Monday 23 January 2012

A gazillion answers to a gazillion questions!!

Oh myan, I just discovered that you can read other people's emails and write your reply at the SAME TIME.  Technology.  Should make it easier to reply to the swarm of questions you asked me.
Blam, I hope you're enjoying the flood of pictures I sent.  Be careful of the strange ones.  Like I said, I'm not quecking.  Quecking?  wow.  I'm not checking what I'm sending.  So...have fun in that regard.
But, as requested, here is a standard day.
Wake up at 6:30, (pretend to) exercise until 7
7, eat breakfast, shower
8, personal study
9, companionship study
10, language study
then, typically (depending on the day), we either go tracting--knocking on doors or talking to people in the streets--look ups (visiting or phoning potential or former investigators or less-active members), or visit with our investigators.
Anyway from 12 until 2-ish, we have lunch and then another companionship study (because we're doing a 12 week training program).
Then, from then until dinner, we basically do the same.  Street finding, door finding, look ups, lessons with our investigators, ect.
Usually around 6, we eat dinner.
Then hopefully, our evening is filled with appointments, otherwise we usually try to do look ups.
9 is our curfew.  Scadoodle back to the apartment, unless we have a late appointment, in which case, our curfew is 9:30.  Lights out at 10:30.
Living with the office elders is pretty fun I guess.  We don't get to see much of them though.  Didn't I already talk about this?  They eat lunch and dinner at the office, leave early in the morning and only come home at curfew time--often late as well.  Still, it's fun to be bunking with them
President Brubaker is a great guy.  I've been seeing a lot of him lately...  He's super friendly and easy to be around and stuff.  Gee, there's so much to write today!  Anyway, we had a district meeting.  Can't really remember what happened.  We talked about our goals for the year (40 or so baptisms) and ate some delicious food.  Aha, this morning, I was wearing my Zombies shirt, getting ready to kick back and enjoy the morning, when Elder Jones called: "Wear your proselyting clothes.  Gotta go, bye."  What the heck?  Oh well.  So I got changed and about...5 minutes later, President Brubaker knocked on the door.  Gulp.
Buuut all he wanted was to watch us do our companionship study.  And film us as well.  Yeah, okay.  It's a little bit...how to say?...tauter with President sitting there, holding a camera.  Apparently, they're going to use the film for a zone meeting or something down the road.  Aha, right...
Ah, so our ward.  Well, actually it's a branch.  Leiden/Wassenaar has always had one pair of Elders--the office elders--but decided that a second pair would be a good idea.  This way, Wassenaar has its own set of Elders and more finding work can be done, because the office Elders don't get much time to do so in a week.  Our branch is a small one.  Perhaps, oh, 50 members?  Half of that number must be children.  Seriously, our branch is very young.  Lots of children.  No problem in that though.  Everybody is super friendly and they all seem like very strong members.  I'm excited to work with them--which in itself is difficult.  With such a small branch, it's hard to get members to come along with us when we teach.  I don't think we've actually had a joint-teach yet.  Oh well.
Shopping, to answer another question, usually costs us around 40 euros, which is very good.  It helps that we have the office elders shopping as well.  Elder Frahm likes to cook Bami a lot, which is a noodle dish which he serves with peanut sauce.  It's really good.  We eat a lot of pasta and bread, but I try to eat yogutruruhnt once and a while and orange as well.  DANGIT, I forgot to buy oranges today.
This email feels...so unexciting.  Darn all your questions!  No, I'm joking.  I wasn't sure what to write about anyway.
As far as the weather, it's very dynamic here.  You should see the clouds, holay, they move at a zillion miles per hour, I swear.  It's always windy, but sometimes it really gusts like crazy.  It rains quite frequently as well and coupled with the wind, it's impossible to stay dry.  Umbrellas are not an option a lot of the time because of the wind actually.  I've seen a lot of broken ones on the side of the road.  Papa Joe's coat does well to keep out the rain though.
It's not too cold here though.  Apparently, this winter is very mild.  We haven't had any snow and it's only been under freezing for about...3 days last week.  It's not hard to tell when it's in the negatives--the canals start freezing over.
Oh, my bike.  So I told you about the gears and the seat?  Well, the handlebars also were loose.  Had to fix those.  Then, Saturday, my back tire sprung a leak.  Dagnabbit!  We had to walk it home from the centrum.  It's all good now.
Don't worry, I'm staying plenty warm.  Papa Joe's jacket is a bit on the thin side, but I usually wear a sweater underneath by suit jacket, so I'm pretty cozy.  I've also got a few scarves donated by some swell chaps back home as well as warm gloves.  My feetsies get cold, but that's nothing to cry about.  Something to cry about however, is the fact that probably 30 percent of my socks now have holes in them.  Hmm...
I think I've gone way overtime...
Anyway thanks to everyone again for their letters!  I'm reading all of them, don't worry!  It's great to hear from home.
Due to interesting circumstances, I'm in the office today and have had plenty of time to write.  Later, however, I might not have so much time to, so...  I'll answer as many questions as I can.
Love being here, but miss you all!
LOVE YAH LOTS!
Sincerely, Elder Burgess

No comments:

Post a Comment