Wees Niet Bang, Wees Gewoon Blij!

The traveling has begun again. We were in Arnhem this week, and it was a blast. First though, I have to tell you about our little Irish man!

Our first day in Schiedam we contacted a guy on the street right outside our apartment. It was such a spur of the moment little thing, but he was positive and open to meeting with us. We went and taught him earlier this week and it was amazing! He is a drummer (by the way, read all of the rest of this with a little Irish accent and lilt, it´s way better) by trade, but has been unable to do it since an injury to his head. He loves to study history, and is a little bit of a conspiracy theorist. Anyway, he has been burying himself in Ancient American history and archaeology and everything, so he thinks it´s no coincidence that we ran into him. Also, after talking with us he went and looked up about the church on the internet. He found that so much of the stuff was negative BUT thought that none of it could be true. How great is that? We had a wonderful lesson with him and we´ll be seeing him again tonight.

Okay, back to the stuff about traveling. Things were a little odd this time because of a certain Elder Hunter. Now, I´m not sure how much of this I can tell, but I don´t think it will bug him too much. In short, Elder Hunter has a broken collarbone. No, it isn´t anything new, it´s been that way for awhile now. since before his mission. However, it did just start giving him trouble again. A lot of trouble. He´s at the doctor today and we´re all worried about him. He was in a lot of pain while we were traveling, but we all took very good care of him. We really hope that we can figure everything out... because if Hunter has to go home that would mean an end to the music project. Maybe not... but probably.

Anyway, we sang a lot, met a ton of eccentric people, and just did lots of things. 

I do actually have some pictures this time, so you can be happy about that!

 

 

We saw this while out contacting. Poor guy.... or girl... or.... rooster.

Oh yeah, all of the MTC group was reunited at Zone conference. And we were all staring into the sun.

This view again.



Mothers, lock up your daughters! Me-ow!

Arnhem is gorgeous. We have more awesome pictures, but I don´t have them. I´ll have to get them from the others and send them next week!

 

 

Loves!

The Shaw

Comei, Bebei e Alegrai-vos,

Portuguese this time. No, I can´t say a thing other than, "I speak Portuguese", "I like men", and "FIRE!". Yeah, all useless. I haven´t really had a chance to work on it though. Hopefully I can find some time even with travelling starting up. Maybe I´ll make Connati teach me while we´re in the car!

I don´t know where to start. This week was really busy, but I don´t have a ton to talk about. 

Transfer day was odd. It was my shortest transfer in terms of distance, but my longest in terms of time. Hard to explain, but there were just a lot of problems. Pretty much half of the mission got white washed. For those who don´t know, that means that both of the missionaries in an area get transferred. Now, transporting 4-6 bags and two bikes with two people is really difficult. So, a lot of bikes were left in areas. That means a lot of odd travel through the mission and everyone is just freaking out. It´s really stupid. It was just a crazy day.

Schiedam is really cool. It´s really international, and people actually don´t mind being talked to. It feels too easy after Dutch areas. Everyone is like "Oh, just come over to my house! Anytime." They´re lucky I´m not some con-man. They´d just be letting me in their homes.

My voice has been kinda messy the last few days. Combine that with all the last minute practice we´ve been trying to shove in before we start traveling this week and you get a very exhausted Elder Shaw. 

One artsy picture of Elder Connati and his trusty water bottle to end things

Love you!

Elder Shaw

I´m a Cute Little Jetpack.

I´d like to begin this entry with a little Dutch geography lesson. Everyone, pull out your maps. Find Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Got it? Good. Now, the bits of the city North of that big river are considered Rotterdam North. From the coast all the way out East to Capelle A/d Ijssel. Now, Capelle is where I happen to be right now. The ward here is all that area considered Rotterdam North. Now, look West. See that area called Schiedam? That area is Portuguese speaking. Many immigrants from Cape Verde, Portugal, and Angola live there. They are still part of this same ward, thus there is a Portuguese group in the church. The Elders in Schiedam work with that group, and there is almost always at least one person there that speaks either Spanish or Portuguese.

Now, what does any of this geography lesson have to do with anything? Well, we got transfer calls last night. I will be moving (AGAIN!?) to Schiedam. Same ward... just Portuguese area. All the way across the city. I will be with Elder Conatti, while Elder Muller will go (oh yeah, we´re both moving) to Delft with Elder Hunter. As an added oddity, Elder Conatti, just before joining the Singing Elders, served in Schiedam for six months. We´ll both be doing our fifth transfers in Rotterdam. Confused? So are we. If I said I was happy, I´d be lying. The only consolation is that I will be with Elder Conatti. I love him! But yeah, we´re having kinda a rough time with this change. I´d like to stay in a city for more than a transfer! Is that too much to ask?

ANYWAY! Cool stuff about this week. We spent a long time practicing for the performance on Friday. When I say a long time.... I mean most of Wednesday and all day Thursday, then until we had to leave on Friday. We are all quite worn out. Oh, and Thursday night at 8 p.m. someone decided they wanted to change the format of the production. So, less than 24 hours before we had to perform. Yeah, that was more than a little bit difficult. Despite all this practicing and change, the performance went well. Not perfect, of course, but we were quite happy with how it worked out. Then we had to drive two hours home in the dark. Did I mention that I received my license that day? Thus, my first drive in Europe was two hours... at night. I about pooped myself, I was so nervous.

Saturday there was a baptism of one of the Schiedam Elders investigators. It was a wonderful service, and I think he´s on his way to becoming a strong member of the ward. After that was over, Elder Muller and I went to a dinner appointment with some other Elders in our district. Our sleep deprivation got the better of us.... and we were nuts. Like, crazy go nuts. Luckily the lady was very fun and a great friend of the missionaries, so she loved it! Yeah, I need some rest. Especially since this coming Sunday we start touring the mission again.

A little bit about being a full missionary. Elder Muller and I actually put a list together of what we believe it means to be a full missionary. I´d send it, but I don´t have much time. I´ll try and get it to you next week. We feel like it is the way to be a perfect missionary, and a big part of that is actually acknowledging that you are far from perfect, but working constantly to improve. It´s a good list.

 

Well, I have pictures.

 

Look out, Oprah.

Sunday dinner and serenade.

One last cool little thing. It´s a little tradition in the mission for one artistic member of a district to every now and then draw a picture of his district as characters. It isn´t completely done yet, but I decided to draw everyone as a 1st generation Pokemon. So, here you are, pokegeeks.

 

 

Well, that´s it for this one.

The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.

Elder Shaw

Shake your sprinkles like you just don´t care!

I don´t know how to start with an email this week, so I went with the twelve year old boy strategy of saying that I don´t know how to start in order to start. Confused? Good, let´s move forward.

I can say that I´m really sick of this church building. Why? Because, I´m sick of this church building. We´ve been in here practicing so much in order to get ready for the performance on Friday. We´re all very stressed out, practices are.... sometimes a bit tense. However we´re trying our best to stay positive despite how difficult it is. This schedule wreaks utter havoc on the numbers we give at the end of the week. And you know, numbers are everything. (HAH! I kill me)

Despite the intense amount of practice, will still managed to get out and do some cool stuff this week. We taught an awesome lesson to a less active member named Ivan. We are planning on going back to teach his non-member wife. We really hope that works out. During our lesson we learned a really cool lesson about being full missionaries and what that is versus so-called "exact obedience". Elder Muller described it really well, so check his blog for it. It gets more traffic than mine, anyway! (Once again! Numbers, baby!)

We taught a few investigators, no crazy big breakthroughs or anything. Just good spiritual lessons. We did have an interesting experience on Sunday, though. A man showed up to church and began talking with our Bishop´s wife. She called me over and had me talk to him. He was apparently writing a book and he wanted to see our views as a church on some subjects. He came for Gospel Principles and Sacrament Meeting. We turned Gospel Principles into a big Q&A session for him. It turns out he´s from a religion called Baha´i, which is quite interesting. It was cool to learn about something I´d never heard of before, and also to be able to testify of the truth in all faiths and that of my own. He enjoyed Sacrament Meeting and was just a genuinely pleasant fellow. He wasn´t interested in making an appointment with us to learn anything. He said he had enough for his book apparently he just wanted a little half page blurb or so. But hey, any publicity is good publicity, right? Except anti-material. That´s a pain in the booty and has led to the loss of many an investigator! That was really an old English form. You know you´re a missionary when.....

 

Oh, we went to the beach last P-day for Elder Muller´s birthday! It was super fun, and I have some pictures from it.

 

We dug up a treasure trove of beach toys. No joke. They were all just buried here.

Look at that beautiful birthday boy!

Elder Muller wanted selfies. I wanted..... to be a pain? (With Elders Andrew and Drinkwater)​

Typical.

 

 

Anyway. Good week and all that junk!

Loves,

Elder Shaw

Gefeliciteerd, Elder Muller!

Oh yeah, it´s Elder Muller´s birthday today! We´re going to try and make it good day. We baked a cake last night and we´re going to the beach with a few other missionaries today. We can´t get in the water, but we´ll find something to do I´m sure!

We had some good days this week. Lots of contacting, even more practicing, a few good teaching appointments. I also went on an exchange with a greenie named Elder Drinkwater, and yes, he´s heard every pun about his name ever. If he hadn´t heard it before, he did on Tuesday with me. Hahaha, poor guy. But we had a good day of contacting really angry people. REALLY angry people. The city we were working in is really small, so at least half of the people there knew the missionaries already. It was a little difficult. I´ve noticed something odd-- If someone recognizes us on the street, it is almost always negative. People get their panties in bunch when they see us walk by and make some snide remark about who knows what. Dumb. They don´t even know what they´re talking about. A guy in the city saw us the other day, then quickly proceeded to pull his hat down over his eyes and make a bunch of odd hand signs at us, including crossing himself at least three hundred times. I don´t understand people.

We also has a wonderful lesson with that member referral! She had a lot of questions, and has already read half of The Book of Mormon. Without any help from us, she feels like she has received a witness through the Spirit that it´s true. So, we just need to get in there and help her stop smoking. Other than that, she´s pretty dang ready!

I would say that one thing I´ve learned thus far in my mission is about picking your battles. There are a lot of things that we can fix and work on, but there are so many things that are completely out of our control, or they are in our control and they just don´t matter. We have to learn when we´ve done all we can and just need to hope and trust God. So work hard, trust the Lord, and say thanks after things have happened. Whether they worked out how you wanted them to or not.

 

Look! A kitty! After this picture, this cat followed us down this entire street! It tried to get in a few doors as well. I call him Elder Whiskers.

I made us delicious burgers (Homemade) and nectarine milkshakes. Sounds like an odd flavor for a milkshake, but it was delicious!

 

 

Well, that´s about of it for this week. 

Keep it swill everybody.

Elder Shaw