Week 22: Liege, Still the Place I Call Home

Bonjour *kiss*

 

So, the transfer email is out, Soeur Williams and I are both staying in Liege together. Which means I am going co-companion in my third transfer, whooooo. It doesn't really mean anything other than I no longer have a companion who knows what's going on any more than I do, as she has been in the mission as long as I have. Soeur England is getting ready to go home, it has been one very long goodbye starting about last Wednesday. I am gonna miss her, but her time has come.

 

Tuesday was Zone Conference in Brussels, we got a ride from the Skousens, it is tricky getting 3 sisters in the back of a European car, and even more difficult to be in there for an hour, but we made it there all right. Soeur Staheli started and she said something interesting. She told us to think about the think that we wanted more than anything else in the world, and then to think about yesterday. She asked us whether what we did yesterday brought us closer or farther away from what we want. It is a good thought provoking question. The choices we made yesterday effect the choices we have before us today and the things we choose today effect what we can do tomorrow. I wish that I could remember that all the time, I think that I would make my life much easier if I did. There is a tradition at the last Zone Conference before a missionary goes home they give their "dying testimony." Souer England gave hers, she said that a mission is a time where you don't have to think about anything else but everyone else. I think that I am going to make that one on my mottoes for my mission. The more you give yourself to the service of others and let yourself be lead by the spirit the more effective and the better the missionary you will be, I just have to figure out how to do it now.

 

Tuesday night we had dinner at Rita's house. It was Mardi Gras and apparently it is a tradition in Belgium at least to have cabbage on Mardi Gras. So we had a pork, and a cooked cabbage and potato dish, it was actually really good. It was made with the big green leafy-ish kind of cabbage. Don't worry we survived carnival without incident though it is supposedly this week that all the college kinds have their drunken initiation thingies. There are a lot of young people wandering around in lab coats that are very dirty and written all over. They also have chain-sash thingys and go in small groups asking people for money so they can buy alcohol. It makes my very sad to see them, and that there are so many of  them around. It is such a stark contrast to the life I am living, and really none of them look happy. As the scriptures say wickedness never was happiness.

 

I got to meet Christiane's kids on Wednesday, she had us over for lunch and it is carnival vacation for school. Ismael and Sabrina are so cute. Christiane sent Ismael to the store for some things for lunch and while he was gone Sabrina asked if we could read in the Book of Mormon like we've been doing over the phone. We are really excited about Sabrina's interest because while Ismael is baptized Sabrina is not. Her father is Muslim and she has been leaning a bit towards that. But she seems excited about reading and she volunteers to say the prayer all the time. We have continued reading the Book of Mormon with Christiane every night over the phone, there truly is a difference in her. I wouldn't say it is dramatic but it is a definite difference. It is a testimony to me of the power of the Book of Mormon. Especially in reading it everyday, I think that is the key to unlocking the power in the Book of Mormon, reading it every day with a sincere desire. We only read a chapter with her, but it makes a difference and a change of heart, even if it is just a little at a time.

 

Maurice is doing really well, he came to Family Home Evening last Monday, and to English class and Samedi Sports. He came to church on Sunday but he went to the other branch I think he had something to do to because he left right after, but he came!!!! We are so excited for him, and the members are being good with him, Beauty in particular. Beauty is one out our recent converts and he and Maurice have a lot in common so they talk a lot, I hope that they will be friends.

 

There have been a lot of lasts for Soeur England, her last district meeting, her last English class, her last Sunday, her last p-day. We've been trying to keep her busy so that she doesn't get too trunky, but we've had a lot of fun too. We went out for pizza on Saturday with the Skousens and Elder Duarte and Elder Weber, it was a lot of fun, and a nice last hurrah. Plus the pizza was amazing! It was a little weird to do weekly planning without Souer England this week, but we managed well enough on our own. She has done a great job getting us ready to be on our own, and I am excited for this new transfer and for all that it will bring. I am glad that transfers happen every 6 weeks, it gives me a way to recommit myself to being the best missionary, it is like having a New Year every month and a half. It is really helpful to have a time that is set to reflect on how I am doing and what I need to do better. That is why we are here on this earth, to progress to change, to evaluate and do better to become what we need to be. I think that is why missions are so life changing, they are a concentrated time where all you think about is how you can do better so you can do the Lords work better.  Wednesday begins my 3rd transfer and Sunday is my 5th month as a missionary. It is strange but that doesn't change the work, I am excited for my new responsibilities and that I have Soeur Williams to work with, we are gonna rock this town with the gospel!

 

I love you all so very much, until next week,

 

Soeur Gaelin Turney

Week 21: This Mission Thing Isn't What I Expected But I Like It

Hello everyone I hope you are ready for yet another installment of the crazy life that is mine as a missionary in Belgium, because it's crazy! Tuesday morning we hopped on a train to Valencienne, a tiny town in northern France, for exchanges.  Soeur Barros and Soeur Didier picked us up in their car. Valencienne is the only sisterville that has a car, their area is huge and they have a lot of tiny towns so the share a car with a set of elders in the next area over. On the way from the train station to their apartment we saw GI Joe. There is a man in Valencienne, known by most of the missionaries as Superman, who walks around in costumes of super heroes. Superman, Batman, and GI Joe are his specialty. He is apparently married and has sometimes been seen in normal clothes. Soeur Barros said we were very lucky to get to see him and that it was his best GI Joe costume yet. All five of us visited a member who lives so far away that she can't really come to church, we read scriptures with her and she fed us cake, she had a charming dog that wouldn't leave me alone of course. But it was good.  Soeur Barros shared a scripture in Alma 38:2-4.  She changed the word son to daughter and put in the woman's name and read it like it was God speaking to her. It was really special. Wednesday we came home, we had about 45 minutes between trains in the city of Lille so we went in search of a bakery because we were in France and Belgian bread is good, but French bread is better. It took us 20 minutes but we finally found one. I bought 2 loaves of 6 grain apricot bread, it was divine, I made french toast for breakfast with it the next day.

Soeurs Williams, Barros, and Turney in Valencienne

We had a meeting with the Branch Mission Leader Wednesday night, we talked about our branch mission plan, I am excited.  I think it is going to be really good. They invited us to stay for dinner, so I got my first taste of African food. Pretty much everything was fried, there was cordon bleu, chicken or beef, fried breaded cheese thingys, frites (french fries), and a string bean bacon onion dish that was also cooked. It was good food, it was just a lot all at once.

Elder Duarte made us Portuguese food for district meeting on Thursday, seafood, rice and Camel Saliva for dessert. The rice was so good, kind of like cioppino with rice in it, I have missed seafood so I was quite happy.  I think every one burned their tongues, because it was really hot.  Soeur Williams was not so excited about the seafood part, she is apparently terrified of fish in any form, even goldfish in little glass bowls. She has never eaten fish in her life because it scares her. She can eat goldfish crackers though, so it is not totally out of control, though I am afraid we gave her a rather hard time of it. Dessert is a little hard to describe, it is literally called camel spit and it looks like camel spit but it is wonderful to eat. It is a pale yellowy color and has the consistency snot, it isn't the sort of thing that wins prizes for presentation. It is made from sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks, I am going to try to get the recipe from Elder Duarte because it was so good.

The lesson in district meeting was on being a consecrated missionary. Elder Christofferson gave a really good talk titled "Reflections on a Consecrated Life" that we talked a lot about. It helped me refocus, and I was excited to go out and work. We had 2 rendez-vous after district meeting, Christiane and Isabelle. We left district meeting with just enough time to get to Christiane's if we caught the 17 bus at the bottom of the hill from the church. Just as we got off the 13, the 17 drove by, we signaled to the bus driver but he just kept on driving, so we were going to be 20 minutes late to Christiane's we decided to call and see if we could move Christiane to later and go see Isabelle sooner, which we did. We had just enough time before the train to Isabelle's that we decided to make cookies because it was Isabelle's birthday. We only had one paper plate, a small Christmas dessert plate that only fit 3 cookies on it. But I figured that since she was blind and lived alone she wouldn't mind the Christmas plate with only three cookies. We just barely caught the train to Visé, and there were quite a few people on the train. The train ride takes about 20 minutes, when we were about 8 minutes from Visé the train stops and the speaker comes on and says there has been an "accidente personne" which I think means someone got hit by the train, and that we couldn't go any further and that we needed to wait in the train and don't try to open the doors. I couldn't really see anything but there were ambulances and police cars and flashing lights. We ended up waiting on the train for about an hour and a half, and then outside the train for another 20 minutes while they brought us a bus to take us to the Visé gare. Because of the accident we didn't have time to go see Isabelle so we had to call her, she was so disappointed and it was her birthday. I felt so bad but after we hung up with her we each ate one of the cookies and that made me feel better. 


The bus ride to Visé and then from Visé to the Liege gare was one of the most exciting and scary of my life. We were packed into the back of the bus, and I only had one of the overhead hand hold loopy things. They are not really that helpful when your bus driver takes hairpin turns at 45 and Soeur England runs into you and you run into the kind old gentleman in the Newsie hat behind you. But we made it out all right in the end with only a couple close to awkward encounters. We managed to get to Christiane's on time and she made us dinner. It is very strange, a lot of times Europeans don't start cooking dinner until you get there so our 90 minute allotment for mangez-vous are taken up by them cooking, which was the case with Christiane. Dinner was interesting, boiled potatoes, canned peas and carrots, canned mushrooms in cream, and sausage cooked in butter, with yogurt for dessert. It tasted alright, but I think I prefer not knowing how things are cooked. Christiane loves to talk so we didn't actually get to the lesson part, and we had to run to catch the bus. At the end of the day we didn't get a lot of missionary work done, but we tried really hard to consecrated missionaries, it just didn't seem to work very well.

Maurice had a really bad week. He is having problems with his parents and school and work. He was really low at the beginning of the week, he called us while we were in Valencienne so we talked to him a bit and did what we could. Then Wednesday we check in to see how he was doing and he asked if we could talk to him about God, which we did. We met him in the park by our house and read parts of D&C 121-123 with him, he said it really helped and gave him the strength to keep going. We talked to the branch president and he said that he could talk to him Friday or Sunday. There was a nationwide transportation strike so he couldn't go on Friday, which means he came to church on Sunday!! It was good, he came for Sunday School and Sacrament meeting, and there were quite a few people who talked with him. After church he talked to President Stumont, when he came out he looked different and he looked a lot better. He said they prayed together and President Stumont gave him some council and that he should come to more Young Adult activities regularly. I am so glad. We were talking with Elder Skousen about it and he said that Maurice has hit the bottom and because of that he is turning to God, I think that he is right and I am so glad. I and so grateful that Maurice trusts us enough that he called us when he felt all alone. This has been a big week for him and I hope it is the turning point that helps him take the step towards baptism. Please pray for him, things are hard for him right now and he needs all the help he can get.

Today we went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of vegetables. All of us were feeling the food we were fed and decided to counter-attack with produce. There is a big old really long set of stairs in downtown Liege, I don't really know what the significance of them are, but we saw them and walked up them and took pictures of them, I don't really know why though. I am glad we did though because the view from the top was awesome. The sun was in the wrong position to get really good pictures but it was amazing to look at. We wandered around the top of the hill and found a little path and a paddock of sheep and goats and an orchard it was so picturesque. 

We also went to Saint-Jacques Cathedrale. It is the most complete cathedral in all of Belgium and has parts dating back to the 1300s of something crazy like that. The pipe organ is blue, which is pretty cool. There was a man there that gave us an impromptu tour, he showed us all kinds of cool things, like the confessional that had hearts carved into the doors, "for confessing your love, bahahaha" and a cool double spiral staircase that twists around each other and doesn't have and supports.  It was pretty cool. I feel so lucky to get to spent time in place like Liege, that I didn't even know existed before 2 months ago. Now I get to have all of these amazing experiences and meet amazing people and learn so much about so many things. I am so very lucky and so very grateful. Thank you for your prays and thoughts and letters. 

Saint-Jacques ceiling via Wikimedia

Saint-Jacques nave via Wikimedia

Love,

Soeur Gaelin Turney

Week 20: Three Little Hot Dogs in a Narrow Alley

Happy Monday everyone!

 

Whew, this week was crazy busy but wonderful. Tuesday we saw  Christiane and talked with her about the Book of Mormon and how it can help us every day and build our testimonies. She was having a much better day and the the spirit was there, we've started calling her at night and reading the Book of Mormon with her, even in the past week there has been a difference in her reading and what she learns. Then we took a train to Visé, it is a cute town. We did some contacting. It was the first time I've actually done it, and it was a good experience. It is weird to stop people though, I don't know if I will ever get used to it. Contacting really isn't that scary as much as it is awkward, but that's missionary work. One of the teachers at the MTC said, "A mission is just one big awkward moment, embrace it."  So that's what I'm gonna do, embrace the awkward. Then we visited a member named Isabelle, she is blind and her husband died about 6 months ago, so we go and read conference talks with her. She is so sweet and is quite lonely I think. We read her Elder Bednar's talk about tender mercies and we sang a couple of hymns with her. I hope it helps, there is only so much we as missionaries can do and I hope that it at least helps a little. Then we hopped on a train back to Liege and went and had dinner with Rita. She got home just before we got there so we had hot dogs, Belgian style. First of all, hot dogs in Belgium come in jars, I don't know what the liquid that they are swimming in is, but with processed meat things I 've learned its better not to think about it. She heated the hot dogs in a pot with sauerkraut and little bits of bacon. This is then placed on a baguette and eaten with the optional mustard, Dijon, of course. It was my first experience eating sauerkraut it was pretty good, plus I really do like hot dogs so I was very pleased with the meal. 

 

Wednesday Soeur Williams had her French legality appointment, so we had to go to Lille to get her papers done. She and I are now legal in France but not yet in Belgium which is the country we happen to be living in, go figure. Lille was fun though, there were two other missionaries who had legality appointments at the same time so we got to talk, while we waited. There is a patisserie called a Brazilian that you can only get in a patisserie close to the gare [translation: station] in Lille. All the other missionaries I have met say that that is the best patisserie in all of France. So, of course we had to go and get one. Personally I wasn't that impressed with them, they were good, but not my favorite. It tasted a little like a donut. When we got back to Liege we had our first DMB (Dirigant de Missionnaire du branch) meeting with our new branch mission leader. He was called on Sunday, Liege 1 (that is the branch that I am in) hasn't had a DMB for about 7 transfers at least, and this is the first one I've ever had. Frère Kapapula is going to be wonderful to work with I can tell already, he shared with us his testimony of missionary work, and that he really likes the sister missionaries, so there you go.

 

On Saturday we went and visited Sidoni and she introduced us to a girl who also happens to be named Sidoni, Sidoni the younger just arrived from Camaroon and is living with the Sidoni the elder. She talked with the missionaries once and has a Book of Mormon but didn't really know anything else. We taught her a bit about the restoration and Joseph Smith, and we will be meeting with her again this next Saturday. She said she was raised and baptised Evangelical but that she is looking for the truth. She was a complete surprise, but we are so excited. She came to church yesterday as well. We had a really good rendez-vous with Maurice Saturday evening. We didn't really plan anything to teach him because we wanted to find out where he was spiritually and what he wanted to get out of meeting with the missionaries. He is our most progressed ami, so we are trying to figure out what is keeping him from getting baptised. He has a lot of things going on in his life and he really wants to serve God, but he is having a hard time putting God first. He wants to make changes to his life but is having a hard time starting, I think. I think we made some good progress and I think we have a better idea of what direction to head in with him at least. He said he would try to come to FHE tonight, so we shall see.

 

Today we discovered a new thing that I think is so far my favorite P-day activity. We decided to go wandering in downtown Liege and found these street-alley ways that are called impasses. They are little narrow streets that are sort of hidden by the surrounding buildings. They are only wide enough for one or maybe two people to walk down at a time, they are dead ends or u-shaped with 2 entrances. They are the kind of streets I always imagines Europe to have, there are doors and little garden areas that are crammed together. They are so cute, if I were going to live in Europe I want to live on an impasse. We also went to the Red Church, also known as the Church of Saint Barthèlemy. It has a baptismal font with 12 oxen around the base, it is for baptising infants and is really small, but still cool. 

 

I love you all,

 

Soeur Gaelin Turney

Gaufres, Etc.

Week 19: Oy, the Time Flies!

Happy Monday everyone! It is funny how I look forward to Sundays and Mondays now, and Fridays and Saturdays are just like every other day. Yesterday was four months of being on a mission, and as of today I have been in the field more days than I was in the MTC. It is a little crazy to think that I only have 14 and a half months left! Time is such a strange thing, I think I start every email out like this but it just blows my mind. It is just barely starting to sink in that I am actually in Europe, you'd think that it would have hit me sooner considering I haven't understood anyone for 2 months, but there you go.

This has been a rockin' week. Tuesday and Wednesday we went to Brussels for training. It takes about an hour by train to get to Brussels from Liege. We got a ride on Tuesday morning from Brother and Sister Skousen, the Senior couple in charge of the Jeunes Adulte centers in Liege and Brussels. There was a bus and Metro strike so the traffic was terrible. But we got to the church at the same time as President Staheli so we weren't late. Tuesday's training focused on receiving and helping our amis receive revelation through prayer and scripture study. It is a little hard for me to describe but it was amazing how powerful the spirit was. There were talks and practice teaching and movie clips from the Preach My Gospel training DVD, and President Staheli talked a lot. He is an amazing man, and Soeur Staheli is wonderful too. After the training a group of us walked to Grand Place to get gaufres, the Belgian style. It was so good; I got one that had bananas, strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate sauce on it. Belgium is a truly wonderful country where even the chocolate sauce is equivalent to American gourmet chocolate. I took a picture but I forgot my camera cord, so, picture will come next week.

Wednesday we had to be in the train station at 6:40 am, so we could get to the church by 9:30. Wednesday we learned about receiving revelation by attending church, asking inspired questions, teaching people not lessons, and inviting amis to keep commitments. I love how simple the gospel of Jesus Christ really is. Praying, reading the scripture and going to church really are how we can know what God's plan for us is. They taught us something that we can do with amis to help them come to church, and it is something that will work for you every time if you sincerely try it. Write down a question on a card that you want the answer to and if you pay attention at church you will receive an answer. It is as simple as that, it can be any kind of question really. In one of the practice teaching sessions one of the missionaries said something I really like, He said "God has blessings waiting for you and He wants to give them to you, but you have to do what He asks or He can't give them to you." I love that idea, and it makes me want to do the best I can.

Friday there was a bus strike in Leige, the buses were running but not as many, and so to avoid the uncertainty we took the train to Vervier to do some pass-bys we did a lot of walking and no one was home, but it was a very beautiful city. We take turns as to who is in charge of the phone, keys, and map book. It was Soeur Williams day for the map book, she did a wonderful job, I felt a little bad for her though, because none of us knew where we were. We passed a really cool old house that had all the features of a haunted house in a movie, including crumbly stairs and chandeliers with candles, real candles, it was a little odd but really cool. I hope my feet get used to walking on cobblestones soon, because they were tired by the end of the day. We had English class but we weren't sure if anyone would come because the buses were so weird. We waited for 45 minutes for the bus that goes to the church. Luckily Rita came, she live close to the church, I think she was a little intimidated to have 3 teachers and only one of her. After English class we asked the Skousens to give us a ride home because we had no idea when the next bus would come, if there was another bus at all. They said yes, after institute, so we got to stay for institute. The lesson was on sexuality in eternal marriage. Quite the day for the sister missionaries to stop in. It was a good lesson and I learned a lot of new vocabulary that I probably won't be needing for a while. It is a bit odd but I think a mission is the best marriage prep class I could ever have, I have already learned so much about myself and relationships and love and trust and a whole bunch of other things, I am really grateful I have this time to figure things out first.

Saturday we had Samedi Sports at the church, my first ever. We decided to play soccer. It was a little weird to ride the bus in sweat pants, its the first time I've been in public in pants since I got to Europe that it wasn't dark outside. The only other time is the 6:30 running, and that doesn't happen as often as it ought. I played goalie for most of the game, even though we weren't keeping score I am pretty sure my team won. Though Elder Weber was by far the best player on either team. The next day at church we were all waddling around like old grandma ladies. I think everyone except Elder Weber was very sore.

Sunday was a lot of fun, there was a linger longer after church, and Sister Fonicello had wanted us to go to her house to eat but instead she brought food for us at the linger longer, then we went to her house for dessert. It was really good. We gave a short spiritual thought, well, Soeur England did. She gave everyone a random object and had them relate it to the gospel somehow, and then she read Alma 30:44, which says all things denote there is a God. Because God created this whole earth everything in it has His mark on it and proves that there is a God. It made me think about artists and how everyone has there own style, and the work that they create is unique to them and you can tell who painted or drew it just by looking, all artists put a little of their personality into the art they create. I think that is the same with us. There is a bit of God in each of us because we were created by him. I like that.

Today we went to a cool museum called Le Grand Curtius, We only went to see the temporary art exhibit because it was only 2 Euros and it is the end of the month and we don't have any money. My favorite part though was the section that was about the house that the museum was in. Jean de Corte, known as Curtius (1551-1628) lived in Liege. He owned coal mines and made gunpowder and artillery for the Spanish who were fighting in the Netherlands. He was really rich and built this really big house. He eventually moved to Spain to set up weaponry factories and he brought lots of workers from Liege with him, but he died before it got really successful. The fireplaces were my favorite part, they where huge and carved all cool like. They had some of his stuff in the museum including three tapestries, they were the first real ones I have ever seen, it was really cool. I also remembered why I like going to museums by myself, I am always the slowest person, and can spend all day looking at stuff. The others always had to wait for me, ah well. We will be off to FHE soon, thank you for your prayers and love!

Le Grand Curtius, courtesy wikimedia.org 

all my love,

Soeur Gaelin Turney

Week 18: So I Guess Endives are a Belgian Thing

Hello and Happy Valentines Day!!!

The birthday party was a huge success, I must say that I love the movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. I thought it was a good movie before my mission but now it is one of my favorite movies, granted its is one of the few I can watch but it is a good one. Elder Weber is from Germany and we asked him what his favorite dessert was, he said apple strudel, which none of us knew how to make and were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to find. So we bought an apple tarte instead. It was good, but very different from apple pies in the US.

 

After the party we had Family Home Evening (FHE). It is held at the church and is supposed to be for the Young Adults but it is still new and so there are some not so young adults that come too. We were in charge of the lesson and we talked about tender mercies of the Lord, we read James 5:11, Psalms 145:8-9, and 1 Nephi1:20 and read some passages from Elder Bednar's talk. It was a good reminder to look for the tender mercies that are in my life every day. It is funny that when you look for them the more there are.

 

Wednesday night we had dinner with  Rita, she is so good to us. We ate endives, which I found out was the base of the soup she made us last week. This time,  there was an endive salad, uncooked endives in something that was probably mayonnaise, not my favorite, mashed potatoes, and another endive dish. If I understood her french correctly, you boil the endives, wrap them in sliced ham, pour a white sauce over it and cover it in cheese and put it in the oven. I liked it, though endives have a slightly bitter aftertaste I am not really fond of. I have been surprised by the food that the people here eat, I guess I've always thought of European food as bread and cheese and fruit, which is true, they do eat a lot of those. But they also eat a lot of dishes that are butter, cheese and meat, they taste good but are really heavy. It was definitely something I hadn't anticipated.

 

District meetings are on Thursday mornings, and I have to say that my district is amazing. Our lesson was on testimonies. Our district leader, Elder Hall, assigned a couple of us topics to share about. He asked me to talk about what it means to bare testimony. There is a phrase in true to the faith that sums it up really well, baring testimony is sharing the hope and assurance you have received from the Holy Ghost. We all shared our testimonies at the end. There is something amazing about missionary testimony meetings, that I don't think that you can find anywhere else, it is hard to explain but there is something different and wonderful about hearing missionaries testify.

 

After district meeting we went out for sushi because it was Elder Duarte's year mark, I like sushi.

 

Friday night is English Class, we usually teach Beauty before and Jacqueline after. Both are recent converts, Beauty is an African Young adult who is amazing, his name is pronounced bo-tee, and he got the priesthood last week and a calling this week. Jacueline is a middle age Belgian woman who loves Elvis and is really funny. Rita, Beauty and Jacquline were the only ones at English class. We taught about holidays and shared all of our favorite, Beauty likes Christmas as does Rita, Jacqueline said she doesn't like holidays and doesn't do anything for them. We asked her about Elvis' birthday and she decided that that was her favorite holiday.

 

This Sunday was a JA activity, that involved eating, a spiritual thought and a movie. All things that as a missionary I especially love. We volunteered to bring American cookies, Europeans love American cookies. We decided that in honor of Valentines's Day we would make sugar cookies. My wonderful sister Paige sent me a package that contained a heart shaped cookie cutter that inspired the operation. It is hard as a missionary  to plan in time to make cookies that need to be refrigerated for an hour, I discovered.We made the dough Friday, rolled, baked, and frosted them Saturday and took a huge tray of the finished product on the bus to church with us, it was quite and adventure. We watched The Best 2 Years. I see the movie differently now than I did before my mission, I can relate a lot more now, and it is a lot less far-fetched than I thought it was. It was a little weird because Belgium looks a lot like the Netherlands, and I could definitely relate to the train stations and stores. It was a lot of fun we have some pretty cool young single adults here.

 

And probably the coolest thing that happened was with Maurice, he is or only progressing investigator at the moment, and he finally came to church yesterday!! Maurice is from Camaroon and is a student and a soccer player, which is one of the reasons he has been having a hard time coming to church. But we had a lesson with him Saturday night about obedience and keeping the Sabbath day holy, and he said he would come, and he did. It was really cool because after the meeting Beauty and Amadu, another recent convert, talked with Maurice and we had a mini lesson in the foyer about prayer, and both Beauty and Amadu bore testimony about prayer and coming to church. It was so good.

 

Jacqueline made us food and brought it to church so we could eat it later, it turned out to be the same endive dish that Rita made us, uh...yay! It'll be good, there has just suddenly been a large influx of endives in my diet, and before a week and a half ago I didn't even know what an endive was.

 

Today we went and saw St. Paul's Cathedrale in downtown Liege. I really like Cathedrales, there was a group of art students drawing inside and it made me want draw too, I am going to have to comeback on a study abroad or during the summer and just draw, I have this internal conflict sometimes of wanting to draw and knowing I am supposed to be talking to people about the gospel. Ah well, c'est la vie. There was a huge painting of John the Baptist sprinkling Jesus with water, and both Soeur England and Soeur Williams didn't know what to think, they were incensed. It just made me laugh. I love how beautiful cathedrals are, but I always feel so loud when I move, I feel like I am stomping around. It did have some amazing stained glass windows.

Week 17: Liege is Lovely

Bonjour from Belgium!

This week has been so long and crazy I have a hard time remembering what happened last Monday, it seems forever ago. Oy! Anyway, my last p-day in Paris was also Soeur Flood's last P-day ever as she went home this last Thursday, so we had a party for/with her at the Eiffel Tower. Soeur Pobst and I met up with the Melun Soeurs (Soeurs Flood, McClain, and Thompson) at 2:30 so that Soeur Flood and I could go up the Eiffel tower, everyone else has already been and missionaries are cheap and 11 Euros is too much to pay more than once to see one of the most famous monuments in the world. However when we got there it was closed! There were some technical problems and they weren't letting anyone up. So we waited and talked at the base for an hour and waited for the others that were coming to arrive. When they did we drank Champomy, the French version of Martinelli’s that is I imagine as close to drinking champagne as I will ever get. It was a lot of fun, but it was freezing, I haven't been that cold in a long time, and of course we were out for several hours and drinking cold drinks, not the brightest but still fun.

Soeurs Turney and Pobst at the Eiffel Tower

Wednesday was transfer day, being a sister I am supposed to have help moving my luggage. But as usual things go crazy and there is a lack of communication and the planned schedule is blown to pieces. I was told to be ready to go at 8 o clock sharp. And I was, at 8:10 we received a call telling us that they were behind and would be picking me up later. I was supposed to be the first stop, so I don't know how one can get behind when you haven't started yet, but that is neither here nor there. I decided to make brownies while we waited, which I did, they were very tasty. At about 10 we got a call saying they were on their way to get me, at about 11:15 they showed up, and we were off. We were then supposed to go to the mission home to pick up the luggage of the new missionaries and take them to the train station but just as we were getting the mission  home we got a call saying the missionaries had already left with all their luggage. This was problematic as I was supposed to meet up with them, because they were going to Brussels and I go through Brussels to get to Liege. So, we race to the train station by the mission home and we find them. It is decided that I will go with them and that we all will go by train with our luggage to the big train station Paris Gare Du Nord at catch our train to Belguim. We were quite the spectacle; 7 missionaries all with at least 1 suitcase and bag. My train ticket was purchased later than the rest of the missionaries so I was at the very end of the train, it was so nice to have a little time by myself. I was very glad to have made the trip only the week before I  would have been freaking out a lot more. I realized I had about 12 minutes from the time our train got into Brussels until my train left for Liege, it was rather stressful but I made it in plenty of time after dragging both suitcases up a flight and a half of stairs to get to the right platform. It is about a 50 minute train ride from Brussels to Liege, on this particular train I was on the area with the seats is separated from the doors were you get on the train there wasn't room to put my luggage next to me in the seat area, so I sat on my big suitcase in the outer area. There I was completely alone, it was so nice, I didn't realize how much I like being alone, and how much I missed it.

So, I finally got into  Liege at about 6:00 pm. My new companions Soeur England and Soeur Williams met me and we dropped my luggage off at the apartment and then hurried to a rendez-vous. Rita is a less active member that we see every week, and she feeds us dinner. We had a really good creamy soup and a potato string bean bacon vinegar dish that were both really good, for dessert we had crepes. Rita is so sweet and very funny, she also comes to English class, which we hold on Fridays. Though every time I hear her name I think "Lovely Rita met-ah maid," I hope it stops soon, I am not going to take myself seriously if I don't.

Soeurs Williams and Turney eating gaufres

We have district meetings on Thursdays and I got to meet all of the amazing people in our district. Our district leader is Elder Hall, he is amazing and is training this transfer, I hung out in the Paris train station with him and his blue, Elder Anderus. I am excited to not be the youngest in the mission anymore. Our zone leaders, Elder Duarte and Elder Weber, are so cool and are also in our district, they are serving in the other half of Liege and are in the Liege 2 branch, we are the Liege 1 branch. Elder Duarte is from Portugal and Elder Weber is from Germany. We also have a senior couple in our district, the Skousens. They are in charge of the young single adult centers in Brussels and Liege, they are like having grandparents around all the time.

After District meeting we went and did pass bys, we have a list of less active J.A. [(Jeunes Adultes) young single adults] We also stopped by a grocery store to try and find pop corn, it is a tradition for Soeur England and Soeur Williams to have pop corn during the Sunday weekly planning session, and the store they normally go to stopped carrying it, but we found some so all is well. We then went back to the church for the weekly JA meeting, Soeur England wasn't feeling well so after we gave our information we were going to go home so she could rest, but as we left the building Soeur Williams wasn't paying attention and fell down the two steps in front of the church and rehurt the ankle she sprained this last July. So we went back into the meeting and Elder Skousen gave us a ride home. We were told by the mission doctor to stay inside and rest, so we did on Friday, we had to cancel English class. Saturday, we probably should have stayed in, but Soeur England and mainly Soeur Williams refused to stay in any longer and we went to a Celia's a recent convert we are teaching, who is 11 and super cute. She made us bracelets. There was also a baptism for a boy named Noah in the Branch. It was so fun to go, I got to meet a lot of the  branch. I haven't been to a baptism since Caeleb got baptized, I forgot how cool they are and the amazing spirit that is there. I had my first real taste of African food, they had bignettes (fried dough that is kinda sweet) chicken wings, little flat egg roll things, quiche, and pizza with the crust cut off. It was all very good greasy kinds of food. Some how all the missionaries ended up at the end of the food table talking so I don't know how many of the little egg roll things I ate but it was too many. After the Baptism we had a rendez-vous with our ami Maurice, he is a JA from Camaroon and plays soccer. We watched The Testaments with him, and then talked about how just as Christ appeared to the Nephites, he will come again. He said he felt something.  It was pretty cool.

When we woke up Sunday, Soeur Williams was sick and Soeur England hadn't slept at all, so we didn't got to church so they both could get more sleep, So far I have been okay, but it has been quite the start to the transfer. They are both feeling better this morning, but they both still sound terrible, I keep trying to get them to take it easy, but they are both stubborn and keep insisting they are "fine." I am beginning to not like that word.

Leige is a beautiful city, I feel so lucky to get to serve here. It is the only sisterville that has hills. I am glad, I was getting tired of flatness. I didn't think I would miss mountains that much, but I do. So it is nice to have some elevation. It was Elder Weber's birthday yesterday so we are having a party for him today and are going to watch Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration. It is gonna be good. Though I have the feeling that p-days in Liege are going to be a lot simpler than P-days in Paris. I am glad, hopefully I can get some good drawing time in.

Much love,

Soeur Gaelin Turney