"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