Elder Trae Fowkes' Belgium/Netherlands Mission: Transfer Time

Familie!

This past week has been great! New years was a blast! We actually spent the night with the Zone Leaders and ate gourmet with them and just chilled most the evening in front of their fireplace. Unfortunately, New Years is pretty lame here in Belgium. I didn't see or hear a single firework. Mostly, the people just go get drunk or something. Elder Bean and I have been doing a lot of work to really get the work in the area moving forward. We had a few lessons. We met with Guido on Thursday and helped clear up many concerns that he had. We didn't have much of a lesson plan. We mostly just focused on Guido and following the Spirit to best help him. We showed him the Restoration DVD and he really felt the Spirit. He's now back on track and I have no doubt that one day he will become baptized! We also met with a man named Willie on Saturday. He's older man, but he's really cool and super intelligent. It's a bit difficult to teach him though because he constantly cuts in with some pointless fact that he knows. Most of our Saturday was actually a bit discouraging. We had five appointments set up (the most that I've ever had) and four of them fell through. It was a long day. On Sunday, this Antwerpen Sisters had a baptism! It was the baptism of Dirk Rousseeuw. You may recall the name from some of my emails in the past. He was at one point our investigator, then he dropped us and a month later he resumed the lessons with the Sisters. It's been super cool to see how he has progressed over the last several months! Also, durning church, we were introduced to a man named Frederick, who is from Suriname and wants to take the missionary lessons and be baptized! We have our first appointment with him this Tuesday! Yesterday, we also had an appointment with a woman named Rehema. It was our second lesson with her. We just review the Restoration with her because she has a problem understanding why the Book of Mormon is important and why we're the only church with authority to baptize. It was an alright lesson, but unless she puts in her part, I'm not sure what will happen. So, all in all, it was a bit of a rough week, but was definitely one of growth and expeience, which is why I consider it great!

Okay, now for the big news. Transfers! I'm getting transferred to Siledrecht in the Netherlands! My companion will be Elder Goff. He's in my group, so we will be a co-senior companionship! We will actually be opening the area. Just like I did with my area now. So yeah, I've spent the last four and a half months building up Antwerpen and we finally are getting good investigators and baptismal dates, and now I get to go to an area and start all over again with nothing. It will be another adventure! :) I will certainly miss Antwerpen and the people here. I love Antwerpen a lot and it will be a little hard to go, but the Lord has much more in store fo me! And here is my new mailing address:

Elder Trae Steven Fowkes

Sperwerstraat 2

3362 EM Sliedrecht

Nederland

Dag,

Elder Fowkes