September 28, 2009

This past week went by really fast and not a whole lot happened that was out of the ordinary.
We dug a trench for some people, wearing our white shirts, although we did take our ties off. You should have seen their faces when we picked up a shovel and started to help. It was really cool.
My new companions, Elder Miqueas Ottonelli (from Argentina) and Elder Micheal Ertelt (from German) are cool, they both go home in four weeks. The members of the Church here are pretty cool. There is a Ghanaian family here, we are going to make FuFu with them this week.
Yesterday we ate at an American family's house (they are from Cache Valley). They are here for the husband's job and will be going back the day after me. They are really great.
We have been playing basketball at a court next to our house with a bunch of college students. They are all our friends now and they invite us to go to salsa parties and stuff like that. They know that we are missionaries and they respect that and have a lot of questions, even the ones from Iran and Afghanistan.
I am learning French from Elder Ertelt (he transferred from the French-speaking part of our mission) and it is coming along alright. I'm trying to finish the Book of Mormon in French before I come home.

September 21, 2009

Well, this week was pretty good. I'm in a companionship with a German and an Argentinian. It's fun, but I don't like this whole biking thing (gone are the good old days of having a car as a zone leader). We have a few good investigators and it will be fun.
I miss Apeldoorn and being a zone leader, but everything has to come to an end eventually. The members in Apeldoorn were really awesome helping me celebrate my 21st birthday.

September 14, 2009

This past week was a crazy one. I went on an exchange in Assen and got to see Frans Philipps again and that was awesome. Then the next morning I got a call that one of my missionaries had ran away. This is the third time that this has happened to me. So we spent two days looking for him, found him and drove him to Rotterdam to have an interview with the Area President, Elder Kopischke, who was doing a zone conference there. We drove back to Apeldoorn, then drove to Den Haag the next day for our zone conference with Elder Kopischke, which was incredible and we drove to Brussels for our zone leader conference with him which was also incredible.At the zone conference he answered questions from all of us about everything and it was awesome. The the zone leader council was really cool because it was just a handful of zone leaders and Elder Kopischke and we got to ask him more questions and he taught us alot...it was really cool. Then we drove back to Apeldoorn to have a meeting with the stake president to talk about missionary work and that was cool too. In three days we drove over 2000 kilometers...that's well over 1250 miles!
Well my Apeldoorn days are over...and my zone leading days. I am being transferred to Arnhem (just south of Apeldoorn) as a mentor and I am in a threesome with German elder who is from the French-speaking side of the mission and an elder who is having some problems.
My new address is:
Elder Sean Burton
Wichard van Ponllaan
6824-GD Arnhem
Nederland
I love Apeldoorn and its members. I've made so many friends there...it felt really good to be cherished and wanted and appreciated.

September 7, 2009

Hey, so this week was awesome! We started out with an awesome exchange in Brussels. We went to their district meeting and I made apple pies for everyone in the district and they all loved it and wanted the recipe, so I wrote my version down and give it to a few of them and now it has spread all over the mission and people keep asking me for the recipe or to make them a pie...it's funny!!!
Then we just had a great day. I got to work with Elder De Mass, who I lived with in Den Haag and it was just an incredible day.
On Monday night we drove down to Brussels to drop something off at the mission home for Sister Brubaker, and she and Pres. Brubaker were in their regular clothes, moving things around, so so we helped them and then got to eat dinner with them. That was cool, too.
Tuesday night one of the French-speaking elders got his bag stolen so we had to go to the police department with him and we didn't get home until way late. In the morning we went and played soccer by the Saint Contin Aire. Brussels is a really cool city. Then the rest of the week we had a blast. We set a new baptismal date with Rodrique.
We also had stake conference last weekend and a missionary had just come home from the Greece, Athens mission...he knew Mike Middleton and it was cool to hear how he was doing from one of his fellow missionaries.
And that was my week, it was awesome.