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.