Nicholas Fernhout in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission: Week 43: First Days in Zoetermeer

Well, I could write a really really long email about everything that has happened but I will try to not do that! I’ll start from the beginning of the week. Tuesday was our last district meeting as a district which was kinda sad. Afterwards we all signed each others books and ate lunch and said our goodbyes. After that E. Rytting and I went home and cleaned the apartment for a long time. Also packed and wrote a little book for the next elders.

The next morning we woke up and made our way to the station with all of our luggage and stuff. Not fun. We got to Zwolle and met the ZLs who helped us onto our next train. Then from there I got off in the city of Gouda and ER stayed on. When I got off there E. Calmes met me and helped me onto my next train. Good to see him again! Then I got off in Zoetermeer. There I met Elder Occon and Elder Plant [trained by Elder Matt Nielsen], they are the other 2 elders who would be living in the same apartment as us. A few minutes later came Elder Ballard and yes, he is related to the apostle, 5th cousins. He gets asked that soooooo much it’s crazy, haha. From there we all took our luggage except Occon and traveled to the apartment. It was not fun at all, haha, but we made it. We got there and EO filled us in on the details of Zoetermeer. We were all pumped to work there, it is a great city and the missionary work is going amazing.

After about an hour Prez called and told EP that he is being emergency transferred to Groningen. He wasn't too happy about it and got stressed cause we had to leave right that moment. He was being transferred because there is a Portuguese speaking elder coming from Brazil and EO speaks Portuguese so he will be training him. He will get here tomorrow we think. So since Wednesday we have been working in a trio. A crazy day that day. So we were all stressed and tired and just done with the day when EO was like, oh ya, we are going to the temple today! We were all so pumped! So in Zoetermeer because the temple is here they call the elders sometimes to have us go help and that just ended up being on transfer day. How sick is that, Zoetermeer is so lucky, I love it. So ya, at 5:00 pm that day we went there and put in some work doing voorverordeningen. So nice.

The next day we got to work and let me tell you we went to WORK! EO is the same group as Ballard and Rytting so they are pretty young but Occon is a great missionary. We went out for the day and we were walking to the building where we were going to work and just on the way there he gave out 3 BOMs in 3 different languages. So let me tell you about Occon for a bit here. He speaks English perfectly and pretty dang good Portuguese, his Dutch is ok, and he can do parts of Spanish and French and a little Papiamento. So he is all around solid. He has soooooo much energy, like so much. So ya, he gave out a lot of BOMs then at the building we found a sick potential investigator and a few other cool things happened. In total for the day we found 9 really good new potentials, which, btw, is more than Elder Ballard and I combined in our last cities for the entire transfer. So it was a lot! We gave out 7 BOMs which is a ton! At one point we were at the centrum and EO wanted to stand in the middle of the stores and people eating and stand up and start preaching like the missionaries of old. He tried to get EB and I to do it but we wouldn't. So he gets up there and starts talking really loudly about the restoration with a BOM in his hand. After he got yelled at for a bit he came back and as we were walking away some guy who works at a restaurant came out the back of it and asked if he could learn more. We gave him a BoM and exchanged numbers and got his address. So ya, I love this place and these 2 elders are great. EB has incredible Dutch for his age and is so good at talking to everybody, just always contacting. Bold guy. We are going to have some good times this transfer. Another thing to put in perspective is that EB and I last transfer gave out a total 3 BOMs. That's less than half of what we gave out that day. We are ordering 5 boxes of BoMs this next transfer… that’s also crazy. I'm so excited! So ya I could go on forever about all the people we met and cool things that happened but I don’t have time.

The next day we met the ward mission leader. He's great, very on the ball about everything. He showed us around the church building and taught us the ins and outs. The building is soooo nice, big normal sized chapel like back home. That night we had an English class at the church that we teach to people who want to learn English. We met the sisters there, Zuster Cannon and Zuster Bitton, solid sisters. So in Zoetermeer there are 6 missionaries total for this small place. Last area we had 3 investigators, and for a normal place 8 is really good. Here we have almost 30… 30 people! That’s why it was made a 4 man. Our apartment is ok, the one in Emmen was bigger. We have only one bathroom but it’s all good. I like the apartment, it's homey and fun. We get along really well the 3 of us and play Uno in our free time. Also, I am so glad I have the guitar. We make up songs and sing and stuff all the time, it’s awesome, but don’t get me wrong, we do a lot of work.

Saturday we got up at 6:00 am and went to do service at a member's farm. Missionaries have been going there every Saturday for the past so many years. It's kinda famous in the mission. So I was really excited to go. We got there at 7:30 and met the owner. It is a milk farm. First, we cleaned up the barn for the cows, then he let the cows in where we had to put a collar on them and then we put some food down, things like brussel sprouts, which they like, and we put down a lot of those. But even better is that when stores have day old bread they sell it cheap to him and he buys it for his cows and so we had 4 wheel barrows full of bread that we fed to the cows and they loooooooove bread. It’s so funny, you hold up the bread and they all look at you then they just eat it up. The best part of the week was the temple, then feeding the cows bread, haha. We also let them loose after he milked them and cleaned up the area again. It took a few hours for all that but I took a lot of good photos! After we were done he gave us each a glass of fresh milk that was from the cows that day. It was cooled and really good. I was so tired the rest of the day.

Sunday was great. Our ward starts at 1:00 pm but the English ward starts at 12:00 pm so we go early and sit in a class and listen to the English then after stay for the Dutch and go to the other Dutch classes, good stuff. We saw the APs there who are in charge of the English ward. Oh, the day before we had a dinner appointment with family T. who are so sick. The dad made these absolutely delicious burgers, like so good. But ya church was great, we had a few investigators there, 5 of whom are going to be baptized in the coming 3 weeks. Between the sisters and us and the APs there is a baptism almost every week for the next month and 2 in one weekend. Good stuff.

Questions:
1. How did it go on the trains getting to your new area?
2. What are your first impressions of Zoetermeer? Have you seen Snow World? I imagine missionaries are NOT allowed to go.
3. What area do you cover?
4. What area do the other elders cover?
5. So you cover a ward now… how was church on Sunday?
6. Do you have investigators to teach? Is the work busy there?
7. When do you go to the temple? Do you have a name to take or do you have to find one?
8. Did you hear much about the changes to missionary work? They are combining missions and there is a new focus on using technology to find religiously minded people.

1. Ok, stressful and my shoulder had a great workout, just never a fun day on transfer day when you have to move. I had my sling bag and my duffel and my roll and my guitar and my bike which I had to personally carry all over and on and off trains all day, ugh.

2. I heard of Snow World, I don’t remember if we can or not but probs not. I'll have to ask. I love Zoetermeer.

3. Small area, just Zoetermeer and a little bit of the area surrounding it.

4. We are all in the same area.

5. Yes a ward! It felt like back home, although there was some stake event going on so there wasn’t that many people yet. It went well. We have a great bishop who served in Montreal on his mission.

6. Oh yes.

7. Nov. 5 but I already got to go! I'll ask the office to help me get a name because it is coming up really fast and they are happy to help out.

8. All I heard was that missionaries are getting smart phones but not here, haha.

Hou doe,

Elder Fernhout