Week 87: Mijn Rug Doet Zeer

Well, my week was busy. We seem to be getting busier and busier. This next week we have everyday packed to the brim with stuff.  Last Wednesday we had our service which went well. My back had been hurting me a lot and that didn't really help much. It was fun cutting branches off of trees though. Everyone there is so nice. We did grocery shopping for a member who is disabled. We do that every week and we also read out of the BOM with him. He really appreciates it. I admire him a lot because he is never able to come to church but I ask him every week if we should come pick him up to bike together and he always says "yes." Then he calls the night before and says he is in too much pain but I admire the fact he always says yes.

on thursday we went to Apeldoorn for zone conference. I got to see Elder Tanner and it has been like 9 months [MTC comp]. It was really nice to talk to him and see him again! The conference was good. I was asked to randomly come up and share what I learned with the group. I don't really like being randomly being called on but it went well. On vrijdag we had an exchange with the DLs. They both came here to Lelystad. It was fun, I was with Elder Dial from Idaho. We had an appointment with the Brazilian family we are teaching. We taught the Plan of Salvation and I used the wooden Plan of Salvation puzzle thing that you sent me! It worked really well and they liked hearing what we had to say and to teach. Elder Dial and I then got some good working hours in and then went to our 4 man dinner appointment because those are allowed now!

The next day we went back to the house to do service in the backyard for his mum. We still had the 4 of us and we had to do a lot of digging. We were determined to take this stump out of the ground. We haven't got it out yet but we are going over again this week. We then had our sport activity and that was lame, only 2 others came. That night we had a great dinner appointment. Sunday was chill and yesterday we went to a members to help paint a few things then at 2:00 we had a dinner slash service appointment with a LA family.  They had a BBQ for us! So nice of them.

Questions:
1.  Did you have zone conference or interviews with President Buysse?  Did you get your parcel?
2.  How was the work this week?
3.  Did you have many investigators at church again?
4.  How is your calling in the branch presidency going? I bet you are learning good leadership skills.
5. What is the weather like there now?
6. Are all your clothes holding up?  Are your shoes getting pretty worn out?
7. Did you eat well this week?  Are there members that feed you pretty regularly?

1. conference. no parcel.
2. not much of it happened. we did find 3 people though so... but we are killing it right now at getting people to church!
3. 5
4. super good I love working with the branch president and the other councillor.
5. rainy. but I love the cool weather. I can wear sweaters now.

6. all are pretty good. my watch is very close to dead. my suit has many holes, my socks even more. my shoes are beaten up but definitely still wearable. I would recommend these shoes to anyone!!
7. oh yes and this next week too!!!

Week 86: Boomgaard = Orchard

Hello!

A bit about my week. We had on Monday an appointment with this lady who we found who was baptized in Colombia where she is from. She moved here and she speaks no Dutch or English. So we had to have someone translate over the phone. We gave her a Spanish BOM which she was extremely thankful for because she said she hasn't been able to read it for about 20 years or so. Luckily we have a few Spanish speakers in the branch who will be able to translate for her!

PDAY we had a dinner appointment with this really cool family. They have a long story though. So they aren't members but have friends who are. They have been friends for like 30 years and learned about the Church through them. They then had the missionaries over for dinner every week for like 3 years. That was 14 years ago. They came to church one day and we made an appointment with them! They had a lot of deja vu they said because we looked the same as the other elders and had the same convos.

We also had weekly service on Wednesday. We helped out at the fruit garden, can’t remember the english word (boomgaard). That is always fun. We love sitting there during breaks and listening to all the old Dutch people chit chat with each other. They're so funny. We learned how to trim the branches of a plum tree. Oh and we also went to district meeting which was chill. We only have 6 in our district which is the smallest I've ever been in. On the way back we were sitting on the train and the train driver forgot to stop at the city in between Almere and Lelystad. He blew right past it and then came on the intercom and it was super funny!! He had good humour about it.

On Thursday we had 5 appointments, all went pretty good. One was with this guy the other elders met and made an appointment with then we had to go to it cause they are gone. This guy was crazy, very biblical and antagonistic, not fun. We told him we were going to leave then he kept trying to tell us things and why were were wrong. He had looked up some info about us on the computer since the last appointment, all of it was wrong and not right and he wouldn't listen to our side of the story. That happened a lot this week actually. Lots of people had looked up weird stuff on the internet and then asked us weird questions. Some of the others did however hear our side of things and we told them to just pay attention to the sources of what they are reading.

Friday we also had 5 appointments, busy busy. We gave a BOM to this one guy we met last week and he told us to come back in 3 weeks and he willl have read the whole thing… that should be fun. We had another dinner with C. He’s so cool and he makes really good food too. Saturday we had to cancel our weekly sports cause the members were not going to be there and we had too few people. We had a good appointment with M and we put her on baptismal date for the 29 of September. She should make it. She knows everything and has strong faith. We had 6 people in church though which we are really happy about! And yesterday was chill. We had an appointment with this less active named B. He is a funny guy. We died laughing over a conversation we had, but like not in an irreverent way. We love B.  We later had a dinner with the branch president and his family. He has a bunch of kids and so that was really fun. Life is good here in Lelystad!

Questions:
1. How was the weather this week?
2. Did you go anywhere new?
3. How was church on Sunday?  Did you have any responsibilities?
4. How is the work in the branch going?
5. Did you eat well?  Did you have many dinner appointments?
6. What was the funniest thing that happened this week?
7. What was the worst thing that happened?
8. What is the most challenging about missionary work right now?
9. What is going well with missionary work right now?

1. Absolutely perfect, couldn’t have asked for better weather. It’s that point where you wear short sleeves and when you go outside and are doing something you don’t even think about if you are hot or cold. It's wonderful!
2. Almere.
3. Good! and nope.
4. Great. We are changing things up in the branch with callings and things and it is fun to see the process of how that goes.
5. Oh yes! we are blessed here.
6. Either B or the train thing.
7. Snapped a string on my guitar but that took 5 mins to replace cause I had an extra. So it wasn't that bad but nothing else worse happened this week. Oh wait, no that one appointment with the crazy guy sucked. We just stood there for like 15 mins and got roasted. Wait we also got anti a lot this week too which sucked. I guess there are worse things than snapping a guitar string.
8. All of the anti! People here use phones so much and are so connected and love to look stuff up and read so fast and it is hard to stop.
9. getting people to church! that's a first...

Week 84: Another 6 weeks in Lelystad

The weather has been a bit better but anything is nice compared to last week!  I'm staying here in Lelystad with Elder Jeanfreau and the other 2 in the house are leaving. No one is coming to replace them which is super sad that the 4 man is dead… we are going to have a lot of work ahead of us!

Last Monday was a lot of fun. We had zone pday and did a scavenger hunt around Amsterdam. We took a bunch of great pics.  I also went to this one place to get a professional Dutch photo where we dressed up like the people of old. It’s pretty good. On Wednesday we had our service again at the fruit orchard which is really fun. The other elders had exchanges with the Almere elders so we went with 6 people. It was lots of fun. That night Elder JF and I made dinner and took it to a less active whose health isn’t the best (we made potato soup). On Friday we had a ton of appointments with investigators all in our 1 scour area and all back to back. We were able to give out a bunch of different languages of BOMs, I took a pic of all the ones. This mission is so diverse! We had an appointment with this Brazilian lady and her family joined for the lesson! The next day all the kids came to our sports activity. Then yesterday they all come to church, plus one of our other investigators Ron. It was a good week for us! Saturday morning we did service for some members in the branch and they also fed us lunch. Sunday we had an amazing dinner with a LA who is an amazing cook, like soooo good. It was a really good appointment. Sunday I conducted sacrament meeting in Dutch.  That was my week, not too much. Elder JF and I are going to be really busy this upcoming transfer!

The word of the week: aardvark is a dutch word that the english adopted. aard is earth and vark is like pig or hog.

Kapsalon for dinner