Week twee!

Hello familie! So here´s my second go rouynd with the crazy French keyboards. Hopefully this will be a little easier. =) So good things keep on happening in Antwerpen! Today we had a district pday and ,et in a bequtiful park in a suburb of the city for waterballoon volleyball, a picnic, and mini golf. It was pretty fun, though I wish I´d had more letter writing time. =) It was super nice being in a lovely grand paek again - it reminded me a lot of London. We´ve had nearly a whole week of glorious sunny weather which is def a miracle in Belgie, so that was awesome.

As far as the work goes, iot was a pretty good week. The ZLs gave a priesthood blessing to one of our baptisimal dates, the older woman named Bertha. She didn´t manage to pull herself out of bed for church on Sunday, but such is life. =) We go see her later tonight, so hopefully we can make some progress.

We had a really lovely joint teach with another investigator, Angel, and a member named Julie. Angel speaks some Dutch but ,ostly French, so Julie translated for us. It was so nice to hear another language and not fight to understand every word! Dutch / Fle,,ish gets better everyday but it´s still frustrqting. The ,ission is teaching me loads about patience and not being a perfectionist. Julie herself is amazing. She has a son serving in France and another in Catania, Italy - they get home in September, and I´m pretty sure Will knew the one in Italy. So tell him to write me (snail mail - were not allowed to read emails from friends) and give me the name of that Elder. =) Julie just radiates maternal love - we visited her in her home and it really was just like stepping back into our own home - I love how the Spirit can conquer cultural divides and language barriers.

Friday we had distrikt meeting and pres. interviews. Since Im so new Id just seen pres a few days before, but nonetheless it was really helpful to have him kindly tell me to chill out and not freak out about the fact that I cant understand people hardly at all. Iùve found the phrase ´´Hello, I just ,oved from America, can I practice ,y Dutch with you?`` very useful; =) We didnt plan well and are out of time so I must cut this short. I love you all so much! Snail mail is the best way to keep in touch since I only have thirty ,inutes to read and reply to e-mails. Oh, and could someone send me a bunch of paper for 5 1/2 by 8 inch paper for ,y study journal binder? That´d be grand. Have a wonderful week!!!

my first week in the land!!!!

Hallo familie!!!! So I´m using a french keyboard with different fingeringsfor a fea of the keys, so bear with the weird spelling on this one. =) SoIve been in the wondermous land of Belgie for more than a week now! Mytrainer is an absolutely wonderful person by the name of Sister Barkume. Sheis a see,ingly endless font of patience, positivity, and kindness, not tomention an amazing missionary to boot. My first week we had a hard timereaching our goal of finding for forteen hours because we were so busy withappointments with investigqtors and members; so that was pretty amazing.Antwerpen is a really international city so we`ve taught a few Africans andit was good to be able to teach a bit in English. I can follow the flow ofconversation ,ost of the time, especially during discussions and church, butnot well enough to really contribute more than a simple testimony. So I dowhat I can and try to just learn from my trainer and understand Flemmish.Apparently I`m at an advantage lqnguqge wise with learning Flemmish first -it`s supposedly harder than Dutch so whenever I transfer to Nederland itshould be much easier. We shall see! I`ve also gotten to use my French alittle bit with some Africqn investigators, so thats been positive. Zr.Barkume loves to sing at the beginning of lessons so that´s really nice too.I´ve been a little frustrated with how little I can do so its good to beable to contribute in some ways. As for the city itself, we live in a suburb of Antwerpen calledMerksam. Its not as typically European looking as London or Parisneighborhoods but it has its lovely spots. We go running every morning(which is so awesome!) and there are tons of little parks and tiny castlesscattered around the town. We use mass transit and our own two feet to getaround, and yesterday I successfully started my first bus conversation. Ican be understood linguistically, I just can´t understand what other peopleare saying much of the time. But it´s getting better and better all thetime, and the rate at which Im learning is definitely a blessing from TheLord. We do most of our cooking, but Sunday after church we got to eatlunch with a wonderful woman named Zr. Van Laara and her teenage daughter,Stephie. Between their English and my Dutch we had a lovely conversationabout Zr. Van Laaras conversion when she was 17 or so. Even more fun, shehad an incredible set of bookshelves with everything from self-help books(shes a psychologist of sorts, I think) to Americqn lit like Steinbeck toHugh Nibley! When I asked about the Hugh Nibley, she said in English, ´Well,Ive been a member 30 years now, so I thought it was time to learn somethingnew.` It was so positive. The people at church are really nice andfriendly... Im excited for the day when I can actually understand themenough to have real conversations in Dutch.

Family!!! So it's my last pday at the MTC. INSANE. So before I run out oftime, here's my mission home address:Zuster Christa BaxterBelgium Brussels / Netherlands Mission87, Blvd. Brand Whitlock1200 BrusselsBELGIUMAlso, we got flight plans and my last Hep AB shot, so I am cleared to go! Wedepart at 5 in the morning next Monday, the 9th. My layover is in Atlanta GAfrom 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm supposedly, so that's when I can call. Mom, couldyou send me everyone's phone number? No one's cleared who we can call, sojust send me all my siblings and I'll for sure call home home first. =) Um, things are great here! We got 4 new sisters last Wednesday, all goingstateside. One is America-Tongan and the most ridiculously positive personever. It's weird seeing American districts that will leave after me. Butit's so helfpul for us to have other sisters here. I've learned the MTC isdifferent for everyone - overall I've loved it, but everyone has differentchallenges and perspectives. Also, the rules they have about not seeingfamily while in the MTC are SO IMPORTANT. One of the sisters ran into an oldfriend from her BYU ward (her RM relief society pres who'd stronglyencouraged her to put in her papers) and just broke into tears as she washugging her. We'd been waiting in the front of the MTC to meet the Elders towalk to the temple. It was good and bad for her to see her friend. Anywho,I'm just glad you're all close but not too close. You're awesome letterwriters too! It's great. That being said sometimes the LDS mail server iswacked out and we don't get all our e-mails. So if I don't respond tosomething you can assume I didn't get it. =/ Teaching is going well. We finally had a good lesson with our fakeinvestigator (as role played by Broeder Bradley) all about the priesthood.It really is so hard to explain the importance of the Restoration to people.But it's all good. All part of the learning experience. On Sunday we had an amazing devo. The director of International MTCsspoke. He got called to serve as a mish pres in Nagoya, Japan in his 30s.His wife spoke first and said she and the three kids decided to supporttheir dad/husband by singing at firesides. After she spoke they did anincredible Japanese and English acapella medley of hymns - it wasincredible. When he spoke, he showed us before and after pictures of hisElders - it really is crazy how much people grow up on missions. So good. They play films on Saturdays after the devotional, so instead ofwatching the Joseph Smith movie for the third time, my comp and I watched arecorded DVD of Pres Uchtdorf's visit to the MTC in August 2006. Afterwardshe and I had a really good chat about faith and answers and prayers andjust getting on your knees and asking for what you need to know. She and Iare so similar - she simply knows how to ask for help. I really thinkHeavenly Father made her my comp so I could find answers to some fo myconcerns (assuming He knew I'd be too stubborn to openly ask others for helpmyself). It's been quite the growing experience. Her class elder (the soloDane Elder) actually feels the same way. Oh, perfectionism! =) On Monday we had our last Teaching Experience. We taught two RMs who'dserved in the Netherlands. There's still so much Dutch I don't know, but itis really cool to feel the Spirit as you testify in broken Dutch. That night we had a departing missionaries health meeting. We met upwith the two Dutch Elders - I am so jealous of quatrilingual people. I'vealso decided BElgian Dutch is decidedly less disgusting than NetherlandsDutch, so hopefully I'll serve in Antwerp or something. =) Anyway, themeeting was hilarious... A 65 year old former urologist teaching us commonsense health rules. "Missionaries, don't associate with dogs!" Also, "Walkdefensively!" How exactly that's possible, I don't know, but whatev's. =)BUt I figure as long as I don't ride on the front hood of a car my comp isdriving on Pday, I'll survive my mission. The stories this man had of dumbmissionaries were amazing... We also had a Large Group Meeting on Monday about how baptizing andconfirming people members of the church is central to our purpose. It'sinteresting how many people sigh and tell European misssionaries thatthey'll plant seeds, reactivate members, or just love the people - and thatit's okay if we don't baptize. So I thank all of you for not doing that.I've realized here that this is the Lord's work - He wants His gospel to goforth to his children. I think our own lack of faith is often the biggestlimitation to the work. And I'm understanding more and more how much faithreally is a principle of action. If you think you'll succeed, you probablywill. So I'm hoping I can survive these next few months until my Dutch getsreally effective, and just go to work the whole time. Tuesday Elder Porter from the 70 spoke about loving your mission andreally relishing it - as opposed to enduring it. I guess I just can't stopthinking how lucky I am to be here, surrounded by so many amazing people.There are wonderful people everywhere here, but at the same time there willbe incredible people in my mission as well. I guess it's all about enjoyingwhere you're at and really actively making it the best it can be. Also, I'm pretty sure I really do have the best Elders in the MTC.They are such sincere, real, awesome, positive people. Also, I found outthey only offer Dutch at BYU in the fall, so I might see some of them inProvo again post-mish. So that'll be fun. Um, I guess I just really can'tsay enough how great this place is. I kind of hope I can teach here when Iget home, but we'll see. =) I'm slightly terrified of getting off the planeand contacting people, but so far I haven't panicked. Mostly I realize thereis a crazy amount of growth and learning about to go down, but it's allgood, and I really am excited I love you all! Keep your fingers crossed for me as I fly over! Have agreat week!