Belgium - Week 27 (Brussels)

8/26/13

 

Bonjour à tous!

 

So this week was pretty crazy comme toujours (as always).  Lots of crazy things went down... The craziest thing of the week happened on Saturday. 

So...

 

One of our investigators invited us to this big multi religion, international conference called "la fin du monde" which means the topic of the conference was about the end of the world haha. When we got there it was in a super nice hotel in Brussels and there were about 12 priests from 12 different Christian churches there in charge of the program. In the congregation was about 100 other people. Of the 100 ish people in the audience, there were only 2 white people.... Me and Elder Player. Everyone else was African which was super cool haha! We stuck out like sore thumbs though in our white shirts and ties. It was awesome, we were definitely turning some heads haha. The speakers were super animated and African-like in their preaching. There was a lot of yelling and 'Amens' being shouted from the audience haha. It was a super fun experience. During the 30 minute intermission... Elder Player and I got swarmed by some of the priests and the other guys in charge of the program. They were super interested in us and treated us like kings for some reason haha. 

They even asked me if I wanted to address the congregation!!!!! I totally wanted to, but we had a lesson we had to go to and I was pretty nervous so I talked myself out of it unfortunately. I totally should have done it. I'm super mad at myself that I didn't.

The priests that were talking before the intermission were talking a lot about Apostasy as one of the signs of the end of the world so I wanted to go up and talk about the Great Apostasy and relate it to the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in the latter days. UGHHHH. Such a missed opportunity. If I ever get a next time I am for sure jumping on an opportunity like that!

Sunday was awesome, we had 5 investigators at church including a wonderful young family that we found recently. They are so golden.

Unfortunately transfers are coming up in a couple weeks. I feel like we have so many people super close to baptism so I really want to stay here in Belgium!!!! 

The church is true!

Love,

Elder Davis

Belgium - Week 26 (Brussels)

8/19/13

 

Hey everyone,

This weeks email might be a little on the short side. It was kind of a rough week. Nothing super terrible happened, but we didn't really have a ton of success either. With us getting to the end of the summer everyone here in Europe is trying to squeeze in their last minute vacations so everyone was out of town and we weren't able to visit many of our investigators. That's life though! We still did our best to find new investigators and the Lord blessed us. We found a couple awesome guys who we have since started teaching. We gave them each a tour of the church the other day and I was able to put my piano skills to the test. During the tour, in the chapel, I played some hymns so they could hear what the music sounds like. It really invited the spirit. Super cool experience. 

Despite not teaching a lot of lessons, we got to try doing some new things. We took a young man from our church (Raphael Wendo, 16 years old) out with us for an evening of missionary work. We were originally going to have a couple lessons, but the lessons fell through. So instead we knocked on some doors and talked to people on the street about the gospel. Of course we do this day in and day out as missionaries, but this was Raphael's first time so it was really cool. He was such a stud! I was very impressed with his boldness and desire to help us out. We've been doing lots of things with the young men in our area to keep them involved with missionary work which has been really fun for us and for them. 

 

All of you young men at home 16 and older.... ask the missionaries in your ward if you can hang out with them one night and help them teach/find. you will learn a lot and have a ton of fun. 

Until next week!

Elder Davis

Me with Raphael Wendo and wool 16 year old priest we took out on Wednesday. he's tall, but he's a gentle giant. Nice view of some Belgium apartments too‏

 

Brother Frakin. An old Belg member that took us to lunch on Friday. He's missing his left arm from the elbow down so his stub is on my back haha.

Elders Wood and Wilson made me a cake for my birthday!!! Wilson left, Wood right.

Belgium - Week 25 (Brussels)

8/12/13

 

Hello Everyone!

Another week has come and gone in the blink of an eye. Lots of crazy things went down the past 7 days. Lets see.... 

On Friday we had to go back to Paris to finish up Elder Players Legality. That was a lot of fun because after we finished legality we had a couple hours to kill in Paris until the next train back to Brussels so I took Elder Player to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time. He was as giddy as a school girl in a candy store when he first laid eyes on it so that was super funny haha. Can't blame him though, it's pretty cool. 

 

Paris was cool, but the best part of the week was still the missionary work we did. Elder Player and I have straight up been doing WORK here in Strombeek. The Lord has blessed us with so much success and I'm just so grateful for that. This week we found more investigators than I ever have in one single week before. In fact, we found more new investigators in this week alone than I did in my entire 2nd transfer (A transfer is a 6 week period of time). Our mission president has been challenging us to find and teach young families and that's what we've been doing. We've been led to these young families one miracle after another and it just blows my mind how its all happened.

Day in and day out, I'm amazed at how much of missionary work is really out of our hands as missionaries. We just do what we can, then the Lord blesses us. 

 

I don't have any specific updates on any of our investigators since most of them are new. But, we have one investigator named Emerson who is a cool 18 year old guy from Congo. I think he's ready to get baptized so hopefully we'll be able to set a date with him this week. Pray for him. 

 

Also, I had an awesome birthday yesterday. Elder Wood and Wilson made me a cake so that was super nice of them. I'm grateful to live with such awesome guys. 

 

I hope you all are doing well. Keep saying your prayers, keep reading your scriptures, keep going to church, keep doing those little things. Those tiny spiritual things add up and can make a big difference in a persons life. I've seen the difference in my life and I've seen the difference made in the lives of others. Sometimes we overlook the simple things, but "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass". If you need a little extra help in life right now, consider that. 

 

Talk to you all next week,

 

Elder Davis

Belgium - Week 24 (Brussels)

8/5/13

 

Hello everyone,

 

Yesterday ended my 4th transfer out in the mission field. For transfer 5 I will be staying here in Brussels with Elder Player. Not a huge surprise, its pretty common for a trainer to stay with his "son" for 2 transfers. That means another 6 weeks here in Brussels; I'm super excited. Elder Wood and Elder Wilson are staying too so our apartment will all be the same for another 6 weeks which is awesome because these guys are the best. (I promise I said that with more enthusiasm but the exclamation mark doesn't work on this keyboard) 

 

This past week has been super busy. We did a couple exchanges so we had an opportunity to work with some other missionaries and learn with them. Emerson came to church yesterday which was super cool. He's an awesome 17 year old guy from Congo and he's getting super close to baptism. He should be baptized soon, but I think he might have to be baptized by some different missionaries because of where he lives. That's happened to me multiple times where I find or teach someone, but then somebody else baptizes them. C'est la vie. I'm just glad I got to play a part in their process of coming closer to Jesus Christ. 

Looking back on transfer 4 I can say that Elder Player and I did some awesome work together. We completely filled our planners with new/potential investigators. We found several new investigators this transfer and over 100 different potential individuals/families. I didn't think that'd would be possible, but the Lord has really blessed us here in Brussels. Since we are the first missionaries in this area, we had to build it up by finding a bunch of people to teach and I think we accomplished that goal. 

Our mission baptized a record amount of people this past week (at least since I've been here). the work is moving along fast, its crazy.

 

I love my mission. I love this once in a lifetime opportunity I have to be here in Belgium, speak French, meet awesome people and learn and grow personally. Missionary work is something we do to help other people, but it's amazing how much we benefit from it personally in the process. 

 

Thank you for all you guys do for me,

 

Elder Davis

Pictures from week 23

Licking the Eiffel Tower

 I have this thing were I take pictures of my tag in front of all the cool things I see. Maybe I'll make a slide show or something someday haha.

 

 

 

Notre Dame

 

 

Bridge of locks of love. Google it! Famous bridge in Paris‏

 

 

 

 

Brussels arc. skinny tie‏

Old catholic church in Brussels‏

 

In order, E. Player, me, E. Wilson, E. Wood. On top of the 3rd biggest catholic church in the world. Looking over our city of Brussels‏

 

 

BOM in hand, crying repentance to the people of brussels‏

 

 

4 fingers for 4 transfers‏

 

Belgium - Week 23 (Brussels)

7-29-13

 

 

Hey family and friends,

 

I hope you've all had an awesome week. This week has been pretty out of control for me. So many awesome things are going on right now.

 

A couple days ago we had to go to Paris for Elder Player to take care of his legality so he can live in France/Belgium the next couple of years. While he was doing his legality with some of the other new missionaries, me and the other trainers got to go out and have some fun in Paris. The AP's made a missionary scavenger hunt for us. This was the task:

 

1. Lick the Eiffel Tower

2. Find and African wearing a BooBoo (then contact him, get his phone number and take a picture with him)

3. Sing a hymn to someone on the street
4. Take a picture with a French Hobo

5. Contact everyone you see pushing a stroller

6. Preach to a group of 5 people or more

7. Get 6 other phone numbers

 

(to "contact someone" means to go up to them and teach them about the gospel)

 

We had a couple hours to do this so we all split up into new companionships (I went with Elder Platt another trainer that I was in the MTC with) and we were off. Elder Platt and I didn't have a chance to do all of those things, but we did a bunch of them and had a ton of fun while getting referrals for the missionaries in Paris.

 

While we were doing this I also saw the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel tower, and Notre Dame.... not a bad day huh?

 

That was the first time I've actually seen the Eiffel Tower up close. And trust me... I got REAL close. I'll send a picture haha.

 

Last P-day (so last monday), after we wrote emails we saw a lot of cool old churches and stuff here in Brussels. We live right next to the 3rd biggest church in the world. It's literally right outside our window, we ran around it this morning during workouts.

 

I have a ton of good pictures so I'll try to send some.

 

Seeing all these cool things was a lot of fun. But it definitely wasn't the highlight of the week. We are having a ton of success here in Strombeek. We are finding new investigators, teaching, and getting people to church like crazy. It's amazing how the Lord is preparing these people for us each and every day. This is the most success I've had so far on my mission. Brussels is the promise land for missionary work baby!

 

I could just go on and on. I am surrounded by amazing people. I love Elder Player and Elder Wood and Elder Wilson. They are all such awesome guys and we work super well together. They really inspire me to be the best missionary I can be.

 

Last thing... I got a letter last week from one of my old investigators from Saint Brieuc. Her name is Joelle Tanguy. I've talked about her a lot in old emails home. I can't remember if I've told you guys this or not, but the letter I received from her last week was probably one of the greatest letters I've ever received in my life. She wrote me to tell me thank you for the things I and the other missionaries had taught her. She said that she knows the church is true and that she will be eternally grateful for everything the missionaries have done for her. She is getting baptized. It's letters of gratitude like that that make missionary work the greatest work in all of the world. Missionary work is SOOOO hard, but it is SOOOO rewarding.

 

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support. Have a great week.

 

Elder Davis

 

(He sent a TON of pictures, so they will have to be in a separate post :))

Belgium - Week 22 (Brussels)

7-22-13

Hello everyone!

 

Hope life is treating you well and summer isn't passing you by too fast. Its so great to hear from you guys and to hear about everyone getting mission calls/starting their missions!

This week has been super good; full of interesting experiences like always. Where too start... 

 

Well the other day Elder Player and I got a call from the sister missionaries in our area. They said they had an investigator who really wanted a priesthood blessing. As we were on a metro on our way to meet the sister missionaries we received a text that explained the reason why we were giving the blessing. Apparently the sisters investigator thought that herself and her house were possessed or otherwise somehow effected by black magic. When we got to her house we talked to her to get to know her and her situation a little bit better, then Elder Player and I gave her a blessing. It was definitely a really weird situation going into it, but it turned out to be really cool and spiritual. We gave her a priesthood blessing of comfort and counsel and the spirit was super strong when we left. super cool experience. 

 

We did a lot of service this week and taught a lot of cool lessons. We had one lesson this week with Kingsly and Marseila an awesome couple who are living together, but aren't married. They really want to be baptized, but the rule in the church is that they can't be baptized unless they get married or stop living together. We taught them the law of chastity and the lesson went super well. they accepted everything and then said they want to get married ASAP so they can keep the commandments and get baptized. They have so much faith and such awesome desires to follow Christ and keep the commandments.

 

They told us that they would get married "tomorrow if it were possible." They then asked for our help to somehow figure out a way to get them married. The laws and customs here in Belgium are different for weddings than in America, but we are going to try to get them married soon so they can get baptized!

Lets see, what else happened this week... We taught a lesson to a guy who we later found out was the leader of a small gang. That turned out to be super interesting. We aren't going to teach him anymore obviously, but now he thinks we're good friends so whenever he or people in his gang see us walking around the city (which is often) they always wave to us haha. 

We did lots of service this past week and the sister missionaries had a baptism Saturday so that was super cool. One of our investigators is getting baptized this Saturday too so pray that everything will go well with that!

 

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support! talk to you next week!

 

Elder Davis

 

 

#1 Tie collection growing at an alarming rate!

 

#2 Biggest catholic church in Belgium. We run around it when we go running; it is right by our apartment‏

 

#3 Me with Elder Player, my 'BLUE'. This is his first day in the field when I picked him up from Paris.

 

Belguim - Week 21 (Brussels)

7-15-13

 

Bonjour Toute le Monde,

J'espère que vous avez passé une bonne semaine. La vie est belle ici en Belgique. 

We had such an awesome week here in Brussels. Tons of success and tons of miracles. This is probably the most success I've had on my mission so far. Yesterday at church we had 4 people there. We had a young African family with a young daughter and another investigator from Spain who only speaks Spanish. We also found a ton of new investigators/potential investigators and fixed some baptismal dates. Missionary work is exploding here. 

This week we had to help some other missionaries move from one apartment to another. During the move we spent a lot of time with Elder Oakelberry a senior missionary. He served his mission in Paris back in the day at the same time as Mitt Romney. Pretty cool huh? He had lots of experiences with Elder Romney so it was fun listening to his stories. 

On Friday we met this cool old guy who learned English from watching American movies. His English is actually pretty good, but he has an interesting vocabulary haha. So I guess if you want to learn another language just watch movies in your language of choice for many years. 

We had a lesson last night with an African named Adelbert. When we got to his house he let us in and told us to sit down. Then he quickly went upstairs and didn't come back for like 15 or 20 minutes. We were awkwardly talking to his family members who were very uninterested in us during this time. When he came back, he was wearing dress pants and a white shirt and tie haha. He looked almost exactly like a missionary. Super funny, my jaw about hit the floor when I saw him. He said he wanted to dress up like us to show his respect and reverence for the spiritual discussion we were about to have. After our lesson he wanted to go do missionary work with us including knocking on doors. We didn't let him, but man I love Africans haha. 

My new missionary tactic these days is contacting people with American Sports teams or logos on their clothing. Last night I talked to this guy on the metro with a NY Yankees jersey on and he was pretty legit. We were just small talking and after a few minutes he opened up to me and asked me if I could help him stop drinking. I told him I could and got his phone number and everything. He also taught me some Swahili so that was fun. Apparently Hakuna Matata is Swahili for "All is well". And all this time while watching the lion king as a kid I thought it was just some guy making stuff up. 

Anyways... Life is good. The weather is nice and sunny but not super hot so that is cool. I have a really interesting missionary tan complete with the watch tan. 

The church is true. I get to watch it change lives each and every day. Have a great week everyone.

Elder Davis