Week 23 Ommoord Netherlands

Christmas Pajamas!

Making my Christmas Cake!

Found Dr Pepper Cherry at a store while teaching first lesson

CHRISTMAS!

 

This week was pretty awesome!  So for Christmas Eve we went to sisters Koks house.  She is this super nice older single lady that´s never been married and it just so happens that her favorite place on earth is Bryce canyon. Haha small world, so that was really fun to see her pictures and talk to her about it.  Then for Christmas we went to the Teskes.  They cooked us an American Christmas dinner and we watched the music man and the new Disney movie frozen.  I also got to skype the fam and that was super cool.  It might have been the fastest hour of my life.  Then for the second day of Christmas (they have two of them over here) we went caroling at an old folks home.  That was a lot of fun.  Not a whole lot of missionary work got done though because we actually aren´t allowed to proselyte on those days so we mostly spent them with members.  One cool thing that happened though was with this potential investigator that we went to look up.  He was on the way to the store so we just went with him and we ended up teaching the first lesson in the store.  It was pretty awesome.  He wasn´t too interested but he took a book of Mormon and I also found out that this store we went to sales Cherry Dr. Pepper and also three different flavors of mountain dew.  It was just a little tender mercy.  So whenever we visit members we are supposed to give them a spiritual thought and lately we have been focusing them all on Christ and Christmas.  It helped me really just think about Christ and not just gifts on Christmas.  It made for an awesome Christmas.

Week 22 Ommoord Netherlands

EMERGENCY TRANSFER!!!

So Wednesday afternoon me and elder Tjong-Ayong were in Rotterdam south with one of the zone leaders and we got a call that elder Tjong-Ayong needed to be in Breda at 8 the next morning because he is getting transferred to Eindhoven to be the district leader!  So we had to cancel appointments, exchange back, and get him all packed in one night.  It was super crazy for him but I got the night off to relax while he packed. haha so I enjoyed it.  Now it's just me and elder Kettler and it's kind of fun because we both are really bad at Dutch so our conversations on the streets are a lot shorter.  

So Friday night we had our wards little Christmas musical and they had us missionaries sing in it. haha we didn't prepare so last minute we were like let’s just sing Rudolf the red nose reindeer so we did.  It was super fun.  Then last night we had the big missionary fireside and it was super cool!! Our neighbor Ellen came and she also brought two friends with her!!  That was awesome and the bishop came and introduced himself to them.  It was cool.  So the Gruppmans were the ones in charge of this thing and they are both super famous violinists so that was amazing and then they also invited a super famous organist and pianist.  It was seriously insane!!  I was sitting right behind the organist and it was crazy watching her play.  Then all of the missionaries got together and sang how great thou art.  It was just a really cool night!!  Ellen really enjoyed it too.  It is a lot of fun being a missionary during the Christmas season.

 Elder Hulet

Week 21 Ommoord Netherlands

 Elder Tjong-Ayong in a Zwarte Piet hat

My study desk with all of the christmas stuff mom sent me.  
You can see spongebob and patrick on the window behing it too.

Christmas Decorations from mom!

Christmas Decorations

Christmas tree with all of our presants and such

Letter I got that I´m pretty sure wasn´t for me...

Elder Price teaching the first lesson to 5 women on the street!!
 hahaha He´s a stud!

Kerst avond in Gouda

Cool christmas tree in gouda

 

Elder key sent this one to me of us with the bishop

First off. We watched the Christmas Devotional last Monday with the Teskes and it was freakin awesome!  I was sad that it wasn´t just apostles speaking but then the other talks were really good so I enjoyed it a lot.  We also went over to the teskes last night for dinner.  They invite us over all the time and I love it!  We will be spending the first day of Christmas with them too so that will be awesome.  

This week we had zone conference.  Elder Tiexera from the 70 came and it was super cool.  He did and awesome job at tearing us down and making us all feel like crappy missionaries... but then he finished up strong with some cool missionary stories that made us want to work!!  It was super cool.  He gave us some new contacting ideas that we tried and they work super well!  Our average day is just walking around and talking to people, but no one is ever interested, so his idea was to just walk up to people and practically shove a mormon.org card into their hand before they can say no and then to just tell them to look up the website and then we just say have a good day and walk away! haha it works alll the time!  Then we aren´t getting rejected all the time and we are getting more cards out to people.  It´s pretty cool and we made a district goal to contact 3000 people in these next three weeks!  and not just a contact but we have to extend an invitation in this contact to have it count! We have done pretty awesome so far but yesterday we didn´t get any because we were busy with other stuff.

Friday was the kerst avond in Gouda.  If you haven´t heard of this it is like the biggest Christmas thing in Europe.  People from all over came to it to see the uge christmas tree and stuff.  We showed up early with our whole zone and did some caroling.  While we were caroling we had a few people out in the crowd of people contacting them and talking to them about the Gospel!!! It was cool.  I contacted a guy and he wasn´t interested and he told me if he took a Book of Mormon it would be a sin because he wouldn´t read it! haha so I was like well just take it and put it up on your shelf and maybe someday you´ll want to read it. and then he was like well heres the thing.  If I take this book and put it on my shelf then I know I´m going to read it. haha so he took the book and our number and said he would call us. haha it was cool.  It was like a half hour conversation so I didn´t get to sing too much but it was the best contact I´ve had in a while so that was pretty cool.  

Another cool thing yesterday was the Baptism!  It was two of the sisters investigators and they asked Elder Tjong-Ayong to baptize them.  It was pretty awesome.  I´ll send some pictures.  All in all it was a good week, and I´m super excited for Christmas over here!

 

Elder Hulet

Week 20 Ommoord Netherlands

Playing Golf for the first time on my mission

Dhana

Three of  us at the beach just north of our apartment

This week was good.  We worked really hard and didn´t see anything come from it, as usual, but it was still a good week.  We lost our investigator Dhana because he moved back to indonesia but he took us golfing this week  before he went.  It was so much fun!! We chose the worst day to go because of the weather.  You actually have to have a license thingy over here to golf so when we showed up at the course they asked for it and of course we didn´t have one.  She was like well, there isn´t anyone even on the course today because of the weather so I guess you can go and play.  haha it was awesome.  It´s been a while since I have played so I didn´t play too great but it was a lot of fun.  When we got home we got a text from the district leader that we needed to stay inside the rest of the night because of the storm.  Haha it was that bad and we golfed in it!  Then on Wednesday we had an appointment with a guy clear up in Alphen aan den Rijn, which is about 2 hours of travel both ways, so we set this whole day aside to work in this little town.  We tried to look up some less actives and got nothing, then we went back to the station to catch the next bus to visit another less active and we missed it.  Another one didn´t come for another two hours!  So we went up to the mission office and took care of some legality stuff, and when we got back I realized I had lost my directions on how to get to erics house.  So I called him up and he freakin canceled the appointment on us!!  We set this whole day aside for this guy and then he cancels!  haha it felt like a waste of time, but then we ended up getting back in time to teach our neighbor ellen.  We showed her the restoration video and she loved it and she committed to read more and then come to the Christmas fireside on the 22nd.  It´s going to be a really cool thing so I hope she really comes!  Then at the end of the lesson elder Kettler prayed for her and she started crying!  It was super cool.  She is an awesome lady and I hope she will keep progressing.  I love my mission and I admit that I have gotten down on myself these last couple weeks, but It is moments like that which make everything else worth it!  We work hard every day and usually we have empty schedules, so we just knock doors or street contact all day.  We haven´t seen any success from this yet but if we keep working hard it will come.  Also a general authority is coming this week to our zone conference!  I´m super excited to meet him and have him teach us.  

 

Elder Hulet

Week 19 Ommoord Netherlands

Thanksgiving dinner with our cool hats on

All three of us crammed in an elivator with our bikes

This last week was transfers and I´m staying in Rotterdam for now.  I have TWO new companions.  Elder Tjong-Ayong and Elder Kettler (we were in the same MTC district).  I love them both.  We all get along really well.  I really hope I will get to stay the whole transfer with them!  There are 5 people going home in the next couple of weeks so there will be a lot of emergency transfers.  It´s usually the threesums that take the hit on those ones, so I really hope they will leave us together.  We have a really awesome Christmas set up with the Teskes so they better not take me out of the Gouda ward yet!!  So anyway this week we had three thanksgiving dinners.  The first one was at the Smiths.  It was so awesome!!  They made us cool little pilgram hats and everything! Then the next one was at Rotterdam 1.  The missionaries were in charge of that one so they invited us and we brought our investigator Dhana with us.  It was super fun!  Our third one was with the stake Presidents family.  These people make up about half of the church here in Holland.  There are 10 brothers and sisters and a couple are stake presidents, a couple are bishops and so on from there!  It's crazy.  We had it in the church so there would be enough room and their family was bigger than the gouda ward.  haha it was crazy!  Sister De Jonge is American so it was a good ol American thanksgiving!  I loved it!  We did a lot of door knocking and contacting this week.  We got quite a few good potentials but no appointments yet.  Dhana moves next week so we really need to get our investigator pool up.  Elder Tjong-Ayong is the Chinese elder for the area so we are supposed to pick up the Chinese investigators, but turns out there really aren't any.... Yet!! Hopefully that will change soon.  Well all in all it was a good week.  

 

Elder Hulet

Week 18 Ommoord Netherlands

Generic email this week sorry.  We didn't get time to email yesterday because we were in Den Boos for a huge bi-zone pday.  They do it every year and it's called the turkey bowl. haha it was fun.  We played football against the other zone.  It has been a while since I have played American football.  We have a bunch of huge guys, one of them is a lineman for SUU, and I thought we would destroy the other zone but they actually killed us.  I accidentally took out sister Aston when I was going for a ball... haha I felt bad but I caught it! So it was worth it.  So this week is transfers and we never got a call Sunday night, so we assumed that we were staying together for another transfer.  Then the zone leaders got a call while we were playing football and found out that Elder Key is going to den Helder and I am staying here!!! I'm super excited!!  Cool thing is,  I'm getting TWO new companions! One of them is elder Tjong-Ayong!!  I love that kid! and I don't know yet who the other one is!  So I also heard a rumor yesterday that my companion from the mtc, Elder Neptune, went home.  I don't know if it is true or not but I freakin hope it’s not true.  I loved elder Neptune and I hung out with him in Brussels last week.  It is super sad that so many people have gone home lately.  I guess my mission is pretty low for missionaries going home, and elder Neptune would be the first one since I've been out.  I am really hoping that he didn't.  

Dad Thank you for the email.  The quotes from modern family are awesome!! My favorite has got to be you can tell a lot about a person from his biography. hahaha I love it.  So did you go to Anchorman 2?  I wanna know if it was good or not. Also will you wish Oy tonx a happy birthday for me?  I heard you did a fantastic job on your talk!  I wish I could have been there to see it!  Mom thank you also for your email. So we actually have 3 thanksgiving dinners set up. I'm super excited for that.  Two of them are with American families! That will be awesome!  Sorry I know you wanted a long email from me this week but we didn't get to email yesterday because we were out of town and then when we got back we had to travel out to Moordrecht to eat with the Teskes.  It's rought when our pdays get cut short, but I'm glad they let us still email you guys.  I love you both and am grateful for all that you have done for me! 

 

Elder Hulet

Week 17 Ommoord Netherlands

Our wild fezant we treated ourselves to.

 Field hockey sticks we bought last pday

 Elder Tjong-Ayong looking like a samari!!

Cinamon bread I made this week.  
Not as good as dads but it was still super good!

The doner I ate in belgium.  It was about twice the size of my head.  
Probably the most delicious thing I've eaten in my life!!

The bike parking garage at the train station in Leiden.  
There are about a bagillion bikes there!

Sintaklaas in the centrum right outside our apartment

Chillin with Zwarte Piet

Sweet picture I took last night on splits with Elder Harvey

I had to give a freakin talk yesterday in church.  So last pday while we were shopping we got a call from broeder Teske and my comp answered it and when he got off he was like hey elder you've gotta give a talk next week on Vertrouw op de heer!  And I was freakin out!! I used every study time for the rest of the week just writing this talk because my dutch still isn't super good, and then Sunday morning on the way to church my comp leans over and tells me that when broeder Teske called he told him that it was up to us to decide which one of us would give the talk.  I wanted to punch him in the face!!! I can't believe he didn't tell me that!! So I made him teach the investigators class in church. haha but anyway I pretty much just read my talk right off the paper and I don't think anyone understood any of it, but it wasn't too bad.  

So sinterklaas came this week.  He's the dutch santa and he has a bunch of black slaves called zwarte piet.  It litterally means black pete. haha  I will try and send some pictures. 

Not much else happened this week.  We just did a bunch of finding and working with memebers and nonmembers and still nothing came from it but hopefully this week we will get a good solid investigator.  I had to go down to Belgium again this week to pick up my ID.  It was a fun trip.  We rode down in the big office van and I got to hang out with my old companion elder Neptune and a couple other elders from the MTC.  So  About one night a week we get together with the other rotterdam elders and go caroling in the park.  It is super fun and they can all sing super good so they cover up my voice nicely.  It is a lot of fun and hopefully we will do it a lot more when it gets closer to Christmas.