Recipe for Success

If you have these few ingredients, you can eat on only 1.50$  pretty well

• flour
• baking powder
• salt
• water
• oil

Things here are pretty much the same. I got my hands on a tortilla recipe a couple weeks ago and ever since I have been eating tortillas non stop. They are dirt cheap to make and delicious. Also, they don't have perishable ingredients so we make a ton of dough, and then just leave it on the counter to roll out a tortilla anytime we like. the only thing is that uncovered, it dries out a little, and when covered, it gets oily. We ate almost 60 tortillas worth of dough this week for probably just a little over a euro. Also, you can put butter on them, sprinkle powdered sugar and then fold them over and seal them and cook them, and then dip them in honey. They are kind of like sopapillas this way and insanely good. 

These past couple weeks we have had a referral who lives halfway between Breda and Oosterhout so we biked out there through the farm fields and cows. It was super cool. They grow rhubarb out there.

The houses in the country are often built in the 1700´s and people still live in them. They are huge. Also, there are a lot of small forests around in the country, and we got to bike through one on the way to Oosterhout. It was gorgeous. The weather has been nice and warm, but a couple days ago it suddenly got cold again. It will probably be warm again in a week or so. When the northern winds come, the weather will change dramatically in a matter of hours. the rain and cold will last for several days usually.

This week we did not have a lesson with any one of our 5 most important investigators. Something came up with each one of them and we spent a lot of time trying to pick up the slack. Fortunately, there is always something to do, whether it be more or less meaningful. There are days when it is super frustrating to get the same old answer that everybody gives: "Geen interesse", but one thing that Elder Knaupp has pointed out to me is that a lot of missionaries get in the habit of mimicking or saying something negative about everybody that closes the door on you. It is amazing how easy and even satisfying it is, but also negative. To be perfectly honest, I would do exactly the same thing and would not give it a second thought if I were in their situation. I do not really get discouraged or frustrated with "Geen interesse" anymore. You just have to do a little bit of faith finding and talk to God about it. 

Something interesting that I have learned to like doing that is suggested in Preach My Gospel is letting your prayers be guided by the spirit. Be very open to in the prayer and it becomes a real conversation. And it is very relative to knocking doors. Yesterday I felt prompted to ask to be let in and spark someone´s interest in the restored gospel, and after knocking for a very long time, we knocked on a door and a man said "Geen interesse" and started to close the door, but Elder Knaupp asked him if we could just come in for 10 minutes and talk with him. He was just sitting outside smoking, so he said why not and we talked to him. He has 3 kids and actually ended up being very interested in us and enthusiastically invited us to come back and answer some of his questions. There is always a fruit of our labors, and we are always promised that at some point it will be more than worth it. So there is nothing to be frustrated about anymore, because no effort is wasted.