September 15, 2016 --- he's back

Week 102 --- And so it ends . . .

This last week we met up with Renna and Roland (a Syrian lady who's been here for a couple years and her "adoptive dad" from her church here) we had given them the Book of Mormon the week before and Roland had read til Alma! It was harder for Renna considering French isn't her native tongue. So when we showed up today we talked about the Restoration with them and Renna's sister Marie who just got to Belgium 3 months ago. (She's trying to get papers here for her two daughters and husband who are still in Syria). The spirit was super strong throughout the whole lesson and even though Marie didn't understand everything you could tell she was touched by the Spirit. We gave them soft baptismal invites and they accepted but said they were really going to search to have a testimony for themselves. It was my last teaching appointment of my mission and it couldn't have gone better!  Then this Sunday we were heading to church but we missed our bus, so as we were waiting for a member to come pick us up guess who walks right by us....Renna and Marie! They were heading to church but the bus didn't pass by the normal stop for them so they were just walking around and they ran into us so we had the members take them to church and we took the next bus (which luckily got us there before church started). They absolutely loved church and can't wait to come back! They even came to our family home evening tonight! But it wasn't really a fhe....the members turned it into a giant dinner/party for our depart because Elder Andersøn is getting transferred as well. They even made us cheesecake and sang a couple French goodbye songs for us......I really hate being the center of attention! Haha :)

All in all this last week has been a pretty great way to end my mission.

I've learned these past two years that my Savior lives, he is my best friend. Our Father in Heaven is real and he loves us with a truly perfect and infinite love. This gospel permits ANYONE to change and to receive the wonderful blessings Heavenly Father has in store for us.  This church is His instrument in preaching the gospel, perfecting the saints, and redeeming the dead and it has been restored in our day by the Prophet Joseph Smith. I know all these things through the magnificent power of the Holy Ghost and if you haven't had these truths confirmed to you I plead with you to search for that confirmation with all your heart.

I can't wait to see you all again and express my love in person :)

Bronson

Photos:

Us eating at Claudette and Emmanuel's house.  Yannick is super adorable right?!  Also I made those cookies and they were delicious;)

Funny advertisement for Bicky sauce and Anderson after he found out we are getting whitewashed.

District meeting pictures and Elder Merritt being stiff fingered by Nord and Grayston.

Week 101 --- One last week to go

So the last two weeks have been fairly uneventful here in Namur.  We were able to see Elisabeth again and she accepted a soft invite to baptism. Now we just got to get her to church and things will start moving.  Donovan broke his foot this week, so they weren't able to come to church, but hopefully next week.  We've been getting invited over quite a bit so that's been pretty nice.

I'm really sorry, but like I said not much has happened. I'll make up for it with a lot of pictures. Besides, I'll see you all in a week and a half ;)

Bronson

Photos:

Us with cricri and Donovan . . . Pictures of the fortress of Namur (right across from our apartment) . . . us hanging out on a p-day a couple weeks ago.

A cool chip I found #christianchip

Week 100

Since Elder Jorgensen didn’t send an e-mail this week, I (Mom) will just post the e-mail his companion sent to his family (thanks Elder Anderson).

Well the sun decided to make this week a hot one for us, it has been beautiful recently but this past week was very hot and humid. Even our district leader who is Tahitian was complaining about how hot it was. Good old Tahiti doesn't have this beautiful Belgian humidity, reminds me of being back home. That didn't stop us from doing a ton of work though, we were able to do a lot this week and I really am happy with how it turned out. We have a family we are teaching and every time we go to do service they take another step in their process. The first time afterwards they began to pray everyday. The second time we cleaned their windows and window sills and they started reading everyday, and after Saturday we helped clean doors they agreed to come to church this next Sunday. It is awesome to see how the lord softens hearts and works wonders among his children. We also needed to go to Chaleroi, the area next to us, twice for exchanges as our district leader has been sick and at the hospital off and on these past few weeks. He does not like hospitals at all so the fact he went in the first place was amazing, now they keep scheduling stuff and doing things that don't help so he has been getting pretty fed up with it all. Charleroi is not the nicest of places so you get interesting looks from people more than normal when walks around in a white shirt and tie, luckily I had the Tahitian with me all day so nobody tried to do anything, the other two stayed on the nicer part of town all day haha.

Today we were up in Brussels playing soccer with our district and the zone leaders, that was fun and a little impromptu tournament started when some other guys showed up and asked to play with us, so we had four teams changing in and out and it was fun. We had been playing for over an hour before hand then we had that so we are all pretty tired now. We also had some cool people who we got to meet, one was a woman who is a Syrian refugee and has been here for about three years now, she really liked that we believed in a prophet today and has asked us to come over on Saturday to talk more. However this week we also had to drop some of the lesser progressing Amis as well so it was a week of ups and of some downs. This was a cool week at church in that the priesthood lesson and the sacrament meeting talks were all on family councils. The bishop got up and told the ward the idea came at a family home evening we had with his family when we shared the message about family councils given by elder Ballard in last Aprils conference. He loved what we said and decided to do one that week, and he had an awesome experience and has suddenly decided the whole ward needs to make sure we are home teaching and doing family councils. I thought it was cool cause I remember that morning Jorgensen asked me what we should talk about me I had no idea, but Elder Ballard came and talked to us at the MTC so I looked up what his last talk was and I really liked what it had to say. So we went ahead and based our message off that talk and it is great to see that the message really helped the family but now also may help the ward. Sometimes we are instruments in the lords hand even without knowing what will come of our use. I love you all and until next time

Elder Anderson

Week 99 - Final Zone Conference and Thoughts on Prayer

So on Tuesday we had a lesson with Cri-Cri and Donovan a mom and 17 year old son we've been teaching the last couple weeks. She has a ton of health problems and they're a little interesting, but super kind.  We taught about the Book of Mormon because we had watched the restoration video the last time. Donovan was super interested and he started reading the intro and asking questions before the end of the appointment. He finished by saying," I hate reading but I'm excited to start this book" :)

Wednesday we had Zone Conference and boy was it something. I was the only person dying in our zone so everyone made a big deal about it and kept making jokes about me dying. I hate the question, "What does it feel like to be dead?" 😡. But those young bucks don't know better yet, so I can't be mad ;) haha It was super cool during President's training at the end of the conference. He was talking about searching the scriptures not just reading and about praying and fasting A LOT.  He used the first part of Alma 17. And at the end of his training just as a little side note he talked about how we can become the kind of servants that merit the approbation "Well done, thou good and faithful servant". Then he added, while looking at me, "and the Lord will be pleased with the service you have given Him". I felt the Spirit like a fire inside me when he said that, and it was just what I needed as I neared the end of my service.

We had a dinner appointment 4 nights this week! I don't know what got into the members but I like it :) haha

I've been reflecting a lot this week on prayer and how great a blessing it is to be able to talk to our Father in heaven, the creator of the universe about anything and everything that is important to us.  A quick story to illustrate this.  Friday we get a call from the Bishop asking us to take the first five minutes after the sacrament and give the ward a specific challenge about missionary work to give the ward a little boost. Well we sat and were thinking about it all day Friday and Saturday, but we couldn't think of anything that felt appropriate.  It's like 8 o'clock Saturday night and we're eating dinner and just pondering over our problem. Anderson goes to make himself something to eat and I just start praying and begging for some help. After I finished my prayer I remembered that a few days earlier Anderson shared a quote during comp study from the end of chapter 1 of preach my gospel where there is a list of quotes on missionary work by prophets. So I go back there and find this one by Harold B Lee, "Missionary work is but home teaching to those who are not now members of the Church, and home teaching is nothing more or less than missionary work to Church members”. Then I received the inspiration to challenge each home and visiting teacher to provide an act of service for each person/family they visit during the next 40 days(which leads right up to conference). So we plan out our little talk and when we ask Bishop before church if he approved of our challenge he responded, "That is inspired! I love it!" Apparently there have been some problems with home/visiting teaching so the Bishop was really happy with that challenge. In short, prayer works....really well! :)

Loves!

Bronson

Week 98 --- Sorry Y'all this'll be a quick one ;)

So I just want to share an experience we had this week. You remember Elisabeth, the young Congolese mom we started teaching? Well we saw her twice this week.  Tuesday we shared the Joseph Smith story kind of briefly because her sister was there making a ruckus and at the end we didn't feel like she really got anything from it. So, we asked her to read the page in the brochure about the first vision and pray and ask God if it was true. We come back Thursday and just out of habit ask if she had prayed about it. She got really quiet and said she did.... But didn't say anything else. So we asked what happened and she told us she felt something really powerful. It was so powerful she got super scared and ran to check all the windows haha :) We talked about that feeling and she told us how she always feels something similar whenever we come and she really likes it. We testified that the Holy Ghost will always be there to testify of truth and then we helped her realize that all the other times in her life when she sincerely prayed to God she felt the same type of feelings. It was no joke the most spiritual atmosphere I've been in during a lesson. One could almost feel the spirit the way you feel the humidity. We introduced the Book of Mormon to her and she promised to read it while she was on vacation this week and then she's coming to church as soon as she gets back. This one is definitely a tender mercy of the Lord.

We'll be having my very last Zone Conference this week. Which means my dying testimony...... I'm actually pretty nervous. 😵

Love you all, have a great week! 

Week 97 --- The Beginning of the End . . .

This week we started teaching two families from the Congo (More Africans!!!!) :) One of them was super dope. Christian grew up in France and while he was in Switzerland for studies he met with the missionaries quite a bit, but he lost contact and his Book of Mormon was burned in an apartment fire. So when he saw us he was totally down to meet again. Now he has 7 kids!! Ages 22 to 2..... We had a really good first lesson and we'll be seeing him again tomorrow!

We did some more service for Amis and members. We taught Allal over at Ruben and Keilani's. Afterward while we were waiting for our train Allal saw Anderson playing with a deck of cards so he pulled out a deck and gave it to me. I looked at the cards that night and all the face cards had very detailed pictures of ladies that uhhh....well let's just say those cards are in the bottom of our trash can ;) haha  Next Lesson: #lawofchastity 

We had a training this week from our stake president talking about the challenges and issues of the work in Belgium. It was super powerful! 

It's so weird everyone keeps talking about me dying.... Most of my good friends are home.... But I'm super excited about these last few weeks! Things are going really well (we had at least one appointment planned every day this week!)

Love you all!

Bronson