Well this week has been interesting. The field is great. I love being in Belgium. the door handles here suck though. i have ripped 17 door handles off in my time in Belgium and i am not trying to. after about 2 or 3 i started to be really careful with the amount of force i use to turn a door handle and still i like rip the handle off, really obnoxious.
I am serving in Namur Belgium. Its a little college town south east of Brussels. our apartment is HUGE and overlooks the fork in the river and the Citadel a huge belgian fortress to protect against the Germans. My companion is Elder Purdy from Farmington UT, He is super funny and so nice. He is super supportive and is a great trainer. He has been out for about a 15 months. We have a lot of fun.
This week we did a lot of contacting and met with a couple member families. I have a really difficult time trying to understand everything everyone is saying but It has already gotten a lot better in 4 days so I am not worried. We have two types of meetings with members and amis in the France Paris mission Rendezvous and Mangezvous. Manger is the verb for "to eat". Thursday Night in the spirit Thanksgiving we went over to the Badoux's home and they made a turkey and all the stuff that we would have had at home. The Bishop and his family also came over and it was really fun for the most part... I just had no idea what anyone was saying. When I inevitably spilled on my tie a bit of gravy Bishop looked me in the eye and said " Baptise" . After dinner we had this really good chocolate mousse and shared a message about what we are thankful for and the importance of giving thanks for the blessings in our lives.
We had a couple service projects that we did this week. On Friday we sanded all the stairs in the home of a family in our ward, so that they could stain the stairs. And on Saturday we helped move a Sister out of her house and pretty much through out a ton of stuff. The basement of her house smelled like The Pirates of the Caribbean water from disneyland, and also dumped Jack Sparrows hidden alcohol stash down the drain.
This week i understood better the need for personalizing lessons and teachings for the needs of members, amis and everyone we come in contact with. The world is a hospital of broken people looking to be fixed and when people roll up and say I have a broken arm, it is not the time to give them cold medicine and send them home. We have a responsibility to assess the damage and fix the problem. Everyone has different needs when it comes to the gospel and addressing them is the most important thing, not just putting a bandaid on something that is already healthy.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary. To be a representative of Jesus Christ. To be able to devote all my time effort and talents to do the things he needs me to. I am grateful for the challanges that I have been given so that i can overcome them and continue moving forward. I know that there is no challenge ahead that I won't be able to accomplish with the Lord at my side.
continuer a grimper, continuer a conquerir,
Elder Asher Belanger
P.S. there are constant sirens in Europe. We have already had Frites, Gaufres, and OTacos. so pretty much the like 25 lbs i lost in the mtc are coming back.
Comments
Post a Comment