Week 64: Fiets Problemen

It was a pretty decent week. We have done really good actually at only speaking Dutch. We held district meeting in English and some people we teach are English but other than that we only do Dutch. We have noticed that during our lessons and talking with members the Dutch comes out better than it usually does. My talk also went really well in Dutch and I felt very confident. Also, we are getting a new mission prez in a few months and he is Belgian so we will probably be forced to speak more Dutch than we are now.  It’s preparation.

Tuesday was a great day, we had district meeting which is always fun. The training was on area books and our job was to get everyone to bring theirs then we would all clean them up together.  Our area has 4… it was quite the job. It's hard to bike in the rain and wind with a bag full of binders. We came back for our app with K and that went really well. It was our first with her. She asked if we do child baptism and I said no and she liked that, I grabbed the BOM to share a scripture and thought this is the perfect time to share Moroni 8. So we gave that to her as 'homework'. We will see how she likes that. We then watched the restoration video with her. That night we had an app with fam J, that was fun, they are a really nice family. We played some guitar for them. They made a delicious stamppot and worst dinner with spek (type of bacon) and other Dutch lekkers.

Well the rest of the week we had some great dinners with members and it was fun. We had a lot of time to work but then everyday we had some new issue. One day Elder Crow got really sick for like 2 hours… the other he had some bike problems and only his 2 slowest gears worked... that was funny to watch. His legs were going so fast and he went nowhere. But before he could fix it we had to bike to an app so he had to use it haha. Another day we had to get it fixed.

Questions:
1.  Did you get your parcel/parcels from me?
2.  Transfers must be coming up soon again?  When are they, I’ve lost track!
3.  How was the work this week?
4.  How is the biking going?
5.  Did you travel anywhere?
6.  Did you have many dinner appointments?
7.  How are District Leader Duties going?
8.  What is the best thing that happened this week?
9.  How are you doing with your goal to speak Dutch?

1. yes
2. 2 weeks ish
3. rough, we had no new investigators this week and we did not want zeros so we skipped one of our studies yesterday as well as half of dinner so we had time to find and we did. It worked. 2 new investigators. super cool.
4. really good. we do it a lot and I like it, lost my bike computer though...
5. Heiloo, Heerhugowaard, Den helder and Amsterdam
6. 5 so yes. but this next week we have 2… sad. Although we do have an exchange with the Zaandam elders so that'll be fun.
8. Watching EC on the bike or watching the old people navigate Facebook during our dinner app when we try to get them to share a vid on there.
9. really good.

that is all
elder fernhout

Week 63: Het Gaat

Week was good. Not too much has happened. Well, actually a lot did but nothing too interesting. The week did go by really fast though! Monday we had a dinner app with the branch president and his wife and with all the 30 plus singles in the ward. That was really weird and also really funny. They are all pretty savage to each other and it was fun to watch all these older Dutch people making jokes and talk and have fun, while we sat there at the end of the table silently eating our stampot and worst... I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Tuesday we had zone training which is just zone conference but with only our 1 zone when it is normally with at least 2 together. It was nice though with only a few people. I got to see Elder Blackwell which is always fun. He is almost done his mission! The conference was very spiritual and we all felt that. The assistants did a great job. That took the entire day to travel there and back and everything. Thursday we went on exchanges with the Amsterdam elders. Elder Crow and I decided to both go there. We got there a bit later than planned. I was with Elder Flores from El Salvador. It was fun to work with him because he is a very sincere and hard working, spiritual guy. We were street contacting and this one guy was like oh hey I know that church that's an American church and you are both from SLC right??? It gave us great satisfaction to say that not only are we both not from Utah but not even from America! We worked on the same street for like 1.5 hrs and got wrecked so went to another street where he says they usually have decent success. So we went there and also got destroyed… just wasn't our day. That night we had some fun because Amsterdam is a 4 man and plus us makes 6 total. They have a bunch of guitars and this one thing called a pickup which basically turns your aucustic guitar into electric. That is super fun!!!

We came back to Alkmaar the next day in time to travel to Zuster VR's to help her in her backyard. We cleared a whole bunch of bamboo out and are building a little fence out of it. I had to saw this bush out of the ground. It is always interesting there. But it is fun and feels good to get the place looking good! Service is great, especially on the mission. The next day was called NLDOETDAG, which is just a day when the whole country focuses on going out and doing service. You sign up to projects and it's great. We went to this one school, elementary, and helped clean up the front area which was a little park. We trimmed this one tree structure and put stones in the ground. The coolest part was that halfway through when we were eating lunch (it lasted 8 hours), this random lady comes in and told us they were having a reunion from a class that was together at this school  30 or more years ago. Coolest part was that one of the people coming was Marco Borsato, a famous Dutch singer!!! So yes I got to see him. That was sick. I didn’t get a photo though… The service went well and I was able to talk with this one lady about the gospel. She was extremely respectful and at lunch asked if we wanted to pray, so we did! That was cool. Her little daughter who came asked why we do that and she gave a little explanation. I gave her our number and told her to call if she has questions or wants service done.  That night we played volleyball with some members of the ward. That's always super fun.

Sunday was good. I give a talk next week. The weather has definitely gotten better. It reached 15 degrees on Saturday!!! Wow. I know right it, is beginning to set in for me too. I have been gone a long time haha. I think back on Brugge and the people there and it feels like that was people from back home. It was so long ago. Sunday we had Elder Ademas parents come from Emmen, it was really nice to see them. I love seeing people from my old areas. I sat by them in sacrament and Br Adema put his arm around me and made a few jokes. The connections you make with people as a missionary are so great. I often feel loved by people.

Questions:
1.  Did you have Zone conference this week?
2.  Did you get your parcel and can you use what is in there?
3.  Does your helmet help you be more visible, do you have to “turn” the lights on or do they turn on automatically?
4.  How is the missionary work going?  How are your investigators doing?
5.  Did you have dinner appointments this week?  What do you make to eat in the apartment when you have to make dinner for yourselves?
6.  Do you eat out or eat street food much?  What kind of food do they sell on the streets?
7.  What missionary skills are you focusing on developing lately?
8.  I’d like to hear how you feel your testimony has grown, in what areas of the Gospel?
9.  Best thing that happened this week?

1. Yes. Almere, far away but not too bad. No specific focus.
2. No!! They forgot it but will bring it this week when someone comes to check our apartment for cleanliness.
3. Oooh yes. I love it. I turn them on.
4. Great, slow.
5. A few. Home we made pannenkoeken with bacon and cheese and melted chocolate, healthy right. Also mexican food. Other than that we had dinner app or on zone conference day we got Subway on the way home.
6. Not often. They have a lot of snack bars where common things to find there are Dutch version of burgers, fries, chicken, that kind of thing. There are a lot of Turkish places all over which is my favourite!!! Oh this week we also went to this Indonesian restaurant by our house and that was super super good! Also common here.
7. Elder Crow and I made a goal to only speak Dutch the rest of our missions so that is going well. We are trying to improve our language.
8. I got no time for that now. You will be glad to know that I haven’t missed a day in my journal for over 2 weeks now though, so things are being recorded!
9. Yesterday we went to a church of one of our investigators. It was at 3:00 pm so we went after ours. It began normal and quickly went down from there. Some of the songs were nice and the people were nice too. It was like 70 percent in Spanish and 30 in Dutch. Kind of odd. This one preacher lady was getting super hyped and was like yelling into the microphone at the top of her lungs in Spanish going freakin crazy and at the same time the person translating into Dutch was also yelling and trying to keep up with her. That resulted in us not being able to understand anything and having my hears being blown out… madness. About the 3rd time that happened I almost got up and left. Then she invited people to come forward and she put her hand on someone and was blessing them, I think… she used oil. Then some other person fainted on the ground. Everybody was chanting and had their hands up as if there was a bon fire and their hands were cold… super weird. Afterwards we went up to our investigator and she said “so when is your service?” We walked out and told each other we were happy to have shared that special moment with each other, haha. That was fun. Oh ya it was a pinkster church, if someone would have told me that before we went in I wouldn't have been so surprised. So ya that was cool.

Dutch word : zwaartekracht means gravity but the literal translation is black strength...

Elder Fernhout

Week 62: Schaatsen in Alkmaar

Week was ok. It was very very cold. Every time we talked with someone we knew, like members or investigators this week I always said something like “it's cold isn't it?" and then they always responded well you are used to it right cause you are from Canada! Well ya, but it still is cold outside. Also, it is way more humid here which makes a difference. I also have very thin gloves but still managed to not freeze my hands off.

We had exchanges this week which was nice. They both came to Alkmaar which means that we had to divide up our appointments. Elder Crow took the day app and we took the dinner app. We also had the car though so we decided to use it to look up all the referrals we had. That was nice cause we would get out for like 15-20 mins to look up the referral and then knock around it for a bit. Sadly, none of the referrals were home, however we got 2 new investigators from working in the area. That was nice. I was working with Elder Humphrey from New Mexico so he was especially cold.  It was really nice to be able to head back to the car to warm up. We were so thankful we weren't out the entire day.  Well we had a nice dinner app then came home. The other elders were also just getting home. They had a rough day, Elder Grondel and Elder Crow worked outside the entire day. They found 3 investigators so that's cool but at one point they were biking and Elder Grondel stops and told Elder Crow that he was going to puke cause his hands were so cold. Elder Crow said his prayers while riding his bike were something like this “please don't let me have permanent damage to my skin!" So ya it was cold here. It only snowed the last day, on Saturday I think. That was really cool but then yesterday and today got super warm and it is geweldig!!! There is a 14 degree difference between today and 2 days ago, crazy. Oh probably the coolest thing that came cause of the cold is that for the first time since 2012 the kanaals are frozen and people are outside skating on the kanaals! Super cool. We went out there and walked on them. I wanted to skate so bad. I took lots of pics and videos though. So pretty.

During the week we helped a member cut down a bunch, like a lot, of bamboo stalks in her backyard. That was a fun project. Next time we go over she wants us to build a fence out of them. We had a really good appointment with an investigator named I. We watched the restoration DVD cause he had some questions about Jospeh Smith. He said it was moving and that he felt tears that wanted to come out but they just didn't. We told him that was the Spirit. It was just a really sweet moment. He is super cool guy.

Other fun things is that our heating system decided to stop working this week which was the coldest in years.  We called the mission and they said to go buy new electric heaters. So we set out in the morning to go to the store and the bridge was down for bikers, so we had to take a ferry to get across a 50 foot kanaal. Super cool actually. I took pics. Then we bought the heaters and had the task of biking home with them. It was worth it cause now we don’t have to freeze in and out of our apartment. So we had these two heaters going then all of the sudden they both stopped. We realized we killed the power to our house. Then our neighbour knocks on our door and his power was also out haha. oooops. He said he will fix it and we had to leave, when we came back it was all fixed so that was nice. It was in general a good week and this next one will be great cause it will be warmer!!! And we have zone training and also an exchange to Amsterdam.

That is all,
Elder Fernhout

Questions:
1.  How was the weather this week?  Was it hard getting around?
2.  Did you have zone conference or is that this next week?  (If you had it this week, did you get my parcel?)
3.  How was the teaching this week?
4.  Do you have any interesting topics or articles you are studying to pass along?
5.  Where did you travel to this week?
6.  Did you have any zone or district activities?
7.  How was church?

1. awful, yes it was freezing.  I wore 3 layers of shirts and a sweater and my coat and I was still cold. I also had 3 pairs pants on…
2. next week.
3. great.
4. I am doing a challenge where I go to Jesus Christ in the topical guide and look up every reference and underline it. So that’s a big job but it is great so far, I am learning lots.
5. Den Helder and numerous little dorpjes to visit referrals. Not much more.
6. just district meeting which was our best one yet I would say!
7. great. I was asked to give a talk in 2 weeks.

Week 61: Wij Fietsten naar Amsterdam!!!

Well last week on  pday we did indeed bike to Amsterdam from Alkmaar. It wasn't actually very nice weather at all.  It was rainy and a bit windy too. Of course it was against us the entire way. Well we set out anyway, without a map, however we knew that the bike paths are clearly marked and we would be fine.  So we left and eventually we were biking through the countryside going from one dorpje to the next. It was very pretty and nice. We went to Zaandam and when we got there we went to the elders apartment to surprise them. They were so confused to see us with our bikes haha. We chilled with them a bit and then left to Amsterdam centraal. We wanted to bike to the middle so that's what we did, the signs were super easy to follow and we only got lost 2 times! It was so easy, we took a ferry to cross a big kanaal. It was so fun and then we ended up at Amsterdam Centraal! we felt very accomplished.  We took some photos that I will include. Inside the station I saw a tourist with a Canadian flag so I asked where she was from and she said Toronto but she was traveling with 2 other people from Calgary.  I told them I was from Lethbridge and they were like “hey a ‘berta boy!!!"  So that was fun haha. We took the train back to Alkmaar.  The trip was 48 kilometers total and if we didn’t stop in Zaandam it would have taken us an hour and 50 mins.  So not too bad at all!  We weren't even sore. We want to go further next time haha.

During the week we had some good lessons.  Mainly with M.  He is on plan to be baptized on March 24! He also came to church today and he wore clogs!!! So funny.  What's better is during the week I saw someone biking with clogs on and I took a photo.  Little did I know that that person was our investigator who later wore his clogs to church haha!  He liked church though and wanted to know who he should pay.  I told him he doesn't have to pay anybody and that he actually gets free food today because it was potluck day so that was probably nice for him.  We had another appointment with someone and we put them on baptismal date for June 17... he is quite positive.

Saturday was a great day, we had a lunch appointment, a dinner appointment, and then we had volleyball that night, with like 13 people. It was very fun! The dinner was with fam M. They are going on vacation to Sweden. We always have a good time with them. Also, they have a cute dog which I got to pet, which we don’t get to do that often as missionaries. Sunday was great cause we had an investigator in church and he wore klompen!

Questions of the week:
1.  Did you travel this week?
2.  Is Zone Conference this week?
3.  How did teaching go this week?
4.  Did you have many dinner appointments?  Did you eat at the M's?
5.  It sounds like you are biking a lot!  Did you bike much this week?
6.  How is church? Have you spoken in church recently?
7.  Do you do anything for service in Alkmaar?  (The elders here carry a shovel in there cars to help people shovel there driveways, though I know that won’t work in your mission)
8.  How has the weather been?
9.  How are District Leader duties going?
10.  Did you try herring yet?  Have you eaten any new foods?

1. Amsterdam a few times and just the other normal places
2. Soonish. I think it is next week actually.
3. Great I'd say.
4. Yes, haha. Sister M's husband took us to vollyeball and stayed to play with us. That was cool.  This week we don't have many...
5. Oh yes, since we got the bike computers we have gone 540 kilometers. I love biking though, very relaxing. I like my bike a lot too, although it always sucks to go into the wind...
6. I haven't spoken in church since Emmen! I did have to teach YM’s last week. Other than that we don't do much.
7. No I wish. We help this one lady in her house sometimes but not much else.
8. Sunny and freezing, like really cold. It would be the Canadian equivalent of negative 20.
9. Great! We are coming up with fun challenges and things. Last transfer we did a challenge and Zaanda, elders lost so they had to do a punishment which was singing in Amsterdam centrall. I got a little video of it haha.
10. No but Sister M said that she is going to get it for us...

Dutch word I thought was funny is vooruitgang.  It means progress but literally translated means forwards out go.

That is all,
Elder Fernhout