The Places I Find Myself

This week I found myself...

- Apartment shopping in a foreign country -  Watching President Motulet bow to Soeur John's as she downs 14 pieces of pizza  -  BBQing with Iranian's  -  eating soup on aplate  -  sympathizing with Soeur Johns as Christianne plans Soeur Johns wedding with her cousin Christoff  -  practice teaching in the kitchen with two hilarious Elders  -  burning a letter from Soeur John's ex  -  visting a less-active who knows the Queen of Belgium  -  standing in the middle of Brussels' Grand Place, crying because it was so beautiful  -  surrounded by the world's most famous chocolate shops  -  wondering why Brussels has a famous statue of a boy peeing  -  looking at agorgeous building, asking myself what wonders could possibly be inside, and then finding out it was a beer museum...so Belge  -  eating the most delicious gauffe in the world (with melted speculoos and strawberries)  -  sitting in the stairwell for an hour on the train ride back to Liege while Soeur Johns was squished in the corner  -  writing a talk for each branch in a dirty, crowded cyper cafe while Arab music blasted in my ears  - finding out during Sacrament Meeting that today was the primary program not my talk...FALSE ALARM  -  missing the bus and getting recruited to hand out flyers for a ball that we can't dance at  -  marching and carrying a lantern in a parade (with fireworks going off in the background) in the small town of Visé, celebrating the fact that the Germans didn't capture the city in WWI or WWII  -  dancing in a circle in the before-mentioned parade singing "VIVE LES FRANCS!"  -  meeting another model, named Sandra, who wants to go to church in Brussels -

My whole mission has been like this, I never know what's really going to happen when I wake up in the morning!  But of all the places that I found myself this week, by far the best wasSaturday night in the Sheurch family's home as their daughter Sariah shared the gospel with her best friend in the whole world, Oceane.  Tears filled Sariah's eyes as we had Oceane read the Young Women's theme.  We talked about how we truly are "daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us and we love Him."  We talked and testified of prayer, how God really does hear and answer, and Oceane shared a beautiful experience she had with prayer.  We are so excited for Sariah to be our mini-missionary this coming weekend and to see Oceane at church :)

Oh and something else super crazy happened this week!!!  This last Friday Soeur Johns and I went to Brussels to do my legality.  We get off the metro and we join up with Elder Smith and Elder Nicholson.  All of a sudden a SWARM of really unfamiliar looking missionaries appeared.  It all happened so fast, and suddenly there was a sister missionary introducing herself to me.  She said her name was "Sister Kohlert."  Seriously the wierdest moment.  I was so confused!  I was thinking to myself, "No way, Sister Kohlert is shorter and lives in Luxembourg!"  Then all the pieces fell together in my dazed brain and I freaked out... Yes... I saw Soeur Kohlert's sister!!  Soeur Kohlert is going to be so jealous.  In Rennes she talked about her sister all the time, how she's just one mission over (Belgium/Netherlands mission) and how the missions overlapped in Brussels and by some miracle maybe they'd see eachother...well it was me who got to see her...whoops! haha it was super cool, especially because they had a refferal for us!  And we actually had one for them.  We didn't know there were sisters in Antwerp and they didn't know there were sisters in Liege!  Also, her companion was Sr Johns Relief Society President at BYU freshman year!  It was seriously so crazy.

So yes, that's my week for you all!  This next week is seriously PACKED.  I'm nervous that we won't be able to fit everything in!