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Goodbye to Zaandam and a really cool castle

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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
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And Also, I Met my Cousin

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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,
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Serving without Love is Slavery

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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
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The Critical Difference

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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
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Never more Happy than Grateful

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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
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May 15: A Room with a View

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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
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April 30: Transfer to Zaandaam, Netherlands

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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.  ​
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