I WENT TO THE FREAKIN TOUR DE FRANCE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha and I'm pretty sure I was on TV right before the race started. We were standing on the sidelines, about 100 feet in front of the starting line and it was freakin awesome. Honestly, we basically waited two hours to have ten seconds of seeing the world's best 78(?) bikers start off the third leg of the Tour de France. I got some paraphernelia, part of which I plan on giving to mom =) oh wow, what a good boy
In other news, Elder Johnson is training. I'm staying in Genk and I'm training!!!! I'm freakin pumped. I love the members here a ton and we just got a ton of awesome work going on here. Plus, I have a dish washer and a dryer. My current companion Elder Paur is going with my MTC companion Elder South in Sint Niklaas, which is still in my zone. Life's just good right now. I'll still be district leader and we've got some of my favorite people coming to our district =) it's gonna be awesome. Pray that I get a good greeny =) heh heh. I'll meet him and find out who he is on Wednesday.
So far my birthday money (it's not all gone yet), has been spent on a couple t-shirts, some tour de france stuff, some sick hi-top blue shoes, and a new (fake) brown leather shoulder bag. The bag is big enough that I can stick my new Retina-display 13-inch MacBook Pro in it...... Heh heh heh =D Just kidding, we'll talk.
So our investigator Benjamin is coming ever closer to baptism, July 25th is our goal. Laticha has been doing missionary work with this one guy who temporarily dropped us. She sees him often at the bus station and she just testifies hardcore and tells him to read, pray, and meet with us. Her sisters wanna be baptized, but her mom won't allow it yet. One of her brothers is slowly becoming reactivated, he's secretly reading in the Book of Mormon like Laticha used to have to do. But he asks her questions about it and stuff, he's just afraid of what his brothers will say. And Hafida is still just full of fire for the church. Also already a missionary.
I just freakin love to see how when people feel the fire and the love and awesomeness of the Gospel, they wanna share it. I don't know if I told you guys about this before, but when the age change happened, I was kinda back and forth, on the fence, about a mission. I wanted to, but I was just really worried. So I made a goal to read in the Book of Mormon more often to prepare myself, and then one night, my heart was just on fire as I was reading it and I felt like I just HAD to share this with everyone. It was just too good, and later I just felt like it would be selfish of me not to. I love my mission =) that's not to say it's been easy though.
Sadly, the 4th of July didn't even cross my mind until the next day. But then I promptly recited the Pledge of Allegiance. God bless America. The Knoops said they wanna celebrate it tomorrow, so we'll see what they come up with =) But on Friday and Saturday, we were doing service the whole day in 90° temperatures. It was evil, and extremely exhausting. But the member and investigator whom it involved, took good care of us. We basically removed and transported at least 1000 bricks to another house's yard for these two older ladies. I was POOPED!! But then the member made us really classy food each day. She's this rich Bulgarian... Hungarian? crap, I can't remember now. But she and her friend (long time investigator) love to live classy and their house and garden is incredible. And what they eat everyday. I almost feel bad for those missionaries in South America and Africa...
So there's some highlights from my life. Love ya guys =) really really do. Even if Chris hardly ever emails me. Zing! Thanks for the pics =) ...Carly. Heh heh =) Okay have a good week, peace
P.S. What's the latest news with a vacation around New Years? Or vacation in general? Just curious.