My first real Christmas tree!

Hey everyone!

This week was pretty crazy. We spent most of the week in the car since it was the last week that we would have it before giving it to another companionship. We saw as many people as we could with the last few days.

Wednesday, President Poznanksi came down to Luxembourg for our district meeting. It was really good to see him. In the car he asked me how long it has been since I arrived in the mission. I told him it has been nine months and that all nine have been outside of France. He was shocked that it had been so long and then told me that if I repent I might get to go to France--the promised land. Haha That French man has jokes!  Little does he know that if that was true, I would never repent! Going back to Belgium sounds pretty good to me. No but for real, it was good to see him and he shared with us a super good message. He talked about right before Lazarus was resurrected when Jesus was talking to Martha. How she had faith that her brother would be resurrected but that she didn't believe it could happen right then. He compared it to us, we know that we can find new investigators and have success but do we believe we will have success now? It was good and it made everyone think--so that was good.

This week we were driving down the road and we saw a bunch of Christmas trees. I have always wanted a real one and so has my comp so the next thing we know, we were carrying a small, but real, Christmas tree up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment. It was pretty awesome and I have now accomplished a life-long dream.

Friday we woke up early and drove through Belgium and into the top corner of France to give the missionaries there the car. We drove though Namur which was super exciting for me. Afterwards we snagged a couple trains back and we got to stop in Liège, which was part of my district when I was in Namur, and got some good Belgium fries. It was a pretty awesome day!

Saturday was the ward Christmas party. We had two investigators that came and the sister missionaries had three that came so that was really fun.

This week we have zone conference so we will be going to Paris Wednesday and then I have an exchange later on in the week so this week should be quick and then the next week is Christmas so that will be good. We have lunch planned with a less active family and dinner with my favorite family plus we are skyping at their house so I can't wait to introduce them to you all.

Well that's all for this week. Time sure is going by quickly. Erik, I can't believe you are home already! Go eat panda express for me!

Elder Lerdahl

Christmas is coming!

Hey everyone!

This week was a super boring week. Elder Kusseling and I have had colds all week which has really made things go slow. We had a pretty decent week number-wise though so that was good. Last Friday we went and saw a family that lives in France. We had fixed the rendezvous the week before but the family had completely forgotten about it. We pulled up and the father was outside shoveling snow. He looked up and we could tell he was not very happy. He invited us in and then got the family all together. We started talking to them and found out that they have really been struggling. We shared a message and just talked about how the gospel affects their lives. The father really opened up to us and it was pretty awesome. Right before we showed up he slipped and hurt his back and was just stressing about everything. He told us that he said a prayer asking for help and literally 30 seconds later we showed up. At the end of the appointment we were all shaking hands saying good-bye and when we went to shake his hand he grabbed us and gave us each a huge hug. It was such an awesome visit after what was a terrible day for him and for us. It is such a struggle to find people here who actually want help and want to become stronger or learn about the gospel and so when you have appointments like that it is that much more special to you.

Other than that nothing special has really happened. Everybody here is getting ready for Christmas. We have a couple members who have started inviting us over so that will be good. We are probably going to Skype Christmas day from the Olivers' house so that will be legit. It has been snowing here for the last week so that helped get everyone excited and Saturday is the ward Christmas party which will be rather interesting. We are hoping to have a lot of less-actives and investigators there.

This week the mission president is coming out to Luxembourg for our district meeting so we have to clean the apartment really good in case he comes and inspects it. We have to prepare for picking him up and the train station and that whole deal.That should be rather interesting as well.

Today we are going to check out Bastogne which is a pretty big World War II site. It is where the 101st airborne got pinned down by German artillery for winter. Then we are going to look and the Wall that France built to "keep" the Nazi's out (doesn't work so well when the just walk around it haha) I have heard it's cool though so that should be awesome.

Well that's it for this week hope you all are doing great.

Elder Lerdahl

Already December!

So this last week went pretty good. It was a pretty intense week which is normal for transfer weeks. I had an exchange last week with Elder Hunter who is awesome. During the exchange we felt the need to go visit a member, so we went and when we got there the member had a friend over. We talked with the friend a little about what we do and she was really open. We are hoping that we can do a family home evening with the member family and invite their friend over for it. 

Friday night we went to visit a partial member family and the same thing happened all over again. We got there and they hand a friend over. We started talking about the church and by the end of the visit the friend had a Book of Mormon and committed to come to the ward Christmas party and to church. It was awesome to also see the partial member family doing missionary work despite the fact that some of them are not members.

Sunday the miracles continued. A less active family that we have been working on has come to church for the last four weeks and are now considered active. They have even started inviting one of their friends to church and so we have given him a Book of Mormon and are planning on teaching him as soon as we can find a member who speaks Portuguese to translate for us. The other miracle was that a member from France came to church in Luxembourg and brought one of her friends along who lives in Luxembourg. He was really interested and we are going to go teach him this week.

This week was so awesome when it came to all the crazy things that happened, the best part about it is that it was all made possible by the members and the missionary work that they are doing.

Saturday we got our transfer emails. I am staying in Luxembourg at least another 6 weeks with the same comp. I am excited to spend Christmas here, the city has put of tons of decorations and it looks like it's a big deal here. There are huge Christmas trees on almost every street. My favorite family in the ward invited us over for Christmas so that should be awesome too.