February 2, 2015
I have experienced some of the strangest weather recently... Here's
my personal theory: Heavenly Father wanted me to have the true mission
experience, bad winter weather and all, so He put made us lose the car
right when the real winter weather hits. If the last week sounded rough,
this past one was even worse.
Disclaimer: I'm not
trying to say that my mission is the coldest mission in the world. The
Netherlands isn't that cold of a country -- the temperatures have been
hanging around freezing, but it could be a lot colder. However, I would
argue that it's one of the windiest -- if not the windiest -- countries
in the world. Which makes the cold even worse. Add the wind chill in,
and yeah, it can seem pretty bad.
That said...
I'll just talk about the weather from one day last week, so we can get
"weather talk" out of the way. On Thursday, I was on exchanges with one
of the elders serving in Amsterdam. We were, of course, on bikes. We had
an appointment in the afternoon with a kind of less-active member, and
we talked about the greatest two commandments -- love for God and for
other people. At one point, she says, "yeah, it makes sense! If you love
others, then you aren't going to hurt them. If you love them, you won't
steal from them. If you love them, you won't kill them. Well, at least
usually. You know, you could maybe say...well... Yeah, we'll just say
you wouldn't kill them." I didn't ask.
Anyway,
that's beside the point. We got out of the appointment, then headed to
the bus stop and found out that we had fifteen minutes. So, the good
missionaries that we are (and this bus stop was close to the middle of
nowhere), we went looking for people to talk to. We ended up knocking
this small street, and -get this- there was a windmill. A full blown,
stereotypical, Dutch windmill. I looked at it, and turned to the elder I
was working with. "Have you ever knocked a windmill before?" "No..."
"Me neither. Let's do it." We then opened the gate to the yard, walked
up to the windmill, and knocked the door. The door we knocked turned out
to be the back door, because a man (who looked kind of like a hippie)
opened the door on the other end. We went and talked to him. He wasn't
interested, but hey -- now I've knocked a windmill, a windmill that
someone lived in. I didn't even know people actually lived in those
things...
Well, back to the point I was trying to
make about the weather... (I'm getting easily distracted today; I must
be tired.) So, after getting back from our appointment, we decided to
knock this neighborhood. It took about an hour. At first, light rain was
falling on us. Then, it started to hail. Hail wasn't right, because it
then started to snow. Then, it was snow and rain together. Back to
hail...then, a blue sky! Then rain again. All within an hour. The whole
time, though, it was windy and cold. We couldn't help but laugh at the
weather. When we started biking to our dinner appointment, it started
hailing, and I started yelling... The hail was like little BBs coming
from heaven. It would sting pretty badly when it hit. Riding a bike made
it even worse...but hey, you only serve once. Might as well enjoy this
freaky weather.
I forgot to mention -- on Tuesday,
Elder Neptune and I gave our zone training on teaching skills. It
actually went pretty well. Even with only one week to prepare together,
we pulled it off. So yeah.
As far as missionary
work goes... well, we've been talking to a lot of people, and slowly but
surely, things are progressing. Our Romanian and Polish homies are
doing...how can I say this in a refined way...so totally awesome. They
were at church again yesterday -- of course. They are doing so well. The
only thing really keeping them from baptism is the fact that they are
living together and not married. Hopefully that can happen soon...we'll
see. I'll be honest, looking back, the Lord has never really let me down
on my mission. Everything that didn't seem to work out was never Him
neglecting me or the work. So, things will work out the way they need
to, I just need to do my best.
In other news, a
man walked into the church building yesterday morning for our church
service. He said he was just looking for a church, and after dropping by
a few others, he decided to come to ours. We taught him a Restoration
lesson during Sunday school. Did he turn out to be crazy? Possibly. But
hey -- gotta count your blessings.
Keep it classy.
-Elder Bonney
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| Sister Adams, Elder Neptune, and myself, after our zone training on Tuesday. We pulled it off. |
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| The windmill Elder Fowkes and I knocked in Alkmaar... You know that's right |
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