Week 45: Forget 100 dollars/hour playing violin on the streets, how about 100 euro a door porting in Lux!

Happy New Year!

It was wonderful to talk to all of you for Christmas!!! I hope that it was just as special for you all as it was for me! According to Stephanie we only have 133 days or 4 months and 13 days till we can skype again! ha its not too far off!

Thank you again for all the gifts and cards that i have received this Christmas season: I felt so overly loved and blessed! thank you so much for the out pouring of love that I received!!

So this week we found a new investigator who used to assist as a young girl to church. She had really amazing feelings of church and that was a testimony to me that the spirit touches people no matter their age. She had a really great attitude and she can go a long way i think: Her name was Stephanie and she reminded me a lot of you Steph.

Then before we went to Christmas eve dinner we did some porting and we were given lots of cake and offered lots of money. we were let in and were able to pray with some people.

We spent a wonderful Christmas with the Gilstraps. we were able to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" and I cried but was also so awkwardly uncomfortable with the like one time someone kissed. Ha I didn't think that I was becoming awkward, but I now know that I'm already awkward. We ate together and had some delicious real hot chocolate and played a game where we splashed water in each other's faces it was so fun ha; Other than during the movie I held myself together pretty well till the dad had to share a gospel message after reading Luke 2.... it just reminded me of all that Christ has done for us and our family: they were happy tears.

Gilstraps on Christmas

Christmas was spent with the Turners that you were able to meet. They fed us a delicious Christmas lunch and we got to watch a Disney movie, "Despicable Me 2" who the maker is Mormon by the way, and TALK TO YOU GUYS! it was wonderful and so nice to wake up and just spend time making a yummy breakfast and not worrying about time.

Thursday Adélia took us out to sushi and it wad DELICIOUS. I'm so sad that shes working all the time. i just wish she would realize what its doing in the eternal realm of things with her family!!!

We did some more knocking and we were let in and prayed with this cute family. They offered us money again but we gladly accepted chocolate instead. I tried to get them to let us come back to do a family home evening.. They didn't really like that idea ha. We also were let in by this old cute couple who just talked and talked; She loved that we sang for her and wanted to give us a hundred euro: when we didn't accept she tried to give us 50... ha of course we didn't take it but we got a good kick out of it. if you every need money come caroling in Luxembourg!

On Friday we did some planning and running around trying to pay some bills since the mission office can't pay ours; that took forever and was frustrating cause we didn't finish. but we taught Jennifer the law of tithing and she completely accepted it. All she needs is her interview and she is ready for her baptism on Sunday; my last day in Luxembourg. Pray that all goes well.

Tunnel that we walk through every day to get to the Street Car

Then we had an awesome Family Home Evening with Miriam and her inactive son victor: he is 19 but was way way into the object lesson. we taught them about what an Family Home Evening is and why they are important; Victor agreed to give the lesson next week so that is cool! Miriam also told me that she wishes that her daughter can one day be like me, I thought that was such a great compliment and I just felt so honored. I love her and hope that I can make her proud my whole life. p;s; the apartment that she got that we fasted for is BEAUTIFUL.

On Saturday we taught Adele and her daughter who we have only seen one time before but is now in Alma 32! Cynthia came to church and accepted everything about the restoration! were seeing her again this week and I won't be surprised if she gets baptized while sister Henson is serving here.

On Sunday i was feeling AWFUL but we went to church and two different visiting american families showed up; one of the boys just got home from his mission but we had classes together at BYU in 2010 in the mechanical program. I recognized him right away and it was really weird to see him in Luxembourg ha. But I wasn't feeling well and thy had me translate and it was really hard and I was so shaky from being so weak :I feel better today though. We also did visited some less actives that night who both showered us with food and really good and expensive pastries. I'm gonna miss those. We did some more knocking and was let in by the funniest family. I sent a picture to you of them. None of them accepted a specific return visit though :(

Well this will be my last week in Luxembourg and the start of 2014!!! WAHooo that's so crazy crazy! I love the Lord. I had some really cool personal revelation this week and I know He answers are prayers and that we are enlightened as we study his scriptures.

I LOVE YOU ALL AND à la semaine prochaine! (see you next week)

oh i will be transferred next Monday so if I don't email you on Monday don't freak out ha, I'll probably email you another day.

Love 

Soeur Kohlert

Week 44: Hello President ... Uh huh Im listening ... Yes President

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well this week has simply been insanity, but not missionary insanity. I'm so tired. We started off the week by going to Paris for the Christmas Conference. IT WAS SO WONDERFUL! The President and the office did such a good job. I felt the spirit so strongly and they did SO MUCH for us I was just overwhelmed by their love. It was amaizng.  Ha but on the way home we literally had to RUN through the Paris metro system with Christmas packages and our stuff that we used to stay the night... IT WAS SOOO HEAVY and we made our train by like 30 seconds. I was exhausted after.

Sister Finneran and I at the Christmas Conference

Christmas Conference in Paris

Then Wednesday came along and we hadn't had time yet to practice for the concert at the school... so we left early to go to the church to practice... and thanks to mom we had music to play. But on the bus i saw this woman and i just knew that i needed to talk to her.  So i did and she spoke like half french half spanish... which is SUPER common here by the way. But I couldn't understand everything she said, but she was telling me that just yesterday night she was talking about her friends about how they could find Christ here in Luxembourg... and then there i was talking her to about Christ. she wanted to know how she could learn more and she was just so so excited. Because she only speaks spanish we ended up passing her to the elders who said that she just felt like christ wanted her to stop smoking and drinking... so she did! Pretty cool! Maybe Yudri was inspired to have us play at the school so that we could find Georgina, because we would have never been on that bus that early if it wasn't for the concert.

But the concert went well, we ended up just being like background music and we had some really good family contacts, maybe something else will come of it... who knows.

On Thursday we had some good rendez-vous and then Diana called and wanted to meet with us: she wants to get baptized so badly that she was wondering if a worthy priesthood holder AND her husband could baptize her... like the priesthood would transfer from the worthy man through her husband to her.... ha shes so sweet but we said no. She really wants him to be worthy enough to do it. She wants the family to be TOGETHER... which is great but frustrating at the same time. But the gospel is about families.

Yummy goodness at the Metz, France Christmas Marché

Then on Thursday night right before we got on the train to go to paris AGAIN, for the second time that week, we got a text message from President. Sister Emily Anderson, who lived across the hall from me at BYU my sophomore year, was going into emergency brain surgery to remove a cyst on her brain and that it was a very delicate surgery and that she needed our prayers NOW. So we got out of the car and prayed. And that was all they told us... we were worried sick. President NEVER texts the whole mission and he did... well then we had an extremely long trip into Paris to start our exchange.

The exchange was going fairly well. We found out that Sister Andersons family was on there way and that they would be spending christmas here so we all, meaning the whole mission, wrote them christmas cards and the sisters started a fast for her. Then we get to this lady's house to do service and the phone rings with an unmarked number. I answered and this is how the conversation went:

me:" allo?"

bonjour soeur kohlert

ah bonjour president

(small talk as i am trying to figure out why in the world hes calling me...)

president: so i heard you have room in your appartment for a third sister...

me: eh i can arrange that..

president: Well sister henson, sister andersons companion will be coming up to lux tomorrow morning. youll be a three some.

me: ok president

(the companion on my echange was figuring it all out in her head and like mouthing words to me and im trying to shush her)

president. souer kohlert are you listening?

me: yes im listening

president: but only for 15 days

me: ok, where is she going after that?

president: Shes not leaving. You are.........

So he is sending me mid transfer to white wash St Quentin in France on the 5th or 6th. Another sister, Vance, who was in the MTC with me is with a visa waiter who leaves on the 5th so well go in and take of sister henson and anersons work down there. Apparently its amazing.

Sister andersons 7 hour surgery went perfectly and her family was able to see her after. shell go home after she recovers. We picked up sister henson on saturday morning after preparing for her all night and morning and ran around and did missionary work all day to keep busy. soeur henson saved andersons life. its a crazy story that i can tell on wednesday if youd like.

Souer henson is awesome and we all get along great. shes ready to not be in the hospital anymore though ha. She is from north salt like and is a crack up i love her. But im sad to leave luxembourg in 2 weeks. President said that i least i know my transfer 2 weeks in advance. Im just glad that i get to stay here for the holidays. he could have easily moved me before.

We had an awesome nativity fhe with a family and helped miriam moved into the subsidized housing that she fasted for and got.... god always answers fasts and prayers. Her ex husband also randomly showed up at church and said that he wanted to change his life around.... so well see about that

Jennifer decided to not be baptized until the 5th of janurary.... hopefully i can be there and dont get transfered that day!

I LOVE YOU ALL AND I CANT WAIT FOR WEDNESDAY!!! Merry Christmas and I hope that you can all help someone come closer to Christ in the next few days!

here is my new address. REMEMBER THAT I WONT BE THERE TILL THE 6th of January.

Soeur Kristy Kohlert
32 rue Raspail

02100 St Quentin

FRANCE

Week 43: A Bunch O' Random

Happy Birthday MOMMY. You really are the greatest mom ever and Im so blessed to have you as the one to guide and lead me!! Thanks for all of the support that you give me!

Well half of this week went SUPER fast and half of it went SUPER SLOW. Ill share some of the hilights:

Well maybe well start with a lolight.. IT WAS FREEZING! It was SO foggy, but it was more like hoovering snow. Ha we were soaked after one night of porting in it. Just humid and cold, weird combo.

OKAY SO THIS IS AWESOME!!! One of the girls that I found in Rennes is getting baptized!!! How cool is that hah? Wanna know how i found her? I asked her if she wanted to go get crepes with us.... and we did.... ha and voila. I think that thats pretty cool. Her name is Sofie. I talked about her a bit while I was there if you remember. Shes a Chinese exchange student.

Last week we vistied Miriam, our recent convert who is just soooo strong. I shared a scripture from DANDC 121 with her about JSMITH and she just LOVED IT. Her sister has gone inactive lately and she decided to write her a letter and in that letter she felt prompted to put the scriptures that I shared with her in them. Well because of the letter she has decided to come back to church. Its amazing to me how Heavenly Father uses his children to bring His lost sheep back. Im just grateful to be a part of it.  Miriam has soooo many problems its ridiculous. She talks to me about the problems with her son as well and Im so sorry that I was the teenager I was ha... I probably cause you tons of grief... Sorry! Ill be better, promise. I told Miriam that my mom is grateful for her because of what shes teaching me. Anyways she didnt want to come to church because she didnt sleep and had a billion things to do. She decided to come anyways and she learned more about fasting and it was exactly what she needed. We went over to help her with something on Sunday and she fed us and I passed her her plate and she looked at it and gave it back to me and said IM FASTING, I just know that I need to. Ha she is so amazing. Id love to be like her one day.

We met a really awesome albanian family on the bus. The little son translates for me. We didnt have time to teach them a lesson but we stopped by and gave them cookies.. I cant wait to go see them again. Its sad, they are here because the mom is "big sick". The boy cant speak english super well so thats as good as he can describe.

Jennifer is all ready to go for her baptism this sunday, well we need to teach her tithing and have the interview but i really dont think there will be a problem. We have to do it in France, so we may end up pushing it back one week so we can do it here, well see. Shes the funniest and most opinionated character ever. There is no way to describe her to you.

Jennifer and I in front of the Gare Train Station

Oh on monday we went to the christmas markets here. I sent home a picture of me at it. They are german and i ate schnitzel and some mini churro like things. IT WAS SO COOL; Not sure why we dont have those in the states. We also had the ward christmas party this week and we had TONS of less actives and investigators there. THe tables were full and they ran out of food. They ended up getting pizza hut to feed the last people ha. 

We taught Adele about geneology this week... it was way cool because she had a question about how she can know if her family accepts the ordaninces that she does for them or not. Of course I told her that most of the time we dont know but I shared dads experience in the temple.. AND just the night before we were visiting with a member who had told us another story about how she knewher aunt accepted the baptism. I shared that with her as well, I know that we saw that member the night before FOR adele. She also brought her mom and granddaughter to the chirstmas party. Adele also said that she was praying for someone and just felt this overwhelming love for them like she had never before felt. It was a good testimony confirmation for her.

I also am learning so much for a member in our ward named Melissa Elenes. She is so cool. She served a great mission and she really knows how to help us! We made a goal with her to have an FHE at her house 1 a month and she would invite the people; this is a bid deal because she has 4 little kids and 2 with autism and her husband works till like 10 everynight. shes amazing

We taught Diana a bit more in depth about the Plan of Salvation. She said that she knows that we lived with God before because she misses it. She misses the feeling of being close to god when she doesnt pray and come to churcn and how can you miss something that doesnt exist? Somewhere that youve never been? I thought it was a pretty cool thought.

The yw made us cookies to give to our investigators. We went all together to give it to a non active yw and she said shed come to the activity on Friday. pretty cool.

Well this week will be insane. Were in paris for like 4 DAYS BLAH. Ill let you know how it goes.

How can you give a gift to Christ this Christmas?

I LOVE YOU ALL SUPER MUCH!!!

HUGS AND KISSES!

ME

Week 42: Good morning Luxembourg..... Im so confused

Dear family and friend,

Yesterday Adele received the gift of the Holy Ghost...It was wonderful, and her daughter and granddaughter came too. Her daughter has been reading the Book of Mormon every night and we are going to start teaching her too. 

.....Well, I just got some crazy transfer news.... I was TOTALLY expecting to be transferred from Lux because I've already been here for 3 transfers and Sister Denning and I have already been together for two transfers and I have NEVER heard of missionaries in our mission being together for more than 2 transfers... but... you ready for a story?

So last week we were at the Stake Presidents house and his wife said... I received some inspiration, you are going to play your violin at my sons school and its going to be a great experience ha... she had already asked the teacher and everything. I asked when it was and she said the 18th, I said well I'm really sorry but I don't think I'll be here, I think I'm going to be transferred. Ha... and she was like don't you worry about that, my husband is the Stake President! Ha so, he sure did email the President and asked him to keep me here....

....AND PRESIDENT DID...

So I will be here for another 6 weeks! I will have spent almost a year of my mission before I even get to my 3rd city..... so crazy and unheard of.

The funny thing is is that we have our Christmas Conference on the 18th in Paris, so we won't even be here to play at the kids school.......

But I'm excited, i love Lux and I've gotten really close to the members and I'm excited to be able to spend Christmas with people that i know.

As for this week, on Monday we got to go to Germany, we did our grocery shopping and it was much much cheaper than Lux; apparently lots of people do that. We also could see France and Lux all at the same time. it was cool.

Then on Tuesday we had a district meeting where I said goodbye to everyone... ha embarrassing. Fun anyway.

So I told you last week about a family that we had an Family Home Evening with and I was way scared right cause the husband was so closed and cold? Well, we fasted for them and then on Thursday we were invited over for dinner. At the end I was super nervous and I asked if I could share a message, and the wife was scared because of her husband, but she gave me a hesitant nod. Then i taught them about the 2000 Strippling warriors and the dad was SOOO attentive. He was holding the little daughter who started throwing a fit and he even got up to put her in his room. He loved it. I shared also this week about how mom is an example to me of faith and how she was a missionary for me when she came. Then I asked them if we could come every week for a Family Home Evening and he said YES! We're excited.

We have another Family Home Evening with another family tonight, so that should be cool.

We spent lots of the week teaching and saying goodbye to people... ha ya. It's going to be embarrassing to see everyone again. Oh well, I would rather say goodbye and not leave than not say goodbye and leave. Ha, this girl just loves me in the ward cause I play the violin.  She asked if she could could play in church with me, I said yes, but we had to this week because I was leaving... ha, well we did, and it was great, but I'm not leaving.

We had some finding time this week, so I played the violin in the street while Sister Denning passed out cards and talked to people. It was actually really successful. My violin case handle broke though, and now its a pain to carry around.

Well I guess I better go.... another 6 weeks to parcourir here in Luxembourg!!!

LOVE,

Sœur Kohlert

Week 41: A Thankful Heart for Another Beautiful Baptism... and Thanksgiving of Course

Hey Fam Wam Bam Thankyou Mam,

So Monday was a good relaxing p-day. Loved it. At night we went to go visit an old investigator. It was hard to be there at her place. She works nights on the streets and lives with a bunch of other African woman who do the same thing. It's so sad that their lives have lead to that and that men do that. I just felt so blessed for my family and the knowledge I have as well as for all of the material things God has given me. I'm not sure why I'm so lucky.

Tuesday we had a wonderful lesson with Adelia and Fatima. They were in the picture that I sent to you guys: Fatima still hasn't decided to be baptized... but she is getting there, I just know it, After we went to see a less active who actually ended up needing help moving so we waited there forever for the elders to get there so they could help us. Then we ate RACLETTE, that potato and meat stuff that we ate at that lady's house in France where you melt the cheese on the table. Anyway, it was sooo good and Seour Denning's first time eating it. The family that gave it to us has such a strong testimony and the converts that I meet purely amaze me.

On Wednesday we got to see Jennifer and she's progressing well. Shes loving the Book of Mormon and the brochures that we give her, and she says that she is starting to understand what we meant when we said that she will find answers to her questions if she would read them. Then we went to the Turner's house....we eat with them just about every week and they showed us their fancy train set that is sooo cool. iIt works with like micro chips, so no batteries and its remote control and goes SO FAST ha i was soooo fascinated. Yes, I was once an engineering student. We stayed up way late that night looking for Sister Denning's ID that we needed to travel to Paris, we never found it.

Thursday was turkey day and we woke up at 430 to go down to Nancy for interviews. Ha, the zone leaders were supposed to organize the food and it was just bad....Ha, they assigned food tasks out and we had way tooo much dessert. I made a pumpkin pie from real pumpkin because they don't have canned pumpkin here, It was way good, just saying. Ha, and then they bought like a ton of rotisserie chickens and two little salads, a little bit of carrots, and 66 pounds of potatoes that they had boiled before hand and put in garbage cans. We had this baby kitchen where we had to figure out how to mash them with soup spoons and heat up all of the chickens in one little oven. Mind you, we only had like 40 people there, so it took us forever to heat everything up and mash the potatoes which we did pretty much by hand and then try to warm all those up in the microwave and everything was cold by the time it was time to eat. We had no time to make the gravy so we just stirred the gravy packets in water and called it good. It was sad, but instead of the normal 1 hour rule of eating, we got 3 hours which most of it was spent preparing the food ha but at the end we were able to play a little bit of speed basketball and that was fun. Then we had a long train ride home that we had to stand on cause there was so many people... I was exhausted.

Friday we thought we were going to go do some service for a less active, but when we got there all she wanted us to do was make ornaments with her... aaha ok. It was pretty fun service if you ask me. Her nonmember husband was there and we shared a message, and he agreed to let us have a Family Home Evening with them next week, so that's good. Then we were running around trying to get stuff ready for Saturday and a dmp meeting that we had that night. We also got to see Miriam and we gave her the scriptures that mom and dad brought from the US for her. She just loved them and was so grateful. So thank you very much for bringing them. We then took her son, who is less active, to a youth activity where we ate some Thanksgiving food with them, then set up the church for the visiting teaching conference on Saturday morning. I was still so tired from Thursday

Then on Saturday we had the visiting teaching conference and Seour Denning and I played a musical number. The conference went well. The sisters really were unified. Then we had to run to 2 appointments, one with Jennifer and her mom in an old folks home. I lugged my violin with us all day and I played for her. She liked it. We didn't have lunch so we spent our lunch time going to this "bizzaro" where there were a bunch of stands from each country. Some members were working at the american stand and bought us a brownie... so good. It had been so long, then we ran to the Stake President's house for a Family Home Evening with my favorite family. We had fasted for Adelia's husband and he accepted to come. I was so scared cause we had no time to prepare and her husband was so cold and scary. I used one the Family Home Evening packets mom sent me, so thank you mom. I couldn't tell if the dad liked it or not, but everyone else did. I also played the violin for them....that case is heavy!

Adele's Baptism

Then on Sunday was Adele's baptism and it was just wonderful. Adele cried during my musical number and there were lots of people there because the bishops son was baptized too. She is so happy and I was as well.

That night we had a real Thanksgiving meal with all the american families in the ward. I almost cried cause I missed you guys so much, but I just had to remember how thankful I was to have all of those friends there to be my family. That was a legit Thanksgiving dinner with an imported turkey and everything, We were so happy!

Well, I'm going to Germany today for p-day!  I'll send you pictures!

I LOVE YOU ALL

Seour Kohlert