Week 96: Spans!

It is going pretty good. Elder Clemente is my new comp, he's from Spain and has been in the mission field a year! We only speak Dutch with each other which is really fun. He only learned English a year ago at the same time as Dutch. We have been working hard these past few days and have been having success which is nice. We have had a few rainy days where we don't want to go out but we have and the weather has turned really nice every time. So that's nice. We have already found more investigators this week than I did all last transfer, haha. I am learning a bit of Spanish from Elder Clemente.

Elder Clemente has a cool background.  He was born into the church but was the only member in school (he is from Valencia). He is absolutely amazing on the piano, like I can't describe it. He has done it for 11 years. He studied at the conservatorium and has a degree in piano. He played at a jazz bar for a while to earn money for his mission. What's cool about him is most good piano players are good at classical, which I enjoy, but he can also do really really good jazz and blues. He just improvises everything. It's amazing. He played the hymns in church yesterday and had no time to prepare but just played an improv version of the hymns that was more fancy than the real thing. He also has perfect pitch and if you sing something he can play it on the piano. Not only that, but he plays guitar. He can also play things on the guitar if he hears it. So I have this fun game we play where I play a song on the speaker that I want to learn on guitar, then he figures it out and we play it. Even if there are 2 or 3 parts he can play the one and teach me the other. It's so cool! Anyway, he is a cool dude. He also loves cooking and is very clean.

Ya, we have money and food now. Thanks btw for everything. I really don't need much or expect much honestly. I like living like a poor man, at least a little poor.  It was Elder Clemente's bday yesterday and he didn't tell me!! He stayed up late 2 nights ago and the next morning surprised me with a cake for his bday... what a guy. I will definitely miss it here. It is so close to the end of my mission now that I can feel the want to be back here already and miss being a missionary. It motivates me to work harder. I will so so so miss just being a missionary.

Week 95: De Winter Komt Aan

We have been having cold weather lately, not too bad though. It is really good sweater weather but it's definetly cooling off. We had a few dinner appointments this week and we were fed stamppot at every one. That's when you know it's winter, when you eat stamppot 4 times in a week...

Tranfers actually changed quite a few things around here, like my companion....... we were not expecting that but Elder Jeanfreau is beign transferred to Eindhoven. My new comp is Elder Clemente from Spain, so that should be cool. I have never met him before. I'm looking forward to working with him though! It is sad to see elder JF off though, we were expecting to go another 7 weeks. He is sad to leave but happy to be going to a good city. I will still be in the branch presidency however my companion will not be. I do know Zr VDGraaf, she is cool. I've never heard of that other guy though (LDS cartoonist Arie Van De Graaff). Wow, that's atually really cool about Gent, haha. I had no idea. I've been there too!!! [The peace treaty that ended the war between the United States and Canada (and Britain) was signed in the city of Ghent in 1814].

Well, last pday we were in Amsterdam for zone pday. It was fun, we did a lot of sports and I loved it. I brought my guitar and we sang some songs. But what is really cool is the news came to do a media piece on us. Only 5 of us were going to be in it because they were singing a song for it. However, Elder Dial and I were walking back from sports and got in it! I have a picture of it that I uploaded, haha.

On Thursday we had a good few appointemtns. We had a really good visit with R. When he was reading in the BOM he came across some verses talking about being redeemed and I asked him what that meant and we got on the topic of baptism and he said he is not ready for baptism yet. However, he noticed other people in the church have tasks that they do and he asked if he could also start doing that so that when he gets baptized it will be an easier transition.!!! He asked us to have a calling. Then he also said that members of the church proobably pay money to the church because like how else is it supposed to run and he said he would also be willig to pay a bit each month. We haven't even taught him tithing yet!!! He is so cool, one of my favorite people I have taught. We did some service after that, then dinner, and correlation meeting with this sick family in the gemeente.

On Friday we taught seminary to the class. Then went with the young women to their activity which was service at a theatre. We helped fold, organize, and iron clothes. It was fun. The last few days have been busy preparing for Elder Jeanfreau to leave.

Questions:
1.  What did you focus on this week, finding, teaching, work with less actives?
2.  What did you learn about the Gospel this week?
3.  Did you work in the orchard this week? (I always enjoy hearing about that)
4.  Is your bike holding up?
5.  Tell me about transfers and the changes in your district and zone.
6.  How was church on Sunday? Did you have any responsibilities?
7.  Do you attend all the branch activities? It was great to hear about your associations with the youth.

1. teaching.
2. take the priesthood seriously
3. yup. we got honey!! or was that 2 weeks ago. idk...
4. nope. but misison bikes are coming soon!
5. not too much. E. JF is gone and we got a replacement for Zr Bratt. other than that only one ZL is changed and one other person in the whole zone.
6. normal. I had to be the door watch. I liked it though.
7. we try to. we love the youth so much! they are so fun and great!

Here is the link to the Dutch television show featuring the missionaries (Nick appears on sidewalk).

Week 94: WE HEBBEN HET DRUK! HEEL DRUK

I really feel my call to this area is inspired. I look back at my other areas and see a bunch of connections as well, with family, people, and for myself.  Mission presidents really are inspired! It feels weird to be coming home in less than 2 months. I'm glad people haven't forgotten me yet.

Well, last pday was district pday and it was pretty fun. We chilled and played some games and it was fun. The next day we had service and it was as usual. We are so chill with all the ouwe bessen there, it is really nice. We had to prepare for zone conference which was on Thursday. We had to go all the way to Apledoorn which was okay but we also had to bring all of our exchange stuff because we were going on exchanges the day after in Amsterdam.

Zone confernce was good. I saw some old friends. Elder Nielsen and Sisters Baldwin and Platt, and a few others from my zone. Exchanges were also good.  I worked with someone Elder Nielsen trained, Elder Plant. He is a pretty cool guy. We didn't have all that much time to do anything because we had to be home pretty early Friday night for appointments, but it was fun. We had a lunch appointment which was delicious. The rest of the day we booked it back to Lelystad.  We were late for our dinner with the branch president and his family and we had no time to prepare the seminary lesson we were asked to give. But then we ended the night going to Young Mens which was combined with the Young Women. We did service in the pitch black with flashlights in a garden. It was pretty fun. The youth here are the best. They are so funny, anything we do with them is hilarious. Saturday we had a sport activity for which turnout was low, it was still fun though. The weather here has been insanely nice! We have a heat wave or something. This is the hottest on record it's ever been in October. I don't mind though! Sunday we had church as normal and ya that's about it.

Questions:
1.  How is your teaching going?
2.  How is your work with the members going?
3.  Did you do service this week?  Are you done at the orchard now that it is Fall?
4.  Will your bike hold up until the end of your mission?
5.  Did you have zone conference this week?
6.  Did you have exchanges?
7.  Did you travel anywhere?
8.  Did you eat well?

1. teaching is good!
2. that is really good!
3. just the cassic stuff at the orchard. I think this service will go through the winter. We have to maintain the grounds still and the trees, lots of work to do.
4. I don't think so but we are expecting mission bikes in a few weeks.
5. yup
6. yup
7. Apeldoorn and Amsterdam
8. not really, I don’t feel too good because of it. We haven't had time to eat!!!

Week 88: Dienstbetoon!!!

My back is now okay! I did take some pills but I really try not to take anything until I have to. Ya, haha, I think we should get a scan just to see if there are any hiding issues. Also, I can't wait to go to the dentist!!!

Well, we did a ton of service which is really nice. I enjoy it and it was a lot with part member families so that's even better. We had dinner again with the branch president and it was really fun with his family! Then that night we had branch presidency council which is alwasy fun, stressful but fun. Thursday we tried again to get a stump out of the ground and after a few hours of very hard work we got like a 3rd of it out. It was a huge success though! We go back this vrijdag to get the rest. We also had interveiws this week and president told me I will be staying in Lelystad for the rest of my mission. I'm pretty happy about it! I will be with Elder Jeanfreau the whole time too. So I am on my last area with my last comp. The end feels near. On saturday we had our weekly sprorts and people actually came this time! We played this fun soccer game called tiener, I think. Dutch people are really good at soccer. Sunday was good and normal. We had a lot to do as always. Yesterday we had FHE with the older single people in the branch which was great! It was a gezellig time.

Questions:
1.  How was church on Sunday? Do you ever teach any lessons?
2.  Did you have any fun visits with members?

1. Ya we have to fill in if people aren't there, but people are now back from vacation so we don't have to do that anymore!

2. This one lady we did service for is super cool. She is a grandma whose hsuband died last year but she just started with learning piano and is knitting this cool thing and she is a great painter and so many other cool hobbies. It is cool to see that she doesn't let her age stop her form learning new things.

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