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