im melting.....
oh my HOT! its been hotter than i may have ever experiencedbecause of
humity here and having to be out walking the whole day. i love
southern california :) im currently melting sitting in the tiny
email/liquor store.

i got my hair done by an african girl in our ward last week. just
asked her to trim it and add some layers.. we got to talking and then
she turns to her husband and says "look hunny, its rhianna!" she meant
the singer rhianna.. her husband replied "grace, shes a sister
missionary!"  i then got up out of the chair to look at my hair in the
mirror. it was cool looking.. one side still long and the other very
short... lets just say I have pretty short hair now since i couldnt
keep it so uneven.. good thing i have 10 more months hhaha
we hqve baptismal dates with 4people right now. my favoritewoman ever
from peru, an adorable chinese couple and a beautiful african woman. i
love these people and love learning their cultures! i learned how to
make this amazing toritilla like bread from suriname last night, we
had quite the feest with all the new members, so fun!
i feel like me and sister hinchcliff (the other sister who came in
with me) are starting to gain good relationships with the people in
the ward now and starting to feel more at home here.
okto end..
my favorite funny moment of the week.. seing alittle african baby
runny around in his diaper with a weave (piece of fake hair) stuck to
his butt. i love antwerpen!

blog: oh antwerpen..
ok on to my week! i dont even remember what as happened.. lets see,
the funny things.. we got stuck on an elevator one day because we
decided to try to be like the elders (they have more fun) and the
elevators here are squares with a normal door that you open yourself
when you get to the floor you want (did i tell you this place is kind
of ghetto?) so when you hit the door the elevator beeps super loud,
stops and then keeps going.. of course we do it to be funny and then
the elevator completely stopped working.. leave it to us. haha
thankfully after 5 mins or so someone pushed the botton for the
elevator and we keep moving.
ohh and funny story 2, we went for a run one morning and came home
with a couch! we saw a free couch and decided that we had to have it
so we carried it all the way home (sat and took a break on our couch
and got laughed at, it was 630am) and took 30 mins to get this thing
in the tiny door up the narrow staircase and then in another tiny
door.. lets just say we are still sore. but now were proud owners of a
nice leather couch that came in handy for me being sick this week!
on a missionary work note, there is a lot going on here and its going
to be a very intense few transfers; one of our investigator, sara is
seriously a gift send from heaven. she came to church yesterday and
was more involved in the lessons than anyone else and she sounded more
mormon than the members! and weve only taught her for a week!
everylesson with her is a spiritual feest and i cant wait to see her
life change even more and to see her change the lives of so many
people here.
life is good! hope to hear from you all soon!!
love zuster j

"Oh Gift, I thought you were talking about Blessing" or "do you hear those sirens, ya, those are for us.."

 

What a week.. were do i begin.. sorry if this is a really long one, but it might be worth reading.

 

Ok so the subject to my letter, "oh gift, I thought you were talking about blessing".. We teach africans. a lot of them. gift blessing faith evidence innocence.. i could go on :) I love them. But we speak english in 90% of our appointments and that is a huge bummer for me.  I love teaching in dutch now and im afraid I'm going to lose it.  but then again, the dutch here does not sound like the dutch im used to.. church was interesting.  i kind of felt like a greenie again but there are 3 of us that are new to the area so at least i wasnt alone in that.  Antwerpen is i think the 2nd biggest 60 in belgium and has i think 72 different languages so we have A LOT of work to do.  We serve with the zone leaders so there are 5 of us roaming these crazy city streets.  and they are crazy.  i dont even know how to describe this place.  some moments i feel like im in france, others barcelona, others san francisco and then others i think im in south america.  It has old pretty buildings but it is not exactly a pretty city.  everyone told me that i was in for a surprise and they were not joking.  this place is NOTHING like the netherlands.  this is a completely different mission.  But it is exciting and were having fun!

 

We met this woman last week who is originally from Peru and is the cutest thing ever! I actually saw her looking at us with interest when we were walking to a tram stop so i started talking to her.  she is really disappointed in religion right now but she really wants to be a "good daughter of her heavenly father" as she puts it.  she is pregnant out of wedlock and thinks shes a horrible person.  We had an appointment with her on saturday and it was my favorite appointment of my entire mission so far.  I loved being able to tell her that her heavenly father loves her and is proud of her desires and that we were placed in each others lives for a reason.  i wish i could describe in words what the appointment was like but the spirit was so strong, we were all in tears and she is soo prepared for this gospel!  she kept saying how happy she was that she met us and i know that no matter what happens this womans life is changed forever.  to this day she keeps saying that her heart is dancing because she just feels like she has found what shes looking for.   

 

ok here is the craziest/most embarrassing/biggest blessing story of the week!  We came home last night opened our appartment door and said "what is that smell" (after we had already turned on the lights).  then immediately we all said, gas! went to the stove and heard that the gas was on! turned off the gas, turned off the lights opened all the windows and got out of our appartment.  the scariest part, we live above a restaurant.  we had no clue how long the gas had been on and didnt even know if we could sleep in our apartment so we called the office senior couple and they told us we had to call 112 (911).  so we had to go inform all of our neighbors including the restaurant that the emergency people were on their way. we were thinking ok theyll send one car of people to come check the gas in our house. oh no. first we heard the sirens from one car and then a few more... fireman ran out (A LOT of them) in gas masks and oxygen tanks and then the police showed up and blocked off the whole street.  everyone in the neighborhood was watching of course and the poor people in the restaurant.. so after dying laughing over the craziness of this situation we found out that that our stove was faulty so it had been leaking for the whole day and it was a huge blessing that nothing blew up.  but they just turned the gas off and they let us back in when all was clear.. we felt a little more than blessed that nothing bad happened and we now know our neighbors.. haha i wish i could describe other hilarious things that happened (like our old man neighbor who was yelling that he spoke english dutch french german and swahili and could not understand us) but there is not too much time for that.  we got to bed a little late last night laughing our heads off at what had just happened.  (dont worry, our landlord has already been over to replace the stove). I love my life.   

ok sorry for the length! have a great week and hopefully ill have great stories to share next week!

<3<3 Zuster J