Oh the week of ups and downs...

 Oh the week of ups and downs. the whether pretty much set the standard for how our amis were going to act this week. One second it was sunny and the next it was super rainy.... The one great thing is that i'm staying in brussels!!!!!!

the week started off and we got to see all of our main amis. They were all doing super well and things were just looking so great. Carmelina went into the hospital one wednesday and apparently had just the cutest baby girl ever. she named it Nellya after the baby's grandmother, Nelly. We've yet to seen it but that's ok because we're going tonight to have a little family home evening.

Our ami who has a baptismal date is really starting to progress and is getting better every time we see him. He has officially stopped smoking and hopefully stays in line just until his baptism. it was great to see him make the resolve to quit and then see how the hand of the lord plays a work in everything. He is super cool.

Fabrice is just blowing my mind more and more with how much progression he is making since being a member. We taught him about member missionary work this week and he told us that he knew he needed to do it. The elders who speak spanish will be teaching with him this week because they have an ami who lives not too far from Fabrice. I sat by Fabrice this sunday during sacrament meeting and to my surprise he was taking notes! He said he loved the talk so much that he needed to write down all the scripture references. what a guy. He is also working really hard on his wife to get her to be baptized. she's really against it because her mother is a preacher of sorts in Congo and she's been raised that way her whole life, but she's got too many good ifluences around her now. i think she'll be baptized soon

one thing that really shocked me was the way a couple of our amis reacted who had been progressing extremely well. They both told us that they would never be baptized and that they already had been saved by the catholic church. It's sad to see that but i guess the lord puts trials in our way to make us stronger. we are going to try and teach them both about the restoration of the authority even though i've explained it about 10 times. 

The zone isn't changing a whole ton this transfer but it was super cool news to know that my son(Elder Eldredge) will be training so i will receive a grandson. it's funny because my grandfather was trained where i was trained and now elder eldredge will train where i was trained. how interesting. it's cool that i get to be there zone leader for at least one more transfer

all is well here!

Elder oliverson

 Well another week has passed by in brussels and lots of great things have happened.

this week we set a baptismal date with one of our amis named una. he is a big black dude and he loves the gospel so much. after we fixed the date with him he just kept thanking us for giving him this chance and he kept telling us how we were really inspired messangers of god. i don't think i've ever had anyone be that grateful for a baptismal date. there are still lots of thing he needs to work through and his date is the 16th november but there is one thing for sure and that's his desire. he really wants to be baptized and we are so blessed to have him as an ami.

our super great ami carmelina will be giving birth this week and that's super cool to hear as well. she will give birth monday and then we're going to go see her baby. i sure hope that i can stay here and see her be baptized but i guess that's a little bit out of my control.

although i've been very sick this week it was a really good week. we're seeing our amis progress and things should be super great here next transfer. we have a lot of good potentials and a lot of family potentials as well. right now we're teaching a couple of families who are not yet completed as well as one family with a young child who is 8 months old. it's cool to have the family vision in the mission and to see it all come together with all of our missionaries finding and baptizing families. gotta love it. 

well that's all i have for this week

elder oliverson

And the mission goes on...

i need to be short this week but i will try to get in a good experience.

so sunday we had one of our amis come to church, well we had 2 but basically i'll tell you about this one ami. he came about 25 minutes late and then he sat up about 6 rows in front of me. i was in the back with fabrice talking to him about his wife, which is another story for another time. the meeting was closing and people were giving what we thought to be the final testimonies. then i see our ami get up and start walking to the front to give a testimony. he got up there and we were already over time by 5 minutes. he salutated everyone and began to tell a story about this wife and how there son, dieumerci (translation; thanks god) was born. really i can now see why they chose the name for this child because it was truly a miracle that he was able to be born without problems. he then gave a typical joel (his name is joe) response and ending to his testimony, it went like this-Dieu est là il est là et, il est là. translated being-god is there, he is there, and he is there. 

What a true statement by such a nice humbe man. The members loved it i loved it everyone loved it. You could say that joel really made a great first inpression. during our gospel principals class he actually filmed all 35 mintutes of it on his phone. It was super funny but he wants his children to watch it. Hopefully we can get his whole wife involved because they're a family that would only help the church!

Elder Barr and Jason