Almost indestructible.

I'm kind of tired this week. There's a lot to do and deal with. Monday we went to the Marine Museum in Den Helder. We brought a member along with us who has been through a million times, so it was like having our own personal tour guide. I would have liked to be in there longer, but time was short. Still, it was cool to see all the boats and stuff. We got to go on a submarine. They lived in about 8 metres of space--most of which was filled with their equipment. The bunk beds in a submarine are literally among the torpedoes. You get up in the morning and conk your dome and BLAMO. No more you. Our farmer friend is still the coolest ever. We met with him 3 times this week and he even came to church. He's so cool. He says he feels this is all good and wants to be baptized on the 31st. The only thing that could hold him back is the fact that he wants to continue attending other churches. I feel like we've missed something. Still, with a good heaping of H2G, he should turn around. He's reading and praying and doing everything he should to get an answer. Plus, we got to visit his farm yesterday. It was so cool. We were biking in the middle of nowhere when we got smashed by torrential rain. Thank diddely I had my super umbrella and a jacket, so it was survivable. Elder Wiscombe only had one of those fold out umbrellas and I was worried it was going to simply blow up from the wind and rain. If you live in a rainy place, a super (storm) umbrella is where it's at. Almost indestructible. I have to figure out a way to bring it home. But yeah, farmer's farm is super awesome. Monday evening we got a call from the Den Haag elders saying somebody had ordered a Book of Mormon. Tuesday evening we swung by to the person's house. We spotted it and noticed the door was open and starting making jokes. "Yeah, he'll probably let us right in and asked to be baptized or something." This shirtless guy covered in tattoos comes to the door with a big smile. "Ah! I was expecting you guys! Come on in!" Wait... what? We sat down with this person and he told us that he's been looking for a church to join, but none others do it for him. He found ours online and researched basically everything. Seriously, this guy told us he thinks the word of wisdom and law of Chastity are awesome. He said he loves everything in our church and feels good about it. Near the tail end of the lesson, he mentioned he has 2 big goals in life right now: move to America and get baptized. How do you spell "Golden" again? He has a dragon tattoo, is an ex-soldier and has 4 young children. What could be cooler? Unfortunately, he and the mother of his children are separated (he went on a rant about how living together instead of marriage is a foolish practise), so I haven't actually met his kiddies yet. Also, he split on a 3 week vacation a little east. He's not too far away, so we'll keep in contact. It's amazing to see how the Lord blesses us. First our farmer friend, now tattoo-daddy. We worked our butts off and didn't see too much success, but the Lord made up for it. Also, we spoke with our flower-named friend. It was interesting, because we just went by to get her number, but she started the conversation saying how she wasn't terribly interested in going deep into religion right now and blah blah, but after simply chatting for a while, she opened right up again and was laughing and smiling. She said "see you later" as we left too. The Spirit worked inside her heart. All we had to do was be there. Hopefully we can meet again soon. Another interesting note. Br. Sante passed away on saturday. I can't recall how much I told you about him, but Elder Giles and I worked with him a little bit. His skin cancer came back not too long ago and it went super downhill from there. Within a couple weeks, he was gone. We went to Hospice to go see him, but discovered that he had passed away that same morning. Leaving the place, a combinations of feelings overwhelmed me. Hospice house was the very last place on earth I wanted to go too. The memories of such a place and sorrow for Br Sante's death got to me and it is a strange thing to admit I started to cry. I remember Elder Giles getting very frustrated with that man, but despite obvious things to be angry about with Br. Sante, I loved him. I truly did. I had compassion and charity towards him. A great deal of my sorrow was to think that Br Sante could have secured a better place for himself after this world. The church reached out to Br Sante in his last days, and as far as I've heard, he reached back. God rest his soul. At least, not long after I pulled myself back together, we were at it again, preaching the gospel and laughing. Can't let things tie you down. The work goes forward. Tot volgende keer, Elder Burgess ***I am getting your emails, dearest mother, but there are always too many questions! Plus, sometimes you send it to the wrong email address... ***Oh, I bought something Dutch-like this week.