First full week/Carnival

The funny thing about this picture is the angle. Packard is a good 8 inches taller than his com. 

Everything is a little less exciting now that it is the second week, but it is still good. I have started to get a little homesick now that I can not really speak to anybody comfortable but my companion, but I will get over it. Our investigators are doing well.

Efrem worried us a little bit this week. He is going to school so that he can get into politics and help fight fro freedom in his home country. He is nervous about getting baptized because he doesn't want to have to make a commitment to God and then lie in politics. He was forced into the militia there at age 16 and was shot 3 times. He is awesome though. He has a good testimony and everything. He is also worried that the gangsters that his country have in Holland are going to hunt him down and kill him. I think he will be all right.

This is a city I dis exchanges in. It was "reclaimed" so the ship harbor extends right into the middle of it.

Right now it is Carnival in Holland so everybody from age 1 to 99 is dressed up crazy and they are drink around the clock. It is hilarious, but a little bit harder to talk to people. They just want to go get drunk. So this week we had almost 30 hours of proselyting but our numbers did not look very good. There was one night where we spent about 6 to 7 hours straight just knocking on doors and street contacting without getting let in to one house. The only thing we got out was some "I´m a Mormon" cards. It was freezing so we had just enough money to buy a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese and a cardboard liter of warm milk and we just sat in the dark park eating it. It was the 3rd best meal I have ever had. It felt so good though.

The other 2 best meals I have ever had were also this week. A lady in the ward took us into a all you can eat fancy Chinese buffet and it was delicious. There was everything from sushi, to ice cream, to a personal chef who would fry anything you put on a plate in a wok. There were also glass bottle sodas, and they were so good. I was so stuffed.

There is a family in our ward. The dad is from Canada and England and he is so awesome. he served in Iraq and speaks English and has fed the missionaries every Sunday fro the past 16 years or something. This Sunday, he got the enormous t bone steaks. He said they must have been about 900 grams or so. About 2 and a half fingers thick. He also made champion gravy. They Dutch people eat mushrooms in everything here and it is so good. I never thought I would like mushrooms but they are in almost every dinner food here, so I don't really have a choice. Best meal ever.

This week I got kebaptized. We got donor kebaps a couple times this week and they are super delicious. They take a pita, grill it, put a bunch of may, then onions, lettuce, and a bunch of donor and tomatoes. I have a couple pictures.

A few of our lessons got canceled this week so we spent a lot of time knocking and contacting and extra planning. It is pretty hard to be motivated here because nobody wants to hear the Gospel, but I know that somebody actually does.

Sometimes  I do not feel consecrated enough to the purpose. It is super hard to try to serve with all of my heart when I am homesick and am not truly converted to my purpose right now.

 In the MTC there were so many nerdy little kids who had really no idea of how to do missionary work and testify of Christ because they really did not grasp they concept of what he does for people and what a true relationship with Christ looks like. It is like in Alma 7:11 when it says He suffered for our pains and infirmities, not just for our sins. It is a pretty hard thing to understand, but I know it.

He knew that we would sin like this so He suffered like that. A quote from Elder Holland comes to mind, I think it goes like this: "How could we ever think it would be easy for us if it was never, ever easy for him?" Of course, you have to hear Elder Holland say it because he says things so much more powerfully. That is why the Atonement was so much harder that we know, it is completely and essentially against our human nature and emotions. The entire Atonement was and is directed to overcome the natural man.

Love, Elder Packard