So guess what? I came back to the slaapzaal latste nacht, and peeked my head into the temp rooms. I was going to ask "Anybody seen a Bieber here," when WHAM, there was Travis! Craziness, eh? It's awesome that he's finally here! I can imagine how excited he is. We talked for a good half hour or so last night before I had to slip off to bed. I don't think he's going to be staying in the same room as me during his stay here, but fingers crossed, right? S'good to see somebody from home.
Thank you all for your cards and letters! Especially to you, Biebers, for the money! Thanks a b'zillion!
So now I'm up on the top bunk in my room. I decided to let poor Elder Mower have the bottom bunk for a while. Plus I'm hoping it'll make him wake up earlier and to also make his bed. His excuse was always "it's hard to make it up there" (and it is), but now he has no excuse.
I can see how greatly my Dutch is improving with each passing week. We have SLY Saturdays, where daar is geen engels (where there is no English). Most of the time we end up speaking English, but it still amazing how far we can get along with how much we've learnt. We're trying to speak as much het Nederlands as possible during the week. It's a difficult adjustment, but I think it's for the best. I'm optimistic that I'll know enough Dutch to get comfortably along when I'm finally out in the mission.
So I just asked about the Christmas phone call. Unfortunately, they said no. However, we can call from the airport, so expect that call to come sometime early January.
Last night we had Elder Snow from the Seventy and his wife talk to us. They were both great talks about the importance of missionary work. One thing that Sister Snow said in particular caught my attention. She said something along the lines of "As we help save other people, we help save ourselves." That stuck out to me because I'm interested in stories in the Book of Mormon where the Lord says to his prophets that they are blessed and will be saved for their obedience and work. It's awesome to think of missionary work like that... Neat-O.
So Elder Burton (the other Canadian in onze district) was released as our district leader. Well, it's not technically a calling, but you get the idea. Guess who got called as our new district leader! If you guessed me - you're wrong! Dear old Elder Mower is our new district leader. I'm actually stoked about it. Because now I get to go check the mail with him every day (which is exciting) without having to go to all the meetings during the week. Yay! Elders Burton and Andrews were called as our new Zone leaders. Not quite sure what that means, but again, glad it's not me. Is that bad to say?
How's life back home? How's my boy, Angus? Still whiny and such? Tell the girlies to behave themselves or else.
I always forget the letters and stuff that have questions all over them. In my defence though, I just came from the temple. I love the letters you guys are sending. It means a lot to me, even if I don't respond. I'll try to actually send a letter one of these days. I have neither stamps nor envelopes though, so I'll have to get those first.
Did you ever send me my book stuff? I guess if you don't think I need it, that's okay. But I'm trying to write my book and don't remember much of the things that I wrote down. Could you send my plannings in either an email or a DearElder.com, alstublieft? I'd greatly appreciate it. Still, no worries.
How's the ward? Any adventures happen during my absence? I hope not. Exciting things cannot happen when I'm gone! You know how I hate missing out. All my love to you guys (the ward)! I'll try to make you all proud.
I feel like I'm making progress in the gospel. I said a sincere prayer one night, asking how I could improve and stuff and the next day I delivered my message to our investigator so well. It was like everything I learned just came together. And likewise, when I give no effort or am not so sincere with prayer or scripture study, I can feel the lack of energy or spirit in the lesson. It's crazy how truly noticeable the Holy Ghost sometimes.
Weeks are starting to fly past. Someday's it's like the same thing happened as the day before. My journal entries aren't so extravagant either. Days feel like weeks and weeks like days I suppose.
Oh yes! I played with some pretty good players Monday night for volleyball. Half the team seemed to like setting for me and were halfway decent. I got some great hits, which absolutely made my day. It feels good to drill a ball and have the other team say things like "Gee, calm down, it's just MTC ball." That means you're awesome and they know it. Anyway, I'm going to try to play with those same guys who set me more often. Hopefully we'll get some good players on a transfer day one of these weeks. You know what would be great? If Travis's gym time was the same as mine. Holy man, that would be sweet. Chances of that are very slim though...
Food's still the same. They've served us hotdogs at least...8 times now. Unbelievable. And corndogs too. What's even better than that is what I found in my powdered eggs one morning. An ant. Yep. That's right. A squished up ant, chilling in my eggs. I thought the eggs were bad enough to begin with. I think I'll stick to bagels and cereal for breakfast from now on. Gross.
I can't wait to get out to the field where I can eat real food. Mmm.
On a slightly sad note, the Danish Elders are leaving on Monday. I'm going to miss them. On the other hand, we're getting 9 new Dutchies. 5 sisters, 4 elders. Ooo, we're going to have fun with them come Magic Tuesday. They're also getting 7 new Danish elders, so I guess the ones we got now will be more than replaced.
Well, that's about all the time I got. I love you all so much!
Till next P-day, totziens!
Elder Burgess
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