10-9-17

Hello all! This week was full of moving furniture, baptismal dates (for the elders, not for us, don't get your hopes up) and Nutella. Lots of Nutella.

On Tuesday we were able to have a lesson with our recent convert, Tanya. Tanya lives in Alost, or Aalst if you speak Dutch, which most people in this cute little town do. Tanya was just  baptized in August and has 3 little kids all under the age of 4! We reviewed the Plan of Salvation together. Let me tell you, Tanya is a champ. She knew everything and had a clear understanding of why it was necessary and important. Then we started talking about the spirit world, the resurrection, and the judgement, and she all of a sudden was full of questions. "So are the people in prison really in a prison? Can the people in paradise and prison see and talk to each other or are they in different places? Aren't we going to ascend to meet Jesus? Where is Jesus right now? Who will be there at the judgement? Do we have a Heavenly Mother?" We were a little blown away, to say the least, but we wracked our brains for all the deep doctrine we had ever learned and were able to help her out. :)

We also had the opportunity to travel out to Dunderleeuw (another Dutch-speaking town that is technically outside of our sector... then again, Bruxelles itself is technically outside of our mission so our "sector" is really just insofar as people speak French). We went to visit Nene (pronounced Nay-nay), a really cool less active member with 3 adorable little girls. We had a wonderful lesson and were able to get to know these people a lot better. We talked about daring to choose the right, showed them how to watch General Conference online, helped them order a year's subscription to the Liahona magazine, and set up a time to come visit them next week. We're going to have a family home evening! We hope they'll be coming back to church soon. The girls seem apathetic about it, except the oldest, who seemed kind of excited to come to Young Women's instead of Primary. The mom knows she needs to come back, but is nervous that people will judge her. She said, "Maybe I'll come wearing a scarf over my head and face, then nobody will know it's me. Then again maybe they'll think that I have a bomb and hit me over the head with a casserole dish. So I think instead we'll just stay home this week." Pray for this family so they can have the courage to come!

Remember how I said people in Dunderleeuw speak Dutch? Well, just as we were walking out of our lesson with Nene, this girl suddenly runs up to us and starts speaking to us in Dutch! I was super surprised and said, "Pardon?" and then said, "English?" and she said, "yes I speak English" and I was like "oh good!" She asked if we were the Jehovah's Witnesses and we said no, we're missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She looked confused for a moment and then said, "Well, I want a Bible. Can you get me a Bible?" We said, "Yeah, we can probably do that" We exchanged numbers and names and told her we'd be back on Saturday. Hopefully we can come up with a Dutch Bible (and Book of Mormon) before Saturday :)

Sunday was kind of a crazy day. It was my first opportunity to meet the ward, and we also had an ami and a less active we've been working with come for the first time. Our ami, Dou, is Buddhist and was very confused about everything. She had good reason, too. I think that was the craziest fast and testimony meeting I have ever seen. She also did not understand the lesson in Gospel Principles class on the Sabbath Day. But then right before she left she had a really positive conversation with Chin Rivas, a returned missionary that I served with right at the beginning of my mission. They talked about seeing the positive in the world, serving others, and how the Book of Mormon brings us peace and joy. She said, "I think I'm going to have to read that book." 

Today we're going to see a really cool vantage point of Bruxelles and hopefully the Museum of European History. Pictures will be forthcoming! Hope you all have a great week!

♡Soeur Rogers