Week 78: Overplaastingen en Gepinkwash

So, yes, I did finally get out of Alkmaar but it will be sad leaving for sure. There are so many people here that I love! But we are actually both leaving, Elder Peck and I. We are being replaced by 2 sister missionaries. In missionary terms that's called a pinkwash. Elder Peck will be going to Heerlen and I will be heading to Lelystad, which is in the same district. I won’t be district leader anymore which is sad, however, I will be a branch counselor, so that's new… I will be comps with Elder Jean Frau from the same group as Elder Furniss. I will be in another 4 man apartment, together with Elder Crow and with Elder Chamberlin who is from Elder Nielsen's group. They are all really cool people and we are going to have a great transfer. It's really cool for me to be back in the same apartment as Elder Crow again. We had talked on the phone recently saying how we need to get back together and now we are, haha. Can't wait!!! So, ya, big changes. We are really busy here now because we have to write a white wash packet and clean up really nice for the sisters. Also, we have a few more appointments and also have to pack up and prepare for district meeting and buy food… super kinda stressed but it komt toch goed [it’s okay]! I have no idea when I will see the new mission prez. I have heard that there will be a special little conference to meet him and then later we will have a real zone conference. IDK.

This week it was really busy, we had 2 exchanges and I was in Alkmaar for both of them. For the first, I was with Elder Leland and the second with Elder Simons, both great exchanges. I took a lot pics with members this week because I knew I would leave. I had service on the farm again with Elder Simons, that was fun as always. We had a good appointment with K and we got her a ride to stake conference because it was really far away. It was a good conference. I got to say hi to a lot of members from the Zoetermeer and Wasenar wards. I loved that. I also saw a lot of missionaries and the speakers were also really good. We had a General Authority from Spain speak, his talk was especially good. On Saturday we worked on the Munsters farm helping more with the tulips. We had to peel off a part of the tulip bulb, I took some pics. It was fun. I’m getting to see the whole process!!!

Week 77: TEXEL!!

Well, we finally made it to Texel, the island above the Netherlands that is in our area. If you ask the Dutch how to pronounce it, half will say “Tessel” the other half "Texel" with a hard x. I like to say “Tessel."  It was a super cool trip. We went to the marine museum in Den Helder before hopping on a ferry to get to the island. We rented bikes there and took a nice bike path through some dunes to the beach then went through a forest and went to the main city called Den Burg, I think it is called, also a super pretty place. I got a sticker and a flag for the memories. We then biked back to the ferry place and got back on to go home. It was super fun to go onto a ferry, that was one of the best parts of the day! So cool and really nice. Also, these navy looking boats came up to us at one point and were doing some kind of drill. It looked really cool, they all had uniforms on, I took a vid and pics. Also, at the museum we went into a submarine! I took a vid and pics there too, haha. Lots of photos this week!

Tuesday was like our member day. We met with 4 different families. We had lunch and dinner appointments as well as service with Zr VRand we visited Zr G. Super good day. We also got a call from the traveling elders. They are elders who go around the entire mission to go on exchanges with everyone for like 4 days. I worked with the legendary Elder Hunter for 3 days. It was great but they called with short notice and we had some plans already, service appointments, etc. Also, we weren't able to get sufficient food… it was fine though! Wednesday we had 5 appointments with onderzoekers [investigators]. It was a good day and we also found 3 new people. We also tried to fix our dryer and we started by taking it all apart. That was really fun. Also took a pic of that. We were able to get it all back together but it still doesn't work. Oh well.

On Thursday we had interviews. That was sad but really nice [last interview before the Bunnels finish their mission]. I got to take a pic with Pres and Zr Bunnell! Friday was the beginning of our exchange and we had a lot of appointments set up. I had a dinner appointment with fam D. Super cool family and took also a photo with them haha, and their “cavias” [guinea pigs].  Elder Hunter and I found 4 onderzoekers that day.

Saturday was a super weird day, killed us. We woke up and played soccer in the morning for our workout time, then we had service where we loaded up a moving van with stuff. That was heavy work. Then we had another service thing at a farm we go to now. We weeded for 4.5 hours straight, hard work. We all got wrecked by stinging nettle. It was really labour intensive! Then we had basketball that night with 2 less active guys. It went really well! I had a lot of fun too.

Sunday was the last day of the exchange and we went hard again and found 4 new onderzoekers. The last 2 are the parents of this family who are super nice. They are from a country called Eritrea. They speak a language that has no BOM translation which sucks. The parents speak nothing but their language but the kids spoke a bit of Dutch. When we knocked on their door they for some reason were really happy and invited us straight inside without even knowing who we were… they were a super funny family and they gave us a platter of food! It was like Ethiopian food, really good. I took a few pics and videos with them, such nice people. They were christian too. We go back later today!

It was a good week!