Hallo Familie!
I love Antwerpen! It's such an amazing place! There are so many cool people too! It's also a massive city! Right now my companion and I just walk and take public transportation everywhere. I'm planning on getting a bike in the next week or so. The Zone Leaders (who also work here in Antwerpen) have a car and sometimes give us rides. Unfortunately, most of our appointments fell through. We do have one tomorrow though which is looking pretty good right now! We have almost given out a Boek van Mormon a day! However, we still don't have any onderzoekers (investigators). But we're working hard and we will find them!! Elder Losee and I are not in the same zone. But he's not to far. I believe he is serving somewhere in southern Nederland. Unfortunately my companion has not found his bag. He's been positive about though, which is great!
The weather here isn't too bad. My first few days here it was actually way warm, and we wore short sleeve shirts. But, the seasons change very quickly here, and it has pretty much been cloudy and rainy for the past week and will continue to be so for the next several months, haha. The temperature has been around 16 degrees Celcius (I'm not sure what that is in Farenheit).
The Antwerpen wijk (ward) is fantastic! There are about 130ish active members who are all amazing! We have a lot of work to do though, because there are like 300 inactive members here in Antwerpen. I love the food here! I have yet to eat anything disgusting. Everything I've thus far eaten has been delicious! There are a few strange things they do though. For example, the milk comes in like 1 liter bottles that have a very long shelf life when NOT refrigerated. When refrigerated, the milk spoils faster. Because of whatever it is that they put in it, it tastes a bit different. Okay, actually, it tastes a lot different, not like American milk at all. Most elders don't like. In fact, I'm the only person I know of who doesn't mind it! I drink glasses of it just like normal milk! Most elders hate it and can only stand it when it is used in something else.
For finding, we pretty much do everything! Since we have no onderzoekers we do a variety of contacting. Op straat (on the street), langs de deuren (along doors), and member referrals. My Nederlands (Dutch) is slowly improving! I can do the initial contact for people, but then my companion has to help me out. Members are easier to understand, so I can talk with them a little more. There are a lot of people here speak English! Actually, yesterday, our entire priesthood meeting was in English!
This past weeks miracle:
My companion and I were heading home from a dinner appointment with a member. It was pretty late, but we set a quick goal to try to find someone and place a Boek van Mormon. We got of the tram and walked over to the bus stop. We had just missed the previous bus, and since it was late, the next one wouldn't arrive for another 15ish minutes. We decided to just walk home and talk to people along the way. As we were walking down the street, it was pretty dark, houses were locked up, and there was no one on the street. After a few blocks we saw an African couple walking. We contacted them, and the next thing we knew they each wanted a Boek van Mormon and we got their contact information and set up a return appointment!! Hopefully it'll work out! They were way nice and accepting!
That's all for today!
Tot ziens! :)
Elder Fowkes
No comments:
Post a Comment