Week 8: "Wanna see my tattoo?"

August 5, 2013

Hallo iedereen!

This week has gone by so quickly, but it feels like forever since I last emailed. I am loving it here in Belgium -- it gets better everyday. It's still hard for me to realize that I'm a real missionary. But, I am; missionary work is happening.

We've taught a wide variety of people here in Kortrijk and in its surrounding area. I am understanding more and more every day, getting used to the dialect. I'm not too hard on myself, because I've met people from northern Belgium and the Netherlands who say they can't even understand this western dialect of Flams spoken in my area. There was one inactive member here that we taught my second day here -- I didn't understand a thing. We met with him again on Thursday, and I could understand, like, most of what he said. It was amazing. I realized that maybe I can speak to these people.

Cool experience of the week -- my companion and Elder Pouwer (on splits) ran into this inactive member, around 40, from Chile on the street. They made an appointment with him. Before we went to visit thim the next day, we were warned not to go to his apartment by an elder who had served in our area before. He said this guy had innappropriate pictures all over his walls. We still went. And he had pornography on his walls. (Don't be mistaken, that was not the cool experience.) We looked dead into his eyes as to not unintentionally see any of that stuff. He also had beer cans and cigarettes all over the place. We say an opening prayer -- guy starts bawling in the middle. Tells us about a near death experience he recently had -- super similar to Alma the younger's conversion experience in the Book of Mormon. He says he wants to change badly. We told him to start by cleaning up his apartment. This man immediately gets up and rips all the porn off his walls. This was Friday. He went with us to church on Sunday for the first time in 20 years. Miracles happen.

Also, we were teaching an investigator about 50 meters away from France in the city of Menen. We asked him (this dude is like 70) how he shows his love for Jesus Christ. He stands up and takes his shirt off to show us a tattoo of Christ over his heart. Yum.

Keep it real. The Church is true.

--Elder Bonney