Week 57: "Wanna take one last shot before our basketball is unusable?"

July 14, 2014

Well, ladies and gents, the World Cup is over. After the Netherlands made it through the quarterfinal, beating Costa Rica, the mission president gave us all permission to watch the semifinal match last Wednesday -- the Netherlands vs. Argentina. I was not pleased with the game. It was fun watching a soccer game, but I came to the realization that, after going to bed at around 10:30 PM every night (unless you get caught up with late night talking with other missionaries, then maybe a little later), watching a soccer game until 1 AM is not as easy as it would have been back home. I felt like an old man. And the nerve-wracking overtime, then PKs, and subsequent disappointment must have taken a year off my life... Oh well. Third place in the World Cup isn't that bad for a small little country built by the people who inhabit it. Also, now I can get back to not talking about soccer. That's a relief.

It's been raining a lot this past week. But, we have a car, so it's not a big deal, right? Well, we went on exchanges with the other Eindhoven elders this past Wednesday, and I was back on a bike while working with an Elder Hills (who we also live with, because we share a house with the other Eindhoven elders). Anyways, we were on bikes, and the heavens opened up and let loose on us that morning. I had to change everything when we got back for lunch. Everything.

On Saturday, Elder Alston and I had to drive down to Maastricht to make some plans with the sisters down there for an upcoming zone training. Let me tell you -- Maastricht is beautiful. Stuck in a weird spot in the Netherlands but between Belgium and Germany, it's somehow become a beautiful hybrid city. Way beautiful. A lot of tourists, too -- I haven't heard so much English since I was in Brugge last year on exchanges.

I've noticed -- some of the best miracles are accompanied by some of the roughest time stints. We had one investigator (the one who all of a sudden decided she wanted to be baptized last Sunday) commit to a date, and she's already totally ready. We reviewed the baptismal interview questions with her, and she passed with flying colors. She should be baptized in early August. That's a huge miracle. But, it was accompanied by one of our headlights going out, a week of rain, our basketball incident (just you wait for it), and the Netherlands losing the WK... It's like the quote from Kingdom Hearts that my trainer, Elder Eastmond, really loved: "the shadow is darkest where the light shines the brightest." It's true. Sometimes, some of the best miracles and blessings in our lives are accompanied by the hardest trials. The correct response is an attitude of gratitude, but often we forget to appreciate the blessings we have because we're so caught up in stressing about our trials. It's something I need to work on, but I am working on it.

Both I and Elder Alston really like playing basketball, so we decided to go buy a basketball last P-day so we could play for exercise. Not so easy as it sounds. We looked for a store for a couple hours that had a basketball. Eventually, we found one and bought it. It had been a stressful p-day all around, but ending it with some basketball was fun. We played for about an hour with Elder Nelson and Elder Hills. It was fun. The next day, Elder Alston and I got up early to go play some basketball at the church for personal exercise. We looked out the window, only to see it pouring rain. Wonderful. No basketball that day. The next day, though, we woke up early, and it was cloudy but not raining. We got in the car and drove to the church, excited to play some more basketball. We started to shoot some hoops. Unfortunately, when the church was built, someone had decided to put a short, spiky fence behind the basketball hoop. You already know... About two minutes into shooting hoops, Elder Alston takes a shot, and the ball lands right on the spiky fence. It was impaled immediately. Elder Alston offered me one last shot before the ball could never be used again.

We need to find a new place to play basketball. Hey --at least God is showering us with miracles where it matters.

Keep the fans on, and stay cool.

--Elder Bonney

I haven't taken many pictures lately, but here's a nice snapshot of Vlissingen I took. Just one of the cool cities I've gotten to work in.