Week #1 in Antwerpen, Belgium

Hello Everyone! 

This has been one of the busiest weeks of my life!

We had to close our apartment in Emmen, Netherlands this week, but missionaries should be back in 6 weeks. We had some sad goodbyes, but lots of love for the Emmen branch! We love you all!!

Wednesday we closed the apartment and got on the train with all our stuff to go to Antwerpen! It was about a 3 or 4 hour train ride with stops in between: We traveled down with two elders who were going to Brussels. 

The following is from Sister Ogden’s letter:

“TRANSFER DAY!! That was a very long and exhausting day..... I was sooooo tired, but people were so nice and willing to help us!!  We had a miracle on transfer day! Alright, so everything went really well getting down Station Antwerpen. We had no bumps in the road until we tried to take the tram to our house with all of our luggage. In the midst of us struggling to get everything up and down the stairs, 2 really nice men and a teenage girl offered to help us. The teenage girl was with me, and the men took Sister Acheson's stuff. I got onto the wrong escalator with the girl, and as we were coming back up to the platform, the men ushered Sister A to a whole other platform. We were separated for a solid 5 minutes, so that was an adventure haha. I tried calling our phone on the girl's phone but the call would not go through. Add that to the fact that I can't understand anyone here. I was praying so hard that I would find her, but I actually wasn't scared. I know that Heavenly Father is very aware of us, especially on transfer day. All of a sudden, the girl's friends came up the stairs saying that they found "the girl in the red skirt" and she was down at the platform!!! I have no idea how this girl's friends made it down there, or how they knew that we were looking for Sister A in a red skirt, but that was such miracle for me.”

The previous sisters had set up an appointment for us already in Antwerpen. When we arrived, we ran to it trying to catch all the connecting trams. We made it and we met Musa one of our investigators. He is a super sweet 50 year old guy from Pakistan who speak English: I love him!

Thursday night we went back to the Netherlands to mission leadership council for our new callings as sister training leaders.

Friday we spent the whole day in Leiden, the mission headquarters, and got back late. It was such a good meeting! We talked about the needs of the mission and I got to see some friends and past companions! 

Saturday we spent half the day in Brussels telling the district leaders what we had learned and about decisions that had been made. We are doing a mission sacrifice so we can get back on track for baptisms. I am so excited to be doing this!! This is really going to boost faith in the mission to baptize!

We spent the rest of the week getting to know Antwerpen and calling lots of potentials. 

Super crazy week but a good one! Everyone here speaks French and I don't remember my French anymore! Time to learn French again! I am so excited to learn more Vlaams and get to know and love this place!!! 

The members at the Antwerpen Ward have been so kind to us already.  This kind sister sent this photo of us to our moms.

I saw the remaining session of LDS General Conference and it was AMAZING!!!!! I got a confirmation from the spirit this week that Russell M. Nelson is truly a prophet of God and that the work is being hastened. I know that this church is true and it's time to step up our game and go out and minister!

Have a great week!

Zuster Acheson