Happy Monday everyone!! I realize your Mondays aren't quite the treat that mine are, but I hope yours is good anyway.
This week has been a busy one. Even though neither Soeur Ingraham nor I went anywhere this new transfer, they are always exciting and tiring. On Wednesday we helped the new sisters get settled into their apartment. The other sister companionship got "whitewashed," Meaning both missionaries get transferred, so the two coming in have an interesting time figuring out how to get around. It sounds very stressful and tiring, I hope it doesn't happen to me. Anyway, we helped Soeur Larsen and Soeur Emilcy get their luggage to the train station, and then later helped Soeur Murray and Soeur Smith get their luggage to the apartment. We are going to go to Grand Place together and get them gaufres so they can experience Belgium at its finest.
Lili is doing well, we had two rendez-vous with her this week. We talked about the Plan of Salvation, I think it is my favorite lesson to teach. There is so much hope and comfort that comes from knowing where we come from where we are going and what our purpose in this life is. I can only imagine how lost I would feel without this knowledge. Lili said that she had never heard about it before, but she loves it. We gave her a pamphlet to read before our next lesson. She read it, and she was so excited to share what she learned. She especially liked the part about Adam and Eve, how the fall was part of the plan and that it was because of agency, our ability to choose, that we are here on the Earth. Because they ate the fruit, they could experience good and evil, and she was so glad that they did. She also thought it was interesting that it was Satan's choices that caused him to become the devil. I was so impressed with all the things that she learned from the pamphlet. Her comment about it was that "it was a little book but there is a lot of information in it." The second lesson we taught was about the gospel of Jesus Christ, where we teach the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Her husband, who is a member, was there and he was a big help. He testified about faith and about the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was funny because Lili hasn't told her husband yet that she is getting baptized, so there are all these connections and things I want to make to her and her baptism but I can't really because he doesn't know about it yet. My favorite part was at the end, we made her a calender to help get her ready for her baptism, and we had to give it to her without letting her husband know what it was. They were sitting on the couch next to each other when we handed her the paper with BAPTISM!!!! circled and colored really big on it. We gave it to her and said that it had some activities that are going to be happening in the near future, to let her know what we want to focus on for the next few weeks and if she has any questions to call us. I was dying of laughter on the inside because I don't think Soeur Ingraham quite got it, because it was in French. Lili looked at it and folded it a little, when her husband tried to see what was on it she told him it was not for him. I am so excited for their family. Lili told us that she and her husband were just married at the commune and not in a church because they wanted to be of the same faith and then get married in their church. The idea of them getting sealed in the temple just fills me with joy. If there is one thing that I know is true it is that the gospel blesses families.
We have been working with the members of our ward a lot lately, aka eating dinner at their house. But it has been good we have at least three referrals from members in the works, so I am excited. We ate with the Mema family and the Petersons this week. The Memas are a young couple with two little boys who are very energetic and very much little boys. It was so fun to just listen to then and be interested in what they had to tell us. Sister Mema is American and he is Albanian. We talked about missionary work and about the blessing that we receive in our own lives when we are actively trying to share the gospel. They had some pretty cool stories to share about their experiences. The Petersons was a treat, they are on a special mission for the church as representatives to the European Union for the church. They have all kinds of crazy stories about important people that they talk to every day. Their job is the make people aware of the church and build relationships for the church with different countries. They Lord is really helping them meet people, Soeur Peterson for example met the Ambassador from Slovakia at the gym. They like us because I help them with their computer, mostly I teach them how to blog. We count it as service.
Saturday we had a special treat. There is a member in our ward who is a Professor of communications at the local university, so he is really good at organizing things that are church related that would also be interesting to the public. This time he organized a free screening of 17 Miracles, it is a pioneer movie that came out recently in America... I guess... not really sure how well known it is. Anyway, we invited some amis and less active members to come to is and Laura, our British ami, and Bernadette, one of our less actives and her son Nathan came to the movie. And because our ami came we got to go too. So I got to go to the movies on Saturday!!! The 17 Miracles is an amazing movie, I cried several times, it is heart wrenching in some parts. It was so good, but also kinda weird because I've been along parts of the trail that they traveled and that were in the movie. It made me a little homesick for pioneer trek, weird. I loved the movie and want to see it again, their faith and confidence in God, astounds me. I hope that if I was ever asked to do something that difficult that I too would have the faith to carry on. It made me think about my goals and the cause that I am striving for. Zion still can and should be our goal. I want to try harder to follow the pioneers example to be faithful until the very end and to be continually pushing and working to get to Zion.
Much love,
Soeur Gaelin Turney
PS I'm turning 1 this week. One year ago on Thursday I went into the MTC, CRAZY!!!!!!
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