Elder Trae Fowkes' Belgium/Netherlands Mission: Pictures from Antwerpen...

Familie!

This past week has been glorious! Last p-day we went with the other Antwerpen missionaries on a self tour of downtown Antwerpen (as you could proabably tell from the photos). The architecture here is stunning! We had many member dinner appointments which was good. On Friday, we went to an African family's house and had a fufu party! Fufu is one of the strangest things I have ever eaten! But, surprisingly it is pretty good! I'd attach a picture of it, but I left my cord at home. Basically, it kind of looks like soggy dough. You tear little pieces off with your fingers, then dip it into a meat-type-stew-or-soup, and then put in your mouth and swallow. You don't chew it at all. You just swallow the piece of fufu whole. It's quite a strange experience! It's also all eaten without any utensils. All with your hands. To eat the meat soup stuff you just have to kind of cup your fingers. It's actually really fun! For conference, we have a very strange schelude. We watch the Saturday Morning session as a live broadcast at 6:00 Saturday evening. We watch a recording of the Priesthood Session at 11:00 Sunday morning. We then watch a recording of the Saturday Afternoon session at 2:00 Sunday afternoon. We ended our Sunday by watching the Sunday Morning session live at 6:00 in the evening. We have to watch the final Sunday Afternoon session on our own time on p-day (which we still have to do). Today for p-day, we got together with many other missionaries from our zone. There were 18 of us all together. We all got Nerf guns (I bought one with my birthday money) and played Zombies in the church building for about three hours! It was a blast! Apparently, it's a common thing to do in this mission.

This past week has also many spirtiual experiences! On Thursday, we were taking a bus out to member's home for a dinner appoinment. When we were on the bus, I man tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You'll have to excuse me, but I haven't seen a Mormon in nine years." He wasn't a member, be he had some extended family that was. We had a very long conversation with him. He's an amazing guy. It felt like were on the bus talking to him for at least 30 minutes. He happened to live in the town that we were going to. We had no idea what stop we needed to get off of. He helped us out and actually walked us to the member's home. He knows a lot about our church and Christianity in general, but he himself isn't relgious. Nonetheless, he is a wonderful man with a family and high standards. It was such a miracle that we met him because we never take that bus that direction and it was also the first time in three months that he left his house (since he's a writer). When he let us into his house (so he could look up where it was we needed to go) he said, "I'm only letting you in because I know you're Mormons..." Hopefully we had a positive influence on him and he becomes interested later on in the future.

One more really cool experience was when we were on another really obscure bus heading to a far out city to look up an inactive member. When we were sitting on the bus, I lady a few seats in front of us kept looking back at us. She probably did this five or so time before I finally said hello. We started talking with her and found out that she herself is an inactive member. She was baptized in the Netherlands and over time became inactive. She later moved to Belgium and nobody knew where she was. She said that she still held to the faith though! While we were talking she said that when she saw us get on the bus, she immediately felt the Spirit! SO COOL!! She kept saying, "Ik had om iets te zeggen! Ik had om iets te zeggen!" Meaning, "I had to say something!" It was so amazing! We gave her our information, and she said she'll call us when she's ready!

Oh, during the week we also met a member from Oregon who was on vacation, gained a new investigator who knows he needs to be baptized, found 13 potential investigators, and contacted well over 120 people! The work is moving forward with full force! With the backing of the legions of Heaven and the Holy Ghost as our silver bullet, we will bring the knowledge of God's restored church to all the world, especially those in Antwerpen, Belgium!

Love,

Elder Fowkes

The first three pictures are in the Netherlands