Week 48: Gettin' a Little Stir Crazy in the Ville of 56,000

Bonjour à tous!

We just came from touring the HUGE Basilica in the middle of ST QUENTIN! It  was built on the top of the headless corps of Saint Quentin. In like the 600s an angel appeared to a blind woman and told her to go find the corps in a river. So she did and dragged it as far as she could till she got tired because it was so heavy and full of water. Where she finished is where they built the basilisk (ha in french its basilique and its just TOO close for us not to just call it the basilisk).

The Basilica in St. Quentin

Also during church yesterday, my comp started itching her arm with a pen.... and ya, the cap was off and she had pen ALL up and down her arm. haha LOVELY.

Well Monday after we visited an obsesive non active (that was interesting), we went and did some contacting. We were at our door at 855 and decided to be obidient and walk down the street and back till 900. Well God sure does like obedient missionaries and put a couple into our path! At first they werent interested at first because they had lost a young child, but after bearing testimony of the Plan of Salvation and saying a prayer with them, we were able to fix a rendez vous with them for the next night. 

Well the next night rolls around... not really rolls ha time doesnt just roll on the mission...and we were planning on meeting them at the post office to take them to the chapel where a sister in the ward was waiting for us. Well they didnt show, and so we called the sister and said wait there, we're going to walk to the chapel doing contacting, pray for us and well find someone that we can teach. So we litterally starting running and stopped every woman in site and knocked on all the doors that had lights on... unfortunately it wasnt Gods will for us to find someone that night, but it sure made the night interesting and hopefully showed the ward that were willing to work. 

Speaking of running, ha after our first and only district meeting in AMIENS, all 8 of us missionaries missed the bus and so we had to litterally sprint to the gare. Ha i had a huge heavy bag of glass pans so i was in the back and it was HILARIOUS to watch the peoples faces as 8 youngins wearing suits and dresses booking it with bags. hahahahhahaha i died laughing after i caught my breath.

Saying Goodbye to Elder Brule

SPEAKING OF NOT BEING IN SHAPE: My comp and I have made a plan. We ARE going to loose weight... BUT I need your help! I need you to ask me how im doing and encourage me. If Im held accountable it will help me and motivate me. so please HELP  its a dire situation.

We did lots and lots and lots of finding this week... but no fruits :/ its been rough cause apart from the josses who we see once a week and the niamkés who we see twice a month, we dont have any investigators so our days are just simply OPEN or full of less actives. Wellon thursday we decided to just do some non active hunting and stop by people on the ward list that no one has any information on. So we stopped by one family. It was POURING rain and their 20 ish year old son comes out and said that his dad used to be a member but is no longer interested and he isnt either. Well of course we left him with a card and thought nothing of it.

Typical Street in St. Quentin

Well we walk into church on sunday and the elders were like "hey some guy you contacted is here".. we were so confused cause we dont contact men. Well we see him and we were super shocked, like taken back ha it was sooo funny! He came! And stayed for three hours and met with the elders and is meeting with them again on tuesday!!! COOOL!

Saturday we were able to see the Josse Family. We did the restoration very simply and with pictures for the boys. I think they really liked it. Alexis was very invovled and I was surprised about how quickly he learned it. He recounted it back to us at the end. 

We did some violin contacting this week and ate at a chefs house from the ward.... IT WAS SOOO GOOD. I was in heaven, in heaven. Ya it was soo good that it deserves two in heavens. MMMM. Pistache and orange. Who would have ever thought.

We also learned to make crepes and fondue at georgette! Shes been having a hard time reading and understanding the BOM. So she teaches us french cuisine and we read with her! Great trade off I know! She has great questions and is just sooo cute! Next week is pies! MMMM

Georgetta, Our Gma

We also have a new president for July! President Babin from évry, right near paris. Thats pretty cool. Ill only be with him for like 11 days but thats cool.

I love our Heavenly Father. I am so happy to hear of all the good things going on at home and I know that He blesses us. He has taught me so much out here and I cant wait to tell you all about it! Keep doing those FHEs mom ha even if ty and steph complian!!

Je vous aime avec tout mon coeur!

Sœur Kohlert

Week 47: A Loving Ward Teaching Families

Hello there family and friends,

Umm, I just don't know where to start off today! Its been a pretty great week. 

We started off here in St. Quentin with no toilet paper. Ha, it was a blast to run around the apartment trying to find ANYTHING that could work. When the only three paper towels I could find were gone, we got REALLY creative ha.

We got to do some knocking on doors our first night! We found this man named Idaline... not sure if that's really a males name. He was funny and we really worked with the spirit and ended up leaving him with a Book Of Mormon that he said he'd read. I LOVE teaching with Sister Vance. We work really well together and she seriously like picks up my wave length when were contacting. Its pretty cool.

Wednesday we got to visit the cutest old lady named Georgette. She had AN AWESOME conversion story that totally applies to a family that I'll tell you about in a bit. She motivated me.

We had a wonderful conference on Thursday to start off our year. Our new theme is D&C 64:33-34. Our district leader talked about being bold, obedient, and loving people. It was also another motivational moment for me. Our appointments all got canceled that night so we got to do some contacting. We met this cute African named Marie. Again, at first she was really stand-offish, but we ended up being able to pray with her. She was so touched that she was in tears and accepted a return appointment for the next night. Unfortunately she wasn't able to come. We were also able to find a couple that we prayed with and they were really interested in Christ. It was cool and a testimony to me that we CAN find on our own. 

Not like we need to here in St Quentin! A sister brought her friend to church. She's been working with her for over a year and hopefully we'll get to start teaching her soon. We also went to Ward Council... AND OH MY WORD. They are such a small ward but they act SO big. They seriously take care of the needs of EVERYONE and in such a timely manner. My mouth was literally dropped like the whole time. They deserve SO much more success than they've been seeing.

So I need to introduce you to some people.

°1 The Family Josse: Referrals from Marie Poletz. Mikael and Virginie are the parents and Alexi 7 and Samuel 2 are the two sons. They have been taking the lessons since April and she is ready, just waiting on him. He knows its true. Like he asked God if Joseph Smith was a prophet and right when he ended the prayer he heard his son whistling Praise to the Man and the moment he realized that Alexi was singing that, he stopped. He just needs to accept the signs. We had a bomb lesson on His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox. At the end I was dang nervous to ask them to be baptized but I did anyways. The answer still was "when I get an answer". It will come We prayed lots and we think we know what the family needs. So the next lesson we taught THE BOYS. We taught them who Christ was and made a little chain with them. They loved it. Virginie sent a lovely text about how much she adored seeing her sons participate. They are a wonderful family and come to church every week and feed us till will explode... quite literally. Our plan of action is to start all the lessons from the beginning but teach the whole family, because that's what the gospel is about right?

°2 Maire Poletz: Our best friend. She is 26 and is just rockin. She has such a huge testimony and is the cutest character. She gave us cute notes and drives us EVERYWHERE (she's driven us twice to the Josses and its like an hour each way). She also bought us the yummiest pastries ever and is just so willing to help.

°3 The Niamké family: We like cried. Ill send you a picture of them. An african family with 5 kids. We walk in and they hadn't seen the missionaries since Oct. We walk in and they were all sitting around the table so ready! The were all so attentive and LOVED the little game that we played with them of the plan of salvation. I'll send a picture of that too. The kids all asked questions and understood it more than any adult investigator I've ever taught. They sang the primary song together and the SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG. Afterwards we played a game that everyone was SO into. We asked if we could come back and EVERYONE yelled YES! ha and the oldest boy added in... the question is when? Unfortunately we cant see them until the 26th but that's ok. We'll pray for them till then.

The Niamke Family

Plan Of Salvation Game

Friday night we were asked to give a talk on Sunday. I almost threw up. I didn't realize how horrid my french had gotten and I was so afraid of speaking in front of everyone. I think it went well. They also had me play the violin. The ward was in tears and I'm sure glad mom had the inspiration to have me bring it. 

Well there is so much more but I better go. 

I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH

Gros Bisous

Sœur Kohlert

Week 46: A Voyage Full of Tears

Hello family and friends!!

Thank you for all of the Christmas cards and letters this week! It was so great to see all of the pictures and read how everyone is doing! I even had letters when I got to my new apartment in St Quentin... Ha, which was interesting btw. We walked in and the apartment was fly-infested because of some food that was left out ha....but let me rewind and tell you all about it:

New Years Eve was a blast! We were able to go to a member's house with the elders to eat and play some games till 930.. ha afterwards we tried so hard to stay up till midnight... it just about killed us but we made it! It was sooo cool though because we live in one of the richest areas in the second richest country in the world and therefore there was no lack of money to be spent on fireworks... ha we sat and rotated windows and watched like 4 different personal firework shows. it was incredible. one of our windows looks over the "valley" a bit and it was awesome to see all of them going off all of the city! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New Year's Eve

New Years day we got to sleep in and hang out with some members. Sister Henson and I were feeling soooo sick so we kinda layed around the house, I made us a deal or no deal game and we played that, that was fun. It was great just to sit for a day; but we were ready to get to work Thursday... other than every muscle in my body was killing me. It was so weird, and when I laid down in just got worse... so we just worked and worked anyways which was good because i was able to say goodbye to a ton of people.

Thursday was wonderful, other than we woke up to a text from Jennifer telling us that she couldn't be baptized oa I'll talk more about that later. But I was able to say goodbye to Diana and the Amengule family, They made us a HUGE FEAST and they gave us a gallette des rois wich is this like light fluffly marzipan pastry... it was sooo good, and sooo expensive; Mom would have died and gone to heaven.  We were able to have our LAST FHE with Miriam and Victor and it was sure an interesting one. Long story short we all decided that we were going to fast together to solve a family problem. It was cool because Victor said that fasting was the only thing he had faith in because of the whole apartment-finding thing that I told you about last week. So we all fasted together on Sand I'm so sad that I wont be there to see how God responses to this one!

On Friday we took a LONG LONG train ride to the very north of Luxembourg, a city called TroisVierges (three virgins). We met up with a member who drove an hour and a half and we taught a couple from NETHERLANDS (YAY THATS RIGHT NICOLE, they spoke dutch and it was crazy to me that that's what you're speaking!!!!). Anyways it was way pretty up there and super cool to talk to this couple. They are the ones that kept driving past the church to see if anyone was there and already came to sacrament once. Turns out that they met the missionaries like 5 years ago and they taught them just a little bit. She said that a month or so ago someone asked her what church she belonged to and she said "The Church of Jesus Christ" and pictured the Book of Mormon as she said it. She said she feels something really special about us and is just dying to learn more. Her husband is a little hesitant, but they loved the member that we took with us so I really hope the sisters take the time to visit them even though they are so far away!

Saturday was a great day. We started off by teaching Adele's daughter the Plan of Salvation. They took it off on this crazy twist and I had to be really creative to get them back on focus. I've been loving teaching with 2 other companions though. Its so nice and Sister Henson is a killer teacher. That afternoon we went to say goodbye to Adélia. She is the nonactive member who was starting to come back to church, the one that we starting teaching her friend and husband before she started working in the beginning of December and they all stopped coming to church and taking the lessons. And it was all because of Adélia going to work. I'm not sure if I told you; but that devistated me. We were teaching the family like 2 times a week and they were all progressing. I knew that unless Adelia stopped working, neither Fatima nor her husband would ever join the church and her kids would not grow up in the gospel. I prayed everyday that she would stop working and fasted for them every chance I got. For the lesson we had planned for me to bare my testimony... I was kinda nervous cause i didn't really know what to say. But when we got there she told me that SHE HAD DECIDED TO WORK PART TIME!!! She would be done at noon and she thinks that if she works Saturday she doesn't have to work Sunday. I bawled and bore my testimony about prayer. Her and my companions were all in tears because of how strong the spirit was. Adélia is going to be a woman of miracles. I'm sad I wont be there to see them but I was so grateful that I got to see my prayer answered, and her life start to change before I left.

We also went to see Jennifer, who had a friend with her by the way who they will start teaching. She had talked to the Jehovah's Witnesses and got some doubts in her mind. We helped her uncloud those doubts. She said she will still be baptized, shes just not ready yet. Keep praying for her.

Then Sunday came. The last day in Luxembourg. Anne and her cute boyfriend came to church. I was so happy to see them. They will be a power couple for the Lord if everything works out and if not, Anne will do amazing things on her one. She is a smart girl and the Lord will bless her life so much as she continues to learn about the gospel. Miriam bore her testimony, I was so proud. Afterwards she came up to me and handed me a letter and a small gift. In tears she told me that inside the box was a pyramid that she received from a member in Bolivia while she was investigating the church down there. The member told her that she is the top of the pyramid and that everything else below is her posterity and the people around her that have been brought into the gospel because of her example. She looks up at me with a look that ill never forget and says, "I want you to have it because I'm not that point, You are." What a precious moment. I can't express my feelings to you adequately. It was a blessing.

Then I was able to visit my favorite members who made me laugh and feel so loved before heading to ward council. We FINALLY talked about the FHE plan that I've been trying to get going for a month or so and I was so happy. They were really into the idea andIi think it will go far if the missionaries can get it all organized. The missionaries left half way through ward council and I had to go get something out of Christy C's car; I came back to give her the keys and I tried to leave quickly to not interrupt the meeting and she said wait! and turns around and gave me the biggest hug. As she's hugging me I see all of the members waving and saying goodbye! The Whites, the Gilstraps, Smiths, Rodriguezs; everyone that I've worked so hard with and for. I just went back down stairs in tears, so sad to leave but so happy for the memories that were made.

Monday we took trains all day and I got my new companion, Sister Vance from Ohio and we did some grocery shopping and cleaning to get ready to start our missionary work in St; Quentin. Its a cute and quite little ville and I'm so excited to get going. President has told us what he expects and I hope that I can fulfill his vision and the Lords Will.

I know the gospel is true. Im watching it change me.

I LOVE YOU

Soeur Kohlert