So it was pretty crazy getting to talk to you all on Christmas! I'm sorry, I probably seemed really out of it. It was just suuuuper weird to see everyone and talk to you guys in person(ish). It didn't feel real, kind of. We were all talking about it after, and it was like just a weird dream. But yeah, sorry I couldn't really think of many questions for you guys and all that! It was great and lots of fun though!! Anyways one of the funniest things to me was when I was speaking in Dutch and Carly's face pinched up weird and looked over at Mom and Dad ha ha ha. Then you guys said it sounded Asian (which is a whole continent by the way, but yeah that was funny too), but then changed your opinions to it sounding German. You guys are all probably gonna think it sounds so weird to listen to when I get home, but it actually is an attractive language to me =D Hard to describe, but it is.
Opening up presents Christmas morning was awesome =) The Arrested Development T-shirt was way funny, the calendar was a very very very good idea, the harmonica has been keeping me very entertained when we're just sitting there for a few minutes in between stuff, candy's amazingly delicious, etc, etc, etc! I loved it all =D Thanks everybody a ton!! Also, shout out to my friend Ethan Lewis who sent me a book of piano hymn arrangements! Waaaaayyyyy nice of him to do that! Anyways, it was great get to open up all of that stuff and using it all since then! It was definitely a weird Christmas though obviously. Didn't really feel like Christmas, despite our efforts... Probably mainly because we're all so used to doing missionary work every day and Christmas is a black hole for that. We can't do anything on Christmas or Tweede Kerst (Second Christmas the next day), unless we had been invited over by people. So it was very weird to just sit there inside and know that our numbers or that week were going to suffer horribly. Especially because everybody's just busy busy from a few days before Christmas until after New Year's.
Which brings me to my next topic: New Year's Eve. We have to be home by 4:00 and stay inside the whole rest of the day. This country takes any reason to have a holiday and party and steps it up like 10 levels. It's crazy. So many drunk people on Christmas Eve.... And lots of broken glass everywhere the next few days. New Year's Eve, I've heard, is absolutely insane though. First of all, as long as I've been here in the Netherlands, I've heard these booms that sound almost exactly gun shots or cannons that are actually fireworks. Freaked me out a bit at first when I got here. But they loooooove their fireworks!! They've been getting more frequent ever since, and now they're just constantly going on throughout the day, everywhere you go. Huge booms everywhere and bright lights during the night! It's crazy. Makes everybody jump during church, when one is closeby. Makes people jump while you're contacting them on the street, etc, etc. So I heard New Year's Eve is when it's absolutely constant though and just everybody going all out. Crrrraaaazzzzyyyyy!!!!!! Not to mention the drunk people. Ha ha it's gonna be funny on New Year's Day when we go from door to door and a bunch of people have hangovers. I'm excited =D
Anyways, on the 26th, Tweede Kerst. We took Elder Huff to the Mission Office in Leiden. I suck at goodbyes, but it was pretty dang sad and unreal. I'd say that he's probably one of my best friends. Definitely the trainer that I needed. Anyways, mix that with Elder Nielsen's homesickness, I was a bit distraught as well with remembering talking to all of you on Google Hangout, and now having this quiet house with Elder Nielsen and I.... It sucked. Anyways I'm over it now, and it's back to missionary work as usual.
K I got a lot of missionary stories. Hopefully I get them all in today. First off, the other Elders in our ward, who work in Enschede, got a referral to 7 homeless Bulgarians a while ago. They came here looking for work in hopes of a better life here in the Netherlands, couldn't find any, and are now stuck. They live out of a red van, one of them speaks a tiny bit of Dutch, another speaks really crappy English, they've got basically nothing. Suuuper sad situation. Anyways, they keep telling us (I taught them one time as well) about their hard lives, which is understandable, but they were trying to get money and lots of handouts. Us 5 missionaries (this was back with Elder Huff) kept thinking, "Oh crap, we don't really want them to be a burden on the members of the ward... But they do really need the Gospel." So we keep teaching them, but try to explain to them that they can get help, but they can't just be doing all of this for handouts. Hard to do in a nice way, but Elder Alston handled it pretty well. Anyways, they came to church twice, went to our ward Christmas party, made a lot of funny situations (like taking a few peices of bread off of the sacrament tray), we've all taught them a few times, etc. One of the members in our ward is an absolutely amazing lady, nicest person and most giving person that I've ever met, I believe. First time they come to church, she offers them showers, food, and shaves. Second time at church, same thing. Absolutely amazing thing to do really. Then after church for the second time, they keep asking to speak with the bishop, so they do. Elder Alston and Elder Torniainen were just waiting outside of his office for a hour or so while they talked inside. Then, the bishop comes out and says he has to run back home to get $350 (of his own personal money) and some food/drinks for the Bulgarians. So what had happened was the bishop explained to them that they would have so much better chances if they went back to Bulgaria (which obviously makes a lot of sense). So he calculated how much it would take, found them an LDS church in Bulgaria, and talked to them a little more about what they needed to do. So maybe you're thinking what if they use the money for other things rather than getting back to Bulgaria? Well the Bishop told the other Elders, "They can choose to do whatever they want with the money. My responsibility is just to make sure that they have a chance at making it to a better life." Or something like that basically. Amazing, right? Very humbling. As far as we know, they left and are hopefully there by now.
Okay so a couple days ago, got a definite reminder of Mom's quote thingy: "A coincidence is just a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous." I always really liked that quote and have ever since tried to pick out those tender mercies that we have every day. This particular day, I had been studying in the morning and right before I ended, I was closing Preach My Gospel and saw the question: Where shall I go? With some scripture references and such. I dumbly thought, eh I've already read those, it's the same old follow the Spirit stuff. THAT'S SO IMPORTANT, YOU IDIOT! So God humbled me. Elder Nielsen and I step out into the world, on our way to a look-up, and I think hm... Let's try going a slightly different way, for whatever reason. So we turn down a street, and there appears a man walking towards us on the sidewalk. Elder Nielsen says, "You got this one?" Something seems familiar in a weird way about this guy, so for some reason I say, "Nope, you saw him first heh heh =D" Not very typical of me actually. Elder Nielsen starts contacting him, talking to him about the Book of Mormon, and the guy's nodding, keeps glancing over at me, and I'm thinking, "Gosh, I swear this guy is one of Enschede's investigators...." Then the guy says he already knows us, and I figure out who he is, and we talk a bit and laugh about that. Ha ha great stuff. But then we remind him Church is tomorrow and invite him to come, he seems excited and agrees. Woo hoo! Cool stuff. Anyways, we do a bunch of door knocking and then realize we're right by one of our favorite members. So we go visit them and they're all like, "Oh, good thing you came! We've actually been meaning to set up an appointment with you guys sometime soon for some [missionary stuff] later!" Awesome cool, we start heading home for lunch. I hear Black Eyed Peas coming from down the street we're on. It turns off, mom gets out with groceries. Daughter (mid-20s don't worry) comes out of the house with dog, dog runs up to me barking. I know what it is, but I ask her what kind of dog it is and she says Shi-Tzu in Dutch. So now I've learned how to say that in Dutch (pay atttention, that's important later) Anyways, I mention some stuff about learning the language here, bla bla bla, leave a good image of the missionaries of the Church with her. Boom, keep walking. Turn the corner, BAH! Older lady, granddaughter, and a SHI-TZU!!!! We're walking past them and I casually say something like oh is this called a [Shi-tzu in Dutch] in Dutch? She's nice and I mention learning the language, 3rd month here, she says wow, conversation continues turning gradually towards Christmas, then the Church. Turns out she's got a son in England who is dating a Mormon girl. So we keep talking about her beliefs and the conversation goes on for at the very least: 5 minutes. Nice and long. We give her a pass along card, invite her to read in the Book of Mormon, etc. She didn't want to make an appointment, but she was willing to at least learn more on her own. So that's awesome. Kept walking. Paths awkwardly cross as we both end up going the same way and I make a joke about it being good to see them again! ha ha giggles giggles. Split up, keep walking. Come to a stop light and they suddenly appear and are crossing the street the same way! I say no such thing as coincidences, giggles giggles, talk to them a bit, friendly conversation, and then we split up again. Anyways, look at all of those coincidences in that day! Awesome.
So there's my stories and what not. Church is true. Appreciate the little things in life. Cool, cool cool cool. Okay well I love you guys all so very very much and am super happy to be out here still! I hope everything's going well at home! Fijne week!
Opening up presents Christmas morning was awesome =) The Arrested Development T-shirt was way funny, the calendar was a very very very good idea, the harmonica has been keeping me very entertained when we're just sitting there for a few minutes in between stuff, candy's amazingly delicious, etc, etc, etc! I loved it all =D Thanks everybody a ton!! Also, shout out to my friend Ethan Lewis who sent me a book of piano hymn arrangements! Waaaaayyyyy nice of him to do that! Anyways, it was great get to open up all of that stuff and using it all since then! It was definitely a weird Christmas though obviously. Didn't really feel like Christmas, despite our efforts... Probably mainly because we're all so used to doing missionary work every day and Christmas is a black hole for that. We can't do anything on Christmas or Tweede Kerst (Second Christmas the next day), unless we had been invited over by people. So it was very weird to just sit there inside and know that our numbers or that week were going to suffer horribly. Especially because everybody's just busy busy from a few days before Christmas until after New Year's.
Which brings me to my next topic: New Year's Eve. We have to be home by 4:00 and stay inside the whole rest of the day. This country takes any reason to have a holiday and party and steps it up like 10 levels. It's crazy. So many drunk people on Christmas Eve.... And lots of broken glass everywhere the next few days. New Year's Eve, I've heard, is absolutely insane though. First of all, as long as I've been here in the Netherlands, I've heard these booms that sound almost exactly gun shots or cannons that are actually fireworks. Freaked me out a bit at first when I got here. But they loooooove their fireworks!! They've been getting more frequent ever since, and now they're just constantly going on throughout the day, everywhere you go. Huge booms everywhere and bright lights during the night! It's crazy. Makes everybody jump during church, when one is closeby. Makes people jump while you're contacting them on the street, etc, etc. So I heard New Year's Eve is when it's absolutely constant though and just everybody going all out. Crrrraaaazzzzyyyyy!!!!!! Not to mention the drunk people. Ha ha it's gonna be funny on New Year's Day when we go from door to door and a bunch of people have hangovers. I'm excited =D
Anyways, on the 26th, Tweede Kerst. We took Elder Huff to the Mission Office in Leiden. I suck at goodbyes, but it was pretty dang sad and unreal. I'd say that he's probably one of my best friends. Definitely the trainer that I needed. Anyways, mix that with Elder Nielsen's homesickness, I was a bit distraught as well with remembering talking to all of you on Google Hangout, and now having this quiet house with Elder Nielsen and I.... It sucked. Anyways I'm over it now, and it's back to missionary work as usual.
K I got a lot of missionary stories. Hopefully I get them all in today. First off, the other Elders in our ward, who work in Enschede, got a referral to 7 homeless Bulgarians a while ago. They came here looking for work in hopes of a better life here in the Netherlands, couldn't find any, and are now stuck. They live out of a red van, one of them speaks a tiny bit of Dutch, another speaks really crappy English, they've got basically nothing. Suuuper sad situation. Anyways, they keep telling us (I taught them one time as well) about their hard lives, which is understandable, but they were trying to get money and lots of handouts. Us 5 missionaries (this was back with Elder Huff) kept thinking, "Oh crap, we don't really want them to be a burden on the members of the ward... But they do really need the Gospel." So we keep teaching them, but try to explain to them that they can get help, but they can't just be doing all of this for handouts. Hard to do in a nice way, but Elder Alston handled it pretty well. Anyways, they came to church twice, went to our ward Christmas party, made a lot of funny situations (like taking a few peices of bread off of the sacrament tray), we've all taught them a few times, etc. One of the members in our ward is an absolutely amazing lady, nicest person and most giving person that I've ever met, I believe. First time they come to church, she offers them showers, food, and shaves. Second time at church, same thing. Absolutely amazing thing to do really. Then after church for the second time, they keep asking to speak with the bishop, so they do. Elder Alston and Elder Torniainen were just waiting outside of his office for a hour or so while they talked inside. Then, the bishop comes out and says he has to run back home to get $350 (of his own personal money) and some food/drinks for the Bulgarians. So what had happened was the bishop explained to them that they would have so much better chances if they went back to Bulgaria (which obviously makes a lot of sense). So he calculated how much it would take, found them an LDS church in Bulgaria, and talked to them a little more about what they needed to do. So maybe you're thinking what if they use the money for other things rather than getting back to Bulgaria? Well the Bishop told the other Elders, "They can choose to do whatever they want with the money. My responsibility is just to make sure that they have a chance at making it to a better life." Or something like that basically. Amazing, right? Very humbling. As far as we know, they left and are hopefully there by now.
Okay so a couple days ago, got a definite reminder of Mom's quote thingy: "A coincidence is just a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous." I always really liked that quote and have ever since tried to pick out those tender mercies that we have every day. This particular day, I had been studying in the morning and right before I ended, I was closing Preach My Gospel and saw the question: Where shall I go? With some scripture references and such. I dumbly thought, eh I've already read those, it's the same old follow the Spirit stuff. THAT'S SO IMPORTANT, YOU IDIOT! So God humbled me. Elder Nielsen and I step out into the world, on our way to a look-up, and I think hm... Let's try going a slightly different way, for whatever reason. So we turn down a street, and there appears a man walking towards us on the sidewalk. Elder Nielsen says, "You got this one?" Something seems familiar in a weird way about this guy, so for some reason I say, "Nope, you saw him first heh heh =D" Not very typical of me actually. Elder Nielsen starts contacting him, talking to him about the Book of Mormon, and the guy's nodding, keeps glancing over at me, and I'm thinking, "Gosh, I swear this guy is one of Enschede's investigators...." Then the guy says he already knows us, and I figure out who he is, and we talk a bit and laugh about that. Ha ha great stuff. But then we remind him Church is tomorrow and invite him to come, he seems excited and agrees. Woo hoo! Cool stuff. Anyways, we do a bunch of door knocking and then realize we're right by one of our favorite members. So we go visit them and they're all like, "Oh, good thing you came! We've actually been meaning to set up an appointment with you guys sometime soon for some [missionary stuff] later!" Awesome cool, we start heading home for lunch. I hear Black Eyed Peas coming from down the street we're on. It turns off, mom gets out with groceries. Daughter (mid-20s don't worry) comes out of the house with dog, dog runs up to me barking. I know what it is, but I ask her what kind of dog it is and she says Shi-Tzu in Dutch. So now I've learned how to say that in Dutch (pay atttention, that's important later) Anyways, I mention some stuff about learning the language here, bla bla bla, leave a good image of the missionaries of the Church with her. Boom, keep walking. Turn the corner, BAH! Older lady, granddaughter, and a SHI-TZU!!!! We're walking past them and I casually say something like oh is this called a [Shi-tzu in Dutch] in Dutch? She's nice and I mention learning the language, 3rd month here, she says wow, conversation continues turning gradually towards Christmas, then the Church. Turns out she's got a son in England who is dating a Mormon girl. So we keep talking about her beliefs and the conversation goes on for at the very least: 5 minutes. Nice and long. We give her a pass along card, invite her to read in the Book of Mormon, etc. She didn't want to make an appointment, but she was willing to at least learn more on her own. So that's awesome. Kept walking. Paths awkwardly cross as we both end up going the same way and I make a joke about it being good to see them again! ha ha giggles giggles. Split up, keep walking. Come to a stop light and they suddenly appear and are crossing the street the same way! I say no such thing as coincidences, giggles giggles, talk to them a bit, friendly conversation, and then we split up again. Anyways, look at all of those coincidences in that day! Awesome.
So there's my stories and what not. Church is true. Appreciate the little things in life. Cool, cool cool cool. Okay well I love you guys all so very very much and am super happy to be out here still! I hope everything's going well at home! Fijne week!