This week was quite a busy one and just kept getting busier as it went along.
Tuesday we had a lesson with Claire, she has been working on and off with the missionaries for at least a year and has had at least 5 baptismal dates but crazy things keep happening. We just recently started working with her, she has a lot of faith and she loves the Book of Mormon her copy is all tabbed and highlighted. She is also a talker so lessons are hard to keep in a linear direction. We often start off with a scripture and then she just goes from there. We do our best to make connections back to the point we are making, though sometimes she just keeps right on going. She is so good, we shared 2 Nephi 4 with her, I love that Nephi states that in spite of all his weaknesses and failings, that it is in God that he has put his trust. That is where true peace is found, by putting your trust in God. Claire has some back problems so we are waiting for her to have her next doctor's appointment to know whether or not we can proceed with a baptism or if she is going to need back surgery. We shall see.
On Wednesday we went with the Skousens ( the senior couple in Liège) to visit a young adult that got baptized last year and hasn't been to church the past 3 weeks. Her name Auralie and she is really sweet. She and her mother live way out in the country. It was the first time I ever met her mother, who is not a member. They are both a lot of fun, we are going to start visiting them every other week or so because I think that they could both use a bit of sister missionary love. There are a lot of lees active or inactive members in our area because a lot of them live a long way from the church and a lot of them don't have cars. The buses are good, but they aren't very frequent on Sundays. That is one of the things we struggle with the most, some people are just too far away.
So, we got a call Tuesday evening from the secretary in the mission office telling me that I had my Belgium legality appointment in Brussels this Friday and that I needed to be there at 11:30. Rita had also asked us to help her because her granddaughter's birthday was this weekend and she asked Rita to make cupcakes. We had showed Rita how to make them once but she has never made them herself and was worried about messing it up, so she asked us to make the batter and she would cook them. We had planned on doing that Friday as well and then bringing the batter to English class for Rita to take home. So, Friday morning I got up made two very large bowls full of cake batter, got ready and hopped on a train to Brussels. Soeur Cope and I met the Brussels Zone Leaders there, and we waited for about an hour for the group from Paris, as there was a strike of some kind in Paris and the other missionaries had missed the train. So, after everyone arrived we went to the prefecture signed a couple of papers and then headed back to the train station. We headed back to Liège, stopped by our apartment to grab our stuff for english class and caught the 17 towards the church. Our branch mission leader was late to our coordination meeting so Sour Cope talked with him while I taught English class. (We learned about cooking and making things plural) Then we had our lesson with Jacqueline and went home and crashed. It was a crazy day for sure. I am however now legal in the country I am living in, and three of the four sisters that were in the MTC with me were there so we got a picture together, Soeur Williams had to stay in Paris or it would have been a reunion.
Saturday morning we had a Helping Hands service project. I am still a bit unsure as to the purpose of our actions but what we did was this: we sorted plastic bottle caps that people had collected and donated. I think that the bottle caps were somehow used to help handicapped people get new wheelchairs. There were quite a few things lost in translation on this one. It was really fun though, we were in this room in an old sort of crumbly building, the building was behind a really beautiful old school. There were about 14 of us in the room around a table piled with plastic bottle caps. In our two hours I think that we sorted all the caps that the they had to sort. It was so nice to spend some time working and serving with a group, I love service projects. I love the feeling you have after you help someone else. That is truly what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. Isn't wonderful that when we are in the service of our fellow beings we are only in the service of our God.
I love this gospel and I love you! Bonne Semaine! [Have a good week!]
Soeur Gaellin Turney
PS Today Soeur Cope and I went to the aquarium here in Liège, it was pretty awesome, my favorite part was the California Crayfish that they had, he was a pretty good size and had one claw that looked mighty tasty!
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| The Aquarium |
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| The Meuse River, which runs through Liege |
[P.S. from Paige -- We finally figured out how to say Liege after talking to Gaelin on the phone. It's pronounced Lee-Esh -- kind of. If you're an American, anyway.]
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