A Week with the Flu, An Investigator Progressing, A very short email.

This email is going to be really boring because this past week, Sister Aldous had the flu, and then, since we live in an apartment the size of a box, I got it. :) so we were inside all week until Friday. I thought I was going to die. It was the most boring week of my life.

Saturday we made it outside for a little bit and taught a lesson with our baptismal date. He's doing really well and is progressing. He tells us every lesson that he can't wait to be baptized, so that's cool.  But other than that, literally nothing happened. Except for us laying in bed all day. The Elders were super good to us and brought us stuff, or visited us every day so that at least kept us a little sane.

Today all the missionaries are hanging out and touring around Antwerpen. So that should be fun.

So super short email, but that was our week. Sorry. :)

Hope all is well.

Love you, miss you,

Love, Karoline

Another ethnic cuisine, Another Zone Training, Another family being Taught.

We didn't have a baptism scheduled for today... we have one coming up in March. :) Nothing is happening with transfers for sister Aldous and I. Wij zullen  samen blijven.  Our zone conference was pretty much about the same things they always talk about ie: working with members, companionship unity, and contacting skills. It was kind of boring, honestly. They have been more frequent lately, I'm not really sure why, I think it was fine when we just had them once a transfer. I hope we go back to that system. :) I did get the box, thank you!

We e-mail at the church, but in my other cities, we have had to email at the library. Our investigator did get confirmed yesterday, so that was nice. Sometimes we do things with the other missionaries in the city, but it just depends on the day, because we all have so many different things we want to do. Do you know of anything fun to do in Antwerpen? Because we wouldn't really know of any of the touristy things to do. 

I tried Syrian food this week. It's a lot like all the other Middle Eastern food I've had on my mission. It's weird, most missionaries get African food, but I just get Middle Eastern food, but that's okay, because African food is freaky. 

We found a family this week, so that's pretty cool, we had a first lesson with them and are teaching them again this week. Hopefully things work out with them, because they are looking for  a church, and they have friends who are members in Brussels. The dad is even taking the Book of Mormon to work and reading it on his down time.

We had two lessons with our baptismal date this week. One of them was the one where we ate Syrian food, and the other was with a great member. He's actually a referral from her. If only other members would give us some people to work with. But honestly, a part of me thinks that this ward doesn't really want to grow, and that they're just content with what they have, but we're working on it. There are a lot of good people here. 

Other than that nothing really happened. There was some drama with some people we were working with, but that happens. And if it's not there time now,  maybe some day it will be.

But... I think that's pretty much it.

Have a good week. Love you, miss you!

Love, Karoline

A BAPTISM! Another one Scheduled, Working with the Members

We are so happy to hear of this baptism, others were scheduled and didn't happen and finally, after 9 months of hard work and exercising faith, she had the blessing of witnessing someone she taught enter the waters of baptism!  While in many missions this is a regular thing,  the missions of Northern Europe are particularly difficult and we are excited for her and for this young woman who joined the church on Sunday, February 9th. 

Yay, we had a baptism this Sunday! There was a whole bunch of drama associated with it, but I'll get to that in a minute because it's most important that she was baptized.So we taught her a couple times this week, and then she flew through her baptismal interview, which is great, and today she's actually hosting FHE at her apartment. That's a huge shock because she never  wants us to bring someone, so that's really cool, she's a nice gal. 

So here, the ward wants the Aaronich priesthood priests people to baptize, like there's a list, and they mark them off as they "get a turn". messed up. Anyway, our relief society president kept asking us when her son was going to baptize someone, and we're like when he invites a friend or offers to come on joint teach. She didn't like that and kept bugging us to have him baptize our investigator and we kept saying no. Then she completely stopped having any kind of contact with us, and has been fighting to make it so that our investigator couldn't be baptized this past sunday. Seriously, it's a huge struggle with the leadership here. And then our ward mission leader was like this kid needs to baptized, and we're like sorry, but no, we've prayed about it and gotten this name for this and the witnesses and whatever, like we had all these people picked. Then the ward mission leader was like okay, fine. And we're like okay. Then at ward council, the relief society president again was like no, my son is going to baptize her, and we're like no, he's really not, he doesn't even know her. So then we got it all worked out. Then we get to the baptismal service yesterday, and we notice the guy who was supposed to be baptizing, who is one of the priests, like we at least made an effort to follow their rules, wasn't dressed, and we turn around and see the son of the relief society president dressed up to baptize. And we're like are you kidding me? Then sister Aldous lost it a little bit and yelled at the ward mission leader and let him know that this was not okay, and this is not working together, and all these things. Then she was baptized and after the service we went and talked to the bishop, and he's like I know, but we wanted this boy to baptize her and all these things. And then sister Aldous and (I) just put it out straight for them and we're like no, like this is not working together with us, we worked really hard to put the program together and all these things, and we prayed and felt like it really needed to be this other guy and all these things, and we were so mad, and then we told the bishop that it hurt our feelings and we just let him know like we are ready to work and find people for them, but if they aren't going to work with us, then nothing is going to be accomplished and they need to tell the mission president that this ward isn't ready for missionaries. Then he promised that he will never do it again, so whatever. But we're still so upset about it. But our investigator loved the baptism, and she just came out and was like Sisters, I'm like a new baby, like I'm starting all over, and she was glowing and it was super cool. Oh, and the zone leaders also had a baptism yesterday, so now there are 2 new members to the ward, which  makes 5 in the last three months. That's pretty good. 

Sister Aldous and I saw a lot of miracles this week. For example, the other day, this guy that we taught once, but didn't really think was interested called us one night, but our phone was on silent, so we missed it. We call him back the next day and he's like Sisters I want to be baptized as soon as possible. Make it happen and we're like okay, pretty sure we can do that. But he has a lot of things he has to do before then. So his date is Feb 16. But yesterday, I guess in priesthood they were having a lesson about priesthood ordinances, and baptism came up, and he raises his hand and he's like I want to be baptized! So that was pretty cool. And we the gospel principles lesson was on tithing yesterday and he just kept making comments like, I want to pay 50 percent of my money and we're like uh no, just 10 and then you can do whatever you want with the rest of it, and we're eating dinner at his house this week, so that should be exciting. 

We're teaching another guy, his dad was baptized a couple months ago, but he's a little out there. Like he knows the book of mormon is true and stuff, but he also thinks that God has called him as  prophet and has commanded him to write this other book, which is apparently just like the book of mormon. Crazy stuff. But we had this really stellar joint teach, Andy, so he took care of a lot of the weird things for us. And we had another appointment with him last night where it was basically, oh poor me, stuff, and he's a heavy smoker, so we came home and had to shower and now we have to wash all our stuff, such a pain, but it's all part of the job. 

On thursday we took Andy out to dinner at pizza hut because it was his birthday, and that was a fun evening. Members who actually work with you are the best. Like he probably spends 4 days a week with us, and does more than the ward misson leader but okay. Anyway, at pizza hut, we brought party hats, so we all wore party hats the rest of the evening. We definitely got some weird looks. I  mean party hats+ a name tag+ two sisters and some young guy equals more strange looks than normal. But it was a fun evening, so it was worth it. 

Andy, the awesome JT.  He'll be an awesome missionary someday.

Yes, I have had a Belgian waffle. I don't think they are anything too amazing. Although they have sugar waffles, which is a belgian waffle and on the inside theres like sugar chrystals in it, and those are pretty lekker. There's a lot of good soups here. That's very Belgian. All the meals have several courses, and you always start with some soup that probably took forever to make, because canned soups and things arent really big here. there's also this thing that I can't quite remember what it's called, but it's like a stew, and think it's cooked with some kind of alcohol, and then it's served over fries. Other than that, I can't think of too many foods. African food is not my favorite, 98 percent of the time it's something weird. We're served a lot of potatos and meat.

no, our apartment is not nice at all. Haha. We're on the list to get a new apartment, but it's pretty difficult to get an apartment here, so we'll see if that ever happens. It's also super tiny. So small. It's definitely not tempting to stay inside the whole day.

I feel like this all I can think of for right now.

Have a good week.

Love you, miss you!

Love, Karoline

A Fasting Miracle, Some Close Calls with Kissing, and Some Lost Sister Missionaries from Another Mission.

(I think this is my personal favorite email to date!  And, She hit her halfway mark on Feb. 1.)

So yes, we do have a baptism scheduled for this Sunday, so hopefully all goes well with that. She just has to pass her baptismal interview and she'll be good to go. We had to teach her all the commandments in one lesson this week because our other two with her got cancelled, we felt super bad that she had to get them all in one go, but she didn't want to postpone her date. She also started off the lesson by saying," sister I need to tell you something." I thought for sure she was going to drop us. Shows how much faith I have, I guess..  But then she told us this super cool story about how  she has been  having trouble paying some bills, and it's been so long that people were going to come to repossess her stuff, and a couple nights before she remembered about what we had said about fasting, which wasn't much, it was basically, like hey we're going to talk about fasting next time. Anyway, she decided that she was going to start fasting, and that she was going to put all of her trust in the Lord to work something out for her. A few  days later the people came over to take her stuff, and they were getting ready to wrap all the stuff up when the head guy got a call from the boss and he told all the people to stop what they were doing and then told our investigator that she needed to come to the office later that day. So she goes to the office, and when she gets there, the lady told her that she no longer has to pay anything and that it's been taken care of. And then she was crying and we were all crying and she was talking about how much her faith had grown this week and everything. It was super cool. 

The ward is like maybe 120 people but there are over 400 inactive people. It's ridiculous.. That's nice that you guys went to taco bell for my half way mark, I wish I could have done that. That day, sister Aldous and I went with some members to make soup for the homeless and we taught some lessons, had dinner with a member, and then just worked. Nothing too special. :) 

So we have a member who is like an ambassador to the Congo, right? And he takes us out every week and teaches us some French, nice guy. He knows everyone. Like everyone. And because of that we always get the best tables and service wherever he takes us. I think I've explained this before. Anyway, this week he took us to some fancy place, where everything was outrageously expensive, and the waiters were hitting on us the whole time. They even cut our bread into hearts, which was smooth, I must say. But It was a lot of fun. 

Then his friend shows up to our lunch, and he doesn't realize that I can completely understand him when he's speaking french, and all of a sudden I hear him telling his friend about how he should join the church and that he could have me as his wife. And so I look up, and I'm like uh, no. No, thank you. He offered me as someone's wife! And sister Aldous had no idea what was going on so she didn't understand why I was saying no. And then it was funny, because he's like oh.... you understand. Yes, yes, I do, and I'm not interested in marrying your anti-mormon friend.  

I went on my exchange with the Sister training leader this week in Ghent. It was a lot of fun, and we had some weird experiences. For example, we were passing out cards by the station before it was time to go home, and Sister Meier decides she going to contact this creepy looking old man. I knew it was a bad idea. But she does it, and she gives him the card and he grabs her and leans in while saying, "I want to kiss you" and sister Meier had no idea what was going on, so she leaned in thinking that he just couldn't hear what she was saying, luckily I was paying attention, so I grab her, and I turn to the old guy, who has no teeth by they way, and was like "Ew! Gross! No!" And then we walk away, and he yells after us, "I love you!" it was so funny. And then we had just passed out our cards, and we were walking back, when we see these two girls look us and start like screaming, and we're like what the heck? So we get closer, and one of the girls comes up and grabs our tags and then theyre all like being weird again and thats when we notice their name tags. They were the sisters to Brussels, who had missed their stop and ended up in Dutch Speaking  Belgium and had gotten lost, and had just said a prayer to find the missionaries in the city. Isn't that cool? It was cool to realize that we were the answers to someone elses prayer. Like these girls went to another mission, which is pretty funny, actually. Then got lost, and needed some help getting back. So we waited with them,and got them on their train and then went home. It was a cool experience all in all.

 Oh yeah, sister Aldous also almost got kissed this week. We were contacting, and she stopped yet another creepy old guy and eventually she gave him a Book of Mormon and hes lik oh can I thank you in my own manner? And i said no, but sister Aldous not getting it said yes,so he leans in, puckers his lips and goes to kiss her, luckily, I saved yet another companion by grabbing them and telling the old guy how gross he is. yuck. 

(look at these two!  is it any wonder there are always men wanting to kiss them!)

This week we also somehow  lost our phone in our couch. Like we  both heard it go off and we're searching the couch,and then im feeling around on the bottom when I feel the bump of the phone and we couldnt get it out no matter what we tried. So eventually we had to  cut a hole in the bottom of the couch to get it out. And that is the story of how we did surgery on the couch. 

Don't worry about the package, because we have zone conference in two weeks again for some reason, so it's really not a big deal. This past week was cold, but today was pretty warm, so it's not too big of a problem.

  

I think that's all for this week.

Love you, miss you!

Love, Karoline