Elder.Connely.Packard

Muiderslot   Some people hate Mormons. Most just hate religion in general too much to bother to know what a Mormon is. But then most of them are really good people. The dutch people are very simple and down to earth. They live in small houses, have few possessions and are fully satisfied. It is remarkable with how happy they make themselves with so little. They just need a bed, a piece of bread with cheese on it, and 20 square feet with flowers on it and they get the most they want out of life. That is super impressive, but unfortunately it also makes it really hard to make them comfortable enough to let you invade their 20 square feet and preach the gospel.  This week I am getting transferred to Den Haag. Zaandam was a short stay, only 2 transfers, compared to 4, then 3, then 4 in my other cities. It will probably be my last city.  Miracles are that the less active member and his girlfriend that we started teaching that both fell off the face of the planet got ba

July 10 In the true spirit of the holiday, 7/4/2017 2017 2016 On the fourth of July we did a little BBQ for our district meeting lunch. We got some watermelon, braadworsts, bread, soda, and some banana bread, and we ate it all. It was fun. We had couple little disposable bbq things and we grilled the sausages. I dressed up in all American stuff again.  We went bowling as a zone last p day it was fun. The bowling alleys here have strings at the top of the pins, so the pins get pulled upwards when they are reset. I don't think they get knocked over as easy though.  We found a couple new investigators this week. The first guy was someone that we knocked into about a month ago, but he never answered the door. We looked him up again and he said he was sitting in his living room watching TV and thought, I know someone is at the door, but i can just ignore them and keep watching TV and relax. But then he had a thought that maybe God had sent someone to his door,

July 17 Transfers with be next week Wednesday and either my greenie will go somewhere else or I will leave and probably head into my last area. I am trying to ditch some of my stuff so that I have room to look for things that you would like. It is summer sales here so everything is about 60 to 70 percent off. We went to Volendam, a very Dutch place in our area with the rest of the district for P day and took a picture in traditional dutch clothing. fun. This week was pretty slow. Tuesday was good. We had interviews, and a dinner appointment which is rare. We live outside of Amsterdam but all the members live in Amsterdam so the other 6 missionaries in Amsterdam get all the dinner appointments because it takes so long for us to get to a dinner appointment. Everybody we have met has seemed to turn on us and yell at us or disrespect us as much as possible from behind their front door or become a new investigator and then try to convert us to their own religion or bel

July 3 We had a crazy week. We did not get contact with the people that we planned to get in contact with. Our syrian family has been in Rotterdam the past couple weeks, so we have been unable to meet. We did find a 3 new investigators though, so that was really cool.  We had zone conference this week. It was good. I got to see a couple friends on the mission I have not seen in a while. We have a lot of good missionaries here. We had a dinner appointment with the lady that had the birthday party afterwards, and got to have more lekker food from Suriname. It rained a lot this week. I think we might get a couple days of sun soon though. There is a recent convert lady that we have been working with who has been making a ton of progress. She is awesome, but kind of the quiet kind of awesome. She got her patriarchal blessing last week, does family history and baptisms for the dead when she gets the chance, and she is only a convert of 6 months. It make

June 26 Surinam BBQ Fun elders are good. And good elders are fun. But I don't know if we ever know if we are the good elder, or the normal elder, and the elder that the ward doesn't like.  I have heard form members that planes in phoenix were not able to take off because it was too hot. there is a member here that has family near Nogales. Way out in the middle of nowhere. She is Indonesian i think so I thought it was funny that she would have family wasy out there.  This week was not as cool. It rained, we didn't get to see our baptismal date again, and he haven't been able to get contact form that less active and his girlfriend. We did have stake conference yesterday. Gary Sabin, the guy who gave the talk last conference about standing up inside came and spoke to us. He was pretty funny. If was strange because he reminded me exactly of Brother. Campbell. His demeanor, the way he talked, and the way he taught. It was a really good talk. One thing he

Here is the view from my porch in my new area. The hotel is a very famous one.  My view June 12 Hi mom and dad, It seems that you go several vacations all summer long. Here in the Netherlands they don't finish school until around July, and then they have a 6 week break. But they pack up and go to Spain or Italy for the whole 6 weeks. l The other lady that we invited to be baptized last week is doing super. We met with her yesterday, and she accepted the Plan of Salvation very well. We also asked her if she could come to church next week, and she said "It is time." She had stopped going to church with her old church because of some disagreements she had had with it, and feels that she needs to start going to chruch again. So she is going to bring her 3 sons with her. They have been asking her why they don't go to church anymore, but if everything goes well, next Sunday we will see them all there. Also, there are

April 30 This is for you I am indeed getting transferred this week to Zaandaam. I dont know where it is but I guess we go to the ward in Amsterdam. I will be also be training a new missionary, which is pretty cool. I haven't done that yet. We are going to be totally lost for the next couple weeks. But it will be exciting.  I will be missing the worlds best chocolate, it is actually the best. The fries are pretty good as well, but dutch fries are not really any worse. But I do get fresh milk again instead of boxed milk. And stroopwafels. And I will have to eat herring with my greenie. Also it will be cool to explore Amsterdam. Hopefully we will not run into the red light district.  We did a lot of service this week. It was tiring. But I got some chocolate milk afterwards and it was super good.  ​

This is what it's all about April 24 This week seems to have felt a lot longer than it actually was. It was pretty stressful with the closing of the branch and everything. We also had interviews this week and a baptismal service and it was very taxing mentally.  Last Monday we played baseball with a member. It was a lot of fun. He is Dutch, but loves baseball. Today for p day we had a zone pday and all met up in a park in Antwerpen and had a barbecue and played some voetbal. My comp and I grilled some ribs. They were good, but European meat is definitely different than American meat. I miss some good old Sweet Baby Rays. Interviews were good as always. President Bunnell is my friend.  On Friday, we had a baptism for a couple friends. We are both family of a member here who did a great job at using his influence to introduce his family members to the gospel. One of them is his young son, so I suppose it was a little easier in his case. But he did ask his fathe

 April 17 Atorium in Brussels We had a crazy week. On Monday we went to the theme park and had a lot of fun. On Tuesday, my comp was sick so we did a lot of phone calls and looked up a few people that were not too far from our apartment. We had a barbecue that evening and were able to meet some non member family of a member and spend some time with our investigators getting them ready for baptism.  Wednesday we mowed a neglected lawn and had a great lunch which is typical for Europe...sandwiches! They don't put very much in their sandwiches here. Usually just a little butter and a piece of meat or cheese. They don't afro chickens  often put meat and cheese at the same time. But the bread is fresh and delicious and the sandwiches are warm and satisfying. We then traveled to the other end of our area for a dinner appointment. We had tacos. Also delicious. On Thursday we had our yearly trip to Keukenhof. We had to get up at  4:00  to make it on time. I got to s

April 10 This week was a pretty good one. The carnival came to our town and is camped just up the street, so we have to walk right through it to get anywhere. It is nuts. I should be gone by Wednesday, but it is very loud and has a lot of tempting food trucks. I dont know how they can have food trucks with any business when there is a Frituur on almost every street in Belgium.  I am serious when I write almost every street. A Frituur is a place where you buy fries and all sorts of other deep fried things. They love thier deep fryers. Fries are also relatively cheap. You can get enough to fill you up for 3 euro easily. Fries are more of a meal here rather than a side. They are not necessarily as good as everybody makes them sound, but they are addicting. By the next day after getting some frites you want more.  There are plenty of people that we have not gotten contact with yet here, but we are trying. One of these days they will all be home. We also had a really goo

This week was a mix for us. We had a pretty disappointing drop from our most solid investigator. It is not over, but they decided to start investigating elsewhere and make a decision between the two parties. The good news was that we had some miracles. We took the time to do some centrum contacting while waiting for a bus, and ended up missing the next couple buses because it was working so well. We got information from one man form Suriname, and while we were telling him about the Book of Mormon, another man came out of nowhere and asked if we had the same book in German and gave his address so we could bring it by. We also met a lady from Russia who has the same name and profession as another Russian member here. She wants us to come by sometime. Also, of all places that she has been to in the US, she has visited New York, Phoenix and Sedona. Another miracle is that we had a couple hours before we needed to get to our next destination, so we took a short bus trip to a dor

The rainy season here has started. Luckily, the weather here has been fantastically dry compared to last year. We are starting to get a bit wet now. We had pretty good week with one of our most spiritual lessons ever about the gospel of Jesus Christ. As missionaries we often teach it as 5 separate steps, when in reality what we mean to teach is that it is a continuous process. It was super cool. Last week we went to Ieper, a famous WW1 site. There are some cool trenches there and a lot of people died there. It was pretty land but at the same time, there was kind of a dismal gloom about the place. It was hard to put a finger on what it actually was, but probably because so many people died. We also went to a town north of Turnhout to help a family paint their new house. It is a place called Baarle, and parts of the town are Baarle-Hertog which is owned by Belgium and the other parts are Baarle-Nassau which is Dutch. Look it up on the map. Anyways, the border goes throug

Jan 30 For PD last week we went back to Gent to see the castle. It was still cool. It actually warmed up a bit this week and is now lingering at about 6 Celsius. That means it rains instead of snows. Today we will be heading to Flanders Fields, a pretty famous WW1 memorial site with trenches and a graveyard and museum. It is quite a trip to get there. This week we were busy almost all of the time. We had interviews on Tuesday, which were nice. We went on exchanges later that day and I was with Elder Enger in Geel. We went to a lesson later that evening and had a killer joint teach. It was awesome. They also gave us a lift which gave us a chance to eat dinner and spared us the wet 45 minute bike ride. Which was nice. and some ultra death sauce that a member loaned me because most europeans can not do spicy I have told you about my companion. He is funny and nearing the end of his mission. I am pretty sure that I will finish him off next transfer. But we are getting