March 23, 2009

This week was pretty crazy. I went to Brussels, Amsterdam and Utrecht. It was a ton of driving and NO sleep! But it was a really awesome week.
I got to talk to President Oaks one-on-one for about a half hour and the zone leaders got to talk to him for a couple of hours and then we had zone conference as well. It was really good. President Oaks is a really nice guy. He loves to tell stories. I sat and talk to him during lunch at zone conference and he just told story after story. It was great. The zone leader council in Brussels was also amazing and I took tons of notes.
It was really a spiritually uplifting week and it was fun, although we did have some problems with some of the missionaries in our zone. Our ward took some huge steps towards helping us some more this week, so that was also something good.
The baptism of Folly and Shijam was really awesome. The Mule family from Fiji sung a really cool song and played the ukelale. It was really cool and spiritual. Both Folly and Shijam were glowing afterwards and they just loved it. The confirmation was really cool as well.
We have a whole bunch of baptisms coming up and and a bunch of other investigators too. We are seeing so many miracles every day. It is incredible.
There are a couple ducks that live in the canal by our apartment and we watch them out of the window. This morning four drakes flew up in front of me at about 20 yards. These ducks fly around and no one can shoot them! But it's ok...eight months and I'll be making up for it.

March 16, 2009

This week went by really fast. We had interviews in Amsterdam and we gave another training and it went really well. As Zone leaders we give trainings and take numbers for the whole zone and we are called to inspire and uplift the missionaries in our zone. There are four zones in the Dutch side of the mission.
I'm also going to Brussels tomorrow to meet with President Oaks of the Seventy and Pres. Woodland (mission president), it should be really good also. We drive a ton and I'm loving it, but don't worry Mom, I'm driving safely. We are getting a new car!
We have a baptism with Folly and Shijam on Wednesday. It should be really, really good. We have baptismal dates of:
March 28--Natalie
April 11--Ama, Isatu, Kate, Affiana
April 25--Ravin, Lyde, Kastelein, Ben, Philip,
Bentura family, Teras family, Anthony family
If you would pray for these people that would be wonderful!
Elder Carter, my companion, is from Ogden and he's a duck hunter too. We get along really well and it's alot of fun to work with him. We live in a 4-man apartment with Elder De Mass (from Murray) and Elder Christensen (from Kearns). It's alot of fun and we all get along really well.
Things are going really well here and it's starting to get warm and it's getting lighter and lighter, later and later. When it starts getting darker again, then I'll be heading home really, really soon. That's weird.

March 9, 2009

It's going great here and I'm loving it. In the past four days we have set eight baptismal dates. We were doing really good and then we reviewed a talk that we've read before called "The Challenging and Testifying Missionary" and now we've gone nuts. We invite people to be baptized on the streets, on their doorsteps, and every other place we can think of and we are finding people that are truly ready for the gospel. We're not just finding people who will say yes and then not follow through, but these people truly want to change their lives. It's awesome. Contacting in English is also really fun.
In regards to driving here, they don't drive on the other side of the road. Our car is a stick shift and if you have ever driven in Brussels, you know what it's like to drive offensively. You have to in Brussels, it's crazy, it's just a free-for-all. They have round-abouts that are five lanes wide and the closer to the middle you are, the more right of way you have. Everyone drives offensively defensive and it's awesome. It's like bumper cars without the bumping...most of the time. We saw some guy make use of his bumpers getting out of a parallel parking job with only three inches in front and back of him. I was impressed.
Next Ghanian food story....fish heads made into soup mixed with peppers and then a big ol' slab of FuFu to go with it...awesome, huh?
We had a Fijian farewell yesterday. I guess the people over here in Europe didn't get the memo about no farewells. But this farewell was soooo cool. They had a whole bund of Fijians and Samoans there and they sang and then after the meeting they did some Pacific Islander traditional ceremonies for departing people and then they had a huge feast with really, really good Pacific foods. It was soooo good. I ate soooo much and they just kept bringing more and more food out. It was awesome, I loved it.

March 2, 2009

Ok, so this week has been crazy. Driving is awesome. I love it. Europeans are the worst drivers in the world and then you've got trains going all over the place and it's just crazy and fun. And their parking garages are like roller coasters to drive in, it's fun. Although this whole driving the speed limit is something new to me, but it's not too hard. Especially with a companion in the passenger seat.
This week I've had to drive to Alkmaar, Lelystad, Breda, Zwolle, and today we have to drive to Brussels and then next week we are going to Amsterdam and then Brussels again and then Amsterdam and a few other places, too. We are so busy.
Yesterday I got to meet Elder Oaks and talk to him for a minute, it was really cool and he gave an awesome talk.
So we counted how many languages Elder Carter and I can contact in and we ended up with close to twenty and are working on more. Right now we have: English, Dutch, Spanish, German, Twi, Portugese, Arabic, Afrikaans, Fijan, and the list goes on. We're getting pretty good, too. We have little notebooks that we write new phrases in so we can get better in all these languages. The people love it when we try to speak their languages, especially the Ghanan people.
Speaking of Ghanan people, yesterday we had "so" interesting food. It was the usual Ghanan FuFu, but it was cooked in a soup that consisted of the spine of a small dog-like creature with a little bit of meat left on it, and then some different portions of the guts, mixed with some spices and then served. You eat it with your right hand and your right hand only, grabbing a piece of FuFu (blob of goo) and using your thumb to make it into a bowl/spoon and then you put a piece of meat in and spoon some soup into it and eat it. I like the Nigerian FuFu better, but the chicken style from Ghana is really, really good.
I really can't remember what else happened this week. It has been so crazy and we are so busy. We have literally no time to stop and take a breather let alone eat!!!! But we fit it in and it's going great.