Week 69: Baptism. What more can you ask for?

What a beautiful week!

We started off by celebrating my birthday with Ashna and Diksha. They made some delicious Maurician food for us!! Mmmm Mmm good. She was so excited for her baptism as we taught her the last lesson.

Can't Believe I'm 22!

Happy Birthday 22!

Tuesday we took a trip up to Brussels for our last Zone Conference with President and Soeur Poznanski. As a gift to them 4 musical numbers were prepared as a surprise. I was lucky to be able to play a duet of I Know that My Redeemer Lives with Soeur Bennion on the flute. The poznanskis were really touched. It was so sad to say goodbye to them, but we are all excited for the new president to come this week. We are getting ready spiritually to accept any changes that may occur!

We got to profit a little bit in Belgium. We of course got some famous waffles and stopped by the Grand Place and Mannaken Pis. He was all dressed up in a Belge jersey for the world cup. That was our exciting non missionary related adventure of the week!

Soeur Dufossé, the one that Sister Nielson had the inspiration to call last week CAME TO CHURCH!!! For the first time in over a year. She normally needs help walking down the stairs of her appartment, so the RS president went to go pick her up with her 2 sons for church. When they got there the door was broken and they couldnt get in from the outside. But because Soeur Dufossé really wanted to go to church.. She braved the stairs by herself!!!! It was scary but I was impressed that she took such a risk to come to church!

Things are going smoothly with Fabienne! She is totally soaring and is ready for her baptism on the 28th. We taught her a little bit about baptims for the dead and she said, "Man, I really wish that we could do baptisms for the living." I think she really understands the importance.

Well because many of our investigators our being passed to the elders, we've had some finding time!! We didnt want to just go to some random place and knock doors for ours. So, we decided to rely on the Lord. We each took 20 minutes and prayed about where to go. We wrote the city down on seperate pieces of paper to show eachother after we'd finished. It was so nerve racking but we both had confidence that God would guide us... and if worse comes to worse than we would just have 2 cities to knock doors in. Well at the end of the 20 minutes we nervously exchanged papers... and guess what! THEY WERE THE SAME! Hem. Hem is the city we were supposed to go to! 

So we did! We found so many potentials and taught 3 lessons in about an hour and a half. We hope some more miracles will come of that this next week.

As for the baptism, it was just so wonderful. Diksha looked so bright and happy in her white dress. There were 2 other baptisms going on at the same time so there were so many members there to celebrate with us and support her. The night before the baptism, her nephew, Ashna's son, came down with the fever. She said that she prayed that it would go away and he woke up with as good of health as ever! 

Diksha's Baptism

I love this work and I love the Lord.

And I love you!

Soeur Kohlert

Week 68:And God Scores Again: He Always Fulfills Our Righteous Goals

Happy Father's day yesterday dad!! I love you so much and I hope that it was just wonderful!!

This week has been crazy and emotional! But it was full of wonderful family home evenings with members and investigators! 

Girls We Met on the Metro

Ha well, the week started out wonderfully with a FHE hosted by us because the member backed out last minute. We made pizza and cookies. It was with Fabienne and she is just soooo amazing! She understands the Plan of Salvation so well!! She understands and uses repentance better than I do! She was so excited and ready to accept the law of tithing when we taught her as well. She came to church and was just bawling during sacrament meeting as a sweet sister testified of the importance of her family and how much the gospel has blessed them. The spirit was so strong and fabienne is just so cute and sensitive to it. 

Remember how our mission has a goal of 125 baptisms before the new president comes on July 1st?? Well we are at 72 of the 125 and have over 40 dates set for the end of the month, one of which is Fabienne. Her brother ended up needing her help on the day of her baptism, June 28th, the last saturday before the goal deadline. As she was explaining the situation I was so sad.. of course I was happy that she would just be moving it back by one week. BUT as she continued the story she said, "I told my brother that I was busy on the 28th. I received a sign from God that I need to be baptized on the 28th of June and so I will just have to help him the next weekend!"

What a blessing. The Lord truely does help us achieve our goals as we set them and work for them sincerely!

Update on Diksha: She is just doing wonderfully! We got her program and everything all ready to go! She has had most of the major lessons and she just cant wait to be baptized. She touches my heart every time I see her as she thanks me fore putting her on the "bon chemin".. good path. She will be  baptized on Saturday the 21st. 

We had a little trial this week. Our zone leaders split our area between the three companionships of Villeneuve D'Ascq. President asked us to only work with the members and investigators in the new area. It was really hard to hear, especially since we are loosing all of our investigators and less actives except for 2 less actives. Our schedule is going to go from extremely packed to NOTHING. We are passing everyone and recieving 1 person. After discussing this a little longer, we all decided that we can continue teacher diksha and fabienne at least till their baptisms and one other investigator that is a single 22 year-old female to avoid any problems.Sister Nielson and I know that president is inspired and we are excited to face on this new challenge together! We know that we will see miracles as we focus on finding and starting from ground 0 with rebuilding up our teaching pool. Maybe we'll just be able to find a family and help the mission in obtaining our goal of 125! Pray for us?

We also had our cute Armenian family at church. The kids went and sang with the primary for Father's day. too adorable.

I just wanted to leave you with a tender experience that Sister Nielson and I had together this week. We were walking in an area and Sister Nielson had the thought to pass by. We didnt really have the time so we called. The Less Active answered: "Is this the sisters?? Ive been trying to get ahold of you all day!"

I love following the spirit

Went to the Zoo for P-Day on my Birthday

I love you all!

Week 67: Wow, that worked better than I thought it would!

Quoi de neuf???

Well another week here in France has come and gone! The weather is insane and we got to experience being fried and freezing. It was a blast let me tell ya...

Ha but Yesterday we had an awesome conference for our area of europe! Elders Uchtdorf and Nelson spoke to us. It was so wonderful and uplifting! I learned that we are planting and watering seeds and the Lord, He is harvesting! There are so many miracles happening and His work is moving forward everywhere!!

Lille included :)

We met with Ashna and Diksha. They are the sisters from the island Maurice. We felt the spirit so strong as we were teaching Diksha and we invited her to be baptised! She said no at first. After asking a few questions she came out and told us (mind you Diksha has kept the Word of Wisdom and the Laaw of Chastity her whole life), "Well I dont want to be baptised because I think that even after my baptism I'll want to go out and have fun." Ha she litterally thought that we don't go out and have fun. Well after we cleared up that problem she became SO EXCITED to be baptized. 

Ashna and Diksha

She fixed herself a date earlier than we had intended, the 21st of JUNE! And then she just was beaming! The spirit was so apparent in her and she like made her baptismal program right away. President has always asked us to fix dates with our members so that they can have a goal and a vision. He has promised that if we do it we will see miracles and i have throught out my mission... but with Diksha it was just so quick and so appartent!!! Everytime after we saw her she was just glowing. She started to understand so much better and she was STUDYING and really PRAYING! It was seriously a miracle. She gave me the cutest note the other day thanking me for putting her on the right path. 

We also had another miracle with an investigator named Amélie. She just wasn't progressing. We ended up sending her a REALLY bold text and she came to conference thanking us for the message. She was now ready to LEARN and she is progressing well. She said no to a baptismal date but I wouldn't be surprised if we fix one this week.

Fabienne is doing wonderfuly. The ward is incredible and are really helping her to overcome her fears with her family. We work with more than one member everyday! Fabienne is still on track for her baptism on the 28th.

Also Marie from St. Quentin ended up surprising me at stake conference! Her and Sister Kimball brought up my old investigator! So I got to see them all and it was so wondeful! And Colten's sister!

Sister Kimball and Colton's Sister at Conference

Marie at Conference

I hope that you all have an incredible week! I simply just wish that I had all of the time in the world to tell you all of the miracles I see every week! THERE IS JUST NOT ENOUGH TIME!!

Je vous aime tous!

Sœur Kohlert

Week 66: Are You Sure You're Fabienne?

Salut! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER!! I just can't believe how old you are!! I hope the family spoils you and that you have way way way too much fun!!

So before I forget, MAKE SURE TO WRITE SOEUR Kohlert on my mail because my name is not on the box... so anything without the word SOEUR on it will not make it to me. If youre worried just send it to the mission home!

I also just had to tell everyone that Sister Brandenburg (Colten's sister) replaced me in St Quentin.. soooo cool. AND Elder Davis, another one of my friends from that ward in Seattle is our new AP! WAHOO

Okay so I just love Lille. Its so crazy to be back in the same place that I lived seven years ago. As we are walking around I keep remembering things that happened in these same places but in completely different circumstances. We are busy busy busy and it reminds me of the beginning of my mission in Rennes, RUNNING AROUND EVERYWHERE! I love it. Its so nice to have people to see!! And we have a metro again!! I LOVE THE METRO. Finding on the metro is one of my favorite things so im a happy camper.

My companion is a 19 year-old from Kaysville Utah. Her name is Sister Nielson and she is just wonderful. She is a civil engineering student at USU and we get along great! She is so good at french that I would have never have guessed that she just got done being trained last week! We live with two other sisters. Its the first time that I've lived in a four-man apartment, but I really like it alot.. except for I'm not sleeping as much; and therefore I'm exhausted! Just thought I'd tell you that!

Oh boy oh boy.... have we been seeing miracles. So you know how I've been trying to be healthy? Well I cracked. On day one we decided to get a Kebab and we started talking to this group of students. Well the conversation ended naturally when our food came out and we ate seperately. Then I heard one of the girls say to the group "Hey, Im going to go see the mormon church down the street, you can come if you want to."  Well of course I told her that we'd give her a tour cause she can't get in without us and our key! Ha so we showed her around and had an amazing first lesson with the whole group. We testified that if she would read and pray about the BOM she would receive an answer and know that this is Christs church.. she said "I sure do hope so". We're meeting with her again on Friday. Noria.

I met the ward and they are just wonderful!! We get invited very frequently and the ward really does take care of all of us 6 missionaries!!! There are 6 in our ward (Villeneuve D'Ascq) and 6 in the afternoon ward (Lille). AKA this place is a gold mine! Im excited to get to know them all better and its sooo fun because I know lots of them thanks to Soeur Vance!

Day number two was just wonderful! We taught an amie named Christelle! She is so adorable and we were able to set a date with her for August 23rd.. ya after my mission is over... but thats ok. Shell probably need to get married first. We set the date thanks to a member (ya i told you they were great) who compared the baptismal date to an exam date... you won't study until you know that they time is approaching! Christelle accepted the date!! Waho Wonderful Fabulous!

So after lots of fun and exciting work... which hopefully we will see the fruits of very soon, we got to go to church. Well we always like to get there a bit early and stand by the door to great the members as they come in. Well as we were doing so, an Excommunicated Polish Member (its capatalized because it is his official name considering he only speaks like 5 words of french and 5 words of english and so no one knows his real name) comes up to me and gives me a HUGE bouquet of flowers.... haha welcome to Villeneuve D'Ascq Soeur Kohlert... I felt soooo awkward walking around church with them. He ended up getting a little more creepy as he proceeds to take pictures nonstop of all of us missionaries.. from all angles... that was fun. Ill send some pictures.

Beautiful Floweres from the "Exommunicated Polish Member"

Ok well to finish off this GINORMOUS email.. I need to tell you about someone named Fabienne. So about twi weeks ago, the sisters here found a Fabienne in the park. They fixed a rendez vous forthis Saturday and like good missionaries we texted her to confirm. She called us back and changed it to Sunday. Sweet shes commited. So on Sunday we walk up and Sister Nielson didn't really recognize her.. she asked, "Are you Fabienne?" She said ya! So we gave her a church tour and she said "I know, I know, Ive been to church lots of times"... WHAT? Well it turns out that we had accidently called an old investigator named Fabienne. She was taught by my trainer a year and a half ago and had a date but backed out because of her family. While talking to her she expressed to us how AWFUL she felt after she left.. She took that as her answer. She knew it was true... And therefore she was sooo happy when we called her. It was her second chance. We fixed a date for the 28th of June. She will be one of the 125 if all goes well. What a miracle. Isn't God just funny?

I love you. I love my mission. Im so tired. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me in the next two months as I give it my all!!

Soeur Kohlert

I'd love to hear from you all still!!!