Week 7: "You speak good Dutch. You just don't understand anything we say, do you?"

July 29, 2013

Hallo iedereen!!

 

I'm still trying to get used to these foreign keyboards, so bear with me. I don't have much time, so this won't be too too long.

 

Yes, I am here in Europe! Just not in the Netherlands. My first area is about six miles away from the French border, in Kortrijk, Belgium! Out of the 29 new missionaries who arrived six days ago with me, 7 were sent to Belgium. I was one of the chosen ones. Kortrijk is about as fqr South as you can get in my mission; the rest of Belgium is part of a French mission.

 

Down here they speak a dialect of Dutch, called Flemish (Flams). And it is NOT the language I was taught in the MTC. Main differences I've noticed -- they don't use the gutteral G, they hiss their G's? and whenever you'd make a V sound in Dutch, you make a W sound in Flams. Weird. Flams speakers in Kortrijk (it is seriously a dialect within a dialect) all talk very fast and slur their words together. Seasoned missionairies all say Kortrijk is one of the hardest places to understand Flams. A guy at church yesterday told me (in English): "you speak good Dutch. You just don't understand anything we say, do you?"

 

Yay.

 

Needless to say, I rarely understand people when they talk here. And I have a pretty decent grasp on the Dutch language (I was talking to people in Flemish in Antwerpen earlier today). So, that's kind of rough. But, other than that, life is good!

 

I don't have much more time, so what's belangrijk...

 

--My trainer/companion is Elder Eastmond, a short guy from Utah (surprise) with a good heart and work ethic. He's also the District Leader, so we get to go on splits with other compânionships a bit. That's cool.

 

--It rains a lot. I've gotten soaked more than once. We bike a lot. I was left a bike by the last elder here who went home.

 

--Elder Eastmond and I are whitewashing Kortrijk, so we're both brand new here. That's exciting and interesting.

 

OH, my address! Letters are awesome. You can send mail internationally with three US forever stamps.

 

Elder John Bonney

Jan Persijnstraat 20/B3 bus 1

8500 Kortrijk

Belgium

 

I haven't had contact with the outside world for a week now, and I have little time to email, so letters are always welcome.

 

Basically, I'm always tired, missionary life is busy and great, and I'm in Belgium. It's hotter than I thought it would be. Oh, and like 15 percent of people here speak French, not Flams, so we street contact in French (which my comp speaks none of and I've largely forgotten), Flams, And English.

 

Life is exciting.

 

Tot ziens,

Elder Bonney