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 😘