Whawhat!! ~ 6 month mark

Holy moses, now THAT was a big letter.  Dangit.  On Koningenindag too.  We've got a lot of plans today you know, lots to do!  Koningenindag is the Netherlands national holiday ~ like our Canada Day I suppose.  It is a celebration - something to do with Queen Beatrix birthday. Everybody wears orange (the national color) and they have big sales (flea markets) and parties in the streets, with music and the likes.  I'm super excited.
But for as this week, we've had some ups and downs.  Dominique, our semi-new investigator just dropped us on Thursday.  Wham.  He had a huge desire to know if the Book of Mormon is true, but mistook bad-happenings as his answer.  He prayed over the BOM.  Whle he was waiting for confirmation he received a call from India that his mother had just been hospitalized.  We all shared powerful testimony, saying that sometimes we have to excercise our faith, and that Satan doesn't want us coming closer to what's right.  His mind was set though; he gave us back the book and off he went.  Super bummer.  Zo is het.
Also, we had a Talent night on Saturday night.  Elder Andrews and his previous companion had planned and organized it.  Holy man was it a lot of work.  It was awesome though.  The ward jumped right in.  We had over a hundred people there, twenty of which were non-members.  We had about 6 acts or so, then had a tour of our church building, then proceeded with about 6 more acts.  All the acts were super well done.  Funny thing to note though, every song that was sung was in English.  Hmm...
So right before the Talent night, I totally met two people that have been to Vernon.  What are the chances of that?  One of them even served in Vancouver.  Get this.  He served for 6 months on Salt Spring!  He was naming off the places he served and kind of paused... "And a little place called Salt Spring."  I just started laughing.  I couldn´t believe it.  Really, what are the chances?  He totally remembers the Bascoms too.  He gave me a card with his information on it--turns out he is some sort of aaarrrtiiissst.  His name was Vincent Noot.  Gee, not only that, but I met another RM who served somewhere else in Canada.  Hmmm, can't remember where.  It was awesome having a good ol' Canada conversation.  Fun times.
Also, I heard great news from Leiden.  You remember Gabriel?  Of course you remember Gabriel!  Well, he was Baptized last Saturday.  WHAT?!  How cool is that?  Yeah, it figures everybody gets baptized after I leave, right?  Man, I can't believe how golden that guy was though--what a champ.
Holy man is my Dutch coming along.  I've really noticed how much I've improved.  We speak Dutch a lot, my two companions and I.  Having Harry around really helps too of course.  But man, I can carry on a full conversation with relative ease.  I speak another language!!  How cool is that?  Far from fluent, of course.  But far better than I would have ever thought possible before my mission.
Yes.  And our house is getting completely redone.  You should see it.  It's a total wreck.  They cleaned out all that mould, (thank goodness), tore down the wallpaper and are now in the process of replacing the gross carpet with linoleum and painting the walls.  There is so much dust in the house.  I can feel it in the back of my nose.  Bleck!  But, the house is going to look infinitely better once it is done.  Stoked.
The Goeders sent me a letter the other day.  It was awesome to read what they had to say!  You'll have to apologize to Brandon for me though--he asked a million questions and demanded an answer for each one.  Yeah...  It might be a while, champ.  I'll try my best though.
Anydoodle, I'm going to go party.  I'm so pleased with how well everything is (or at least seems to be) going in little Vernon.  I miss my friends almost every day.  Seriously, you guys are the BEST.  Can't believe I've almost hit the 6 month mark.  How crazy is that?  Nearly a quarter of the way done.  Gee.  Time flies.  Before you know it, I'll be home and bumming around just like the good old days.  Uh, I mean....
Ik houd van jullie, zo veel!
tot volgende keer,
Elder Burgess

With much preparation, incredible support from ward members and the mission, the Elders in Eindhoven (Elder Van Overbeek, Elder Andrews, Elder Kunz, and Elder Burgess,) with ward mission leader Harry van de Sande, were able to put together the ward missionary activity "Mormons Got Talent." Due to great support by the ward council, and the guidance of Preach My Gospel the event was a great success.

What a week

Holy man.  What a week.  Diddely doo.  A week.  Wuh-gone.
So, to begin.  I believe we sent emails early last Monday.  Guess what we did afterwards?  We went to a toy store.  Yep.  How cool is that?  Yeah, not very.  But still, there was a huge toy store and we had no other choice than to chickety-check it out.  It was an adventure.  I didn´t get anything though.  Made me realize how much I´m giving up.  I saw a game I really really wanted that I really really missed because I came out on my mission......and I didn´t buy it.  Wham.  Psh, mom has told me a million times to stop spending money on games, and I totally never listened.  Now though?  Man, I am such a trooper.
Anyway.  Tuesday we went to the Temple!  It was a good 2 hour train ride, but luckily we arrived on time.  I got to see so many of my buddies I´ve met out on my mission too!  Elder Benson, Elder Stoddard, Jones, Klippel, etc..  It was fun.  The Temple itself is a small little guy, kind of placed in a suburban neighbourhood in Zoetermeer.  We walked around a corner then, wham, there it was.  It´s super beautiful too.  Flatter than the one in Vancouver, but holding a bit of the simple charm.  The whole session was in Dutch too, which was awesome because I understood a solid 90% percent of what was said!  Plus I had another interesting moment (I´ll explain further in a bit).
Then after the temple, we hopped in a bunch of cars and drove to Leiden!  Little ol´ Leiden...  It was neat to see the church building again--almost like being home, in a strange way...  There we had a quick message and lunch given by the Brubakers, then we headed off again, this time to Keukenhof.
Man, you should have seen the flowers.  Before we even got there, we passed by field after field, acre after acre of just flowers.  I had seen all those fields before, but they didn´t actually have anything in them!  Now, just blankets of yellow, red and orange.  It was dazzling.
Keukenhof itself was super beautiful.  Oh myan was it raining though.  Windy and chilly too.  Still, we enjoyed all the arrays of flowers.  I think they had every kind of tulip and daffodil imaginable.  They had all these ponds filled with swans and stuff too.  Everywhere you looked was another postcard.  I took a million pictures, don´t worry.
Oh yeah, and there was this one neat little water feature--a bridge of sorts spanning a narrow canal.  It swooped up into a sort of staircase, with two peaks, that then joined the other bank of the canal.  Feeling adventurous, Elder Stoddard and I jumped out onto the stairs and started doing goofy poses, like we were battling.  A group of people stopped to watch us, laughing and encouraging us to fall and the likes.  After we hopped down, a few of the people in the group tried climbing it too, but only chickened out.  All words and no show.  It was super funny though, we laughed and laughed!  I asked where the group was from and they said "all over"--still not sure what brought them together.  One of them caught wind that I was a Canadian and we talked for a bit--he was Canadian too!  Ah!
As we parted ways, he said "Have a good day, eh"  I said "Eh, you too!"
Elders Stoddard and Andrews thought that was super funny.  "Doh-ho, you guys said eh a zillion times"  We did?  I didn´t even realize it at first.  Oh, us Canadians. We rock.
Anydoodle, we were there until about 5, then we all slowly made our way back home.  By the time we got back, it was about 9:30.  It was a super fun experience.
Oh yes.  So we had a lesson with a guy named Dominique.  We found him searching for a different person with the same name who previously lived in the same house.  Weird, right?  Still, he´s a Christian guy out of India and he´s actually very interested in what we have to share.  We gave him a Book of Mormon and he started reading and actually researched a whole bunch online (running into some negative material along the way).  He is very keen on finding out if this is real or not.  Anyway, we had a return lesson, planning on teaching the Plan of Salvation, but ended up instead answering his questions concerning what we believe and the Book of Mormon.
Here's the fun part though.
When I was in the Temple, I picked up a Book of Mormon, on a bit of a whim.  Perhaps searching for revelation.  It was in Dutch too.  I opened it to a random page, 3 Nephi, when Jesus is addressing his apostles.  Jesus tells them how when he was in Jerusalem, he told his disciples he had other sheep who needed to join the flock, then he tells the Nephites that they are the other sheep, but he couldn´t tell the Jerusalem people that because of their unbelief.  Thus, the people in Jerusalem had no idea about the Nephites and vice versa.
Huh, neat scripture.  But...what does that mean for me?  Meh.  Close book, move on.
But then, in our lesson with Dominique, he asked us why if these people (the people on the American continent) are so important, with Prohepts who´ve seen God and talked with him and so forth--if they´re so important, why doesn´t the Bible never mention them.
Light bulb.
It was one of those 'halleluiah' moments.  Craziness.  I whipped out that Book of Mormon and WUH-BAMMED him.  Kra-dunked.  That´s why.  It was so cool!  I know I said it before, but I have a testimony of the Temple.  It really is a sacred place--a place for revelation and salvation.  I´m so glad that Mama Jean and Papa Joe are having their work done for them.  What a great opportunity!  Sealed forever...  How special!
We also visited Sister Luit again.  My goodness.  She is craz--a daughter of God.  We were going to do yard work, but she phoned us and told us we were going to leez uit boeken instead.  What?  Read books......? 
So we got there and craziness happened.  We sat down and she had all these--OH MY GOSH.....she got us to opened these jars of sick, nasty, mouldy appelmoes.  We popped those lids and smoke came out.  Moldsmoke.  Ewie.
But we sat down and she just had some questions to ask.  But she already knew the answers...  It was all redundant.
Then, we just started singing.  Like, 12 songs, all verses and everything.  She...is not a good singer.  It was wretched.
I honestly don´t know why we go there.  She´s crazy--literally--and everybody knows it.  She´s not benefiting from our visits, and neither are we.  Hopefully, we don´t have to return.
But anyway.
Isa didn´t make it to church again.  She said for zeker she was going to come, but she was too frightened.  She´s so scared her mom is going to take away her house and car if she comes--her mom is kinda crazy like that.  She said she´s going to fast this week though.  I really hope she will trust the Lord and take the step to come.  Things may be bad at first, but they will get better.  You just have to trust Him!
Meheret pretty much dropped us...  She´s too busy.  Anatole?  Not sure.  I met the guy once for about 5 minutes.
Otherwise, things are still normal.  Biking, eating, sleeping, PREACHING THE GOSPEL.  What could be better?
Thanks for the Foxtail by the way.  I can´t believe you found one!  We hucked it around the apartment, nearly smashing windows and such....then I looked at the letter which said "have fun, boys!"  Oh, we did.  And will further...
Buuut I must close my epistle now.
Ik ben Elder Burgess, een tegenwoordiger van God.  Hoor mijn stem!
WHAM.
Tot volgende keer,
Wait...  I´ve already said it!
Dang it.
Elder Burgess.

beautiful day in the temple

Elder Burgess with his box of Books of Mormon!  

HE FELL ASLEEP MID-SENTENCE

Hey, how´s everyone and stuff?  Another week gone by!  Whoo!
So yeah, Sister Luit.  Well...   She talks a million miles an hour and doesn't wait for you to process what she´s actually saying.  Difficult for me because my Dutch is not yet...as good as it could be.  I mentioned to her that we had a yard with grass and she asked if we had horses on it.  Uh, no.  I mentioned that we had two dogs and she asked me if we bred them.  Uh, no.  Her house is a wreck and she thinks her neighbours are out to get her--coming inside her house and placing things there.  I seriously think she may be a little mentally unstable.  She has locks on all the doors and won´t go outside unless somebody is left inside to watch her house--so the neighbours won´t place more things...
Yeah, it´s hard to describe her fully.  But we have another appointment with her this week.  Gulp.  I guess I´ll have more to say about her then.
So, as far as investigators go though...
Ardette kinda stopped.  Because of work and stress and health, she decided she wants to put off meeting with us until may.  Daggit.  We haven´t seen her in two weeks.  Bummer.
We haven´t seen Meheret in a while either.  Not sure what´s happening there.  She went to Amsterdam or Utrecht for the weekend (African people love travelling on the weekends) and we haven´t seen her since.
Have I told you about Anatole?  French guy I´ve only ever seen once?  Anydoodle, we had this awesome plan to go pick the guy up and bring him to church, but he wasn´t home when we went there!   He´s got a huge nasty tree in his front yard.  I took a sweet picture.  Where was I.......turns out he´s in France.  What?  Gee whiz
On a plus side, we were able to meet with Suzanne this week.  She´s a 17 year old girl with flaming red hair.  She´s very interested in the church because she´s got a close friend who is a member.  She wants to get baptized, but her mother is keeping her back.  Sound familiar?  Nevertheless, we shared a lesson in her house with her mother there.  Her case is different than Isa´s (whose parents are slightly crazy).  Her mother is just concerned for her daughter.  The feeling I got was that her mother just doesn´t want her daughter joining a church that would bring her sadness.  I see it, I get it.  Suzanne is planning to get baptized in October.  She came to testimony meeting as well.  I think she had a good experience--her friend bore her testimony and everything.
Wham, and good news with Isa.  We met her!  Yay!  I know what she looks like now!  We watched Legacy with her at the church.  Then Friday night she sent us a text that said "I think I´m coming to church this Sunday"  Whoo!  She said she had opened her Book of Mormon somewhere in Mosiah 13.  It says basically to trust in the lord and he will deliver you from all your worries.  Could it be more applicable?  Nope.  Unfortunately, she got super sick the day before or the day of, so she couldn´t make it.  Got a concussion from falling off her bike I believe.  Jammer.  Still, it was a cool experience to see how the scriptures had hit somebody like that.  Fingers crossed that she´s healthy for next week.
Elder Andrews did something crazy the other night.  The guy falls asleep faster than you can believe--but now I realize how fast that really is.  We were talking about stickers (because they´re everywhere and we had picked a few that day) and he said something along the lines of "all those stickers are made--"
Then, nothing.
"Uh, what?"
Still, nothing.
"Elder?  Are you dead?"
Then, he responded, "Huh? what?  What happened?"
.  How strange is that?  I can totally see falling asleep if somebody else is talking, but falling asleep MID-SENTENCE?!  Super strange.  It wasn´t like he drifted to sleep either.  Bam, gone.  Lights out.  We laughed about that for a long time.
We´ve got the temple day tomorrow!  I´m super excited.  It sounds like it´s going to be a ton of fun.  Not sure how it´s all working out yet, but I´ll let you know next week.
Hey, tell Jaeden I´m super stoked for him still.  Halifax.  Dang.  What a cool place.  It was cool to hear that Chris is out of the MTC this week.  I hope he has a great experience the first transfer.  That´s so great to hear about everybody out in the field.  Keep it up Vernon ward! 
Hey, I´ve been thinking a lot about Braden lately too.  I pray for him often and fasted for him too.  I don´t know what more to say.  Just let him know he´s very important to me.
And thanks a zillion for getting me Dan´s address and Marissa´s email.  You are the greatest.  And I got your T-shirt too!  WHOO!  My companions are super jealous.
Anyway, gotta skidaddly.  We´ve got big plans for today.  BIG plans.
BUH-BYE.
Tot volgende keer,
Elder Burgess

Fishy, slimy. Raw. Fishy......with onions.

Soooo many questions.
Let me draw an analogy for you.  Picture a great pile of sand.  Then, that pile of sand swells over and squishes you.  Now, imagine each grain of sand is a question.  Wham.
Kidding though. 
Another great week in great Eindhoven.  Every day is like another party with my two companions.  I have decided that Elder Andrews reminds me a lot of Jeremy.  He´s a total goofball, but serious where it really counts.  Elder Kunz is like Kalvin, I think, though not quite as ´cool´.  Just carefree if not a bit oblivious.  hmm, what?  I think one problem we have might be getting along too well.  We´re always laughing and we get distracted really easily--we totally ate ice cream today.  Mmm.  The truck drove past and we all ran out, screaming after it.  Mmm, ice cream.
Oh, and let me say right now how proud/excited I am to hear about Jadeaadaeadan´s mission call.  That´s super awesome!  Halifax?  How sweet!  That´s one place I´ve honestly always wanted to visit.  I hear it´s super beautiful and they speak a crazy dialect there.  What the!  I´m super proud that he took the step to go on a mission.  I´m sure he´ll have a great time.  I´m glad Clarah is enjoying her mission too.
I can honestly say, I don´t regret coming out here one bit--best decision ever.  The best advice I can give is to just stick through.  The first transfer and a bit are kind of rough--new land, new language, new companions, new lifestyle entirely.  But I´ve just grown to love it.  I feel like I´ve grown so much in so many ways.  Yeah, it´s rough, but it´s totally worth it.  It get´s better, I promise.
And as for our new Mission President, I keep hearing he´s Canadian.  Represent.  Time to get more of the red and white onto the field.  Whoop!  But otherwise, that´s about it.
But yeah, things that have happened this week.  I´ll address that first.  This week. 
We went on splits with Harry a few times.  Using full advantage of his...Dutch-ness.  He´s so straightforward with people, it´s great. 
ALSO, I had raw herring.  Uh, ew, oh.  That´s right.  Fishy, slimy.  Raw.  Fishy.  With onions.  And slimy.  It was...not bad actually.  The first initial SWOOSH of flavour is a bit overwhelming.  It is seriously the most fishy fish taste you´ve ever tasted, times two.  All gooey too.  Bleh.  But if you eat it with some diced onions, it´s actually kinda tasty.  I got some great pictures.  I´ll have to send you them eventually for suresies.  Nom, nom, fish. 
Another strange note, I bought some razors and shaving cream.  I hate shaving.  In any form.  It hurts my neck and SUCKS.  But I think shaving with razors might actually be better--doesn´t hurt as much actually.  Shaves closer too.  Mmm.
So this weekend was interesting.  We sang in church on Sunday--wh-what?  That´s right.  The missionaries, Harry, Niels and a few sisters all sang "hij is uit de dood verrezen", which is he ´He is Risen' in English.  It turned out very well actually, especially considering how much practise we had....not much.  Turns out I can almost hold a tune.  Whoa.
Also, all the stores closed early Saturday evening and all were closed Monday during the day.  We stayed inside the apartment all day, it was awesome.  I got a lot of writing done today.
We gotta go soon, so I´ll try and give a quick synopsis re our investigators.
Isa is interesting.  I´ve never actually seen her because her parents are so tegen (against) the church.  She believes it´s true as far as I know and she really wants to come and all the above, but they check her every Sunday to make sure she isn´t going and all this crazy stuff.  Her car and house are partially owned by them, so she´s worried if they get upset with her because she´s meeting with us, she´ll lose her stuff.  She´s 26 now, so I don´t get what the deal is...  We try to contact her every day at least to see how it´s going with her.  She´s super funny too.  I sent her a text the other day...  It was supposed to say, hey dawg, what´s up?  How´s your reading?  ect, ect.  But I accidentally just sent 'hey dawg'.  Later, when we asked her what she thought, she said she almost peed herself laughing.  Aha, awesome.  Then, later, I talked with her and ended by saying 'hey dawg, see you later'.  I thought she was going to almost pee again.  She finds it hilarious for some reason.  she said 'you can´t say that unless you´re black!'  I countered with 'How do you know  that I´m not black?'  Silence - remember she has never met me.  'Yeah, you´re not black!'  Funny person.
We´re also meeting with Ardette, a Curisau lady.  She´s probably our most positive investigator right now.  She reads in the Book of Mormon and prays and even takes notes during our lessons, but her biggest problem right now is not coming to church.  She told us she would this Sunday, but totally didn´t.  It was interesting though, because we had 3 other people show up who we totally weren´t expecting.  Fine by us.  We taught her the Word of Wisdom too, and she´s trying to quit smoking now.  Thumbs up!
We also have Meheret, who is very interested, but can´t decide if she needs to be baptised again.  She´s very keen on figuring it out--she even fasted to find her answer.  She thought she had one, but we had a quick lesson and explained that she needs to read the Book of Mormon to figure out if it is actually true--which she hadn´t been doing.  If you´ve ever watched the Preach my Gospel DVD sections, it was just like the one with Jynx.  Craziness.
Also, we have Peter.  Someone told him he had to wear a tie to come to sacrament, so that set him back.  Still, we alleviated the problem and it seems like he´s interested in coming again.
As for Eindhoven itself  I was thinking there is something very different about it.  Then it hit me.  There are next to no canals here!  In Leiden, they´re everywhere.  I´ve only seen one big one and that´s about it.  Also, Phillips is everywhere.  Oh and lots of  fields, I mean big sprawling fields filled with grass and horses.  Hmm.
I have no time, but remind me to tell you of Sister Luit next week..
Well, tot volgende keer,
Elder Burgess

New home, new comp(s)

Woo!  In Eindhoven.  Where to start? 

First and foremost (what does that mean, anyway?) our address is:

Kluizenaarstraat 13
5641 He
Eindhoven, Netherlands

So, first tranfer where I´ve actually moved somewhere.  I´ll say, it wasn´t quite what I was expecting.  I begun packing a few days before, so the morning of I simply packed up my toothbrush and was ready to go.  I´m proud to say I did a great job packing and managed to smoosh all my stuff in those two suitcases.  It wasn´t as bad as when we left the MTC because there was no weight limitation on our bags of course.
Then, we simply left.  Because we found out Sunday night, we didn´t know who was going to be transferred.  Not going to lie, I was fairly certain I was going to tarry in Leiden.  So I didn´t take any pictures with anybody or really say goodbye.  We didn´t see any of our investigators those last few days either (sad face).  All those friends we made...simply left behind.  zo is het.  I have no idea what has or will become of Abla, Viola Gabriel or the rest. 

Khalid was baptised!!!-- His picture should be up on the mission blog soon.  WOOOOHOO!!
The rest of the trip to Eindhoven was both exciting but laborious.  Because we can´t be alone--even during transfers--I had to stop through Den Haag first, then through Rotterdam.  Oh, I got to see the new Missionaries coming through too.  Holy man, there´s a bunch of them.
So I hopped on the train with 6 of the new missionaries (10 newbies in total) as well as two other missionaries and we went down to Den Haag.  After a brief over stop and goodbye, a few of us hopped on a train to Rotterdam.  I forgot to mention I had my bike with me, plus my two suitcases the entire time.  Getting those guys off the train was the laborious part, as mentioned above.  We had some help, of course, but hauling a suitcase and a bike at the same time is not a really easy task.  Yep, so we got to Rotterdam after a short trip.  Rotterdam was a central meeting spot for a big chunk of the mission, so we had at least 20 missionaries in the train station at once.  I´d even wager to say more.  It was craziness.  There I met Elder Andrews and my new companion, Elder Kunz.  ELDER BURTON (original MTC companion)and ELDER STODDARD (MTC district) were both getting transferred, so they were there too.  It was awesome to see them again.  I haven´t seen Elder Burton since the first day we arrived here.  Four of our MTC group was right there again.  It was great to connect again.
After a long wait for everyone to figure out which train to catch, we slowly parted ways to our different locations.  We caught a 2 hour train to Eindhoven and meandered over to our house.
The house.  It´s 3 stories tall, but much older than the Leiden apartment was.  The floors are super gross because it´s so old and the wall is falling apart in one area and there is mold all over the bathroom ceiling, but it´s still pretty comfortable.  We´ve got a small backyard with a fiets shed, so that´s nice.  The second floor is more spacious, with a small counter separating the living room from the kitchen. Then the second floor has 3 rooms, excluding the bathroom, which we use for studying.  I´ve got a pretty big room all to myself, it´s awesome.  I´ve got a couple of chairs and a closet to put all my stuff.  Then upstairs is solely for the beds.  It´s a small little peaked room with floor mattresses and a roof access.  It´s pretty nice.
This week has been a blast though, getting to know Eindhoven, as well as my two new companions.  Elder Andrews is pretty much the same as in the MTC.  Funny, smart.  But now, his Dutch is absolutely amazing.  I can´t believe it.  He has better Dutch than my last companion did.  There´s sort of a bepaalde redden daarvan, but I´ll explain that in a bit.  Elder Andrews reminds me a lot of Jeremy.  Just a goof...  We have a lot of the same interests too, like video games--and he actually started writing a book before his mission.  Neat.
Elder Kunz reminds me of a happy puppy.  He´s just happy all day.  We have this (super junky) mountain bike that he rides sometimes.  He jumps off everything and whoops all day, wearing a huge grin the whole time.  He´s a good missionary though.  He has no fear of contacting people and sincerely listens during appointments.  He was Elder Mortenson´s companion in the MTC, so he´s been out 6 transfers.  Wham.
I´m super excited to work here in this area and with these people and--
AND HARRY.  Harry.  There´s a Dutch guy here named Harry who comes with us everywhere.  He´s 81 years old and just...hangs with us all day.  He´s pretty much like a fourth man.  He teaches with us, bikes with us, contacts with us--everything as far as missionary work goes.  He corrects and teaches us Dutch all day too, which I think is the main reason why Elder Andrew´s Dutch is so good. He´s a funny guy too, telling jokes and whatnot.  I´ve got great respect for the guy.  A ward mission leader who does as much work as the missionaries; a 81 year old hanging out with 20 year old kids all day.  What a champ.  So no worries about joint teaches anymore.  Psh, double no worries, with both 3 missionaries and Harry.  Time to get some work done.
This Sunday was interesting, as far as Conference goes.  We were only able to watch 2 sessions because of how the time change works.  Plus the website was down for a good while.  We watched the earlier Saturday session, then the Sunday morning session (at 6 pm) with a member.  It was great to hear President Monson speak.  I really felt the spirit.  What a guy.
And with the coming of Spring, our jackets go away.  We can finally wear short sleeve shirts and no suit jacket.  Thank goodness--though the sun has been refusing to shine lately, dangit.
As far as the city itself goes, Eindhoven is very new.  Everything is all spic and span--no windmills, no super old buildings, no canals.  It feels so much different than Leiden.  Still, I like it.  It´s a lot more open than most cities I´ve visited.  It´s considered more of a farming place.  Well, more like the country.  There´s a lot of fields outside of the city.  Also, this is where the company Phillips was born.  So 90% of the stuff here is Phillips.  Heck, our toilet is even Phillips.  What the--?  Since when did they start making toilets?  It´s a nice city though.  Clean, pure.... almost.  There are no red-light districts here, so no worrying about stepping down the wrong road by accident.  Phewf.
We are part of the Antwerpen Zone.  As far as our District goes, I´m not too sure how it works.  I know Sister Palenekova is part of our district--whew!--as well as Elder Taylor, who was in our youngers.  I´ll tell you more after district meeting.
Our ward is pretty awesome too.  I haven´t seen much of it (Conference weekend), but Elder Andrews says it´s unusual not to have a dinner appointment every night.  Stoked.  We have a sister we visit every Thursday as well, Sister Van de Riet.  She gives us a bag of apples every week.  But it´s dag impossible to eat them all, so we have a tradition of hurling them against the fiets shed.  Aha.  Apple moosh everywhere.  The birds come and eat all the apple chunks, so it works out great.
Don´t worry though, we try our best to eat all the apples...for the most part.  Though...we´re already out of apples...
Glad everybody is still happy back home.   

I haven´t got my package yet.  There´s a Zone conference around the corner, I´ll get it then.
My mission is whizzing by.  We totally reflected how long it´s been...I can´t believe I´m almost a quarter done!  That´s hard to believe....though the last few days have been a bit tiring.  We´re all such goofs in this companionship that we´ve stayed up past 11 the last few nights.  We spontaneously decided to bake a cake at 8 at night.  Then Elder Kunz asked me about Halo, and I had to tell him the entire storyline.  It took and hour and by the time I finished, we noticed the oven wasn´t even on anymore.  It took another hour to finish baking, but hot dang was it tasty.
Also, we have a jammer.  You know that little mixer/beater thingy we use to mix up jams?  Yeah, we randomly have one of those.  My companions were super impressed that I knew what it was.  What?  It´s just a jam mixer...
mmm, cake.
There´s a super awesome and super rich American family that lives here.  They shop at some import store, so they´re house is just jam-packed with American food.  They accept requests too, so if I ever want anything American, they´re totally down to buy it for us.  I requested Crispix.  Yay!
Well, *looks up* that´s a long letter.  Geniet ervan.
tot volgende keer,
Elder Burgess