Week 27 - Turnhout

 With T.. we "road tripped" (hour bus ride) to the Antwerpen church building to watch conference. He's so aardig (nice) and brought along some of Zuster Aston and my fave treats ( "neusen snoepjes" ("nose-shaped" conical filled chocolates) and roasted almonds, respectively). The whole way down he translated 4 pages of Dutch words that I haven't had time to look up during studies, and taught me Flemish puns/ jokes.

 We live a 2 minute walk away from this!

Turnhout <3

Beste Familie, 
I really enjoyed conference.. everything was so powerfully relevant. Elder Christofferson's talk was my (and T's) personal favorite.. he addressed objections that I face every day as a missionary in Belgium. And President Uchtdorf's talk on the topic of gathering spiritual light was basically written for T. I still feel like he is at least partially pretending he's oblivious to promptings of the spirit, which is frustrating, because I have the feeling that he will eventually get baptized.. he has a calling at church and knows the Book of Mormon stories better than most members and loves church and the people and knows this brings him closer to Jesus Christ and that the Book of Mormon is definitely inspired of God (but doesn't know if it's nec. more inspired than other religious literature).. why wait to reap the blessings of baptism when you know this is something good and edifying and enlightening? T has been reading through the Book of Mormon these past weeks, and "coincidentally" finished it on Saturday, right before conference, and even though he's heard the read-pray-know formula hundreds of times, I really hope the adjectives President Uchtdorf used in describing the steps of our testimony-gaining process stood out to him (i.e. "fearlessly strive to believe").

Jobe also really enjoyed conference, and Abdel came to about 10 minutes of the Saturday pm session, but then said he had another appointment and left right before Elder Andersen spoke about the impeachable life and death of Joseph Smith - something Abdel has had a lot of questions about- so that was too bad that he missed it. The idea of having my will aligned with God's will for me/ whether I'm becoming the person God wants me to be is something that I've been giving a lot of thought lately, and every speaker seemed to tie in their remarks to that idea. I also appreciated Elder Klebingat's non-sugarcoated steps we need to be taking, and thought it was cool that he mentioned taking care of our temples of our spirits-our bodies- (eating healthily and exercise) in order to increase our spirituality. (It was also cool hearing him speak because I know two of his children from BYU, who I've spoken German with). 

Zuster Aston and I laugh a lot together and do things like name the spiders in the high corners of our house (right now we have Whiskey Pete Jr., Phillip, Marie Antoinette, and then Beatrice who died).. they're fun little guys to have around if you give them names and love. 
Fijne week!
Zuster Riley