They start out like little mustard seeds

Woo! I did indeed get my Easter package!  Thanks!  All the sugar and Batman hot wheels I can eat.  Yes.  Eat.

I'm sorry to hear about the Boston Marathon bombing.  What a terrible thing to happen.  That's super scary.  We just talked to somebody who wants to go in the Boston Marathon in the future.  I suppose he'll consider not going in it now.  I suppose everybody will.  I can't image an event like that wouldn't affect future turnout.  What a terrible thing.

On the bright side, this week was really busy.  Which in a missionary life, busy equals good.

First and foremost, we did a lot of service this week--which was our goal, actually.  We helped an inactive family (turns out the mother is actually not baptized) with their yard and later a friend of David Dee's mother.  Gee, physical labour is tiring!  Why didn't anybody tell me this?  We also removed a pond from an less-active member's yard.  Holy man, what an adventure that was.  This small little pond had over a dozen frogs inside of it.  We had to fish them out with a net, but it seemed the more we fished out, the more there were left over.  We even got a turtle out of there and I got to hold it.  At one point, there were fish wiggling around in what little water remained and Broeder Salazar, who we were helping, stood there with a hand hovering over the water, the moment he saw movement--ALA-KERSNATCH--he grabbed a fish right out of there with his bare hand and held it above his head.  I thought he was going to go Bear Grills and eat the thing, but instead he handed it to me and it went in the chum bucket.

We came away with a hundred or so frog eggs too, which are sitting inside a bucket at home.  Shh, don't tell anybody.  As soon as they start moving, we're going to put the little froggies in a canal or something.  It's crazy to watch them grow.  They start out like little mustard seeds, but now they're getting a shape.

It was quite an adventure for Elder Giles too, who has never handled fish, frogs or turtles before.  There goes that one on the bucket list.

Sister Nunez came to church again.  Apparently, her name isn't actually Pena, but Nunez.  Meh.  It was really good to see her there again.

Also, we met with Tim and Solymar yesterday.  Holy man, they are super awesome.  They made us home made taco thingers.  They made us tortillas and all this delicious Porto Rican toppings and om nom nom, so good.  Before we started, Tim surprised us all by offering to say the opening prayer, they suggested that Solymar should say the closing prayer.  Afterwards, when we shared a lesson, he said he had been reading the Restoration and Plan of Salvation pamphlets the whole week and he gained the impression that he had to pray.  So, for the first time EVER, he prayed right in front of us and did a super fine job.  Prayed like a pro.  He says everything in the pamphlets is interesting and that it makes sense.  He said he believes the story of the Restoration is true--it just makes sense.  Het klopt gewoon (It is simple).

Solymar, who has been inactive for a while, also said that she wants to truly read the Book of Mormon now too.  She's baptized already, but she never actually took the steps to gain a witness if the church is true.  Now she wants to.  She and Tim are on board together to learn more and discover it for themselves.  Oh myan, we had a super spiritual lesson with lots of testifying.  At the end, Tim agreed to being baptized in the future--once he knows it's true of course.  They're coming to church next week, then we're going to work towards a goal.

Holy Man, the Lord is great.

Both of them are making excellent progress towards following the Gospel.  They truly are prepared.

Plus their cat is super adorable.  Solymar's going to love those jellybeans by the way, thanks!

Unfortunately--or maybe, not--we've met a zillion people that we have yet to come in contact with.  We had an appointment with Diego's mama, but when we went by with our joint teach, I saw her shoot upstairs before we got out of the car.  She didn't answer the door.  I hope we can meet with her yet...  I can understand her view though. I will admit, this whole thing with Diego is super sketchy if you don't understand who we are.  Guys in dark clothing hanging around a five year old...wanting to come back.  Gee.  Maybe meeting somewhere else besides her house would be a good idea...  somewhere public so the situation is less-threatening.  We'll see.

David Dee is doing fantastic by the way.  Everybody is super on board with his baptism and everything is coming together nicely.  We're only having trouble finding size XXXL baptismal pants.  Still, I'm very positive that we'll be having a baptismal service this weekend!  Woo!  I'll send pictures.

Busy busy busy...

AH!  Vernon is two wards!  Wild.  Stop changing things while I'm gone!  Tell the young'ins to stop growing too!

The Temple was great by the way.  I will say though, I went in with perhaps a selfish question.  My question was what I should do when I get home.  Part of the reason why I left to begin with was to find direction in my life.  Now, as things are...winding down, I thought it appropriate to ask the Lord what I should pursue.  One clear thing I came away with was to simply do or pursue what I love.  I suppose that is really all I need to know.  The other impressions I received are personal.

Keukenhof (where the temple is located) was fun.  There weren't actually too many flowers in bloom because it's a late season, but just being with friends was the most exciting.  We had some fun adventures.

Brabata bap, gotta fly.

Tot volgende keer,

Elder Burgess

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRETT!

Rotterdam Zone and Den Haag Zone

April 16, 2013

Evan is standing at the back, on the right

 

Evan singing a rousing Dutch birthday song