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 🥰