Week 2 Genk - Belgian Life

Hello Everyone!

What an adventure of a week it has been! I’ll start off with the absolutely crazy weather that we have had these past couple of days! It has snowed at least a little bit every-single day this week. How crazy is that? Probably normal over there in the mountains but not here. But that alone has been a blast besides the fact that it has brought the freezing air along with it and let’s not count out how humid it is. It's great you can put on like 4 layers and still feel the air right through it. I love it a whole new experience! Cold and all it's been a good week! 

GHETTO trains for life! The public transportation here in Belgium is.....you can say not quite as nice as it is in the Netherlands! They have all of the buses times so they leave at the exact same time then no one can get out of the parking lot and it a HUGE traffic jam. Nothing is electric here at all you have to stamp your card like they do in all the old train movies and it doesn't announce the stop you are getting off at. You have memorize the surroundings of the halte you need to get off at or it won't stop.

So that led up to my story about my first exchange here in Genk. Yes after a week of being 100% lost I got to take it over for the day with Elder Childs. It was hilarious and so fun. First things first we had to find our way back to Antwerpen Central and find the right train out of the 26 spoors and 4 levels of trains (prettiest train station I have ever seen). So that alone was an adventure. But no worries we were able to find out our way and make it home ha. A nice 6 hour train ride. But Friday with Elder Childs was so much fun. Sure we were lost 90% of the time but we were able to find a few super cool people and teach two really cool lessons. We literally got lost in the work ha-ha and had a fun time doing it:)

Tuesday ended up being a pretty awesome day as well. Although every appointment that we had ended up falling through we still decided we were going to make it a good day somehow. And that’s exactly what we did, we first went and looked up a pretty much inactive lady and she let us right in. We were able to talk about her concerns and hit hard on the blessing of church. We invited her to come back and she said yes. Well Sunday rolled around and guess who was there? She came and loved it. Another is we were about to hop back on a bus to head back to Genk after our appointment fell through. Keep in mind we have knocked about 15 doors in the area and there was nothing. So we were sitting at the bus stop and it was going to come in about 3 minutes but I just felt I should knock the door across the street. I fought with myself because I really didn't want to miss the bus that only comes ever hour. And I was pretty sure if that door opened I would have missed the bus. Well I did it anyway and a younger man opened it up and we began talking and he was looking for just what we had. We were able to get to know each other and he invited us back for tomorrow actually. That was a cool little miracle for me, and really a day full of them, 1 we didn't miss the bus it was late 2 we found an incredible investigator and 3 brought someone back to church. None of that would have happened if those appointments all went through.

We were able to teach Sargun twice this week and they were both really great lessons. She was the girl who had the baptismal date for 2 weeks from now. But her mom said no.....so we talked to the mom about it and she is considering it now as well as beginning to take the lessons!!! So exciting I really do think that it will end up working out, sargun is 100% ready and I can feel the spirit working with her mother. So we are praying for the best with them. Super cool family though!!

Mom Dad, you guys won't believe it but I ate so many stinking muscles on Saturday. Yes the kid who hates sea food had the "amazing" opportunity of eating 8 kilos of muscles with 6 people at a dinner appointment. It was hilarious though. And to be honest they weren't as bad as as thought Grandpa was right after all hah. Quite the experience though.

I just love this work more and more every day, and love the people that I get to serve. I never would have guessed how amazing a mission really is, it truly has blown my expectations out of the water. Ya sure there are always days where it is hard and times where I struggle, but man does the good out way the bad and somehow there always seems to be at least a little good every single day without fail if you only look for it! I love it!!!!! I know this is where I am supposed to be and I wouldn't trade it for anything. The church is true! 

Well I love you all and thanks for the prayers they help a lot and I am grateful for them! I hope all is going great back home in all that you are all doing, stay blessed! 

Love,
Elder Parr
#ReturnWithHonor