Week 17: "that was...BEAUTIFUL"

October 6, 2013

Hey, everyone!

How about conference this past weekend? I have to say, I've never looked forward to or enjoyed conference as much as I did yesterday. It was great. A great family in our branch, familie Leman, had us over for the whole day yesterday, and we got to watch the priesthood, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning sessions (in addition to fun times and food in between). The Sunday morning session we watched live. It's funny -- you hear people cheesily say something like, "no matter how far away we are, we're still looking at the same stars," or something like that. Well... no matter how far away we are, we probably watched the Sunday morning session at the same time. How's that for true Mormon affection?

This week wasn't too exciting, but we did give baptismal dates to a Sri Lankan couple we've been teaching! Elder Toole and I taught them on Tuesday, and we watched a video, "Our Heavenly Father's Plan," with them. You need to understand that that film (it's about 30 minutes long) is made by the church, and is about as cheesy and 80s as you can get. Watch it sometime. Elder Toole and I were literally trying not to bust up laughing the whole time (we'd never seen it before we showed it to them...mistake). Anyways, it finishes, and I'm just thinking, "I can't believe we just showed that to them, they're going to think we're ridiculous..." We ask them what they thought, and they just turn to us, in a state of glorious shock, and say, "that was...BEAUTIFUL." With all sincerity. It was great. They wanted us to come back on Friday, and we left the DVD with them. They watched it two more times, they loved it so much. Elder Bishop and I (on exchanges) came back on Friday and challenged them both to baptism. They accepted (but want to learn more first, so their date isn't for a month or so). That's just how we do it in Kortrijk.

Did anyone else realize that yesterday marks a whole year since President Monson made the announcement about the missionary age change? I can't believe it's been a year. So much has happened since then, and now I've already been out for almost four months. If he hadn't made that announcement when he did, I probably wouldn't be out yet. That's pretty weird to think about. I'm grateful for that announcement, and I'm also really grateful for all the great things that have happened in the past year, in and out of the mission field.

In a week, we get transfer calls! I'll find out if I'm staying here in Kortrijk for six more weeks, or if I'm off somewhere else. This transfer has definitely been an adventure -- going senior companion and taking over a city on my second transfer hasn't been easy, but it's definitely been a learning experience for which I'm thankful to have had. I'll let you guys know next time if:where I'm going!

Keep cool everyone, and have a great week. Tot zo.

--Elder Bonney