AAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, that's how I'm feeling. Here's the story. Oh wait! I'd like to apologize first to the people I didn't respond to this week. It is an absolutely hectic P-day, so I can't get to all of them. I promise I'll write all of you next week! Anyway, here you go...

Last Monday, whilst on my way to a service activity, we get a call from President Robinson. I was told that I would be serving as one of the four Singing Elders of the mission. In addition, I would be leaving the next day. I went about my busy day then came back home and stayed up late packing. I took the trip to Leiden the next day.

 

Upon arrival in Leiden I learned who I would be replacing, and just what this work really requires. We visit a different ward every Sunday in the area where we'll be performing. Performances happen roughly once a month. Then we go back to Leiden Mon-Wed and do "normal" missionary work there. Thursday through Sunday we are back in the ward where we visited on Sunday visiting all the members, investigators, and less-actives in that area, inviting them to the performance, and singing for them.

This past week we were in Belgium, Sint Niklaas, to be precise. We visited a good chunk of the ward, and I worked on learning some of the music, and it was quite spiritual. I'm also worn/stressed out to the point of taking off my shoes and dancing on our car just to release some steam. Oh, yeah, we have a car, too. And I'm going to have to drive.... In Europe... Yay? Just another thing on my plate. BRING IT ON!

So, a little bit on logistics. I am now in Leiden. My companion(s) are Elder Hunter (from Scotland) and Elder Pouwer (Houston, Texas. Mmhmm!). I will be replacing Elder Pouwer, who would have been leaving on Wednesday! However, there is no way I can learn all the music in time for the performance on June 6th, so President Robinson asked him to stay until then. He leaves the Monday after that. He sings the Baritone part of the Elders (normally, it's a bit) which means I'm learning parts much lower than I'm used to. It's a lot of work. Very difficult to fit everything we need to do in to the VERY SMALL amount of time we have in a day. I would say I wish that days are longer.... but if they were I don't think it would make a difference. That time would get filled with other stuff to do as well. The other two Elder live in Delft. We travel and stay with them in the areas where we work, so it's like half of my time is a four... or five... man. It's a lot of fun, and very satisfying, but draining physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I didn't think the first time I went on tour would be on my mission!

 

I'll talk next week, everyone!

Elder Shaw

Mom Update

Hey, All!  I think this may only be the second or third time that I have dared to do a guest post on Elder Shaw's blog, but I wanted to give a little update.  After I posted for him yesterday morning, I received a second email-- very short, but very upbeat and excited!  He was called as one of the "Singing Elders" for the mission.  I think this means that he will be travelling pretty extensively to give firesides and devotionals all around the mission area as part of a men's quartet (known as the "Singing Elders").  Any of you that really know my son know that this is something that he will truly enjoy. He loves music (wonder where he got that--wink,wink) and it is a big part of his life. He told me when we talked for Mother's Day that he was surprised by how much his ear had improved on his mission-- he can now listen to something, and he can work out the chord progressions without too much trouble.  So, even though I failed miserably to get him to play the piano, I guess I can feel pretty happy that he absorbed some theory! Hopefully he will be able to give us some more details next week.  Right now, I am just excited because he is so excited!

Ik fok paarden

Another long week. Not a lot has changed. Still teaching a lot. Said came to church again. I´m just very excited!

 A few very cool things from the week (This email may be a bit shorter, sorry everyone). First, our mission will be getting iPads! They announced it during Zone Conference and everyone was quite excited. However, they have no clue when we´ll be getting them. They gave them to 10 of the 30 European missions as a start to see how it goes...... and we were not one of them. President says he thinks we´ll have them by the end of the year, though.

Also, there is a group of "Singing Elders" that go around the mission doing a show for the wards and it's a SUPER big deal here. It has brought a lot of new investigators and was a great idea by the mission. What´s the point? I got to try out for it! I wasn´t sure I wanted to initially, because it pretty much takes you completely away from standard work, but I figured all I could do was give it a shot and see what the Lord wants me to do! So, who knows? I certainly don´t.

New President comes..... beginning of July, I believe. And I don´t remember his name. It starts with a "B". It´s going to be a huge change. The mission is very anxious about it. Only time will tell what happens; I´ll have been out for a year by that point. That´s odd to think about. No plans really-- it will probably just be a normal day.

Last P-day was nice, though. We, as a district, went to this little lake by the church and played sports, had a little picnic, and I brought a guitar. It was all quite fun. From far away we probably just looked like students. It was actually kinda weird to think about.... Like, this is what I would be doing if I wasn´t a missionary, except I wouldn´t have a tag that says Jesus Christ on it. It really put into perspective just what I have decided to do for two years. Suffice it to say... I was relieved to put on a tie again at the end of the day.

Sorry it´s so short. I´m quite drained, but we´re going to do a bunch of service today. I want to get done here sooner rather than later so that I can maybe get a tiny nap in. It sounds nice.

Only one picture, but it´s super nice!

Planning as done by a Bond villain, Elder Moomey.

I love you all!

Elder Shaw

Bak het! Bak alles!

Where do I begin? This week was hectic! Bike crash, cool lessons, brownies, smart people, college parties? It's all been here.

I'll start with cool lessons/smart people. They tie in pretty well. We are still teaching a ton. YEAH! This week we found a bunch of new people.... all of whom are incredibly intelligent. I sit there and twiddle my thumbs during lessons thinking "Oh yes, theology..... sciences....... history................ Math?........... science again.......... oh, I understood that bit!...... wait...... no, I'm lost again."

Okay, it isn't really that bad-- but they are quite intelligent, which does pose a new challenge for me as a missionary. I'm no longer trying to dumb down gospel subjects so that people with no religious knowledge can understand them; I'm trying to cram as much information in as possible to hold their attention. I think it's working, but I haven't asked them yet. Oh, but something funny!-- A big thing here (with all of the Africans, mainly) is the belief that Jesus was black. You see paintings up in places in windows and things (always knock those doors, by the way). Well, one of our super intelligent investigators actually went through and looked at a ton of historical crap and by the end of his lecture my brain hurt and now I think it's totally plausible that Jesus is in fact, black. Doesn't really matter. It'd be cool with me.

Bike accident! Yeah, it was pretty simple. Elder Moomey tells it much better than I do, considering I was a little distracted at the time. But here it is-- We were biking to correlation at the church. The church is very close to our house, so we only have to make one turn to get there. We were running a tad late, so we hopped on our bikes and hauled our little tushies. The bike light for our only turn turned yellow, and rather than slowing down, we decided to put the speed on and blaze through the intersection. All of us were moving at a more than decent clip, with Moomey in front and me behind him. Watching Moomey take the turn, I realized that I was now going way too fast to make it. I tried to slow down (to no avail) and tanked into the curb. I flew off my bike and managed to plant one foot on the ground before going face first and disappearing into a bush. MMhhmmm. Cars were driving by. Pointing. Laughing. Honking. The other Elders thought it was just hilarious. Really, I couldn't do anything but laugh, either. I came out unscathed, so no complaints from me! I got a good story out of it! 

Brownies! I made slutty brownies this week, and Elder Moomey and Elder Yocum couldn't decide who got the spatula, so they had to share (Mom note-- he did include a picture of this.  I am declining to post it. Ha!)

This week was a vacation week, and 3 of the days were massive parties for the students. Alcohol, scantily clad coeds, weed, dancing, you know, basically everything we can't be involved with. We just kind of avoided those. However, we were on the outskirts of some of them, and drunk Dutch people are hilarious! The communication basically becomes a bunch of slurred Dutch interspersed with loud, poorly pronounced English swears. It was a good time!

My favorite person from the week has to go to Teodor from Den Haag. He's a member there that speaks Bulgarian. During our lesson with Said, we were able to Skype him and have him help us teach is his native language. We wouldn't have been able to do it without him, so I'm super grateful. It was an awesome lesson!

Well, here are some pictures:

 

Groningen!

Mmmm, Boogers.

Saw this in a window. Almost died laughing.

Lastly, the most inspiring graffiti--ever.

Have a nice week, everyone!

This is Elder Shaw for KGWTF, Signing off.

 

Ik ben Elder Shaw, en hij is Elder Moomey. Samen, zijn we Shawmoo.

This week was long and fun! Elder Moomey and I taught a bunch! And I had some cool experiences!

First, something hilarious that happened. Elder Moomey and I were going on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. It was a bit of train ride, and Elder Moomey and I got stuck out by the doors and not in seats. We were okay with it, until the room was filled with yelling, obnoxious, Dutch pre-teens. Elder Moomey and I decided we didn´t want to get into it with them, so we just spoke English. Almost immediately they assumed we didn´t speak Dutch and proceeded to make fun of us. Elder Moomey and I just chuckled, and I told him I have a plan. So we sat, and we took it, and we listened while just making small talk in English. Then, as we were pulling into our stop, I picked up the phone and made a call to the Zone Leaders. I spoke only Dutch, at a decent volume. The turning of their heads was amazing. There was some fear there. A lot of fear. I was quite happy. One of them was like "I thought they were both English!" and Moomey said "Oh, we´re American, but we speak Dutch." HAH! Take that, children!

We also have had some really nice experiences with a man named Said that we met on King´s day. He´s from Bulgaria, and hardly speaks any English or Dutch. We have gone by twice this week and had really short, simple appointments. We just gave him all of the Bulgarian materials we had, and tried to leave little messages. Then he came to church, after less than a week of knowing us. Amazing. He was super happy to be in church, and he brought his girlfriend. Luckily, her English is much better than his, so she helped him out a ton when speaking with us. There is a member in Den Haag, though, that speaks Bulgarian, so we are going to try and set up appointments where he can Skype in and help us. Technology is freaking cool!

Have I ever mentioned that I love Africans? They are just the sweetest people! I love talking with them, and a lot of them move here. It´s very nice!

Well, I have some pictures!

Rainbow! There was actually another one right next to it, but I couldn´t get them both to show up in the picture.

I fell on my bike going 2 mph. Elder Moomey died laughing.

Cat! Again!

Also Cat! Again!

Well, that´s it for this week!

Good night, and big balls. (*Mom note--if you've seen the t.v. show "Wipeout", then you understand this.  If not, sorry!  It's schadenfreude at its finest.)

Elder Shaw