Week 7: Nivelles Belgium 🏰

It's been a strange week for us here in Nivelles. Me and Soeur Raj are both sick and I learned I am allergic to Mangos sad sad day. 

On Thursday we got permission to go to our ami Claudia's theater rehearsal, she is so sweet. It was so great to be able to support her. I didn't understand anything, but its not like I would understand Shakespeare anywayyy. 

On Friday we had a rendezvous with a Jehovah's Witness. Probably the highlight of our week lol. She brought a friend from France, who traveled all the way to Nivelles just to bash us. It was actually a pretty cool discussion though, they asked some crazy questions and then at the end she gave us an English version of the book "What does the bible actually teach us?" If you want to know more about the Jehovah Witness doctrine, I can tell you all about it haha. I think she liked what we were teaching her though, hopefully we can see her again, she is such a nice person! 
Also, while porting, there was an old man working in his yard and he went and cut 2/5 of the flowers he had in his yard, and gave them to us. :') People can be so great. 

Friday night we went to the Brebois families house for dinner. Super great people. ANYWAY she visited Utah years and years ago and was showing some random stuff she bought there. (She's kind of..random) anyway she pulled out this huge bag full of scrapbooking stuff and they all said "Making Memories" i was like whoa!!

I can read a lot better in French now, my pronunciation is pretty good. I'm still very slow to understand and say complete sentences, I have very broken french, but today I had a full on conversation at church about one of our amis and bringing her to family home evening tomorrow with the member. I could actually understand what he was saying, as he was saying it! And I taught a whole lesson to the Brebois on Friday about the Holy Ghost. Slowly but surely. Lentement mais surement.
Me and Soeur Raj are sick as dogs and our apartment is like 80° and humid and it does not get dark at night so I cant sleep even though my eyes are BURNING.

This week I'm just really grateful for the little things like air conditioning on the train, Popsicle's, members that give us tacos, personal study etc. etc. and being able to talk to a lot of different people. We gained a couple of new amis this week that we are super excited about. It's gonna be a good week. :')  The work really is picking up and we can see how more and more people are becoming open to our message, and the members are taking the dedicatory prayer seriously and are just being amazing missionaries. It's going to be a great transfer :') 

Also, why don't foreign countries believe in air conditioning, but believe in public urinals..?

Also, I love the Book of Mormon!

1-800-IMA-FREAK 

Bonne Semaine :) 

Claudia

Public Urinal.. Yes, they use them in public :/

Roses.. from the nice man

Week 6: Nivelles Belgium + Transfer 1✔

Summer is the best thing, my soul is so happy. The grand place always has something going on, this week there was a carnival and a fresh fruit market. I have a tan line from my watch, LIFE IS GOOOOD. We went to Paris on Friday for legality, and we had so much time before our train so we went to get dragon balls and just walked around Paris and it was beautiful and I love it. And dragon balls are so yummy.

Saturday we watched the Cultural Celebration and invited a less active who we met this week. She is just so cool. The temple dedication....wow. Special. Wow. When the Dedicatory Prayer is published, read it. In the prayer there was a special blessing for the missionaries serving in France right now (I hope Belgium is included as well) and a blessing on those we teach and meet, that their hearts will be softened.  There was also a blessing for the members, that they will be confident and invite their friends to church and to just share the gospel. So as a missionary, logically, I have an engagement for you. Invite! Our purpose as missionaries is to invite people to come closer to Christ, it's your duty too. You don't have to invite someone to get dunked just invite them to a family home evening or something that could help them come unto Christ.

We met with a lot of inactive members this week, and the one thing they always say is why haven't I heard from my friends from church? They don't want to hear from 19 year old kids! While their salvation is their own responsibility, why not reach out and help them? So maybe think of someone and something you can do to help them.

Today we had a conference with Neil L. Anderson (yes I'm the luckiest blue, the amazing opportunities I've had in my first transfer) in Versailles. My brain hurt afterwards because I had too much inspiration crammed into a little space but something I really like that he said was faith is a nature. And it works like this: Substance ➡ Hope ➡ Evidence. We had 2 hours with an apostle, I learned beaucoup de choses, but this is what stuck with me. Today we had a lesson with Marianne. She is a professor of Religion who believes in God and Jesus Christ, well she does but at the same time she has doubts because why do we need a Jesus Christ? (This lady has the best questions, I'm telling you) Today I put the Book of Mormon on the table and started to introduce it again (she rejected it last time) she picked it right up and turned to the introduction. She read the whole thing and asked us questions and just looked at us with tears in her eyes. The Book of Mormon is our substance. Then we have to "hope for things". She needs to hope these things are true and that they can truly bless her life, then she will have her evidence. I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon and its powerful testimony of a loving Heavenly Father and the spirit it brings.

Wow okay I kept 3 months worth of spiritual thoughts inside, it was bound to explode into one email. 😂 A lot of weird things happened this week too, like our district pictures. The Elders dragged us to the mall to buy these ugly hope hoodies. But hey I guess they go with my main thought today.

END OF TRANSFER 1 HERE WE GOOOO

GAIL!! Made everyone stop to take a pic of my bestie :)

Transfer #1 - Hope Hoodies

On the train

Versailles

Notre Dame

Les Missionaires
Soeur Kennady Nay
2 Chemin Coparty, Boîte 34
1400 Nivelles, Belgium

Sœur Nay

Farming is not for whimps :)

Funny Story: Saturday Morning we went to a members house to scoop horse poop and bring in hay. We stacked the trailer about 7 bales high and climbed on top for the drive back. It was fun until they tipped over while we were driving and all five of us fell 20 ft to the pavement. Haha. I landed pretty hard on my elbow but luckily nothing is broken, my back is just pretty messed up because Elder Moore landed on me (I thought I was paralyzed for a few brief moments).  We couldn't stop laughing about it in the moment because we all looked pathetic laying in the middle of the street almost dead just surrounded by hay, but then we were in pain and got chastised by our mission nurse. If you see something about riding on bales of hay in the mission handbook in a few years, you'll know why.😊

I got to spend the day in Paris on Thursday and it was so great! I saw both the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame (from a safe distance), and tried Italian Gelato (I love food so much) and we met some really cool people contacting. I also got to see my MTC people, what a day :') Then on Friday we had Zone Conference in Bruxelles! President Babin talked to us about what it means to be a consecrated missionary and helped us set goals as an equip, we took so much from it! If you haven't read "How to be a consecrated missionary" By Elder Callister lately, read it!

Our ami Brigette is a rockstar. Our lesson with her this week kind of took a turn though. While we were teaching her plan de salut, she started crying and said "This is the truth" and right after, her boyfriend Bruno started getting really aggressive with us. The adversary man. We went on a walk with her and she told us they are separating this month because it isn't working out but he doesn't have a job so she is really stressed out..which makes her want to smoke more. It's amazing to see how much someone is willing to do/change when they have faith, but its devastating to see the adversary working so hard against them.

I love Belgium and I love the people here. My French is still hmmm not good but somehow I'm still functioning here and I'm thankful for that haha.

Ahhhh and skyping the fam was great. I love my mom. ♡ (and my Petit Loup.)

Have a great week 🤘

Les Missionaires
Soeur Kennady Nay
2 Chemin Coparty, Boîte 34
1400 Nivelles, Belgium

Sœur Nay

Soeur DeLauw has cool stuff :)

No explanation needed :)

Gorgeous

Paris

Notre Dame (off in the distance to the left)

Italian Gelato :)

Stained glass at the temple

Poop scooping/hay hauling day

Elders/Soeurs and ward member (far right) at the farm

John DeLauw (Member/farmer) and Soeur's/Elder's + member

Week 4: Nivelles + Namur ft. Ghetto Apartment

So yeah wow rough week haha ça va.

Last week our electricity stopped working in about half our apartment. I’m talking the most random things didn’t work. Our hot water was gone...it was tragic. I tried to brave the cold shower, but the water was about to turn to ice it was that cold so I had Raj wash my hair in the sink. I couldn’t feel my face the whole day but you do what you have to do. Then we boiled pots after pots of hot water to take a bath...that was exciting. Haha. Luckily John De Lauw is a handy man, and fixed it in 5 minutes this morning. I cannot wait to get home tonight and take a hot shower ♡♡

Our finding day on Thursday was a huge success, you could say I led my team into victory I guess haha. We got a lot of fake numbers and some bible bashers but we did get some pretty solid new amis.  Then we had Namur’s finding day on Saturday. What a great Ville. The shopping would have been incredible if it had been a Monday but ça va. There was a Marché that drew in a lot of people, so it was fun contacting! We met some amazing and ready people. We also had two separate one hour long conversations, one with an atheist & one with a creepy guy. We gave him the chastity pamphlet lol. AND I rode on a Ferris wheel, and it was a beautiful view and Abba was playing. I love how much English music these people listen to. ♡

Brigette our miracle woman, walks her dog every night so we always stop and have a conversation with her. One night, we sat down on a bench and just watched some videos in gospel library. She got kind of teary and started telling us her whole life story. It was really depressing, she is so strong. She told us she no longer wants to marry Bruno but she can’t say anything because he doesn’t have a job and he won’t leave and yeah, sad situation. But it is a really good thing that her desire to marry him has changed, he is slightly abusive and is an alcoholic. We just love her so much. She came to church with us again and loved it so much. I really hope she can build up the courage to break things off with Bruno.

HOW DID I ALMOST FORGET: Okay miracle. We met this atheist father porting our first week in Nivelles. He wasn’t interested but we talked to him for a good 20 minutes. This week Soeur Raj was just like let’s go see that one guy, and we walked up to the guys house, stood in front of the door and couldn’t think of what we were going to even say, it was kind of awkward. We knocked, he answered, and he was like "oh hey! I have company over right now, but come by this week anytime in the afternoon!" We just stood there shocked and we were like "d'accord" and walked away still stunned by how open and nice he was. So, praying we can see him this week, because that’s pretty amazing.
A lot of people are falling off the face of the Earth here, like our really good amis, so we are getting pretty worried. This week we lose a lot of time with doctors’ appointments and conferences but hopefully we can see everyone we need to, well hopefully they even pick up the phone.

Voila, there is week 4. Bonne Semaine ♡

Les Missionaires
Soeur Kennady Nay
2 Chemin Coparty, Boîte 34
1400 Nivelles, Belgium

Sœur Nay

2 MONTHS BUD - WEEK 3 IN NIVELLES

This week flew by. How am I already in week 4 of this transfer? The next transfer is only 5 weeks so next thing I know I’m going to be a big kid instead of a baby blue.

Um I don’t know what to write about BESIDES our #1 miracle of the week. Brigette. Okay so at the end of the day Tuesday, we are out contacting all day blah blah classic missionary happenings and then this lady waves her cigarette at us and is like "Mormons!?" We were like yeah! How do you know our church? And she said a lady she works with is a member and her name is Louise. We couldn’t think of a Louise in the ward but we were like okay cool, can we meet with you sometime this week to share more about our church and our message. And she said yes, so we set up an appointment for Friday. The next couple days we asked around about this Louise person but no one knew who that was! We met with Brigette on Friday and her fiancé Bruno joined us for the lesson. They are both so nice and eager to learn but we didn’t even get into the first lesson because Bruno kept bringing up random stuff like prostitution and his strong belief in reincarnation (he showed us a bad quality picture where it looks like his arm is missing to prove it) We gave them the Retab pamphlet to go through before our next lesson this Friday and invited them to come to church. Brigette said she would! Our next rendezvous was with a member family who we just love, they are so much fun. Sœur Brebois was talking about work and we were like wait!! That’s where Brigette works!! What’s your first name!? And she said that her name is Louise but for some reason at Church everyone calls her Louisette, voila mystery solved.  So exciting! She was so excited! Saturday night we called Brigette to see if she wanted to walk to church with us and she said yes, I’ll meet you by the collegial. She did! She was sitting on a bench waiting for us :') We had time to give her a tour, and then she loved to introduce herself to everyone, and everyone was so welcoming. She loved sacrament meeting, and then we had amis class (just for amis that come to church) and Elder Moore taught Retab, and Soeur Brebois came and we all just discussed it with her and presented the Book of Mormon...it was amazing!! She took it all in and asked questions because she had read the pamphlet we gave her. Ahhhh what an amazing discussion seriously. This woman. Third hour we were all combined, and we were just discussing the strengths of the ward, nothing exciting but she came and participated and met more people and it was awesome! What. A. Woman. I can’t wait to see her again!!

I really miss the temple. Every day I think about the sessions and want to go so so bad. + (I miss the omelet guy) If you go this week (go this week), will you put Nancy + Francois on the prayer roll?  These women are amazing. Nancy is a recent convert and a mother of 3..she also had twins a couple months ago but they were stillborn. Her husband and darling daughter Chelsea (13) lost faith in God and he is struggling with mental problems that are affecting the whole family. She is so strong but is having a really hard time. I wish you could meet her and Chelsea. Francois is a less active member we actually met contacting. It was freezing on Tuesday I believe and raining and we met her and she was like oh your my Mormons, venez a chez moi. She fed us.  When she joined the church her family abandoned her, even her young daughters. But as she said "I couldn’t abandon God" so now she is a lonely woman who goes each weekend to Bruxelles to take care of her dying mom. Who are these women?!
People are so cool. What if I had stayed home? I’d just be rolling my eyes at Dr. Ron all day but here I get to meet these people with these stories and see people (adults) riding around on literal scooters.  Europeans are so stinking weird but I like them a lot.

Also, people hate Americans I’m glad I don’t speak good French so I don’t understand what people are screaming at me. One guy actually spit on me he was swearing so intensely. I won’t tell you what else he said but I’m most positive he is a terrorist or has one as a friend.

Don’t worry about my meals, I’m eating mighty fine here. (Except last night. Goat Cheese + Honey is not good. And soda water tastes like urine but nastier)

Trusted a member to trim my hair...bye bye pictures. Hahaha shoot!

This week its Nivelles + Braine finding day on Thursday and Namurs finding day on Saturday. I am leading the taco team in Braine on Thursday so yeah praying for miracles :')

Have a good week my folks,

Les Missionaires 
Soeur Kennady Nay
2 Chemin Coparty, Boîte 34
1400 Nivelles, Belgium

Francois

Marjorie and Oliver