Joyeux Noël toute le monde ! Comment ça va ? Cette semaine se passé très très bien !
First of all, time feels completely non-existent! I have already reached my 14 month mark! How crazy is that?! I seriously feel like I just got here, but holy cow, I've been out for over a year! I cannot tell you how many members I talked to this week that called me an old missionary and that time is gonna go by way faster than I think. I don't really like those conversations. 🤣 If I could stop time I seriously would. Yes, I miss my family and going to the BYU games, (watching the Cougars beat the U of U of course 🙃) but nothing compares to a mission! I have had so many moments that I want to just relive forever and ever! Choosing to serve a mission is easily the best decision of my life. I have been able to see and do so many things, as well as meet so many people that have changed my life. I love it all! It's hard, but it's a good hard, and a worth it hard! For those of you who are reading my posts and deciding whether or not to go... go! You will not regret it! It will easily become the best thing that has happened to you, just as it is for me. 😊
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A lot of things happened this week, including a few goodbyes, which you already know I'm not too much a fan of the whole goodbye thing. This week was transfers so we had to say goodbye to Elder Keck, who was one of the ZLs in Lille. He is from Tahiti and completely hilarious! On Monday, to end with a bang, my équipe, the Lille Soeurs that we live with, and the Lille ZLs decided to spend pday together. We see each other every day, so we have all become good friends and wanted to end our time together with a final hurrah! We went bowling then to the Christmas Marchée in Lille! There is a giant ferris wheel set up in the city center right now that provides some pretty good views of the city.... or so I would imagine. 😉 
We then went back to the church and played some ping pong before soirée familiale started with the JA! Now, I do have to say that we are the "cool leaders" in the mission, two weeks ago we decided to introduce a zone language challenge to help all the new missionaries with their French, and of course there would be a prize for the winning équipe. The grand prize included a song we wrote along with a dance performed by the ZLs. Yup! So, our Monday night entertainment with the JA was FaceTiming with the winners, the Valencinnes Elders, so they could witness our vocal performance of a missionary spin off to the 12 days of Christmas while the Elders in our area angelically danced to it. I will say that the way these Elders danced now lives rent free in my head. Soeur Smith and I almost didn't get through the song we were laughing so hard! 🤣
Thursday we got a new Zone Leader, Elder Lantz, and he is pretty cool! So far the four of us (my équipe and the Elders) have worked really well together and we get along great! I am so excited for this next transfer and all we will accomplish! Oh! We also finally launched the member plan we have been working on for the past two transfers! We finally shared the plan with the stake and with the other missionaries, and everyone seemed super on board with it. Sooo excited!This week I crossed the border - on foot! Yup, I walked back to France from Belgium. Okay it actually isn't as long of a walk as it sounds. 😉 There is a little path that Google maps shows along the border of both countries so we decided to walk it and we were able to step one foot in each country, and even step in both at once! 😂 We were visiting a member in Belgium and thought she was going to drive us back across the border, but when we mentioned we had no other rendez-vous, she was kind of like, "Okay, have a good day," and we were left to walk back on our own. 😂 It was maybe about a 30 minute walk to the metro, which wasn't too bad, and it was fun to see the transition between the two countries, so it was cool!
We visited a lot of members this week and had a fun time. We visited with one member in Belgium and also visited with the Stake President's mother, who is the cutest lady! Half of our ward is related to each other, and she is either the mother or grandmother of everyone! Ever since I've been in this area I've been trying to figure out who is who, and finally being at her house and seeing pictures of everyone on her wall helped settle the matter! Sunday we ate with the stake President for lunch, then for dinner we ate at his Brother in law's house for crêpe dimanche! (Crêpe Sunday!) Keeping it all in the family! 😂 We definitely get fed well here!
This Saturday we had a huge Christmas spectaculaire for the stake where my companion and the two other Sœurs we live with sang! It was a huge spectaculaire for the birthday of Jesus that my ward and the other ward in our area put on and it was soooo amazing! More people came to this than they did for our Stake Conference, which is pretty incredible! We also had most of the missionaries in the zone come, along with soooo many of our amis! It was incredible! Everyone from the English class we teach came, an ami we have been trying to get in contact with even came, then also came to sacrament meeting the next day! Our members also brought some of their friends! It was awesome! One of the Elders even played Joseph during the live Nativity program, which was a lot of fun. And, of course we ended the night enjoying some brioche and hot chocolate! The spirit was incredibly strong and it will definitely be labeled as one of the top moments of my mission! So many miracles came from it!
The day before the spectaculaire, Soeur Smith and I set out to spend the day in Tourcoing, one of the cities which borders Belgium, to invite older members who are less active and anyone we could talk to to the celebration! Now, I have to be honest, my secteur has a lot of pretty sketchy parts in it. 😬 On the way to the church we have to pass through one of the biggest drug dealing areas in the city, where the other day we actually walked through an active police investigation. Yea... we were walking back with the Elders and the police were doing a huge sweep of the area. It was crazy! But it's okay, we just don't walk around much of our area at night. 😂
Anyway! Tourcoing! The first member house we went to was a bit of an experience. We got to the door and saw her, but she never saw us. We heard a huge thump come from the house and we both thought she had fallen, so we were freaking out, standing there on her doorstep, not knowing what to do! Just as we were about to call another member for help, she came to the door. The moment we tried to invite her to the spectaculaire she slammed the door in our faces! Not so much a success! 😂 At least she answered the door though, none of the other members we went to see even answered the door - we think they may have moved. No one answered in the apartment building we went to either. 😅 BUT, we did talk to some really cool people on the metro and even got a number from a lady who texted us before we could text her! So, I guess it all evens out! While there, we decided to have dinner at the Christmas Marchée in Tourcoing, and well, the market wasn't all that great. Lille's is way better! But, we did get some fries from people who thought we were Amish...so that was pretty funny, especially since both my companion and I were even wearing pants. 🤣 You just never know who you might meet! LOL
Spiritual Thought
Recently I have been doing a lot of study about joy and I wanted to share this definition of joy with you:
**JOY**
☆ Joy is a state of great happiness stemming from a just life. The goal of this life is to allow all men to have joy. We cannot have complete joy except through the intermédiaire Jesus Christ.
I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!
Joyeux Noël ! À bientôt !
- Soeur Hansen 🥰
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