Belgium is going to make me Fat!

Ahhh sorry it took so long to do emails but we have been kinda running around with our heads cut off for the last couple of days, since me and Elder Fortuna both are new here. Nivelle is beautiful and also super tiny! The members rock and we have already eaten at three members houses and have been invited by a few others for later! P.S. Belgium chocolate is SOOOO good! Also if you ever think Natty is crazy you need to meet the Snikers family! They have 5 daughters and 2 sons! Three of the daughters are around Natty's age ranging from 3-6 and they are CRAZY!!!!!! We had Christmas dinner there and I was attacked by all three of them! I stood no chance! They also just got a new gift, something shiny and sticky for their barbies lips called glitter! Needless to say they showed no mercy and I became a sparkly elder! They were so fun but I don't think I have ever fallen asleep so quickly! Thanks for all the gifts, especially the pictures guys! Thank you Kiya for adding those crazy ones from BYU! 

Well.....we've got A LOT of finding to do cause the work is pretty dead here, beings the area was re-opened less than a couple of months ago! I was praying to be in the area where I could best learn how to efficiently contact people....... cause i am terrible at it,  and i think i might be a little more careful with my prayers next time he he! NO I am super excited to be here and there is tons of work to do so I am excited to get things moving here. P.S. the Lord has been really nice to me so far as companions go cause He just keeps giving me better and better ones! Elder Fortuna is from Illinois ........cant remember what part....but he is a SUPER hard worker, and he reminds me a lot of Tallen in the way he acts! We are gunna rock it here! Well not much else is going on here so I will try and figure out how the post works here and I will try and get letters out soon! Loves all y'all!

December 19th

      O.k. let's just get some little stuff outta the way! I have no idea what to expect going to a new country and all!!!!!  I have no idea how the work is going in Nivelles and I have no idea if they have something set up for the elders for Christmas!  However, I do know that it doesn't matter if I call you or you call me' and it doesn't even have to be on Christmas. It can be any day after that because families don't all have the same plans for Christmas! It does have to be reasonably close and we only get one call. I have no idea what the country codes are but  me and elder Fortuna have been calling each other and we have a plan! Y'all can tell me what you prefer to do and when me and elder Fortuna get in Belgium we can check emails really quick and confirm plans! This will enable us to figure out where we live and get to know whats going on there so we can tell you for sure what the plans are!    OK I am sending some pictures so hopefully they work on this stupid french computer!!!!  Ummmmmm this week was crazy! Elder Clawson was sick for half of the week and then I was sick the last half........not very effective to be sick on different days! I finally got fed up with doing nothing and told Elder Clawson that I could care less how sick we were," WE ARE GOING CONTACTING DANG IT!!!!"  And hey it was probably the most successful contacting I have had for a while! We met some clowns from San Francisco and talked to them for a while and got their email address! One of the guys said he'd been baptized Mormon before but he doesn't think he could be Mormon again cause he is bi-sexual.......yeah....well people can change ahaha! We also ran into a lady from Congo and after we talked for awhile she randomly said she wanted to know where are church was so she could come!! It was crazy! OH, we have also had some really awesome lessons with Alex lately!!! I don't know if you remember who he was, but he was born Muslim and he decided that he wanted nothing to do with that, met the missionaries (elder Mckay and Brady) but never really had to much time with anyone until me and elder Crump, and later elder Clawson came. But since then he has been taught the restoration a few times, (cause he kept thinking that the church belonged to Joseph Smith.....and was even cool with that but .....still not OK so we clarified that a few times), and most of everything else, and he just loved everything! The biggest thing was that we couldn't get him to church, but he came yesterday and absolutely loved it. He told all the members he would come in the next weeks to come! He is such a champ and has had SO many trials and also has struggled to keep a job! But his faith in Christ is ....amazing I wish you could meet him! He will definitely be baptized he has already expressed that and says that he knows that this is Gods church! He just wants to learn a little bit more! Well I hope all of y'all are just so pumped for Christmas! I have not been writing so much lately because the post freezes during Christmas here and it is ALREADY TERRIBLE so I am sorry you have not gotten much letters, but don't worry I don't get much either so we are all in the same boat, hehehe! But  I will start writing every week again soon! Oh! Give Joe a big hello for me will ya! Tell him he is my hero and that he is really gunna rock his mission cause he is already a super elder in my eyes! His papers might be a hassle but God knows when he needs him to serve and whenever he gets his call is exactly when he needs it, and I am SO SUPER STOKED FOR HIM P.S. He should go to Paris........but that is me just being selfish ,so he will go where ever he is needed!

I'm Going To Belgium!!

       

I'M GOIN TO BELGIUM!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to a little ville called Nivelle and I will be white washin with Elder Fortuna! so......if you want to send stuff your gunna want to send it to this adress:          Elder Lyons

                                                              2 Chemin Coparty

                                                              1400 Nivelle

                                                               Belgium

 

 Anyways,, other than that just to get some little things outta the way; I have gotten LeAnn's package and my family's and I'm sorry grandma I still have not gotten yours yet but I haven't checked the mail yet so maybe it will come today.  I really don't deserve all of these wonderful gifts y'all keep giving me I have more than I could ever want just being privileged to be in your family! DAD HAPPY BIRTHDAY ! Dang it I was so close! I guess I was only one day off......I thought our code on the garage was your birthday so I sent a letter saying it was that day..........I might have forgotten the number though, oh well wouldn't be the first time I failed! Still loves ya the same!

            

       Ummmmmm ok a lot of .....stuff happened this week! We didnt work much cuase I was sick for a little bit and then Elder Clawson was sick the past three days, so numbers were less than beautiful, but oh well! WE HAD AN AWESOME CONFERENCE IN PARIS! and it was the day where they hit record amounts of snow!!!!! I have a couple of pictures but I will send them next week after I take some more in BELGUIM!    So the baptism is not happening while I am here. We, being the leaders in the Le Mans ward, and a member that can speak the language famille henri speaks, decided that the baptism needed to wait! They said it would be better for Joseph and Jennifer to be baptized together and then their baptism would be a lot stronger,( like how you can easily break one piece of string but two together becomes a lot stronger ). There was also a clarification that needed to be made. Apparently Jennifer and Joseph thought baptism would cure her of her handicap and Angelina, the member that speaks Hindi and Tamul, knew this, and never told us until the week of her baptism.......yeah..... HOWEVER we had an awesome rendezvous with the entire family, Angelina (of whom we had tried for so long to help us at rendezvous in the past.....sorry) all discussed this together and explained what baptism does, and is, and more since we had a translater who could clearly say this in their language, and they were totally fine with it, which is a miracle because Joseph would never agree on a date before. But me and Elder Clawson had a chance to speak to them before this mascapade and he said he could maybe do it on the 24th of January! SO they will both be baptized together in either the end of January or beginning of February. But for now they are learning French better. We, slash the two new elders, will continue to teach them some last few simple things. It has been a miracle that they even understood half of what we've taught the past 10 weeks, but they will be gettin baptized!? SO CRAZY! oh yeah! The bishop also gave her an awesome priesthood blessing and she was deeply touched! I am gunna miss them SO much but luckily I know one of the elders coming in and he will take good care of them and I wont give him the keys to the appartment until he promises to write me when they are baptized! Sorry there is not much more, but I will tell you what ,the conference was so awesome! I got to see all of the elders from the MTC and talk with the pres, and the snow was beautiful? but WE WERE WIPED OUT! and it took us forever to get back! and we have been sick for awhile!( and no parents, I have not been having pancreas problems!) I have no idea why I keep losin weight but I dont feel sick right now and it might be that our scale is dying! so maybe I am fat and I just havent realized it yet who knows! P.S.  I am the one who calls you on Christmas but I am not sure at what time yet so I will tell ya when I find out. LOVES YOU ALL AND I CANT WAIT TO TALK TO YALL ON CHRISTMAS!

Venting

I think I will just start off by getting a bit of little things outta the way! Yes mom I am not cold I am totally toasty in my nice new gloves and scarf thanks a ton! Grandma  I haven't gotten anything from you until today so I am sorry I didn't tell you that I had received anything...........cause the post takes forever to get here! I got your family picture but I have not gotten any packages, but your letter was SUPER lovely thanks grandma! I hope that covers everything. A lot has happened since the last time and I wont have time to write everything in this email but I hope that I can write to a lot more of y'all by letter this week. It is just super hard living far away from grocery stores and places to email at and thus it takes up basically an entire P-day to do a few menial chores. ANYWAYS, Helene's baptism is postponed. It will no longer be the 11th of December. She ..........the situation with her is very difficult. I have told you some of the crazy stories she has told us and none of them need to be repeated. She has created a website that I have no idea how to explain other than the fact that we have to send the link to the president and have him look it over before we go any farther....... It is not over with her and she still wants to be baptized and is VERY intelligent and .....normal except for these very ..........interesting stories she sincerely believes are true. I wont lie though, I am SICK of people calling her crazy and insane and weird or whatever.  She is definitely very different and has something she needs to take care of, but every time we have taught her I have felt prompted STRONGLY to bear testimony of the atonement in particular and how much God loves her!! Because believe it or not I have felt Gods love for her as if He were in my place bearing witness of that love himself! Her soul is great in His eyes! The worth of every soul is great in His eyes! Who am I to judge one of His precious daughters! But I will get off my pedestal now,......she will make her decision soon and the president will tell us if we need to tell her anything about this strange website of hers. The next baptismal date is SOLID! It will take place probably on the 17th of December! Her name is Jennifer Henri and her husband, though he wants to get baptized and knows EVERYTHING about the church and even has a testimony that it is true he still wants to take a little more time to learn more...........that will change! But yeah she has not missed a single day of church yet and doesn't have anything left to do that concerns us! Ummmmm We have a ton of other amies that are so close!!!!! We have kinda hit the same wall with of few of them where they are fine with all the doctrine they believe it is true but they just aren't quite sure if they want to change. We ALWAYS come back to the same question ,"well have you prayed about the BOM the prophet Joseph Smith or the church to find out for yourself if our message is true?" and the answer may very in ways but basically the answer is no. AHHHHHH!! How can you try and make what is probably the BIGGEST decision of your life without even asking God through prayer if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is His church or if Joseph really did restore the fullness of Gods gospel or just even if God is there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU cant live off other peoples testimony!!!!!!!!! YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR YOURSELF!! OK now I'm just venting but maybe that gives you a bit of how I feel right now..... I cant believe the prophet , let alone God could have trust in a 19 year old boy to be teaching men and women like these! All of the people we teach are more experienced in life than me, most of them are SUPER intelligent and ask questions involving the theory of evolution, the intricacies of the atonement, atheist theories, but somehow they all feel something different about us enough to let us in to their homes and actually TEACH them! My testimony has been bombarded with the most intelligent schemes of men you could think of but God has destroyed all of them with my faith! It is amazing! You have to really grow up fast out here! One night you could be begging God to help you fathom what in the world he wants you to do to help his children that you are so privileged to teach and the next you will be at His feet in pure gratitude that He granted you a portion of his spirit to know the very words to touch their hearts in the very second you needed them! Well I will write y'all a more in depth occurrence of what happened this week by letter cause I STILL HATE THIS STUPID FRENCH KEYBOARD! However

however I will say one more thing.....it does not matter to me that I have not received any mail from any of my friends for .......a while but when the ONLY thing I hear about them, is that they are goofing off on their mission and not taking it seriously, That is when I start to get a little .......disappointed! I am not entirely sure what the situations and how many people this in tales of, and who even really gets these emails that I have been lead to believe that pretty much only my family reads! Whoever you are, pick it up! Remember the name you bear quite literally on your suit coat! Forget yourself and do the work!  It is not your time you are on it is HIS! So do it! And do it his way! And yes ,I will be writing you as well!  Elder Lyons