Week 42 - July 27 - Charleroi Belgium

My week in Belgium!!

This week has been super nuts man. I met my new companion and he is a Super nice guy.  We got white washed which means basically we have 0 investigators and 0 knowledge of the huge area that we are in. We walked like probably 25 miles already to find places.. maybe more. But it is a pretty good experience. The 40 members in the ward were so pumped that we were there on Sunday. In the sacrament meeting we went up to give our testimonies and introduce ourselves to everyone and when it was my turn to go up I just felt like this love for the ward and starting crying, telling them that I loved them and wanted to serve them and that I would do everything I could do to strengthen and grow the ward. The next two speakers after that talked about how grateful they are that they finally have good missionaries in the ward, and all the members came up to me after and told me how grateful they were for my testimony and that they would do all that they could to help us the missionaries out in our work. It was probably the most boss thing I have done on my mission haha.

The city that I am in right now is a strait up dump man.. ha like maybe the most ghetto places I have ever seen. But the food is amazing and the people are nice. I will send you pictures of what things they eat here. and also that boss guy Patrick is in the other Charleroi ward sadly... He is so cool though. He picked us up with all of our bags at the Train station and brought us to our apartment. He apparently takes us places on P-day.

Love you!

Love Elder Carson

This thing that I am eating is called a Meetriette (Machine gun) it is a giant baguette filled with a ton of meat, fries, veggies, and like a gallon of their special sauce. It was amazing. That will probably the last one I will ever eat though.. I was so full and I don't want to get fat in Belgium like I heard every other missionary that comes here does.

Week 41 - July 20 - Transfer week to Belgium

                   Hey Fam,

This week was pretty nuts! Monday we went and played the worst sport in the world (soccer) and my comp got pretty hurt in the shin and he thinks a ligament is torn or something so that sucks but he is still grindin' so that is good. If I had to sit in the apartment all day for like three days like I had to when my second comp was sick I would go nuts. Hopefully everything will be fine.

Thursday we got to teach this crazy African women named Terreza. She was like the nicest gentle person I have ever met, but when she started talking about Jesus she was like literally yelling her testimony, it was kind of hard not to laugh but I kept it in. After that we taught a young 12 year old boy named Jenisse who is the son of a less active guy in our ward and it was a super cool experience. We
taught him the plan of salvation and he was super interested in it. He said he really wants to know if it is true and wants to feel the spirit. super cool kid.

Friday we went to a huge family's house in the ward and it went super well. One of their kids is less active and their family just hates each other. We talked about the Book of Mormon and what it can do for them if they read it every day as a family. We asked all of them to share their testimonies of the Book of Mormon and not a single one of the kids had a testimony. We were able to share our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and how it changed our lives. I was tearing up pretty bad and the dad was crying. Super cool experience. I really hope we helped that family out a lot.

Saturday we taught our most solid investigator Kevin. We taught him about baptism again and asked him if he received an answer that the Book of Mormon is true and he said yes. He said when he prayed one night before bed and was impressed to look in the Book of Mormon. It was a scripture that really touched him and answered his prayer. We set a baptismal date for the 8th of August, and he is pretty excited.  Also that day we got the news of who is going where for transfer day and I am going to a place in Belgium called Charleroi! My new comp will be Elder Shenkal and we will be white washing the city also, so it will be interesting.. I also heard that it is the most ghetto scary city in the mission so I might not make it back alive.. jk mom.

love you guys!

love, Elder Carson

Week 40 - July 13 - Nantes

                Bon Jour Famille

What's up guys!  This week was pretty sweet!  On Monday we played some basketball with one of our African investigators,Terrance and the other Nantes Elders. It was a while since the last time I played some B-ball. After that I bought a sick french suit for 130 bucks so that people wouldn't laugh at my giant
American suit anymore..

Wednesday we went to one of the members houses that has been going through a divorce and we shared with him the video "The Refiner's fire" and told him that God gives us these tribulations and difficulties because he wants us to progress and learn. I have learned on my mission that one of the main purposes of this life is to learn. And one of the ways we learn is having hard times and tribulations in life. God really does love us and he wants us to become like him one day. But in order to become this perfect, all knowing God, we must obtain all the wisdom and knowledge that we can to have a head start going into the next life. This principle that I have learned on my mission has given me the desire to learn and experience as much as I can.

Thursday we taught a new investigator named Anderson and his story is nuts. He is from Cameroon and he doesn't have a family. He said that he was a slave in Egypt for like 8 years. In order to get here he said he crossed a desert for 2 weeks without any food or water and almost died. He also never went to school so he doesn't know how to read and write. The first appointment we had with him we just watched the restoration video on the Ipad and he really liked it. Without the Ipad he wouldn't have had been able to understand what we were trying to explain because he doesn't understand well. This guy is super cool though. He told us that he just wants a peaceful life and he wants to be a good man, but he just doesn't know how. We then bore our testimonies of how the gospel has brought so much joy to our lives and how it has made us the good men that we are today. He is super excited to learn more of the gospel and Jesus Christ.
Also that day we had another super important appointment that night that I was super nervous for because it was a members boy friend that believed in god that wanted us to answer some of his questions about Joseph Smith. I prepared spiritually as much as I could the week before to be able to have the spirit there with us as we spoke and it was one of the most spiritual lessons I have given on my mission.  Everything was so smooth. Every question he asked we answered perfectly and the french that I was speaking was the best I have spoken on my mission. It really was the spirit that was teaching the lesson through us.

Saturday was super sweet. We first taught this Muslim guy named Ishmael from Russia who spoke English. It went super well. We taught him the plan of salvation and he was super open and potentially the nicest person I have ever met in my life. I really had a different view of Muslims from that day on, because before I met him I really just did not like Muslims and their culture at all. I thought they
were all just mean, bitter and don't actually live the principles that they teach in their religion but there really are some good Muslim people.
Later that day we found a gold mine. While we were knocking doors one day, we found this giant African food store with millions of Africans talking outside of it, so we went in for like 2 hours and talked to some Africans about god. It was probably the highlight of my mission. We are just going to go over there now every day to teach Africans and get recipes for African food. One of them invited us over to make these African dress things called Boo Boos for us and eat some famous food from Africa called foo foo next week. Super pumped.

One last cool thing that happened that week is that on Sunday we went over to this guys house and taught him and his wife the restoration and they are super interested. We showed them part of the restoration video and brought our money African member to come with us and teach.  It went super well and I think they have a ton of potential.

Our boy David still has his baptismal date and is really starting to grow a testimony of the church.

Love you guys!


love, Elder Carson

 Me and Elder McBride at the Beach.

My District at District meeting.

 Playin ball with the Elder's and our Investigator!

 Elder McBride and I playing Ball.

 

Week 39 - July 6 - Nantes

Fam!

This week was pretty good.

Monday we set two baptismal dates and taught a sick african family with a member. The first baptismal date we set was for a guy named walter. He comes from central africa and he speaks fluent English. He
understands super well and keeps all of the commitments we give him. He calls us like every day to see how we are doing and sets appointments with us. He is definitely goin' in the water.

The second one is a dude from Nigeria named David. He is a super cool dude. We had to explain every principle we taught him out of the Bible, but he believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that we are the only church on the earth with the priesthood of god. The only problem is that he can only speak english so church is hard for him.
We had to translate for him the whole time and I don't think he had the most spiritual experience. He said that church was pretty good though so we'll see.

The other appointment we had that night was super sick. We met this one guy on the tram a while back called Moise and said that he wanted us to come by his house some time. So we took this sweet African
member with us to his house and when we got there he had 4 kids, a wife and a friend over. We taught the Book of Mormon and it went super well. He still has a lot of questions but they have a lot of
potential.

Tuesday we went to zone conference and it was pretty sweet. We had a training on the Ipads and then we got Ipads at the end of the meeting. Originally we were supposed to get individual ipads but I guess someone stole one hundred Ipads from the mission office the day before the conference so now each companionship shares one Ipad. They just
ordered some more so that we can have one for each missionary but Ivthink it will take a while. The Ipads have been so nice. We have been showing super good Mormon Messages to everyone. It has been working super well. We have had some muslims and catholics that were super closed before we showed the video, but after the video they are open with us and we end up having a really good conversation and get to bare our testimonies. Usually we show the video "Because of him". I'ts so good. God is so smart.

Friday we got to help a non member move. She had so much stuff and we were there like almost all day. She was so thankful and super nice. We didn't get to share with her anything, but I hope we will get to
another time. We are going to try and knock on her door one day to see if we can share a message with her.

That is about all that happened this week! love you guys! I will send pics.

love, Elder Carson

 The Beach with Elder McBride!

 

                            Our new Ipads!