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

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