Oh, this week. I'll tell you one thing: there was a lot of travelling involved.
On Tuesday, it snowed like crazy. Holy Moses it snowed. It. Snowed.
Of course, the snow backed up the entire train system as well. Almost every single train had at least a 20 minute delay. We went and visited super buff Chris that day, catching a train that was an entire hour later. We also caught the bus in the swirling winter white gales and missed our stop, putting us ankle-deep in the drifts. We wikkety-walked half of the way back to Chris's before we decided to call him to say we were going to be late. He wasn't even home. I can honestly say there are only a handful of times I've almost lost it on my mission, and that was one of them. There was a bit of scolding involved, including "We travelled 2 and a half hours to get here and you're not even home?!" It all worked out though. I called him later and he wasn't upset. Still, I apologized and we made it home safely in the end.
Oh yeah, Monday we went to the middle of nowhere. The bus was all messed up so we couldn't even get to the person we were trying to look up. Also, getting to Van Kerckhovens' to teach Eva is about an hour and a half journey. My goodness. Can you believe that? Buuut Eva is doing awesome. She read what we asked her and even highlighted a scripture in Alma 32 about faith. Super cool. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she had some questions about reincarnation, but otherwise accepted it. She's getting wet (baptised).
We met with family Setta as well. Ivan has done his best to read every day in the Book of Mormon. Holy Moses, can you believe that? They are so awesome. He's at the part where Nephi builds a boat and such. Love family Setta! We taught them about the Word of Wisdom and they accepted most of it--except that Mama Setta's papa is a Coffee farmer. Say what? They have farmers for that? Yeah, her daddy grows and grinds his own coffee. She asked if that then made it okay to drink. My answer was simply, "God told us to avoid all coffee. Pray about it and ask." What more can you say? Still, Fam Setta is awesome.
We didn't meet with Fam Rodriguez, but they are doing great as well. Mama R has begun reading in the Book of Mormon and the youngest reads often in her kinderboek. We have an appointment this week....
EXCEPT I'M GETTING TRANSFERRED.
Wham. Yep. I'm getting shot clear up to Den Helder, which I know nothing about. Apparently, this is the second transfer it's been open. I'm going to be finishing the training of...Elder Giles. Anydoodle, I'm very, very chapped that I have to leave Leuven of course. All these fantastic families and individuals, but I've accepted long ago to go where the Lord wants me to. I'm just upset I didn't get any pictures of my best friends. I'll ask dear ol' Rozendaal to take some and mail them to me.
Aha, Elder Rozendaal...
We were late for an appointment and our bikes were parked elsewhere, so we decided to take the backup bike. Now, this so called backup had a broken bagagedrager (a rack on the back of all Dutch bikes, above the rear wheel), so we thought it would be a good idea to achterop, or for Elder R to ride the rack. We started going, but before long, I hit a big dip in the road. There was a yelp, a grunt, a rip and Elder Rozendaal stumbled off. Ha, when I turned to look at him, he had an expression of shock and terror. The rack on the back had broken clean in half, taking the seat of his pants with it... Yes, the butt of his pants was ripped clean open. He snatched his butt and he waddled home to quickly change. I couldn't stop laughing. It was his favourite suit, but hot dang was it funny. You could fly a plane through the hole in his pants, man oh mighty. I gave him some money to compensate, so we're even at least.
We tried looking up the person with border collies, but she wasn't home. We also, unfortunately, had no appointment with Willy. And no, I didn't buy the 3-wheeled bike. Bummer. We also had an appointment with Miko and his daughter. She was a lot more involved than last time. We're not 100% sure now if he actually knows the book of Mormon is true, but he did say a prayer of sorts yesterday which is great progress.
Some while ago, Elder Rozendaal spotted a dragon ball z poster on a window and we knocked their door. The young man who opened was friendly enough, but no appointment at first. We've since gone over and they've let us in. We went over again this week and there were 7 whole people there. When we walked in they were watching the goriest TV show ever. Some guy smashed in another guy's face with his shield as we watched. Anyway, they quickly flipped that off and we had a pow-wow with these guys. They're super awesome. They love it when we come over. They all huddle around on their couches and throw all sorts of questions at us, listening intently and pondering about it. They asked at one point what they guidelines were for media. I told them we avoid porn in every form. They then all looked at the giant poster of naked ladies on the opposite wall. Aha, that was a weird moment. It's a total guy house... There's more than one of those posters, I'll tell you that. We have to really look them in the eyes when we teach...or else. Super cool people though.
Well, that's a long email. I want to send a giant box home before I get transferred. It's a whole bunch of stuff I don't need on my mission. Letters, a Koran and other such things. Sorry, it's not a gift for you guys, just...gotta make room to pack.
See you in another city.
Tot volgende keer,
Elder Burgess
Evan's new address:
Evan's new address:
Julianaplein 74
1781HD Den Helder
Nederland
Den Helder
**So the church made an official announcement that missionaries can now contact everybody via email (except women inside our area). That means, officially, I can send and receive emails from friends now too!
Rotterdam and Antwerpen Zones met on March 15, 2013 at Antwerpen Chapel for Zone Conference.
Elder Pimentel and Elder Burgess
Rotterdam and Antwerpen Zones met on March 15, 2013 at Antwerpen Chapel for Zone Conference.
Elder Pimentel and Elder Burgess
Elder Giles ~ opening his assignment. He is going to Den Helder, Netherlands with Evan. This city has just been opened up again for Missionary work. The branch has been without their own missionaries for 6 years.
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