We doubt not the Lord nor His goodness, we've proved Him in days that are past.

Oufti. As the Liegoise say. This week was pretty rough. Our numbers were in the toilet, our discouragement pretty high and I have no idea why but the majority of our amies are in the hospital for some reason. But there is always a silver lining to that great big rain cloud. 

Tuesday night we went to Aurica and Katy's for our rdv. When we knocked on the door, Christiane a member answered, she was there helping Katy with her homework so we chatted with her until Aurica came home. We had planned on just starting the lessons over with her so we began the retab but immediately I knew that wasn't right, but we continued and it actually led us right into a wonderful discussion about baptism! Aurica and Katy both really want to get baptized but neither one of them feel ready for it. Christiane bore a beautiful testimony of the Atonement of Christ and the power of baptism. it was amazing!! the Spirit definitely directed and guided the entire lesson and Aurica was deep in thought the entire time, I know she wants to be baptized it is just a matter of addressing her fears. I cant wait to see her again so we can discuss more and set a baptismal date! 

I feel like I've been facing a lot of discouragement lately and I tried to fight it but there are times when I make mistakes and really ruin things and the adversary tries to make me think there's no hope of fixing it but Elder Pinnock says, "When we make mistakes we can take what we have marred and begin again. The potter did not give up and throw the clay away...and we are not to feel hopeless and reject ourselves. Yes our task is to overcome our problems take what we have and are and start again." Bishop Stevenson reminds us that "the miracle of the Atonement makes up for the imperfections in our performance" I have learned this week that there is always hope. No matter what if we keep pushing, keep trying, the Savior's grace makes up the difference every single time.  Nothing is ever ruined so much that He cannot fix it, after all He said, "I the Lord build up the ruined places and plant that which was desolate." I know that at the end of the day, even when our numbers are low and we've been rejected and fruged that my Heavenly Father accepts my effort and the grace of His Son makes up for what I did wrong. I am so grateful for my mission and endless opportunities I am given to come to know my Savior more and understand how His Atonement applies in my daily life. I am so grateful for this gospel and all the blessings I see. I am so happy to be a missionary here in Liege! Thank you everyone for your love, support and prayers, i love you all so much!!

avec amour soeur hawkes 

Contacting along the river!!

Cathedral of Liege

We went to see the cathedral here in Liege, it's the one right behind our apartment and it is GORGEOUS. it was built in the 10th century. Beautiful. 

Pure Christlike love flowing from righteousness can change the world

Bonjour à tous! 

this week was lovely as usual. we saw lots of great miracles and met some wonderful people. On Saturday we took a train to a little tiny Belgian ville called Remicourt where we visited  a less active who is NINETY years old and still going strong. We had a delightful time with her and she shared her testimony with us about prayer. She said, "other people may forget about me but the Lord will never forget me, He hears and answers every single prayer I offer." it was a great reminder that Heavenly Father loves His children and is always there for us no matter what. Later that afternoon we went contacting and everyone was being pretty rude to us and I was starting to feel a little low so I prayed that the Lord would just send us someone kind who was willing to just listen. We rounded a corner and we met Justine. We taught her about the plan of salvation and bore our testimonies of the truth. She promised to read the brochure and to call us. I don't know if we'll ever see her again but Heavenly Father was kind enough to soften her heart enough to listen, after that we felt restrengthened to continue, He truly listens to even the smallest prayer!

This week I was reading in Alma about Ammon and his brothers that were teaching the Lamanites. After  they had received the truth the Lamanite king said, "And the great God has had mercy on us, and made these things known unto us that we might not perish; yea, and he has made these things known unto us beforehand, because he loveth our souls as well as he loveth our children; therefore, in his mercy he doth visit us by his angels, that the plan of salvation might be made known unto us as well as unto future generations." And it just hit me that missionary work is a huge evidence of God's love. I am here because God loves the people of Liege and He wants to bring them back to Him. I love the idea that I can be an extension of God's love, each missionary is evidence that He is there and that He knows and loves His children. It reminded me of another scripture in 2Nephi that says, "And He doeth nothing save it be for the benefit of the world" The only thing God wants for us is our happiness. He created us to have joy! And that is why He has his missionaries throughout the world is to spread His love and the happiness it brings. This week I just really felt God's love for me personally, that He truly knows me and my situation. Even if times are hard, "every challenge helps us become more like our Heavenly Father." Everything happens for a reason and if we look, we can see His hand in our daily life as He makes His love evident to those willing to see it. Yesterday we visited Patricia, I mentioned that in my home growing up we did family prayers and then we all hugged each other good night. She looked at me and said, you are so luckyto have a family like that. People you could hug." her family life was very very different from mine. I dont really understand why we are all called to pass through different trials and I have no idea whyI have been so blessed but I do know that no matter what everything happens for a reason and God is aware of it all. He gives us exactly what we need that will help grow and learn and become happy. 

i love you all so much! thanks for your support and prayers!! 

avec amour soeur hawkes 

Isaac sent Flat Stanley to Alicia as a school assignment.

I received Flat Stanley in the mail this week so we took him to get gauffres, I will send him back today and hopefully it is what the teacher was looking for! 

We had to go to Brussels for legality so we decided to profit and ate some waffles and Chinese food, I successfully used chopsticks! 

Virginia and Sarah. I absolutely ADORE them! 

Belgian sunrises are the best ones :)

To avoid all possibility of error is to avoid all possibility of growth

Oh my lanta what a week of miracles! Tuesday we had the opportunity to give a presentation about the Church at the local University to a group of students and we were so scared. The Elders told us about it the night before so we spent our studies planning everything we would say. Soeur Clawson was pretty nervous about it because it's her first week in the field speaking French but we planned it out well enough that she felt pretty comfortable. Until we met up with the Elders to go over with them. They had just gotten off the phone with the man who deals with the public affairs of the Church in Europe and he told us that instead of teaching doctrine we needed to teach about how our church benefits society. We found this out 30 minutes before our presentation. Naturally we had a minor heart attack but were able to figure it out and with the Lord's help it went really well. it was really cool because we were able to break all of the stereotypical ideas of Mormons that most people have and to really show who we truly are, it was a neat experience. 

Thursday night we had about 15 minutes before we had to be home so we walked around centreville talking to people but everyone was totally rejecting us and we were getting a little worn out. We finally turned around to head home and we decided to talk to one last person. God always saves the best for the last because our last contact was a lovely lady named Nelly, she was so excited when we told her about the Plan of Salvation and couldnt wait to read the brochure and learn more. Her kindness to us was defnitely a miracle from God :) 

On Saturday,Soeur Clawson and I went out contacting in the morning and met so many wonderful people! We talked with one girl, Chama about our Church and the Book of Mormon. Get this. She ASKED for a copy of it!!!! so we happily gave her one and took her number! We're hoping to see her later this week :) 

As I said this week was full of miracles and one of them was the simple fact that Heavenly Father was trying to teach me about self-forgiveness. So many things went wrong this week and I struggled so much with my weaknesses as I made countless mistakes over and over again. I kept beating myself up all week long for the things that I was doing wrong. Finally on Sunday at church I was just praying and thinking and I randomly thought of a quote Soeur Bradley had given me once, it says, "The Holy Ghost will fill you with Godly sorrow unto repentance in a manner that fills you with hope of positive change, needless guilt comes from Satan." and I suddenly realized that all the guilt and discouragement I felt was completely unnecessary and more importantly not from God. In my weak, mortal state I cannot do good all the time. I simply cant be perfect no matter how much I want it. I have to learn to give myself permission to be human and have weaknesses! I read a great article this morning that said, "The paradoxical antidote to excessive guilt and anxiety is to increase our tolerance for being wrong, at fault or out of control. We can do this by increasing our trust in God's capacity to make all things, even bad things, work together for good. Our anxiety will actually diminish as we stop trying to be faultless to a fault and in control of the uncontrollable. Instead of working overtime to be in control, we work to deepen our trust in both God's love and our own timid toughness." When I cling to my weaknesses and mistakes that prevents me from overcoming them, when I beat myself up I'm denying the Atonement of my Savior and the opportunity to change that it gives me. Our Heavenly Father is completely aware that we are not perfect and that we will make mistakes no matter how much we try to avoid them. Because of His loving kindness He gave us His Son Jesus Christ whose grace is sufficient for all of us.I am so grateful that Heavenly Father reminded me of that wonderful truth this week, that I don't have to be perfect and because of the Savior's love, I can leave my weaknesses behind little by little. 

avec amour soeur hawkes 

Contacting along the river in Liege

So in all the soeur apartments, old soeurs leave behind terrible clothes...so we decided to pick outfits for each other that we had to wear all day pday. So today was the day and we wore them out shopping we were having a great time until a sassy girl on the bus asked us why we were dressed like old people hahaha  it was a fun adventure 

How firm a foundation

This week was... really really difficult. But wonderful as well. I suppose the bitter always comes with the sweet. 

Wednesday we went into Paris and I said goodbye to my Soeur Hosking. ouch. my heart broke a little bit. She has been my BEST friend for the past 8 weeks and she was leaving me! But I know that the people in Nancy need her more than I do now and obviously we'll be best friends for the rest of our lives. Heavenly Father is way too kind to me, always giving me best friends for companions! Then the trainers had a little formation and we learned some essentials about how to help our new missionaries and then they ushered the new missionaries in. The first sister that came in, I recognized immediately as mine. I didn't know her name or anything at all yet but I knew she would be my companion. And I felt SO much love her already, it was like Heavenly Father was giving me just a teeny tiny portion of His love. It was seriously so cool! She is Soeur Courtney Clawson from Centerville Utah. When I found out she was a fellow Utah Stater I almost died of happiness! The crazy thing is, her sister is best friends with my old roommates!! the world is so small. And then our adventures commenced. 

First off, it was 4 Soeurs against 8 giant suitcases, cobble stoned streets and broken escalators, so naturally we missed our train back to Belgium. And then we couldn't exchange our tickets so we missed the next one and then our phones weren't working so we couldn't receive our new tickets so we missed another train. Finally we got on a train around 5:30 our poor blues were SO exhausted. I felt so terrible! We eventually made it home to Liege in one piece thank goodness.

Thursday we began our missionary work and I was absolutely amazed by Soeur Clawson. They say perfect love casteth out fear and that perfectly describes my companion. She just loves everyone to pieces and isn't afraid to speak up even if she doesn't know how to say it perfectly in French. She is a much better missionary than I could ever hope to be already. She has helped me so much in just the few days that we have been together! We are actually very similar in our perfectionist ways so she's had a lot of advice for me and its been so fun getting to know her! 

This past week I felt like I was back to square one. I was making the same old mistakes I thought I had gotten rid of. It was like everything I thought I had overcome was back, like I hadn't changed at all despite this past year. I couldnt understand why! But then we went to General Conference and I felt like God was talking directly to me, I received so much inspiration. He opened my eyes to see that even though I was making the same mistakes and was struggling with the same weaknesses I thought I had overcome, I was reacting in a completely different way than I had last year. I am so much stronger now than I was a year ago. Heavenly Father let me struggle with the same things to allow me to see how much I really have changed. This past year I have been slowly laying my foundation upon my Savior Jesus Christ. Bit by bit, I have come to know of the reality of the Atonement for myself and it wasn't until the winds came that I realized how far I have come with the help of my Savior. I know that He is our only firm foundation and that through Him we can change and become better. Sister Esplin talked about the Sacrament in conference and I loved that she said we should note the mistakes that we make and how to improve but more importantly we should recognize the moments that the Savior has offered us His enabling power to strengthen us. I know that the Savior is with me each step of every day. I simply could not do this without Him and I am so grateful for the opportunity to proudly wear this missionary badge. My mission means everything to me. I have been so blessed and so changed by this experience. Thank you to everyone for supporting me and praying for me, I feel your prayers! I love you all soo much.

avec amour soeur hawkes 

Our Liege family, I adore them :) 

Soeur Hosking and I. Our last elevator selfie together. can you tell its 6:00a.m.? Haha!

Soeur Clawson's first gauffre from Belgium. They are to die for! 

This huge fair is literally right outside our door and it smells SO good. we went and gorged a little bit this afternoon :)