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.
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| Look out, Oprah. |
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| Sunday dinner and serenade. |
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| 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
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