Yes I am in Brugge. Do you know how to pronounce it? It's hard ['e' at the end makes an 'a' sound]. My companion is so great, really outgoing and knows the language so good! He is going to be so useful to start off my mission. I stayed in the mission home for 1 night, which they say is really lucky to do that. I think it's because there was only 3 in my group coming here. My trainer had 17 or so in his. I surprisingly have had no problems with the jet lag. I must have timed it all really well. On the plane from London there were not many people so I was able to find an open row of 3 and lay down on it like a couch and I slept so good.
We started right away the next morning after I landed. But when I did land I saw President and Elder Tanner waiting for me with big smiles. Elder Tanner saw our plane was late and wasn't worried about us so that was good. The London airport was interesting. I have never heard so many English, English speaking people at once! Anyway when we landed in Amsterdam we got our bags and met the Prez and his wife and the 2 APs. The Amsterdam airport is the best and most beautiful one I have ever seen. I was so happy to be here too and it just felt right. The air and humidity felt so good! We all drove to a pannekoeken restaurant and that was delicious. Look them up, I don't know how to spell it. I was so impressed with the APs Dutch and I really hope I am at that point when I am at their stage.
From there we went to the mission home with the APs and stayed the night. They have a big room with 3 bunkbeds. We woke up at 6:30 am and showered and headed downstairs for breakfast. They made eggs and fruit salad and there was this really really good yogurt that we had with the fruit. Also this sauce stuff for the eggs called sambala, it's pretty good. They also have a chocolate milk drink here called Chocomel, I think, and it is also really good. However they have weird milk here in Belgium. It can sit on the shelf for 6 months unopened... it's alright. Anyway, from the mission home we went with the office elders to do some legal stuff in Leiden. The office elders are cool, one of them is over finances for the entire mission and the other is over legality things in the entire mission. They helped to get us all set up with bus passes and whatnot.
Then we travelled to the mission office where we waited in anticipation for like half an hour to meet our trainers! I was really nervous that I wouldn't like mine but he is great! I am so happy with who they paired me with. We stayed in the office for a little bit to do some more training. Elder Cameron is going somewhere in the Netherlands and Elder Tanner is in Ghent. So Elder Tanner, his trainer, and me and my trainer all travelled together in this little Toyota Yaris with our bags squished really tight. I was starting to get a little car sick so we had to pull over 2 times but we made it. It was about a 3 hour drive! Traffic is what made me sick, a lot of stopping and going. We dropped the other 2 off in their city and we took the car to ours. We get to have the car for a little then we have to hand it off and it goes in a rotation.
We drove to Brugge and it is so nice here. All the elders want to go to Brugge because its apparently the most beautiful city of them all. So they all say that I am really lucky to be here. And it's true it is a really beautiful city! So different than America and Canada. Our area is the only one that borders both France and the Netherlands and I also love it because it touches the ocean! Our apartment is a little outside of the Centrum and I don't have a bike right now so it's really nice that we have the car!
At least for a little longer.
We got to Brugge at night so we didn't do a whole lot but the next day we started right off with doing the normal thing. I don't know what I was expecting but I was a little surprised. I feel like a real missionary finally. It is so nice to be out of the MTC now. We have done a lot since I got here so I can't write it all but it includes knocking doors and street contacting, handing out Books of Mormons (;)), taking trains and buses and all kinds of stuff.
The ward here is small (30-ish people) so it's actually a branch but they feed us a lot. We have already been fed 4 times it is awesome. Yesterday in church it was really cool too, it was hard to understand because it was all in Dutch but I got some things. Brugge is known to have a really hard accent to understand and yesterday we went to Zeebrugge to teach this guy named M who we have never met and he lives in this really sketchy area but we taught him and gave him a BOM. His accent though was the hardest to understand yet. I literally didn't understand a single word he said! But I gave my little part of the lesson and bore testimony on the restoration and it went good. On the drive out there we got a little lost and took some backroads and it was so beautiful!
A lot of the lessons we have been teaching are in English but more of them are in Dutch. So I get to practice my Dutch and English [teaching] skills. We have quite a few investigators right now and 2 have a baptismal date so that's so exciting! Our apartment is alright, ER says we are lucky to have a dishwasher it's super rare. We also have a washing machine but no dryer.
It was foggy and overcast when I got here and it hasn't been sunny until today. Like 5 days in a row without sun but I really like it. We haven't had rain yet but it has snowed 2 times which ER has only had it snow one other time his whole mission, weird huh. I love all the water ways and canals here and even more so the streets and narrow back alleys that look like there's nothing there but in reality that's where all the front doors are. I also had my first waffle and the stereotypes about Belgian waffles are true. They are so so so good. They are also known for their chocolate which is amazing and when you combine the two it is a glorious thing. I have pictures of my first waffle. Anyway all in all I really love it here. The city and people here are awesome.
[There is a world-class ping pong player in the branch and the chapel in Bruges has a nice ping pong table so he will be able to work on his skills a bit :)]
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