Nicholas Fernhout in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission: Week 32: Hoi from Emmen

Hello,

Week was good. The ongoing struggle to find a good way to find people in Emmen continues. Usually if you have free time you can jsut go knock some doors but you can't do that here. The town is so small that it's been done so many times already! So we did try to use a banner but it's not very sturdy and the slightest bit of wind will make it fall so we had to hold it up. Anyway, we are still looking how we can effectively fill extra time. Something that I've noticed about Emmen though is that the people here are really nice, at least compared to Brugge. In Brugge people would never say 'hello' back if you say something to them, a lot of the time they wouldn't even look at you. Here half the time people say 'hi' to us first and they are always smiling back too. I found out something cool yesterday at church. I was talking with the branch president's wife and I told her I was from Canada and she told me somehting cool about Vancouver. So there is a place near Emmen called Coevorden. and a looooong time ago people from that little town went over to Canada and established Vancouver. If you look at the word Vancouver is makes sense because "van" in Dutch means of or from and "couver" comes from coevorden. So cool! That can be the Dutch word of the week.

Oo pizza sounds good, for some reason pizza is really expensive here. We should try making it because homemade is the best. There is decent shopping here but nothing like Amsterdam or even Brugge.

Questions:
1. Do you have pictures to send this week?
2. How is the training going?
3. Did you find a place to get a haircut in Emmen?
4. Do you cover any small towns? Have you been to any?
5. So you are learning the guitar?!
6. Is the language very different? Are you picking up the accent?
7. How is the ward?
8. How are Dutch people different than Belgians?
9. Let me know what size Lululemon pants to send you and anything else you need.
10. Is the food very different in Holland?
11. What have you learned this week about yourself or the Gospel?
 1. Yup, I included them. Sorry, forgot the apartment ones again.

2. Good, ER is doing well. His Dutch is slowly coming and he's got a bike now.

3. I just got off the phone 5 mins ago and arranged one with some of the members, haha.

4. Ya we do, a lot actually. No, but we might check them out this week

5. Yes haha. It's comign pretty good too. I'd say it was Elder Richards because he was really good and it was cool and fun to sing and listen to the songs. One of the elders was dying [mission lingo for going home] and gave it to me for free.

6. Ya it is, but it is a lot easier to understand!

7. Really small right now because everyone is on vacation! The ward here in Emmen is famous in the mission for being really cool and good and it's true they are all aweosme. Usually the elders here are fed every day but with so many people gone we have like 1 or 2 this week. Ya, we help out a bit. I've blessed the sacrament 2 weeks in a row now and besides giving a talk last week I gave the Young Men's lesson yesterday and in 2 weeks will speak again in church.

8. It's hard to explain. Well this is kinda off topic but it's funny. Yesterday was testimony meeting and this new guy got up to bear his and mid way through he said, as you can already probably tell I am from Rotterdam and the whole ward laughed cause it was just so obvious from his accent that he was from there. I think it's so cool how people just immediatly know where you are from. But uh the Dutch people are different in many ways, one of them is that they bike a lot more. They also really like to out and about, on the streets walking around, just doing stuff. Belgians are more inside and chilling.

9. Metal collar stays would be nice, uh, i'll have to check my size I forget.

10. Ya the mayo is not as good, haha, and neither are the fries and they don't have as many waffles, like none actually. Well, I have had a bunch of stoopwafels but those are a lot different. Also, the Vla here is great and so many things actaully, the food is a lot different. Oh and cheaper here too which is real nice!

11. That it doesn't matter what you say to people when you begin to contact them as a missioanry. If they are going to accept it they are going to accept it. There are people out there searching for the gospel and we are here to find those people, not to convince the people who aren't ready to be converted. But in that process we find a lot of people who are not prepared and are not willing to talk. But that's jsut part of being a missioanry and when you find someine who is ready it makes it all worth it.