Week 65: OUI! We HAVE to finish this!

Dear Family and Friends,

:) Um well this has been a very interesting week. Not only was the weather CRAZY (some days we were soaked and some days I came home a little toasted) but so was the work!

I did found out that I am being transfered on Wednesday!! I am going to LILLE!!! That is sooo cool!!!! That is where I did my study abroad 7 years ago! There are two wards because its a big city. I will be serving in Villeneuve D'Ascq.. Ville-nuh-v-dask. Hopefully that helps you know how to pronouce that! Sister Vance served there and so did my future roommate Sister Wynn. They both absolutely LOVED it and I am excited!! I will be serving with a Sister Amy Nelson. She is in her 3rd, so she is just finished with her training. My new address is:

Soeur Kohlert

105, boulevard Montebello D404

59000 Lille

FRANCE

So this week started off with SICKNESS! Not fun. I got food poinsoning for the second time in 2 weeks. I spent all day just trying to not be miserable. Im still suffering from the effects of it (sounds so dramatic when put like that) and its not too fun. But that's allright :)

We got to work lots with Sidonie's sister Assia. She is so adorable and really wants to learn and get to know God. We had set a date with her at one point, but as of now her mom wont let her be baptized. She came to church for all 3 hours and its becoming really good friends with the young woman. We're not sure how things will work out because she comes from a rough family, but she was definitely a miracle for us this week.

Assia and I

We also had some INCREDIBLE lessons with Alphonsine! She is really really progressing. She is reading and coming to church and learning and loving it. There was one point during one of our lessons with her where I got to experience the gift of tongues. The words fell so perfectly from my mouth. It was so soft, yet so powerful and the spirit was unmistakable. Incredible. I felt so blessed to experience that. Last time we talked with her about the atonement, we talked about justice and mercy and read the story with the creditor. If you dont know it I highly recommend it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdc8rKcc4t4. At the end we asked if we could come back sooner than we normally do. With tears in her eyes she said "yes yes, we MUST finish the plan of salvation." She is thinking about a baptismal date. :)

Family Membre'

Well I love you all! I must get going to pack!

Stay amazing!

Love,

Sister Kohlert

Week 64: I guess God prepares His missionaries

Hello family!! 

Its a beautiful day here in France! Like gorgeous. And Im excited to tell you about the wonderful week that I had!

Do you remember Sidonie? Marie's student? Well we were able to teach her again this week and it was again an incredible lesson! She remembered everything that we had taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she brought two of her friends! They are also Marie's students and they are twins. Normally that struggle sitting and listening and school.. but for the whole 45 minutes they were with us they were still and understood everything! They were loving it and they seem interested as well! Sidonie also come to church and brought her 12 year old sister who wants to "learn more about Jesus". We talked to them about baptism and they said that they would do it before the end of the summer! They even started to plan who they would invite! Miracles happening in St. Quentin!!

We taught Alphonsine 2x this week and it was incredible! We decided to go Extremely slowly throught the Plan of Salvation. We talked about each sentence in the brochure through the Fall. It was incredible. We found bible and BOM scriptures to go with each sentence. Her questions were so great and I learned while teaching HER! Her testimony is coming!

I am not sure if I told you, but I have an investigator that was raped earlier this year. In the coming days she has to talk about it in a room with only the violator and the police. Her parents are not allowed to be there at all to support her. She breaks down frequently because she doesn't think that she will be able to do it on her own. Normally, because im a fairly cold hearted person as those who know me know, I would probably be very unsympathetic. Im sure in my head i would be sying things like "just suck it up and tell what happened, you have to do it so just deal with it." Well I had an experince before my mission that softed me enough to be able to really sympathize with Jenny...

I was trying to sell my BYU housing contract so that I could leave on a mission. I had found a UVU student who was willing to buy it and I was so excited.. especially because of the age change, there were tons of girls selling their contracts. Well, even though I had boughten my contract from a UVU student, my landlord would not let me sell it to her because she did not go to BYU. I of course decided to take it to BYU mediation. I was to work the problem out with the Landlord (he would be speaking over the phone). Throughout the mediation I felt completely attacked by my landlord with so many lies. I found my self completely overwhelmed and sobbing to the point where it was difficult for me to think let alone talk! The landlord forbade my parents to speak so that sat at my sides passing me notes of what to say. It was one of the most stressful and painful experiences of my life. I remember saying a prayer with my parents during a 10 minute break.... 

And now, I can only think of my poor investigator. My mediation was over money.. and hers is over something much more precious... And she has to be in the same room as the man that stole this precious thing from her and she CANT have her parents at her side. I cant imagine and I feel so much for her. I pray so strongly that she will be able to find the strength that she needs in order to face what she needs to face. Of course, we told her to pray. Please keep her in your prayers even though I cant tell you her name!!!

Ah well there are so many more miracles from the week! The parents of a non active named Olivia moved in this week. The mom is a member and the dad is not! I dont have time to tell you what happened, but hopefully next week ill be able to tell you! We definitely think he will be baptized with in the next few months! Im just so sad that I won't be here to see all of this!!

This is an elder from Guatamala who was in my old Lux district at Zone Conference

Transfers are next week and I am pretty sure ill be moving. So if you send anything send it to the mission home and not to ST Q!

I love you all,

Sister Kohlert

Week 63: Bonne Fête des Mères

Hi family!! 

Happy mothers day mommy!! I love you so much and it was so wonderful and SO HARD to talk to you all yesterday! I just wanted to jump through the screen to be with you! I miss you all sooo much!!

So I already told you lots about this week yesterday so this email will be short and sweet! I attached a picture of our wonderful cow milking outfit and that fish that we saw being devouered in ways that I didn't know were possible on Saturday by the Niamké family. Ha, I forgot to tell you that just hours before the African FEAST we ate a Peruvian FEAST! They were both so delicious... but my stomach FLIPPED out this morning. It was a small price to pay :)

Lovely Cow Milking Outfit

Whole Fish with Skin and Eyes....Sick!!1

This week was just so wonderful. We saw SO MANY less actives and recent converts this week and we saw miracles with them!! One of them who is the most dearest to our hearts opened up and explained why she hasn't been coming to church. It was such a blessing because she really has a great connection with Sister Kimball. I know that we are placed where we are for a reason! Well to make a long story short... SHE CAME TO CHURCH! We were so happy we couldnt even contain ourselves. I love the mission and I love helping people come closer and learn more of how they can find, or refind, real true happiness in their lives. 

We also made some headway with Alphonsine! We were on an an exchange with the sister training leaders so unfortunately I wasn't able to be at the lesson.. But she came to church with her 7-year-old son Andi.. WHO LOVED IT and she said that if her family doesn't agree with her baptism by July, she will do it anyway!! :) Love her!!

We were also so blessed to have an amazing lesson with Sidonie and Jean-Claude.. One of Marie's students and her cousin. We asked them what they remembered from the last lesson.. and they only receited it perfectly back to us!! They said that they are started to believe more and more in God! Then we taught them the Plan of Salvation... And we got through the whole thing with much detail!! It was incredible! Their questions were sincere and they absolutely loved what we had to teach them about God and His plan! Then at the end we invited them to be baptized if they knew it was true... They said that they had already thought about it and they said YES!!!

I love being a missionary.

Thank you for everything that you have all done for me!! I love you soooo much!!

Sœur Kohlert

Week 62: Happy Baptism... 1 of the 125

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my most amazing sister NICOLE!!! 20 years old... getting old!!! I hope your birthday is wonderful. I love you and miss you!

This week started out crazily with a Paris P-day and a conference the next day in Paris. We talked lots about faith and being obedient so that we can call down the powers of heaven and reach our goal of 125 baptims in three months and before July 1st. As a mission we have 35 as of today so we have lots of work left to do! I am excited to work hard and experince this miracle during my last few months (three as of today to be exact.. Crazy) as a missionary.

Pday -A Kitty Drinking the Milk that We Just Milked

A Yummy Restaurant in Paris

This week we lived a many wonderful miracles and I would just LOVE to share some with you!

Isabela's baptism was beautfiful and so full of the spirit. She was so happy and just kept saying THANK YOU THANK YOU with a huge smile on her face! I love her. She said that the night after her baptism she slept sooo well... that is called spiritual exhaustion that I am learning LOTS about on my mission ha. She had a dream and saw someone dressed in white. She received the Holy Ghost the next day and was promised many blessings, for her and her 2 little children (who just love us by the way).

Isabela's Baptism

We had an amazing lesson with Alphonsine this week on obedience, authority, and eternal life.. random topics I KNOW but they all fit together so well and the spirit was SO STRONG. We were all in tears at different points throughout the lesson. She is still working on the coffee thing. She came to the baptism along with her son Andi and they loved it. Andi said... "Mom if you are baptized I am going to cry." Alphonsine reacted as though the day wouldn't be far off and we took the oppurtunity to explain to Andi that he was feeling the Holy Ghost.

After the baptism we decided to go past a lady that Sister Vance and I had found exactly three weeks earlier before Isabelle's baptism. When we had found her, we tried to figure out where she lived but we weren't sure.. So we fixed a rendez vous at the church and she never came. So SIster Kimball and I decided to go knock the road that we thought she might live on. Well, we were at the stop on our way and the bus driver stopped.. but left as we were walking up to the door... so not cool. So we decided to walk.. i mean she lives on the opposite side of St. Quentin but it's so small that it only took us like a half hour, if that. Well, we knocked two doors and then saw a big apartment building that we thought she might live in. We weren't sure how we'd get in but it just happened to be open... :) We look at the mailboxes and we see a VICTORIA CORBEAU.. that has to be her. We started to walk but the stairs to knock on her door and guess who walks out from another apartment and runs straight into us... Victoria. I am grateful for Heavenly Father and his timing. What a HUGE miracle. If we would have been any earlier or ANY later, we would have completely missed her! SO INCREDIBLE!

So I only have time to share one more miracle with you. On Easter we ate with a member family named the MEMBRés. I love them. We fixed a family missionary plan with them and they were to work with 4 families and we were to all pray every day for them. One of them is named Sophie. Bro Membré set up a lunch with her where he decided to just start asking personal questions. She ended up breaking down in tears and telling him how unhappy she is with life, living alone and just unhappy and she feels like she has missed her chance to live a happy life. She leaves to go smoke and calm down and brother membre is thinking.. "oh no, what have i done... i just made her break down." She comes back and says,

"ya know what I wanna be? I want to become Christian.

I want to have that love and light that the Christians have."

And Heavenly Father opens the door once again.

I know that we are not perfect but that Heavenly Father uses his spirit to turn our efforts to reach out to his children into exactly what is needed.

I love you. I love my mission. Only 13 weeks left and I cant wait to talk to you all on Mother's day!

I LOVE YOU ALL GROS BISOUS!