The week has gone by sooo fast. One of the fastest weeks I have had actually. We were really busy with appointments the whole week so that was why. We had a record amount of appointments and things all in one week, everyday we were just running from one thing to the next. Cool to hear about the snow at home though! We got a little bit this week here. We also get a lot of hail here…well weather wise this week was a lot colder than usual, however, there were almost no clouds for 3 days which was weird. My eyes are not used to so much light because it is always overcast.
So last Pday this member took us out for dinner. We went to a place that is like HuHot! It was really good. It is called Victory Wok. She brought her son and the 4 of us had a good time. It was so nice of her to take us there and we really appreciated it.
On Tuesday we had district meeting which went well. We taught a good training I must say. It was all on the BoM and using it in our teaching and contacting. Then we quickly travelled back for a lunch appointment we had with a less active and we had a good chat with him. We had to leave there to get our next appointment with some investigators. We left to go to our dinner appointment. That was great. We have never eaten at Family D yet so it was fun. They were both born in Rotterdam and were interested to know that Oma was also born there! I will have to ask her where specifically. We had a really good time with them.
Wednesday was our slow day. We only had a dinner appointment. It was with a member from California, she is really cool and made us delicious chicken enchiladas. But before that we biked to a city called Heerhugowaard and we had a couple people we needed to look up. We a travelled a total of 270 kilometres in 3 weeks on bikes, and we aren’t even biking that much. We definitely could go more. But ya, we biked all around that city looking up people.
On Thursday our first appointment was at 9:00 am at the church with an investigator. He is Dutch. He is very knowledgeable in religion and actually had a BoM he got from missionaries who gave it to him 15 years ago here in Alkmaar. So that was cool and our lesson was good. We then went to Den Helder which took a minute. There we had an appointment with a guy who wrote himself out of the church but now wants to come back. He is pretty good on the guitar and Elder Crow and I got to play electric guitar for the first time. We came back to our dinner appointment which was another good one, family D! They are so funny. They have guinea pigs and he kept making jokes about eating them. Then I told him that I did actually eat one before, haha [in Ecuador]. He asked if it was lekker [tasty]. We had yet another appointment that night but she wasn’t home so we added her to the list of all the people we need to get around to look up.
Friday morning we had a meeting with our ward mission leader. He fed us lunch as well and we arranged a Powerpoint presentation that we are going to use on Sundays to teach the old people how to use lds.org and how to share things on Facebook, church things of course. That’s where the elders come in. That took a while. He then took us to the train station where we took a train to Den Helder again and had an appointment with a lady named J. She is a former who we decided to look up when we were in Den Helder because why not. She turned out to be super positive and is now our best investigator! She tells us that when she reads in the BoM she feels like a warm blanket is being put around her! She feels a lot of peace when she reads in it too. We invited her to church and she will be coming in the next 2 or 3 weeks. We then headed to Horn for 2 other appointments, they were both not home. But in between them we had some time to get dinner at the station, which was Burger King and very popular here.
Saturday we had to catch a train out to Enkhuizen, that was a trip! We also had to walk 30 mins in the middle of the countryside…really random then all of the sudden we found the house. This guy is a potential investigator we called and set up an appointment with. What is cool though is he had a few guitars laying around and we asked if he played and he was like “ya, only for like the past 53 years…” So after our lesson he picked one up and I asked if he does any jazz or blues and, wow, he sure does. He just went off. I have never seen anyone play so well on the guitar. Elder Crow and I were both so awed. That’s all we could think about for the rest of the day!!! He was so insanely good!!! But back to the lesson. I taught on the restoration.
We then travelled to Horn to go to another appointment we had called and set up. We didn’t really know what were getting into. Turned out he was a JW and took the opportunity to teach us everything he knows about his religion and all the problems he has with the BoM. Again, he had issues with all the little technical things. So then he says that it was all wrong but he also hasn’t taken the chance to read and pray about the book. He just went with the easy way and went with the world. People get so caught up in trying to prove that it is true. What it comes down to is that you can’t prove it is true, but you also can’t prove that it is wrong, so the only other option is to go to God and ask the source of truth if it is true.
We headed back to Alkmaar and biked like crazy to make it to our weekly dinner appointment with fam dB on time. That was good as always. They are literally what I want to be when I grow up. They are so good. They do their familie history, they go to church every week at their age even, they fulfill callings, they do the daily reading and things. They even have a freakin 72 hour kit, which they check and rotate. They are so good, great examples to us. They even share the gospel to the people they know and they have us over every week. It is just crazy how good they are, haha. Anyway, after that we rushed home to change to go to the gym for volleyball with some of the ward members. That was a blast. Oh, I forgot to mention that I willingly bought fish for the first time and ate it willingly … and liked it. It was kibbeling which was delicious!
Tender mercy that happened this week is when we were biking and we got really lost and the path we were on just ended. We were stopped and looking around when all of the sudden this car stops in the middle of the freakin road and the driver gets out runs over to us and asked where we wanted to go. We told him and he pointed us in the right direction. I was so amazed that he saw us, slammed on his brakes and left his car running in the middle of the road to come help these 2 random strangers! So that was nice.
This week's questions:
1. How did the work go this week?
2. How is it going with the branch members?
3. Did you travel anywhere this week?
4. Did you start back writing in your journal? You will no doubt be glad you did!
5. When do you think you will get the parcel I sent you?
6. When are transfers next? They must be coming up soon?!
7. How are district leader duties going?
8. Are you eating well and feeling healthy?
9. Do you wear your bike helmet I sent you?
1. Just the one person we found and yes J is progressing!
2. Oh yes very good. Elder Crow says that one of my strengths is ward relations, haha.
3. YES!
4. No... I think I will just call this my transfer off. I will do it for the next transfers. I make sure my weekly emails are long and kinda include that as my journal...
5. Next zone conference or maybe interviews this week on Friday! If it is really fast.
6. Soon! next week.
7. Great. It is fun to be more involved in everything.
8. I would say so. Elder Crow is good at keeping us on track. Although they have really good candies over here… namely wine gummies, haha.
9. Oooh yes. everyday. I like that helmet. I have gotten 3 compliments from random people on the street. It is very useful too cause we bike at night all the time and by law you need to have lights. So now I don't need to have any on the bike cause I have them on my head. Makes my life easier.
That is all,
Elder Fernhout
