Week 27: My Creativity Isn't Super Great at the Moment.......Ha!

Hey fam slam! So the church went to court and we don't have to move... so that's good!! YOU CAN SEND STUFF TO ME NOW.... Ha.

6 rue Arthur Herchen

1727 Luxembourg

LUXEMBOURG

Turns out that the mission thought that they were paying the bill... but with a huge mess of stuff it turns out that the transactions weren't working. But we can stay so that's good!

This week was kinda slow and not super exciting, so I'm sorry ha but things are going over here in Luxembourg. There is a lady moving to Lindon. She got your address and is supposed to get a little paper to you! Maybe she will. They live more towards the mountains. But that was kinda cool.

Wednesday we got to go to Nancy in France for Zone conference and interviews! I wish we had more than 5 minutes to talk to president! With over 200 missionaries, he just has so much on his plate! I can't imagine being him at all.

Our District is from All Over the World

On Tuesday I was semi down and just wanted to be done... ha, but we went to see this woman who moved from Cape Verde where she was converted and just never found the church here .She just had the most amazing testimony of prayer. She really lifted my spirits. She was in tears, as was her step daughter and I. She said she was going to come back to church... she didn't but her experiences really helped me. I am having a hard time finding motivation. I need to do some repenting and some more sacrificing I think. I just need to find a greater desire to share the gospel despite how amazingly difficult it is.

Luxembourg

Another story that helped me this week: So members when they were younger were poor but liked to take their kids to the river to play. They only had enough money for the train rides so they brought a packed lunch. The kids were really really thirsty but they had drank all of the water. The youngest daughter said mom... obviously all we need to do is pray and the Lord will give us what we need. The mom was reluctant but she said a big prayer inside that God wouldn't let her down in this precious teaching moment. So they knelt down to pray and right when they finished.. one of the other kids came running out of the river with an unopened bottle of lemonade that he just found floating down the river as he was playing. How amazing is that?

So Fatima is doing well. She is the one that called the church and wanted to meet with us. She came to the ward party and brought a cake and everything. Too bad it was raining so we had to do it inside. Its cold here now. Mom was saying that its super hot over there... SHARE IT! Ha, We are already wearing jackets and my boots are going to come on here in about a week or so. Anyways I'm afraid she's just joining for the social reasons. We want her to have a testimony and I think she feels like the 8th is too soon so we will probably push that back this week.

We taught Lydia the WOW this week.She had never heard of alcoholism before and I was just so grateful that I have parents that teach me things like this. She is only sixteen but still! She said shed try to keep it so pray for her! She likes to go clubbing.

One of our not-all-of-the-way-there amis drove us to church yesterday... Ha ha we didn't know the roads and we almost died a few times.. Well not really, we just went down one way streets the wrong way. Good thing we made it safe!!

I love you all! I hope school is going well. This week is going to be a good week. I just feel it. So be sure to turn in next week! Ha ha

Love,

Soeur Kohlert

Week 26: Eight Lessons in One Day...Too many Miracles to Count...and One Exhausted Sister

Hey family,

DON'T SEND ANYTHING TO THE LUXEMBOURG ADDRESSES. The landlord just "stopped by" on Friday and is kicking us out. He wants us out by the end of the week but the Pres is trying to get him to let us stay till the end of the month. Send anything to the mission office.

This keyboard is different again... ha grrrr.

Tomorrow is my six-month-anniversary... ha how cool is that?  I'm definitely celebrating because it sure is an accomplishment as anyone who has served understands.

Our mission has a goal to get 100 baptisms before the coming of Elder Oaks in like the middle of September... we started this goal in like the beginning of June or something... I know that many of these miracles have to do with that!!

So this week was just pure insanity. The elders were at the church one day teaching a lesson when the phone rang... it was Fatima, a woman that went to Portugal to visit her uncle and has lots of problems but said that she found the peace and joy she was looking for there. I'm so so glad that the elders were there because normally no one is at the church to answer the phone. We had a rendezvous with her, and boy has she been prepared by the Lord. She lives pretty far away but she was just dying to come to church. She had to be picked up by a member an hour and a half before church even started to get there. She brought her 12-year old daughter and just thanked us the whole entire time for welcoming her and helping her find this peace in her life. Shes had a rough one and she impressed me so much at church! She acted like a member! I love her so much, and I cant wait for her baptism. I hope that everything goes well. She lives so far away that it might be hard to get her to church... but she REALLY REALLY wants to be there.

Friday was insane. We had 7 lessons planned and we LITERALLY running to and from trains to get to all of our appointments. We had everything scheduled down to the very minute we would have to end every lesson and when we need to be at what train station to catch what train. We ended up setting two more baptismal dates to total our dates to four. We also hope to set one with Fatima's daughter this week to get five. It was insane day. We left early from the apartment and didn't get home till after curfew... you'll know why in a second. So we also ran into like three non-actives and made appointments with them... Two of our rendezvous fell through, but don't worry... ha we ended up doing some street contacting and had two more lessons in the street. we didn't have time to eat so we just ate on the trains. After our last rendezvous we were walking back to the train station completely exhausted, but we saw an old lady sitting on her porch and ended up having a lesson with her to total 8 lessons in one day. We then SPRINTED to the train station and missed it by no joke ten seconds... Ha, if we had time to actually exercise and weren't wearing skirts or flats, I think we would have made it. It was an amazing day but boy did it take a toll on me. We were so so so so so so so so tired but the lessons all went really well.

Exhausted at the end of our miracle day!

So on like Wednesday we got a call from our Zone Leaders (ZLs) telling us that they were going to move district meeting from Thursday to Friday for some reason that didn't really make sense to me. I was not happy because we had all those rendezvous scheduled and we'd have to miss them. Not to mention they were ruining ten other missionaries weeks just for them. I told them i didn't agree but that if that's what they thought we needed to do, we'd do it. So we got home and Soeur Smith and I were really troubled, we didn't want to move all of these rendezvous that we had just confirmed and we debated just skipping district meeting... so we decided to pray to know what to do and after the prayer we decided that we needed to just follow our leaders and that everything would work out. The moment we said "amen", the phone rang and it was the ZLs saying that they had been in a stupor of thought for the past few hours and that they weren't going to move the meeting and we wouldn't have to miss all our appointments. Turns out that they had prayed to and had gotten the feeling to re-look at some train times even tho they had like a gazillion times. So they did and there was a train time that was there that wasn't before and they didn't have to move the meeting! I'm glad they didn't because we wouldn't have had our miracle day¨!

Well, I hope this all makes sense. I better go, ha, my hands are killing me.

 I LOVE YOU and miss you!

I'll let you know how everything goes with the apartment!

Soeur Kohlert

Week 25: Did Anyone Know that Luxembourgish was a Language?

Haha well hello hello there everyone!

So I feel like I'm a bleu (new) again... Ha, I can't understand anything that is going on around me because everyone speaks 800000 different languages here. Ok, so are you ready for some info and this SUPER unique country?

-Everyone speaks at least 4 languages but almost everyone speaks 6 or 7. From ages 3 to 6 the kids speak luxembourgish at school... ya its on the endangered language list so that's why they make the kids speak it. It's the language that the old people and the children speak and also the common language. It's like german.. Kinda weird sounding. But then the kids at school get immersed into German. Then a few years later they start to learn French and English. There are 3 official languages; German; Luxembourgish; and French. Then since they know so many languages its so easy for them to speak Italian, Spanish, and PORTUGUESE! THERE ARE like a million Portuguese speakers here. Its so hard to understand people because they mix the languages sometimes. Our ward is mostly Americans who are here for a few years working with their company. Most of them work for Amazon or some accounting company. It's nice to have people that understand you around you; but my french is really suffering because of it. However; I did translate at church into English and sometimes I feel like I can speak french because I'm speaking with people who aren't native french speakers and they make mistakes and talk slowly like I do! Its great!

- We have a duke. How cool is that. And a royal family.

- You can drive across the whole country in like an hour

- Everyone walks around with tuxes and they all drive Audis or BMWs. Its cheaper for them to buy a new car rather than a used car; so you rarely rarely see junky cars. Mostly convertibles and woman in high heels. Ha its so funny. But they aren't as skinny as french people, they look more German and so I don't feel as fat haha that's kinda good I guess.

- The missionaries who are normally sent here speak multiple languages are sent here... why me? I think I know why...

So my companion is Soeur KaLene Smith from Alaska. She will be 20 in about a week. She had a REALLY REALLY hard time with her last companion and this sweet sweet girl was literally like emotionally scared. So I know that I am here to help her. It's hard because I don't know the area at all, but Soeur Smith has been making a lot of progress and really stepping up. Shes teaching me a lot as well. She TALKS TO EVERYONE even though she can't speak super well and it motivates me and I love it!

Soeur Smith and I helping someone move!

- The people are pretty darn nice here and actually stop when you contact them on the streets. Ive already been let it knocking doors and its only been a few days here. It was the first time ive been let in.

- It is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS here and its super green. I wish I could send pictures but it won't let me!!!

Well we already set 2 baptismal dates this week with the only amis we have. Were going to have to do lots and lots of finding and ya... I guess that's what we do here in Europe!!

I cried and cried and cried when I left Rennes. Tugsuu was extremely hard for me to leave. I love her muchooooos.

Right before I left I had a cool experience:

One night I thought to myself.. what would I say if someone asked for my testimony on a certain subject... and so I thought of the response. And then the next day, my last day in Rennes we had a lesson and the guy asked me my testimony on that subject!! and I was so prepared to answer!! But then get this... he then bore his testimony and IT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME and we were able to relate and he said he'd continue reading the BOM and I was so happy.

God preapares his servants

I love you all and pray for you!!

Address once more

6 rue Arthur Herchen

1727 Luxembourg

LUXEMBOURG

Love

Soeur Kohlert

Week 24: Another Full Week of Miracles!

We missionaries are just so darn blessed!!

Today my companion cut my hair..... and it was interesting but I think it looks great! We cut at least 4 inches off of it. Ha I'm going to try to go the next 11 months without cutting it. we will see how that goes. We used the scissors from the elders hair cutting kit. I cut her hair too and I would say that I did quite a good job!! We couldn't believe that we were cutting hair in France.. what the random.

Soooo the transfer email came!!! I knew I was leaving but I didn't know where too and guess what?? I'M GOING TO MY FIRST PICK...

LUXEMBOURG!!

How cool is that?? We are going to be the only sisters in the country and I will be with Sister Smith! My companion loves her because they were in the MTC together and she is supposed to be SUPER healthy which makes me extremely happy.

Saying goodbye to everyone on Sunday was really hard. I've really come to LOVE Rennes and the closing song was God Be With you Till We Meet Again.. of course I was bawling like a baby! The mission here has been no cake walk and I think its crazy that I don't want to leave ha! I can only imagine what it will be like at the end!

At the beginning of the week I got to go to Nantes to do an exchange! It was so great! It gave me some needed extra motivation!

We got home way late from the exchange and the next morning we got our MINI MISSIONARY! She is a 20 year old in the ward who is trying to decide whether or not she wants to serve a mission! So she spent 3 whole days with us! We made her a plaque and she had to keep the rules and everything. Things have been slowing down lately and we were really nervous that she would get here and have nothing to do.. so we prayed really hard all week that we'd be able to see miracles... AND WE DID!!

Thursday we had a completely blank day so we went out to do some contacting in the park. We talked to one lady that was really nice but not interested and then we taught the WHOLE rest to a FAMILY in the park, AND they invited us back! We got 3 new amis! It was so so incredible. THEN on top of that miracle, we went out to go porting... knocking doors.. that night. We were amazed at the results. Utterly AMAZED! Only like 3 people automatically said no, we had 3 lessons in one hour of porting and almost everyone at least gave us the time of day to talk to them!!!
AND we found a family! We were just blown away. I don't think our little missionary really understood the miracle she had witnessed. We got 4 new amis in ONE day and like 5 lessons. I said a huge gratitude prayer.

Friday we had a lesson with Loma who is obviously thinking about getting baptized because she asked us if she could be a member and be a communist. She is so cute.

Saturday was another miracle. Again we had nothing planned and so we ported for like an hour or so and nothing was really coming of it. We had about 5 min till we had to catch the bus and Soeur Hilton and I KNEW that there was somewhere in the neighborhood because we knew God was going to show Melanie miracles. So we said a prayer and Melanie didn't believe that we actually could find someone. She kinda joked about following the magic spirit to the right door. So we picked two doors and SURE ENOUGH! The last door we had a lesson and were invited back! We had to BOOK it for the bus but I was so grateful that Heavenly Father didn't let us down. I think Melanie was pretty amazed as was I. I learned a good lesson in using prayer as a way of guidance this week and also obedience.

I'm a tired missionary though. Packing is daunting, Ha I've lived in Rennes longer than anywhere (except wy view for freshman year at BYU) since I was 18. Kinda funny.

Well I'll really miss Soeur Hilton. she was the perfect daughter and I don't want to leave her but I know great experiences are awaiting me!!

Here is my new address:

35 rue Bourgogne

1727 Luxembourg

LUXEMBOURG

Well I LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU!!!