"We don´t put up our middle fingers. That means ____!"

This was said to me yesterday by a little boy in church. It was in Dutch of course, but I don´t remember exactly how he worded it. Timo (our incredible investigator) and I laughed until we could not breathe.

Lemme see...... I attended a Catholic think-tank about Saints this week. That was very informative and quite fun. Zone Training was also uplifting..... Yeah, most of our lessons fell through and the ones that went through were not what we were expecting.

HOWEVER-- Elder Serra and I found some student housing this week and proceeded to knock the living crap out of it. Weaving through a labyrinth of weed-stench, slightly pornographic posters for raves, and blaring house music we found multiple students willing to give some dapper young men the time of day. We have many appointments in the coming week. Let´s pray they go through. I´ve had enough dropped appointments for a lifetime!

In other news, we got some snow on Saturday night! It didn´t stay until morning, but it was certainly fun while it lasted. It is now super cold, so if we get some more rain, we would likely see some snow. Sadly, the sky has been super clear since then. Pray for snow, it´s fun!

I have one picture!

It´s an ode to Nicki Minaj in Boxtel! Nice, Eh?

Loves all you! Much good week!

Elder Shaw

GIJ KUNT ZEKER GEENE WHEELIE, JONGEN!

By the way, this may not all translate perfectly, but it´s a Brabants accent. Noord-Brabant is the province of The Netherlands that Den Bosch is in, and you can think of it as the Dutch equivalent of Texas. Everyone is super proud to be from here, and it´s a bit more religious than the rest of The Netherlands. It´s wonderful, and by far the most amusing Dutch accent. Our investigator, Timo, has been helping me to learn how to speak it!

We´ve been working our little tushies off. It has been good to see some stuff come from our efforts this week! We taught some wonderful lessons to people incredibly prepared for the Gospel. I was amazed to see the way that our message can answer so many of people´s questions about life. People really have no idea what they´re missing, and that´s very sad. I want the world to understand just how much of a difference Christ can make in their lives. It´s an abstract thought, belief, but if people will open up to it, they´ll see a change in more ways than they can count.

In other news, Elder Serra got kicked out of a Burger King this week. It´s not what you´re thinking; I just like to get a rise out of ya´ll! Anyways, we were in there eating far too expensive food for our missionary budget (because we locked ourselves out of our apartment again) and out of nowhere this water starts spraying in the restaurant. I looked to see a small hose poking out of a little hole in the ground unleashing a torrent of water in every direction. After a second it stopped and sank back into the hole. I heard the staff talking and they started cleaning up the mess. They replaced some people´s soggy food and then five minutes later it poked out of another hole in the restaurant and did it again! Apparently it happened every time someone flushed the toilet. They evacuated the restaurant.

Anyway! Here are some pictures!

This is Theo! A wonderful member of the ward. He´s a sweetheart!

Itchabois!

Beautiful Boxtel!

Also Boxtel.... But not quite so beautiful.

I love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Shaw

"...Dan heb je ook gesquat!"

I am very done with holidays on a mission. I love them, and it´s really cool to experience them as a missionary, but they are such a HUGE disruption to the work! "Oh, I have no time; talk to me next year." That sentence describes our past two weeks.

This has been one of those contacting weeks. Uh huh, every missionary has them..... well, at least in this mission. I don´t know about Brazil. We spent a long time walking around, hoping people would actually stop for two seconds to talk to us. Most people were too busy getting drunk and throwing up all over the city. That isn´t a joke. Elder Serra and I went out at 11AM on New Years morning to find a ghost town COVERED in puke. Stay classy, Den Bosch!

They go insane here for New Year´s Eve. Fireworks go off from about 11 to 2 in the morning. I tried to get some pictures of it, but they didn´t work too great.

Another thing the Dutch take very seriously is holiday greetings. On Christmas, you say "Merry Christmas" to everyone you meet. And for at least three days after New Years you´re expected to tell everyone "Beste wensen!" It´s not a joke. It´s a very serious part of Dutch culture. I love this little country!

In other news, we have a baptism scheduled with the most wonderful investigator of all time! We´re so excited for him and the choice he´s making! Things are going well and I love it here!

Well, I tried to take a picture of the intense fireworks, but you can´t really tell just how nuts they are. Last year in Haarlem was even better, though.

 This is how Elder Serra did the dishes when we were required to stay in on New Year's Eve.

I seriously can´t get enough fun pictures of this goofball!

Well, that´s about it; I´ll keep you updated on anything else that goes on!

When life gives you lemons.... yeah, that´s pretty cool, I guess.

Elder Shaw

"Christmas children peep into Christmas windows..."

This week has passed! I´m actually a little bit glad that it´s done. The holidays are wonderful, and getting to celebrate the birth of Christ is wonderful! However, the work here sucked. Straight up. People were just grumpy and we had trouble getting appointments set up with anyone that was not an active member of the church. It led to a lot of time where we just had no clue about what to do. We were frustrated, but full of food. So I guess it wasn´t all bad!

I want to thank everyone that wished me a Merry Christmas! And those of you that sent me stuff! And especially Mike, Marian, Gma and Gpops! Keeping the missionary pockets laced with dough. I really do appreciate everything that all of you do for me!

Well, I managed to do a lot of caroling this week. Tuesday and Friday were spent caroling in Eindhoven-- we gave out some cookies, shared some love, and I had a ball. Like I do. 

I have many pictures for the peoples!

This is Elder Serra jokingly trying to find an uncomfortable position to sleep in.

This is Elder Serra genuinely just tuckered out.

Exchanges with Elder Parr! Big kids on campus ya´ll!

Ain´t he a cutie. I take a lot of pictures of him. He´s very photogenic.

"In the ghetto....." -Elvis

Cookies I made. We were on a train to Eindhoven.

Artsy sunrise picture. It´s cool, you can see the reflection of the train car I´m in. Art.

CAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This last one has a bit of a story. Elder Serra and I locked ourselves out of our apartment. We spent an hour and a little bit more removing the door from it´s hinges with the help of Rudy, our building handyman. After forever we finally got back inside. Yeah, we´ll do better at remembering our keys after that ordeal. Yep.

Sorry there wasn´t a ton to talk about this week! But at least I had a lot of pictures!

Loves!

Elder Shaw

Hola, soy El Shaw!

I´m trying to learn how to say "Hello, I am The Shaw" in as many languages as possible for when I answer the phone. People find it pretty amusing. Since I first started calling myself "The Shaw" in Haarlem it has spread through almost the entire mission. Cool, eh?

Well, I´m in Den Bosch! My companion is Elder Serra. He´s Portuguese but has lived in England for a long time. He´s a great time and I love working with him. We have a lot going on for us here in Den Bosch. A baptismal date, a good pool of investigators and potentials, and a wonderful ward! I think I´m going to enjoy my stay here!

I do have two little stories to share from the week:

First-- We were attempting to commit someone we´re working with to read the Book of Mormon everyday. He´s a prankster and likes to push buttons. He said he wouldn´t commit unless Sisters asked him to do it. I think he thought we would just push him until he said yes, but what did I do? I immediately picked up the phone and called the only Sisters in our zone. I put it on speakerphone, explained the situation to them, and then had them ask him to read the Book of Mormon everyday. He begrudgingly agreed. Boom! That´s how we do!

The other one is that we had to find our way to a train station one night after a dinner appointment. We were in a tiny little town, it was ridiculously dark outside, and we had no idea where we were going. After walking for about 40 minutes, we figured we were going the wrong way. We went over to a house on the side of the road, and asked the woman who opened the door if she could direct us to the station. Initially, she didn´t listen to us and, seeing our name tags, said "Nee nee nee". I asked again, and when she finally figured out what we wanted, she gave us directions. It turns out we had walked the wrong direction for more than twenty minutes! We finally reached the station and had missed two trains, so we had to wait a long time. It was one of those nights...

I have a few pictures!

This was the violinist's music from our Christmas performance. I about died when she put this together.

This is the new companion! Ain´t he a looker! I love this kid!

Love you all!

Elder Shaw

"Kip is a good man."

Oaky (yes, oaky). First things first, I´ll be transferred to Den Bosch! --with another Portuguese speaking companion. Apparently there´s something I need to work on. I´m excited!

This week was the most intense, emotional roller coaster. The concert went as well as can be expected for never having done a run through. And yeah, it was crazy! I don´t have any stories from the week, really. It was a lot of practicing and stress and freaking out and then going to bed and doing it again the next day. 

Saturday, after the concert, we went to sing in a retirement home with the district. It was a lot of fun. I played guitar for a few songs. We had a good time and I think the old people got a kick out of it!

Sunday we had the Stake concert, which we sang for again. Yeah, I´ve been singing a lot. That went okay. It was really long, but we had a good time! Then we got transfers and I haven´t gotten enough sleep any night this week. I have some pictures though, then I gotta cut it off.

Never mind. I´ll have to try and upload pictures later today. This computer is busy uploading someone else pictures!

I love you all!

Elder Shaw

Yodododododo Yododododododo!

If you couldn´t tell, that´s the violin part to "For Unto Us a Child is Born"!  MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Okay, getting ready for the Christmas concert is in full swing. We´ll be using almost every day of this week to get ready for it. Yeah, I know. I´m a little stressed, but hey, a little stress is a good thing, right? RIGHT!? Yeah... whatever.

This week was cool. We ended up back in Belgium; more practicing. Just intensity all around. One cool little refresher from the craziness of these few weeks is that a family in the ward invited us over to do an early Sinter Klaas (Or Sint Niklaas, you´ll see it spelled both ways) celebration. It was a fun little cultural experience and they gave us some gifts and we sang songs together and it was just a ton of fun and I was quite happy! (What sort of sentence is that?) You know, I´m realizing something interesting. When you come on a mission and learn Dutch from English, you go home not knowing how to speak either of them. Or maybe I just suck....

We have really been practicing a ton, but this concert promises to be incredible. I want to give it my all... It´s what´s really expected of us. I spoke to Elder Conatti about it this week. The Lord doesn´t ask much of us, just everything...It´s an interesting thought, but it´s true. Food for thought. Mull that one over a bit.

I don´t have a lot to say really, but I would like to remind everyone to focus on what´s important this Christmas. Remember, it´s not about just receiving, but it´s also not just about giving. It´s about the reason we give. If you´re not sure of that, go read the last verse of "O Little Town of Bethlehem." I´m not just going to give you the answer. You have to work for it. Also, thank God for your many blessings AND trials. It´s hard, but gratitude is a part of humility. I´m all over the place today. Sorry, have a good week, everybody.

This is my one picture--those with whom we celebrated Sinter Klaas. The De Jonges. Wonderful people!

Bok bukawk.

Elder Shaw