March 29, 2010

Hey family, what’s up? Is everything going great? Well, this week has been awesome! Thursday we played chess again over at the investigators house. It was fun. He is opening up more and more with us. He is a funny guy. We passed by another amie de léglise (friend of the church or investigator) and his name is Didier. He was taught a long time ago and he use to have a baptism date but for some reason he never got baptized. We taught him a lesson and we committed him to be baptized again and he said yes. He wants us to come over to teach him again but his girl friend said no. So we never set up a B-date with him but we will still work with him and his girl friend.

On Wednesday, we had a work day with the office elders and Elder Caywood went with Elder Ferguson and I went With Elder Schmutz. Now the funny thing, Elder Schmutz lives in Ruth’s ward. He was at Jers farewell and homecoming and I guess his family knows their family, so I thought that was pretty cool. Well, the work day was great. I spent a lot of the time in the office helping them out and I worked on an invitation where the speaker at church gives it to a couple of friends and invites them to hear their talk. Then the missionary’s talk to the friend and tell them about our church. So, I worked on that for a little bit, so that was pretty cool. Then we did some contacting and I got to make some call in French. That was pretty fun to set up rendezvous’ in French. Rendezvous means appointment, it was awesome.

Now I have a story for you. On Thursday we went over to see a friend of a member and it was awesome and I mean AWESOME! She was telling us that we were sent from God to teach her religion and that we brought the light in her house and she wants to be baptized. It was sweet, but the funny part was it was 9 o’clock at night and we are to be back at the apartment at 9 30. Well, she said she made us food and she made it for us so we stayed and ate it. She was African and she made us Foufou. It is like some kind of bread stuff. Not bad. You eat with your hands and you grab it and roll it into a ball and dip it into some kind of sauce. Well she comes out with a bowl of soup with some kind of meat in the middle to use as the sauce. Well, before I go on, let me tell you my theory. You know how at the store when you walk by all the fish they all have their heads cut off. I wondered what they did with the heads. I thought they gave them to cats or something. Well, I was wrong. Apparently, they give them to people and the next thing you know when you go over to the persons house you will get soup with a fish head in it. Yes! Yes, the soup we had was fish head soup - yum...... I took a picture of it and sent it to you guys. You could see the eye and mouth. You should have seen my face when she told us it was a fish head. Well, in Africa they give the men the head of the fish because they are the head of the family. So, ya I didn’t eat it though - it was nasty. Well, I had a little bit before she told me it was a fish head. Well, that is my funny story. I put the picture in the mail today so it should be there soon.

Well, that is pretty much my week. I love the mission! It is great. On Saturdays we play football (soccer) and we invite amies to come to it and it is way fun. Well, I have to run. I love you all and hope you have a great week. Have a great general conference and Happy Easter. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

Offical Mission Change

This is the letter that was sent to officially change Chris's mission. He is now a part of the Paris France mission.

March 22, 2010

Hello Family! How is the good old life back in the states? Well everything is going well. Not much has gone on, wait, no I am wrong. I don’t know if I told you last week but last Monday I became legal in Belgium. Last Friday I went done to Lille France to become legal in France. So now I am legal in both Belgium and France - O ya! Well, I found out that the Paris France missionary’s probably won’t be serving in Belgium at all or for a long time. The reason why is because it is very hard to get a Belgie visa in America, let alone in France. In America you have to get FBI clearance and medical tests which I had to do in the MTC. As missionary’s call it “Magic Tuesday” because it is always on Tuesday, and you have medical tests done. So it is hard to get a visa in Belgium now if you’re in France. It is almost impossible parce que (because) they don’t like you to be legal in France and Belgium. In fact, it is against the law down in France to be legal in both countries for some reason. So, they told the missionary’s to never carry your Belgie legality card and your French legality card at the same time. So, for right now a lot of the missionary’s in Belgium will stay in Belgium. One exception, for the new missionary’s, they can also come to Belgium. So that is what I have been told. So ya just some info.

Well, it seems like almost all of our investigator are sick. We haven’t been able to see the investigators that have baptisms dates because they say they are sick. I hope that next week we will be able to see more. O ya, Wednesday, now that was a day for me, let me tell ya. It was a work day with the zone leaders and Elder Caywood went with Elder Cabrera and I went with the other zone leader Elder Mota. Well, Elder Mota and I went to pass by an investigator by our church. We have never talked to him or anything, but we got there and he takes us to a room with all these massage chairs. I guess he sells them. We start talking and he told us we have to try these chairs so we tried them. They were so comfortable. I just felt so relaxed. We both thought that he was going to try to sell them to us but he never brought it up. He seems interested in the church and wants us to come back. So, we were like ok that works. After we went to another rendezvous (appointment) were we went to see an inactive. Let me tell you a little about him. He was baptized about a year ago and he stopped coming. He doesn’t want anything to do with the church and he studies chess for 4 hours a day. He is a champion chess player. So, when we called to set up the rendezvous he said “no” to us. But we convinced him to let us come over if we just played chess. So, we went over and played chess and talked for a long time. He is really nice and taught us a little about chess, so that was cool. When we were leaving he said his door is always open and we are free to come back and we can share a scripture with him. Also, we are going to see him again on Tuesday, so that is sweet. He also said that he has another chess board that he does not use and he wants to give it to us, so we will see if that happens on Tuesday. But he is a slick investigator.

On Saturday’s now we play football (soccer) at 9 am. We invite investigators to come and play and it is so fun. Of course we do get our butts kicked because they are French or African and the only sport they play is football. So, we lose but we don’t keep score. We just play to have fun and to get investigator to come an say “hi” so that is a pretty cool thing we do.

Well, not much is going on. Life here is great. Time has just gone by so fast. It feels like yesterday I was in the MTC and I was home. Oh wow, it has gone by so fast for me. Well, life here is great. I love it here in Belgium/Europe. It is an awesome place. Well, I hope you are all having a great time and hope everything is going AWESOME. I just want you to know JE t´AIME (I Love you) and hope you all will have a great week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

Photo's

Here are some photo's from Chris's farewell that we just received. Then there are also two photos that Chris sent home this week. Hope you enjoy.



These are his shoes that cracked right down the middle. Mr. Mac's was nice enough to give him a new pair for free.
This is Chris somewhere in Belgium. He didn't say where he was.

March 15, 2010

Hey family, how is everything going? I hope it is going great. Well, not much has gone on this week because we had Zone Conference on Friday and it was awesome. We talked about personal revelation. That is what we did all of Friday. We didn’t have that many appointments this week because they all pretty much canceled on us. Or in other words they BOAFED us. Boaf is a Belgium missionary term for lazy or for one who didn’t show up for their appointment. So, as I was saying we got boafed 6 times in a row. So that was not fun. Two days with no appointments, but we did some finding.

We did however set up a baptism date with an Amie de l´église. Amie de l´église means friend of the church or an investigator. It is for the first week in September because she has to go through some repenting before she can be baptized. While we were at the appointment her little kid ate my clip to my name tag. You just don’t do that. You don’t eat someone’s clip for their name tag. It’s just wrong I tell you, just wrong. Ah – just kidding - I didn’t really care. I had another clip back at the apartment so no big worries.

On one of the days I taught a lesson all by myself. We went to an appointment and there was the Amie de leglise there with one of his friends. The funny part was one spoke only English and the other spoke only French. I think they communicated through some African language. Well, my companion taught in French and I taught in English. It was pretty cool.

Well, you know what; there are a couple of things I really miss. 1. Good old American milk. This milk here is not so good but I am getting use to it. It is non-pasteurized milk that is in a cardboard box sitting out at room temperature. But we like to put it in the fridge to have cold milk for breakfast. The stores here are ok. Ya, I don’t really know how to describe them. They are just stores. If you come to Belgium there are a couple of things I would not eat. Well, if you were me but everyone has their own opinions. 1. A hamburger. I had one and it was the worst hamburger I have ever eaten 2. A thing called a Freakadell. They look like the old hotdogs you see at the gas station and it looks like they have been there for years. Ya, that’s what they look like. My companion got one in his first transfer for lunch and at a members’ house later around 5 o’clock, his colon started bleeding - so not too good. But, Belgium has good waffles and good fries, so that is good.

Well, the mission work is great and I am glad to be here. Around general conference it starts to get hot so we are allowed to take off our suit coats and wear short sleeve shirts, so that is cool. Good news, I am now legal in Belgium. I went to my legality today so that is why my e mail is late. So, now I just need to be legal in France.

Tell Brendon congratulations! I hope you all send me some pictures and I hope they are both having a great time.

Well, I love you all and hope you all have a great week. I hope you all are staying bright eyed, bushy tailed and egger to excel. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER

March 8, 2010

Hey, how is everyone doing? I hope everything is going great. Well, this week was awesome. It was transfer week. On Wednesday, Elder Caywood and I went to the train station with Elder Mitchell to pick up his new companion, Elder Paorli. He is a francaphone (speaks fluent French) and he is from France. So I am way excited to have a French person staying in the same apartment as us. It will help me with my French so much.

On Thursday, it was awesome. The sisters asked us to go teach with them so they could give us the investigator after. We taught about Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon. Then after I invited him to be baptized in French and he said “yes” he wants to be baptized!!!!! It was awesome. It was so cool. Then, after that I think I lost about 10 years of my life because of 2nd hand smoke. We went to a former investigators house and it smelled like smoke way bad. When we left my clothes smelt so bad and my head hurt so badly after being around that. She used to have a baptism date and she has read the whole Book of Mormon. But something happened and now she doesn’t believe in Joseph Smith being a real prophet. We are going there again but if she doesn’t change we are going to have to drop her.

Well, it was funny. One day we ran into a preacher and we were talking and we wanted an appointment with him. But he was saying if we go over to his house he will convert us to his religion, so that was pretty funny.

Well, besides that not much has been going on. On Sunday they asked me to teach the English investigators class on the law of chastity. No one was there so I didn’t have to teach that class, lucky break. It was awesome, after church someone asked for a blessing and they asked me to give the blessing. It was awesome. It was the first blessing that I have given in my whole life. I have been in them but not the one giving them, it was so cool.

Well, that is about what happened this week. Next week we have our zone conference because the Paris mission does them in the beginning of the transfer instead of the end. Then we have interviews at the end of the transfer, so that is how that goes. It is kinda cool, my mission president, President Staheli was the personal secretary for President Gordon B. Hinckley. That is so cool. Well, not much else has been going on. I just want to say I love you all and hope you all have a great week. TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER (JE T´AIME) in French that’s “I love you.”

March 1, 2010

Hey family,

Everything is going great. Well, just to let you know, we do have transfers every 6 weeks and on Wednesday it is transfer day. I found out that I will be staying in Brussels and I will lose Elder Mitchell as a companion. But Elder Caywood is staying as my companion for the next transfer so that is cool. I found out some stuff about President Stahley. He was Presidents Hinckley’s personal secretary so that is cool. The mission home did change. It is now in Versailles (Paris France Mission), so the office in Belgium is no longer there. Well, it is, but it is for the Netherlands mission and we can’t go there. Ya, but I am staying in Brussels for another transfer in the same apartment also.

Well, it was awesome. I was down in Lille, France today for Elder Caywood’s legality. We went down there last night and we stayed with the Zone leaders down there. In the morning we went to his health appointment. Then we had to do other stuff, but he is now legal in France. I also had my first French pastry there. It wasn’t that bad - I liked it. Then we came back up here to Brussels.

Hey, do you remember about the train crash in Brussels about 2 weeks ago? Ya, the funny thing is we usually take that train. We normally take metro but on Sundays we take the train to go see one of our investigators that lives outside of Brussels. The train that crashed is the train we usually take, so that is kinda funny. ha ha ha.

Well, this week has been great. The sister’s in Brussels had a baptism on Friday. On Sunday, yesterday, I was asked to be in the circle to confirm her and Elder Mitchell was the one who confirmed her. It was an awesome baptism and we had some investigators come and they loved it.

Oh, on Thursday we had our big zone conference that lasted the whole day basically. It was great. President Stahley was there and we all had a little interview with him and the Brubaker's said good bye to us. I also got one of those certificates that you get at the end of your mission saying you have served with honor and you are now in the Brussels alumni. So, basically, I already served my mission and did it honorably and now I am serving another mission in the Paris France mission, so that is cool. Now I have to figure out how to send it home or keep it for two years without it getting ruined. But don’t worry, I know some people.

Well, I just want to let you know that I love you all and sorry about last weeks e-mail. We ran short on time. I love you all and hope you have a great week and a great first day of March, as it is probably 9:30 am there. It’s kinda funny, I am waking up when you all are about to go to sleep. That’s kinda funny. Oh well, I love you all and thank you so much for your love and support. Until next week TTFN LOVE ELDER WALKER