Week 38: "But what about clones? How do they find Jesus?"

March 3, 2014

Goedemiddag, allemaal!

...and just like that, it's March. The winter months have passed by, and I've survived. With all my whining and complaining about the weather, you would have thought it was the worst winter this country has seen in a long time. I have something to confess. I heard through the wire that this was the second mildest winter the Netherlands has seen since the 1700s. Go figure. As someone who does not enjoy the cold, I am a blessed individual.

Also, how about those Dutch skaters in the Olympics? I don't remember specifics, but members and investigators here have been telling me about how they dominated. How about that? (Even though they may be the only country that really cares that much about skating...don't tell them that I said that.) Really though, that's pretty cool. Let's go, Nederland!

Elder Goates and I have been keeping ourselves busy on this little piece of seabed they call Lelystad. We've both been learning our way around, and we've been making a lot of appointments. It was a slow week, but we already have our schedules for this week pretty packed. It'll be good. Sometimes you have to have the slow weeks to set yourself up for the fast weeks.

We had one day this past week in which we had three appointments with new people. We were pretty stoked. We walked into the first one and proceeded to sit and listen to a very nice Hindu man talk for approximately 45 minutes. We tried to share our message, but he ended up telling us that we need to watch out -- if we're going to be sharing our religion with other people, we need to know more about Hinduism. Fortunately, I knew a fair amount already, which impressed him -- thank you, BYU's History of Creativity 101. I never knew you'd help me on my mission. After that, we headed to our next appointment, where we talked with a nice Dutch man for about 45 minutes, who turned out to be a former investigator. He may or may not have been implying that we were Pharisees. Gee, thanks. But hey -- after two appointments like that, the last one has got to be good, right? Well... Some of the questions asked included, "but what about clones? How do they find Jesus?" and "well, what do you guys believe will happen if the world explodes?" I'll leave it at that. Oh, the people I've met.

We tried to make pannenkoeken (Dutch pancakes) some time last week. We failed....miserably. I don't know if my insides will ever be the same after eating it. Lesson learned: learn how to make pannenkoeken from someone who knows how to make it, instead of learning from each other when neither one knows how to make it.

Also, we saw a wild three-legged cat this week. For real.

Until next week. And hey - happy March, everybody. Stay warm.

--Elder Bonney