Belgium

Sad news.
Sister Moore passed away.  If you remember, she's the one who broke her wrist while she and her husband were renovating our apartment.  Can you believe that?  It's quite a shock to me.  Aparrently, she wasn't very healthy.  She was coughing during our mission conference.  She certainly didn't sound 100%.  Still.  Wow.  A senior missionary passed away!  Wow.

Belgium!  I'm in Belgium.  Weird.  Land of chocolate, waffles and bad roads inderdat.  Turnhout is a super cool city.  Very small--even smaller than Leiden.  Volgens mij.  A lot members and even investigators live outside the city, in smaller cities surrounding.  We have to take the bus often.  Which works out just fine.  They have these things called Buzzy passes or something like that, which is only 23 Euro for unlimited use of the buses for a month.  Dang, that is a good price.  Far better than Nederland ten minste.

By the way, it's speak your language week.

Zou ik alleen in Nederlands praten?  Denk ik niet.

So they speak Vlaams here. Vlaams/Flemish is actually Dutch. Just with local variations in word choice. It`s like slang words, or alternative words......a dialect, with a few different words here and there.  I guess the closest equivalent would be British English compared to American English.  Mostly the accent I think.  I actually find it easier to understand than back in Brabont.  Sometimes it just sounded like those people were choking.  I think I'm going to try to get this Vlaams accent down.  It's also far easier than Brabonts.

The ride down here itself wasn't too bad.  We worked it out, Elder Kunz and I, so that it wasn't so bad.  We left our bikes at the station overnight, so we could haul my stuff on the buses in the morning.  Then, I picked up Elder Merril at the station and said totziens to good ole Elder Kunz.  I'll miss that guy.  I'll certainly miss Harry too.  He has this tradition where departing missionaries give him a tie and he gives them a book.  Instead, I gave him a tie, a Canadian pin, a flag and even my books (all 3!!).  He's insistant to give them back, but I want him to keep them.  I really love that guy.

The apartment!  Man is it super modern.  As...far as Europe is concerned at least.  It's like a pie wedge, smooshed in between two little houses.  There's a big iron gate where we park our bikes behind.  You'd miss the place if you weren't looking for it.  It's about 3 minutes from the main station and just off the main centrum.  And yes, the biggest wall is painted purple.  We've got a dishwasher as well (which I discoverd today), but apparently it sucks, so we don't use it.

The aparment is two stories, with tile floors (which heat up), and one little washroom.  It's probably the nicest apartment I've been in, though not the biggest.

I'm hoping to set a pattern.  2 transfers in each area before I leave.  How much fun would that be?

Elder Leach is awesome too.  He reminds me a lot of Elder Burton, if not...louder.  He really likes to sing.  Vooral Disney.  He's from a bit of California, and a bit of Arizona (I just played a guessing game to figure that out).  He's a cool guy.  Nuff said. I think we'll get along just fine.  He's pretty sure that he's gonna be gone at the end of this transfer though.  He's already been here 4.5 months, and at the end of this one, that will make 6 months, so...  But hey, at least I'll be able to keep up my average of a companion per transfer.  And yes, he's the District Leader.

The ward is great too.  We've got a relatively young but strong Branch (ward).  There are so many kinderschnitzels (kids) running around!  I'm going to bring some Canadian candy next Sunday to give out.  I'm sure they'll love that.  The ward is very missionary oriented too.  The person who translates for General Conference is the Branch President here.  He's a fantastic guy, I can tell already.  There are quite a few African people in this area too.  So far the majority of the investigators that I've met have been African.  Woo!  It's like being back in Leiden. 

AAAAND.  Let me just say how excited I am for Kalvin and Jaeden.  Man oh man.  How cool!  That's so great that they're both going to cool places.  I wish I could have been there for Jaedan's farewell talk.  I just hope those Uruguain (?) people are ready for Kalvin!  So proud of them both.  I have no doubt they'll both excell.  Just remember to be yourself!  Let your light shine, as it says.

By the way......they have strange milk here.  You don't have to refridgerate it.  Wait...what?  Nope.  Niet noodzakelijk, hoor.  You just...let it chill on your shelf until you open it, then you stick it in the fridge.  So strange.  It's thicker or something too.  Not quite sure.  Apparently they super-heat it to purify it or something.  I don't know for sure.

We play Foetball elke donderdag (on Thursday's).  We missed it this last Thursday, which was actually good.  I don't have cleats yet.  I'm going to borrow some from a member, but if it comes to it, I'll just buy my own.  Gee, I wish I would have bought a pair back in Leiden!  Oh well, it'll be fine.

Also, Elder Jones is in our District, and Elder Nish ~  Canadian's. And Sister Herring, who loves volleyball.  She just texted us and said she bought a new ball.  We're going to try and play next P-day.  WOO! 

Well, I should get going now.
Happy Birthday to Greg.

Love ya lots!

Tot volgende keer,

Elder Burgess

My new address:

Driezenstraat 21
2300 Turnhout
Belgium

Brother and Sister Moore

Elder Leach

This week was staight up awesome.

Where to begin?

We met with Joan again.  Armin Panhuizer drove us to Roermond and was our joint teach.  He is a super cool guy.  Fun to be around.  Plus he loves Halo!  Always good.  Have I already talked about him?  Anyway, our lesson with Joan went really well.  She enjoyed the video we shared and committed to read the Book of Mormon and even accepted a 'soft' baptismal date.  She agreed that if this is the route God wants her to go, of course she'll follow it.  We also set up two more appointments for this week--she's down to meet twice a week.  I'm very excited for her.

And actually, we got a new investigator that is also diggety down to meet twice a week.  His name is Peter van Mierlo.  I knew I'd love him right away when we came up to his house.  He lives on the outskirts of Eindhoven, in a forest-like area.  It was like biking in Scotch Creek!  And then his doorknocker is a dragon's head.  Ah!  So cool.  His case is a new one for me.  He was actually an investigator for the Zwolle Elders, but since he lives in Eindhoven, they 'passed' him on to us.  His girlfriend right now is an investigator (also in Zwolle) from a long time ago.  He has read the entire Gospel Principles book and told us in our first lesson that his objective of meeting with us is to eventually get baptized.  Wham.  Wow, glad we got that formality aside.  He's a super cool, interesting guy though.  I'm not sure where he works, but he makes fake gore for his job.  Seriously, he makes fake wounds, covers himself with them and lets emergency-response students practise on him (or something similar).  He showed us this book of some of the things he has done.  Looks like the real thing.  Burned faces, squashed fingers, lacerations... you name it, he's made it.  Ewie.

Thursday we had an ALL zone mission conference.  That's the entire mission meeting at once.  I'll tell you, it was so cool to see everyone again.  It was strange because it was also President Brubaker's last address to us.  Like his departing testimony.  It was somber and kind of sad.  President Brubaker and Sister Brubaker are super special people.  

Oh, and I heard a bit from Elder Mortenson and Elder Thueson.  They said Leiden is doing great.  Gabiel is just as awesome as ever.  And Khalid?  They said they take him joint-teaching all the time.  They said he just testifies like crazy.  Aw man, it just warms my heart to hear that.  This is what it's all about!

Speaking of which...

ISA WAS BAPTIZED AND CONFIRMED.

Harry, Isa and Elder Shwartz

It was a great experience.  Isa was so incredibly worried the day of, she actually threw up three times!  Ah! When she got in the font with Elder Shwartz (remember I mentioned that he was the Elder that originally 'found' her - he is going home soon), she was just shaking like a leaf.  But then, WHAM.  She was baptized!  Afterwards, I swear she was just beaming.  She was so, so happy!  Gleeful!  The next day at church that happiness just continued to shine.  She received the Holy Ghost and even stayed for the entire church service (which she didn't usually do).  Man, the whole thing was just super awesome.  I've never seen her happier!

I'm really happy I was here in Eindhoven to experience Isa's baptizm............before I got transferred.

UUUURCH.  What?  Yep.  Got the call.

Looks like I'm off to Turnhout, Belgium. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnhout
I will be serving with Elder Leach.  

Honestly, I can't say I'm particularly excited to leave Eindhoven, or Elder Kunz.  But the work must go on!

Elder Kunz is getting two new companions, Elder Roemer and Elder Taylor.

Elder Taylor's brother ordered my books.  Isa is planning on ordering my books too!

Who knew that being on a mission would be such a "promoting" experience?

Anydoodle, super awesome.

Next time I write, I'll been in the land of chocolate, bad roads and waffles.

Tot Volgende Keer,

Elder Burgess

  (excerpt from Sister Brubaker's blog)

All Mission Zone Conference - A Most Memorable Moment

As President Brubaker and I walked into the church in Rotterdam, words cannot describe the overwhelming feeling that came over us, as we felt the love we have for every missionary in our mission.  They were all together for the 1st time in 2 1/2 years!
Elder Burgess's work station

l-r Elders Burton, Burgess, Andrews, Stoddard, Mower, Sisters Palenikova, Stout!

Evan's MTC gang

A strange week

This week was a busy one.  A bit strange too.  Our list of potential investigators is getting pretty long, while our straight-up investigators is...declining slowly.

Our appointments with Raychel, Sheka and Joan all fell through.  Technically, we're supposed to drop the two former, but I'm not quite ready to give up on them yet.

We had some miracles, and also some strange-ness-s.

So we were looking somebody up and this girl opened the door.  We introduced ourselves with a reply along the lines of  "Oh, I know all about you guys."

Uh...  You do?  Probably somebody who looked us up on line or someth--

"l'm a member."

Say again?  By what some would call a fluke coincidence, we found Mirielle, a member of about 4 years.  She comes from Surinam and has been here for about a year, but never made an attempt to reach the Church.  We made a return appointment and got to know her a little bit better.  She was excited to know the Church is about 2 streets away from her house and we gave her a Book of Mormon right there so she could begin reading it again.  Also, we're going to start teaching her the lessons, to kind of jump-start her back into Church.  The whole situation is just unbelievable.  Super cool.

And Isa!  She's doing great.  Everything is coming together nicely for her baptizm.  We've been calling her everyday to make sure she's on-track.  She had a long friendly discussion with the Bishop just the other night.  We're still very excited for her.

Also!  I lent Harry my book so he could read it.  He loves talking about it (though he mentions all-too-frequently the mistakes--- daarin).  He comments often how 'spannend' it is.  He usually goes to bed pretty early, but one night he stayed up until 11:30 reading it.  He's finished the first book already--within 3 weeks.  I'm going to lend him the second one today.  

So guess something else.  I have discovered that I like asking Muslim people where they come from.  In our area, they seem to come out of Turkey.  But when I asked a Turkish person that the other day, they kind of squinted at me with a smile and asked "Do you come from Turkey too?"  AH!  What?  No!  Apparently, I've just got that face.  I guess I've got more sun lately than I thought.  Okay, whatever though.  Just one comment, right. Nope.  I had a second Turkish person ask me the same thing.  GAH!  Goshdangit.  Isa only corroborated what they said.  "Yeah, you do kind look a bit Turkish." That's three separate people.  

Gerald--in a roundabout way--dropped us.  We showed up for our appointment, but a lady opened the door and told us he wasn't feeling well and he wouldn't be up to meeting with us again.  When I tried to push why, she only sent us away.  Hmm, okay...  Bummer.  He really seemed interested too.  Maybe we'll phone him and ask further.  I want to hear it from him.

We had dinner with the Knudsons yesterday.  Guess what they made us?  A full turkey dinner.  Stuffing, yams, smashed potatoes, the works.  It was unbelievable.  I've never had moister turkey.  Hot diggety was it good.  They told us too that they'd like to have us over at least once more. Hey, I'm not complaining. They will be moving back to the States soon.

Oh, and I got a new camera!  It's very nice.  If any of you back home want a decent camera, I could probably send the old one your way.  Gotta let me know right away though.

So the European Cup started.  We were heading towards the centrum when we saw a lot of people wearing orange, flocking towards the stadium.  It wasn't hard to figure out why.  Yep.  Needless to say, the rest of the night was essentially fruitless.  I've never seen the city so dead.  It was almost eerie.  The Netherlands lost too.

We went to Belgium!  It's certainly a different place.  There is a literal line between the two countries--in the road.  They don't take good care of their roads.  We got a ride from a member and as we approached the border, he said "Get ready for the quiet to go away..."  BRAAAAAAA.  Like going off asphalt onto gravel.  Ooo.  We went to Antwerpen for Stake Conference.  It was fun.  President Iring and President Nelson spoke.  The emphasis was on raising children in the Gospel.

By the way, it lifts my heart to hear that Braden is doing well.  I'm glad he's coming to church again.  I pray for him a lot.  I sent him a letter today.  He's like a brother to me.

Anydoodle.  Best of luck to you all.

Send me some love!

Tot volgende keer,

Elder Burgess

We went there, got an investigator, then went home.

I've probably exhausted all the forms of wham and diddely possible by now.

Anydoodle.

Nother week, nother adventures.  This week seemed to really blast by.  I swear I blinked and then Monday met me again.

As for our investigators...

Elder Van Overbeek (who was in Eindhoven just before Elder Kunz and I), phoned us up one evening and straight up asked us to see if we could move Isa's baptismal date sooner.  Umm...okay?  We asked how soon would be good.  His reply: "Mmm, next week would be acceptable." He wanted her baptized that very weekend!  So we called Isa up and put the thought in her mind.  After a few days, she made the decision to be baptized on June 16th.  I think it will be better this way, really.  The less distance between now and then, the more unlikely something will happen.  Plus Elder Schwartz (who was the one who found her to begin with) is leaving home soon, so this way he can attend too!  And...... this way I'll actually get to see one of our investigators get baptized!  Woo!  Isa gave us ice cream as well.  Ben and Jerry's.  Mmm.

As for fietspump (bike pump) guy, Sheka.  Our appointment fell through and Sunday evening was a torrential downpour.  He only has a bike, so I can't blame him for not showing up.

Raychel cancelled our appointment, but we made another for next week.

Congratulations for Kalvin by the way!  Give me his address and I'll try to send a "Gefiliciteerd" card.  Any projections on when he's going to get his actual call?  Super exciting.

So we've got a couple interesting contacts this week.  We got a referral from HQ this week.  A guy named Jason came in contact with the missionaries in Germany, and ordered a Book of Mormon.  The address was for a small city called Roermond, about 40 minutes or so away from Eindhoven.  With a few hours to spare, we decided to go check it out.

So we got there and knocked on the door.  A lady answers and we tell her we have a Book of Mormon for Jason.  Except she doesn't know any Jason.

Hmm.

We begin telling her about this Jason......who ordered a Book of Mormon.  Lives in Germany...  Caribbean...a music DJ.  Turns out his name was something somewhat similar to Jason, but not actually Jason.  We figured "Jason" must have ordered the Book for his Mommy (who turned out to be  a super spiritual/curious person).  So we gladly gave her the book and set an appointment for the following week.  I think it's super strange...  We went there, got an investigator, then went home.  Nothing else.  Strange.

We never went back to high guy.  We had another appointment instead.

Aha.  Also, our district leader, Elder Merril, wanted to meet our investigators.  So he planned an exchange on Saturday.  Little did he know we had an appointment with Sister Luid (remember, she's a little cra.....a child of God)!  Muahaha.  I went to Heerlen instead that day.  Can't say I was disappointed...

So I considered buying that camera again.  It was even 10€ lower this week.  I didn't buy it though.  I think I'll just stick with my camera for now.

My allergies have pretty much been the worst ever still.  I made the mistake of itching my eye the other night and...it wasn't nice.  It got all watery and swollen and red and bleh.  I really hope the allergy pills you sent work.  I really hope ALL THIS RAIN we've been having will wash all the pollen away too.  It's been raining for two days straight now. 

By the way, I'm reading through Jesus the Christ.  Interesting book.  Sometimes it just flows in one eyeball and out the other though.  Now that is a heavy book.  I'm about 2 thirds done already.  

Ik hou van jullie!

Tot volgene keer,

Elder Burgess

I felt my shoes melting at one point.

And no, that is not Dutch.

This week.  Gee, a lot happened this week.  So you know how I was saying that last week was such a stinker of a week?  Well dang, this week certainly wasn't.  We had 3 new investigators this week!  How cool is that?  I wasn't there for two of them.  I was on splits at the time with the District Leader.  But the third person we found was a bit more interesting.

So to start off (and to deviate a bit), my bike had a total of 3 holes in the rear tire this week.  Yep.  A hole a day, for three days in a row.  Believe me, it was as awesome as it sounds.  My rear buitenband, or...outer...tire(?) was really worn out and so naturally ended up scratching my inner tire a whole bunch.  Faithful, I tried simply fixing him up, but that didn't work so well.  That tire was pretty worn out......and so as we were riding to an appointment, my tire kept sinking lower and lower.  Eventually, I decided to ask somebody if I could borrow their fietspump (bike pump).  The guy gladly agreed and in no time the tire was filled again.  Then, when it was all done, we sneakily happened to mention that we were missionaries, sharing the good news.  Wham, turns out the guy was super interested.  We had an appointment with him a couple days later and he's was very excited to meet with us and attend church!  Coincidence?  Yeah...maybe.  Still pretty cool though.  His name is Sheka Kamaro and he's from Sierra Leon (speaks English).  Guy is built thick too.  You should see his biceps!  

My tire is all fixed now.  Had to replace the outer wheel.  Proud (...but humble) I was able to.

Things are going great with Isa too!  She set a date for July 14th (somewhere around her birthday).  The big question when we tell people seems to be "and what about her parents?"  Isa isn't worry about that anymore now though.  She said something like, what's the worse that could happen?".  I'm so excited for her!  

At the back of my mind though, I'm worry I'll be transferred yet again, before I see another investigator baptized.  ...But that's not important, right?

Ardette we haven't seen in a while...  I hope she's doing alright.  We have to call her.

Also, we had an appointment with a man named Raychel.  It was...not terribly exciting, to tell the truth.  It was just Harry and I (Elder Kunz was on splits with our District Leader because Elder Taylor was gone for legality reasons).  Raychel is from...Curisao?  He's got a wife and 3 children, but he himself is a bit slow.  He didn't have much to say.  His main question was why there are so many churches, but after that was answered, input dropped to pretty much to 0.  Still, he was willing to read in the Book of Mormon and we have a return appointment.  His wife seems a bit more lively, I hope she will be there next time.  What is extra cool is that the entire appointment was in Dutch.  I think I did pretty well.  Cool, eh?

Ooo.  So we had an dinner appointment, and afterwards we decided to knock on a few doors--to see what happens.  An older fellow opens the door and squints at us.  We tell him who we are--while he takes a drag on a joint--and he promptly replies "oh ja, kom maar binnen."  Uh...  Okay.  So it was super interesting.  Guy just started rambling, taking the occasional puff from his doobie, saying something about Jehovah's Witnesses, cops and the neighbours.  Yeah, didn't catch much of it.  He had no teeth and slurred everything he said.  We made an appointment for following Saturday and got out of there pretty fast.  I'm curious as to what will happen. 

This probably should have been at the beginning of this letter, but HOT DANG, it has it been boiling out.  It's been somewhere in the upper twenties--pushing 30--for a good portion of the week.  I swear I felt my shoes melting at one point.  I can't imagine being somewhere warm all year round...  like.....Florida?  Whoops.  Ha.

Man did it rain one day.  Gee whiz.  We left a member's house and it was beginning to spit.  Then WHAM!!  RAIN!!  I'm talking take two steps out of cover and you're already soaked kind of rain.  My entire backpack (and almost everything in it) was soaked.  All my pass-along cards...my two Book of Mormons that I carry.  Psh, gone.  Luckily, one area stayed pretty dry.  It had my origami paper and camera--both perfectly fine.  Hot diggety, it rained like that for pretty much evers.

Ah!  And my allergies.  I don't think my allergies have ever been worse.  I sneeze a lot, my eyes are itchy and all runny.  My nose pours like a.......something that pours a lot.  Gosh.  I've tried those pills I have, I've tried nose-squirt-juice-stuff.  Ooo.  I hope it doesn't get worse.  They've got those horrendous cotton trees on the way to church.  It's like it's snowing when you ride through those.

Buuut yep.  I think that's just abo--

WHAT IS YOUR WORLD-FAMOUS PANCAKE MIX?  I've wanted to know for about a zillion years, but I keep forgetting.  Tell me.  Also, we've got a waffle iron.

Anyway, peace OUT kerels

tot volgende keer,

Elder Burgess

And we're making Harry dinner tonight.  We did last week too.  Who knows, maybe this will be a new Eindhoven traditie.  Maak dine voor Harry.

Harry is awesome.

We had butter chicken last week.  Lovingly donated by you.

"I want to be baptized."

Wham.

I guess I should reciprocate that tiny email you sent me.

The end.

No, just kidding.

This week, not going to lie, was probably the worst on my mission numerically.

I won't say how much we got, but we were justified in our lower numbers.  Don't you worry.  We weren't slacking off or anything, we just simply had a lot to do--just not anything that would boost our numbers.  Psh, what are numbers anyway?  We had Zone Conference on Friday.  We took the train all the way to Antwerpen, which, might I say, is quite a different place.  The train station, which is literally four levels of trains stacked atop each other, is stunning and beautiful.  Then you walk outside.  Then, you take a tram.  Blech to both.  But nothing negative, right?

Anyway, President Brubaker interviewed everybody and gave a speech about leaving something behind for the Lord.  It was very interesting.  Probably the last time I'll be interviewed by President.  Also, probably his last Zone Conference.  Crazy.  He is pretty much gone.

We didn't get home that day until 8.

Then, on Saturday, we helped Harry van de Sande move.  We thought it was going to be a couple-hour activity, but nope.  It took the entire day as well.  That guy has almost as many books as the (old) library back home!  We managed to fit it all inside his new, 2-room apartment.  I have to say though, his new house is perfect for him.  He didn't need 3 flights of stairs like he did in his old house.  Now he lives closer and it will be far cheaper than before for him.  I feel so sorry for that guy sometimes though.  He does so much and has such a big heart--but doesn't have much financially.  He's got €5 to his name right now.  Poor Harry.  Man is he going to be blessed when he is called home.

So!!! 

I got your (Easter) package by the way.  Holy man, I am impressed.  That much candy in such a tiny package!  Thanks!  I'll be swimming in chocolate for the next year.

Ooo, I bought a new tie.  I love it.  Plus I picked it up for 5 euro.  Pretty thrifty, eh?

Which reminds me.  My watch battery died today.  We swung by Media Market and I bought a new one, as well as a flash drive card converter.  I'm going to back up all my pictures, in case the card I will send shortly gets lost.  Thought it was a good idea.  But!  A camera caught my eyeball in the store.  It was a Nikon Sharpshoot (or something similar), with 16megapixels, full 1080p video, 10X zoom and a few other gizmo's for €150.  I'm thinking about buying it...  For all that, it's certainly a good price...I think.  Elder Kunz was saying Nikon makes good cameras too.  I spotted a similar one, but made by Canon.  Think I should go for it?  The quality of the pictures would literally be double that of my current camera.  Well, everything is double actually...  But if the pictures I send are good, I don't think I'll bother.  I guess we'll have to wait for 2 weeks and see.  Either way, let me know.  I hope I can find it again...

Ooo, and something awesome happened this week.  Isa phoned us and said she had a surprise for us.  Mmm?  Surprise?  We met at the church (with a joint teach of course) and she whipped out a Book of Mormon and set it down on the table, opened to 2 Nephi 31.  That's when Nephi explains why Christ was baptized.  Gasp.

I pretty much got it at once, but I didn't say anything.  She went on, saying that she felt like she'd been blaming everything on her mother.  She looked at me and asked if I understood.  Certainly, but I wanted her to say it.

"I want to be baptized."

Wham.

How cool is that?

Isa put her faith in the Lord by coming to church.  Now, she's trusting him more and taking that big step.  Baptism.  I'm super excited for her!  We're going to work out the date next week.

Also, it was Elder Kunz's birthday on the 19th.  Woo!  Happy birthday, him.

Buuut, that's it for this week.

Love yah lots!

Tot volgende keer,

Elder Burgess

The Wonderful Antwerp Zone
back row l-r  Elders Mohrman, McCarlie, Jones, Mower, Schwartz, Schow, McDaniel, Mathis, Burgess
middle row l-r  Elders Sanderson, Stanley, Nish, Taylor, Douglas, Kunz
front row l-r  Elders Merrill, Leach, Zusters Nielsen, Herring and Elder Andrews

We do it right in Antwerp..........we have fun doing missionary work!

Good talking to you yesterday

I'm typing on a North American standard keyboard.  How cool is that?  Now the question mark isn't where the 0 is.  Yay!

Anydoodle, it was great seeing and talking to you guys!  Holy man, I had been looking forward to that for a few days.  Surprisingly, it was more....casual than I was expecting.  I'm not saying that you guys are boring or anything but it just doesn't feel like I've been gone this long...   Makes sense?  Probably not. 

I love you guys!

And yeah, the Knudsons are great, aren't they?  They do so much for us, it's crazy.  When we left, they gave us 3 huge packages of Poptarts and a package of Nutter Butters too.  Wow.  What champs.  Their one dog is pretty crazy for me too.  Apparently, I look like its previous owner or something, so it goes wild when I come it.  Plus I pet it and play with it pretty much the whole time.  Mmm, pets.

Have I told you about the Van Emples?  I think so.  Anyway, they have 4 cats.  What?  Yep, 4.  One is a big ham and always walks in, expecting attention.  Psh, who am I to deny?  They hate it when I pet it though, because cat hair gets h'everywhere.  They walked out and he jumped up and I pet him a bunch before he jumped away.  They came back in and screamed. "Elder, have you been petting the cat again?"  Um, no.  How can you tell?  Cat hair everywhere.  More screams.

Not too much more to report this week admittedly.  Elder Andrews is gone up to Hengelo now.  We rode with him up to Rotterdam, dropped him off then simply came back.  It's kind of strange without him.  But we've adjusted quickly.  Elder Kunz gets his own room now!

Our house is nearing completion.  Mostly, they just have simple things left to do.  The trim, some painting upstairs...  Otherwise, all the big projects are done.  I'm hoping we can have our house completely back by the end of the week.

Ooo, so the other night we just finished planning when a neighbour lady came a'knocking at our door.  She was a bit drunk and spoke slurred Dutch, but eventually we understood that she wanted to give us a couch.  Flustered, we agreed (without thinking it over) and walked over to her house.  There was another guy there, also tipsy, who we talked to for a while. Both of them smoked too.  Bleck.  So we hauled this million-pound couch through her tiny dutch house and down some not-so-tiny Dutch stairs, then down the street and into our house (which has a tight Dutch entryway).  Oh mah goodness did that couch reek.  Smoke and cat and ruined couch.  Yuck.

In hindsight, we shouldn't have taken the stupid thing--in only proved a further nuisance for the Saldens to have to haul it out.  Still, it was an adventure--and we got the number of the guy that was there, who is interested in learning more about us.  Who knows, maybe it will be a great experience.

Isa came to church again.  Woo!

And we met with Ardette again.  She is in a precarious situation.  Tired to the bones, she said several times.  Her friend was there, chilling for a while, before Ardette mentioned that her friend was against joining the church because then "then your man will have several wives." We quickly corrected her, saying that polygamy is not practised in our church, but she kept pressing.  "it says in the bible that other men had several wives.  Why not today?" Simple, because God commanded it so, for His purposes.  Now, it's not needed.  It was in the past, but not no more.  The end.

Then, she started going off about how she thought it was a good thing.  It was unbelievable.  First, she was saying she didn't want Ardette to join our church because of polygamy, then she goes off about how she actually supports it.  It was ridiculous.

Still, Ardette was on our side and even explained to her friend about Joseph Smith and how he received inspiration.  There is much hope for her yet.

Otherwise, this week was relatively uneventful.  Fun, eh?

aaaand, with that, I say adieu

tot volgende keer,

Elder Burgess

Also, I thought of something that you could send me......f you want.

Pictures!  I love pictures.

And I'm out of delicious popcorn.  How will I survive?!

Maybe a tie or too...  One of Papa Joe's.  Do you remember that one tie I have.  It's black...and brown...and...cool?  I have a picture of me wearing it in one of my little picture books.  I was wearing it the Sunday before I was supposed to leave.  I like that tie...  You can never have enough ties.  Well, that's not true.

buuut don't stress it.

I can't think of anything else.

Love yah, bye.