Hello everyone!!!
How is everyone doing? I would just like to start out by saying that everything is going great here in Belgium! Now, I don't really have a specific story from this weeks subject line, but that was just my indication for how fast this week passed! I think I blinked, and a whole week passed! Oh my goodness! Lets see, where to start this week? I guess I'll start out by telling you about last Friday night. Now, normally, Fridays aren't too exciting because that is usually weekly planning day which takes anywhere between 2 and 3 hours, which doesn't give a ton of time to do much else. But this last Friday was very exciting to say the least! It started out after studies, with a member.
This members name is John Paul*. He is one of the nicest, coolest man that I have ever met. But the thing is, he is super hard to understand! He has a very thick Belge accent. He feeds one of the missionary companionship every single Friday morning, so we eat with him every other week. He is very nice, and has money coming out his ears. So we ate with him Friday morning, had our weekly planning, and then had an even more exciting night. We had just finished doing something at the church (I don't remember what exactly.) and walked out of the gates when a man came up to us and started talking to us in English. He was asking about Mass..we explained to him that we weren't Catholic. We asked if he wanted a tour of the church building because we were at the church all ready to go! I thought to myself, this is so cool! This guy was just walking by when we walked out and he wants to learn more!
But we took him inside, and quickly found out that this guy wasn't alright upstairs...if you know what I mean. He was insane. We were telling him about some of the paintings in the church, when he just started rambling. I was trying to follow everything that he was saying to us, and I just couldn't! And remember that this guy was talking in English! He talked for like 25 minutes straight, with me and Elder A* just looking at each other trying to stop him in some way. We finally got him to go back outside with us, and he went on his way.
That's when I just lost it, I started laughing so hard, I didn't know exactly what just happened! We started heading home, and on the tram had another 15 minute contact with 2 young Muslim guys. After that, we had a super quick contact with this guy who set up a rendez-vous with us in a matter like 3 minutes, because we were going to be late getting home! Then, as we were walking home, we saw this super drunk guy who couldn't walk straight..it was a crazy rush of events. Fridays and Saturday nights are hard because that's when everyone here goes out to party..so that was an interesting night.
So that was my main story for the week, but I have a bunch of short random ones, so if they seem all over the place, just keep reading! Haha, okay. Last Monday, we ran into some other missionaries..from the other mission! They were Dutch speaking missionaries! We started talking, took some pictures, and went on our way. That was fun. We also ran into some American tourist members! For some reason they took a picture of us..then didn't do anything else. I think they want to send it to you, but then didn't. It was weird. But they were nice ladies who were mission companions 15 years ago or something like that.
Then I had a weird thought at church yesterday. I was sitting when the thought came to me, "Man, I haven't gotten dressed up in church clothes in a long time!" Then I thought to myself, "Wait, I get dressed in church clothes every single day. Its just that I don't wear my suit every day." Haha, I thought that that was pretty funny. Today, the reason that we are emailing a bit later than usual is because we went to an all you can eat pizza hut buffet. It was so good! Very delicious.
Also I'm quickly finding out that a ton of people here think Mormons live in colonies and don't use technology. They think that because on the news, when talking about the branches of people that broke off from the church, like the FLDS people, they just say Mormons, so everyone gets confused, which means we have to explain that that isn't us they heard about. Then this is probably the most random. Elder S*, has recently found an obsession in my cheeks. He is such a funny guy. He loves to tell my how round, perfect, and shiny my cheeks are. He says that when people see me, they cant help but smile, just because my cheeks are shining. Its pretty funny. I start laughing whenever he brings it up, and then he mentions that that makes my cheeks shine even more.
I have one request though. I am getting tired of sit-ups and push-ups in the morning. I feel like whenever I lie down to start working out, all my knowledge of working out leaves me, so I default to the things I mentioned. So if anyone has a nice workout routine or something they would like to send my way, that would be great.
Well I think that's all that I have for this week everyone! Thank you so much for all that you do and for the emails each week! I love them so much! I love and miss you all very much! Until next week!
Love,
Elder Hamilton
*Names of people have been changed for their confidentiality
How is everyone doing? I would just like to start out by saying that everything is going great here in Belgium! Now, I don't really have a specific story from this weeks subject line, but that was just my indication for how fast this week passed! I think I blinked, and a whole week passed! Oh my goodness! Lets see, where to start this week? I guess I'll start out by telling you about last Friday night. Now, normally, Fridays aren't too exciting because that is usually weekly planning day which takes anywhere between 2 and 3 hours, which doesn't give a ton of time to do much else. But this last Friday was very exciting to say the least! It started out after studies, with a member.
This members name is John Paul*. He is one of the nicest, coolest man that I have ever met. But the thing is, he is super hard to understand! He has a very thick Belge accent. He feeds one of the missionary companionship every single Friday morning, so we eat with him every other week. He is very nice, and has money coming out his ears. So we ate with him Friday morning, had our weekly planning, and then had an even more exciting night. We had just finished doing something at the church (I don't remember what exactly.) and walked out of the gates when a man came up to us and started talking to us in English. He was asking about Mass..we explained to him that we weren't Catholic. We asked if he wanted a tour of the church building because we were at the church all ready to go! I thought to myself, this is so cool! This guy was just walking by when we walked out and he wants to learn more!
But we took him inside, and quickly found out that this guy wasn't alright upstairs...if you know what I mean. He was insane. We were telling him about some of the paintings in the church, when he just started rambling. I was trying to follow everything that he was saying to us, and I just couldn't! And remember that this guy was talking in English! He talked for like 25 minutes straight, with me and Elder A* just looking at each other trying to stop him in some way. We finally got him to go back outside with us, and he went on his way.
That's when I just lost it, I started laughing so hard, I didn't know exactly what just happened! We started heading home, and on the tram had another 15 minute contact with 2 young Muslim guys. After that, we had a super quick contact with this guy who set up a rendez-vous with us in a matter like 3 minutes, because we were going to be late getting home! Then, as we were walking home, we saw this super drunk guy who couldn't walk straight..it was a crazy rush of events. Fridays and Saturday nights are hard because that's when everyone here goes out to party..so that was an interesting night.
So that was my main story for the week, but I have a bunch of short random ones, so if they seem all over the place, just keep reading! Haha, okay. Last Monday, we ran into some other missionaries..from the other mission! They were Dutch speaking missionaries! We started talking, took some pictures, and went on our way. That was fun. We also ran into some American tourist members! For some reason they took a picture of us..then didn't do anything else. I think they want to send it to you, but then didn't. It was weird. But they were nice ladies who were mission companions 15 years ago or something like that.
Then I had a weird thought at church yesterday. I was sitting when the thought came to me, "Man, I haven't gotten dressed up in church clothes in a long time!" Then I thought to myself, "Wait, I get dressed in church clothes every single day. Its just that I don't wear my suit every day." Haha, I thought that that was pretty funny. Today, the reason that we are emailing a bit later than usual is because we went to an all you can eat pizza hut buffet. It was so good! Very delicious.
Also I'm quickly finding out that a ton of people here think Mormons live in colonies and don't use technology. They think that because on the news, when talking about the branches of people that broke off from the church, like the FLDS people, they just say Mormons, so everyone gets confused, which means we have to explain that that isn't us they heard about. Then this is probably the most random. Elder S*, has recently found an obsession in my cheeks. He is such a funny guy. He loves to tell my how round, perfect, and shiny my cheeks are. He says that when people see me, they cant help but smile, just because my cheeks are shining. Its pretty funny. I start laughing whenever he brings it up, and then he mentions that that makes my cheeks shine even more.
I have one request though. I am getting tired of sit-ups and push-ups in the morning. I feel like whenever I lie down to start working out, all my knowledge of working out leaves me, so I default to the things I mentioned. So if anyone has a nice workout routine or something they would like to send my way, that would be great.
Well I think that's all that I have for this week everyone! Thank you so much for all that you do and for the emails each week! I love them so much! I love and miss you all very much! Until next week!
Love,
Elder Hamilton
*Names of people have been changed for their confidentiality