter back into the building, we realized we grabbed the wrong key fob...the fob that led us into the building from the trash. 🤦‍♀️ After 20 minutes of trying to find a way back into the building, we decided to embark on some rock climbing into the courtyard of the apartment complex right next to ours so we could access the door that led out to the main street so we could then use the fob we did have to get back into the apartment building. 🤣 I swear, I have a problem with keys! However, we totally laugh at it now and we look at that wall we scaled with fondness and a sense of accomplishment! 😉

The rest of the day was fun! We worked in both the Lille and the Vd'ascq secteurs until the train with our new comps got in that night....but little did we know we were still far from being in the clear! We got a call from the soeurs saying their train from Arras to Lille was canceled, so they had to jump on another train really quick to get to Lille, which caused them to be late but luckily they still had enough time to catch their other train to Paris. Even with all the confusions and cancelled trains, everyone eventually made it to where they needed to be!  

So.... my new companion is Soeur Smith! She last served in Arras which is in my zone so we have already done exchanges together! She and her previous companion, Soeur Morgan, took a train to Lille so we didn't need to go to Paris. She is so incredible and we have already laughed so hard our sides hurt!! Yep, it was definitely a crazy transfer, but we are now finally together!  So this transfer we are gonna be STLing together and I get to teach her the ropes, and I am so excited!

Saturday we took a side excursion to go to Paris because, guess what! I'm back on the team for RRT! If you remember, when I was back in Caen, where I first met Soeur Reynolds, I was part of this team where we call every reference we receive through Facebook and refer them to their respective area missionaries. So, Saturday we went to Paris for a training, only to find out that an équipe of elders from our district was there too! District bonding time! 🥳 We arrived just in time for the formation to be delayed 45 minutes as we waited for another équipe to show up, so our meeting ran into lunch time, preventing us from being able to enjoy lunch together, but instead found us speed walking to catch our train home! It's okay though, because we did go with the elders in our district to get burgers for our lunch/dinner at 16h00 once we made it back home. It was actually so fun, and we went to Paris for a day so, I'm not complaining! 

As you can see, this week was crazy but it was good! Sadly, I don't have much of an update on Hitou and we haven't heard much from him since his vacation to London, but we did meet the cutest Christian girl in the metro the other day! So far communication is going great with her and we are praying for the best! I am so excited going into this transfer! I have such a desire to talk to everyone and anyone, more so than before, especially with Christmas rapidly approaching and the opportunity of spreading more of the joy of Christ. I LOVE my mission and I am sooooo excited to see what miracles this transfer brings! I know the email this week was more so geared towards the crazy events of the week than the miracles we saw, but ya know, sometimes you just need a good laugh. 😉

However I do have a Spiritual Thought for you:

This week I have been reading in Mosiah, in particular the discourse of King Benjamin, and it has been so amazing! Here is a scripture that stood out to me this week!

"Humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel." ( Mosiah 4:11) 

This is only a snippet of the verse but I love it so much. Recently I have been asking myself how I can apply the teachings of Jesus Christ more in my daily life, and this is the answer; humility, praying to the Lord daily, and being diligent and steadfast in my faith and efforts. All we need to do is our best. Each and everyday. Be humble. Be diligent. Be prayerful. He is there.

I love you all! À bientôt !

- Soeur Hansen 🥰

Hiding Behind a Cardboard Box! Spooky!

Salut salut ! Comment ça va ? 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! SPOOKY! 👻🎃

The leaves have changed color here and the air is crisp! Halloween is celebrated here but not as much as we do back home. I have seen a few people dressed up on the metro here and there though, which has been fun! 

This week was crazy, as so much happened in so little time! I was so tired by the end of the week, but that is a good thing because that means we worked hard! Not sure how I'm going to fit everything in this email but on y va !

This week we were seriously ALL OVER THE PLACE! Early Wednesday morning the ZLs, Soeur Reynolds, and caught a train so that we could start the week off with the district of Amiens in Amiens! (That city is seriously adorable!) That district is made up of a lot of missionaries who I have served with in the past, so it was fun to be able to work with them all again! After our council meeting we all spread out in the city and began blitzing... aka talking to as many people as we can, taking as many numbers as we can, and handing out as many Books of Mormon as we can! In the end, I think we were able to get 12 numbers and hand out 15 Books of Mormon in a span of an hour. Not too bad! 

Soeur Reynolds and I were able to meet some pretty interesting people, with some pretty unique perspectives. We stopped one man on the street who seemed pretty cool at first. He knew a lot about the historical background of many religions, which is super cool, can make it difficult at times for missionaries because often when we try to have conversations with people who already have some background knowledge, we don't get very many words in, and we get an automatic hand in our face. That is kind of what happened with this guy, unfortunately. The conversation started out great! He was telling us about his religious background and about who he was (that is one of my favorite things as a missionary - learning about people and their background stories. It's soooooo cool!) He started asking about who we are and what we do, so we began introducing ourselves and the work we do as missionaries for the Church. Going well up to this point. He then mentioned how he liked to read about other religions and how he has read every religious book, so we took that as an opportunity to introduce him to the Book of Mormon. At this point my heart broke. As we began explaining this book, the very book that I have come to love and have a deep testimony of, thanks to my mission, we could see his face began to change. We testified of the things we know to be true and of what has touched our hearts about the book, when a few simple words from his mouth shattered my heart a bit, "You're wrong!" I held on to the Book of Mormon in my hands a little bit tighter and tried to hide the hurt in my face. The man began going on about history and science in religion and how everything is corrupted, which is why he doesn't believe. I could not believe what I was hearing! Soeur Reynolds and I managed to give him one more testimony each about how The Book of Mormon has changed our lives and how much it means to us. We testified of Christ and that He lives and how The Book of Mormon is another testament of Him. He fired back with more historical facts, so we then invited him to take the book and our card and asked, "How can you know something if you have never read it or experienced it?" To this questions he responded with, "I don't have time for you anymore." waving his hand in our faces and walking away. 

This experience is what we call a classic "Bible bashing" experience, where basically as missionaries we stand there listening as the person we are talking to states as many facts as they can about any religion, but doesn't give us a chance to share our message. 

I share this experience because this particular contact stayed with me throughout the week and I've been thinking about it a lot. It is not good to dwell on the past and the things we can't change, but there are always things to learn. Among other things, this experience has taught me the value of learning from the correct sources. The best way to learn about the Bible is to read the Bible, the best way to learn about the Book of Mormon is to read the Book of Mormon, and the best way to learn about church is to go to church. It is as simple as that. In today's world we turn to Google for everything we don't understand. However, are we turning to the primary source or the secondary source? Google is great in many ways, and can guide us to  primary sources, but how often do we stop short and become satisfied with an answer that doesn't come from the source itself? I am so thankful for the primary sources of knowledge we have. The scriptures being some of them! 😉 I find that when I go to a direct source for a question, my answers are more clear and concrete, and more easily understandable. I would like you all to keep this in mind as you seek for answers to your questions.  Both the journey and the resulting knowledge we find will have great impacts on us.

We took a trip back to Roubaix this week to visit the Bitangalo family (the family with darling kids whose window we knocked on last week 😉). Before our rendez-vous with them Soeur Reynolds and I decided to do some street contacting and explore the area a little bit. We met some pretty cool young adults that we are still in contact with! They were all so nice and we had some incredible conversations! One of them even said she feels like something is missing in every church she attends but she doesn't know where to find that missing thing...good thing she was talking to missionaries, because we do!! 😉  When the time came to make our way over to the Bitangalos for our rendez-vous, we knocked on the door and this time they let us in! As we walked in it looked like they were still in the middle of dinner, so we asked if it was still a good time for us to give a spiritual thought. They said yes and invited us to sit at the table with them. So there we where, sitting at the dinner table, making conversation while trying to find a segway to a spiritual thought, as the family was eating foo foo, (I know I didn't spell that right 😉) and watching Roblox on the TV. It was great! 😂 We were finally able to transition into the spiritual thought as we got the TV turned down and the family opened up a bit more. But, one by one everyone left the table to go do one thing or another until we were left with Frère Bitangalo and his son still watching Roblox on the TV. We kinda sat there, waiting for everyone to come back for the pensée spirituelle, and just continued with our casual conversation. After a while we concluded that no one would be coming back so there we were, at the table, Soeur Reynolds and I with Frère Bitangalo and his son who was still watching Roblox. We decided to press on an give our pensée spirituelle on the last discourse given by President Nelson. The thoughts and insights Frère Bitangalo shared were incredible and touching. He explained that the only thing that will keep his family on the right path is Jesus. A statement that I think can be applied to all of us. The answer is Jesus. Although it was the most chaotic, and weirdest rendez-vous ever, it all turned out great in the end. 😁 

Ami update! Remember Hitou? The one we put on date for baptism? Well... he went to London to visit some family and since he has been back we haven't heard a lot from him,  which makes us so sad! We are pushing his baptism date back a bit with the hope we can get back in contact an back on track with him. Sometimes things happen, and it's okay.  Just part of the work!

  We celebrated Halloween as a ward this week! There is one ward for Lille and one for Vd'ascq and they like to do things together, so Saturday we had the biggest Halloween party ever! It was so fun! For the past few weeks all the missionaries in the Lille and Vd'ascq areas have been working with a member from the Lille ward in trying to put together a kid friendly haunted house with the theme of the Wizard of Oz and the Plan of Salvation! It came together very very nicely! It was actually soooo cool! We spent a few hours at the church this week painting props and scenery for the activity and setting it all up! We were each able to play one of the characters from the Wizard of Oz in the haunted house! I was a flying monkey and Sœur Reynolds was the Lion! We spent a lot of the time hiding behind a cardboard box waiting for our cue to come out! 😂 It was so fun! All the missionaries had so much fun together as we hid in our different places waiting to come out and watching each other act. And yes, we did hand out about 5 Books of Mormon at the end. Yes, it was Halloween, but we are missionaries  all! 😉  

We also visited with some suuuuuper cute member families this week and had the greatest time! Their kids were seriously the cutest and a lot of times we laughed so hard we began to cry! I love the ward and the members here! 

Spiritual Thought

Recently I have been focusing on how I can make my prayers more meaningful and less like a "shopping list" As President Nelson advised. I came across this scripture that I wanted to share with you! 

"But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul." ( 2 Nephi 32:9) 

It is simple. We need to pray... always, and always be in a consultation with our Father in Heaven. We can go to our Father in Heaven for ANYTHING with the promise that our efforts will be consecrated. How amazing is that?! Not only will these efforts be consecrated, but they will be consecrated for our benefit. I love that! I love this perspective and as I have applied it to my prayers I have felt more sincere in my efforts, and felt so much closer to my Father in Heaven. He hears you and will consecrate your efforts. Have faith in that promise!

I love you all so much and hope you all had a Happy and fun Halloween! 👻🎃

À bientôt ! - Soeur Hansen 🥰