That's a little thing they have everywhere, and there's a big one that moves around the city to different cool places and stuff, but yeah it's I AMsterdam. Get it...? I... Am.... Amsterdam. You're welcome. Anyways, this city is INSANE!!!! SOOOOO FREAKIN COOL!!!!!!!!!!! Every day is just totally different and fun. A lot of time wasted traveling though because we have such a huge city and investigators and members all over at different ends of it. One day we went contacting at the Amsterdam Central Station and I met a ton of people from all over the world. Tons of tourists, ton of people living here from different countries, etc. The Africans are probably my favorite. Especially Ugandans. We're teaching some Ugandans and they're all so much fun! But I freakin love talking to African people in general because they're so funny and usually already religious as well. Quick story: Walking around contacting people outside of the Amsterdam Centraal when this African guy is walking along in the crowd and starts calling out something that to me sounded like C Lo Green cuz he was just talking funny and he had an accent as well. But one of the times he looks me in the eye and calls it out, adding a little bit of swag with it too. So I start laughing a bit and call it out right back to him =D Then he walks over and says it better, "Still no change! Man, you white, I'm black. But still no change! You my brotha! We all children together!" I'm just going along with it and saying some of the same stuff back to him and then he sees my badge and starts going on about being children of God and I just keep rising up to his O.G. level (ha ha just kiddin) and we're just talking about all being children of God together and loving Jesus Christ. Freakin hilarious. Anyways, then he starts liking giving me different bro hugs and stuff while we're talking and different hand shakes and everything, it was so freakin funny. But he loved me and we just kept joking around with each other. So awesome. So now I'm an African Chaser. Whenever I see some sick lookin Africans, then I call dibs and go chill with them for a bit =D They're so awesome. This one guy was treating me like his best friend and wants to come pick me up from the station sometime so we can chill and talk about the Book of Mormon. Plus, they love it when they find out that my parents adopted two African-Americans. Ha ha =D Nice job family.
Which leads me to my second story: Remember how we always joked before about our house being the Plantation and stuff? Well our Ugandan investigators originally thought that we just wanted to baptize Africans so that they could be our slaves. Ha ha it was freakin hilarious though when I heard that because I started to tell them that I have two black siblings so I'm obviously not racist, but then we got to the adoption part and I made a joke about getting them for slavery and their eyes went so wide and everything! It was sooo freakin funny! And then me and my companions all started dying laughing and told them we were kidding and they couldn't stop laughing either. It was hilarious.
Anyways, we've been around the city quite a bit doing missionary work, but today is my first P day here and we're probably just gonna go check out some of the shopping here and stuff. I luckily haven't run into a red light district, but I heard it's inevitable that that'll happen on accident some day. I have already seen some crazy stuff though. But that also happened in Hengelo. The ward is a lot different here. Not so many families, but a ton of single members. So it's super hard figuring everybody out actually, remembering their names and what language they speak and everything. That's another thing, I actually haven't been speaking near as much Dutch as I used to. Maybe like 50 percent of people don't speak Dutch, but can either speak a little or a lot of English. So now I'm trying to figure out how to speak English again. Just kidding, but it really is confusing actually.
My companions are a lot of fun. It's super fun being in a 5-man apartment with the APs. Elder Sosa goes home on March 5th, which makes me kinda sad. He really is one of the coolest people I've ever met. For a lot of reasons, but he's also a very very good missionary. I'm already learning a lot from him about how I can improve even more. Elder Larson is a farmer from Joseph City, Arizona and really really nice. Almost too nice... Just kidding. But he's a really fun companion too and he's super caring about everything which is nice. So I've got it pretty good as far as companions goes. And I've got it amazing as far as the city goes. Except for the travel time. I feel like we're always on a bus, train, metro, or tram. Or walking. We've been playing soccer every morning, that's been fun.
As for the photos from my camera.... My camera literally just sucks. I've spent good time trying to get certain photos to look good, not be so blurry, HOLDING VERY STILL, keeping everything else still, etc. But my camera really just has a horrible focus, shutter action, LCD screen, etc. Part of me wants to buy a new one, but that may be an expensive mistake. All I know is that I'll be in the same spot, taking the same picture as somebody else, and there's always looks 10x better. I don't know, lemme know what you guys think.
OH! I got my back and neck popped by a professional chiropractor from Jordan. He's visiting here, left his iPad at church, we didn't know who's it was so we brought it back to our apartment, then we thought it might be his so we called him. Anyways, he walked with us to our apartment from the church later at night, figured out he is a freakin awesome guy, gave the iPad to him, then he started jogging off, then all of a sudden he came sprinting back, and called out to me, "Here let me pop your neck and check your back really quick!" And he was already inside the house and throwing blankets and a pillow on the floor for me. So first he checked my back and said it was pretty good, but I've got some tension in my lower back. Then he popped it like crazy. I was like Woah! Felt so good. Totally forget about the neck part. He has me flip over onto my back and he's holding my head, feeling my neck and stuff, then he says, "Okay relax, don't tense up." bbrrrttttt!!! He twisted my head in some way and my neck let out these huge pops, we were all way surprised and starting laughing, and then he twisted it the other way and did it again! It was way cool. Ha ha when I first laid down though, he said, "You don't actually even know if I'm a chiropractor or not, do you? I could just be some random guy inside your apartment right now!" We were all laughing and stuff and then I said, "Yeah you're right!! ...Well you uh... Don't have a criminal record... do you??" It was pretty funny.
Anyways, those are my stories for now. Gotta go. I love you guys all a ton though and hope everything is going well! Thanks for everything, bye =)
Which leads me to my second story: Remember how we always joked before about our house being the Plantation and stuff? Well our Ugandan investigators originally thought that we just wanted to baptize Africans so that they could be our slaves. Ha ha it was freakin hilarious though when I heard that because I started to tell them that I have two black siblings so I'm obviously not racist, but then we got to the adoption part and I made a joke about getting them for slavery and their eyes went so wide and everything! It was sooo freakin funny! And then me and my companions all started dying laughing and told them we were kidding and they couldn't stop laughing either. It was hilarious.
Anyways, we've been around the city quite a bit doing missionary work, but today is my first P day here and we're probably just gonna go check out some of the shopping here and stuff. I luckily haven't run into a red light district, but I heard it's inevitable that that'll happen on accident some day. I have already seen some crazy stuff though. But that also happened in Hengelo. The ward is a lot different here. Not so many families, but a ton of single members. So it's super hard figuring everybody out actually, remembering their names and what language they speak and everything. That's another thing, I actually haven't been speaking near as much Dutch as I used to. Maybe like 50 percent of people don't speak Dutch, but can either speak a little or a lot of English. So now I'm trying to figure out how to speak English again. Just kidding, but it really is confusing actually.
My companions are a lot of fun. It's super fun being in a 5-man apartment with the APs. Elder Sosa goes home on March 5th, which makes me kinda sad. He really is one of the coolest people I've ever met. For a lot of reasons, but he's also a very very good missionary. I'm already learning a lot from him about how I can improve even more. Elder Larson is a farmer from Joseph City, Arizona and really really nice. Almost too nice... Just kidding. But he's a really fun companion too and he's super caring about everything which is nice. So I've got it pretty good as far as companions goes. And I've got it amazing as far as the city goes. Except for the travel time. I feel like we're always on a bus, train, metro, or tram. Or walking. We've been playing soccer every morning, that's been fun.
As for the photos from my camera.... My camera literally just sucks. I've spent good time trying to get certain photos to look good, not be so blurry, HOLDING VERY STILL, keeping everything else still, etc. But my camera really just has a horrible focus, shutter action, LCD screen, etc. Part of me wants to buy a new one, but that may be an expensive mistake. All I know is that I'll be in the same spot, taking the same picture as somebody else, and there's always looks 10x better. I don't know, lemme know what you guys think.
OH! I got my back and neck popped by a professional chiropractor from Jordan. He's visiting here, left his iPad at church, we didn't know who's it was so we brought it back to our apartment, then we thought it might be his so we called him. Anyways, he walked with us to our apartment from the church later at night, figured out he is a freakin awesome guy, gave the iPad to him, then he started jogging off, then all of a sudden he came sprinting back, and called out to me, "Here let me pop your neck and check your back really quick!" And he was already inside the house and throwing blankets and a pillow on the floor for me. So first he checked my back and said it was pretty good, but I've got some tension in my lower back. Then he popped it like crazy. I was like Woah! Felt so good. Totally forget about the neck part. He has me flip over onto my back and he's holding my head, feeling my neck and stuff, then he says, "Okay relax, don't tense up." bbrrrttttt!!! He twisted my head in some way and my neck let out these huge pops, we were all way surprised and starting laughing, and then he twisted it the other way and did it again! It was way cool. Ha ha when I first laid down though, he said, "You don't actually even know if I'm a chiropractor or not, do you? I could just be some random guy inside your apartment right now!" We were all laughing and stuff and then I said, "Yeah you're right!! ...Well you uh... Don't have a criminal record... do you??" It was pretty funny.
Anyways, those are my stories for now. Gotta go. I love you guys all a ton though and hope everything is going well! Thanks for everything, bye =)