Monday, October 29, 2012

Woot Woot! We're In Belgium!


Bonjour Tout Le Monde,

Well, as you all know, we're in Belgium.  Its crazy here, as is all of Europe. But no, its going good and im liking it here. It wasnt very strange to be in Europe again since i've been here already.  Im typing on a French keyboard, so I can only type like 20 WPM. UGH!!! I hate the French keyboard.  Anyways, We got to Paris and we got picked up by the mission President and did all that dealio stuff.... And then we went out to eat with them and stuff... And then we slept at the mission home for a night until transfer day. We woke up in the morning and went into Paris.  I got to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and walk around the streets of Paris for a while.  Then we went down to the church in downtown Paris and met up with our trainers.  I'm with Elder Bequette and he is super awesome!  We are both super chill and get along really well. He is from Maryland but he speaks French really well.  He is the reason I've survived my last few days here.  But we are assigned to Liege, Belgium.  Liege is one of the larger cities here.  There are 2 companionships here and we are Liege 1.  We actually went today for PDay, to the Battle of the Bulge area with a member from Liege 2.  He took us to see a bunch of the stuff from WW2 and it was sweet.  Its nice to finally be out in the real world and doing real missionary work.  Here, we have about 8 Investigators and they just had a couple baptisms the weekend before I got here.  But I got to stand in on the confirmation for a man named Dora this Sunday.  But the mission as a whole had 32 baptisms the week before I got here.  They say things are on fire right now in Europe. They say its probably the best time to come into the mission.  But Its going good here in Liege.  IT IS FREEZING. Haha its really cold.  Lots of humidity and so the cold gets colder.  It rained here the first 2 days I was here, so thank you so much for the umbrella Miss Shanna, saved my life.  But yeah we had church yesterday and its a fairly large branch.  I'm in the process of uploading photos still. I havent been able to find wifi when I have time to send stuff.  But I have some pretty cool photos :)
 
So comps train was late when he came to paris to pick me up, so when they announced who people were with and where people were going, I was all alone and dubbed "The Orphan"  Haha but he showed up some time later and it was all good.  We caught a train from Paris to Liege and its about a 2 hour train ride.  It was cool to see all the countryside of France and Belgium with the sunset.  We got here at about 9 pm.  The next day we just got started on the daily routine and here I am.  I am surprised at how much I can actually understand and speak.  My comp said that people were surprised at how well I spoke for only being here a couple days.  I still dont think I speak that well, but its coming pretty fast.  Its just super weird to walk out your door and just hear French everywhere.  Actually the Belge have a different accent and its sometimes hard to understand.  But the member that took us to the Battle of the Bulge place today was from France and I could understand him a lot better.  The real French speak faster, but its easier to understand.  But yeah, my trainer thinks I'll be able to understand most of the stuff happening after my first transfer, and I hope he's right.

Overall its good to be back in Europe and I love the culture here.  Everyone is nice here and I havent had any super mean people talk to me yet, lol.  We dont have a car but thats ok.  There is a pretty good bus system in Liege so that is nice.  We also have a big train station, so we take the train a lot (photos on the way).  Since Liege is fairly big, we have a GIANT shopping mall :) Its like 4 stories tall :)  and my comp says theres a ton of stores for suits, he needs one too, so we are waiting til soldes (sales in January) to pick some up.  But yeah, doing well.

Oh and I guess packages are fairly expensive to mail here... Comp got a package from parents that costed 70 bucks.. so maybe a flat rate international if you plan to mail something.  But yeah, doing well here, I wish that I could type faster so i could type more.  I'll try to improve my french keyboard skills.

PS - Thanks for all the stuff you gave me at the airport, it was so nice to read all the letters and stuff on the plane.  I ate some of the stuff but loved the "green" theme :)

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