Pictures from Week 11-12

Visiting the Castle

Kabba's Baptism

Week 12

Hey everyone!

 

So this week was kinda interesting. Last Wednesday we had zone conference and last Thursday legality which means you have to go to Bruxulles and fill out paperwork and all kinds of stuff to be legal. So I feel like most of last week was running around catching trains.

All of our amis are doing the same old same old. I am hoping to find some new ones this week to try and teach. Pres told us to find young families so I have a lot of work to do. Last Monday we went to lunch and I got a real bacon cheeseburger. I love some good American food! We went with some of the young adults in the ward and then we went to the Citadel here in Namur. It was a fun p-day.

So zone conference was pretty good. We went and the zone leaders gave a hour long training and then President talked for about an hour. It's amazing how when you go to church or a church meeting with a question how it always seems to be answered if you are attentive and are trying to listen to the Spirit. After our training we had interviews with President. He said I am doing well and that I need to really work hard this next transfer and that he wants me to be ready for a leadership or training position soon. I think he likes to have missionaries take on new roles when they are young in the mission which is something I totally do not want at all but it was nice to have him tell me I am doing well. I think I am a little hard on myself with the language. All of the other missionaries that were in my MTC group are pretty much at the same place I am.

Thursday we went into Bruxelles and I got to see everyone from my MTC group. It was so fun to see them all and to see how everyone is doing and where they are at with the language and everything. Everyone is doing well. We did are legality and then had about 2 hours to grab lunch and hang out in Bruxulles. We went to a kabob shop which is the best/most disgusting lunch ever then went and saw the "Manneken Piss" and to get the famous Belgian waffles with whipped cream chocolate and fresh strawberries. It is amazing that people come around the world to see a statue of a little boy peeing. You might as well just go to the nearest Italian restaurant (Buca de Beppos). It's cheaper and you get dinner ha ha!  Don't worry though Morgan, McKenzie and Mom, I got you all a souvenir of the "Manneken Piss."

Well after that we all went back to our areas. It was kind of a pretty chill day so that was nice. Saturday we went to Beebee's house for lunch and checked for transfer emails. I am staying in Namur for at least another 6 weeks! My new comp is Elder Harris. I have heard good things about him!  He is in Brest, France right now and has been out for I think exactly a year longer than me so it will be good to learn from him. Elder Adams is going to Antony, France which is just south of Paris: He is gonna miss Namur but is looking forward to the new area: Sunday he said Goodbye to everyone at church and there was a old missionary who came to visit. I know him cause he was the AP when I came in and he left a day after I arrived. We got to go to a nice BBQ that some of the members threw for him. It was fun to be around the members some more and I was able to get some advice from him on how to really take lead of Namur and keep things going the way that they are. We spend most of Sunday saying goodbye to people. Today we did some final solds shopping and are going to family home evening and passing another set of members. Tomorrow we have district meeting and more member visits for Elder Adams to say goodbye to people. Thursday we head to Paris to switch comps. It's so fun to say- oh yeah next week we are going on a day trip to Paris. Who knew I could ever say that?  Sometimes it amazing me when I realize where I am!

 

Well that is it for this week: Hope you are all doing great!

 

 

Elder Lerdahl

 

Week 11

Hey everyone!

 

This last week flew by so fast! It was a great week! Last Tuesday a member came with us for a couple of our rendezvous. It is amazing how much more powerful a lesson can be with a member. It helps so much to have someone who is a native speaker and grown up in the same place. The members can share experiences that help them relate and are great at sharing the gospel in simpler terms. This particular member drove an hour to come help us and then an hour home-- it was awesome to see his sacrifice to come help the missionaries. A lot of the members here live up to 2 hours away from church and are there every Sunday, every meeting, and every activity. I can't imagine driving from Stansbury to Logan every Sunday for church and sometimes up to 3 times a week!

Last Wednesday we helped 3 different people move. It's good weather here in Belgium and when it is good weather you take advantage of it! By the end of our three moves and two rendezvous that night I was so tired! I love service though because it puts me in such a good mood to be out moving about in a good pair of Levi's working with your hands and getting to talk to members and investigators in a less formal setting.

Last Friday we had a baptism. Sheku Kabba from Sierra Lyon, Africa got baptized in a small town called Rendeux. We went to the refugee center at 6 and got him prepped then went down to the river. He had two friends with him and then four elders and the senior missionaries. Elder Adams baptized him in the river and then all of the elders joined the circle and Elder Okelberry gave him the gift of the holy ghost on the side of the river. We have been joking that it is our own little "Waters of Mormon" experience. After the baptism, one of Kabba's friends said he wanted to get baptized, hello new ami! It was an awesome experience and it was cool cause we promised Kabba Sunday that it would be good weather and at the end just after the confirmation the sun came out!

Saturday we went and helped with another move. I am so sore from all of our moves! Halfway through the move we stopped for lunch and I ate something called American. They say they don't know why they call it American because Americans always hate it, but its raw ground up hamburger with spices. I had it on a baguette and it actually was not that bad. It tasted fine but the idea of eating raw hamburger is kinda gross. Oh well, the food was blessed so no worries.

Saturday was Independence Day here in Belguim. We sang the Star Spangles Banner in their honor, ha ha!

After church yesterday we went to the Rousseux family's house for dinner. They live an hour away from the church so we went with them, had dinner and a spiritual thought and then they drove us home. They are an awesome family and Frère Rousseux is in to trucks and four-wheelers so we had a good time talking about all that it.  It was nice to have a conversations that I was comfortable talking about!  We had a Belge dinner-- homemade fries with meatballs and a tomato sauce. Turns out french fries are a lie and it's the Belge who made frites or fries.

Speaking of things Belgian, I have been pounding down the chocolate because members keep giving us chocolate. I am loving it and am afraid I will never be able to enjoy chocolate once I am back in the US.

 

Well that's it for this week. I am on my last week of training and Saturday I find out if I stay or if I go! I am pretty indifferent at the moment but I love the members here. French is coming along and I am finally used to the missionary life!

 

Elder Lerdahl

Belgium Week 10

Hey Everyone,

 

It has been another good week here in Namur. It is weird to think that I only have two more weeks of training. Part of me is so ready to have that greeny, or here that blue status gone and part of me thinks I will never stop being a blue haha. This week I feel like I made some good progress with the language. I have really gotten to the point where I don't care as much when I make mistakes, I just try to correct them. I would not say I am confident when I speak but I would definitely say I am getting there.

So the highlight of this week was an exchange that we had.Elder Barney, our district leader and I went to Namur and Elder Adams and Elder Gibson went to the red cross center to meet with all of our amis down there and to finish the baptism preparations for Kabba. He is getting baptized in a river this Friday. I am super excited for our own little waters of Mormon experience. I am gonna take a bunch of pictures-- it is gonna be sick! We are also making some good progress with the center. Every time we go, there are more people who want to be taught. I think we have given out three Books of Mormon each time we go. The only problem is they all can't come to church because they are an hour away and can't get there. We will have to see what happens. We think that there is a friend of Kabba's with a car so hopefully in the next month or so we can find a way to get some of these people to church.

 

Our exchange in Namur was pretty awesome. We taught a couple of lessons that went well and I took the opportunity to talk more that normal since I know all the people and Elder Barney doesn't. As we were starting the exchange we had a little planning session and made a goal to fix a rendezvous and get two numbers while contacting. It was crazy the first guy we contacted we got his number and set a rendezvous,and we even made our goal in about an hour of contacting! In total we made two appointments and got three numbers. It was pretty awesome to have some solid success contacting. Here contacting is tough. Nobody wants to listen to you and so we mostly try to utilize the members and current amis to find new ones through referrals which normally works really well. So the first guy that we contacted is name was Djabir and we set a rendezvous up for the next morning. We called him a half hour before to confirm and he sounded super excited. We went to the park that we were going to meet him at and it was pouring rain. The church is 15 minuted by bus away and the guy could not have the rendezvous at his house so we were stuck using the park. We got to the park ten minutes early and were trying to think of another place we could go for the rendezvous and could not really think of anything on short notice. I turned to Elder Barney and said let's just pray, I offered a short pray that the rain would stop so that we could have the rendezvous. Within a minute the rain stopped!  It was an awesome experience!

 

This week I have found a lot of really cool things in the scriptures. I read in Nehemiah, I think chapters 4, 5 and 6 which are pretty much the mission theme for the year.  Its when Nehemiah is rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and everyone is asking him to come down from the wall. He says that he can't because he has a great work to do and can't descend. I really enjoyed it and saw how applicable it is. That we have a great work that we need to focus on  and never come down. Pres Posznanski has really focused on  getting us to build up France this year, meaning to really get out there and get missionary work going through member work and referrals.I have also been cruising through the Old Testament, I am almost to Joshua. I am really enjoying it. I have to use the footnotes a ton or else it doesn't really mean much.

 

So last night we celebrated Elder Adams birthday with some of the members. They made so much food it was nuts! I don't think we even ate half of what they made so we have tons of leftovers for the week. Tonight at family home evening they are having a birthday cake for him too. It has been fun! Today one of the members it taking us to tour some of the castles around Namur--I am pretty excited!

 

Well that is pretty much it for this week!

 

Elder Lerdahl

Week 9

Bonjour,

 

It has been a pretty crazy week! I have had to write stuff down in my planner so that I don't forget anything. So last week with going to Paris for legality our whole week kinda got moved around. Tuesday we finished all of our emails and p-day stuff we needed to do and went to work. We taught one ami who I have really started to like. His name is Stephan and he is from Africa-- a country called togo or something like that. He made us dinner --it was interesting. It was rice with a sauce over it which had pili-pili--a super hot pepper some vegetable and sardines. So I found out last week that sardines are not my favorite. I thought it would be better to mash one up in the rice so I could not think about it and then I saw the spine come out and after that I ate them whole because it was easier that way. After the dinner which really wasn't bad because the peppers covered up the fish, we read the livre de momon with him. He asked us if there was scientifical proof if the Book of Mormon is true, and we responded with "Is there proof that Moses parted the red sea? You have to talk things on faith." And he nodded and agreed. I was a cool experience because he has had a hard time with things like that and he just accepted the answer. I am sure the Spirit helped him to accept that answer!

So about two weeks ago we got  a call from the Elders in Bruxulles and they had a guy they were teaching who lived at a refugee center and they moved him to another center that is closer to us. So we decided to go see him last Wednesday. The Elders told us he had a baptism date and had been going to church before the move so I was rather excited for the rendezvous. We had to take two trains and a bus to get there. It took forever so we finally got there and it was a refugee center that the Red Cross does so we found the guy and next thing we know his friend comes and is telling everyone to come hear the Word of God! I was stoked! So we went and found a table and we started talking to the guy his name is Kabba and he said he knew it all. So we started giving him the baptism questions and his friend was confused obviously cause he didn't know about it. So Elder Adams kept going with the questions and I taught the other guy the first lesson. It was half French half English and so it was a little easier but I had a lot of fun! I gave him the Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet. He is a super strong Christian and was excited to have the Book of Mormon or as he put it the Word of God! So we finished up and got a lift from the red cross lady back to the train station and found out we didn't really have a way back to Namur. So we took a different train to Liège which worked out okay because we had district meeting the next day there. So we crashed with the Elders there which was fun but I was missing a change of garments and my tooth brush super bad! I ended up just squirting tooth paste in my mouth-- it was interesting! The next day we had district meeting and then went back to Namur and had straight appointments all day. We went like 36 hours in the same clothes it was gross but kinda fun too because it was just a crazy day.

So Friday night we had some left over pday hours and one of our amis wanted to play tennis so we went with him and played tennis for about an hour. It was fun to get out and play some sports and hang out with him. I sure suck at tennis but it was a good time and we are planning on doing it again. Speaking of sports, I kinda like watching soccer now. It's such a big deal here and our amis and the ward members get super into it. So sometimes it's on when we have dinner appointments and the next thing I know I am having to remind myself that I am a missionary and probably should not be yelling at the TV when someone scores ha ha!!

So the last big highlight of the week is we have an ami named Michel who is pretty Catholic and I think he likes meeting with us just to talk about God. But he has kept his commitments and been pretty open. Well anyways he invited us to Mass so we said why not and went last night. It was very different and I feel like I learned a lot. The majority of the people here are Catholic so I really enjoyed seeing what their church is like and it helped me to understand their questions and concerns when they come to our church. I was rather impressed by their reverence--- our ward here has lots of kids so sometimes it's a little noisy. It was a good experience!

 

So here goes the funny story of the week: We were walking down the street and some guy pointed at us and said "C'est dormage que il n'y a pas un permit de vous chassé" which means "it is too bad that there is not a permit to hunt you" and then he made his hand it to a gun and pretended to shoot us. Well I didn't know the verb for hunt so i turned to Elder Adams and said what? And this other guy next to us turns and said in English:  "That guy just said that Joseph Smith was the first person to make guns." and he chuckled. I don't know what was funnier, the guy that wants to hunt us or the guy trying to be nice when we both knew that is not what he said hah!

 

So here goes the sad story of the week: Ghazwan has continued to meet with lawyers and legality people here and has been denied legality again. He is now in the process of trying to make arrangements to leave and move to England to try and get legality there. Luckily he has some family there so hopefully that will work out. We have been telling him he had better find the church in England when he goes. It's just scary because he doesn't really have a way to get to England legally and technically Belgium could deport him to Iraq. We are going to hear from him today on how getting all of his documents back from the Belgian officials went and hopefully after that he will catch a train to France and he can then work on getting into England legally.

 

Well that is pretty much it for this weekend. The Tour de France is here in Namur today so we hopefully will check that out. We are going to run up to the Citadel and check out the Castle. Apparently Napoleon and somebody else super important in history was there so that will be really cool to see today. Hope you all are enjoying summer!

 

Elder Lerdahl

Pictures from Week 8

Week 8

Bonjour,

It has been a pretty crazy week! I have had to write stuff down in my planner so that I don't forget anything. So last week with going to Paris for legality our whole week kinda got moved around. Tuesday we finished all of our emails and p-day stuff we needed to do and went to work. We taught one ami who I have really started to like. His name is Stephan and he is from Africa-- a country called togo or something like that. He made us dinner --it was interesting. It was rice with a sauce over it which had pili-pili--a super hot pepper some vegetable and sardines. So I found out last week that sardines are not my favorite. I thought it would be better to mash one up in the rice so I could not think about it and then I saw the spine come out and after that I ate them whole because it was easier that way. After the dinner which really wasn't bad because the peppers covered up the fish, we read the livre de momon with him. He asked us if there was scientifical proof if the Book of Mormon is true, and we responded with "Is there proof that Moses parted the red sea? You have to talk things on faith." And he nodded and agreed. I was a cool experience because he has had a hard time with things like that and he just accepted the answer. I am sure the Spirit helped him to accept that answer!

So about two weeks ago we got  a call from the Elders in Bruxulles and they had a guy they were teaching who lived at a refugee center and they moved him to another center that is closer to us. So we decided to go see him last Wednesday. The Elders told us he had a baptism date and had been going to church before the move so I was rather excited for the rendezvous. We had to take two trains and a bus to get there. It took forever so we finally got there and it was a refugee center that the Red Cross does so we found the guy and next thing we know his friend comes and is telling everyone to come hear the Word of God! I was stoked! So we went and found a table and we started talking to the guy his name is Kabba and he said he knew it all. So we started giving him the baptism questions and his friend was confused obviously cause he didn't know about it. So Elder Adams kept going with the questions and I taught the other guy the first lesson. It was half French half English and so it was a little easier but I had a lot of fun! I gave him the Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet. He is a super strong Christian and was excited to have the Book of Mormon or as he put it the Word of God! So we finished up and got a lift from the red cross lady back to the train station and found out we didn't really have a way back to Namur. So we took a different train to Liège which worked out okay because we had district meeting the next day there. So we crashed with the Elders there which was fun but I was missing a change of garments and my tooth brush super bad! I ended up just squirting tooth paste in my mouth-- it was interesting! The next day we had district meeting and then went back to Namur and had straight appointments all day. We went like 36 hours in the same clothes it was gross but kinda fun too because it was just a crazy day.

So Friday night we had some left over pday hours and one of our amis wanted to play tennis so we went with him and played tennis for about an hour. It was fun to get out and play some sports and hang out with him. I sure suck at tennis but it was a good time and we are planning on doing it again. Speaking of sports, I kinda like watching soccer now. It's such a big deal here and our amis and the ward members get super into it. So sometimes it's on when we have dinner appointments and the next thing I know I am having to remind myself that I am a missionary and probably should not be yelling at the TV when someone scores ha ha!!

So the last big highlight of the week is we have an ami named Michel who is pretty Catholic and I think he likes meeting with us just to talk about God. But he has kept his commitments and been pretty open. Well anyways he invited us to Mass so we said why not and went last night. It was very different and I feel like I learned a lot. The majority of the people here are Catholic so I really enjoyed seeing what their church is like and it helped me to understand their questions and concerns when they come to our church. I was rather impressed by their reverence--- our ward here has lots of kids so sometimes it's a little noisy. It was a good experience!

So here goes the funny story of the week: We were walking down the street and some guy pointed at us and said "C'est dormage que il n'y a pas un permit de vous chassé" which means "it is too bad that there is not a permit to hunt you" and then he made his hand it to a gun and pretended to shoot us. Well I didn't know the verb for hunt so i turned to Elder Adams and said what? And this other guy next to us turns and said in English:  "That guy just said that Joseph Smith was the first person to make guns." and he chuckled. I don't know what was funnier, the guy that wants to hunt us or the guy trying to be nice when we both knew that is not what he said hah!

Well that is pretty much it for this weekend. The Tour de France is here in Namur today so we hopefully will check that out. We are going to run up to the Citadel and check out the Castle. Apparently Napoleon and somebody else super important in history was there so that will be really cool to see today. Hope you all are enjoying summer!

Elder Lerdahl