We smashed the house with the Spirit

Wow, those were more questions that most...

I haven't typed as much on my typewriter this week, so thank goodness my fingers are used to this keyboard.  For some reason, I don't press the space bar as much on a manual typemachine, so if some words are smashed together, just ignore them.

We have a bunch of missionary comics in our apartment.  Included is a "Missionary companion checklist".  After answering a number of checklist questions, some are piano players, food hogs, lazy and so forth.  I was somewhat shocked to learn I fall under the "Hobby" category.  Which leads to the fact that I got a free guitar this week!  We took a rotting couch away in our apartment, and I jokingly asked the member helping us to pick me up a free guitar while he was at the dump (like with Elder Mower).  Ho ho ha.  Except he actually did it.  The thing is super old and was somewhat in shambles when I got it, but some rope, a sock, styrofoam and duct-tape later, it works.  It's missing a string--it wasn't when I got it--but otherwise it's in playable condition.  Now I have to both learn how to tune and play a guitar, then life's looking up.

As for me going on a mission to please my parents?  Psh.  Psh I say. If anybody thinks that, they obviously haven't been reading my emails.  I came on a mission for a few reasons, but I've stayed for Christ.  I've stayed for others.

Speaking of which.

Willy is doing fantastic.  I don't even know if I can sum up everything about him.  We went there last night and by the end of the appointment, he was standing up, shouting praises to God Almighty in joy.  So many things are coming together for him right now, it's unreal.  A man whom he loaned a sum of money finally got in contact with him after a number of years.  He had borrowed the money to go start a business or do a trade or something dealing with cars.  The money Willy had lent had helped incredibly and to show his gratitude, this same man straight-up gave Willy a new car!  A whole new car!  Aha, he grabbed the keys and papers and at one point and showed them to us.  "Look at what God has done!"  Another crazy thing happened at work--I'm not sure what entirely, nor can I quite say--but Willy basically saved the business, through what originally appeared an accident.  His boss is indebted to him.  A bunch of other things happened too.  God's power astounded me that evening.  I said in my prayers that I had no idea how to solve Willy's problem, nor any solution or idea that could--but I asked God to help him. What has happened is far, far beyond what I could have expected.  Willy told us he had been looking for the right church, the one where God presides.  He said he's found it.  He said this is the way.  He wants to be baptized, but he wants to know more.  Which is perfect, because that's exactly how it should be.  I'm not even sure how to express how much gratitude I have.

This week has been a dozy.

Also, we started teaching Adore.  He's from...Cameroon?...I can't remember.  He's an honest investigator, but has a lot of questions that are hard to understand and therefore difficult to answer.  Still, he's a cool guy and I'm looking forward to teaching him.

We taught our second lesson to Family Rodriguez.  Gee, sounds like somebody Elder Smith should be teaching over there in Spain.  Anydoodle, we retaught the Restoration to the mother, her son and 2 daughters (the third was upstairs).  I love families!  She fed us pannenkoeken and they accepted our message very well.  Translation is a problem though... Luckily, almost every member in the ward seems to speak French, so a good joint teach shouldn't be hard to find.

We went to Brussels again this week.  Big.  Busy.  Blech.  We hauled our butts all the way to who knows where to get to our appointment with a HQ referral, only to discover one of us had made a mistake and wrote down the time wrong.   Dangit.  Unfortunately, we had to skedaddle, so we couldn't stick around.  We gave the appointment to the French-speaking Elders serving in Brussels and they went instead.  It was both exciting and aggravating to hear from them later that this referral said during the appointment that he feels like it's time he becomes a Latter Day Saint.  AAARRRGGG.  Convert snaked.  That's okay, he lives 3 tram stops away from the church in Brussels and it will save time for us if the other Elders meet with him anyway.

When Elder Pitchforth and I were on exchanges in Leuven, we met a young guy named Ivan (pronounced "eefon").  He said "diddedy mack, you fine bro-homes can come back latah, aight".  So we did.  When we came in, WHAM, two more people ready to be taught.  Neat.  I turned the corner, WHAM, 3 daughters ready to be taught.  Oh my.  Two seconds later, WHAM, 2 other younger fellows walked it.  Holy Moses.  We taught 8 whole people a super solid lesson that evening.  We smashed the house with the Spirit, left behind 4 book of Mormons and split.  They felt it super strong and were very excited by our message.  We're going back next week.  I think it was 2, maybe even 3 separate families.  Tanzanian.

We were super busy this week.  It might be safe to say we deserve a relaxing P-day today.  Maybe I can thrum out some tunege on my new guitar-age.

Our apartment--because somebody keeps pestering--is a 1-bedroom place.  It's on the very top of a...3 or 4 story building and as such, there's a huge climb to get to it and the ceiling is slanted.  We have a laundry room, bathroom (without a tub) and living room.  The small hallway connecting the three acts as our kitchen and there's a tiny room for the water heater and wash machine.  A good word to describe it is cluttered; the living room contains our fridge, our desks, our dinner table, our lounge chairs and all our cupboards containing our books.  It takes about 2 days until everything is scattered everywhere.  If a large truck goes by, the entire house shakes.  It's pretty funny actually.

Anydoodle.  I can't think of anything else.  And I'm out of time.

Thanks to the Thompson's for their package and email!

Tot volgende keer,

Elder Burgess