Elder J. Alexander Curtis

Arras Report

jacurtis88 — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:44:00 +0000

Well hello everyone.

It has been a longer week. But the first weeks of the transfer are always the longest. Arras is good, but I am really struggling with leaving behind Liege. I had a lot of fun there. The hardest thing with Arras is that it feels really lonely. It is so far away from anything else, and we never hear from other missionaries. We are kind of in the middle of nowhere. We are like halfway between Paris and the coast, where all the action is. But we do actually have a nice apartment.

That thing about the caves sounds cool. I actually kind of have heard about it and seen pictures. Now it makes more sense, well actually it just confirms what I thought it was saying when I heard it French, but it sounded kind of weird so I wondered if I was misinterpreting something. But i think it is interesting.

Anyway it is a really slow city. There isn’t a lot of action or investigators or anything. Just a lot of walking around, which makes it really hard on me mentally. I have really been struggling with that a lot lately. We will see what happens. But I have been having a lot more problems. I am going to be talking to the mission president on Thursday. But I am going to meet an apostle on Thursday. We are going up to the Netherlands on Thursday to meet elder nelson for mission conference. That will be cool. Plus on Wednesday I am going to the coast for the day, in Calais, to work with my trainer, Elder Valenza for the day. So that’s cool too and the other cool thing is that we have a credit card for all our travel in the city so I will get to maybe save money this transfer since I don’t need to pay for all this travel.

Well that’s about all I got. I love everyone and I feel especially horrible for dad. I hope things start looking better for him.

Elder Curtis

Posted in Letters Home Tagged: Arras France, Mormon Missionary, Netherlands

Going to Arras, France

jacurtis88 — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:38:23 +0000

Hey family,

So sounds like life is getting better for everyone back there.

As for me it is all the same. I am getting transferred again. I am going to ARRAS, FRANCE

My companion is Elder Villain who is a francophone. AKA, he only speaks French. That will be interesting.

As for other news, pretty much there isn’t any other news. We have eaten at a lot of member’s houses and Romeo didn’t get baptized. And now I am leaving. I still can’t believe I am leaving, it doesn’t seem right.

But I am glad that Elysa,s birthday party was cool. That it sounds like she had fun. I did think about her on the 1st. I forgot she was in Nauvoo though. I didn’t really understand the email, but it sounded like she had 3 cakes? That is a bit too much for me.

How is the world doing over there? I am not goanna lie it is driving me crazy being so out of it over here. Never being allowed to talk to anyone both is tough, and so is living every day as a exact copy of the day before is starting to get to me now after 10 months or so too. Elder Spackman is going home in two days which is tough too.

Love you all

Elder Curtis

Posted in Letters Home Tagged: Arras France, Mormon Missionary

Week of Sickness

jacurtis88 — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Well this week has been full of sickness for us here in Belgium. On Tuesday, my companion was having really horrible stomach problems, it was actually the 3rd day in a row that it had been that way, except that it kept getting worse. Now he could barely walk anymore, so we took him to the hospital. We ended up staying there all day and got back late at night. They gave him some pills and told him to rest. That night the recently baptized member, Aurelie brought us over some really good French food to make us feel better. She made the BEST ratatouille that I have had me whole mission and some good bread, with some super good garlic Humus. And also some Belge zucchinI soup. It was really good. Well the next day my other companion the new guy, started pooping out straight blood, so of course we had to take him to the hospital too. We spent more or less, that whole day again at the hospital. They could never really find the problem, but again gave him some meds and told him to rest. Well of course I was doing fine but the next morning neither of my companions could get out of bed. So I studied all day and cooked for them. The next day; Friday, Elder Spackman went to another city and I was with the two new guys in Leige, we worked for the day together and went to the gare to pick up Elder Spackman and then send him off to another city. Well, he barely missed his train, so we had to wait for the next one. So we waited for about an hour and went to a pizzeria to eat while we wait, because we were also supposed to pick up someone else while we waited, so we couldn’t go far. Well we ate pizza and sent him off to Charelroi, another city, for the next day. Well that night, I started to get super sick. By the next day I was super dehydrated and couldn’t get out of bed. found out I had food poisoning from the pizza. I was alone in the apartment with my companion and needed to get some help, but we didn’t know what to do. I talked to the mission doctor and he tried to email me a prescription for something to help me retrain fluids because I was throwing up everything I drank, and I was so weak that I could barely stand. I was ion pain from head to toe in bed and I felt really alone and frustrated. The sister missionaries had tried to go get the medicine, but there were all sorts of problems with the prescription. They couldn’t get it at first, then when they finally got it, the medicine apparently doesn’t exist in Belgium, then when they went to about 4 other pharmacies someone told them that this other one was the same one, but then the doctor found out about that and said it would make me worse. So he had to send another prescription, and it continued on and on. Lo and behold I finally got my meds about 7 hours after I talked to the doctor. I was supposed to go to the emergency room if I couldn’t get the medicine within 4 hours. So I was very frustrated and angry, and I felt like I was dying. The missionaries that had a car were in a far off area helping someone move. I had talked to them at 7:30 in the morning and told them that I needed them, but they were getting stuck with this member. It was rough, but when the medicine finally got to me, I found out that I couldn’t take it because of the other medicine I am now on, so I was hopeless. Well long story short, I finally got asleep and somehow survived, with a lot of frustration. In the middle of all this confusion, Elder Spackman had to come home early from his other city because he was getting vertigo and starting to throw up too, and another new missionary here in liege that we ate the pizza got sick too, but not as bad. All in all we pretty much had a hospital running down here in our apartment.

The next day was Sunday and I was still as dead as could be. I had no food and liquids in my body. I slowly recovered but we didn’t go to church. The mission president and his wife came and visited with us for an hour or two at our apartment and gave us some sick food. It was good to talk with them and I have now recovered. But that was our week. Full of sickness and being in our apartment. I am hoping that the next week is a bit more uplifting.

I tried to send an email last week, but I sent it with about 8 photos, so I wonder if it didn’t make it through. I will try a different way.

Posted in Letters Home Tagged: Charleroi Belgium, Food Poisioning, Liege Belgium, Mormon Missionary, Sick

Just Another Week

jacurtis88 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Hey family.

Well I actually don’t feel like there is much to say this week, sadly. Not
much is new. But I figured that I would send some pictures to make up for
it, since I am finally at a computer that I can. More or less… today we
went up to the Netherlands again for p-day. It was mainly to just spend time
as a district, but also we went shopping for groceries. I ended up buying a
sweatshirt too. it is very European, but I like it… it is all good. It is
kind of a funny green color, lol. But now we are back in Liege. We are
giving a stop smoking workshop tonight at the church, and it sounds like we
are going to have a big turn out, so it sounds like I am going to be using
my French public speaking skills if I have any tonight. We got a really nice
PowerPoint presentation that goes through the steps. We have been working
hard on it, and I think it should be cool. Unfortunately it looks like the
internet is not so speedy here, so the number of pictures will be limited.
One of them is a pic with me and president woodland and his wife. Another is
a pic of liege in cool lighting and a cool bridge. Another is a picture of
me in a cool forest.

Anyway, I hope dad gets better. It has been tough to hear all the horrible
news from afar, but it is better than not knowing at all. I am glad to hear
that cake making is going better, although, it is weird that someone would
have a wedding on fourth of July. Maybe they are just a patriotic family.

Anyway, I have been super tired this week, but I haven’t had too many
problems. My companions have both had some rough weeks. Spackman is just
struggling with back problems and lots of stress, and the new guy is just
realizing now how tired you always are as a missionary. But I have been
okay.

I am trying to think of something exciting that happened this week. Well,
when we went down to Lille, France the embassy actually closed at 14h00. So
we missed it and I had to stay the night in Lille with the two new guys. It
was okay though, we looked around the city, took some pictures and then did
some contacting with them. It was good, then after that I went to a part
member family that I remembered while I was in Lille. They were super
excited to see me, and we visited for a while. Then I found out that the
younger punk kid, MANU, was getting baptized. So I got to write in his BOM
and see him again. It was cool, because I was the one that really worked
hard to get him to go to church. He finally started going during my last two
weeks there. I was so excited to hear about his baptism. He is getting
baptized on the 26th of July. Other than that we visited with them and the
older boy, asked me if he should go on a mission, he is 22. He thought he
would be too old, but he just got baptized 5 months ago. I told him that he
should try to serve a mini mission too, and so he is going to try to do that
with me in Liege he said. It was good.

The next day we did legality. Then at the gare, we met the American Olympic
track and field team; which was cool too. They were heading off to Greece.

Anyway after that we came back, and finished off the night. The work is
really slowing down here . Just because everyone is on vacation. It is kind of
crazy, but everyone is gone which makes it tough.

I hope everything starts getting better at home. I think about everyone,
everyday.

Ok got to go, love you.

Elder Curtis

Posted in Letters Home Tagged: Baptism, Liege Belgium, Mormon Missionary

Changes

jacurtis88 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:52:00 +0000

Hello family. Well, sadly I don’t have much time today for emails. We are going off to a city called Namur today as a whole zone. It should be fun, but we have to leave ASAP.

Well, to start with. I got transfer news last night, so I know what is going on for the next six weeks and I am very excited about it. Well it will be interesting to see what happens because president said that I need to have things changed up and be given some challenges. So we will see what that means in the future. But as for the next six weeks, I have an interesting assignment. I am going to be staying with Elder Spackman in the same city and prepare him to go home. Also, he will be working as a mentor for the zone, so he will be traveling around a lot to work with different missionaries in our zone. Then, on top of that we will be getting a new missionary straight from the MTC, and be training him. So we will be in a threesome, so that when Elder Spackman starts traveling around, I will just stay there in Liege with this new guy. So I will be like a co-trainer and co-senior companion. It should be really exciting.

I am excited because it will be very different and exciting and interesting. I hope it will help me a lot. Plus, my French will get a lot better because I will be alone with the newbie a lot now and will have to lean more on my French skills. Right now Elder Spackmans French is pretty awesome, so we can get by a lot on that and my French has kind of dwindled. Anyway I am pretty excited. But he is going home in six weeks, I am really excited to be the one to send him home. It should be a fun transfer.

That’s all i got for now. I just talked to my companion though, so we will come back later and finish up emails. I just wanted to give a shout out bout transfers

Posted in Letters Home Tagged: Assignment, French, Mormon Missionary, Transfers