Oct. 2, 2012

Iepers

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Sorry this is a day late, yesterday we were traveling all over Belgium for a Zone P-Day, so our  time was eaten up by travel. We met up with President Robinson and Zuster Robinson and some elders from our zone to have a tour of a litle town called Iepers (I think in English it's Ypers?) were there is a lot of WWI history. The branch president down there gave us the tour and it was a really cool experience. The whole tour I thought of people like Grandad and Grandpa Catlett and the stories I've heard from them over WWII and about Daddy and I just want to say I am really grateful for each one of them and all the people who sacrifice so we can have the opportunities that we do. It's actually really cool that we went to Iepers this Monday because this Saturday Zuster Jones and I celebrated the Fourth of July so we were already in a pretty patriotic mood. At the end of the tour we went to this war memorial with like 55,000 names of lost soldiers inscribed in it and guess what?! Zuster Jones found a Hinchcliff!! E.T. Hinchcliff listed as a rifleman with the Post Office Rifles. I don't know if anyone in our family knows anything about this fellow, but if so I'd love to hear his story!! I took a picture of his name and will send it to you when I find a computer here that sends pictures. I also found a W.E. Hutchings from the 4th BN London Regt. R. Fus. (no idea what that means, I just copied it down) and a Private W.W. Hutchings from the E. Kent Regt. (The Buffs). We also heard a really funny story about the town Iepers from Pres. Willems (the branch president). So once upon a time a long time ago there were a lot of mice in Iepers. It was a really big problem so the townspeople were trying to think of safe solutions to get rid of them all. As they got to talking they came up with the idea to bring cats into the village since they're a natural enemy to mice to take care of the problem. The cats successfully solved their epidemic, but then the villagers had a new problem: too many cats! Rather than bringing in another animal to get rid of them that would eventually reproduce into a bigger problem someone came up with the idea of throwing cats down from the tallest tower in the village. Apparently it was the best idea out there so they gathered together as many cats as they could and threw them off the tower! I guess this went on for some years before they decided it was cruel or something and stopped the practice. Now every year or every three years they have a cat remembrance service below the tower and a man dressed as a court jester throws stuffed animal cats to a crowd of people below. Haha maybe you don't think that's funny but we were all busting a gut when we heard, it's just ridiculous! :) Anyways it was a pretty cool p-day.

This last week started off a bit slow for us because Zuster Jones was sick for a few days, but luckily she recovered pretty quickly and we were still able to have a good week. I think the most exciting thing that happened was we got bikes! For some reason the sisters in Antwerpen haven't had bikes for a few years and relied on public transportation to get around. That's fine and dandy except that Zr. Jones and I really have been trying to visit more dorpjes were families are so we can find, teach, and baptize families and public transportation just wasn't getting us there. When we called President Robinson to ask about bikes he didn't know why we didn't have bikes either so after a week of asking around a member got us some bikes!! We haven't had them for very long, but there's already been a significant difference since we got them. Our first day with the bikes we found two positive new investigators and met a lot of postive potentials. What great!! The work is picking up here in Antwerpen!! Not going to lie sometimes I feel a bit over-whelmed with it all and the significance of what I'm doing here, but at the same time I feel really humbled that the Lord finds me worthy and capable and trusts me with it. The worth of souls is really great, so that's a lot of responsiblity, but I know the Lord doesn't give us anything we can't handle and will make up for what I lack as long as I do my best. I intend to do nothing less.

I love you all and hope you are all enjoying the Autumn!

Love, Zuster Becky Hinchcliff