*WARNING* reading this email may cause an intense pizza craving that can only by satisfied by sitting down with loved ones to enjoy a nice film and eating a pizza

Bonne année, I hope everyone is doing well and enjoyed the last couple days of 2018 and enjoying the start of 2019, because I have not. I have been pretty sick since last thursday and now Elder Purdy is sick and so I am bored out of my mind. I read all of Mosiah and 3rd Nephi on Sunday and missed the last 3 hour block of Church that i could possibly go to. We have been pretty miserable the past couple days.

Some of the activities that I did other than intense study of the Book of Mormon in English and French are as follows. We did a Pirates of the Caribbean puzzle and made a pizza, we moved mattresses out onto the floor of the living room and watched missionary training videos while eating our free pizza and getting more from the dominos around the corner. 

We went out on Monday the first day of the new transfer to make goals for the transfer and to pick up a L of hawaii sauce from Chez Gaby's for our Zone Leader (who is staying in our zone which is the flipping greatest thing ever) so naturally we got ourselves some frites and took them to the top of the Citadelle to enjoy them and make goals for the new transfer. I am staying in Namur for another transfer which is great.

As I was doing my personal study this week, I was reading in Ether chapter 6. In Chapter 6, Moroni continues to write about the Jaredites. In verse 11 it says, " and thus they were driven forth,three hundred and forty and four days upon the water". Earlier in the chapter it says that the barges that they had built are "buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and great tempests were caused by the fierceness of the wind." The very thing that is propelling them toward the promised land is the thing that is pushing them deep into the depths of the sea. I looked at me and my current situation of feeling a little homesick, missing my friends, my family, my home. Of course I miss home, but what is the wind in my life, I live in Europe, I am learning a new Language that will be very useful, I am learning how to take care of my self and learning valuable study skills. So yeah the wind, it causes tempests and fierce storms but that is what is steering the barge towards the land of promise. The other important part of this story is that when the Jaredites cried "unto the Lord... he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters." I know that He always answers our prayers, as he did for the Jaredites. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that the message found inside can help any who read from it. 

It is weird to think that I have been gone for 3 months, It feels like forever since I have been home and it legitimately has been forever. But C'est la vie, and I wouldn't want it any other way. 

Catch ya in a bit,

ab